He flinches. “Damn.”
“Exactly.” Jones seems like a good guy, but I am not messing around when it comes to my friend. “She is the best person I know, and she prizes honesty and integrity. If you make a play for her, it had better be for real. You better put your whole heart into it.” I hold his eye with a knife’s-edge look and flint in my voice. “Or you will answer to me and my steel-toed cowboy boots.”
Jones meets my gaze without flinching, intensely serious. “You will never need to break those out with me.” Then he nods in a that-explains-a-lot way. “I can see why you’re her best friend.”
“Then we have an understanding.” I let go as the song ends, stepping back to swipe one palm across the other. “That’s done. Good luck with the game this weekend. I will be rooting my ass off for the Renegades like I always do.”
Before Jones can reply, his handsome friend taps his shoulder, but Harlan’s oh-so-charming smile is aimed at me. “Hope you don’t mind me interrupting, buddy, but the lady and I have twenty dances to work through, and I’d like to start right now.”
I’d like that too. My night will end far too soon, and I want to make the best of the next few hours.
3
Katie
Goodbye, Jones. Hello, Harlan.
“Let’s see what your quicksilver feet can do,” I say, and Harlan moves right in, sets his hands on my waist, and dips me.
I am going to have so much fun with this hottie.
From his million-dollar smile, to his lush, golden-brown hair, to his dreamy eyes, the man has heartbreaker written all over him.
And that’s fine by me, since my heart isn’t on the table.
“So, what sort of dancing are we talking about?” I ask. “Do you dance like Magic Mike?”
He tugs playfully at his tie, jutting out his hip à la dirty dancer. “If that’s what you’re looking for, Katie. I’m more than happy to offer you a lap dance.”
The way he says that—a soft Georgia lilt returning to his voice once more—makes my skin tingle. Yes, he could definitely strip down for me in private sometime.
But just so I don’t melt into a puddle on the dance floor, I turn up the tease. “But maybe I want you to do the polka.”
On cue, he steps to the left.
I step to the right a half-second later, and we both do a hop. A few more impromptu polka steps and I’m laughing too hard to continue. “I’ll admit, I did not expect you to know such an old-fashioned dance.”
“You underestimate me, Katie. Go ahead, try another,” he challenges. “Dance-stump me.”
I can play this game. “Fox trot.”
Harlan steps forward; I step back. I’m breathless with laughter again.
“My turn now?” he asks, all rumbly sexy.
“I did get two requests. Seems only fair to give you one.”
“Then we need to tango.” Harlan hauls me in close and with my hand in his, thrusts our arms out to the side.
No wonder this is the sexiest dance ever. You have to press your chest up against a hot man. Let’s tango all night long.
We dance deliciously close for a minute on the edge of the dance floor. I like the feel of his firm body very much. “All right. I’ll bite. Where did you learn to dance like that?”
“Chippendales,” he says as we settle into a casual slow dance sway.
“You moonlight at a dance club? Is that after your football games?”
He winks. “Course it is.”
“Ha. Somehow, I doubt it,” I say. “Even with your smooth moves.”
Harlan smiles, runs a finger down my nose. “I’m from Georgia. A cotillion is mandatory.”
“Aha. The Southern charm explained,” I say, moving under the twinkling lights as the DJ crossfades into “Never Tear Us Apart.”
“I dip into the accent now and again for fun. I’ve been on the West Coast for many years, but I ham it up with the guys and lay it on thick at practice, so they can all bust my chops about my supposed Southern drawl.”
I flash a grin. “Better watch out or you might lose the chance to dip into the sound for…fun all together.”
He feigns shock. “Whatever will I do without my Atlanta charm?”
I shrug helplessly. “You’ll just have to switch to San Francisco charm. Speaking of, how long have you lived here? You’ve been with the team for six years.”
He arches a brow, impressed or perhaps appreciative that I know that about him. “I have indeed. Before then I went to college in Washington.”
“A Husky?”
“Go dawgs,” he says.
“So, you’ve been out of the South and accent-free for quite some time now.”
“I have—ten years, to be precise—but when I’m with my sisters and Mom I sound all peachy again,” he says.
“And I probably sound like a . . . bluebonnet,” I say, sliding into the accent I lost long ago.