Rescue Me by Rachel Gibson Page B

hell had just happened? He’d hardly touched her, was just getting into touching her, and she’d gone off.
    “Shit.” He let out a breath and looked down at himself, at the tent in the front of his pants. He’d known she’d be trouble. He just hadn’t figured her for a dick tease. Not after she’d shoved her body against his chest on the dance floor. Not after she’d looked up at him like she was thinking about sex. He’d been around enough women to know when they were thinking about getting naked, and she’d been thinking about it plenty.
    He sat in a salon chair, adjusted himself to the right, and then leaned his head back into the darkness. He couldn’t leave. Not quite yet. Not until he wasn’t leading with a hard-on. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had his hand up a girl’s dress and she’d left him throbbing and alone. High school maybe.
    Earlier, when he’d pulled her close so he could hear her over the band, she’d just melted into him, reminding him that he hadn’t had sex since he’d left Seattle. By the time they’d entered the room alone, he’d been half hard and he’d acted on it. He wouldn’t have kissed Sadie if he hadn’t looked into the mirror, into that slice of light cutting across her pretty mouth and incredible cleavage that had been riding his chest. So maybe it hadn’t been one of his finest ideas, but she hadn’t exactly objected, and he’d gone from half to fully stiff in less than a second.
    He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. Through the darkness, he looked down at the toes of his loafers. She hadn’t owed him sex, but if she hadn’t wanted to go heels to Jesus, she should have stopped him before he slid his hands to her full breasts. She was old enough to know where kissing and having a man’s hand in her panties ended. She was old enough to know it ended in both people getting something out of it. And yeah, this probably wasn’t the best place to get naked, but there were hotels in town. He’d seen them. He would have let her take her pick, but instead she’d run off like her tail caught on fire. Leaving him with nothing but a hard-on. Nothing but frustration. Nothing. Not even a thank-you.
    The light flipped on and Vince looked up as a girl in a Bubble Yum dress walked in. She had long tubes of blond hair pinned about her head. She stopped in her tracks and her eyes widened. One hand went to the top of her strapless dress and she gasped. “What are you doing in here?”
    Good question. “Meeting someone.” Vince was used to thinking quick and coming up with plausible lies. He’d been trained to give up just enough information to pacify interrogators. “But I guess she must have left.” He also knew how to change the subject and pointed to her dress. “I see you’re in the wedding.”
    “Yeah. My name’s Becca, what’s yours?”
    “Vince.” He still didn’t want to risk standing and scaring young Becca.
    “Who were you meetin’?”
    “Sadie.” The dick tease.
    “I just saw her leaving.” She sat in the chair next to his. “She stood you up.”
    In ways he didn’t want Becca to know about, which was why he stayed seated.
    “Love sucks,” she said, then, to Vince’s horror, burst into tears. She shook her head and her curls bobbed as she told him all about her boyfriend, that dirty no-good dog, Slade. She rambled about how long they’d dated and the plans she’d had for their future. “He ruined everything. He cheated on me with that slut Lexa Jane Johnson!” Becca reached for a Kleenex on the counter behind her. “Lexa Jane,” she sobbed. “She’s as dumb as a wad of hair and been rode more than a rented mule. Why do men go for women like that?”
    Instantly Vince’s erection went soft and he was almost grateful for Becca and her hysteria. Almost, but he’d never been the kind of guy who could tolerate emotional females.
    “Why?” she asked again.
    He figured that had been a rhetorical question. Or