Arousal.
She stared over Marc’s shoulder, not really seeing anything. She was hyperfocused on the sensation of his hard, shifting body and too mesmerized by his masculine scent. She experienced a nearly overpowering desire to lay her head on his shoulder.
“I don’t suppose it would do me any good to ask you why you blew me off in Chicago, would it?” His gruff, quiet voice caused a prickling sensation on her neck.
She flushed and avoided his laserlike stare. “I would think the answer was obvious.”
“Nothing is obvious when it comes to you and me, Mari. Nothing has ever been easy, either. It was my mother’s phone call that did it, wasn’t it? That’s what made you run? I knew I shouldn’t have answered it,” he said bitterly. “I only did because I’d been trying for weeks to coordinate communication between my mother and my sister, Deidre, in Germany, and they were supposed to have talked the night before. I had a feeling it might not have gone well for my mother. Their relationship had been strained for years….”
She met his stare when he faded off. For a moment, she was trapped in his gaze.
“We don’t have to dissect the reasons, Marc. Suffice it to say that Chicago was a mistake.”
“I don’t agree,” he stated flatly.
“We’ll just have to agree to disagree, then.” She noticed the tilt to his jaw—the Kavanaugh pride and stubbornness in full evidence. She sighed and groped for a way to change the volatile topic. “I’d forgotten what a good dancer you are,” she murmured.
“I’d forgotten how hard it was to hold you in my arms and not be able to make love to you later. It’s a memory I’d rather put to rest for good, Mari.”
Her breath froze on an inhale. His blue eyes blazed hot enough to melt her.
So much for safe topics.
She blinked as if awakening from a trance and took a step away from him. “Don’t, Marc.”
“Don’t what? Make it harder than it already is? Too late,” he said softly. His mouth quirked at his double entendre.
Mari was so busy staring at his sexy grin that she didn’t resist when he pulled her back into his arms. He didn’t miss a beat when the band started playing a slow ballad. The man really could move on the dance floor. As if he needed that extra edge. He was already more attractive to her than he had a right to be.
He gathered her close, so close that Mari became highly conscious of the how thin the barrier of their clothing was, of how little separated them from touching skin to skin.
“Just relax. Didn’t anyone ever tell you there’s a time for arguing and a time for…dancing?”
The annoyed glance she threw him was more defense than genuine irritation. The truth was, her reaction to Marc worried her. It’d be convenient to say that being around him only evoked all those old feelings, but the reality was, her physical reaction to Marc as a woman was even stronger than it’d been as a girl.
Exponentially so.
Mari held herself rigid as they swayed to the music, but her resistance could only last so long. Her flesh seemed to mold and melt against his of its own accord as if her body recognized its perfect template, even if her brain refused to acknowledge it. A warm sensation settled in her lower belly.
When Marc opened his hand on her lower back and applied a delicious pressure, Mari gave up the fight and rested her cheek between his shoulder and chest. She sighed, inhaling his scent. He smelled delicious—spicy and clean. Her eyes fluttered closed when she felt him lightly nuzzle her hair with his chin. His warm lips brushed against the side of her neck. She shivered. Every patch of skin that his mouth touched seemed to sing with awareness.
When the final note played, her head fell back. She found herself staring into Marc’s eyes, which had gone from blazing to smoky. Her breasts were crushed against his chest. The contours of his arousal were abundantly clear to her given how close they pressed.
It was as if a spell had fallen over her. It must have, for her to be having such intimate thoughts—such intimate feelings—in the midst of a crowded, noisy bar.
A crowded, noisy bar in Harbor Town, of all places.
She pulled back from Marc’s embrace and touched her fingertips to her cheeks, mortified to feel how hot they were.
“Excuse me,” she murmured before she twisted out of his arms.
The water from the ladies’ room sink barely cooled her burning cheeks. Her heat had sprung from an inner source that wasn’t so easily extinguished. Her eyes closed, she folded a wet paper towel and pressed it to her face, trying to regain her equilibrium.
He could knock her off balance so easily—still and always.
The thought of walking out there and facing Eric and the other patrons mortified her. Marc and she had been practically glued together on the dance floor. At the recollection of Marc nuzzling and kissing her neck—and of her not only allowing it, but loving it—shock washed over her.
She needed to get out of the bar. She needed to get out of Harbor Town altogether, as quickly as possible.
She’d apologize to Eric tomorrow for her abrupt abandonment.
Someone—a woman—called out to her as she fled the noisy establishment. Mari glanced over at the bar and glimpsed Liam and Colleen Kavanaugh watching her. She read excitement and a hint of concern in Colleen’s aquamarine eyes. Part of her was glad to see Colleen’s willingness to speak with her after all these years, but she was too discombobulated at the moment to renew old friendships. Panic pressed on her chest.
How could she have ever thought it was a good idea to return to Harbor Town? How could she have misled herself into believing Dr. Rothschild when her former therapist had said she had unfinished business in the little town and a bone-deep desire to heal?
She burst out the front door of Jake’s Place, gulped the warm, fresh air she’d been oxygen-deprived. It didn’t occur to her until she reached the parking lot just what—or who—it was she was escaping. A pair of hands settled on her shoulders and spun her around.
“Marc,” she said in a strangled voice. She hadn’t realized until that moment she’d been dreading his touch and anticipating it, as well.
“Don’t run from me, Mari. Don’t run from this.”
She swayed closer, to him, inhaling his scent. Nobody smelled like Marc. She wanted to believe that this was something they could solve. Her body wanted to believe him…wanted to trust in Marc, longed to be swept away by a dream.
A girl’s dream.
She met his blazing eyes.
“Marc, we can’t. Not again,” she whispered. She started to move out of their embrace, her fear returning, but he stopped her.
“What is it, Mari? What’s your problem with me?” he asked quietly. She saw wariness shadow his face, felt it rising in his tense muscles. “Is it that you think I’m a killer by association? I’m not
