“Hi,” she said.
He gave her the sexiest crooked smile. “Hi.” He stepped into her space, both his hands going to her hair, pushing it back off her face, just running his fingers through it. Touching her like he always did. “What was it you wanted?” he asked, no rush or urgency to his voice.
“You.” The word fell from her lips unbidden, but she didn’t want to take it back. She didn’t have time for anything but honesty. “Just you.”
Laughter and conversation floated down the hall from the rec room, and then music started to play. An old rock ballad with a sexy, swaying beat. Something about the normalcy of the sounds made Haven smile.
“Well, that’s the best thing I’ve heard all day,” Dare said. “What’s that smile for?”
“The song,” she said. “I like it.”
“Do you now?” he said, dark eyes peering straight into her. He reached down, grasped her hand, and lifted it against his chest. Her fingers curled against the name badge on his cut. But stupidly, she didn’t realize what he was doing until he wrapped his other arm around her back, pulled her in tight, and started to rock them.
Dare Kenyon was dancing with her. In his office. To music playing on a jukebox in a motorcycle club’s clubhouse. And it was so amazingly perfect that it brought tears to her eyes.
Haven clutched at his hand and his shoulder, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep all this emotion from overwhelming her. A tear spilled from the corner of one eye.
He kissed it away, still swaying with her to the strains of a soulful electric guitar. “Don’t cry, pretty girl,” he said in a low, rumbling voice. “I’ve got you.”
She gave a quick nod and took a deep breath. And then she forced herself to be, to feel, to live in this moment she might never get again. Dancing with Dare, tight in his arms, bodies brushing together. Their faces were so close that the scruff on his jaw kept catching her cheek, but she wouldn’t have changed that for anything. Not anything at all.
He had her.
Her hand slid up to the back of his hair, her fingers toying with the long, soft lengths of it. She tilted her head back—and the look on his face sent her heart into a sprint. Desire. Affection. Longing. It burned from his eyes and carved pained lines into his forehead. Haven didn’t have a lot of experience, and she hadn’t been around a lot of men this way, and she’d certainly never been in love. Well, not really. Not like this. But none of that kept her from knowing that the expression he wore was one of some kind of love. Because his face looked like her chest felt.
“Dare,” she whispered.
“Haven,” he said, leaning down and kissing her softly, slowly, deeply. The kiss went on and on as they danced in a slow, rocking circle. When he finally pulled away, he leaned his forehead against hers, his eyes closed. The next words that came out of his mouth . . . were sung. Gravelly, rasping, so damn sexy. “I say, my darling, you were wonderful tonight.”
His eyelids flipped open, a note of uncertainty in their brown depths. And Haven kissed that away with everything she was worth.
And then the music changed. For a moment, he didn’t stop even though the beat was entirely different. And when he did, that longing was back on his face again. “I . . . I wish things were different, Haven. Safer. For you.”
“So do I,” she whispered, and even though the words broke her heart, they also gave her something she’d never before had. The belief that someone wanted her. The knowledge that Dare wanted her. And if things were different . . .
No, she wasn’t going to waste her last night with him on an endless circle of useless wishes. Not when she had him in her grasp right now.
She pulled out of his arms but kept hold of his hand. “Come to bed with me. I want as much of you as I can get before I have to go.”
Humor slid into his eyes, though that longing was still there. “I love hearing what you want.”
“Good. Get used to it. Because I plan to tell you all night long,” she said, smiling even as heat filled her cheeks.
Dare winked and grinned. “Who is this brazen woman?”
Haven turned on him and threw her arms around his neck. “The woman I was always meant to be. Thanks to you.”
Without missing a beat, Dare kissed her hard and deep, and then he hiked her into his arms, her thighs coming around his waist. He carried her through the clubhouse that way, and she imagined some of the other men must’ve seen, because they went right past the open rec room doors.