LITMIR.BIZ

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not.”

      “You are. My little angel, pulling the edges of her virtue back around her. Why? Are you worried about what these people will think?”

      His dark, glittering gaze darted around the room to encompass the crush of people surrounding them. For the first time, Willow realized they’d become the center of attention. Other people twirled, talked, drank and ate...but eyes kept straying back to the angel and devil pressed against each other.

      God, she hoped no one realized she was the one making a spectacle of herself. Her costume was good, but was it that good? Tatum had known who she was.

      “Yes. I live here.” These people were her neighbors, her friends, her customers. Of course she cared what they thought. She’d seen firsthand just how cruel they could be.

      She didn’t want that for herself. Would do just about anything to avoid the agony of losing their respect. Losing her own respect.

      “So you do. Do you think these people have never sinned?”

      “Of course I don’t.”

      “Then why do you have to be perfect?”

      “I’m not.”

      He stopped. In the middle of the dance floor. His arms tightened, leaning her off center. His gaze bored into hers, searching for something. She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want to.

      Her lips parted anyway, trying to pull more oxygen into her lungs. He made a sound deep in the back of his throat. His body loomed over hers, dangerous and tempting.

      And then he was kissing her.

      There was no easing into the moment, not with him. He devoured her, his mouth hard and demanding. She couldn’t say no. Didn’t really want to. The undertow of sensation pulled at her, blocking out every other thing.

      Willow’s eyes closed. The bank of revolving lights flashed colors across her lids. And she held on. It was the only thing she could do.

      Heat and need twisted through her, sharp and unexpected. She didn’t know what to do with it. His tongue slipped in, sliding deliciously against her own. The texture and taste of him was extreme. He’d sampled the cheap champagne someone had provided, fruity and sharp, but underneath he was rugged and robust.

      Tearing away, Dev pulled her upright. The room spun lazily as she tried to get her bearings.

      She blinked up at him. And then blinked again. Her hands clung to his shoulders, holding tight for fear that if she let go she’d topple to the ground.

      “Why’d you do that?” she asked breathlessly.

      “Because I could. Because I enjoy making a stir.” His deep blue eyes flashed dangerously. “Because I would have kicked myself if I let you go without knowing how your mouth tasted.”

      No one had ever said anything that...sensual to her. “Holy hell.”

      The startled sound of his laughter burst between them.

      Had she said that out loud?

      Willow stared at him, surprised by his reaction. She wanted to see his face. To know what his laughter looked like. Would it lighten the shadows cast by more than the mask covering him?

      Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, Dev pulled her tight to his body. The embrace had none of the underlying currents of sensuality and need from moments before. It was easy and let her relax.

      “Thank you,” he said, his mouth buried against the feathers of her mask.

      “For what?”

      “For giving me a moment to remember in the middle of all this. I didn’t expect that when I arrived tonight. Didn’t expect you.”

      Willow wasn’t entirely certain what to make of that. “You’re welcome?”

      Spinning her once more and setting her off center, he asked, “Do you want to leave?”

      Without hesitating, Willow answered, “Yes.” This man with the dark blue eyes and red-silk mask was precisely what she’d been looking for when she’d dressed tonight.

      It was finally her turn to sin.

      * * *

      FROM ACROSS THE room Dev watched Willow Portis as she spoke to a woman in a halfhearted cat costume. The two women couldn’t have been more different. Willow was long and slender. Not even her blatant attempts at the sexy costume could hide her inherent elegance. Her movements were deliberate, not a single motion wasted.

      He shouldn’t have been surprised to find her at the masquerade, but he was. Maybe because he knew her sister and parents had moved away from Sweetheart. He’d always imagined her living somewhere else, with the perfect life.

      From the moment he’d walked into the party she’d drawn his gaze. His, and that of every red-blooded male in the room. When he’d first approached her it had simply been because he was attracted and interested in learning more about the woman beneath the sexy dress and virginal angel wings.

      He should have known who she was the moment he touched her, but it hadn’t been until she told him her name that realization—and long-forgotten memories—flooded in.

      Part of him wondered just how long it would take her to recognize him. How far was she willing to go with this? And would she push him away when she figured it out or take the opportunity to finish what they’d started ten years ago?

      Would she still hate him? Blame him? Or would time have blunted the misplaced sense of betrayal?

      Some perverse place deep inside him wanted to know...what had her life become? Why was she here tonight alone? How had she spent the past ten years? And was she happy?

      Even as he realized he should probably walk away from her, he couldn’t make himself do it. Just as before. From the moment he’d met her, there’d been something about Willow that had drawn him in. Made him want things he knew he couldn’t have.

      Her sweet and haughty demeanor was a dichotomy that had intrigued him from the moment Rose had introduced them. Even back then he’d wanted to ruffle her feathers, to make her cool skin pink with a blush of innocence.

      Until Willow, he hadn’t known innocence still existed. Dealing with his mother’s alternating rampages and drug-induced bouts of euphoria had stolen his innocence long before he’d come to Sweetheart.

      She’d been seventeen to his twenty. And though he’d known he should leave her alone, he hadn’t been able to do it. Every time she was close, the need to fluster her was overwhelming. He’d push into her personal space and watch as her body reacted to him—as he knew she didn’t want it to.

      Just like everyone else in Sweetheart, she was a bit condescending. But that had only made him want her more. To prove that she was no better than anyone else...no better than him.

      He’d convinced himself Willow Portis was a challenge, a puzzle he wanted to crack. But it had been more than that. He’d needed to understand. And maybe let her innocence touch him so that he could feel it again just for a little while.

      And after months of effort, he’d finally started to win her over. He’d even begun to think that she saw more to him than the rest of the world did—more than the hopeless son of a convicted felon and a drug addict.

      Then the debacle with her sister had hit, and everything had gone to hell.

      The way she’d looked at him, her eyes filled with betrayal instead of the soft hope he’d come to expect, had hurt more than anything else.

      Until she’d been in his arms tonight Dev had honestly thought he’d left the past far behind. But perhaps there was one last thing he had to deal with....

      He still wanted Willow with a need so sharp it ground into his bones. Maybe, just maybe, tonight would give him the chance to exorcise those ghosts for good.

      “Wick.”

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