The Crush (9)

What a very surprising turn of events. The loneliness was long gone, the warmth of his arm underneath my fingers chasing it away until there wasn’t a single hint of it left.

To be truthful, I’d only felt butterflies a few times in my life. Handsome faces didn’t render me speechless, and I’d been around so many athletes—hell, two of my brothers played professional football—that it wasn’t like the mere sight of bulging biceps or a neatly stacked six-pack had me drooling.

Nick gave me butterflies the first time I met him. His bright-blue eyes and the deep dimples that bracketed his cocky smile.

And Emmett Ward had given me butterflies. For years, I’d felt those in his presence. Until I didn’t, because he left for something bigger and better than what I’d offered him when I asked him to give us a chance.

Butterflies hadn’t gotten me very far in my love life, all in all. One failed relationship after four years of commitment. And one bruised heart when my crush told me he was leaving and that he didn’t think of me that way. Didn’t see us that way.

But I felt the butterflies now.

Those fluttering wings gave a slight unsteady quality to my mood. I wasn’t sure exactly how I felt about their return.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.

It was the quiet way he asked it, an undercurrent of tension to his voice, that had my ribs feeling a little tight. Something about that voice tugged at the back of my head. But a shout of laughter from across the room pulled me away from following it.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding slowly. “I’m okay.”

“Good.” He glanced at the crowds of people milling around the expensive artwork and silent auction items. It was a glittering display, to be sure. The soaring ceilings of the museum should’ve made the gathering seem small and insignificant, but all the jewels and masks and opulent gowns had a way of making them seem bigger. Making them seem larger than life.

This was so far away from how I normally lived.

Every day was planned out with very few unknowns in my schedule. And when that schedule shifted, I could always pivot, see what might come next, and predict the outcome.

But I couldn’t have anticipated this. I glanced up, the firm outline of his lips a natural draw for my gaze. Couldn’t have anticipated him, whoever he was. I’d probably never see him again, and even though it wasn’t normally my style to find that appealing, I didn’t drop my hand from his arm.

“Do you have someone you have to return to?” I asked quietly.

His eyes locked on mine. That rib-squeezing thing happened again. “No.”

I smiled. “Me neither.”

“Should we tell someone about…?” He jerked his head back in the direction we’d just left.

I sighed. “And tell them what? A drunk guy offered me a thousand dollars for a glimpse down my dress?”

His entire frame—every tall, dark, mysterious inch of it—froze. “He did what?”

Oh. Okay. There was a dangerous, sharp edge to his voice, a tenor that hit my ears just exactly right. If I looked at my arms, I knew I’d see goose bumps. The simple way he changed his tone to something protective and outraged had me feeling a little hot underneath my very tight, very pretty dress.

See? Unsteady.

I didn’t feel like myself tonight. Like the normal, everyday version of Adaline Wilder. The unwaveringly dependable one who everyone called when they needed help and never lost her cool or had her feathers ruffled.

I liked being this mysterious, sexy woman who conjured the caveman instinct from a mysterious, sexy man, even if it was just for one evening.

And when my partner turned to return to where we’d left Dick the dick, I laid a hand on his chest. “No,” I told him. “Stay with me instead. I don’t want him to take any more of my time. There’s still”—I paused to find the words—“there’s still time to salvage it. I don’t get nights like this often.”

I was breathless when I stopped. His body relaxed under my hands, his broad chest expanding on a deep breath.

“Okay,” he said quietly.

Sagging with a relieved breath, I dropped my hand from his chest. What a very nice chest it was too.

“Thank you.”

“Do you feel like you can leave your weapon behind now?” he asked, a teasing lilt in his deep voice.

I exhaled a laugh. I set the bottle down on a small table against a wall. “I still have the knife in my bodice, so…we should be safe.”

His jaw clenched, but those dark eyes never strayed. Not even an inch. “Is that what he was trying to find?”

“Among other things.”

Mr. Mysterious let out a low, amused laugh. His eyes left my face, trained over my shoulder at a softly lit dance floor. “If I ask you to dance, will you promise to leave it sheathed?”

My surprised smile was slow, and it stayed small. But I nodded, giving him a wordless answer because I wasn’t sure I was capable of more.

Very little threw me off-kilter in life.

Everything that I could plan out, I did. In neat little bullet points in my planner, I had almost every minute accounted for.

Because it was my job to keep all those details straight and make sure everyone was taken care of.

But for some reason, this man asking me to dance caused a hairline crack in the foundation under my feet. And I felt the rumble of it, all the way up my spine.