They’d just finished their third game of pool. Emery was terrible at darts and not much better at billiards. She admitted she hadn’t played either game very often, so Dallas hadn’t been surprised. She was a career girl. He couldn’t see her spending much time hanging out in bars or billiard halls. But she was his partner, which meant Gavin and Eli slaughtered them the first two games. The third game, Dallas managed to play better than he’d ever played in his life—and his brothers probably weren’t competing very hard—so he managed to pull out a win. They were going to try beer pong next. But he could tell Emery was slightly reluctant to go over to that corner of the bar, where there were a lot more people.
He was tempted to take her hand, to offer some support and reassurance. But after Thursday, things were different between them. He was careful not to touch her, and he could tell she was being careful not to touch him. They had to get back to where they’d been before they let their relationship turn physical. Otherwise, he was afraid it would destroy Emery’s recovery. He was beginning to understand that it could mess him up, too, although he wasn’t entirely sure how or why.
“I’ll buy the drinks,” Eli announced, and Dallas didn’t argue. Eli and Gavin had lost; they were supposed to buy. Dallas had picked up the first round and Emery the second.
“I’ll be right back,” he told Emery and Gavin and took a bathroom break while Eli went to the bar.
He expected all three of them to be waiting when he returned, but only Eli and Gavin were there, lounging against the wall, talking and drinking a beer. “Where’s Emery?” he asked.
Eli angled his head toward the dance floor, and Dallas followed his line of sight to find her in the arms of some big, bulky dude he’d never met before. “Who’s that?”
“Beats me,” Eli replied. “Came up and asked her to dance.”
Dallas told himself he didn’t mind seeing her with another guy. Why would he? He was glad she felt safe enough to get out there. They were only dancing, anyway. It wasn’t as though that would make him jealous even if they were a couple.
But when he found his gaze migrating back to the two of them again and again, that tingle of awareness—that sense that she might mean trouble for him in some way—ran through him again. Could it be that Thursday night had meant more to him than it should have?
“How long is this song?” he suddenly blurted out.
Gavin and Eli blinked at him. Only then did he realize he’d interrupted a conversation he’d been pretending to listen to.
“Why are you in such a hurry for it to be over?” Gavin asked.
Dallas scowled to cover the gaffe. “I just... I thought we were going over to play beer pong.”
His response sounded weak, even to his own ears.
“There’s still plenty of time for that,” Eli said. “What’s the rush?”
“There isn’t one,” he mumbled. After that he didn’t dare show any impatience for fear his brothers might misconstrue his concern.
The song finally ended, but another one started and Emery remained on the dance floor. It was really starting to bug Dallas because the guy she was dancing with kept pulling her up against him, and she’d have to readjust their relative positions, over and over, to get more space. Then he saw her break away as if she’d been patient long enough, and the dude grabbed her arm and whipped her back around to face him as though he wouldn’t let her leave.
A murmur rippled through those who’d noticed, and other people began to stare as it became apparent they were having a problem.
Dallas stalked over. “Something wrong?”
The guy’s head swung toward him like a bull spotting a red cape. “Nothing that’s any of your business,” he said with a sneer.
Dallas sized him up in an effort to determine, if this situation escalated, whether he’d be a real threat. Young, maybe twenty-two, he was about six foot four, two hundred and twenty pounds, and he had broad shoulders, massive biceps and beefy hands. He obviously spent lots of time pumping iron, which was probably why he thought he could be an asshole and get away with it.
He was also drunk.
“How do you know whether it’s my business or not?” Dallas asked.
“Because I wasn’t talking to you—I was talking to her.” He still had a hand clamped around Emery’s wrist. “And like I was trying to tell her, I didn’t mean to make her mad. I thought she was hot in that video. Hot’s a compliment, right?”
“That isn’t what you said.” Emery’s face was flushed, her jaw clenched. “At least not all of it.”
“You mean the part about your tits?” he said, starting to laugh. “Aw, man, come on! That was a compliment, too.”
“Let her go,” Dallas said.
“You stay out of it!” the guy snapped. “I’m trying to apologize to my famous partner here so we can finish our dance.”
Dallas lowered his voice to make it clear he wasn’t messing around. “I said let her go.”
“Dallas, it’s okay.” Emery glanced worriedly between them. “I don’t want to drag you into this. I’ll just... I’ll finish the dance. He apologized.”
“See?” The way the guy jutted out his chin acted as an exclamation point. “There’s no reason for you to get involved.”
They were making a scene, and Dallas knew she wouldn’t want that. But he’d brought her here, and he wasn’t about to let anything go wrong after she dared take the risk of coming with him. “You don’t have to dance with this drunken prick if you don’t want to,” he told her, and took her arm to lead her off the floor.
Eli and Gavin were both hurrying over as a large hand gripped Dallas’s shoulder. He
