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The dance floor.
Tallak’s hand up her skirt, his fingers inside her.
Right in the middle of that damn dance floor!
Her eyes flew wide, embarrassment searing a path through her. Breath stuck in her throat, she slapped her hands against his shoulders. “Oh, gods!”
Tallak paused with his mouth on her breast, one eyebrow raised. Releasing her nipple with a wet plop, he said, “Okay, I usually like to hear you exclaim like this when I touch you, but you do look kind of alarmed, and that’s not the reaction I was going for.”
“Tallak…” she whispered.
He looked at her with all the indulgence of a cat that let the mouse believe it was getting away. “Yes, babe?”
“Last night, in the club…” She widened her eyes even more. “You—I—we—”
“You can say it.” He gave her the most annoying encouraging smile. “I’ve got all the confidence in you. You can conquer that prim-and-proper morning-after rush of misplaced embarrassment and find the words to describe your debauchery.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You—you made me come in the middle of the dance floor! Among all those people!”
“Now, don’t give me all the credit, love.” The smirk he sent her was positively wicked. “You lured me onto that dance floor and then let me pleasure you without a single word of protest. And as I recall, you were quite ready to return the favor right then and there.”
She put both hands over her mouth, a fresh wave of dismay rocking her.
With gentle strength, Tallak pried her hands off one by one, then leaned in and kissed her lightly. “No need to cover that gorgeous mouth.” He grinned. “Not when it did such a fantastic job sucking me off in that booth last night.”
“Tallak!” She grabbed the nearest small pillow and smacked him with it. “You’re having way too much fun with this.”
Laughing, he wrenched the pillow out of her hands and threw it away. “So sue me.”
Her brain chose that moment to remember another detail of the night, another line crossed—this one of a darker nature. Her gaze went unfocused as she relived the conversation in the car on the way back, caught between horror at having revealed the most closely guarded secret of her life, and relief of a burden she’d had to carry alone for too long.
Her inner workings must have shown on her face, for Tallak laid his hand on her cheek, his entire demeanor switched from lighthearted teasing to serious attentiveness.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “You okay?”
She sucked in air and focused on him. “I told you. Last night. In the car. I told you all about it. I can’t believe I just—” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I told you,” she said again in a near whisper. “And you’re—”
“What?”
She swallowed hard, her eyes still closed. “Still here.”
A long, long pause. Then, “Why wouldn’t I be? Everything I want is right here.”
At that, she opened her eyes, only to meet his lucent gaze, his irises iridescent with all the shades of fire.
“You can’t scare me away,” he said softly. “So you’ve got some darkness. Just so happens I’ve got a fuckload of it myself. And I think yours and mine go quite well together.”
She took a breath that felt like it released a ton of weight off her chest. “You don’t know,” she whispered, “how hard it was to never talk about it. Even when Isabel was alive, we never spoke of it again. And sometimes…sometimes you just want to speak freely, you know? To release some of that pressure.”
“Well, now you’ve got me. If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”
Her eyes mapped his face, her chest too full of something that was brittle in its strength, terrifying in its promise. “Tallak,” she whispered. “I—”
A knock on her door made her bite off her words. Eyes shooting wide, she tensed up at the same time as Tallak whipped his head toward the door.
“Mom?” came Basil’s muffled voice. “You awake?”
With a choked-back squeak, Hazel flailed and shoved Tallak off the bed. He hit the floor with a thump, and a second later, his head popped up over the edge of the mattress as he shot her a scowl and mouthed, Really?
