didn’t make it to Janina’s place.
Instead, Russ smiled his slow, sideways smile down at her and once again didn’t quite brush her mouth with his. Then he released her, downed half his beer, sauntered over to the big, old-fashioned jukebox, fed some coins into it and punched a few select buttons that he didn’t seem to have to look for.
Everything inside her, every nerve, every sense, every particle of her being zinged alert, alive, awake. As though she’d been sleeping every moment before in her life.
Awake.
Electricity charged through her, then exhilarated pulse points, titillated nerve endings, thrilled along her spine and laid a fuzzy, sizzling pool of restlessness in the small of her back.
Whatever leftover aches she had from her bruises fled and she blessed Buddy for unwittingly giving her a moment she’d never otherwise have had the courage to pursue.
Then Russ hooked a glance at her over his shoulder and all thought fled.
He stood in front of the jukebox for a long, drawn-out moment during which Janina’s heart felt as if it beat in some sort of slow-motion animated suspension. The pure masculine intent in the look he sent her snapped the suspension. Her heartbeat turned staccato, her breathing stuttered and the safety that had flooded her moments before fled, to be replaced by a flood of liquid heat, a sense of pure elation, a knowledge and anticipation of a danger she couldn’t wait to face. Want coursed through her veins, sang a tightening song through her lungs, pushed like wildfire into her belly.
He wanted her.
The rawness of what he wanted was written on his face. Her beneath him, her atop him, her around him. Her with him. Her.
And more than that, he needed her.
She read need in his eyes, on his face, and it wasn’t just anybody he needed. It was her, Janina.
Janina caught her breath and rose unsteadily to stand between the bench and the table. He was coming for her. Not Maddie. Not Marg. Not anybody else who’d offered or thrown herself at him.
For her.
Only.
She saw the “only” written on his face, too, and stopped breathing. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She couldn’t…
And then he was there, leaning down to grab his beer, draining what remained of it before he cupped his palms beneath her elbows and carefully lifted her out of her prison to stand in front of him.
“Liquid courage,” he said regretfully. “I’ll be sober in the morning. If I don’t do everything I’ve always wanted to ask you to do now, I may never get around to it again. Okay?”
She swallowed. “Okay?” It came out as a question because nothing in her life could have prepared her for the way he made her feel.
He grinned. “It won’t hurt, I promise.”
She laughed nervously. A teenager if ever she’d been one. “I know. It’s just…I’ve never seen you…like this.”
He shrugged. “I’m never like this. Sober, I don’t know how. Drunk, I don’t usually know how either. Tonight’s different. You make it different. You make me want to be different. You make it special.”
A startled glow went through Janina. She blushed for the first time in what felt like forever. Maybe it was. “I— I don’t know what to say. That’s good. Thank you. Both of them. You—I—”
The oh-so-gentle tip of Russ’s forefinger touched her mouth quiet. “Dance with me?”
“Yes.”
The one word was like magic. Just that quickly the outside fell away, she was in his arms and the music and Russ’s heartbeat were the only things she heard, felt, knew. “When a Man Loves a Woman,” she thought the song was, but couldn’t be sure because the rhythm of her heart keeping time with Russ’s was what she moved to, the feel of his body against hers was all the cue she needed. His hand drifted upward through her hair, his head bent to hers, his tall, muscular body stooped low to accommodate her shorter height and much softer curves. “Perfect” was the only word that came to mind when any word did, and even that single word was a wisp of smoke in the fog of the moment.
“Janie.” His breath was warm, moist against her neck, his whisper disbelieving in her ear.
“I’m here, Russ.” Heedless of the protests in her right wrist and both hands, she reached her arms around him as far as they would go. To hold him, hold on to him. To make sure he was really there, too. “Neither one of us is dreaming. We’re both really here. Together.”
She felt him smile into her neck and fold her tighter into his embrace. “Good. My dreams are vivid, but I usually only imagine I can feel you, touch you, taste you, smell you.” He shifted his lower body uncomfortably and groaned.
She gasped and laughed softly when the same charge that beat through him coiled hard through her, pinching her breasts and spinning wildly, almost violently into her belly. Want, need, more, infinitely more—she’d never felt this before. And whatever it was, he made her feel it by just saying a few words.
“It’s okay, Russ. Me, too. My imagination is pretty vivid, too.”
He lifted his head slightly. “You’re hurt, it’s not okay.”
She kissed a spot as near the center of his chest as she could reach, nuzzled his jaw, brushed her cheek across his. “It is, trust me. I’m not that hurt. Really. Some bruises, a couple stitches, a mild sprain. Nothing to prevent us from what we both want. Together. Now let me take you home, okay? So I don’t have to worry about you.”
Hesitation was plain. “Janie, I don’t… I can’t—”
He stopped. He might be drunk, but he had self-imposed rules that wouldn’t be broken easily. Janina planned to break them all if she could.
“You can’t drive yourself, Russ,” Janina reminded him. “Jonah said you needed somewhere to spend the night. It was my long weekend even before Buddy tripped me, so I’m not working tomorrow.”
“Janie—” Again he said her name and stopped.
And capitulated.
“All right,” he agreed. Then his lips twitched and he offered her a rueful grin. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you, all right?”
“’Bout what?” Janina, reaching for her purse, looked back at him.
Russ picked up the remains of her beer, raised the mug to her in what was halfway between a salute and a silent apology, drained it and shrugged. “The drunk and relaxed man you take home with you tonight will not be the sober, somewhat anal man you wake up with in the morning.”
Janina laughed outright at him. “Russ, I know that man, too. I’ve seen him almost every day for thirteen years and I’ve wanted to take that man home with me longer than I’ve wanted the man I’m with tonight, so I don’t see the problem.”
“You might tomorrow,” Russ muttered darkly.
Janina
