You know damned well why.
“Thank you,” she said. She cleared her throat. “You clean up pretty good yourself.”
“I consider that high praise from you, Elsie Garrett.”
“Pity about your personality,” she added, her smile getting impish.
He walked over to her and held his arm out, and Elsie looked up at him with something in her eyes he didn’t want to understand. Slowly, hesitantly, she slipped her arm into his.
And the two of them walked out of the motel room and toward the truck.
It was a fairly quick drive to the country club, which was everything he’d imagined one might be. Needless pillars that seemed to be there for the sake of gratuitous marble, and shiny floors and gray plush chairs with buttons that seemed to strain against the over-ample stuffing.
And Elsie looked awed. It made him like it.
She put her arm in his this time without him having to pause.
He gave the woman at the front Ira’s name and they were ushered to a glossy wood table and given menus. Elsie’s eyes lit up when she saw steak.
It reminded him of a wedding reception. Down to the live band with people dancing to Frank Sinatra tributes.
And for a minute it was just such a strange, out-of-body experience that it was easy to forget who she was. Easy to forget who he was.
“So the point of this is to have a membership to fanciness?” Elsie asked, while chewing on a bite of steak.
“That’s my take,” he said.
They’d ordered the same thing.
“I can see the appeal.”
“Can you?”
She laughed. “Nah. I’d get bored. I like a jukebox and some beer. But the steak...well, the steak is pretty good, and I am a connoisseur.”
She would be, considering beef was what the Garretts did.
She ordered lemon cake for dessert, he ordered the flourless chocolate torte, and she had a second glass of wine. Then she looked up at him with overbright eyes and it was familiar and upsettingly new all at once.
“You have to ask me to dance,” she said.
The band was playing Louis Armstrong, and frankly things did seem wonderful right now.
“Dance with me.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“You told me to ask you, Elsie, so I already know you will.”
She sniffed and lifted her wineglass, tilting it all the way back to get the very last drop and if he’d wondered about whether or not she was tipsy before he knew she was now. “A lady wants to be asked.”
“All right, my lady, would you like to dance?”
“I would.” Her cheeks went pink and everything in him lit up in a warning. Because this wasn’t just him noticing her braless. It wasn’t just him noticing her legs or figure or ankle socks.
She was pink. And noticing some things of her own.
He stood still and reached for her hand, and she took his.
Her hands weren’t soft. She wasn’t soft. But she was.
Strong and soft along with it.
And he took her hands and led her out to the dance floor. And he had danced with Elsie Garrett any number of times, but never far from home. And never when she was in a dress like that. And never when he had a restless, edgy thing snarling inside of him and reminding him that he was a man and she was very much a woman.
Reminding.
Was it a reminder? Or was it a discovery. Something new altogether.
It didn’t matter either way. Because it was never going to be anything other than this moment. It couldn’t be. For her sake, and for his.
For his sake? No. It was all out of concern for Elsie. Elsie didn’t have any experience. For him...
He was practiced at sex with no strings. It was who he was. What he did.
That was what worried him more than anything about Elsie. That she thought she was heading right toward the same thing that he and her brothers did regularly, and she was going to come out unscathed. But Elsie had been protected somewhat by Wolf and Sawyer, and it was such a commonplace thing that she didn’t really fully realize how protected she was. She was softer than they were. She was better than they were, when it came right down to it. Just a hell of a lot better.
And he didn’t want her to go running to spoil that because she had some vague idea that there was something she was missing.
And what can you do about it? Like you can protect her from herself.
He was trying. And trying to protect her from himself while he was at it. This was just the dance.
That was all. And whether Elsie was beautiful or not didn’t much matter. Whether he liked the feel of her in his arms didn’t matter either. She was Elsie Garrett. But for some reason, despite how much he reminded himself of that, he couldn’t quite make it mean something. Or rather, he couldn’t get it to mean what he wanted it to mean. He wanted it to be an instant deterrent. Something that made him jump across the room like a scalded angry cat.
But it didn’t. It stood, it fascinated him. She was Elsie Garrett. And she was absolutely, wickedly enchanting in a way he had never imagined his friend’s little sister could be. In a way that no woman like her ever had been to him.
He wasn’t sure he had ever known a woman like her. He had never known anyone like her, he decided. That was a fact. At the end of the day, Elsie was a singular creature, and always had been. Typically, she was singularly driving him crazy, but... But.
He quieted his thoughts because Hunter had never had very much use for deep thinking, and this was why. And then realized that was a mistake because the minute he let his thoughts fade into the background, it was even worse.
Because then, he was just focusing on the way she felt.
And it was the strangest thing, holding her in his arms like this, knowing how agile she was. How fit. Knowing what her body could do. In the sense that he knew she was an excellent horsewoman who was fearless and never said no to a challenge. Who was strong enough to best many of the men on the ranch in calf roping, and to beat them in a race.
And then he made the mistake of looking at her, which was worse than simply touching her, because it was a stark reminder that he knew this woman. Inside and out, but not in this way.
Not by touching her.
Not by holding her.
He didn’t know her like this. He never should have gotten close enough to introduce himself to this. And it hit him then that he had been playing with fire from the moment Elsie had asked him to help do this. And every excuse he had given himself was... Wasn’t it just that? An excuse? Because it ended here. With him holding her in his arms like he had the right. And suddenly, the world felt tilted because he didn’t know what to make of that. Because he would’ve said that he never aspired to hold Elsie Garrett in his arms a moment in his life, but he wasn’t an idiot, at least, not usually without intent. And he had told himself that his reasoning for all of this was noble. Hell. He knew better than that. He knew better than that. So what the hell?