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The little New York Rangers Jersey she wore
was cut off mid drift and the thigh high boots had her in the
running for sexiest puck bunny ever. If he remembered correctly
she’d dated one of the Rangers a few years back.

“I’m not sure they’re going to let you in,”
she said softly, her gaze running up and down his body. “You’re not
wearing a hockey jersey and,” she leaned toward him whispering, “In
case you didn’t know it’s a hockey
shirt
dance.” The smile
that rested on her lips was devastating. Funny how it never made it
to her eyes.

The woman was one hell of an actor.

And there was that pout again as she purred.
“Even I found this old thing to wear.”

Shane’s eyes had already moved beyond Betty.
He wasn’t in the mood for her games. “You should put some clothes
on Bets. Don’t want to be giving any of the old geezers here a
heart attack.”

He found Bobbi almost at once and damn if his
heart didn’t take off like a rocket. She was near the entrance to
the main room, her lithe figure dressed in old, faded denim—the
kind that clung to curves—the kind that he liked. She wore a Flyers
jersey, but it was obviously meant for a child because it fit her
like a glove and damn, it wasn’t right that number 28 and Giroux
were plastered to her back like she belonged to him.

Betty followed his gaze and said softly,
“You’re going to have to fight for her you know.”

Shane whipped his head back to Betty and for
the first time all the teasing and pouting was gone. Her eyes were
clear, her gaze direct. “If you don’t you’re an idiot.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Matt, let’s
get out of here.”

Hawkins came running like a puppy after a
treat, his scowl gone, replaced with a possessive glint that made
Shane roll his eyes. Christ, if the guy thought he actually had a
hold on Betty Jo Barker he was sadly mistaken.

Betty turned without another word and led her
new pet out of the community center. She bent over near the door to
fix something on her boot and Frank Talbot’s eyes nearly popped out
of his head. The elderly man shook his head and cleared his throat
so loudly that several people glanced over.

Shane shook his head and sighed. The girl was
just as dangerous as Bobbi in that damn skirt. There was no
underwear beneath the leather, and after patting Mr. Talbot on the
cheeks she turned, winked at Shane, and disappeared into the
night.

Shane had that one moment to turn and leave.
To go home and forget about everything except the bottle of J.D
that was sitting on the counter in his kitchen.

But then the band erupted into a raucous
version of a Stones classic,
Sympathy for the Devil
, and he
glanced up sharply, his eyes on Bobbi. His heart was still
pounding. His body already aching to touch her.

She was chatting with Jason Danvers and
something ugly erupted inside him. He took a step forward and then
halted.

Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my
name
.

He should leave. Get the hell out.

Bobbi Jo Barker, The Rolling Stones, and
Shane Gallagher, was not a combination to be messed with.

But then she bit her bottom lip as she gazed
up at Jason and that ugliness inside him darkened and grew until it
stretched tightly across his shoulders. He shouldn’t care about
Bobbi or who she talked to and yet…

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear
her fingers straying to that spot—his spot—and with a curse he
strode toward her.

Fuck it. He was going in.

Was Jason Danvers ever going to shut up?
Christ he was as bad as his older brother, Derek.

“You look great in that Flyers jersey,
Bobbi.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled trying to look around
him. She was wound as tight as a top, had been ever since she’d
arrived at the dance. She had no idea if Shane would show and the
not knowing was driving her crazy. She’d asked Billie a hundred
times—at least—but her sister had just shrugged and said she didn’t
know.

“Though I think you’d look a lot hotter in my
jersey.”

“Really,” she said absently, glancing back up
at Danvers. Wait. What? The guy was handsome—he was a lot
handsome—but she didn’t give a crap what he thought about her
choice of clothing tonight and she sure as hell had no desire to
wear his clothes.

Jason leaned forward to say something and she
took a step back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear just as
Ike’s band dove into a cover of
Sympathy for the Devil
.

Oh God, really? She gave herself a mental
shake and focused on Danvers lips. He was saying something.

“—you and I maybe could get out of here?”

“Excuse me, what?”

Jason smiled down at her, a practiced sort of
thing that she was sure he used to great advantage on any number of
girls. And maybe, just maybe, if this was another time or place she
might be all over that but…who was she kidding? Jason Danvers was
vanilla. He was home grown, slightly creamy vanilla, and Bobbi
liked them dark and twisty which made the whole Gerald Dooley thing
more than just slightly ridiculous.

What had she been thinking?

She glanced inside again.
God, The
Stones
?
Really
?

“Let’s get out of here, you and me.”

“Not gonna happen,” she answered without
missing a beat.

For a moment Jason looked surprised, but he
quickly recovered. “Is it too soon? You know after the wedding
thing?”

The guy was dense. “No. This has nothing to
do with Gerald.”

“Hey if you’ve still got a thing for
Gallagher just let me know—”

“Oh my god, Jason, I don’t have a thing for
Gallagher,” she retorted hotly, realizing that more than a few pair
of eyes were focused their way. They were still in the foyer of the
community center near the ticket tables.

“Good to know.”

The words were dry, yet every single one
melted into her like butter on toast. She clutched her clipboard to
her chest as she and Jason looked to their right. Shane stood a few
inches from them looking way too damn good in his leather jacket
and faded jeans. Melted snow glistened in his hair and the overhead
lights lent a dangerous edge to eyes that were incredibly
focused.

Eyes that were focused on Bobbi. Eyes that
belonged to someone dark and twisty.

She swallowed, or rather, she tried to. It
was pretty hard to swallow when she her mouth was so dry and she
had a lump the size of a hockey puck stuck in her throat.

This would be the hard and fast
fucking
.

His words whispered through her mind and her
heart took off like a rocket as she remembered the feel of him
between her thighs. The heat of him against her back as he’d thrust
into her from behind.

And the way he’d held her hands above her
head so that she couldn’t move, kept her eyes prisoner so that she
could look nowhere but into his as he’d taken her. Slow. And then
hard.

Of the way he’s used the palm of his hands,
the tips of his fingers and the hot thrust of his tongue to bring
her to orgasm more times than she could count.

There was nothing remotely vanilla about
Shane.

Bobbi blew out a quick, hard breath and
glanced away. Keep it together, she thought.

But it was hard. So damn hard.

Heat ran through her veins and she was sure
her cheeks were as red as the Detroit Red Wings logo emblazoned on
Seth Longwood’s shirt.

“Shane,” she said softly.

He didn’t say a word, though something passed
between the two men—some invisible form of man-speak—and Jason
mumbled something about heading to the bar. With a quick nod in her
general direction he disappeared inside the dance.

Not only vanilla, but a wimp.

“I didn’t know you were a Flyers fan,” Shane
said as he took the remaining steps that brought him within a
whisper of her.

“I’m not,” she retorted quickly. “I borrowed
this from Billie.”

His dark eyes ran over her body, lingering on
her breasts before moving back up to her eyes. “I like the way it
fits you.”

God help her, but she felt her nipples harden
as an ache erupted between her legs. She prayed that the padded bra
she wore prevented anyone else knowing, but the slight grin that
tugged the corner of his mouth told her probably not. That the man
could get such a reaction from her with a few words, in a public
place like this meant that she was in deep trouble. “It’s on the
small side,” she managed to say.

“I see that.”

For a long moment the two of them stared at
each other, ignoring the jumbling crowd behind them as an uneasy
silence grew.

“Okay, um, I need to,” Bobbi glanced down at
the clipboard in her hands as her voice trailed off. Dammit. She
needed to be doing something, but what?

Ike’s powerful vocals rose as he sang about
the devil and her throat closed even more as she shuddered,
suddenly cold.

“This isn’t going away,” Shane said
softly.

Her head jerked up and she swore as someone
knocked her from behind and she stumbled forward. Immediately
Shane’s hands closed around her waist and he drew her aside, away
from the group of hockey players and wives with fresh beer tickets
in hand, anxious to get into the dance.

For a moment, Bobbi did nothing but lean into
him. The feel of his large, warm hand on her arm sent shivers of
desire rushing through her. She closed her eyes, inhaled his
scent—which was the wrong thing to do—why the hell did he have to
smell so damn good?

“What’s not going away?” she managed to say
as she wiggled out of Shane’s embrace and faced him.

“This thing between us.”

“Oh.” Bobbi didn’t quite know how to respond
to that. He’d always been so direct and normally she was on the
ball and ready for a comeback. But tonight? Tonight she couldn’t
think about anything other than how good it felt to be so close to
him.

Shane grabbed her hand and at first she
resisted but when he looked down at her, his dark eyes filled with
sin, something broke inside her. After a gentle tug Bobbi let him
lead her into the darkened room filled with a few hundred revelers.
The band was kicking into the euphoric ending to
Sympathy
and the beat was intoxicating.

The clipboard was gone, taken out of her
stiff fingers by Shane as he led her deeper into the shadows that
blanketed the room. The stage was off to her left, the band rocking
out as their singer led them to the climax. The beat thrummed in
her chest. Her body was on fire and if Bobbi didn’t know better,
she’d think she had been transported into another time and
place.

One where the man next to her had been her
world.

“Okay,” Ike shouted into the microphone.
“We’re going to slow things down a bit so grab your lady and get
your asses out on the dance floor for the first slow one of the
night.” Loud cheers greeted his words as the band quieted, a soft,
slow melody falling from the guitarist.

Bobbi’s knees went weak when she heard the
opening chords. She glanced up quickly, into eyes so intense she
felt as if she’d been scorched. No. Fucking. Way.

Had he planned this? Would Shane be that
vindictive? Didn’t he know what this song did to her? What it had
meant to her?

Her chest rose and fell. Her heart beat a
rhythm all its own, and yet it was one that kept time with the
pulse at the base of Shane’s neck.

“In keeping with our Stone’s theme, how about
some
Wild Horses
?”

His arms slid around her and she let him pull
her in close to his body as Ike began to sing, his voice hauntingly
like Mick Jagger’s.

Bobbi closed her eyes and even though it was
painful for her to be here with him, dancing with him to this song,
she was helpless to do anything about it. Her arms slipped beneath
his leather jacket until she was wrapped around him, her hips
moving against him, her check tucked into the corner of his
neck.

They were deep in the shadows with only the
song and a host of memories to accompany them. Bobbi felt
everything as if it were yesterday.

The excitement of a new love so intense it
had colored her entire world in nothing but Shane. The way her
heart used to beat out of her chest at just the thought of him and
the way he used to….

She gasped when his hot mouth found its way
to her neck, and there among the shadows, Shane held her so that
there was no mistaking the state of things between his legs, and he
nuzzled her in that spot that was his.

The spot that had always been his.

She groaned. Or sighed. Or she did a little
of both, but when her hands crept up into this hair, she tugged on
him until he tore his mouth from her skin and stared down at
her.

“What are we doing?” she whispered, hating
that the little sliver of hope—the one that had never completely
gone away—was poking into her heart. It was that hope, that need
for Shane, that should have had her running into the opposite
direction. Instead, here she was in a dark corner of the dance
floor, practically making out with the man who’d broken her
heart.

It was sadly ironic that it was a heart that
had deserved to be broken, after what she’d done to him.

His forefinger crept into the corner of her
mouth and he leaned down to kiss her there, a soft whisper of a
touch that had her aching for more.

Wild horses couldn’t drag me away
.

Tears stung the corner of her eyes as she
accepted his mouth and opened herself up to him fully. He kissed
her slowly, thoroughly, as they continued to move together in a
sensual dance meant only for them.

“Why did you leave last Friday?” he asked,
his mouth hovering over hers, his dark eyes glistening in the
darkness. “I didn’t like that.”