Ranger's Baby Surprise (Special Forces Elite 2)

“Good.” I took another sip. Vodka had always been my go-to.

If Madame Collette knew I was drinking before a performance, she would have had me doing a hundred pliés to make up for it. My thighs wouldn’t let me do it again. The burn would be seared into my memory. Ballerinas didn’t drink. And they certainly didn’t hook up with random hot guys.

But she wasn’t here, and I wasn’t part of the troupe. No, I was on the dance squad. And this was what the Goddess dancers did.

“Are those your friends over there?” He motioned to the girls, who were probably on their third or fourth drink.

I nodded. “Sort of.” I used the little swizzle stick to push the lime under the ice.

“Would you rather join them?” he asked.

His question caught me off guard. I froze for a second. I could be over there talking about photo shoots and the calendar that was coming out before Christmas. I could talk about how much I loved to shake my ass in front of the fans. How much I loved being on the Warriors’ payroll. How I lived and breathed two things: football and cheering.

But none of that was me. I didn’t want to talk about any of those things, or be reminded that I was a part of the squad.

I looked directly in his eyes, trying not to be thrown off by his dark eyelashes. “I think I like it over here.”

“I’m Sam, by the way.”

“Natalia,” I replied.

“Pretty. Doesn’t sound like a Texas girl’s name.”

I didn’t know why that made me blush. “It’s not. It’s French.”

“French?” His eyes glazed with lust.

There was a moment when the walls fell away and I couldn’t hear the girls laughing. I didn’t hear the guy singing on stage, or the worst pick up lines in history. There was a moment when I felt connected to this complete stranger.

“Mmmhmm,” I responded.

“That explains some of it, I guess.”

I could feel the vodka starting to warm my limbs. “Some of what?” I was curious what he would say.

“Let’s see, I’ve known you what?” He looked at the clock on his phone. “Five minutes?”

I nodded in agreement. “Yes, I think so.”

“And in five minutes, I can tell you’re different. Just how French are you?” He narrowed his eyes as if he was pretending to be a detective.

I laughed. “My father is French and I grew up in Paris. That’s how French I am.”

“So you’d say that tips the scales past the fifty percent mark?” He chuckled and I could see how sexy his smile was. Rows of straight white teeth set behind a strong jawline. Was it the vodka or was he becoming more attractive by the second?

I tended to think the neon lights and the lone singer with the guitar had something to do with it too, but I couldn’t stop staring at his arms. He was ripped.

“Probably so. It doesn’t help that half my family is in Paris and I go back and forth to see them. I take it you’re a Texas guy?”

I needed to ask him a question before I launched into the sad story of my parents’ divorce. I didn’t know why I had already divulged so much to him. He didn’t want to hear about how I alternated holidays between Dallas and Paris. Or how much I hated moving here when I was seventeen. Texas seemed like an armpit after growing up in France.

“Born and bred.” He grinned.

“I think Texans are as proud of where they are from as Parisians are.” I withheld the rest of my commentary.

He looked over his shoulder and scanned the bar. No one was looking at us. It almost felt as if we were the only ones here, lost in a back corner.

He turned around. “I want to say something to you.”