The Men In Uniform Collection. Barbara McMahon

door and walked down the side of the building to the parking area at the rear.

      Out of nowhere, steel hands closed around her waist and pulled her near off her feet into the shadows of a doorway.

      ‘Clint!’

      ‘If you’ve quite finished playing up to every man here?’ he grated.

      It was a little bit too close to an echo from her past. Whore. She pushed against him wholeheartedly and got exactly nowhere. She glared. ‘It’s called dancing, Clint. People like it.’

      His eyes smouldered in the moonlight. ‘Lord save me from smart-mouthed women.’

      His gaze fell to her mouth the instant he uttered the word. Her breath puffed angrily out of it as she wrestled to be free. But she felt the touch of his look as truly as if it had been his lips on hers.

      ‘And smart-brained women. Can you not let me have one single point?’

      She stopped wriggling and met the iron in his gaze. If she gave an inch now she’d give him everything. ‘No.’

      It was too close. Much too close to the moment she discovered she wanted a man that she could never have. She couldn’t be pressed against him like this and not want more. And she did. So much more.

      ‘Why are you out here?’ she asked as he let her step away.

      He shrugged. ‘I got tired of watching the Romy Carvell show.’

      Slap. That hurt. The single time she got to be the princess for a night and he found a way of making it sound selfish. She turned out of the shadows, wrenching free on a sucked-in breath.

      ‘Romy, wait.’ Gentle pressure manacled her wrist, pulled her back into the doorway. ‘I couldn’t…I’m not a good mixer, like you. I struggle with people.’ His lids dropped like shutters over vulnerable eyes.

      Struggle with people. That was the understatement of all time.

      ‘This is the first time I’ve really been out. In this kind of setting since…’ He dug his hands into his pockets. ‘I needed the backup.’

      Romy blinked. Surely not? ‘What about the city?’

      He looked up, bemused. ‘What about it?’

      ‘Well, don’t you…There’d be lots of places just like this. When you go there?’

      He regarded her steadily. ‘What do you think I do when I’m in the city?’

      Suddenly she sounded like Simone. Passing on idle gossip. ‘Um…’

      His eyes flared briefly. ‘I see. You think I dig myself out of deepest isolation in the forest and then hit the clubs cruising for sex. Is that about right?’

      There was no undoing what she’d implied, but she couldn’t bring herself to say yes aloud. But she had to say something. ‘What do you go for?’

      The muffled sound of the band filled the silence stretching between them. His lashes dropped again. He shook his head, slightly. ‘Not that.’

       Oh.

      He took a deep breath, lifted his face to meet her gaze. ‘I only came tonight because you were here. I was relying on you to…’

      She tilted her head. ‘To…?’

      ‘I hoped you’d be my buffer. Help me transition.’

      Romy frowned. She’d left him in a room full of strangers while she danced the night away. Guilt tore through her but her subconscious fought it. She spoke gently. ‘This wasn’t a date, Clint.’

      He straightened. ‘I’m not making excuses, just explaining why I’m out here. Why I’m staying here.’

      The realisation hit her. This was too hard for him. Big, bad, grumpy Clint McLeish was out of his depth. At a small-town fundraiser. That was why he stood alone in the corner not talking to anyone. It had nothing to do with being elitist.

      He could parachute into dangerous foreign territory but he couldn’t stomach a single night amongst strangers. Her heart softened.

      She peered up at him. ‘Do you want to go home?’

      His lids fluttered down for the barest of moments, and when they opened, naked flame flickered behind them. ‘You think of WildSprings as home?’

      She blushed. ‘Your home.’ Then she realised how that sounded and blushed harder. Metaphorical midnight had well and truly struck and the princess was reverting into plain old, foot-in-mouth Cinders by the second. ‘We can go whenever you want.’

      ‘I’m quite comfortable in here,’ he said, settling closer against her.

      She realised how small the doorway was they were sheltering in. If anyone should walk by…how would it look? She leaned back a little. ‘You can’t stand here alone all night.’

      ‘I don’t have to be alone.’ Large hands reached out and snaked around her waist, stealing her breath and pulling her gently against him, hot and exciting where they touched. ‘We never got to finish our dance.’

       Walk away, Romy.

      What had happened to the smart, savvy woman who’d raised a child, protected a family and sacrificed everything for her son? She fled completely in the face of the blatant desire pulsing from the oversize testosterone bomb in front of her.

      A surge of want answered deep in her body. The primal creature hungering for satisfaction. How bad could it be to give Cinderella one last dance with the prince? Clint sensed her acquiescence and pulled her gently into his arms. She let herself lean into his solid frame, tucked in closer than she needed to be even in the close confines of the doorway, and pressed her cheek to his shoulder. He gathered her up against him. Their feet started moving in time with the distant music but it was automatic. Romy couldn’t hear a thing over the march of his heart under her ear. It took only seconds for her own to fall into sync.

       Thrum…thrum…thrum…

      Her hands slipped around behind him, spread across his massive back, splayed and sure. He cocooned her until her face buried in the crook of his neck, comfortably, snugly. Like the safe harbour of her fantasies.

      Nothing could harm her while she was in these arms.

      They shuffled left and right, barely moving in the evening breeze. Seasons came and went, ages passed, continents drifted, and still they pressed together, swaying.

       Clock’s ticking, Cinders.

      It felt entirely natural to tilt her face and nuzzle the place below Clint’s jaw. To breathe in the scent of him. To press her mouth into the heavy, thumping pulse there. To taste smooth, male skin for the first time. Her lips roamed his throat, her breasts lifting and falling against his chest, and she pushed onto her toes so she could reach his ear to take one perfect lobe softly between her teeth. It took an eternity.

      The rumble in her ears sounded like thunder, but it came from deep inside Clint. The primitive growl excited the blood in her veins as his hands slid up to pull her harder against his straining body. She pulled one hand free and shoved it roughly through his hair, anchoring herself there and using it to hoist herself upwards so she could feast on the heady taste of him. She sank into his throat like a vampire starving for blood.

      ‘Romy…’ It was more choke than word. Male and raw.

      Her breasts strained against the bodice of her dress, almost coming entirely free as she stretched towards him. His hands found the bare, hot skin of her shoulders. The soft, sensitive flesh of her nape. The wild, flushed heat of her cheeks. They braced her jaw, tore her away from her decadent feeding and tilted her gaze upwards. She had just enough seconds to suck in a breath before those magnificent, sinful lips dropped decisively onto hers.

      The heavens exploded into brilliant colours as his mouth touched hers for the first