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The scent of mango and cream invaded my senses.
A drug.
A dream.
“Oh, you’re good at this, Officer Patterson,” she murmured, words infiltrating my senses as her fingers crawled up over the thin fabric of my shirt.
I didn’t know if I wanted to push her away or drag her closer.
Closer seemed key, and my mouth moved to her ear. “You just have to listen to the music. Get lost in the beat of it. Let it carry you, and you’ll do just fine.”
“I think I do just fine when you’re carrying me.”
A grunt of refusal. A flicker of need.
Angling back a step, I twirled her again, one direction then the other, and Savannah was laughing that sound that washed through me, so light and free, so heavy that I was terrified the resonance of it could form new chains.
Bonds that tethered.
I shouldn’t.
I shouldn’t.
But I was holding her closer still when I dragged her back against me, her body plastered to mine, one hand low on her back, fingertips drifting down over her ass, my other hand gliding up the back of her neck and into the fall of her lush hair.
Every inch burned where she was welded to me.
I’d had half a drink. But I was intoxicated. Drunk on this feeling. Clearly fucking hammered since I was making no prudent choices.
Savannah moaned as she melted deeper into my arms.
What the hell did I think I was doing?
Going askew, that was what. Tripping. Setting myself up for a brand-new sort of disaster.
Because this girl was chaos. A disorder in the peace I was trying to find for my family.
So, when Dirk Cummings tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I minded if he cut in, I decided it would be best if I let him rather than growling at him like some kind of rabid beast.
Instead of staking my claim the way I wanted to.
Only Savannah stumbled back, confusion furrowing her brow at the sudden disconnect. Disbelief filled her gaze as she squinted at me through the haze, trying to process through the jolting change in the atmosphere.
The break.
The divide.
This time, there was clearly no awe mingled in her expression.
It looked like…hurt.
Like rejection.
Dirk went to step in, only she held up a hand. “I think I’ve had enough dancing.”
Without saying anything else, she turned her back and disappeared into the crowd, her head dropped between her shoulders as she fled.
SEVENTEEN
SAVANNAH
“Damn it,” I muttered as I squeezed my eyes closed. I leaned my back against the interior door of the restroom stall, trying to quiet the thunder of my heart and the rejection that barreled through my senses.
Heart and body and mind.
God, I was stupid enough to even let it touch my soul.
I knew better. I knew better.
I knew better than to get too close. To want. To even allow the tiniest flicker of hope to ignite.
Because I knew full well no one ever truly cared. Knew they would leave me in the end. Knew they would never stay.
And it had become glaringly clear that I had been foolish enough to let my mind wander with the possibility of this place.
With the possibility of these people.
I needed to remember the reason I was here. Hold onto it. It was the only thing that mattered, and I’d let myself get distracted. Carried away in the direction of someplace else. To a place that didn’t exist. A place I kept trying to travel to. A road that each time I’d even attempted exploring it had left me with fewer pieces of my tattered, mangled heart.
There was so little left of it, and what remained, I needed to protect.
My eyes squeezed tighter, and I quietly chanted, “Remember, remember, remember.”
It’s only me and you, Jessica. We’re the only ones we can rely on. You have to remember that. Hold it close to who you are, and know when you can trust no one else, you can trust me.
How was it me who had forgotten?
I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t allow these dangerous fantasies to well inside.
The problem was, I’d been all too happy to hold onto him. To keep him a little too close.
The scent of him overpowering.
The heat of him perfect and too much.
I’d allowed myself to get lost in the feel of his big, big body, and the ravaging of his heart had been the rhythm I’d chased. The beat hadn’t had a thing to do with the music.
And ultimately, it was me who’d allowed it to hurt when he’d let someone else cut in. Clearly, I’d been far too comfortable in his arms.
Inhaling a shaky breath, I steeled myself and unlocked the stall, stoically ignoring everyone in the restroom as I went to a sink so I could splash cold water on my face.
Maybe it would be enough to knock me out of the stupor that was Ezra Patterson. I had to blame it on him being so stupid hot. That was it. I was just blinded by all his rippling, masculine glory.
