Not Another New Years - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,4

the mirror over the sink she noted that her cheeks and lips were flushed a matching color.

No schoolteacher, this.

To ensure that, she recklessly unfastened another button of her overshirt. A quarter inch of camisole lace showed. She unfastened another. Hah!

Back out in the bar, she didn't see the twins right away, so like everyone else, she focused on the big screen TV and the New Year's countdown. Her head spinning a little with the uh, excitement, she stood on the crowded dance floor, chiming in with everyone else.

"...three...two...one...Happy New Year!"

A wild cheer went up. "Auld Lang Syne" started playing over the sound system. Couples around her began kissing.

Hannah smiled at the hedonistic, antischoolteacher atmosphere, and then a finger tapped her shoulder. She spun.

A swarthy, sweaty-looking man was standing too close. "Happy New Year!" he said, though he didn't look happy about anything. He reached out to grip her upper arms. His fingers closed too tight.

Did he want a kiss?

No. She didn't want to kiss him, as schoolmarmish as that sounded on a night like this one. Her feet backed up, but there was nowhere to go in the mass of bodies around her. She jerked her head back and forth, her gaze seeking her huge saviors, but there was only a wall of strangers on every side.

"Come with me," the swarthy one said, pulling her closer, his fingers biting into her arms.

"No, thank you!" Hannah tried digging her heels into the sticky wooden dance surface beneath her feet. "I'm - I'm - I'm...here with someone."

She was supposed to be finding someone, she remembered, hours late and many dollars short. And surely that someone was not this man with the sweat in the folds of his heavy neck and the dark - malice? or was that just the mojitos talking? - in his narrowed gaze.

Where was Tanner Hart when she needed him?

The man holding her dragged her closer until she felt his breath on her face and the hot dampness of his shirt against hers. Okay, fine, she thought, going into pleaser mode again. What was the big deal? If it was just a meaningless New Year's peck he wanted, it would be easier to surrender.

But her body wasn't as resigned to the idea as her brain.

With a strangely desperate strength, she found herself wrenching back. Her high heels cursed her again, and she tripped, careening backward through the crowd on the dance floor. People parted at her out-of-control retreat and her heart hammered as she saw Swarthy Man come after her.

She felt behind her for something to stop her precipitous stumble. Her hands waved air. Then her heel caught and her legs folded. New hands found her waist. Her butt came to rest on hard thighs.

On a gasp, she looked up. It was the blond man. The beautiful one she'd pegged as hard-edged and probably trouble. But odd, she thought, as his arm came around her midsection, she'd never felt so safe. From the corner of her eye she saw the swarthy stranger melt back into the crowd. Relieved, Hannah glanced down at the gold-dusted forearm clasping her close. She saw the long muscle there flex to pull her even tighter against him. His fingers splayed across her hip bone, and she stared at the strong veins that ran across the back of his wide hand. Every hot finger felt like a brand against her pelvis.

"I was planning to forego a New Year's kiss..." the man who held her on his lap said in a deep, bemused voice. His breath tickled the warm flesh of her cheek, and as Hannah looked up, she felt goose bumps flee down her neck for safer climes.

Hannah herself didn't want to go anywhere. She heard her heart pulsing in her ears, and her breathing sounded loud inside her head, but she didn't want to move from her spot between the rock of his steely arm and the hard place of his thighs covered by soft, worn jeans.

She really should move, of course. But this close the beautiful man wasn't any less tempting than from afar. The nostrils of his straight nose flared as if he could smell her attraction to him. His blue eyes stared into hers and she felt a flush of heat wash away the goose bumps just in time for another set to prickle over her sensitive skin.

Mesmerized, she tried telling herself that she was too old to feel such an instant, hormonal pull. Or at least too sensible to do