Page 45 of Playing for Keeps

My breath froze in my chest.

Standing in the shadows, among a crush of bodies dancing on the floor, was another man dressed all in black. Black leather racing jacket with a thin red stripe down the sleeves, jeans and boots and black leather gloves. And a motorcycle helmet, covering his face, hiding him from view. Covering the eyes that felt locked on me.

I went to jerk away from the figure but I was yanked the opposite direction, stumbling and turning and nearly falling on my ass. A yelp escaped me as my left hand hit the floor, a jolt of pain racing up my arm. Then I was lifted, tugged off the floor by my arms and dragged into the chest of a psychopathic clown.

“Aaron!” Immediately, my eyes searched for the strangers. The masked man and the motorcyclist, both of them missing from where they were seconds before.

“Christ, drowned rat.” Aaron tugged me closer, hugging me like he’d just saved my life.

“What are you doing?” I pushed at his chest, trying to get away, but he pulled me closer, dropping a kiss to my forehead below my crown. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m sorry,” Aaron murmured, hand coming to my cheek as if thumbing away a tear. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just...”

Pulling away from him, I cradled my aching hand, turning once again in search of the strangers. They were gone. Both of them. Through the bodies dancing around me, I couldn’t see a thing. Any guilt I might have felt over my body’s reaction to the masked man had been swiftly swept away by the motorcyclist.

“Are you hurt?” Aaron took my hand, rolling it over and checking it out. I winced, pulling my hand out of his grasp.

“Yes,” I told him, my sharp tone dampened by the pain. “What were you thinking?”

The man pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around me again, his cheek resting against the side of my face as he spoke against my skin. “I was worried,” he started, and any fight that might have been in my body was quickly swept away. “I couldn’t find you, and when I finally did, I saw you dancing with that man and...”

Aaron pulled back, his dark eyes finding mine, his hand lifting to tug at a strand of hair that’d fallen free. “I thought you were dancing with Rhys.”

My head jerked back as I blinked up at him, recognizing as I did how he could have mistaken Rhys’s Batman costume for the cape and all-black costume of the man I’d been dancing with, but not understanding why it mattered. Why he’d pulled me away from him so violently when, for all I knew, Rhys and Aaron were good friends. “What?”

“Be careful of him, okay?” Aaron said, eyes on the hair wrapped around his finger instead of on me. “He’s just... I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

I huffed out a breath. “Do I need to be worried? He’s my boss.”

“No, I just don’t want you to be alone with him.” Once more, his hand went to my cheek, cupping me gently and warming my skin. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

My skin tingled when he kissed my forehead again. I turned my head away, biting my lip as pain bit at the back of my throat. His warm words and caring tone, the jealousy that showed through as he confessed his concerns about Rhys, they washed through me. A flicker compared to the rush that had flushed through me earlier. Just the thought of my body’s reaction to the masked man had my cheeks flaming, and I was glad for the lack of fabric of my costume as the rest of my body heated right along with them.

“Come on,” Aaron said, his arms loosening around me, his hand slipping down to my lower back. “Let’s go find the others.”

I flinched as Aaron grabbed my left hand, and I yanked it out of his grasp as he tried to walk away. His face pinched as he saw me cradling my wrist.

“Shit, drowned rat. I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to go to the bar and get some ice. I’ll be over in a second.”

Aaron didn’t get a word out before I walked away. I was glad he didn’t follow, glad I had a moment to cool down before I had to stand next to him again. It felt wrong to be in his arms, to try to find comfort there, after what I’d done earlier behind his back.

My steps faltered as I reached the bar. As I saw a black cape dangling off the back of a man. Wrong or not, I couldn’t stop myself from moving forward. From slipping into the tight space between him and the woman on his left.

“Hey.” My voice was nothing more than a breathy whisper, but the slight jerk of his body told me he heard. But as his head swung my way, I realized my mistake.

It wasn’t my masked man.

It was my boss.

A grin crept across Rhys’s lips, his eyes dripping down my body like maple syrup. Never once in the months I’d been working for him had I ever noticed him looking at me like this.

“Jen.” He angled his body toward me, shifting so I was blocked in between him and the bar. He was closer to me than he had been earlier, when he’d been facing off with Aaron at our table. Rhys lifted his gaze, his eyes meeting mine, his head tilted to the side as the grin slipped from his lips. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you,” he said, and I cringed before he said, “you’re a huge asset to my team.”

“Oh.” I blinked, then glanced over my shoulder, searching for the bartender before turning back. “Thank you.”

“What you did the other day, getting the board slides done? I appreciate it. They were perfect. Didn’t need to change a thing. I made sure to tell Jim how great of a job you did, and I have to say, he’s as impressed as I am.”