The whole thing caught him off guard. Sinclair was undeniably beautiful, and smart, and as maid of honor to his best man, they’d been paired up most of the day. But he’d sensed zero sparks of interest from her, and he wasn’t sending off any, either, so he didn’t know where her sudden desire to spend time in his arms came from.
Despite the way she’d plastered herself against him, her eyes never met his. They burned a hole through someone over his shoulder. Awareness dawned.
He put his hands on her waist and turned them.
Now her laser blue eyes zoomed to his. “Hey, Footloose, what are you doing?”
“Trying to size up the guy you’re aiming to make jealous.”
Her dark brows arched. “I’m not aiming to make anyone jealous. I wouldn’t waste my time on such a stupid game.”
“You don’t play games?”
“Oh, I can play games.” She turned her head and scanned the crowd. “I can play with the best of them. I’m simply not playing one now. I’m not interested in speaking with someone—someone who’s not supposed to be here in the first place—much less dancing with him. I figure the best way to avoid doing both is to speak and dance with people I am interested in.” She turned back to him and smiled. “Like you.”
“I’m honored to have made the cut, and under other circumstances I’d be happy to risk an ass-kicking to dance with a beautiful woman, but I’m expecting another beautiful woman to come through the door any second, and…well…I don’t play games with her.”
Sinclair’s eyes softened, and her smile turned genuine. “Savannah mentioned something about you falling hard recently.”
“Beau’s got a big mouth.”
“I doubt that, but Savannah’s got a sixth sense about—”
She stiffened in his arms a moment before a hand landed on his shoulder. A low voice followed. “Can I cut in?”
He turned to face a dark-haired guy wearing a civilized smile and a thousand-dollar suit, neither of which quite polished the hungry edge off him. Right now that hunger appeared to be reserved solely and exclusively for Sinclair.
“That’s up to the lady,” Hunter said.
The man’s sharp green eyes never wavered from her, and Hunter saw cool determination in the stare. He held out a hand toward Sinclair, cocked one brow, and waited. Even though he didn’t touch her, the gesture conveyed a level of possessiveness.
“No, thanks,” she replied in a voice that could freeze hell.
Hunter shifted so his shoulder blocked the space between Sinclair and her admirer, and he was about to suggest Hugo Boss try his luck at the bar, but the man simply laughed. “What’s the matter, Sinclair? Don’t trust yourself in my arms?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
The smile turned challenging and delivered his message loud and clear. Prove it. Sinclair held out for a full three seconds. “Fine. One dance. Then you leave.”
The man took her hand and closed his arm around her waist in a purely territorial move. “Sinclair, I can make a dance last all night.”
And that would be Hunter’s cue to leave. He walked to the edge of the dance floor and spent a minute watching Sinclair and her new dance partner to make sure she didn’t have any second thoughts. By the looks of things, she didn’t. Not surprising. She’d walked into this particular game—a classic he liked to call sexual chicken—with her eyes wide open. The guy played by some rules, though. He kept his hands a millimeter away from the wrong side of decent. He kept his mouth close to her ear, whispering something that put flags of color high on her cheeks. Those two threw off enough sparks to set fire to the dance floor.
He missed Madison. He’d just decided to step outside and give her a call when his phone vibrated. He pulled it out and glanced at the screen.
We’re here! Joy wants to freshen up & we’ll be in.
Hell, he’d be out. Fresh or not, he wanted to see them. Now. He headed to the front entrance and pushed through the wooden doors. The weight of his footfalls coaxed squeaks and groans from the weather-worn boards of the porch before he paused at the steps and looked around.
A pond bordered one side of the open, grassy area used for parking, and reflected purple and blue shades painting the evening sky. A strip of hard-packed dirt and gravel formed a path straight to the building. Light-strewn oaks along the perimeter, and a few well-placed floods on the building itself, threw out enough glow to keep people from ending up in the pond. The wash of headlights from another latecomer cut through the twilight, momentarily blinding him, but then the dark sedan turned hard and jerked to a stop at the far end of the parking area, right beside the maroon Outback he’d been scanning for.
Madison stepped around the back of her car, and even from this distance, she stole his breath. She always looked beautiful, whether she had on an old T-shirt and piled her hair into a sloppy knot, or wore a smooth ponytail and her work clothes, or just her dark, tumbling waves and nothing else, but it suddenly occurred to him he’d never seen her all dressed up. Never told her to put on a pretty outfit and taken her out for a nice dinner, or dancing in Buckhead, or…something. Circumstances being what they were, they’d kind of skipped the dinner and dancing phase and moved directly to the laundry, dishes, and sneaking-sex-in-between-late-night-feedings stage. He needed to correct that, because she deserved to be romanced. She deserved everything. The ring box burned a hole in his pocket.
She arranged Joy in the sling and
then glanced toward the building. He knew the second she spotted him. Her step faltered. She held her phone in one hand, and the other came up to check her hair, which she’d pulled into a smooth twist he itched to wreck. Later. A smile stretched his lips at her small, self-conscious gesture. Yep, still Madison under the upswept hair and fancy dress. An answering smile stole across her mouth, and she waved.
He took a step forward, intending to go to her, when a shadow moved between the cars, and then a man grabbed her from behind. Hunter saw her wrap protective arms around Joy, leaving her with no way to break her fall as she stumbled backward. She landed on her back, hard enough to bounce her head against the ground, and then was dragged as the guy tried to tug Joy out of the sling. She held on.