AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m fine. Thanks. This place is crowded.” She knew better than this. She pulled her arm free and tugged the clinging blouse away from her skin, suddenly afraid that he would see the scars on her chest through the wet material.
As the words left her lips, someone jostled her into him again. He tried to steady her but she fell against him anyway.
Time hung suspended and she stood in this man’s embrace, feeling protected and safe and deliciously unflawed. It was impossible to miss the hard angles of his body. For one brief fantasy moment, she imagined what it would feel like if this dangerous and sexy man lowered his mouth to hers.
But the fantasy faded as quickly as it had come and Jen stepped back into reality. A reality in which a man like the one standing oh-so-close to her was just being polite to a woman he had met in a bar. Down girl.
He lowered his mouth to her ear again. “Since I nearly crushed you twice now, can I buy you a drink?”
She smiled and sipped from the sweating green bottle. “I still have some of this one left. Thanks, though.”
“Jen, right?” He retrieved his own beer. “Are you here with Laura and Trent?”
“Yeah. How did you know?”
“I’ve seen you around. How long have you known Laura?”
Jen ticked off numbers on her fingers. “Ethan is almost six, right? Almost six years. We met right after she had him.”
A shadow flickered across his face and was gone before she could truly say she’d seen it. Instead of letting it go, she chased it. “What?”
“I’ve known Trent a long time. That’s all.”
Why would that make him sad? She wondered at the man who scanned the bar, splitting his attention between her and the crush of bodies on the floor. With each question, he leaned in close to her, sending a shiver down her spine. A shiver that chased away her awkward discomfort and, for one brief moment, made her feel whole and feminine. There had been a time when she would have acted on impulse and pursued this man, but those days were long gone.
“Yeah. Going away party and all that. Are you deploying tomorrow, too?” God but she loved how he smelled.
“Yeah.” He took a long pull from his beer.
“For how long?”
He shrugged. “A year, with an option for fifteen months.” She caught a glimpse of a black tattoo around the edge of his collarbone and wondered just how much of his body was covered by the twisting dark lines of ink. Tattoos didn’t usually do it for her. She wondered at people who would permanently color their bodies. But on Shane, they worked. They worked well.
She sniffed and sipped her beer even as Shane shifted, resting one arm on the bar behind him and angling his body slightly toward her so that he could see the dance floor. Jen turned in time to see Laura dragging Trent away from the Copperhead Road line dance. They wove through the crowd, heading toward her, and Jen felt a sense of guilt creep up the back of her neck like a flush. Laura was spending too much time worrying about her—she should be focusing on her husband instead.
Trent’s face split into a wide grin when he saw Shane. “Miracles will never cease. Carponti actually got you to come out?”
“Yeah.”
“Jen, you didn’t tell me you knew Shane,” Laura said, twining her arm with Jen’s.
“I don’t. He bumped into me.”
Laura leaned close, so that the men couldn’t hear her. “Shane is one of Trent’s platoon sergeants, but they’ve been friends for years. And he’s divorc—”
“Not another word. Not one.” It didn’t matter that she’d been wondering if he was single. Her friend’s words shattered her fantasy and brought reality into sharp, silicone-shaped focus.
Laura feigned innocence with widened eyes and a wicked smile that fooled no one. “What?”
“I know where you’re going with this, and it’s not even close to possible.”
Laura shrugged, a smile painted
on her lips, and danced away with Trent, leaving Jen alone at the crowded bar with brooding, sexy Shane. She sipped her beer and studied him. He was watching the crowd, his jaw flexing in the shadows.
What did it feel like to know that tomorrow he was going off to war?
