Page 31 of New Orleans Rush

She twirled again, ignoring him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the fishnets that clung to her shapely calves, the feathered accents she’d added, the red handkerchief poking up from her cleavage, which matched the ruby lips he’d kissed.

Her lips had been exquisitely soft, as he’d expected, her little sounds of pleasure ruining him. He hadn’t planned to kiss her. Not then, at least. He could declare he’d done it to distract her from her stage fright, but the truth was simpler. He’d needed to kiss her. Claim her. Give in to his desire. Desire that surged through his bloodstream now.

She stopped spinning and her red curls fell over her shoulders. She stared at him, breathing hard. “Are you going to kiss me again?”

“I am.”

“I’ll be better this time. Less like a cardboard cutout.”

He closed the distance between them and cupped her cheeks. “Just be you. I only want you. Although I was surprised you didn’t taste like watermelon.”

“Oh, wait!” She twisted from his grasp, and he missed the contact instantly. She grabbed a tube from the makeup table, applied a layer of something shiny, then danced back into his arms. “Try this.”

He wanted to do more than try. He wanted to wake up with her in the morning and make her coffee and cook her breakfast. It would mean exposing his body to her, not always a smooth event with women. Some who’d seen his scars had winced at the sight, excuses eventually made as to why they’d had to leave. One woman thought they were cool and loved touching them. He could only hope Beatrice would look at his scars the same way she beheld his face: with passionate heat.

For now, he’d try. He pressed his lips to hers, a soft brush that made his body ache. There was no halfway with Beatrice. No way to tamp his cravings for this woman. She made him ravenous, and she did taste like watermelon.

“Delicious,” he murmured.

She cooed like his doves. She knocked off his hat, twined her fingers into his hair, pulling him closer, and swiped her tongue along his. His answering groan was dredged from a slumbering well deep in his chest. One kiss, and she pulled his desire to the surface, opened up the fun and excitement he’d denied himself for so long. Her body continued to dance, bumping against his. His hands fell to her full bottom, perfect and lush.

“Beatrice.” Her name escaped him between smaller kisses.

She hummed against his busy mouth. “I used to hate my name.”

“I love your name.”

“I love how you say it.” She feathered her fingers through his hair, grazing his mutilated ear. He stiffened, but she didn’t. She swayed against him, explored his ugly defect, and kissed him harder.

Lust blasted through him. “Come home with me tonight. I’ll whisper your name all over your skin.” It was a bold request, but he was past sense and worrying about her reaction to his body, or her becoming a bigger distraction in his too-distracting world. She was the first woman he’d connected with in years.

She pressed her watermelon lips to his neck. “I would—”

“You two need to get a room.” Leave it to Axel to interrupt their moment.

Sighing, Huxley rested his forehead against hers. “We’re in a room. You invaded it.”

Beatrice poked her head around Huxley’s arm. “I didn’t pass out.”

Axel chuckled. “You also took an hour to fasten my straitjacket, but I won’t fire you.”

“You can’t fire me if I don’t get paid.”

“Why don’t you get paid?” At his brother’s aggressive tone, Huxley turned to find a still-shirtless Axel glaring at him.

Fox strolled in. “Because she keyed his car.”

Axel cringed. “The Mustang?”

Huxley thought he’d parked it far enough to avoid detection. Nothing was ever far enough from Fox.

As a teen, Huxley would “borrow” his father’s cape and sneak out to perform on street corners. The all-seeing Fox would file away Huxley’s misdemeanors until he’d need an alibi for his villainous endeavors, such as filling Mr. Wessick’s car locks with cement. The math teacher had told their youngest brother, Xander, he was dumb as a post, and Huxley had been coerced into corroborating Fox’s cover story. The time the jock who bullied Paxton got a sudden case of the shits “supposedly” happened when Fox and Huxley were riding their bikes.

Fox considered himself judge, jury, and executioner when family was involved. If he’d known about the vandalized car and hadn’t retaliated against Beatrice, he must approve of Huxley bribing her into performing.

That didn’t ease his guilty conscience. “I offered to pay her.”

“After he blackmailed me,” she piped in. “But I deserved it. I mistook his Mustang for my ex-boyfriend’s, after mixing cold medicine with alcohol and hearing a Carrie Underwood tune. It wasn’t pretty, and I couldn’t cover the damages.”