When she sighed and melted into him, he felt the insane urge to press his lips to the top of her head.

“This is nice,” she said softly.

“You really haven’t ever danced like this?”

“No. I went to an all-girls school. In college when I went out with my friends, we went to clubs where we all danced in a group. We did some dirty dancing as a joke.”

“So no drunken groping and sloppy kisses at your friends’ wedding dances?”

“Wedding dances aren’t a big thing in Japan. Or at least not in my circle of friends.”

“Glad I’m your first.”

She laughed. “I’ll bet you had girls lined up to slow dance with you.”

A compliment? He waited for her to tag it with an insult, but she didn’t. “Yes, I did. You’re looking at the slow-dancing stud of Westwood Hills Junior High.”

“And what made you such a hot commodity?”

“I was tall, for one thing. Other boys in my class hadn’t hit their growth spurts yet. It was awkward for taller girls to dance with shorter boys. The other appeal of dancing with thirteen-year-old Knox was I figured out girls might say they didn’t want a boy’s hand on their butt, but if you made the move gradually, they didn’t notice until you’re rubbing circles on their ass and then they realize they like it. So I could cop a feel, but not in a threatening way.”

Shiori tilted her head back. “You think I didn’t notice your big hand is on my ass?”

He grinned. “Well, you didn’t put me in a wrist lock, so I figured it was okay.”

While she kept her eyes on his, her hand traveled up his neck to the back of his head. She grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled. Hard.

Sweet baby Moses, his knees nearly buckled.

What the ever-lovin’ fuck? How could he like that? Why did he want her to stop and yet . . . at the same time he felt desperate for her to continue.

Knox returned his hand to her lower back.

She released him but kept the lock on his eyes.

“What?”

“Not the reaction I expected from you.”

“That’s not a reaction I expected to have either,” he said without anger or sarcasm.

“You confuse the hell out of me, Knox Lofgren.”

“The same could be said for you, Ms. Hirano.”

They studied each other, almost as if it were the first time they’d met.

Shiori curled her hand around his neck and stroked the pulse point by the hollow of his throat. “How many songs have we danced to?”

Not enough. “Two. Why?”

“How long do you plan to keep me out here dancing with you?”

Knox slipped his hand up her back and beneath her hair to curl around the side of her face. “Junior-high Knox had worked out a strategy that if he could keep a girl in his arms, moving body to body, by song three she would let her kiss him.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. She still had a bump on her lower lip from their angry grappling match on Monday night. He swept his thumb over the mark. “Dammit, Shiori. I’m sorry about making you bleed.”

“It’s rare for me to say this, but I deserved to get knocked down a peg. But if you really wanted to prove you’re sorry . . .”

Their gazes met.

His cock had been behaving. But between the sexy way she’d commanded his attention by pulling his hair and the invitation that she’d welcome his mouth on hers, his cock immediately grew hard and hopeful.

“It’s my lucky day, because the third song hasn’t even started.” Knox tried to keep his gaze secured on hers as he angled his head, debating on a sweet or a fiery kiss, when an arm hooked around his neck, pulling him away from Shiori.

“Quit hoggin’ her. My turn to show Shi-Shi how real dancin’ is done,” Deacon drawled.

One shot to the kidney and Deacon “Con Man” McConnell wouldn’t be dancing with anyone, his masculine pride demanded. Who the fuck did Deacon think he was that he could just interrupt a private moment?

Just as Knox was about to follow through with some bodily harm, Deacon wrapped his hand around Knox’s neck and gave him a head butt. Under his breath Deacon said, “Sit the fuck down.”

He broke Deacon’s hold and walked away, trying to keep his temper in check. Instead of going back to the table, he detoured to the bar.

The bartender, a hot twentysomething with bleached hair and a fake tan, aimed a blindingly white smile at him. “What’ll it be, handsome? Shot of Jack?”

“I’ll take a Coke.”