She’d just settled into a chair and lifted her glass to her lips when he paused before her table. His palms went damp, his mouth dry as her eyes slowly rose to examine him from thighs to eyes.
She sputtered on her beverage and lowered her glass. “Devlin McAllister? Is that really you?”
How had she recognized him? He didn’t even recognize himself in the mirror most of the time. And then he remembered he was wearing his nametag. He glanced down at his badge only to find the card missing from the plastic sleeve.
“Um, hi, um, Michelle,” he said, that awkward seventeen-year-old in him choosing one hell of a time to make an appearance. “I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me.”
“Of course I remember you.” She pulled out the chair beside her and patted it. “Sit.”
Could he sit? With Michelle? What would he say to her? Why did he feel so unsettled? He usually had no problem talking to women. Seducing them with a glance. Fucking them until their bodies trembled with fatigue. Leaving them before they woke the next morning. But this was Michelle—the woman who made all other women just an entertaining hobby of his, because he just couldn’t get her out of his mind. A part of him wished he no longer found her attractive, but all his other parts wanted him to hike up her silky red dress and get lost between her thighs.
The DJ’s voice came over the sound system. “How about we get this party started with your class song?” There was a spattering of applause and a few whoops of excitement from across the room.
Eve 6’s “Here’s to the Night” began to pour from the speakers.
“Would you like to dance?” he asked.
She smiled, her gorgeous blue eyes lighting up with delight. “Of course I would.”
He offered her a hand and when she took it, his heart tried to thump its way through his sternum. On the dance floor, decency demanded he hold her loosely, but his arms ignored propriety and tugged her slender body against him, one hand clutching the fabric of her dress at her lower back, the other stroking the bare skin of one shoulder. He couldn’t stop his lips from brushing her collar bone.
He half expected her to slap the shit out of him, but she didn’t. She released a throaty chuckle and relaxed against him, “Why, Devlin McAllister, you have changed.” she said, her warm breath tickling his throat and inciting an uprising in his pants.
“Not so much, really,” he said. He’d been dreaming of holding her like this for years. He wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass him by.
“In high school, you practically hid from me.”
Because her football hero boyfriend had threatened to kick his nerdy ass if he so much as looked at his girl. Wayne had given Devlin more than one sampling of what that entailed exactly. Wayne had particularly enjoyed introducing people’s faces—Devlin’s most frequently—to the front of his locker. “You were involved with Wayne Bridges at the time. You didn’t marry him, did you?”
“God, no,” she said. “I like men with a brain in their head. They say some men are ruled by their little head, well in Wayne’s case, that would have been a benefit. His little head was the smarter of the two.”
Devlin chuckled, his hand sliding lower over the curve of her ass and drawing her closer. “So why did you date him then?”
She sighed morosely. “It was expected of me.” She stopped swaying gently in his arms and leaned away to peer into his eyes. “Look, Devlin, I’m really sorry for how I treated you when you asked me to prom. In all honesty, I’d have rather gone with you than with Wayne, but I was too afraid of losing popularity and getting on Dee’s bad side to follow my own wishes. If you’d have asked me in private instead of in front of everyone, I wouldn’t have been so damned mean to you. I know that’s not an excuse, but…” She scowled and shook her head. “I’m sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Nope,” he said, his fingertips gliding over the bare skin of her shoulder. Her flesh was the most potent aphrodisiac in the world. But even though he wanted her body, he couldn’t resist teasing her. He wanted far more than a tumble between the sheets with this woman. He wanted her heart. Not to break it, the way she’d broken his, but to treasure it.
Michelle’s scowl deepened. “Oh,” she said. “I guess I can’t blame you. I do want you to know that I’m not that scared little girl anymore. If I see something I want, I pursue it and I don’t give a damn about the opinions of others.”
“Do you see anything you want?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows in question.
She grinned and his heart rate tripled at the suggestion in her striking blue eyes.
“I might,” she said, “but I don’t think he’s interested.”
He pulled her against him and swayed with her to the music once again. “I’m pretty sure he is.”
She burrowed her face in his neck and her hands slid up his back. Her fingertips curled into his jacket and her soft breasts burned into his chest. His entire body tautened with need. What he wouldn’t give to have her soft lips against his throat; her naked body beneath his; her soft voice calling his name in passion. He turned his face into her hair and breathed in the sweet floral scent that clung to the silky brown strands. He stifled a groan when she shifted and her soft breasts rubbed against his chest. There was nothing in the world but her. It had always been that way for him. It was as if the decade they’d spent apart didn’t exist. He was completely infatuated with this woman. He needed to find a way to be with her beyond a single dance at a high school reunion.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. “May I cut in?” a deep voice said behind him.
Devlin’s arms tightened around Michelle’s body, drawing her closer, hoping to somehow hide her in his jacket so Mr. Buttinsky would go away. She lifted her head to look over Devlin’s shoulder and the shock on her face was immediately replaced with wide-eyed elation as she broke into an exuberant smile. Devlin closed his eyes as she slipped from his arms and eviscerated him yet again.
Chapter Three
Jake was suddenly glad that Sed had threatened to fire him as Sinners’ guitar technician if he didn’t attend their ten-year high school reunion with him. So Jake had come. Dateless. He wasn’t sure why Sed was so insistent on him attending. It wasn’t as if the most famous person in their graduating class had to come stag. Sed’s new wife, Jessica, looked stunning in her green evening gown—a far cry better than she’d looked in the wedding photos that had been leaked after their recent wedding. The tabloids had completely trashed Sed’s disheveled bride, but Jessica seemed to be getting used to that. Anyone entangled with the lead singer of Sinners, had to know how to handle a little—okay, a lot—of bad press. While the name badge chick went all fangirl over Sed actually making an appearance—eye roll—Jake’s attention turned to the mostly empty dance floor and landed on the curve of a familiar backside under a sheath of red silk. Unfortunately, some other dude’s hand was a bit too close to that fantastic ass for Jake’s liking.
He didn’t hesitate to cross the room to stake his claim. Not that he had any right to claim her. He’d been the one to break it off with Michelle. It had been for her own good, but he was pretty sure it hadn’t felt that way when he’d left her crying under the boardwalk without a backwards glance. He probably should have dumped her before he’d fucked her one last time and he’d meant to break it off gently, but she’d silenced his attempts to talk his way through the breakup with a kiss and his dick had refused to let her go just then. God, he’d been a cocky asshole in high school. Michelle had been the best thing that had ever happened to him and he’d tossed her aside as if she’d been nothing more to him than a good lay. Walking away from her had been the biggest mistake of his life. For him. For her, it had probably been a blessing in disguise.
But he was a bit older now. A bit wiser. His dick still got him into trouble on occasion, but it no longer ruled his life. Much.
Maybe he’d agreed to come to this stupid class reunion to see her. And if the guy in the expensive suit swaying with her on the dance floor d
idn’t make her the happiest woman on the planet, Jake wasn’t against rekindling an old flame. Or stoking it back to the raging inferno that had once consumed them both.
Jake tapped the suit on his shoulder. “May I cut in?”
Michelle lifted her head, her gorgeous blue eyes widening with shock. Jake winked at her. He looked a bit different than he had the last time she’d seen him. His mohawk used to be a foot high and lime green instead of short and blonde. And he had a couple of extra piercings and a few dozen more tattoos than he’d had in high school, but she obviously recognized him. And she didn’t immediately kick him in the nuts, so as far as he was concerned things were going great. Michelle smiled brightly and eased out of the grasp of the lucky bastard she’d been dancing with.
The suit turned around and Jake blinked at the man in surprise. “Devlin McAllister? Dude, what the fuck happened to you?”
Michelle patted Devlin on the chest. “He looks great, doesn’t he?”