DISARM (DISARM Series #1) by June Gray Page A

God, was
nothing going to get him to talk?
    After
downing our shots, Henry and I stood around with cold bottles in our hands. He
continued to scowl at me and I pretended not to notice by looking elsewhere.
Thankfully, I saw a few of his Air Force buddies across the room and they waved
us over to their table. Henry grabbed a hold of my hand as he led the way
through the sea of bodies, his large frame parting the crowds so that I
wouldn’t get swallowed up.
    “Hey!” Sam,
another captain, raised his beer bottle in greeting.
    I clinked
his bottle with my cider. Henry gave a cool little jerk of the head and said,
“Hey, man.” The two men exchanged a silent look before Henry gave the slightest
shake of the head.
    Sam’s
girlfriend, Beth, gave me a hug before I could figure out what the guys were
communicating. “How are you?” she asked. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
    “I’ve been
good. Busy,” I said, keeping an eye on Henry. “You?”
    Beth
started to say something, but the band began to play and cut her off. For a
while, we all stood there and bobbed our heads to the rhythm of the rock group,
all except for the stiff corpse beside me. Sometimes Henry knew how to really
kill a good time, but as his friend, it was my duty to pull him out of this
funk he was in.
    I stood on
my tiptoe and pulled him down so I could yell in his ear. “You wanna dance?”
    He looked
at me then at the near-empty dance floor, then back at me again. “Hell no.”
    I pretended
not to hear. I grasped his hand with a cheeky smile and pulled him through the
crowd and onto the dance floor.
    “I said
no,” he said and turned to leave.
    But I still
had a hold of his hand, so I jumped in front of him and danced to block his
way. I pulled his arm around my waist and gave him my most seductive smile as I
began to sway my hips to the music.
    He rolled
his eyes but I kept on dancing, sure that sooner or later he would relent. He
knew how to have a good time; he just had to be pulled out of that scowly shell
of his.
    The crowd
on the dance floor swelled and I was unexpectedly pinned to Henry, my hips
grinding in to his before my brain could tell it to stop.
    The effect
was instantaneous and twofold. Henry’s expression changed at the same moment I
felt something stir in his jeans. My face went up in flames, but when I tried
to pull away, his arm tightened around me and pulled me closer.
    “Where are
you going?” he asked in my ear, his warm breath tickling my neck. “I thought
you wanted to dance?”
    My heart
was pounding a million miles a minute through my chest, but I had teased the
beast out of hiding and I now had to face him. I looked up at him, acting as if
having an erection against my stomach was not a big deal, and tried to take advantage
of our close proximity. “Why won’t you talk to me?”
    “I don’t
want to talk tonight,” he replied, his eyes focused solely on my mouth. The
breath hitched in my throat when he ran his tongue along his lower lip. “I’d
rather do other things.”
    That was
about the time I lost my cool. This was Henry, my closest friend, my roommate,
my surrogate big brother. He was a great many things to me, but he was
definitely not someone I made out with. I’d stopped hoping for that a long time
ago, when he’d made it clear that he saw me as nothing more than a little
sister.
    Now here he
was, bowing his head with a dark look on face, his arm tight around my back.
The fifteen-year-old me was squealing with glee, but the twenty-six-year-old
was, admittedly, a little flustered.
    I twisted
out of his embrace and took a step back. My face was overheating, my heart was
trying its hardest to hammer its way through my chest, and my body was tingling
with that special kind of sexual exhilaration.
    Henry’s
face broke out into an impudent smile. “Are we done playing this game?” he
called out to me over the music.
    I nodded.
Yes, we were definitely done. For now.

 
    ~

 
    Here’s
something you