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“I don’t have a date yet,” she answered quietly. She had never had a date for her father’s balls unless she did the inviting. She had stopped doing the inviting the summer she turned nineteen. And she’d gone alone ever since.
“You do now,” Casey informed her as her eyes narrowed on him in the mirror behind the bar.
He stared back at her, his gaze heavy-lidded, his expression reminding her of the night he had taken her on the bar. That memory was seriously messing with her ability to stay angry with him.
“Do I really?” she murmured, aware of the fact that Sarah, Ethan, and Morgan were attempting to carry on another conversation despite their rabid curiosity.
“What do you think?” The look in his eyes dared her to refuse.
“I think I don’t recall giving the invitation,” she replied smoothly, careful to keep her voice low.
Casey smiled, his lips curving with cool warning.
“I don’t wait on an invitation,” he informed her, his tone warning now. “I was informing you, Sheila. You have a date. Period.”
Oh, now that just wasn’t going to do.
Sheila turned to him slowly.
“Choose your fights, sweetheart.” If she wasn’t mistaken, there was a sudden edge of anticipation in his voice. “And choose them wisely.”
Her mother had warned her of that once as well. She’d told her that one day she would come across a man who didn’t give a damn who her father was, or how strong she had become. He would sweep into her life and leave her heart, her mind, in disarray.
“Choose your fights, sweetheart, and choose them wisely,” Eleanor had warned her. “Otherwise, you’ll destroy yourself, as well as him, fighting against him.”
But her mother hadn’t known Nick Casey.
She was almost anticipating a fight with him, as much as he seemed to be anticipating one with her.
She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice.
Hell, she could feel it radiating in the sexual intensity that suddenly seemed to consume them both.
“They need to get a room,” Cooper grunted behind Sheila.
“You are becoming such a fuddy-duddy,” Sarah laughed. “Tell him, Morgan, he’s becoming a prude. Nothing like the wild man I married.”
Morgan was turning away as she spoke, his expression somber as he poured drinks, his eyes downcast.
“Sarah, sweetheart, you’re too nosy,” Casey warned her as he laughed back at her, though he didn’t release Sheila, and it seemed he had no intentions of doing so.
“And you are being way too intense, Casey.” Sarah shook her head.
“And this conversation is beginning to bore me,” Sheila informed them all, though the look she shot Sarah was filled with an apology.
She wasn’t bored, but she could definitely feel the fear beginning to travel up her spine.
Not a fear of harm. Or at least, not a fear of personal harm.
A fear of having her heart broken was another matter entirely.
“Bore you?” Casey growled. “I rather doubt it.”
“Dance with me or shut the hell up, Casey,” she finally demanded in exasperation. “If you’re going to stand around holding on to me like a damned junkyard dog, then the least you could do is make it worth my while.”
It was her mother’s advice to choose her battles wisely that rang through her head as Casey led her to the dance floor. A slow, sensual beat began to fill the air, drawing couples to the floor and heating the building with the power of human lust.
At least, that was what she tried to tell herself as she felt Casey’s arms wrap around her and allowed him to draw her to him. Possessively.
