She turned to look at him. Those eyes flashed. “You know, you’d think with that whole stage thing and you playin’ and lookin’ the way you do, the cheesy pick-up lines wouldn’t be necessary.”
He barked out a laugh.
Shit.
This girl.
So different. And he fuckin’ liked it.
He shifted around so he was facing her, one arm rested on the bar. His smirk deepened. “You’re right. Not normally necessary. But normally I don’t stumble into girls like you.”
That blush deepened and she seemed thankful to have someplace to turn her attention when the bartender set a pitcher of margaritas and four glasses in front of her.
“Let me get that. Can you add a Michelob on tap to it?” he asked, going for his wallet.
“Sure,” the bartender responded while Violet’s hand shot out to stop him from tossing cash onto the bar. “No. I don’t need you to buy me drinks.”
His brows shot to the sky. “I can’t buy you a drink?”
“Nope.”
“And why’s that?” Amusement danced around his mouth, his eyes drinking her in.
Fuck the beer.
He was pretty sure this girl was the only thing that could quench this thirst.
That violet stare raked over his arms, up his chest, until she was looking at his face, gaze sparking with something playful and real. “Because you’re going to buy me a drink and then you’re gonna think you can take me home. Then I’d have to go and disappoint you because that’s not going to happen.”
He edged in closer so he could whisper in her ear. He was slammed with a lungful of the girl.
Violets and color and dreams.
Infiltrating.
Invading.
In an instant, he was overcome with that intoxicating energy he’d sworn had zapped through the air the second she’d come into view.
What the fuck?
He tried to shake it off, the way she impacted him like she meant something.
“And what if I just wanna dance with the prettiest girl in the place?”
* * *
Music poured from the speakers, the dance floor packed, and lights strobed over them in time with the beat of the fast-paced country song.
Sensations flew, but the girl in his arms was the only thing he felt.
So soft. So right. Her spirit this palpable thing he swore danced around them. A vapor. Mist. Something faithful and right that he wanted to inhale.
It didn’t matter a ton of people were two-stepping around them.
He held her tight, her sleek body tucked close, the thunder of her heart pounding against his as he led her in the slowest dance.
He had one hand splayed over the small of her back and the other twisted in her sleek, shiny hair.
She sighed.
And this time, he did, he inhaled her, brushed his lips across hers, and he fell into the bliss of her kiss.
* * *
“God, you’re makin’ a liar out of me.” She whimpered the words as he pressed her against the door of his truck, kissing her with the madness she evoked.
Disorienting.
Dissolving him into something he’d never before been.
He nuzzled down the side of her face, breathing her in as he went, and kissed along the delicate column of her throat.
Her head rocked back, and her fingers fisted in his hair.
“And what kind of lies are you telling me? Because I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything so real in all my life.”
Darkness rained down from the heavens where they were behind his parents’ house where he was staying the next two nights while Carolina George was passing through town. He’d pulled his truck around the back and parked in front of the stables and his father’s workshop.
Where it was secluded.
Private.
Quiet.
Where it was just the pants of their breaths and the thunder of their hearts.
They’d talked for hours outside the bar and then had ended up there, neither of them ready to let go.
Gripped by the connection that stretched tight between them. Strangers who’d known each other all along.
A slash of moonlight filtered through the deep, dense sky, and bugs trilled in the trees that whooshed in the slight breeze.
It did nothing to quell the flames that consumed.
Her fingers dragged down the back of his neck, girl eliciting tremors of lust that rocked through his body. “This. You and me. Here, together. I told you I wasn’t goin’ home with you. My sister is never gonna let me live this down.”
“Uh…didn’t she go home with our drummer?” he murmured, his face buried in the flesh of her chest that he devoured.
“Well, she’s usually a whole lot more adventurous than me.”
A smirk pulled to his mouth as he kissed back up her throat and made a path in the direction of that delirium-inducing mouth.
“I disagree,” he rumbled.
“You’d be wrong,” she whispered back.
He was sure he’d never felt so drunk.
Entranced.
Mesmerized.
“You want me to take you home?” he grumbled.
Violet moaned as he nipped at her lip. “I should, but I don’t. Not even a little bit.”
“Good. Might die if you did.” It was a chuckle of amusement when he said it, and she was giggling as he pulled her from his truck, swung her around, and hoisted her into his arms.
On a tiny squeal, she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. “Where are you takin’ me?”
“Where I can show you how fuckin’ beautiful you are.”
He stared up at her as he carried her toward the stables.
Awed.
Sure he’d never felt quite like this.
A soft smile graced her mouth, her lips plump and moistened from his kiss, those eyes doing those crazy things that hit him like a punch to the chest.
Like every time this girl looked at him it cracked something open in the middle of him. Making room for something he’d never anticipated.
Moonlight poured around her head and cast her in a milky glow.
Girl a light in the middle of the night.
Colors and hope blossoming to life.
A moonflower.
“You are the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen.”
Even in the dark, he could see the bloom of color flush her chest and climb to her cheeks, and she chewed at her bottom lip. “You
