Baseball and Other Lessons (Devil's Ranch Book 2) by Aubrey Gross Page B

closer. His fingers tightened on her hips and she couldn’t help but smile. Some little demon must have inhabited her body tonight, because she allowed herself to briefly press against him before pulling away again and spinning to face him.
    His hands dropped from her hips and she leaned in, put her mouth to his ear and asked, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
    “Dancing.”
    “I didn’t see you as the dancing type.”
    “I didn’t see you as the dancing type,” he threw back at her.
    She shrugged, closed her eyes again and continued to dance along to the music without paying too much attention to the lyrics. Because, yeah, Matt had definitely turned her heartbeat up.
    The final notes of “Heartbeat Song” faded into Sam Smith’s “Stay with Me,” and Jenn abruptly opened her eyes and walked off the dance floor. There was no way in hell she was staying out there with Matt for that particular song.
    She grabbed her margarita as soon as she reached the table, and promptly downed the rest of it. The tequila hit quick and hard, blurring the hard edges enough that she could breathe again.
    She hadn’t planned on getting drunk tonight, but it was beginning to sound like a damned good plan. Matt sat back down on his barstool across from her, and she turned her back to head towards the bar again.
    She had to get that man out of her head, and in her slightly buzzed state more tequila seemed like the best way to go about doing that.
    #
    Since Matt had stepped out on the dance floor with Jenn, she’d successfully avoided their table—and him. Instead, she’d danced almost every dance, with small margarita breaks. She danced and laughed, drank, and did a pretty damned good job of ignoring him.
    The pop tunes from earlier had switched over to country, and he watched as she chatted with some cowboy as Mike Ryan’s “Dancing All Around It” poured through the bar’s speakers. She’d definitely been dancing all around the tension between them all night, seemingly preferring to get drunk and ignore it rather than be an adult and talk about it.
    Matt rubbed his hand over his face. What the hell was wrong with him? Since when did he want to talk about his feelings?
    Christ, the woman had him all kinds of mixed up.
    The cowboy leaned closer and then looked down her shirt. Jenn didn’t seem to notice, or if she did notice she didn’t mind. He shouldn’t mind, but he did. Dammit.
    She finally clued in to the creep staring down her shirt, grabbed her margarita, smiled politely and turned away from the cowboy. As she walked back towards their table, Wade Bowen’s “Trouble” began playing.
    Jesus, did the DJ have some sort of super mind-reading powers or something?
    Jenn set her half-full glass on the table opposite him, hopped up on to her seat and grinned. “I love this song. It’s just…sweet.”
    Matt raised an eyebrow. “Wait a second. Are you actually starting a conversation with me?”
    Jenn frowned and started to slide off her barstool. “If you’re gonna be an ass, Matt Roberts, I’ll go somewhere else.”
    He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. “I wasn’t trying to be an ass, promise.”
    Her forehead puckered just above her nose, but at least she slid back on to her seat.
    “So you’re a Wade Bowen fan, huh?” Scintillating conversation topic there, Roberts.
    “Yup. Where is everyone?”
    Matt tilted his head to the left. “Playing pool.”
    “Oh, I guess I should maybe join them.”
    “Running away?”
    Her green eyes met his and he felt her sadness all the way to his toes. “It’s called self-preservation, Matt.”
    Apparently Jenn was an honest drunk.
    “Why self-preservation?” He knew why, but he needed to hear her say it.
    She looked away. “You know why.”
    “I’m not sure I do.” He was pretty sure he did.
    She blew a curl out of her face. “Yes, you do.”
    Like the soundtrack of a movie, “Trouble” faded into The Civil Wars’ “The One That Got