Loving the Chase (Heart of the Storm #1) (18 page)

Because he didn’t want to go home. And every time he came close to getting up, he’d see Maddi glance over at their table.

She didn’t leave you because she fell out of love with you
. . .

And ten guys had already hit up the girls’ table after Monroe left it, including Jonah Boudreau, who circled around no less than three times. So Harlan was right—not that it was his business. And Maddi hadn’t given anyone more than a polite smile, so she wasn’t there to hook up. And that wasn’t his business, either.

Fuck. If he didn’t get out of that chair and do something soon, he was going to lose his damn mind.

“Valerie, do you two-step?” Zach asked, making her jerk his direction midsentence like she just realized he was sitting there.

“Um, yeah, why?” she asked.

“Want to dance?” he fired back.

Eli looked at him funny, like he’d missed some crucial step, and Monroe lifted one eyebrow almost imperceptibly.

Yes
, Zach thought.
Go ahead, go tell your sister I’m an ass.

“Uh,” Valerie said, glancing at Eli, who wasn’t jumping to claim her or defend her honor. “I—sure—I guess so.”

“Let’s go,” Zach said, on his feet before she even got the words all the way out.

“What are you doing?” Eli muttered as he passed.

“Dancing.”

“We were talking—”

“For decades, I know,” Zach said under his breath. “You were boring.”

Zach followed Valerie out onto the dance floor, put his hand at the back of her neck for driving purposes, and let muscle memory take over. He used to love the adrenaline of the fast ones, and this one fit the bill. He grinned as her eyes widened in surprise.

“You didn’t think I could do this?” he said.

“I guess you have hidden talent,” she said, laughing as he gripped her tighter for leverage and did a spin as they made a corner.

“It’s been dormant for a while.”

“Does your brother have this same gift?” she asked, her red hair tossing about her shoulders.

Zach narrowed his eyes. “You know, I have no idea,” he said. “You should get him out here and see.”

“I couldn’t tell if he was interested,” she said, doing a twirl and coming back.

Zach nodded. “Nice.”

She tilted her head. “I have some hidden talents, too.”

Zach laughed, feeling the knots start to unwind in his neck. “I’ll bet you do. And he’ll be interested now,” he said. “He just takes a little pushing sometimes.”

“Well, it looks like we pushed him a little too hard,” she said, a wry grin on her face as she looked past Zach.

“Why?” Zach asked, catching his breath on a straightaway.

Valerie gestured with a jerk of her head. “He’s talking to somebody else.”

On the next turn, Zach looked for Eli, and felt the sucker punch to the gut to see him laughing with Maddi.

“Shit,” he muttered.

“What?” Valerie said, her brows drawing together.

“Nothing,” he said, shaking it off. “Sorry.” As the song came to an end and a milder-tempo’d one came on, she gave him a quick hug and smile. “Hey—he’ll be back. She’s just a friend.”

She nodded. “Well the
friends
are dancing now, so—” she laughed. “So we’ll see.”

Zach was dimly aware that Valerie took off for parts unknown. Restroom, maybe? Spain? It didn’t matter, because he was a dipshit and an idiot and deserved to stand there watching Maddi dance and talk and throw back her head and laugh with Eli.

He could have walked across the damn room and asked
her
to dance instead of the convenient woman sitting at his table. The one trying to hook up with his brother.

Eli’s whole face looked different out there. Lighter, relaxed, younger. What was it about Maddi that brought that out in him? He never laughed or relaxed anymore around him. Or around any of them. And Maddi, poking Eli in the stomach over something and giggling—almost flirting—no, definitely flirting.

“Fuck,” Zach said, turning in place, not really knowing where to go. And then his eyes landed on Monroe, leaned back in his chair, staring at him. “Damn it,” he muttered, letting his feet carry him forward while his brain gathered armor.

Stopping in front of Monroe, he looked down at him. Monroe didn’t get up, didn’t appear to feel diminished by Zach standing over him. He had to like that about the guy.

The two men looked at each other for a couple of long beats.

“She’s okay,” Zach said finally. “I’ll make sure she’s okay.”

Monroe got up then and stood so they were eye to eye. Not menacing or threatening. Just very present. “See that you do,” he said, and then walked in the general direction of the buffet table.

Zach understood what he meant, and it wasn’t about the storm chasing. “Bar,” he said through his teeth.

“Careful,” said Hannah, sauntering up behind him as he bellied up to the worn wood. “Your green is showing.”

Zach cut a sideways glance at her as she nudged in beside him. “My what?” he asked, irritably.

“You look ready to chew glass,” Hannah said. “They’re just dancing.”

“What are you and Boudreau up to?” he asked, needing a subject change.

There was a pause as she averted her eyes. “Nothing, not that it’s your business.”

“I’ve broken his nose once for you,” Zach said, recalling the brotherly takedown they did when Jonah got Derrie pregnant and crushed their sister’s heart. “And Levi did things to his car that can never be proven in a court of law. Simon, I think, did something to his computer the
last
time y’all were doing
nothing
.”

Hannah chuckled. “Sounds like y’all need a life.”

“Or you do,” Zach said. “Before you get one of us arrested.”

“So back to you,” Hannah said with a smile. “Jealousy isn’t pretty on you.”

“Hmm, what was that you said?” he asked. “Oh, yeah. Not your business.”

“Just trying to help you out,” she said.

“I’m not jealous,” Zach said.

“Oh, please,” Hannah said on a chuckle as she palmed a freshly sweating bottle. “Don’t play me. You showed up here and you hate yourself for it and you don’t know what the hell to do now. So you jump out on the floor like something out of
Urban Cowboy
and then get pissy when she does the same with Eli?”

Zach stared at her. “I don’t like you right now.”

Hannah laughed, nearly spitting out her beer. “Then my work here is done.” She patted him on the back. “Quit worrying about me. Go dance with her, moron. It’s what you came here for.”

Chapter Sixteen

S
o how are you really doing?” Eli asked after the first song came to an end and the second one started. Maddi noticed him looking around, presumably for the woman he and Zach were chatting up earlier. The one Zach had hit the dance floor with. Ass hat.

“I’m good,” Maddi said. “If you need to—”

“Your lying skills haven’t improved over the years,” Eli said, his normally hard, dark eyes going soft. He squeezed her hand. “Surprised to see you out here with Hannah after that—conversation today.”

Maddi closed her eyes for a brief second, letting her feet just carry her on their own. “Yeah, I’d like to just skip over that memory if that’s okay with you.”

“Evidently all is okay now?”

Maddi chuckled. “With Hannah it is,” she said. “Or I think so, anyway.”

“Her bark is worse than her bite,” Eli said. “She buries a lot of crap, I think.”

“She does.”

“And you?” he asked.

She laughed. “I wish I could bury crap. I tend to wear it all over me like a bad outfit.” Eli laughed, and she swatted his shoulder. “Don’t laugh at me!”

He pretended to duck. “I’m just laughing because it’s true. Like right now—you’re all ate up with my brother being here.”

Maddi scoffed. “I am not.”

“Lie.”

“Please!” she said. “He was just off dancing with some other woman!”

“Only because he was too antsy to stay sitting down,” Eli said. “He’s been watching you like a moony teenage boy all night. She was actually talking to
me
.”

“See?” she said. “He’s an ass.”

“Won’t argue that,” he said, making her laugh. “But what if he’d asked
you
?”

Maddi’s mouth went dry and her scalp started to sweat. “I—I’d—”

“That’s what I thought,” he said, turning her with a grin. “You can’t even answer.”

“Eli, that was a hundred years ago, and we are all adults here, and I—”

“—
never loved anyone like that before or since
—or some words to that effect,” Eli said, making Maddi’s skin burn. “Did I get it close?”

“Fuck, I can’t believe I said that,” Maddi said, dropping her head, watching their feet move. She wished she could crawl down there and be trampled into the floor.

“Hey,” Eli said.
“Hey.”
He jiggled her hand till she looked up. “You’re a tough woman, Maddi. Don’t let him get under your skin.”

“He lives under my skin, Eli,” she said softly, a little mortified that she said that out loud, but unable to stop. “He never left.”

Eli’s brows came together, his scar moving with them. “Lord,” he muttered.

“What?”

“Y’all wear me the hell out,” he said, shaking his head.

“Y’all—what
y’all
?” she said, feeling a little like Hannah, asking if a boy had been talking about her. “What did he say?”

Eli looked past her. “Time to figure out that answer,” he said as the song ended.

Maddi narrowed her eyes. “What answer?” Even as she spoke the words, she felt the presence behind her and turned, her hand still in Eli’s.

“Can I have the next dance?”

Zach caught Eli’s look as he handed Maddi over to him. It held all kinds of warnings, mostly hinting at consequences if he hurt her, and a little extra in there about him being a fucking idiot.

“I got this,” Zach said under his breath as Eli brushed past him.

“See that you do,” Eli growled.

Zach shook his head at the echo of the words and looked into Maddi’s questioning eyes.

“What was that?” she asked.

Zach gave a wry grin. “Brotherly love.” It was a fast two-step, thank God, something requiring concentration. He narrowed his eyes at her. “Still have it?” he challenged.

One little eyebrow raised, challenging him back. God, how he loved that.

“Try not to step on anything,” she said, the last word going a little shaky as he slid his hand under her hair.

That was going to take all the focus he could muster. “Try to keep up.”

He was glad he’d had the previous dance with Valerie to remind his body how to operate, because it went like a well-oiled machine. Flying around the floor, he guided her through the other couples like a race car on a busy highway, spinning on the turns, throwing her out for twists, and loving how she expertly came back in without missing a step. Once upon a time, they’d owned this floor, and clearly some things didn’t leave.

He didn’t take his eyes off her as she moved, her mouth in a cocky little grin, hair tossing around, blouse baring one shoulder after another, those red boots that probably weren’t hers but looked hot as hell on her as she maneuvered the floor.

Zach didn’t even realize he was grinning, too, as the song came to an end and they both laughed as they caught their breath.

“Damn, woman,” he said.

“Told you,” she said with a cute little shrug.

Then the lights dropped, the music slowed, and the singer drawled a “Let’s slow things down a bit” into the microphone. Couples crammed the already-crowded floor, and Zach and Maddi were sandwiched inside. He was aware of all this happening, but the look in her eyes as he pulled her closer was all he could see.

“You okay with this?” he said next to her ear as his hand slid along the bare skin of her back.
Fuck. Was he?

“Yeah,” she breathed, looping her fingers into a back belt loop on his jeans.

There was about a ten-second attempt at keeping a respectable space between them, and then finally, she was his. God help him, Maddi was in his arms. The crowd and the movement and the tightness required to dance the turns—legs moving between legs and bodies moving together, feeling the heat of her skin against his arm and the increasing press of her body against his—turned it into something else entirely.

Zach’s face was in her hair; her scent was everywhere. As they moved in unison, their bodies formed together, remembering how to be one. He didn’t even hear the music anymore when she buried her face in his neck and moved her hand up to his back. It was familiar and foreign at the same time. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had felt this way in his arms. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt—
period
—with a woman in his arms. They didn’t affect him like—God, he wanted more. This was real, this was the way they used to be, this was them at the core. He could feel her heart pounding, feel her hands trembling. He wanted to touch her face, and his hands came up to do just that as the song crooned to an end and there they were. Her mouth was centimeters from his and her eyes—fuck, he could drown in there.

And the lights came up.

Maddi couldn’t breathe. Literally. She’d done the stupid thing, she’d done the fucking nonbreathing-touching thing and got herself all wrapped up in Zach and now—now she was so close to his mouth and his hands were in her hair and she could feel every ounce of heat against her body and her girly parts were panting, and—shit, there was no air. And his eyes—oh, holy hell.

“Hey, the song’s over, lovebirds,” said some chick in another dimension as she sashayed by to an upbeat tune that was starting to break through Maddi’s brain.

“Shit,” Maddi choked out, pulling away like she was stuck in quicksand. It felt cold and messed up and—shit, she
needed
cold. She needed to go jump in a bucket of ice. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice blending in with the noise. He didn’t move. He just kept looking at her.

With everything she could pull together, she turned and walked off the dance floor, weaving in and out of the moving couples, nearly getting knocked over by a particularly ambitious one, until she made it past the railing and then kept going. All the way to the bar. Maddi knew she probably still had a beer on the table, but she didn’t even look for the table, didn’t look to see if Hannah was there, didn’t stop walking until she literally ran into the bar. Which she then gripped with both shaking hands.

“God help me,” she whispered. “God help me.”

“What can I get you, hon?” the bartendress asked.

“A freezer?” Maddi said, grabbing a napkin to blot her face. At the confused look, she held up a hand. “Frozen margarita.”

“Make that two,” said Hannah from behind her. “You okay?”

Maddi turned, fanning herself, looking around for signs of Zach. “Perfect,” she said, her voice unnaturally high. “Why?”

“Well, considering that was the closest I ever want to come to watching my brother have sex, I’m thinking you might not be,” she said.

Maddi shut her eyes. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

“And I now need the tequila as bad as you do,” Hannah said.

“Where—where is he?” Maddi said, raking her hair back and lifting it to fan her neck.

“He left,” Hannah said, reaching past Maddi to grab both their drinks.

“He what?”

“Left,” Hannah repeated. “Walked right out the door. Didn’t say a word.”

Maddi needed to sit before she fell. Walking straight to the nearest empty table that wasn’t even theirs, she sank onto a stool.

“I’m screwed,” she said, more to herself than to Hannah. “I’m—” Maddi shook her head. “I can’t do this.” Hot tears burned her eyes as she looked at Zach’s sister. “I have a fucking job to do, and I can’t do it.” The memory of his hands on her, the smell of him still on her—it was intoxicating. “I can’t keep—”

“Yes, you can,” Hannah said, grabbing Maddi’s free hand. “Take a drink.”

Maddi licked the salt from the rim and took in a mouthful of the frozen beverage, letting the mixture of cold and alcoholic burn slide down her throat and freeze her brain.

“Took a drink,” she said, closing her eyes and taking another one. What the hell, she wasn’t driving. Getting shitfaced plastered seemed just the ticket. Sort of. “Oh, my God, Hannah, this is—this is—”

“This is real life,” she said, the no-nonsense in her tone pulling Maddi out of her own head. “His life. Yours,” she said, gesturing with her head. “You’re here to do a show, Maddi,” she said. “And then go back home.”

Home. That felt like it was on Saturn.

“Don’t mess with him if it’s not going anywhere,” Hannah said. “Don’t mess with yourself. It took him too long to get whole again, I don’t want to watch either one of you spiral like that.”

Maddi blinked back the tears that wanted to come. Hannah was right. She was the clearheaded one—maybe not about her own jacked-up situation, but definitely about this one.

“You’re right,” Maddi said, her voice still shaking. Her hands still shaking. She could still smell him on her blouse—yeah, Hannah wasn’t getting that back. Ever.
God—focus, Maddi!
“You’re—” She nodded in lieu of words, and blew out a slow breath. “It’s all good.”

Hannah let out a bark of a laugh. “
It’s all good?
Girl, you are a million miles away from good.”

“I know,” Maddi wailed softly, dropping her head onto her forearms. “Shit, what was I thinking? That I could come here and drop into the middle of all of this like nothing happened? I’m an idiot.”

“Kinda,” Hannah said.

Laughter bubbled up through the tears in Maddi’s throat. “You’re such a bitch.”

Hannah chuckled and patted Maddi’s hand. “I go with my strengths.”