AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You just caught me off guard.”
“Hm.”
That spark in his eyes spelled trouble. He stepped on the accelerator, and the car shot forward with a momentum that should be illegal. The impetus pushed her back against the seat.
“What are you doing?” Her heart galloped so fast it threatened to rival the car’s speed.
“Testing my theory.”
“What’s that?”
“An unproven assumption or hypothesis, for the sake of argument, but that’s not important right now.”
“Tallak!”
The buildings on either side whooshed past faster and faster. Excitement pounded in her blood, a rush of liquid ecstasy.
“I think,” he said, grinning like a madman as he shot her a quick glance, “you secretly relish being bad.”
“No.” The stupid newfangled car didn’t have a grab handle over the door for her to clutch, so she fumbled for purchase on the door itself. “Absolutely not.”
His eyes bore through her, amber fire that seared her soul. “Liar,” he purred, slid the Tesla into yet another high-speed turn that flipped her stomach…and made her scream in delight like a damn girl on a damn roller coaster.
CHAPTER 22
“You’re taking me dancing?” Hazel eyed the squat building they were approaching, the glaring neon letters on top spelling out, without a doubt, what the venue was.
Welp, there goes the surprise. Tallak sighed inwardly. Short of blindfolding her until they were inside, he could only keep the mystery going for so long. And while using a blindfold on her at some point was definitely on his list of things to do with Hazel, he preferred that particular prop be used when they were alone. On a bed.
“Don’t sound so scandalized, love,” he drawled. “One might think you haven’t been out for a dance since shoulder pads and perms were a thing.”
“Not quite that long,” she groused.
He shot her a dubious glance as they crossed the street. “Oh yeah? When did you last go out and party hard?”
Hazel opened her delicious mouth, then closed it again, her face scrunched up in concentration.
“Hey, hey, don’t hurt yourself.” He stopped walking and gently grabbed her by the shoulders, peering deep into her eyes. “Did you break anything in there? Are all the delicate synapses still intact?”
She slapped his hands away and growled at him. Growled! He hadn’t even known she was capable of such a sound.
“See,” he said and slung his arm around her shoulders in blatant disregard of her pouting as they walked on, “if you have to think that hard about it, it’s been way too fucking long. Which is why…” He gestured at the club.
“Tallak,” she said, her voice hesitant. “I appreciate your idea, but I’m afraid I won’t fit in there. You know, the general partying age these days is a lot lower than mine. I’ll be like a fish out of water.”
“The fuck you will. Not in there.” He nodded at the poster on the wall of the building as they walked up.
“?’80s and ’90s for over 30s,” Hazel read.
“Take a look around.”
He indicated the crowd that was standing in line to get into the club. The youngest people there were maybe ten years Hazel’s junior, but most of the folks seemed to be right around her age.
Hazel had halted at the end of the line, surveying the crowd. Now she turned to him with a warm glow of appreciation on her face that did terrible, wonderful things to his chest.
“Tallak,” she whispered. “You are so thoughtful.”
That feeling in his chest exploded into fireworks that debilitated his brain for a moment. He shrugged all casual-like as if something weren’t melting inside him, cleared his throat, and turned to the long line of would-be patrons waiting to enter the club. They were moving forward at a glacial pace.
