Page 4 of New Resolutions

Shit! What is wrong with me?

“Do you want me to abduct you?”

“No! I...,” No more Dateline for me!

His lips tilt up in a smile and the blue of his eyes look like they twinkle. Is he making fun of me?

“It’s a good thing.” I must look confused because he rushes to continue. “You being so cautious, especially with how beautiful you are. I promise you. I have no plans to abduct you…unless you ask me to.”

He holds up his hands in a surrender gesture and some of the rigidness leaves my spine.

“I, um, don’t do well at parties. I usually don’t go to…parties.” God, how can I sound any more like a loser?

“Me neither. I don’t like how fake everyone is.”

“Or how somebody will hit on you while leering at your bo…I should stop talking now.”

“Has anyone been bothering you here tonight?”

“Oh, no. I…I think someone tried to flirt with my friend, but she shut him down pretty quickly.”

“Who is your friend? Maybe I might know her?”

“Sarah Allen. She works in…,” I get bumped by a woman behind me and knocked into the mystery man standing in front of me. “Oh, crap. Sorry.”

He steadies me yet again, this time with his arm around me and a thunderous look on his face but his eyes aren’t turned to me. Those beautiful blue orbs are on the lady who bumped into me and just kept laughing and walking. “You want to dance? Maybe the dance floor will be a little less crowded.”

“Um, okay. I don’t really dance all that well.” He takes the drink I got none of and sits it on a nearby table.

“We’ll just shuffle around and talk then.” He sweeps me into his arms, and we start dancing around the floor with me following his lead the entire time.

“I didn’t realize how crowded the party would get later in the evening.”

His statement has me wondering if maybe he’s new here too. Maybe he doesn’t know many people either and that’s why he found the only person who was alone at this thing. I can understand wanting to find someone just as awkward. Not thatthe man dancing with me is awkward at all. In fact, he is quite the opposite.

He’s tall and confident and has a smile that could melt a heart in no time. I know it’s certainly making mine beat faster. And the way his arms are wrapped around me has me feeling a way I have never felt before. It’s a giddy feeling that makes my tummy do funny things and keeps me flushed. I’m trying to soak up the sensations while making sure I don’t make an idiot of myself but I’m afraid of so much. Of making said idiot of myself, of not ever feeling this way again, of this ending after one dance. What I’m not afraid of, what I don’t even notice is everyone watching us.

Chapter Four

Rhett

She’s such a tiny little thing barely coming up to my shoulder. In fact, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t come up that far. Even though I am focused on her it hasn’t escaped my attention that everyone in the room is looking at us as we spin around the floor. Most people know who I am…and that I have never danced with anybody at one of the parties.

“You want to get out of here? Maybe grab something to eat?” She looks up at me with round eyes full of questions even I don’t have the answers to. “I promise you won’t be murdered or end up on one of those true crime shows. You can tell people where we will be if that makes it better.”

She starts to nibble on her lower lip and I have to fight the urge to grunt out a groan as I see her teeth sink into the plump flesh.

I try to explain why I want to get the hell out of here. “I don’t do well in places like this. It’s a little too…”

She gives me a wide smile that seems to light up the whole room, “People-y?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly it.” Sort of. I also don’t want an audience while I’m trying to woo this angel into spending the rest of her life with me. I don’t want others to be involved in something that feels so intimate it should just be kept between the two of us.

“Um, okay.” I move us to the edge of the dance floor and watch while she tries to find her friend.

“Maybe you can text her.”

“She has my phone.”

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