LITMIR.BIZ

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sister; he was Mikki’s husband’s best friend. They were destined to be friends who met up now and then at backyard barbecues or family birthday parties. They would drink a beer together and maybe share a moment when they remembered the night that they might have hooked up, if the dice had rolled another way.

      Actually hooking up would make future encounters too awkward. He’d been down that road before, with a good friend of Didi’s who to this day shot diamond-cutting laser eyes at him whenever they ran into each other at his sister’s house.

      But one dance wouldn’t hurt.

      Rory was surprisingly carefree on the dance floor. For all his certainty that she was a slow-dancing type, she moved fluidly to the samba beat of “Hot, Hot, Hot,” the skirt of her black-and-white patterned dress swinging in a bell shape around her long legs as she swooped and twirled.

      He finally managed to catch her close, keeping one arm firmly looped around her waist so she couldn’t slip away. He looked into her eyes. Their hips swiveled, side to side, forward and back.

      Rory’s cheeks glowed, bathed in the hot colored lights. She licked her lips. “You’re a good dancer.”

      “Only when the mood strikes.”

      “The mood,” she repeated. Her eyes were liquid, the color of the expensive brand of Scotch he used to see in decanters at Nolan’s house.

      He spread his fingers over the small of her back. Her hips moved just beneath them, the swell of her backside inches away. If he’d been even a little bit drunk and she hadn’t been quite so classy, he’d dip lower for a quick grope.

      “Then the elusive mood must have struck,” she said, moving her face closer to his so he could hear. “I haven’t danced like this since…I can’t remember when.”

      Her hair brushed the side of his cheek. He closed his eyes, inhaled a fragrance of sweet sage and lavender. The weight and warmth of her generous body was more arousing than he’d expected.

      He could sink into her.

      Go deep, get comfortable.

      Spend the night.

      Maybe even longer…

      He tightened their embrace until her voluptuous breasts were riding plump and full up against his chest, the locked charm trapped between them. In heels, she was almost his height. Maybe twenty-five pounds under his weight, which meant that her curves fit just right against him, filling his arms, his senses.

      Their palms slid together in the heat. Rory panted in his ear. He’d stopped hearing the music, but the beat was inside him, and in her, too. He felt it in the heft of her soft breasts and the sensuous sway of her hips and the glide of their feet, perfectly in sync.

      He touched his lips to her warm cheek. She turned her head away a fraction and his kiss slipped toward her ear. He lipped her lobe, making the dangly earring swing against his chin. His nose nudged it aside as he sought her neck, sleek and moist and infused with the rising scent of aroused female flesh. He nuzzled, he kissed, he licked.

      Rory’s hand tightened against his. “Tucker.” She pressed her face against his shoulder and let out a soulful moan. “Sweet mercy. What are you doing to me?”

      2

      “FOREPLAY,” Tucker said against her neck. The hot whisper of breath and the vibrations of his voice produced a frisson that played through Rory like fingers running scales along the keys of a piano.

      Foreplay. On the dance floor. Was he nuts?

      If so, she was equally crazy from the heat. She didn’t want him to stop.

      “Foreplay,” she echoed, trying to regain her senses. “Are you asking—or stating your intentions?”

      His lips stopped mid-nibble. “Do I need intentions?”

      “Everyone has intentions.”

      “Not the kind that a father brings up with his daughter’s boyfriend.”

      “Oh.” Slowly, she was coming out of the haze of arousal that had freed her inhibitions more thoroughly than a half-dozen body shots. A method she’d tried only once, in college, and promptly thrown up in a frat boy’s lap. “Don’t worry. I wasn’t asking you to marry me.”

      Tucker chuckled. He gave her waist a squeeze—a friendly squeeze.

      When had his hand moved from her derriere to her waist?

      Ignoring the signs, she stayed in his arms, resting her chin on his shoulder and attempting to find the beat of the music that had previously come so natural and easy. But Tucker’s body was stiff against hers, and not in a good way.

      He stepped back. “Thanks for the dance.”

      Her mouth hung open. That was it?

      “I’m sorry about—you know.” He gave a shock of his thick dark brown hair a self-conscious tug, leaving it in ruffled disarray. There was an easy charm about him that was boyishly self-effacing. She imagined that he was the kind of man who got away with murder by flashing his grin at the woman he’d wronged, a grin made only more irresistible by the deep, dimpled grooves it cut into his cheeks. Lost in that charm and smile, a woman would find herself forgiving any transgression.

      “Sorry about what?” she said, giving him no easy out. If a guy was going to grope her on the dance floor and then run away, he could at least do her the courtesy of not apologizing.

      “Getting carried away.” His feet shuffled. The grin had become sheepish. “I shouldn’t have been so forward.”

      She followed him to the edge of the dance floor, grateful to be out of the revolving lights. “Please don’t look at me that way. I’m not your maiden aunt.”

      “No, but we’re practically cousins.”

      Inhaling, she straightened. “I don’t think so.”

      “Maybe not.” Tucker’s gaze went to her breasts. She fumbled around, gathering up the lilac shawl she’d let trail across the dance floor, but in the end she resisted the impulse to cover herself. She was working on her body issues—had even progressed to posing for her Friday afternoon life-drawing class—and she would not allow Tucker Schulz to see how badly he’d rattled her composure. Even if her nipples were so hard they felt like hitchhiker’s thumbs sticking out the front of her dress.

      Begging for a pickup, she thought with an inner groan. Pick me up and take me on a long, slow, sensuous journey.

      “Nolan and Mikki…” Tucker’s raspy voice trailed off. His gaze was still pinned below her neck and a small thrill went through her when he licked his lips. His eyes were the eerie green underwater color of the turtle tanks at the aquarium, reflecting more than his reluctance. He wanted her, but he didn’t.

      “What about Nolan and Mikki?” A lame excuse, in her estimation. He knew it and was using them, anyway, as a convenient out.

      Tucker looked away. “I’ll leave that up to her to tell you, but the upshot is that you and I—” He broke off, serving up another helping of the appealing grin-and-shrug. “We’re better off as friends.”

      “If that,” she said.

      Surprised by her resistance, he caught her hand. “Aw, Rory. Don’t be like that.”

      Despite herself, she melted. Not difficult when he’d already reduced her to a liquid state.

      She kept her face solemn. “Tell me. Does the boyish charm always work when you’re prying yourself out of a sticky situation?”

      He was no longer fooled by her stern tone. “Pretty much.”

      She laughed and gave him a push. “Go on. Get out of here.”

      He half turned, then threw another dimple shot over his shoulder. “Friends, right? I can tell—we’re destined to

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