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Hearing his daughter’s name, he snapped his head around, and his gaze zeroed in on me. I knew the look was supposed to be intimidating, but it didn’t even faze me, and I amped up the wattage of my smile.
After a moment, he finally recognized me just as Lyla demanded, “How do you know Jo-Jo?”
“Josie’s in my ballet class,” I told her.
“You enrolled her in dance classes and didn’t tell me?” The hurt in Lyla’s voice was unmistakable. “I wasn’t even there for her first day, and I didn’t get any pictures.”
His nostrils flared as he exhaled, giving him a raging bull kind of look. “I didn’t enroll her in shit. Gwen called me, said she put Josie in dance classes, and told me I had to pick her up because she was getting her nails done. She just wanted a babysitter for an hour so she could do whatever Gwen does.”
“You still should have told me,” my roomie argued. “We need pictures of this kind of thing, and I know you didn’t take a single one.”
His lips twitched into the barest trace of a smile. “Wrong. I got a picture.” He lifted his phone, showing her his lock screen. It was a selfie of him and his adorable little girl dressed in her tiny, glittery pink leotard and her hair in the bun I’d put it in myself before class started.
Lyla snatched the phone from him, her eyes sparkling as she traced her index finger over Josie’s brow. “She’s so beautiful.”
“Yes, she is,” I thought I heard Howler mutter, his eyes hungrily eating up the sight of Lyla while she wasn’t aware.
Knowing I was witnessing something profoundly personal, I looked away and straight into a pair of intense, dark eyes across the room. I blinked, cutting off contact, but when I opened them again, he was still looking at me, and I couldn’t pull my gaze away this time.
Holy gods.
If he weren’t looking straight at me at that moment, I would have fanned myself. He was standing all alone, a good three feet between him and any other person surrounding him, even though I would have bet money every woman in the room was just as unable to look away from him as I was.
He stood at least six foot three, dressed in only a pair of workout shorts and nothing else, not even a pair of shoes, and his hard eight-pack was on full display for the entire warehouse to see. There was a scar on the upper part of the left side of his chest, but I couldn’t make out what had caused it from the distance that separated us.
Forcing my eyes off his amazing body, I focused on his face instead, but that didn’t alleviate my overheating problem in the least. His thick hair was a mixture of chestnut and mahogany that had a slight curl to it and was long enough that it hung to his shoulders. He had a full, well-trimmed beard, and my fingertips itched to run through it.
As I was taking my time to take in all of him, he was doing the same to me, and I could feel his gaze caressing every inch his eyes skimmed over like a physical touch. My body reacted like he was only inches in front of me, instead of the yards and yards that separated us. My heart rate picked up, and my breathing becoming shallower as his predatory eyes landed on my chest.
I was wearing jeans I’d picked up in Paris over the summer and a top of Lyla’s she said would make everyone drool over me if I wore it. It was a halter top, and I wasn’t wearing a bra. My breasts were small enough I didn’t have to wear one, but right then, I wished I were, because my nipples were rock hard and on display for this guy to see just how much he affected me.
And all he was doing was looking at me. Damn. But what would it feel like to have him actually touch me?
As if he was thinking the same thing, he sucked his bottom lip into his mouth. I felt my sex flood with need that had me pressing my thighs together in an attempt to ease the sudden throb.
“Where is Jo-Jo now?” Lyla asked, handing the phone back and thankfully pulling me out from under the spell of the beast-like man across the room.
“I got a babysitter for the night. Judge informed me I couldn’t miss tonight. I would have asked you to watch her, but you turned off your phone.” He grasped one of her belt loops and turned her around. Pulling her phone from her back pocket, he turned her phone on then handed it back to her. “Keep it on.”
“Don’t boss me around,” she snapped at him, turning it off again and returning it to her back pocket. “You don’t get to toss out commands and expect me to comply, Howler. We’re not together. Remember?”
He clenched his jaw, but he remained mute, glaring off into the distance instead of meeting her gaze. “I have to go. Stay out of trouble tonight, Lyla.” As if finally remembering me, he turned his eyes on me. “Nice meeting you…”
“Mia,” I reminded him with a grin. “It was nice to meet you too, Howler.”
“Josie really likes you. She couldn’t stop talking about you and how much she already loves dancing, all the way home.” He grimaced. “Guess I’ll let her come back next week.”
“I hope so. She’s so sweet, and I really enjoyed having her in class.”
“Guess we’ll see what happens, then.” Tipping his head to me, he shot Lyla a last heated look and walked off.
As soon as he was out of sight, Lyla grabbed my barely touched drink and swallowed it in one gulp. “Fuck, I’m going to need stronger stuff than vodka if I’m going to have to deal with him tonight.”
The bar was behind us, so with one last glance in the direction of my Beast, I tucked my arm through my friend’s and we went to get more drinks.
Chapter 3
Mia
