A helpless grin spread across her face. Dammit to hell, he made her feel just like Cinderella at the ball.
But just like Cinderella, it was all an illusion. Eventually, midnight would strike, her coach would turn into a pumpkin, her clothes would turn to rags, and she’d go back to cleaning the cinders.
The first time you kiss your soul mate is like an earthquake, wiping out everything you thought you knew about yourself.
—MILLIE GREENWOOD
F
or four and a half minutes, Cinderella enjoyed the ball as Enrique crooned “Hero.”
Who wouldn’t enjoy being chest to chest with a handsome, sexy, virile man? A man who was staring her right in the eyes as if she was the only woman on the face of the earth. A man who, in that moment, took away all the pain she had ever felt. A man who made time stand still.
It was the most wondrous moment of her life. Something inside Natalie broke loose and she simply gave way and let it all happen.
His hands slipped from her waist to her hips. The scent of his cologne filled her nostrils, along with something more—the sexy smell of male skin, all soap and leather.
Enrique pleaded for her to let him be her hero. She did not need Enrique. She had Dade.
They swayed together, barely moving. Natalie rested her outstretched hands on his shoulders, mesmerized by his piercing gaze. One of his hands started a slow journey up her spine, drawing a soft, deep sigh from her lungs, followed by a sharp intake of air as his fingers traced the nape of her neck. Fingers both powerful and gentle. He lowered his head.
She tipped her chin up, daring him to kiss her.
He did not.
Please, she thought.
Please.
Her body trembled. She felt boneless. Light-headed. Overcome with unfamiliar passion, completely taken off guard.
She reached up to run her fingers over his jaw, lightly stubbled with beard.
A one-sided smile quirked the corner of his mouth and he leaned closer.
He was going to do it. He was going to kiss her!
Natalie stopped breathing. Excitement saturated her every nerve cell.
He tipped his cowboy hat far back on his head and rested his forehead against hers.
The pressure was exquisitely sweet, the joining strange and erotic and intriguingly novel. His forehead was on hers, their eyes drilling into each other. They were barely moving now, in the center of the dance floor as other couples waltzed around them.
“Natalie.” His voice was husky.
She stared at his mouth, and a muted, tremulous whimper escaped her lips. “Yes?”
He lowered his eyelids and his pupils dilated. “I feel I should warn you,” he said.
“About what?”
“Me.”
Hot adrenaline spread through her body, mingled with the alcohol from the appletini, left her feeling both jittery and wrung out. “What about you?”
“I’m no hero.”
“That’s good,” she said breathlessly. “Because I don’t need rescuing. I can take care of myself.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “I’m not the man for you.”
“As if I wanted you,” she scoffed.
His eyes darkened, glittered. “You want me.”
“Arrogant.”
“I want you too, but it’s not a good idea.”
“Agreed,” she said, incensed. Who did this guy think he was?
Dade released her easily. Natalie stepped back from him, her mind a crazy jumble.
Enrique stopped singing—thank God—in fact, the music shut off completely as the lights in the bar brightened.
“Boo,” complained many patrons, as if they were vampires, their demise hastened by light.
“Don’t dis me,” Zoey said from behind the bar, her hand on the light switch rheostat. “It’s time for the Life Saver relay.”
That brought cheers from the crowd.
Disoriented, Natalie made her way to her table. She didn’t look back at Dade, but his words rang in her ears.
I’m not the man for you.
She already knew that. Why, then, did she feel so
rejected
?
Zoey held up a roll of Life Saver candies and a box of toothpicks. “I’m going to explain the rules for those who’ve never played. Everyone who wants to play gets a toothpick.” She opened up the box. “Come and get one.”
Natalie was too confused to play. Plus, she didn’t want to have to get up and walk to the bar. Her knees wobbled like homemade jelly that hadn’t set.
She told herself she was not going to look around to see where Dade had gone, but something compelled her to turn her head and take a peek. He’d moved to the back of the room, stood against the wall, arms folded, cowboy hat now tipped low over his forehead, his eyes zeroed in on her.
Gulp!
Overwhelmed, she jerked her gaze back to the bar where Zoey, surrounded on all sides by men, slipped a Life Saver onto her toothpick. Her sister attracted men like bees to blossoms.
“Listen up, people,” Zoey went on. She loved being the center of attention. “Here’s how it works. You hold the toothpick between your teeth. One person has a Life Saver on the toothpick and chooses someone to pass the candy to. You have to keep your hands clutched behind your back. If your hands come forward, you’re disqualified and you have to buy drinks for all the people who’ve preceded you in the relay.”
That brought another cheer from the crowd.
“If you drop the Life Saver, you’re disqualified and then once again you have to buy a round of drinks for all the people who came before you. In the case where someone drops a Life Saver, the person who successfully passed the last Life Saver must pass a new one to another partner.”
“Woot! Woot!”
“Each person can only have the Life Saver passed to them one time. You can refuse to accept the Life Saver from the person who wants to pass it to you, but you’re allowed only one refusal.”
People were cutting their eyes at each other, grinning and signaling
I’m picking you
or ducking their heads and looking away.
“The relay starts when the music starts and ends when the music ends and the last person left with the Life Saver has to kiss the person who passed it to them. On the dance floor, for everyone to see, and since many of us are related, if you don’t want to kiss your cousin, you better be careful who you choose to pass the Life Saver to.”
This brought a chuckle from the crowd.
Zoey tilted her head back, stuck the toothpick that the Life Saver was on between her teeth, and signaled to Jasper Grass, who stood beside the jukebox.
Jasper counted off, “Three . . . two . . . one . . .” and put “Cupid” on to play again, but this time it was an elongated, disco-ized version, and yelled, “Go!”
With her hands behind her back, Zoey sidled up to the closest cute guy. He grinned at her and with a toothpick clutched between his teeth and hands behind his back, sank to his knees while Zoey wriggled into position so that the guy could transfer the Life Saver from her toothpick to his.
Amid much giggling, speculation, and taunting chants of “Drop it, drop it,” the guy passed the Life Saver on to a woman whom Natalie had gone to high school with. That woman tried to pass it on to Calvin, who was off duty and sitting with his fiancée, Maria. Maria glowered at the woman as Calvin laughed and waved the woman away.
The woman shrugged and passed the Life Saver to Maria instead, who then passed it on to Calvin.
Calvin looked around for someone to pass the Life Saver to, but Maria was glaring so possessively that all the women in the bar shied from Calvin’s gaze and he ended up passing the Life Saver to another guy, who promptly dropped the Life Saver and had to buy drinks for everyone who’d already passed the Life Saver along to him, and Calvin had to find a new partner to pass the Life Saver to.
Natalie was enjoying watching the whole thing play out and she was feeling pretty safe from being picked—the “Cupid” song was almost over—when the pink-haired girl passed the Life Saver to Dade.
He didn’t refuse her.
Jealousy pushed through Natalie as she watched the girl wriggle and giggle as Dade took off his cowboy hat and set it on a table. Then he maneuvered his body down low enough, limbo style, so that she could pass him the candy.
Natalie gritted her teeth. Now she knew how Maria felt.
Once the Life Saver handoff was successful, Dade straightened, the toothpick with the dangling candy clutched firmly between his teeth. With his hands clasped behind his back, he came straight toward her.
Natalie prayed,
Please let the song end. Please let the song end.
Um, maybe not.
If the song ends before he gets to you, he’ll have to kiss Pink Hair.
Which was probably Pink Hair’s objective.
Keep going, song. Keep going.
Then there he was at her table, smelling like lightning and trouble.
She could refuse him. She should refuse him. Especially since he’d just told her that he wasn’t the man for her, but if she refused him he’d have to kiss Pink Hair.
The final strains of “Cupid” were spilling from the jukebox.
“I don’t have a tooth—” Before she could finish, Zoey was beside her, toothpick in her hand.
Dade grinned.
Natalie stood up, took the toothpick from Zoey, and settled it between her teeth.
Dade leaned over her.
“Hands behind your back,” Zoey cautioned.
Natalie tucked her hands behind her back and manipulated the toothpick with her tongue. She could feel Dade’s warm, minty breath against her skin and smell the flavor of the Life Saver.
Pineapple.
The crowd was making catcalls, but Natalie heard none of it. Her mind was on one thing and one thing only.
Dade’s lips.
Her wanton disregard for the people around them alarmed her, but try as she might, she could not rein herself. She tilted her head back, exposing her throat to him, open, vulnerable, waiting.
He hovered, nerves of steel, holding the toothpick steady but not allowing the Life Saver to slip down. Not yet.
She realized why he was hesitating. He was stalling so she wouldn’t have the chance to pass the Life Saver off to someone else before the song ended. He was controlling the timing so that she would have to kiss him.
It was so frustrating to have to keep her hands behind her back when all she wanted to do was thread her fingers through his lush head of thick hair slightly creased from the imprint of his hat. Had a man ever looked so gorgeous?
But what really took her breath away was the way he was looking at her. As if she was a sparkling diamond he’d found lying in the sand.
C’mon baby, let me have it
. She boldly telegraphed him the message with her eyes.
Dade looked amused and highly aroused. His cheeks colored and that made her own skin flush hot. Was their attraction evident to the people around them? Was it as blatant as it felt? All hot coals and burning passion?
The crowd was chanting, “Drop it, drop it, drop it.”
Natalie was unclear whether they wanted Dade to drop the Life Saver onto her toothpick or for her to fumble it. If the pass-off didn’t happen, she’d have to buy a round of drinks for ten people, but she did not care about that. Dade was her focus and only Dade.
The tips of their toothpicks touched, and in that split second, their mouths were connected by two thin pieces of wood. Exaltation shot through Natalie.
The crowd noise swelled, and along with it, Natalie’s rising desire, and soon her entire body resounded with sensation.
It was funny and oddly erotic. Natalie’s head spun and her right leg wobbled. Oh no! Her leg couldn’t give out. Not now.
Dade’s eyes caught hers and mentally telegraphed the message.
You’re not going to fall. Hang on.
She could read his thoughts as surely as if he’d spoken them aloud.
The Life Saver fell from his toothpick and slipped down onto hers. The taste of pineapple kissed her lips just as the song ended.
Dade’s eyes twinkled.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”
The next thing she knew, Dade had her around the waist and he was spinning her in a slow circle, his eyes locked on hers.
That’s when she realized she had the toothpick and Life Saver still clutched between her teeth. Laughing, she pulled the toothpick from her mouth and tossed it over her shoulder.
Then Dade kissed her and the earth stood still.
It was a cliché, sure, but she had no other way to describe it. She could no longer hear her heart beating, could no longer draw in air. Everything just dropped away—people, sounds, smells.
Nothing existed but Dade.
She kissed him back, thoroughly, completely, and with as much enthusiasm as he kissed her. No man had ever smelled this good. Nothing had ever tasted this good. Not Pearl’s fried chicken, not the huevos rancheros from La Hacienda Grill, not even Sandra’s famous banana pudding. It was as if she had discovered kissing for the very first time, thrilling to the intoxicating strangeness of it all. She parted her lips and let his tongue pierce her. She was in all the way.
The crowd clapped and chanted, “Go Dade! Go Natalie!”
His arms tightened around her and she wished the moment would never end. She would remember this kiss for the rest of her life, because she knew in her heart that no other kiss would ever compare.
The first time you kiss your soul mate is like an earthquake, wiping out everything you thought you knew about yourself.
It was a Millie Greenwood quote. Instead of lullabies, Millie had passed down sayings of love to her children and they’d passed them on to their children. For the first time, Natalie thought about passing them on to her kids.
Natalie’s life had been built on myths and legends of love. She’d always wanted to believe in them, but never dared. Now that it was finally upon her, she was a true believer.
Unfortunately, belief just made things worse. Because now that she’d experienced this mind-blowing chemistry, this deep abiding pleasure, she knew that she would never be satisfied with any other man but him.
Dade alone had the power to break her into a million little pieces.
D
ade closed his eyes, one hundred percent goner, rocketing headlong into the sexiest little mouth he’d kissed in years.
Who was he kidding? It was the sexiest mouth he’d ever kissed. Not just sexy, but hot and sweet and wet and delicious.
Perfect.
Natalie possessed the most perfect mouth in the universe.