Free Kiss Me, Dancer by Alicia Street, Roy Street Page A

slight whimper. That seemed to send him into warp drive. He deepened his kiss, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, running his strong hands over her back, cupping her bottom and pulling her against his hard shaft.
    But just as she was thinking that Drew really knew how to use his mouth and hands, Casey stopped herself. Had she forgotten what a fast and slick player he was? As good as this felt, she knew she’d be sorry tomorrow. Or in the next week or month after she fell for him and he dumped her.
    She stepped back. “I can’t do this.”
    His arms held her shoulders, his voice husky. “Feels great to me.”
    “Me, too,” she admitted in a whisper. “But as you said, you have a reputation, and frankly, I’m not anything like Riley or the women you—”
    “I know that.”
    “Then you should know this would end badly.” And the last thing Casey needed was another calamity to add to the mountainous pile she’d already stacked up.
    Drew’s teal blue eyes bored into hers, his eyebrows knitting together. The question in his face reached a part of Casey that wanted him to argue with her, to convince her this would not end badly, that this special feeling she’d had for him since they’d first met was something he felt, too.
    But he said only, “All right, Casey. Goodnight.” He slid his hands down her bare arms, creating a chill on her skin that remained after he let go.
    “Night,” she said, scolding herself for the corny fantasies that plagued her. She unlocked her door, listening to his shoes on the gravel as he walked away.
    She ran up the stairs to her three cats and empty bed. Closed the door and leaned against it. Fighting the urge to race back to Drew and dive head first into what she knew would be a burning hot delicious romance.
    But one that would leave her in ashes.

 
     
    Chapter Nine
     
     
    “Right, Dad, right. I’m already on it.” Drew stepped past the black amoeba-like grease stains on the rough cement floor of the trucking garage. He recalled the way Josh had once made a game of naming them for their shapes. Something he never would’ve thought to do when he was a kid. No, Drew had been too busy hanging onto every word of his godlike father, desperate to please him, fearful of doing some stupid childish thing that would bring on his wrath.
    Stuffing his mobile into his jeans pocket, Drew walked out to the back lot where he found Keith resting on a bench in the sun, his artificial leg outstretched. Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand, cigarette in the other.
    “When are you going to quit that nasty habit?” Drew said.
    Keith squinted up at him. “Just which nasty habit are you referring to, Prince Charming? Since I figure I’d clock in with maybe thirty or so. Not enough to keep up with you.”
    Drew sat next to him. “Yeah, well, I must be losing my touch. Got turned down by the ballerina I told you about.”
    “Well, plenty of fish, and all that.”
    “Not like her.”
    “Ha! Do I detect a crack in the prince’s armor?”
    “What in hell’s that supposed to mean?”
    Keith swigged the last of his coffee and overhanded the cup at a waste barrel. “Sooner or later a guy runs into a woman who’s different from the rest. I call her the Mystery Woman. Because there’s something about her that will spin your head around and send your heart to Planet Nine and back.”
    “Gee, I can hardly wait.”
    “Sounds like you won’t have to.”
    Drew’s cell rang. He pulled it out, checked it, frowned and shoved it back in his pocket. “I think it’s mostly because of where I’m at in my life right now. I’m beginning to assess things. So along comes this sexy oddball chick, and she inadvertently gives me a nudge that opens the floodgates. Kick-starts a change in me that’s been brewing for years around my dad.”
    “You mean like you’re finally getting pissed about working you ass off to put this business on the map and having Andrew Sr. act like it was all his