not.
"Why are you still here?" I asked.
"Nothing better to do."
Damien and I had a lot more in common than I cared for.
He glanced up. "Where did you take off to in such a hurry before?"
I'd torn out of here after Jessie's call, which had followed my horrible daymare. Just the memory of it made me cold and clammy.
"I had to meet the sheriff."
The truth. Wow. I could tell it.
The music changed. Toby was done and a sweet, swaying ballad began. Trisha Yearwood wondered how she could live without him. How would she ever survive?
I used to love this song as well. Until it hit too close to home.
Suddenly Damien stood directly in front of me, without his broom. He was close, invading my space. I took a step back and stumbled over my own two feet.
His hand snaked out; his arm pressed against my spine. Now I couldn't breathe along with Trisha.
"Damien - " I began.
"Dance with me," he whispered. "Just once."
I could have refused, should have. But he smelled so good - like wind and trees and summertime, with a hint of tobacco that should have been unpleasant but was, instead, tempting.
His skin was warm, his breath balmy against my cheek. When he touched me like this I remembered everything that had happened between us. It had been sex, not love, but I could pretend, and right now I needed to.
I melted against him and we began to move with the music. He was a good dancer, unusual in a man his age.
My grandfather had shown me the waltz, the polka, the fox-trot. No one knew how to dance like a civilized human being anymore. Except Damien. Someone had taught him, just like my grandfather had taught me.
The music swelled, seemed to both surround and fill me. My feet moved next to his in perfect rhythm. As I laid my head on his chest, he pressed his cheek to my hair.
I hadn't realized how lonely I was. My life was full. Of death, sure, but that's the way I wanted it. I didn't have time to miss all I'd lost. Not much anyway. Whenever I did, I moved to another town, shot a dozen more werewolves, and refused to listen to the sobbing little girl in-side of me who missed her mama. I was heap big werewolf hunter; I didn't get to cry. So why did I want to?
Because here, in Crow Valley, I had caught a glimpse of what I lacked. Not only friendship but also companionship, love, sex, anything that made life worth living, except killing - which made me one sick cookie. And I called Hector psychotic.
I was being tempted back to another world, and I wasn't sure I could live in it. Seeing Jessie and Will, so in love, holding Damien close, so sexy and... aroused.
I stiffened, but he tightened his arms and wouldn't let me go.
"Please," he whispered. "Don't leave me yet."
A thick, warm feeling settled just below my heart. I didn't want to leave. Not him. Not yet.
It was daytime. The werewolves were human again. We were safe - for a little while. And I needed him now. Even more than I'd needed him yesterday.
I lifted my head. He was watching me with an indecipherable expression on his face. I wasn't sure what he was thinking. Was I ever?
A new song began - a boot-stompin' two-step. We continued to slow dance as Trisha informed us that her lover could smile like an angel, lie like a rug.
"Too bad you're no good," I murmured.
Damien's lips lifted in the closest thing to a smile I'd ever seen on his face. Was that an omen?
Suddenly he twirled me out, then yanked me back and started a fancy double-step I was barely able to follow. By the time the song ended I was breathing heavily and laughing. Damien stared at me with an odd expression.
"What?"
"I've never seen you laugh like that."
I quit. I had no right to laugh, to smile, or to be happy.
He touched the corner of my mouth with his fingertip. "Don't stop."
I shuddered, righting the urge to capture his finger in my mouth and nibble. What was the matter with me?
Jimmy and I had had sex, and it had been good. Hector hadn't been bad, either. Well, what did I expect, fucking the Devil?
But Damien... Everything about him exuded sexuality. I couldn't be in the same room with him and not want him - even before I'd had him. Now that I knew what