The Virgin Next Door (Stud Ranch)

Calla pulled back from Mack in surprise to see Liam standing right beside them, a broad grin on his face. He held his hand out toward Calla. Calla could feel Mack’s body stiffen, they were standing so close.

But Calla could only smile back at Liam. He looked more handsome than ever in his tight jeans, black shirt and shiny black cowboy boots that had silver embellishments. He might not be from this country but damn, he wore Western well.

“Now the Sleazy Slide,” the band leader called out and everyone around them hurried to line back up.

Calla stepped away from Mack but she grabbed his right hand. “Let’s dance!” With her other hand, she took Liam’s, then she pulled them both into the line, one on either side of her.

“Watch me,” she squeezed Mack’s hand and he looked at her with an expression that said, help.

“Left slide,” she called out as the whole line started shifting that way. This one was more complicated than the Cotton-Eyed Joe.

Liam picked it up quickly and when he did the little shimmy along with the slide, she couldn’t help appreciating his ass in those tight jeans. The next second, though, she was distracted by trying to help Mack figure out how to do the half-turns. She’d abandoned trying to get him on the beat a long time ago, but the whole crowd was facing a new wall and Mack was still trying to slide.

Mack stumbled his way through the song and Calla continued laughing harder than she ever had in her life. Liam was hamming it up on her other side, making sure to wiggle his ass in an overexaggerated manner.

When the song was over, Calla clapped and whooped as loud as anyone else. She fanned herself with her hands. With all the bodies in the room plus the dancing—not to mention the tequila earlier—she was definitely past comfortably warm.

She lifted her hair off her neck as the band started up the next song. Couples around them started pairing off for the two-step.

“May I have this dance?” Liam asked, taking hold of her hand and pulling her toward him. Calla glanced over her shoulder to see Mack glowering so she reached back and squeezed his arm. “Next one’s yours!”

But then Liam had her pulled up against his body, one hand in hers and the other tight around her waist. And damn, it was like the man was born to two-step. He took command as he led her around the floor and Calla felt her body sinking into his. While she had plenty experience line dancing, she’d only two-stepped like this a handful of times—and when she had, she was usually standing in for the guy because there were too few of them at the dance. She’d certainly never been able to just lose her body to the rhythm and follow the lead of a man with a strong, firm grasp on her waist.

As they rounded the edge of the dance floor, Liam spun her out. She shrieked and laughed as the next second, he was spinning her back into him. Her hands rose to his chest as he pulled her snugly against him. Her breathing was erratic and not just because she was short of breath from the dancing.

Liam O’Neill had her in his arms. When had she stumbled into this alternate universe and when was reality going to come smashing back down like it always did?

Liam grinned and rolled his hips into hers before pulling them back into the whirling crowd of dancers.

When they got around to the side of the room where they’d left Mack, Calla looked around for him. She felt bad. It was probably bitchy to just leave him and dance off with Liam. She didn’t know what the hell she was doing. She was just going with whatever felt good in the moment—probably a disastrous way to go about things.

When had she ever not thought out everything she did from ten moves back? That was the only way to run a ranch. She had to be on top of all the everyday tasks in addition to putting out whatever inevitable problem cropped up, whether it be a sick cow, a broken section of fencing, hiring and firing ranch hands, or the hundred other things that went wrong on any given day. She’d dropped into bed each night exhausted but unable to sleep because she was worrying about the list of everything she needed to see to the next day.

It was non-stop, dawn to dusk, seven days a week, three-hundred sixty-five days a year. A night like tonight, with no responsibilities and going out just to have fun? Unheard of. She hadn’t been out dancing in years and tonight reminded her just how much she’d always loved it. The most she ever socialized these days was hitting Bubba’s a couple times a week before evening chores so she could actually be around humans other than her ailing, taciturn father and the ranch hands she’d been in charge of.