She was finally starting to feel a little better.
Eris twirled her on the dance floor and all of the men falling over themselves were cheering them on. Kallie didn’t need a man to make her happy. She was just fine on her own. She had Eris, her career, her own damn business. She could go out and party whenever she wanted. Every weekend could be a girls’ weekend if she wanted it to be. No asking for permission. No obeying a specific time frame because of how it might affect someone else. Kallie could come and go as she pleased in her life and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to anyone else.
“Get it, girl!” Eris exclaimed. “Look at all these guys!”
Kallie opened her eyes and looked around, surveying the scene in front of her.
There were so many men. And they were all tripping over their own two feet to dance with them. Grabbing her hips and telling her how beautiful she was. Hell, Eris was batting men off left and right. She made her own rules and played by her own standards and she was as happy as she could be. Eris wasn’t tied down, and Kallie didn’t have to be either. Men of all ages and races would be there if Kallie ever wanted to try again.
Maybe she needed to take a page from Eris’s book.
The music was hot and it thumped in the marrow of her bones. Kallie felt everything slide from her body with every second that passed by. All the stress and the worrying and the text messages from James. The flowers from Ash and the notes on the cards. Everything that had transpired over the past three weeks fell from her mind and she allowed the music to take over. She allowed the notes and the melodies and the bumping of the bass to make her decisions for her.
Kallie felt free.
Finally, truly free.
Kallie felt a man come up behind her, despite Eris trying to wiggle her way into the middle. His hands were pawing at her hips and he was trying to grind on her. Hard. He pressed himself into her and slid Eris out of the way, and Kallie tried to take a step away from him. His hands gripped her tightly and Kallie flipped around. She could feel his nasty hips all over her body and Kallie didn’t like it one bit.
It flashed her back to her time at the club on the island.
To her time with Ash.
She thought back to the guy at the bar. Who thought he could have his way with her. She remembered how Ash had handled the situation. With a suave and an ease that didn’t involve any sort of fighting. It still left her breathless. Thinking of him twirling her out of the way still hopped her heart in her chest. Kallie looked into the drunken eyes of the man who wouldn’t let her go, and she wrapped her arm around him and tapped him on the shoulder.
In his drunken state, he looked over, releasing his grip on her hips.
Without hesitation, Kallie spun out of the way. She used Eris’s hand for leverage and spun right out of the man’s grasp. She got her feet underneath her and kept going. Moving her hips around and drinking her drink. Eris was laughing as her arm wrapped around Kallie’s waist, but the second Kallie stepped forward, she ran smack into something hard.
Something sturdy.
Something familiar.
Kallie’s eyes panned up the beautiful suit and looked straight into those hazel eyes. Kallie’s jaw fell open and she felt Eris stop behind her. Kallie released her grip around her drink and it fell from her hands, and without moving a single muscle, Ash caught it in the palm of his hand.
He grinned down at her and Kallie felt her knees going weak.
Ash.
He was at the club.
She watched him wrap those pillowy lips around the straw of her drink and finish it off. Then he reached his arm out and dumped the empty plastic cup into a trash can at their side. She couldn't take her eyes off him. Off the cute freckles on his nose that crinkled as his grin grew into a smile. Off the slightly disheveled mop of hair on his head. If she leaned in close enough, she could still smell the ocean on him. Smell the island and the storm and the raging waters he’d protected her from.
Holy hell that man looked good in a suit.
His hands fell to Kallie’s waist and began dragging her away from the edge of the dance floor. His hand ran up her side, making her shiver as her eyes fluttered closed. She felt his hand grab hers and lace their fingers together, then he led the dance as he spun her around the floor. Like a moth to a flame, Kallie leaned into him. Into his strength and his confidence. His leg slid between hers and Eris soon fell from her mind, her body magnetized to his.