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She didn’t want that for herself. Would do just about anything to avoid the agony of losing their respect. Losing her own respect.
“So you do. Do you think these people have never sinned?”
“Of course I don’t.”
“Then why do you have to be perfect?”
“I’m not.”
He stopped. In the middle of the dance floor. His arms tightened, leaning her off center. His gaze bored into hers, searching for something. She couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want to.
Her lips parted anyway, trying to pull more oxygen into her lungs. He made a sound deep in the back of his throat. His body loomed over hers, dangerous and tempting.
And then he was kissing her.
There was no easing into the moment, not with him. He devoured her, his mouth hard and demanding. She couldn’t say no. Didn’t really want to. The undertow of sensation pulled at her, blocking out every other thing.
Willow’s eyes closed. The bank of revolving lights flashed colors across her lids. And she held on. It was the only thing she could do.
Heat and need twisted through her, sharp and unexpected. She didn’t know what to do with it. His tongue slipped in, sliding deliciously against her own. The texture and taste of him was extreme. He’d sampled the cheap champagne someone had provided, fruity and sharp, but underneath he was rugged and robust.
Tearing away, Dev pulled her upright. The room spun lazily as she tried to get her bearings.
She blinked up at him. And then blinked again. Her hands clung to his shoulders, holding tight for fear that if she let go she’d topple to the ground.
“Why’d you do that?” she asked breathlessly.
“Because I could. Because I enjoy making a stir.” His deep blue eyes flashed dangerously. “Because I would have kicked myself if I let you go without knowing how your mouth tasted.”
No one had ever said anything that...sensual to her. “Holy hell.”
The startled sound of his laughter burst between them.
Had she said that out loud?
Willow stared at him, surprised by his reaction. She wanted to see his face. To know what his laughter looked like. Would it lighten the shadows cast by more than the mask covering him?
Wrapping his arms around her shoulders, Dev pulled her tight to his body. The embrace had none of the underlying currents of sensuality and need from moments before. It was easy and let her relax.
“Thank you,” he said, his mouth buried against the feathers of her mask.
“For what?”
“For giving me a moment to remember in the middle of all this. I didn’t expect that when I arrived tonight. Didn’t expect you.”
Willow wasn’t entirely certain what to make of that. “You’re welcome?”
Spinning her once more and setting her off center, he asked, “Do you want to leave?”
Without hesitating, Willow answered, “Yes.” This man with the dark blue eyes and red-silk mask was precisely what she’d been looking for when she’d dressed tonight.
It was finally her turn to sin.
* * *
FROM ACROSS THE room Dev watched Willow Portis as she spoke to a woman in a halfhearted cat costume. The two women couldn’t have been more different. Willow was long and slender. Not even her blatant attempts at the sexy costume could hide her inherent elegance. Her movements were deliberate, not a single motion wasted.
He shouldn’t have been surprised to find her at the masquerade, but he was. Maybe because he knew her sister and parents had moved away from Sweetheart. He’d always imagined her living somewhere else, with the perfect life.
From the moment he’d walked into the party she’d drawn his gaze. His, and that of every red-blooded male in the room. When he’d first approached her it had simply been because he was attracted and interested in learning more about the woman beneath the sexy dress and virginal angel wings.
He should have known who she was the moment he touched her, but it hadn’t been until she told him her name that realization—and long-forgotten memories—flooded in.
Part of him wondered just how long it would take her to recognize him. How far was she willing to go with this? And would she push him away when she figured it out or take the opportunity to finish what they’d started ten years ago?
Would she still hate him? Blame him? Or would time have blunted the misplaced sense of betrayal?
Some perverse place deep inside him wanted to know...what had her life become? Why was she here tonight alone? How had she spent the past ten years? And was she happy?
Even as he realized he should probably walk away from her, he couldn’t make himself do it. Just as before. From the moment he’d met her, there’d been something about Willow that had drawn him in. Made him want things he knew he couldn’t have.
Her sweet and haughty demeanor was a dichotomy that had intrigued him from the moment Rose had introduced them. Even back then he’d wanted to ruffle her feathers, to make her cool skin pink with a blush of innocence.
Until Willow, he hadn’t known innocence still existed. Dealing with his mother’s alternating rampages and drug-induced bouts of euphoria had stolen his innocence long before he’d come to Sweetheart.
She’d been seventeen to his twenty. And though he’d known he should leave her alone, he hadn’t been able to do it. Every time she was close, the need to fluster her was overwhelming. He’d push into her personal space and watch as her body reacted to him—as he knew she didn’t want it to.
Just like everyone else in Sweetheart, she was a bit condescending. But that had only made him want her more. To prove that she was no better than anyone else...no better than him.
He’d convinced himself Willow Portis was a challenge, a puzzle he wanted to crack. But it had been more than that. He’d needed to understand. And maybe let her innocence touch him so that he could feel it again just for a little while.
And after months of effort, he’d finally started to win her over. He’d even begun to think that she saw more to him than the rest of the world did—more than the hopeless son of a convicted felon and a drug addict.
Then the debacle with her sister had hit, and everything had gone to hell.
The way she’d looked at him, her eyes filled with betrayal instead of the soft hope he’d come to expect, had hurt more than anything else.
Until she’d been in his arms tonight Dev had honestly thought he’d left the past far behind. But perhaps there was one last thing he had to deal with....
He still wanted Willow with a need so sharp it ground into his bones. Maybe, just maybe, tonight would give him the chance to exorcise those ghosts for good.
“Wick.”
The small voice, old nickname and arms flung around his chest startled him. He stumbled back, taking the weight of the woman who’d launched herself at him as if she were an air-hockey puck.
“Erica,” she said, burying her face into his shoulder. “Erica Condon.” Then she pulled away again, staring up at him with hero worship in her eyes. It made him uncomfortable. “What are you doing here? I didn’t realize you were back in town.”
Dev threw a hasty glance around the room, grateful that everyone appeared too preoccupied to pay attention. He wasn’t ready for his cover to be blown. Not yet. Not when things were just getting interesting.
How the heck had this woman recognized him when Willow hadn’t?
Wrapping a hand around her upper arm, he dragged her deeper into the shadows close to the door.
Gently, he disentangled their bodies, putting several inches between them. “Look, I have no idea who you are.” Maybe if her costume hadn’t been so distracting and unflatteringly psychedelic...
Hurt and surprise washed across her face making him feel guilty. Trying to blunt the harshness of his words, he offered her a smile. “I’d like to keep my presence quiet, at least for tonight.”
She nodded eagerly. And that’s when recognition hit. She’d been Rose’s best friend. He’d never understood what had drawn the two girls together. Erica had been short, quiet and shy. Rose was gregarious and effervescent. On the surface, the two didn’t match. Secretly Dev had always thought Erica’s eagerness to please had been why Rose kept her around.
She hadn’t fit into the crowd he and Rose had run with. They’d all been wild and adventurous. Erica had been the quiet girl that everyone sort of ignored. Dev cringed, feeling guilty for the way he’d dismissed her when he was younger.
That guilt might have kept him talking with her, but when he glanced away to find Willow walking through the crowd toward them everything else faded away. She was dynamically gorgeous. His body hardened with the immediate need to touch her. To taste her. To know her in a way he’d been denied before.
The tight cut of her dress left her little choice but to take measured steps, constricting her movements and giving him a perfect view of her sinuous body as she moved.
Several men turned to watch her cut through the crowd. Dev recognized the heat and purpose deep in their eyes, knew his own burned with the same appreciation. An unbidden growl rolled through his chest. Tossing some random words over his shoulder, he left Erica gape-mouthed and headed straight for Willow.
No one else was getting close to her. Tonight, she was his. Finally.
He understood the gazes she drew, like iron filings to a magnet, the force of her unavoidable. The need to kiss her again, right here, right now, in front of every other male, broke deep inside. He resisted. Not only wouldn’t it matter, but Willow wouldn’t appreciate a repeat performance of the public display.
She was still a walking contradiction.
The dress labeled her a siren. But the way her body had trembled when he’d pulled her close to dance, her wary expression and the hesitation in her touch told him a different story.
Her sister’s lies had taken everything from him—including Willow. He’d worked for years to rebuild his life and feel comfortable in his own skin.
She stopped in front of him, staring up through inky-black lashes and blue eyes that were bright and deep. The skin of her shoulders, left bare by her dress, was milky-white and perfectly matched the feathers that arched from either side of her shoulder blades.
He wanted to touch, to run the pad of his finger across her skin to see if it was as smooth and delicate as it looked.
But he didn’t.
The enticing pink tip of her tongue darted out to nervously wet her bottom lip.
“Take me to bed.”
The mask shielded some of her expression, so he couldn’t tell if she was as surprised by her own proposition as he was. That was not what he’d expected to come out of her mouth. He’d actually been waiting for an excuse, for her to come to her senses and realize the danger of what she was doing.
Did she already know who he was? Was she taking advantage of the opportunity fate had plopped into their laps?
“If you want to, that is.” Her voice quivered.
“I’d be an idiot if I didn’t.” Something, possibly the integrity he’d fought hard to rediscover, made him ask, “Are you sure?”
She swallowed and took a single step closer. Slowly, her gaze rolled up to his. Her chin followed until she was looking him square in the eye.
The impact of her stare hit him like a fist. What he saw made every muscle in his body tighten. Pure, unadulterated hunger. It called to him. It stirred something deep inside that had been dormant for years.
“I haven’t been this sure about anything in a long while.”
3
NERVES CHURNED IN Willow’s belly. Ensconced in her own car, the red pickup keeping pace behind her, she had plenty of opportunity to second-guess herself. Maybe she should tell Dev she’d changed her mind.
But the moment they arrived at her home and he stepped from the large red truck, she couldn’t find the words.
Instead she blurted out, “That’s not what I expected,” nodding to the intimidating vehicle behind him.
Heavy lids slid down over glowing blue eyes. The left side of his mouth quirked up into a half smile. He stalked closer. “What were you expecting?”
Reaching for the lapels of his suit, Willow let her fingers run up and down the expensive material. It was soft against her skin. She loved the subtle texture of it. Touching it settled her as nothing else probably could have.
She looked up into his shrouded eyes, still obscured by the mask he was wearing, and the butterflies that had taken up residence in her stomach disappeared. She wanted this. She wanted him.
For once she was going to be daring and take what she wanted. Tomorrow would be soon enough to worry about the aftermath.
“Something low and sleek. Fast. Dangerous. Gunmetal-gray, like your tie.” She let her hand slip down the silky line before tugging at the knot to loosen it.
“What an imagination you have. This is a costume. That—” he gestured negligently behind him at the hulking red truck parked in her driveway “—is real.”
Her fingers trailed over the cut of his suit. “This is no costume. I know expensive hand tailoring when I see it.”
She watched as a sheepish grin touched his lips. “All right, I do have a Jag sitting in the garage at home. But it’s also red, so I don’t think that counts.”
“Oh, it counts.” She touched the mask covering his face and then glanced at the truck. “Have a thing for red, do you?”
He ran a finger down her hair. Tingles shattered across her scalp. “Maybe.”
Trusting he would follow, Willow walked into her home. Leaving the door open, she dropped her clutch on the table by the door and threw her keys into the bowl she kept there. The soft click of the lock catching sent a jolt of need through her.
She closed her eyes for a brief moment. His fingers slipped down the curve of her neck. Her skin pebbled in response to his caress.
“Would you like a glass of wine?” Did she want him to say yes or did she want him to say no?
“What I want is you.” His voice was close, closer than she’d expected. “To kiss you here.” His fingers trailed across her shoulders. “And here.” His touch continued down her spine. Not even the barrier of her dress could prevent the heat of him from seeping deep inside.
His arm circled her body, pulling her tight against him. Her back pressed into his chest. Her head fell against his shoulder. Feathers arced out from between them, tickling her cheek.
He drew a line down the center of her body, through the valley between her breasts, across her stomach and to the juncture of her thighs. “And here. I want to know the sound you make when you let go. I want the taste of you on my tongue.”
“Yes,” she breathed out. She’d never wanted anything more.
Dev took a step back. She felt the loss of him immediately. She tried to turn, but the weight of his hands on her shoulders held her in place.
Gently, he found the complicated laces that connected her wings to the dress. She’d built loops into the back panel to keep them from drooping.
Willow hadn’t realized the weight of them until they were gone. It was a relief. Several of the feathers escaped, fluttering to the floor around them.
