“That dress,” I said slowly, letting the words drawl out of my mouth like a caress.

She smiled her seductress smile.  It was overkill, at this point.  “I knew you’d either love it or hate it.”

“Can’t it be both?”

She laughed.  “Or that.  It’s part of the show.  It’s to catch the judges’ eyes.”

“So you’re saying that I need to go take out some judges?”

She shook her head, still smiling.  “You’re impossible.”

“So I’ve been told.  In case I didn’t tell you, you look beautiful.  That dress is infuriating, but it is ravishing on you.”

She flushed in pleasure.  “Thank you.  Compliments from you are my absolute favorite.”

I let that one roll around in my head, taking it to mean that she’d gotten a lot of compliments from people that weren’t me.

That was hardly surprising, but still not reassuring.  The caveman part of me that she liked to tease me about would have preferred to keep her locked away, for my eyes only.

“Your partner,” I began.

She waved me off.  “He’s harmless and a very nice guy, so please don’t scare him off.  We’re learning together, and it’s been a good partnership so far.”

I nodded, but my jaw clenched, and I considered dragging her into another room to help me cope with my temper in a way that made us both happy.

I missed my chance, and we were in the party again, mingling with dancers.  Somewhere along the way, she was separated from me.

When she reappeared, and she wasn’t alone.


“Tristan, this is Anthony, my dance instructor, and my partner, Preston.”

It’s a punk name, I thought.  I smiled at him.  It felt unpleasant.  “Nice to meet you.”  I managed not to say it through my teeth.

He tried to smile back, but he had to tilt his head back to look up at me, and I could tell that I intimidated the hell out of him.  Good.  I planned to scare the shit out of him before we left tonight.  He may as well know what I’d do to him if he made a move on my girl.

Danika moved just out of earshot as her instructor introduced her to some other dancers.

“Two cops Tasered me at the same time once, and it barely phased me,” I told Preston the Punk, my tone quiet and idle, my smile nasty.

He turned an interesting shade of green.

Danika and Anthony rejoined us, introducing us to someone or other, and I watched Anthony’s hand at her waist.  I didn’t much care for him, either, but at least he hadn’t been pawing her on the ballroom floor mere hours before.

The group made small talk, but I stayed quiet, watching Danika, and the way she smiled, the way she laughed.  She seemed happy here, with these people.

Preston was hell-bent to get on my shit list, and he sidled close to her often.  Once he even went down on a knee in front of her, handing her a red rose with a flourish.  When she moved her hand to take it, he grabbed and kissed it, making some comment about how he loved working with her.

She waved him off, but he stood, embracing her to whisper in her ear.

I don’t even remember moving towards them, but I was suddenly there, close enough to touch.

I moved between them, bumping him away from her.

“That’s enough,” I said, wrapping my arm around her waist.

She gripped my shoulder.  “Please, Tristan, don’t—“

“Okay, I won’t, but tell him not to touch you again.”

“We’re dance partners!” Preston said, flushing hotly.  He still looked scared of me, but not scared enough, clearly.  “We have to touch!”

“Not now you don’t.  You aren’t dancing now.”

“Tristan, please!” Danika said quietly, sounding mortified.

“Okay, okay,” I said, to calm her, but I was looking at Preston.

I let her go, giving him a fake smile as I held out my hand to shake.  “Sorry, man,” I offered.

He reached his hand out to shake mine, looking none too happy about it.

I grinned as I gripped his hand tight, moving a step closer to give him a pat on the shoulder.  I squeezed his hand hard, harder, pounding him on the back.  I just wanted to give him a taste of what I could do to him, how much stronger I was.

As I pulled back, I saw from his wide eyes that he’d received my message loud and clear: I could crush him.

In fact, I was looking forward to it.

We went from that mingler to another party, and still Preston stayed close.  It irritated me.  But I suspected that everything he did that might remind me of his existence, of those hands of his handling my woman with such authority on the dance floor, would irritate the hell out of me.

I kept my hands on her, casually, possessively, constantly.

I staked my claim on her with my touch with no reservations, or compunctions.

I’d keep my hand on her waist while she introduced me to a friend or acquaintance, or stroke her hip while we listened to her instructor gush about her.  I’d stroke a hand up to her ribs, pulling her close, my fingers skating close to her breast.

She never moved away from my touch, always shifted closer, no matter that this wasn’t the appropriate place for it.  She denied me nothing.

I met Preston’s curious eyes as I let my hand drift over her body, eventually stopping to cup her ass.  Mine, my eyes told him.  You might borrow her for a spin on the dance floor, but this was all mine.

I smiled at him, showing my teeth.

The first second I caught her alone in a hallway again, I kissed her.  I turned my head and took her mouth for long minutes, thrusting my tongue into her mouth in an aggressive seduction.

I pulled back to look at her sweet face.  Her eyes were closed, her expression soft, her mouth slack with desire.

There was no subterfuge here.  There never had been.  Not from her.  From the very beginning, I’d been able to read the sweet passion in her eyes, the artless response, the undeserved devotion.

This woman loved me.  I kissed her again.

She pulled back with a gasp.  “I think we should be going.  Let me go tell Anthony and Frankie.”

I headed to the bathroom.  As though it were fate, I wound up running into Preston on my way out.

He nodded politely to me, waiting for me to move out of his way.

I just stared at him.

He had clear, guiltless eyes.  They irked me.  He’d probably never done a thing in his life that made him hate himself, which made me hate him a little just thinking about.

Perhaps if I was some blank slate punk of a man, I’d deserve her love.

But I wasn’t that.  I was a mess of a man, with a list of regrets so long that it haunted my every waking hour, and made sure I couldn’t sleep without chemical assistance.  But I’d be damned before I let this punk move in on my girl.

“We’re taking off,” I told him.  “To be alone,” I couldn’t seem to help adding.

He nodded.  “You’re a lucky man.”

My lip curled.  “You bet I am.  I’m sure you’re wishing you were lucky like me.”

He just nodded again, his smile pleasant.  “I can’t deny it.  She’s one in a million.  Sweet, beautiful, talented.  Funny.  She’s always cracking me up in the dance studio.”

That infuriated me to a ridiculous degree.  I took instant offense.

“You think you know her like I do?” I asked him.

His eyes widened in innocence.  “I wasn’t trying to offend.  You don’t have any reason to be defensive.  She’s loyal—“

I didn’t let him finish, gripping the front of his shirt in my hands, lifting him up on his toes.  I shoved him back against the wall, getting in his face.  “Don’t even think about it!  You’ll never have a chance with her.  Never.  So if you think that if you just put enough time in, that somehow, someway, you’ll get your shot with her, you can forget it.  I’ll always be here, in your way.  For-fucking-ever, you understand?”

He didn’t have anything to say to that, just looking at me with wide, frightened eyes.  I let him go in disgust.

Good, I thought.  Anything was better than him talking and revealing just how much he cared about her.

I only realized as I turned away from him that we had an audience.

Frankie, Estella, Anthony, and of course, Danika stood just a few feet away, all looking at me with different degrees of baffled horror.

Frankie’s reaction was the easiest to take.  She smacked her hand to her forehead, muttering, “What the fuck, man?”

Estella’s eyes were wide and shocked, but she didn’t say a word.  More intimidated by me by the minute, I thought.

Anthony shook his head back and forth, throwing his hands in the air like I’d done something way crazier than grab a guy’s shirt.

Danika just watched me, arms crossed, eyes troubled.  After one pregnant moment, she looked away, striding to Preston.

She touched his arm, asking if he was all right.

“I’m fine,” he said shakily.  “I’m fine.  Just a misunderstanding.”

Unaccountably, that just made me want to deck him.  Hard.

She gave him a quick hug.  “Thanks for being cool about this.  I’ll see you next week.”  She let him go quickly, turning away.

He stopped her with a hand on her arm, saying something too low for me to catch.

I body checked him.

Danika moved into my chest, trying to shove me away from him.  I let her.  As long as she was coming with me, I was fine with that.

She ushered me out of there like the place was on fire.  We didn’t speak until we were driving home in her car.  I just left mine behind.  I’d get it later.

“Why Tristan?  Why did you behave like that?  Did he say something awful?”

I shook my head.  My excuse was not so solid as that.  “He’s just so fucking pleasant.”

She shot me a wild-eyed look.  “Are you kidding me?  You attacked a guy, my friend, because he was being pleasant?”

My hand cut through the air in a negative motion.  “No, though that didn’t help.  He’s just the kind of naive fucker that reminds me how fucked up I am.  Life must be a fucking picnic, to grow up and never have a bad thing happen to you, like your Preston there.”

“First of all, he’s not my Preston.  And second, you don’t know a thing about him, or what he’s been through.”

“Oh, was I wrong then?  Does he not come from a perfect fucking family, with two parents, probably still married, who think the sun sets in his ass?”

Her mouth twisted, and I could tell she was trying not to smile.  “How did you know that?  What did you guys talk about?”

“I could just tell.  The stars in his eyes are too fucking shiny.  And we talked about you.  You know he has a thing for you, right?”

She grimaced.  “He knows I’m not interested.”

“So that’s a yes, you do know.  How fucking perfect.  You’ve got a bullpen all ready in case I screw up.”

She pulled over, turning to look at me.  “What’s gotten into you?  Did something happen?”

I closed my eyes, my head dropping back against the seat.  I was being an ass, and I damn well knew it.  I’d let my jealousy get the best of me, and I felt like a tool because of it.

“I’m sorry, alright?” It was a plea.  “I know I was a jerk.”

“Tristan, answer me.  Did something happen?”

I hated talking about some things, and this was one of them.  “My mom called me earlier just to tell me that she missed Jared, and that she still blamed me.  Sweet, huh?”  It didn’t matter how old I got, my mother could still make me feel like scum in a few short sentences.

She made a soft noise of sympathy, unbuckling her seat belt, and climbing over to my seat, hugging me tightly.

I squeezed her back so hard that the breath whooshed out of her.

“Oh, Tristan, you know how wrong she is, don’t you?  You know she’s just lashing out, right?  She’s like a wounded animal, attacking anyone that gets in reach.”

“Yes, I know,” I spoke softly into her hair.  That wasn’t precisely true, but it was the easiest answer.

I needed her comfort more than I needed her sympathy.

“Are you mad at me over the Preston thing?” I asked her.  I didn’t deserve her forgiveness, but I needed it if I was going to take my next breath.

 I’d been out of line, there was no doubt, but she didn’t hesitate.  “No, Tristan.  I just want you to take better care of yourself, and I need you to work on your temper.”

“I will,” I promised, my tone solemn.

CHAPTER NINETEEN