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  “If she thinks she’s going to waltz around with men grabbing at her…” Hauk was muttering under his breath as he stalked to the end of the bar. Before he could circle the end, Vic had extricated herself from her dance partner.

  With a glance that said she knew too much about where his thoughts were, she gathered her sweater and walked to the bar to join her dad. She didn’t avert her gaze from Hauk’s, but neither did she meet it as she slipped onto a stool.

  “What can I get you, Vic?”

  “Sex At My House would be great.”

  Her dad sputtered on the drink he’d just taken. Vic patted his back and assured him, “It’s a drink, Dad. Would you rather I order a Hole In One?”

  Hauk’s scalp tingled with heated pricks of awareness. He broke out in a sweat…on the inside. If she kept up her little game, he was going to give her a red backside, and it wouldn’t be the kind she could drink.

  He set her drink before her with the warning “Behave yourself” before he released it. She lowered the volume of her outrageous behavior as she chatted with her dad, but it didn’t help Hauk focus on work. If anything, her less obvious approach was worse. It was especially worse when she shifted during a laugh in a way that had the scoop neck of her top giving him a flash of creamy breasts.

  Grabbing the collar of his shirt, he tugged it down, attempting to loosen the noose.

  Trouble was, he wasn’t sure if the noose was around his throat or his hardened heart.

  The effort of holding himself back as he waited for the patrons to leave, as he watched Vic chat and laugh with everyone, while the memory of her singing and dancing lingered in his mind, had what began as frustration building into anger and then fury.

  Hours later, after Sophie had gone to bed and Hauk was locking up behind the last patron, with the lights in the town going down as volunteers wrapped up their work on the festival booths, Vic turned her stool to watch him.

  Pent-up rage drove his steps, as it had driven every move he’d made all night. It was an aggressive, dominant side of him she hadn’t seen in full swing before. She loved it.

  “What are you doing, Vic?” He stopped a few feet away. His jaw flexed with tension.

  “Looking for talent for the festival. Did you forget we were supposed to be working together?” She grabbed her drink, and without breaking their stare, she used her tongue to find the straw. Hauk practically growled, but he didn’t move.

  “I’ve forgotten nothing.”

  “I have some ideas on the headliner and have been thinking about some singing games that could be played to raise money for the community center. Night games mainly because they’re not exactly kid friendly.”

  “Of course you have.” The energy he’d held in all evening snapped in each syllable he spoke.

  “So.” She set her drink down and hopped off the stool. Moving around him, walking in a tight circle so she brushed his body, she smiled. “The first game is a sort of singing dating game.”

  “How would that work?”

  “We erect a screen with one chair on one side and three on the other. The bachelor…” sliding a finger down his spine, she lingered behind him, “…or bachelorette, sits in the one chair and asks questions of the contestants on the other side.”

  His back rippled beneath her touch. “That’s not singing.”

  “The questions have to be song related.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her. “Like what?”

  “Like…” She paused, leaned up on tiptoe to whisper at his ear. “How does it make you feel to hear a woman singing about the power of a kiss?”

  Her breasts brushed his back and they both trembled. Her thong was getting wet as she seduced herself as much as Hauk. “Or, what would you sing to a woman you want to seduce?”

  “This—” His voice cracked. “This is a dangerous game.”

  She circled to his front, running her hand along his waist. Each step rubbed the moist lace against her clit, heightened her fever. “But is it one you want to play?”

  “Fuck yeah.”

  “Excellent!” She patted his stomach and moved back to the bar for her drink. “Everyone will pay to play with the money going to the community center. We could even have a setup where people see if they can identify their spouse by their answers.” She took another pull of her drink. “Now, as for actual singing… I thought about karaoke.”

  “Unless I get to miss that part, please, God, no.”

  “Then karaoke is in. The kids will like that one. Could we move your equipment out there?”

  “Hell yes.” He moved behind the bar and started cleaning up. “Lose it while you’re at it.”

  “You really don’t like karaoke night, do you?”

  “Hate it.”

  Vic leaned on the bar, bracing her head on a palm and smiled. Her blouse gaped. “All of it?”

  Hauk’s gaze landed on her breasts. He swallowed. Licked his lips. “Not all of it.”

  “Then enjoy the parts you can.”

  “Are we talking karaoke or sex now?”

  She grinned. “Why choose?”

  “It’s safer.”

  “Safer.” Waving off his reserve, certain he’d choose sex if it came to a choice, she took another drink. “I heard a few people tonight who are quite good singers. I could ask them to sing a few songs.”

  “Okay.”

  “Reece McGrath has an amazing voice.”

  “He won’t do it.”

  “He would if his honor was on the line.”

  Hauk stopped stacking glasses and narrowed his eyes. “You’re in a scheming mood tonight.”

  “It’s for a good cause, though this one is a scheme you would have to pull off.”

  “How so?”

  “You have a poker game set with him. You just have to win a hand.” She grinned, having a blast with her game. “I never see you lose, so it shouldn’t be too tough.”

  “If those are the stakes, Reece will make it tough.”

  Vic leaned a little more on the bar, pressing her breasts against the polished wood. “I have no doubt you’ll get the job done.”

  “Fine.”

  “Super.” She hopped up and rounded the bar with her iPod. Keying up the playlist she wanted, she swapped his iPod for hers in the dock. “Now, for the headliner. There’s a singer on his way up the charts.”

  Hauk raised a brow as the first strains of a current hit ballad rolled from the speakers. “You’ll never land Josh Bryan.”

  Rolling her hips, Vic walked to Hauk. She took the glass he was holding and set it on the shelf. Placing a hand on his shoulder and the other in his palm, she began moving in a slow sway. “I like how you challenge me, Hauk.”

  “A challenge is something you can accomplish.” He curled his fingers over hers.

  His second hand moved to rest just at the top curve of her ass. Warmth spread deep through her marrow.

  “So little faith.” He was a challenge she was growing more determined to win. Raising her head, she looked into his eyes. He was a little wary, but he wasn’t avoiding her and he wasn’t ready to snap anyone in half anymore. “If you agree, I will get Josh here. And within our budget.”

  “Go for it.”

  Taking his encouragement as more than he intended, she pushed up and kissed him.

  Chapter Six

  A long sigh of cherished moments, the kiss began as their others had.

  Slow.

  Warm.

  Unlike their others, it spread through his heart like a warm blanket, smothering past pains. A pang pressed against his chest. Rather than thinking about what it could possibly mean, he embraced the idea of the woman in his arms. Tightening his hold, he lifted her so her feet dangled an inch off the floor, then he took the kiss a level deeper.

  The song on her iPod shifted to an older song of Clay Walker’s. He sang about being a walking contradiction. About fighting the urge to love because of the empty part of himself. It was a song Hauk could relate to, even
as he didn’t want to think about how much.

  “I’ve missed you,” Vic whispered against his lips.

  “I kept expecting you to show up with ideas on how I should modify the design of the stage.”

  “The thought occurred to me.” She kissed a trail down his neck, changing sides when she made a full path down one.

  “So, why didn’t you come?”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  He pulled her back, looked into her eyes and shook his head. Her plump lips pursed, taunted. The things she could do with that mouth. “I’m still not sure we should be doing this.”

  “Are you more concerned it’ll mess things up, or that you like it too much?”

  “That I like it too much to care how it’ll change things.”

  “Change isn’t always bad. But I’ll give you some time to think.” She pushed against him enough to have him letting her go.

  “Vic—”

  “It’ll give me time to show you my next game idea.” She walked past the iPod dock, flipping off the music as she went. Sauntering to the stage with a laughing glance over her shoulder, she aroused a new fear in Hauk. A fear that Vic was worming too deeply beneath his skin.

  Wary and curious, he followed her out from behind the bar. The Vic before him tonight wasn’t like the woman he’d known his whole life. This woman was more bold and brazen and didn’t care that he’d been burned.

  Back on the stage where she’d driven him crazy before, she cued up a new song. “A continuation of the singing dating game, I think it would be fun to see lovers tell stories with songs. Whoever tells the best story, as determined by ballots cast by the crowd, wins bragging rights.”

  “A singing play? Sounds like a bad version of karaoke to me.”

  “It would be.” She smiled and hit play. She chose Reba this time, acting out the lines she could. Gyrating suggestively to the ones she couldn’t.

  “But it would be fun and funny.” She winked as she sang about not being able to think straight when he held her.

  He understood that. He wasn’t so sure he could agree with the lyric about not doing something he’d regret.

  As she sang, belting out the high notes and caressing the low ones, she sashayed back to him. She seemed to be sashaying a lot tonight. When she got to him, she circled him like she had before. Touching and brushing his body when she was behind him. When she was in front of him though…

  In front of him, she was touching and caressing herself. Her hips swayed from side to side with a saucy roll mid-move. She cupped her breasts, rubbed her palms over the swells in an upward motion that had her blouse rising.

  “I’ll give you something to miss.”

  As if her words weren’t enough, as if her fondling herself wasn’t enough, she moved closer. Mischief and pure delight prowled in her eyes as she bent her knees and began lowering herself.

  She hiked her skirt enough that her left leg could straddle his right one. She flattened her hands on his hips and ran them down his legs, grazing the sides of his cock with her thumbs. His hips jerked forward, eager for her to strip him and suck him like she had the other morning.

  Then she worked her way back up his body, so close, the warmth of her breath as she sang penetrated denim and cotton.

  If her story was about how she got him to disgrace himself, fully clothed in his bar, she would win.

  She lowered her voice on the closing lines of the song, whispering that she’d leave him with a passionate kiss, giving him something to miss.

  The woman was good at her games, but so was he.

  Physical need washed logic out to sea until avoidance was impossible. Vic made him feel things he hadn’t felt in—ever. Things he probably should have felt for his wife, or the woman he had almost married, but hadn’t. She knew what made him tick, and obviously the knowledge didn’t end with their friendship.

  Swaying to a tune playing only in his head, Hauk held Vic close and moved her into a dance. She flattened her hands on his chest, looking up at him. He settled his onto her hips, memorizing the sensation of the rise and fall of each step she took. Their bodies blended and flowed together more fluidly than perfectly paired liquors. The perfect partner, she followed his every lead.

  Ready to lead her down a new path, Hauk squeezed her a little closer with one hand. With the other, he lowered the zipper on her skirt. “You shouldn’t dress like this in here.”

  “Why?” She tilted her head to one side and flicked open a button on his shirt. “Don’t you like it?”

  “There are more tourists than normal this time of year.” He nudged the skirt over her hips and let it fall to the floor. “You could attract the wrong kind of attention.”

  “Are you the wrong kind of attention, Hauk?” She released another button and hummed. “Because you were my goal.”

  Still swaying, he grabbed the bottom of her top and pulled it over her head. Braless, her breasts stood alert, ready for attention. He bent to kiss one and then the other, lingering only a moment on either. “I could be.”

  “Well—” she tugged his shirt over his head, “—I think I like this kind of wrong.” She popped the button on his jeans.

  He toed off his shoes, pushed her thong down. While she worked his jeans, he slipped a hand between her thighs, swiped a finger along her wet lips. Chuckling, he flicked her clit. “Clearly.”

  She rolled her hips, rubbing herself more fully on his finger. Her hands trembled as she shoved his jeans and boxers to the floor.

  Naked, save for his socks and her heels, they moved in a fondling dance, teasing each other mercilessly with quick swipes and flicks of fingers. They exploited every tender, erotic point they’d previously discovered on each other. He found a couple new ones for her.

  His favorite was discovering that a single finger run left to right across her lower back had her arching against him. Right to left did nothing. Left to right, though. Every time he repeated the swipe, she half-bucked against him.

  He grinned. It stretched his face to the point that his cheek muscles stretched and he could feel the corners of his eyes pinch tight. The power of a single touch, the ability to drive her crazy with want, filled him with…unfettered glee. It was such a foreign sensation for him, such a departure from the seriousness he always felt, but other than recognizing it as something he’d seen in Sophie, he had no other explanation for it. Vic had a way of releasing him from duty.

  Turning her back to him, he caressed her breasts and stomach and nibbled at her neck and shoulders until she was writhing against him. Until her ass brushed his cock with every wiggling sway of their dance. Until the hunger to taste her clawed at him. Still, he didn’t want to rush. Rushing would end the pleasure too soon, and after discovering the delights she would deliver, he wanted to prolong the moment.

  He flattened his hands on her pelvis, tugged her ass firmly against his cock, and bent her slightly forward. Stooping lower, he kissed a trail along her spine, lingered over her fading hickey, sucked long enough to revive his mark.

  Vic squirmed, arched her back. “You do that really well.” She dragged out the word really with a purr rumbling below the surface.

  “What’s it say about me—” he turned her back to face him, “—that I like seeing my mark on you?”

  “The same thing it says that I like having your mark on me.”

  Sweeping a thumb across her cheekbone, wondering if the new intensity to her eyes was makeup or something else, he stared. She was different tonight, but it somehow didn’t seem to all be cosmetic.

  She raised a leg to rub along the outside of his. Her heels gave her a height advantage she hadn’t had the other morning, so the move also had her pussy rubbing against him. “We’re good together, Hauk.”

  “We are.” Rather than think of how far that connection would extend, he walked her to the closest table and lowered her down. Lifting her by the hips, he drove into her waiting sex.

  She screamed and raised herself to take him deeper. Her eag
erness to have him inside, echoed through his brain. Synapses snapped. Feeling like a predator with his prey in his grasp, Hauk thrust.

  Again and again, over and over, in and out, hard and fast. Vic lifted her legs, bracing them on his shoulders. Her hands gripped his hips and encouraged him to go harder and faster.

  He drove them higher and higher, stepping forward when the table scraped the floor, shoving chairs aside with it. Her thigh muscles rippled along his chest. Her hands trembled. He vibrated as the building orgasm converged into a fist of need that gripped his groin.

  Awakened to a new side of himself, a rough and rowdy side he’d never known he possessed, Hauk worked them both into a sweat before finally releasing control. Attuned to him, Vic’s gaze sought his the moment he surrendered and she tumbled over the edge with him into a convulsing orgasm, her pussy contracting around him as he filled her.

  Hauk dug sleep out of his eyes as he walked Sophie to school. He and Vic had stayed in the bar the night before, stealing moments of time, talking and making love until the sky began turning gray with the coming sunrise. They’d been reluctant to split, but they both decided it would be best to keep them a secret for the time being.

  In the darkness of morning, before even the fishermen were moving around, he’d helped Vic dress, walked her to the door and given her a long kiss before letting her go. Like a moonstruck kid, he’d shamelessly watched her take what some would consider a walk of shame, which she clearly felt no shame taking, until she turned the corner to her apartment.

  “Is that okay, Dad?”

  Hauk shook his mind clear of Vic and gave his daughter his attention. “Is what okay?”

  “Dad.” Sophie scolded him with eyes too serious for her angelic face. It was a look she’d gotten from her mother, though she wouldn’t know it unless he told her. “You’re not listening.”

  “My mind drifted for a minute.” He curled an arm around her shoulders. “I’m all yours now, though.”

  “Good. Can I invite someone to family game night tonight?”

  Guilt gripped him. He’d been so busy hoping to see Vic again that he’d forgotten about family night. Twice a month, religiously, he turned the bar over to someone else and locked himself in the apartment upstairs with Sophie. They made pizza and watched movies or played games. “I thought we were the dynamic duo.”