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“Yes, actually, he is.” Isabella’s voice is shaky, and by the time I manage to drag my eyes to her face, she’s wearing a pout and her eyes have gone glassy. She reaches up to hold my wrist, and my fingers are still tangled in her mess of hair. “He won’t leave me alone. Now he’s trying to drag me off the dance floor.”
My brain shuts off at that moment, which is going to be my excuse until the day I die. My brain shut off and I had trouble following her act.
“What, no.” I unthread my fingers from her hair and suck in a breath at her slight wince. Had I held her too tightly? “We know each other.”
“Will you help me?” she asks the gorilla in Gucci.
“My pleasure.” His fist plows into my chest a moment later and knocks the air right out of me. I hadn’t even seen him move, but pain radiates from the area, dark spots dancing across my vision.
By the time I manage to see straight, Isabella is gone.
3
ISABELLA
The strange man takes me under his wing, so to speak, guiding me off the dance floor toward a quieter corner where tall bar tables wait for people to lean, to use.
“There you are, sweet girl. You’re okay now.” He speaks with a slight accent I’m unable to place, and I wonder what the hell he’s doing here with the devils in Ohio.
Kind, though. His eyes are kind as he rakes them over my face and the wet creases at the corner of my eyes. Not from the pain, although Ricardo had yanked my hair like we were two kids on a playground.
They’re tears of frustration.
“That man isn’t going to bother you again,” the stranger continues. It’s much easier to hear his voice now that we’re away from the blaring speakers. “Did he hurt you?”
The concern in his eyes is real, and the neatly trimmed beard and ruddy cheeks make me think of Santa Claus, if Santa Claus wore designer outfits and spoke with an accent. Coupled with warm blue eyes…I sag into his comforting warmth.
“I know him,” I admit. “He can’t help but be a dickhead. It’s in his DNA. Tonight, he went a little too far.” I had as well.
“I don’t like to see beautiful women being accosted, especially if the person is someone they know.” Those blue eyes go glacial. “It’s a good thing I stepped in when I did. Otherwise, who is to say what he would have done or where he might have taken you.”
Right back to my father. Or his uncle.
Either one is a bad option tonight because both men would have come equipped with their own kind of lecture. Nothing I needed to hear, either. The thought curdles something in my stomach, and I start to shiver, the heat of the dance floor much less noticeable here on the outskirts of the room.
“I’ll be fine, but thank you for being so caring. I’m sure there are a lot of people here tonight who’d be happy to watch him act a fool rather than step in,” I assure the man.
“My pleasure, dear, my pleasure. Would you like something to drink?” he asks.
My own drink is long forgotten at this point, whatever special concoction the bartender had made for me. It had gone down easily and did the trick, which was to scour my throat clean of any lingering taste of the stranger from the bathroom.
Not enough alcohol, however, to make me forget myself.
“Yes, please, if you don’t mind,” I tell my savior.
Nothing is the way I thought it would be. Nothing about the night, my future, myself. All of it is condensed into this mess of confusion, and I’m fumbling in the middle of it all, standing there on unsteady feet, trying to find my way to safety.
Ricardo is in my mind as surely as he’s standing on the dance floor recovering from a truly deserved gut punch.
I only know his hands were on me, his lips pressed to mine, and his tongue spearing its way into my mouth. I’d allowed mine to tangle with his while the rest of me tightened and melted. I’d condensed and went undone at the same time. All of it because the man I wanted was here and he was punishing me with his touch. Torturing me and teasing and bringing me to the edge of reason.
Not something he’d ever allow us to repeat, no matter how badly I wanted it.
He kissed like the devil, and if he’d gone on for a second longer, who knows what I might have promised him to get the embrace to continue. Anything, everything. Whatever deal he offered.
One step away from being on my knees, accepting the devil without reading the contract.
I’d tried, once, to tell Ricardo how I felt about him. I’d gotten out two whole words before he laughed in my face and told me he needed to find a woman who would keep up with him rather than an innocent girl like me. And I thought I’d been brave for approaching him.
