I gave her a big, waggish grin.
Maggie laughed and blushed and grinned, and shit, she was so fuckin’ cute.
“No…no, I’ve never heard that said before. I guess I must be a really good friend.” She let something flirty infiltrate her voice.
I wanted to sink into it.
Slip inside.
Get lost.
Fuck.
I needed to rein myself in.
Hold myself back.
I was losin’ footing.
That high-wire I was balancing on was fraying fast.
I spun her again. Slowly this time, so out of time with the music, Maggie and I moving to our own beat. Pulling her back, I slipped an arm around her waist and murmured, “Good, good friends,” close to her cheek, wonderin’ if there was any point in hiding what she was doin’ to me.
What I was wanting.
This energy that quietly boomed. A thunder that grew.
I knew I couldn’t go there.
She was sweet and good and innocent and had been hurt enough, and the last fuckin’ thing I wanted was to be responsible for injuring her in any way.
Even if she was only looking for a good time, which was the one thing I was good for, I doubted very much the prudence of her having it with me.
Six months from now, we’d all be on Tybee Island to record. Royce would be there because he was married to our lead singer, Emily, and we were in talks with his band, A Riot of Roses, about doing some kind of collaboration, so they likely would be there, too.
Bottom line? Maggie would certainly be there, and gettin’ naked was probably the type of debris we didn’t need strewn between us.
Besides…fun didn’t make you feel like this.
Because she sighed and rested her cheek back on my chest. Though she curled her arms so tight around me there was no space left to separate us, like she was trying to find her way inside.
I didn’t think I could really hear the questions, I just felt the words that she muttered against my heart that was battering at my chest. “What do you really want, Rhys? Under it all? After the fame? After the music? After the money?”
I want to take it back.
I want to erase the pain.
I want to make it right.
Impossible.
So I gave her the next best thing. “I just want to enjoy each day. Make it better for the people around me.”
She tightened her hold, and she shifted to look up at me, her body tucked against mine.
So tight and hot.
All wrong and undeniably right.
And God, I was such a dirty fuck because my dick was hard and my breaths had gone shallow, fingers itchin’ to explore.
Feeling myself being drawn, I leaned closer.
Our noses touched.
Her sweet, seductive mouth parted, and her pulse ran wild.
Those eyes flared with a desire and an innocence that made me sure she was not to be toyed with.
Fuck.
I wanted to kiss her.
Devour her.
Show her that she was beautiful.
That she was to be cherished.
But I knew better than to go playin’ these games.
Knew better than touchin’ a treasure. One that the only thing I would ever do was turn around and taint.
Forcing myself from the haze of lust, I peeled myself from her sweet body and pinned on a casual smirk that was nothing but feigned. “Gotta piss.”
Classy.
But it was best if she took me for a thickheaded fuckwit who didn’t have any manners. There were probably about a thousand women scattered around the world who would attest to the fact, anyway.
Maggie frowned.
Yeah.
Felt like frowning, too.
I squeezed her shoulder like I was talking to a kid. “Why don’t you head back to the booth? I’ll be right back to settle the tab. Think we’d better call it a night. Get you tucked in.”
Awesome, Rhys. Lay it on thick.
“Sure. Yeah. Okay,” she mumbled, confused by the shift.
She went to chewin’ at her lip again, dropping her attention to her feet, and shit, I hated that she even thought for a second that I might want to reject whatever the hell this was, but I was doing her a favor.
“Be right back.” Before I went and did somethin’ stupid, I angled through the crowd and down the hall into the men’s restroom. Trying to get myself together.
To reiterate the five-fuckin’-thousand reasons I couldn’t touch her.
No, douchewad, a one-night stand with your friend’s little sister is not a brilliant idea. Might be the worst one you’ve ever had.
And believe me, I’d had plenty enough stupid ideas to last me a lifetime.
In the restroom, I went straight to the sink and splashed cold water onto my face, dragging in deep, steadying breaths. When I finally managed to get the raging need in check, I headed back out and down the hall.
I shouldered through the crowd that had grown tenfold since I’d gone to the restroom.
Bodies packed.
Greedy and wild.
A disorder on which I normally thrived but tonight suddenly had me feeling all wrong.
My chest grew tight.
My hands tingled.
I needed to get her out of there.
Away from me.
I should have listened to those warnings that had lit in my mind in the first place.
I pushed through the mob back toward the booth.
Nearly tripped when I broke through the crush and found some jagoff salivating all over her at our booth.
The girl sat there in the shadows while he leaned over the table and probably fed her some seedy line.
Rage hit me from out of nowhere.
A kick to the gut.
A twisted possession I had no right to feel.
That connection shivered and glittered and closed in at the edges of my sight.
I tried to swallow it down.
Wasn’t like she was a child. Wasn’t like she couldn’t make her own decisions.
But I couldn’t shake the sensation screaming at me that somethin’ just wasn’t right.
I scrubbed a hand over my face to curb the disorder that took to my spirit.
Relief filled Maggie’s expression when she saw me come up behind the prick who was still leering over her.
“Hey, baby, you ready to get out of here?” I let the claim bleed free like it was real. A demand for him to get lost and to do it fast.
I managed to keep my cool.
That was until I caught a glimpse of his profile.
Ice streaked down my spine.
Heart stalling.
Spirit sinking.
Fear.
Fury.
Agony.
All it took was one second for every fucking one of my ghosts to catch up to me.
Howling their warning of destruction.
Rage came bounding in behind it. No space for anythin’ rational when the only thing I wanted to do was choke him out and keep going until he had no chance of ever coming back up for air.
In the flash of a second, I had a hand locked at the back of his neck, my voice whispering murder up close to his ear, “What the fuck are you doin’ here?”
He shifted to look at me, just enough that I could see the smug smirk on his face, promising this little encounter wasn’t close to being by chance. “Just asking a pretty girl to dance. You got a problem with that?”
Knew he knew I’d broken the rules.
That I’d overstepped a boundary.
That he was there, searching for any way to make me pay. To tighten the chains that would forever bind me.
My teeth grated, and I fought the bile that rushed as memories surged. I struggled to beat it back, to take on the persona that I wore best, just an easy-go-lucky guy who didn’t give a fuck.