Chapter 61
“Nick.”
A new voice—deeper, lower and familiar— intruded, dousing Nick with a brutal, icy dose of reality. Forcing a casual smile, he untangled his fingers from her hair, but kept his arm around her waist as he turned them to face his brother.
“Hey, man,” Stoner said.
He pounded Nick on the shoulder in greeting. His curious and, goddammit, admiring gaze slid to Michelle and lingered on her. Roamed over her face, pausing on her lush mouth before dipping lower to her equally lush body. Anger, pain, jealousy—they all roared inside Nick, pounded against his bones, rattling him from the inside out. But he kept his mask in place. This time, it was one that showed him as the carefree, “rejection rolls right off my back” younger brother.
Fortunately, he was well versed in maintaining this facade.
“Hey, what's up,” Nick said with a wide grin, clapping his brother on the shoulder in return. “Michelle came along.”
“I’m glad she did.” Stoner turned to Michelle, and instead of the usual polite but distant smile, this one held an appreciative warmth that reflected in his eyes. “Michelle, it’s good to see you again. You look...stunning,” he said, his voice lowering, deepening.
“Thank you, Stoner,” she murmured, and even in the darkness of the club, Nick glimpsed the flush across her cheekbones. Or maybe he just knew her so well, he could picture it there.
“Thanks for suggesting that I come along. This place is really nice,”
“Yes it is, and it's my pleasure,” He cocked his head to the side, a corner of his mouth quirking. “How about you join me? I’d love it if you two—” he glanced at Nick, then quickly returned his gaze to Michelle “—would come hang out over there with me.”
Michelle smiled. “I would—”
“Maybe a little later.” Nick slid his arm from around her and grasped her hand. “Michelle promised me a dance first.
We’ll catch up with you, Stoner.”
Tapping his fist to his brother’s chest, he led Michelle away from the bar and toward the crowded dance floor. Instead of pushing his way to the middle, he stopped on the edge and drew her close against him. Clasping her wrists, he wound her arms around his neck, then stroked his hands down to her shoulders, over the dip of her waist to rest on the flare of her hips. Her soft breasts were pressed to his chest, and as he slid a leg between her rounded, tight thighs, need, hungry and raw, clawed at him. It was impossible—his rational mind convinced him it definitely wasn’t possible— but he swore the damp, feminine heat of her penetrated the layers of their clothes to sear him in the sweetest, dirtiest way.
“What are you doing?” Michelle stiffened, leaning back to glare up at him. She shifted her hands from his nape to his chest, exerting pressure. “I may not be an expert in flirtation, but I can tell when a man is interested. And Stoner was interested. He asked us to join him, for God’s sake. Why did you tell him no?”
“Don’t push me away. Put your arms back around me.”
Her immediate obedience triggered a primal response in him. A response that had him needing to praise her, touch her for that show of instinctive trust. In him. It stimulated his heart...and his dick. He bowed his head over hers, and to anyone looking—to Stoner—he would appear to be on the verge of taking her mouth, a prelude to another kind of conquering.
“Lesson number two. A dog is man’s best friend for a reason. Because we have a lot in common. For instance, a dog can ignore or play and be finished with a bone. But as soon as another dog comes sniffing around, suddenly that bone is the most desirable, delicious thing he’s ever possessed, and he wants it with a single-minded focus that’s scary.”
“I don’t know if I want to roll my eyes at the man-baby ridiculousness of that or deliver a stinging diatribe on the indignity of comparing women to bones,” she drawled. Her nails scraped the nape of his neck, and he wrestled back a shiver at the whisper of pain under the wave of pleasure. “Personally, the way I’m leaning includes the words junk and punch.”
He shook his head, giving her a small smile. “Please, sweetheart. Don’t act like you haven’t heard that before. I’m just giving you truth as it pertains to Stoner. He invited you to join him in that VIP room, and if I hadn’t stepped in, you would’ve agreed so fast, there would be skid marks on that staircase right now.”
Her lips parted to object, but when he arched an eyebrow, she narrowed her eyes on him. And remained silent.
“That’s right.” He nodded. “He put forth the barest amount of effort, and you weren’t going to require him to do more.” He lowered his head until their foreheads nearly brushed.
Her eyes briefly closed and a puff of sweet, vodka-and-cranberry-scented breath bathed his mouth. “I guess you're right,”
He chuckled, and yes, it was filthy even to his own ears. “Here's what you’re going to do. Dance with me. Flirt with me. Pretend you’ve forgotten Stoner even exists. And make him come for you. Fucking earn you, Michelle.”
She blinked. Stared at him. And he stared back, maintaining that visual contact as if his heart wasn’t slamming against his chest because he’d said too much. Allowed too much passion into his voice, more than what belonged to someone who was only a friend.
After a long moment, she turned around, lifted her arms...and undulated her body against him. Like a match to dry kindling, he ignited in flames. He moved with her, losing himself in the pounding rhythm of the music, as it echoed the wild beat in his blood, his cock. It spoke of need, of greed. And he gave in to it.
Burying his face in her hair, he was no longer Nick, and she ceased being Michelle. They became two people, strangers, meeting, flirting with their bodies, letting a heat that had nothing to do with the crush of people rise between them. He became a man indulging in foreplay with a woman.
With each roll of her hips, she stroked her ass over his cock, and dammit, he should have shifted away, inserted space between their bodies. He should have. But he didn’t.