Two people strode off in the direction of the bar leaving a larger gap that revealed Cassandra in a knitted, naughty schoolgirl’s outfit, her wavy hair in two long pigtails bound by more yarn. Next to her was Gabe, wearing his characteristic grim expression and regular street clothes. The both of them appeared to be talking to the man with the shoulder and back that had caught her fancy.
He was wearing his T-shirt tucked into a pair of camouflage pants. Costumed as a soldier. Maybe that’s what had caught her attention, she thought. Except her attention had been caught by him before tonight. It had been captured the instant she’d seen his naked body swimming in her pool. At that moment, she’d awoken to the world around her.
As if he could feel her regard, Noah turned. There was thirty feet between them, but neither of them blinked, even as a couple drifted past, and a young woman dressed as a Dallas cheerleader skipped by.
“Juliet?”
She managed to turn toward Nikki.
The mermaid smiled. “This feels like that song, you know, ‘Some Enchanted Evening.’ ”
“Noah’s no stranger,” Juliet protested.
“Convenient, that.”
The sensation of his gaze on her back was impossible to ignore. Prickles of heat cascaded down her spine and she could actually feel her blood surging through her veins. Awareness, attraction, sex—call it what you will, but it had never found her from across the proverbial crowded room.
“I don’t know what to do,” Juliet confessed in a whisper.
The band had segued into a loud version of Rocky Horror Picture Show’s “The Time Warp,” but Nikki seemed capable of reading lips.
“That’s easy,” she replied, pushing on Juliet’s shoulder. “Just turn around.”
She did, and he was there. Broad, and so tall that she had to tilt up her head to meet his gaze. Behind Noah, someone pushed by and he stepped nearer, the warmth of him mingling with the warmth of her.
They stood together in a bubble of combined body heat.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” She couldn’t pull air into her lungs.
“You came to the party.”
She swallowed. “A woman has to get out sometime.”
His gaze moved from her eyes, to her mouth, down her neck to her pulse point. There was a wealth of bare flesh between her throat and the edge of Cassandra’s low-cut peasant blouse, and Juliet was aware of each millimeter of hot-chilled skin as he took that in, too.
“Nice costume,” he said.
She swallowed again. “You, too.” Of course his was leftovers from his Army days. She’d seen those ragged camouflage pants before, and the cotton knit of his T-shirt looked soft and worn, so thin that it couldn’t hide the curve of his pectoral muscles and the tight points of his nipples.
New heat flashed over her body and she was sure her skin flushed with the sudden change in temperature. Her fingers curled so that her nails dug into her palms and she didn’t know what to do with her gaze. What to do with herself.
Her skin pulsed with each beat of her heart and she didn’t think she’d ever felt more alive.
“Juliet?”
She met his eyes. They were intense, their blue color hot. His hands were fisted, and she could sense his restraint. There was power in those flexed muscles, but she knew he had every impulse leashed this time.
This time, there would be no hug ending in a kiss. No kiss ending in a touch.
There wouldn’t be any fun to be had with this fire-breathing attraction unless she did something about it herself.
Unless she wanted it.
Unless she asked for it.
Nine
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
—SAMUEL JOHNSON
Juliet took a breath. Then took a chance. “Want to take a walk?” she asked Noah.
He hesitated a moment, and she could see his muscles bunch beneath his shirt. Then he shrugged, as if forcing himself to relax. “Sure.”
A small breath eased out of her tight chest. She led the way—that was what this was about, wasn’t it?—and he followed, closely, but not touching her, even though the small of her back twitched in expectation. Around her, people parted for their progress, until a man dressed as a cannibal—wild wig, “bone” in his nose, painted skin, and brandishing a big fork—leaped into her path.
“Yaahh!” he yelled.
Swallowing her surprised shriek, she jolted back, bumping into Noah. He drew her close, twisting to put himself between her and the happy carnivore.
“Damn,” the other man said, looking crestfallen. “And I wanted to make a meal out of this morsel of sweet meat myself.”
“She’s not a morsel, she’s a lady,” Noah said through his teeth. “A widow, for God’s sake. Show some respect.”