walked away and Trent glared at the barman’s retreating back as he picked up his beer. He took a hefty slug and turned to the beach, his gaze immediately picking out Izzy as she stood alone, jigging lightly to an R&B track, her almost-empty glass swaying back and forth in her hand.
He headed in her direction. Even if he could never get her to accept that Robbie had died before the fire service’s arrival on the scene, he would do anything to make her genuinely smile again. He’d make that happen, even if he was eventually forced to admit defeat and surrender her to another man. If someone else—apart from the cocky barman—could hold her in his arms and make her smile, it would be enough for him to let her go.
Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.
He moved beside her and she turned, her eyebrows raised. “Finished your face-off with the bar staff?”
He took another drink. “Yep.”
“Good.” She reached up, took the bottle from his hand and placed it beside her glass on an upturned crate beside her. She took his hand. “Now we dance.”
“I told you I don’t dance.”
He tugged her back and she stopped short. “What?”
His gaze drew like a tracker beam to her sweet, kissable mouth. “You’ll regret making me do this.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.”
* * *
IZZY REGRETTED HER decision to dance with him the instant Trent’s hands touched her waist.
Boom! The sexual tension took off like a damn rocket.
What was wrong with her? For months and months, even before Robbie died, she’d avoided having anything less than two feet of space between her and Trent in the name of self-preservation. She’d watched enough women embarrass themselves by salivating after her brother’s best friend to know there was something about Trent that was potent and dangerous.
Then she’d gone and slept with him.
What had she thought would happen after such an amazing night? That one or both of them would walk away, be unaffected by those hours? The truth was, three amazing weeks had followed...and then Robbie was killed and ever since, everything between her and Trent had been different. Irrevocably different.
She would never again open herself up to the risk of falling in love only to have the guy die or walk away.
Yet she’d given in to the childish need to call Trent out, to bluff his advances and now she was suffering the consequences of his magnetism all over again. Once Trent had his entire focus on a woman and she was close enough to smell his scent, she was caught.
Then to have him put his hands on her?
Izzy swallowed her groan as it threatened to erupt, slapped on a smile and raised an eyebrow in an attempt to impersonate a femme fatale who could nonchalantly separate the men from the boys whenever she chose. “Are we going to move? Or just stand here with you looking at me like that?”
He smiled. “Like what?”
“Like you’re going to...” Her shaky facade faltered. “Bite me.”
He laughed...and goddamn it if she didn’t smile. Really smile. He met her gaze again and winked. He pulled her closer and, against her better judgment, Izzy didn’t move away.
The music slowed and a soul ballad pumped seductively from the speakers like a cruelly planned serenade. He nodded. “Now, this kind of dance I can do. We just need to get real close and shuffle. You can shuffle, right?”
Every inch of her body screamed with suppressed sexual attraction. Her heart beat fast as she fought the heat tingling through her breasts and lower. The man was a walking, talking love machine.
She forced her gaze to stay on his. “Of course I can.”
“Good.”
He lifted one of her hands to his chest and, with a single tug on the other, eased her close enough a grain of sand couldn’t have lodged between them. His heart beat under her palm, as hers pulsed in her ears. The soft teasing in his eyes slowly dissolved until he looked at her with such focused attention her legs grew feeble. Her feet shifted upon the sand of their own accord. He was so tall, broad and wide at this close proximity, she felt fragile in his arms. She looked into his eyes and her stomach flipped over as if she were a fifteen-year-old girl instead of a twenty-nine-year-old woman. Heat burned. Attraction soared. At last, for just a few moments, everything felt right in the world.
She froze.
Everything wasn’t right in the world. Despite the slowly gathering peace between her and her parents, they were still thousands of miles away. Robbie was still dead, and the man who held her so close his breath whispered across her lashes had arrived too late at the garage to save her brother’s life.
She stepped back and Trent gripped her hand, keeping it pressed to his chest as the determination she knew so well seeped into his gaze.
Izzy closed her eyes as claustrophobia grew. “I need to go.”
“Don’t do this, Iz.”
She opened her eyes.
His gaze held quiet pleading mixed with challenge. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Fear gripped her heart and squeezed. She couldn’t lean on him. She couldn’t lean on anyone without the risk of furthering the pain of loss she continued to battle every single day. She squirmed out of his grasp and he released her. “You’ve got me? God, Trent, have you forgotten Robbie was your best friend? That he’s dead?” She cursed and looked around, before stepping back. “I have to get of here. I want to leave. Right now.”
She whipped off her shoes and ran across the sand toward the steps that led to home and safety. Memories crashed into her mind and coated her throat with the bitter taste of fear.
The explosion that killed her brother had been so loud, so sudden, the first thing that went through Izzy’s mind had been that someone had thrown a petrol bomb through her studio window. She’d gripped her best friend’s arm as they simultaneously dropped to the floor. The floor tiles had vibrated through Izzy’s palms as the echoes of people’s screams filtered through the open studio window.
She’d looked at Kate, her heart racing. “What the hell was that?”
Kate’s eyes had been wide as she visibly shook. “I don’t know, but whatever it was, people are going to need our help.” She’d leaped to her feet. “Come on. We have to go out there.”
They’d sprinted from the darkroom and into the studio, running toward the picture window at the front.
Bright orange flames had rolled from the entrance of the garage where Izzy’s brother worked, blurring Izzy’s vision. Thick black smoke spiraled on a plume through the doors, diving and leaping on the summer breeze.
“Robbie...” Izzy had reached blindly for Kate’s hand, arm, anything. “Robbie!”
TRENT CURSED AND took off after Izzy as she bolted onto the promenade.
The idea had been to get her to the party and then concentrate on whatever she needed. He wanted her to relax, smile, have a drink and realize the whole world wasn’t a threat to her existence. Hadn’t his entire mission tonight been about making her trust him enough to feel safe? That maybe one day she might see him as a man rather than a monster?
He was sick and tired of trying to get her out of his mind by dating other women. Life was too short not to listen to his heart and act on feelings that refused to abate. He clenched his jaw. He’d seen too much death in his career, but it had been Robbie’s that made him determined to act on his feelings for Izzy. He wanted her...and