The laugh came — real, surprised, the one that crinkled my nose and showed my teeth. I shoved his arm across the table. "That is the worst line I've ever heard."
"And yet you're smiling."
"I'm smiling because it's so bad it's circled back to charming."
"That's my entire strategy. Always has been." There’s that sexy smirk I love.
I told him about a deposition where the opposing counsel accidentally called the judge “Mom," and he laughed so hard he choked on his whiskey. He told me about the time Liam tried to ride a bull at sixteen and lasted exactly one-point-seven seconds and blamed it on the wind, and I wheezed into my drink.
"One-point-seven," I said, wiping my eyes. "That's not even a ride. That's a sneeze."
"I'm telling him you said that."
"Please do." I leaned forward on my elbows, chin on my hand. "So. World champion bull rider. What else are you good at?"
"I make excellent pancakes."
"I've had your pancakes. They're adequate."
"Adequate. She says adequate." He pressed his hand to his chest. "I'm critically wounded."
"You'll survive." I reached across the table and straightened his collar, my fingers brushing his neck. I left them there a beat too long. Knew I was doing it. Let him know I knew. "You seem like a man who survives things."
He swallowed. I watched it happen — the bob of his throat, the way his eyes darkened. Six months ago, I wouldn't have believed I could do that to a man. Make him forget what he was about to say just by touching his neck.
"Dance with me," he said.
"I don't dance."
"You do tonight."
He pulled me onto the floor, and I went. The band was playing something slow — fiddle, steel guitar, a song that was really just an excuse to hold someone close — and he put his hand on my waist and I pressed against him, and the rest of the Silver Spur evaporated.
His hand found my lower back — the bare skin where the dress dipped low, open to my mid-back, and I heard his breath catch. His thumb started tracing slow circles against my spine, lazy and deliberate, and every pass sent heat spreading across my skin. My hand found the back of his neck. We swayed more than danced, and I could feel his heartbeat against my chest, fast, faster than the music.
He ducked his head, and his mouth brushed my ear. "This dress is going to be a problem for me."
"That was the idea."
When I looked up at him, he kissed me right there on the dance floor. Slow. Thorough. His thumb still drawing those circles on my bare back like he couldn't stop touching me.
"People are watching," I murmured against his mouth.
"Good."
I smiled into the kiss. My fingers tightened on the back of his neck.
The woman appeared between songs.
Tall. Blonde. The kind of confident that came with a push-up bra and a plan.
She materialized at the edge of the dance floor with a margarita aimed at Clay like a guided missile.
Margarita Barbie. That's what my brain filed her under. Instantly. Permanently.
"Clay Blackwood." She drew it out, all vowels and cleavage. "How have you been?"
Clay, because he was Clay, didn't miss a beat. "Hey. Good to see you." His hand stayed on my lower back. Stayed. "This is Callie." The woman's eyes flicked to me. A brief, clinical sweep — hair, dress, heels — and then she turned back to Clay like I was a lamp. Dismissed. Filed under irrelevant.
