“Does that surprise you?”
“Yes. I thought a man like you would step on my toes and lose his rhythm, but you’re quite good.”
His face stretched into a quick smile, there and gone at her compliment. Handsome and a good dancer, and Ana the Mystery was giving him all the compliments a man like him never thought he’d hear. He would reward her kindness with an explanation.
“My mom taught me to dance.”
Surprise flitted across her face, and her full lips molded into a smile that stole his breath from his chest. “I didn’t know that.”
What a strange thing to say. Of course she didn’t know that. She didn’t know him.
“I was seven. She taught me in our living room and told me, “To make a fine man someday, you need to learn to dance with a woman.” To hold her proper and gentle, as a real man ought. That part had been meant for Dad, who sat at the table and glared at their lesson. Mom loved to dance to an old record player in the living room. Dad never had danced with Mom that Easton had seen.
“She was lovely. I mean…she sounds lovely.” Ana’s breath shook harder as she stepped closer to him and rested her cheek as light as a paintbrush stroke against his chest.
She would hear it now. Ana would hear how hard his heart was beating just being this close to her. He should pull away. Hide. But when he looked at the exit, Willa was standing in front of it with her finger jammed at him, shaking her head. Fuck.
At least Ana hadn’t asked what happened to Mom. He liked the tiny human more for it. She wasn’t digging too deep as he’d seen the other shifter groupies try to do when the Boarlanders were at Sammy’s trying to get their dicks stroked. So many questions. Ana didn’t do that, though. Ana was nice and gentle.
Why was his bear still so quiet?
“Where did you learn to dance?” he asked, just to distract her from his heartbeat battering her face right now.
“Not from my parents. When we moved to Rapid City, I went to public school for the first time. There was this school dance, and I was so nervous. I’d been homeschooled all my life, and there were so many kids it was intimidating.” Her voice shook on every word, but it was getting stronger. “A boy in my class asked me to dance. It was very stiff and scary, but he showed me what to do. And afterward I felt accomplished and brave.”
He didn’t like thinking about her dancing with anyone else. Which was stupid and territorial, and he had no right to get possessive over her. Ana wasn’t his. Still, he rested his chin on her head so she wouldn’t see him curl up his lip in a snarl for the boy who had asked her to dance.
Something strange was happening. Ana stopped shaking, and she went all warm and soft in his arms. She stepped even closer, pressing her body flush against his. Vanilla. Her hair was silk against the rasp of his beard. Such a contrast to him. Good Ana. Bad Beaston. Another song came on. Another slow one. Gia was controlling the jukebox now and threw a middle finger at one of Kong’s lowlanders for complaining. Was Willa crying? No, couldn’t be. Just a trick of the lights playing with his eyes. Ana felt so good against him, but now that she was so close, she’d feel how excited he was. How could she not? His dick was hard as a rock between them.
“I have a boner.” Perfect. That would set the mood. Idiot.
“For me?” Ana asked. Was that hope in her voice? She looked up with those ensnaring eyes.
God damn, she felt good pressed up against his dick like this. “That was supposed to scare you away.”
“It doesn’t. I like that you say what you mean.”
He liked that about her, too. Honest notes in all her words and shit, she felt good. Good, good, good. Ana, his Ana. He wanted her under him, on top of him. Fuck.
“I have to go,” he murmured. A deep frown hurt his face. He didn’t want to leave her, but she was as fragile as a dry leaf, and he wasn’t the beast for her. Quiet bear, where are you? The lights were too bright in here.
“Okay,” she said, disappointment pooling in her big, blue eyes.
His guts hurt. He’d done that, disappointed her, but it was best this way, leaving now. He would only disappoint her more if she knew how fucked up he really was.
Bowing, he kissed her hand like mom had taught him, then he strode for the door and past Willa whose sad eyes matched Ana’s.
Don’t look back.
He blasted through the door and out into the dusty, gravel parking lot.
He turned and glared at the door as it swung closed behind him. A long growl rattled his chest, and there he was—the beast in his middle.
Every step Easton took away from the bar hurt, but he forced himself to walk to Jason’s truck and dropped the tailgate. He sat on it and looked at the stars. If he was lucky, the others would be headed out here now to go back to the Grayland Mobile Park with him.