“Kind of?” he growled. “I will never, in a million years, figure out why you continue to fall for the wrong type of guy, over and over again.”
Probably something to do with the fact that the right guy, the guy she really wanted to be with, was off-limits. No matter how hard she tried, no other man lived up to Steven. They all came up short, in the end. So she’d stopped trying to find the right guy, and had fun with the wrong ones instead. “You know me.”
“Yeah.” Frowning down at her, he flexed his jaw. “I do.”
They fell silent, and the air between them became charged. She couldn’t figure out why, or how, but something was different tonight. Something in him. “Are you okay?”
His brows lowered, and his hand slid across her lower back. As it did so, he stepped closer, his nostrils flaring. Again, the touch felt as if he laid some sort of outdated claim over her. “Why would you ask me that?”
“You’re acting…different.” And it was messing with her head. Making her see things she had no right to. “Are you drunk again?”
“No.”
“Okay…” She licked her lips. “Good.”
“You’re not going to start in on me, too, are you?” He leaned over her, placing his lips a breath away from her ear. “If you are, your love life is fair game to me, too. And I got a hell of a lot to say about that.”
She swallowed hard and breathed in. His cologne filled her senses, awakening things that had long since been asleep. “Like what?”
Resting his chin on top of her head, he shrugged. “Like how you keep dating jerks, and how it’s time you realized your self-worth. You deserve better.”
The way he said that, all conviction and passion, made her heart skip a beat. It always did. He’d always been her best advocate, which just might be the worst thing. It was why she had yet to find a man who could live up to the standards he’d set back in fourth grade when he’d given her his only pencil in math class, so she wouldn’t get in trouble for forgetting hers for the millionth time in a row.
She’d been screwed from that moment on.
“One could say the same of you,” she argued, holding his hand tightly. “You deserve more than a one-night stand, and a thank-you pat on the butt in the morning.”
Pulling back, he grinned in that lighthearted manner he always did. But he wasn’t fooling her. She could see right through the bright veneer, and into the shadowy darkness he hid with jokes and charm. “I assure you that I deserve exactly what I’m getting.”
His tone was joking, but his words weren’t. He had it in his head that he was this horrible, bad guy, when he was the furthest thing from that. He was loyal, brave, kind, and selfless, but he was too damn stubborn to see, or admit, that.
She pressed her lips together. “Well, actually—”
He spun her in a circle without warning, pulled her into his chest, and grinned down at her when she clung to him, letting out a yelp. “Watch yourself, Brixton. Life loves to throw you for loops like that.”
She hung on to his arm. “Or your best friend does.”
“Exactly.” He hugged her close, swaying to the music again. For the first time all night, he acted like himself. Like the “him” he was before he came home from war and took the position at Shillings Agency. “I’m a sick bastard like that.”
“No kidding,” she muttered. The song ended, and she went to move out of his arms. When he didn’t let go of her, she looked at him in confusion. “What are you doing? Your boss saw you out here, so your obligatory dance is over.”
His grin widened. “Let’s dance again. I don’t want to talk to anyone tonight, and I’m having fun.”
“You’re talking to me.” She curled a hand behind his neck, the motion as natural as breathing or blinking. “Right now.”
“Oh, cupcake.” He locked gazes with her. “You don’t count.”
She tilted her head to the side. “I’m not sure whether to be insulted, or honored.”
“Depends how you look at it, I suppose.” He ran his thumb over the back of her hand. “Hey. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
“Brian.” He looked at her again, and this time, it was as if he saw right through her. “Are you upset?”
She shook her head, not breaking contact. Brian was nothing. She didn’t care that he was gone, or that it was over. The only man who mattered to her was in her arms right now. “Of course. He was…he was just a distraction.”
“From?”