“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.”
The small voice, old nickname and arms flung around his chest startled him. He stumbled back, taking the weight of the woman who’d launched herself at him as if she were an air-hockey puck.
“Erica,” she said, burying her face into his shoulder. “Erica Condon.” Then she pulled away again, staring up at him with hero worship in her eyes. It made him uncomfortable. “What are you doing here? I didn’t realize you were back in town.”
Dev threw a hasty glance around the room, grateful that everyone appeared too preoccupied to pay attention. He wasn’t ready for his cover to be blown. Not yet. Not when things were just getting interesting.
How the heck had this woman recognized him when Willow hadn’t?
Wrapping a hand around her upper arm, he dragged her deeper into the shadows close to the door.
Gently, he disentangled their bodies, putting several inches between them. “Look, I have no idea who you are.” Maybe if her costume hadn’t been so distracting and unflatteringly psychedelic...
Hurt and surprise washed across her face making him feel guilty. Trying to blunt the harshness of his words, he offered her a smile. “I’d like to keep my presence quiet, at least for tonight.”
She nodded eagerly. And that’s when recognition hit. She’d been Rose’s best friend. He’d never understood what had drawn the two girls together. Erica had been short, quiet and shy. Rose was gregarious and effervescent. On the surface, the two didn’t match. Secretly Dev had always thought Erica’s eagerness to please had been why Rose kept her around.
She hadn’t fit into the crowd he and Rose had run with. They’d all been wild and adventurous. Erica had been the quiet girl that everyone sort of ignored. Dev cringed, feeling guilty for the way he’d dismissed her when he was younger.
That guilt might have kept him talking with her, but when he glanced away to find Willow walking through the crowd toward them everything else faded away. She was dynamically gorgeous. His body hardened with the immediate need to touch her. To taste her. To know her in a way he’d been denied before.
The tight cut of her dress left her little choice but to take measured steps, constricting her movements and giving him a perfect view of her sinuous body as she moved.
Several men turned to watch her cut through the crowd. Dev recognized the heat and purpose deep in their eyes, knew his own burned with the same appreciation. An unbidden growl rolled through his chest. Tossing some random words over his shoulder, he left Erica gape-mouthed and headed straight for Willow.
No one else was getting close to her. Tonight, she was his. Finally.
He understood the gazes she drew, like iron filings to a magnet, the force of her unavoidable. The need to kiss her again, right here, right now, in front of every other male, broke deep inside. He resisted. Not only
