No more dancing. Not now. All she really wanted to do was go home. ‘Justin, I’m sorry. I’m all tuckered out.’
He frowned. ‘I’m serious, Romy. Every man here. Except me.’
She matched his expression, smelled the alcohol on him. ‘I understand, Justin. But I’m sorry, I’m tired.’
Justin slipped both arms around her waist and pulled her into a close embrace. ‘Dance with me…’
This close, his eyes were like his brother’s. But where Clint’s slumbered with sensuality, Justin’s swilled with liquor and raw, hard sexual interest. What was he doing? Justin only ever spoke to her on the strictest business terms—was the whole damned world upside down tonight? She pushed ineffectually against him, trying to break free. He resisted. So she did the next best thing, slipped her hands up his back and found the magic spot in his left shoulder…and pressed with all her strength.
Justin staggered to the side, his left arm dropping away uselessly. ‘Son of a…’
‘I said no, Justin. Perhaps you didn’t hear me?’ Icicles could have formed on her words. A few nearby faces turned towards them.
He glared at her, embarrassed and more than a little ashamed, judging by his colour. ‘It was just a dance.’
It was just the liquor. Her mind took her immediately to another man, one who eschewed the addling effects of alcohol. She sought him out across the room but his corner was empty. She turned back to Justin, a hollow feeling in her chest.
‘Does it still hurt?’ She knew from her martial-arts training it wouldn’t. It was a pressure-point trick. Like pinching the funny bone. But less funny.
He rubbed at the offending shoulder, avoiding eye contact. ‘No, it’s fine. I apologise. I think I’ve had too much to drink.’
You think? He was still her boss, technically. Romy erred on the side of caution. ‘Don’t worry about it, Justin. Maybe you need some air?’
He mumbled something and wandered off in the direction of the bar. Romy sighed and scooped her clutch purse from the table. Perhaps she could sit in the car until the formalities were over. She slid out of a side door and walked down the side of the building to the parking area at the rear.
Out of nowhere, steel hands closed around her waist and pulled her near off her feet into the shadows of a doorway.
‘Clint!’
‘If you’ve quite finished playing up to every man here?’ he grated.
It was a little bit too close to an echo from her past. Whore. She pushed against him wholeheartedly and got exactly nowhere. She glared. ‘It’s called dancing, Clint. People like it.’
His eyes smouldered in the moonlight. ‘Lord save me from smart-mouthed women.’
His gaze fell to her mouth the instant he uttered the word. Her breath puffed angrily out of it as she wrestled to be free. But she felt the touch of his look as truly as if it had been his lips on hers.
‘And smart-brained women. Can you not let me have one single point?’
She stopped wriggling and met the iron in his gaze. If she gave an inch now she’d give him everything. ‘No.’
It was too close. Much too close to the moment she discovered she wanted a man that she could never have. She couldn’t be pressed against him like this and not want more. And she did. So much more.
‘Why are you out here?’ she asked as he let her step away.
He shrugged. ‘I got tired of watching the Romy Carvell show.’
Slap. That hurt. The single time she got to be the princess for a night and he found a way of making it sound selfish. She turned out of the shadows, wrenching free on a sucked-in breath.
‘Romy, wait.’ Gentle pressure manacled her wrist, pulled her back into the doorway. ‘I couldn’t…I’m not a good mixer, like you. I struggle with people.’ His lids dropped like shutters over vulnerable eyes.
Struggle with people. That was the understatement of all time.
‘This is the first time I’ve really been out. In this kind of setting since…’ He dug his hands into his pockets. ‘I needed the backup.’
Romy blinked. Surely not? ‘What about the city?’
He looked up, bemused. ‘What about it?’
‘Well, don’t you…There’d be lots of places just like this. When you go there?’
He regarded her steadily. ‘What do you think I do when I’m in the city?’
Suddenly she sounded like Simone. Passing on idle gossip. ‘Um…’
His eyes flared briefly. ‘I see. You think I dig myself out of deepest isolation in the forest and then hit the clubs cruising for sex. Is that about right?’
There was no undoing what she’d implied, but she couldn’t bring herself to say yes aloud. But she had to say something. ‘What do you go for?’
The muffled sound of the band filled the silence stretching between them. His lashes dropped again. He shook his head, slightly. ‘Not that.’
Oh.
He took a deep breath, lifted his face to meet her gaze. ‘I only came tonight because you were here. I was relying on you to…’
She tilted her head. ‘To…?’
‘I hoped you’d be my buffer. Help me transition.’
Romy frowned. She’d left him in a room full of strangers while she danced the night away. Guilt tore through her but her subconscious fought it. She spoke gently. ‘This wasn’t a date, Clint.’
He straightened. ‘I’m not making excuses, just explaining why I’m out here. Why I’m staying here.’
The realisation hit her. This was too hard for him. Big, bad, grumpy Clint McLeish was out of his depth. At a small-town fundraiser. That was why he stood alone in the corner not talking to anyone. It had nothing to do with being elitist.
He could parachute into dangerous foreign territory but he couldn’t stomach a single night amongst strangers. Her heart softened.
She peered up at him. ‘Do you want to go home?’
His lids fluttered down for the barest of moments, and when they opened, naked flame flickered behind them. ‘You think of WildSprings as home?’
She blushed. ‘Your home.’ Then she realised how that sounded and blushed harder. Metaphorical midnight had well and truly struck and the princess was reverting into plain old, foot-in-mouth Cinders by the second. ‘We can go whenever you want.’
‘I’m quite comfortable in here,’ he said, settling closer against her.
She
