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  Faith’s eyes narrowed. “Stop it,” she said in a softer voice. “We talked about this.”

  “We did not,” Mick said, deliberately playing dumb. “I don’t remember any talk about your tail. If I had, I would have asked Maddie to knit you a tail warmer instead of that horrible vest she made me for Christmas.”

  Faith’s lips quirked up at the edges. It was a flicker of a smile, but enough to give Mick hope.

  “Come on,” he said. “Give me a chance. Let me take you and your tail out to dinner.”

  “I never had a tail, and I certainly don’t have one now,” she said, then added after a beat, “As for the other…I appreciate the offer, but I’m not interested.”

  “Liar,” Mick said, knowing he was right when Faith’s eyes widened and a spark flickered in their warm brown depths.

  “I think you’re interested,” he continued. “And I think if I kissed you right now, you’d kiss me back the way you did at the ball.”

  “If you try, I’ll pound your face.” Faith’s voice was so breathy Mick wouldn’t have heard her if he weren’t close enough to feel her warmth caressing the front of his body, close enough to smell the campfire and soap and Faith smell of her, the one that made every hormone in his body sit up and take notice.

  “I thought we’d gotten past that stage,” Mick said, his gaze flicking from her eyes to her softly parted lips, lips that begged for a kiss no matter what words they’d just spoken. “I thought you apologized for pounding on me when we were kids.”

  “I did, but we’re not kids anymore.” Her gaze lingered on his mouth long enough to make things low in Mick’s body ache before she lifted her eyes to his. “And I seriously can’t do this. I won’t. I told you, I don’t date, especially guys like you.”

  Mick frowned, the teasing expression abandoning his face. “Faith, I don’t know what kind of guy you think I am, but I’m not one of the bad ones. I don’t want to hurt you. I only want to get to know you better.”

  And hopefully get you out of my system before I get any more obsessed.

  But Mick didn’t tell her that part. She was skittish enough already.

  “I mean, seriously,” he pressed when she didn’t respond. “I’m an okay person. I love my family and would do anything for a friend. I go to mass every Saturday, even when my mama isn’t around to make me. I don’t lie, cheat, steal, or pick my nose while I’m driving.”

  Faith huffed and rolled her eyes, but the sound was close enough to a laugh for Mick to keep going.

  “And I don’t make a habit out of begging girls for dates,” he said, brushing Faith’s hair over her shoulder, wishing he could let his hand linger in the silky strands. “But I’m having a hard time getting you out of my head. Just give me a chance. If we go out, and you still can’t stand me, I’ll back off. No hard feelings.”

  Faith looked up, a shadow passing behind her eyes. “And what if I don’t want you to back off?” she asked, the husky question one of the sexiest things Mick had ever heard.

  “Then I guess I’ll have to get closer.” Mick leaned in, already imagining how she would taste, how her body would fit against his like they were made to be a matching set. But before his lips could meet hers, her hand slipped between them, covering his mouth with her cold fingers.

  “Or you might back off when I least expect it,” she said, holding his eyes with an intensity that made his pulse speed even as his chest tightened with recognition.

  He’d been wrong—Faith was afraid of something, after all.

  “I can’t make any promises about how things might work out long-term,” Mick said, murmuring the words against her fingers. “But I’ll be honest with you. If it came time for me to back off, I guarantee you’d see it coming.”

  Faith smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile, it was the jaded grin of someone who had lost her faith in happily ever after. Mick knew that smile. There were mornings when it was the first thing to greet him in the mirror.

  “You can’t guarantee anything, and that is why I don’t date,” she said, dropping her hand from his lips. “I don’t like things with no guarantees, especially things that come waltzing in promising hearts and stars and sparkles and leave broken people behind. I had enough of that growing up.”

  Mick nodded, a wave of sympathy for the little girl Faith had been washing through him. He didn’t know a whole lot about her family, but he knew Faith had never had a dad figure, at least not one who stuck around for more than a year at a time.

  “All right,” he said. “It makes me sad for you, but I understand.”

  Faith laughed, a sharp bark that echoed down the quiet street. “Don’t waste your energy, Whitehouse. I don’t need anyone to feel sad for me. I’m perfectly happy the way I am.”

  A part of Mick was tempted to call her a liar again, but the part that wanted to pull her in for a hug and tell her it was okay not to be so tough all the time simply nodded. “All right, then. So… I’ll see you around?”

  “Not if I see you first,” she said, backing an awkward step away. “But yeah, see you, Mick. Thanks for being cool.”

  “No problem,” he said, watching her turn to go, knowing that he was anything but cool. He was warm all over, filled with a strange mix of longing and empathy and curiosity that made his skin feel too small.

  No matter what he’d said to Faith, one thing was certain—he wasn’t about to give up on her. Their conversation had only made him more determined to know her better. He wanted to be her friend, to make her feel safe letting down her guard, and be the man who was by her side when she finally stopped fighting all that bottled-up longing inside of her.

  Call him crazy, but Mick had a feeling a night with Faith would be a night he’d never forget.

  With one last glance at the firehouse and the backpack-wearing shadow moving across the second floor to greet another firefighter with a punch in the arm, Mick smiled and headed back across the street. Tonight he’d lost a battle, but he was determined to win the war, and another taste of Faith Miller’s incomparable lips.

  Chapter Two

  A party. Faith was going to a party—willingly, without anyone bashing her over the head and dragging her from her house, without threats or bribes or the lure of massive amounts of birthday cake to get her out the door.

  Even more extraordinary, she was wearing a skimpy, silver-sequined camisole under her winter coat, tight black jeans, and boots with stiletto heels that zipped all the way up to her knee. She looked like a girl, a real girl, the kind who drank too much pink champagne and giggled with guys in dark corners and made out with a stranger at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

  She looked the part, and if she had anything to say about it, she’d be locking lips with someone she barely knew by midnight.

  The thought was way out of her comfort zone—and vaguely repulsive, to tell the truth—but Faith was committed to the plan. She needed to banish the memory of Mick Whitehouse’s kiss from her thoughts, and if kissing other guys was the only way, then she was ready to pucker up and say “smooch me.”

  Still, she was anxious, so anxious that her fingers fluttered at her sides and she was starting to feel dizzy from all the deep breaths she’d taken.

  “Don’t be nervous.” Her friend, Kitty, gave Faith a few encouraging thumps on the back as they hurried down Main Street, past restaurants filled with people lingering over their New Year’s Eve dinners. “You’re going to have fun.”

  “You swear Melody doesn’t mind you bringing me along?” Faith asked.

  “Not at all,” Kitty said, dismissing Faith’s concern with a wave of her arm. “She’s excited to catch up with you. She’s great, I promise. Girlier than my average friend, but fun and sweet, and once you’re her people, she’ll always have your back. You two will get along like peas and carrots. I promise.”

  “Cool,” Faith said with a smile, trusting Kitty at her word.

  She and Kitty had reconnected last year when Kitty, the only female mechanic in town, had
miraculously brought Faith’s one-foot-in-the-junkyard truck back to life. They’d gotten to talking, discovered a mutual love of 5ks and old cars, and gradually become good friends.

  It helped that Kitty knew what it felt like to be a woman in a male-dominated profession and that she wasn’t the sort of girl who neglected her friends when she hooked up with a guy. Even though she and her boyfriend, John, had moved in together a few months ago, Kitty still ran with Faith every week and had enlisted John—a fellow cat lover, and total sweetheart—to feed Faith’s cat when she was working a forty-eight to seventy-two hour shift.

  Kitty was the kind of girl Faith could really talk to, and she wished they had connected sooner. But back in school, Kitty and Melody had been joined at the hip, and Faith hadn’t been interested in girlfriends.

  Faith had spent her afternoons running wild with her three male cousins on their forty acres—riding four-wheelers, hunting squirrel, and building forts out of the various odds and ends her uncle hoarded in his old barn. By the time her aunt and uncle moved to Alabama, taking her cousins and partners in crime with them, Faith had been too busy proving herself in her new job to worry about friends. Gradually, her coworkers had become her friends, and later on, her family, and she hadn’t worried about a social life outside of the Summerville Fire Department.

  Still, she was glad she and Kitty had reconnected. It was good to have a friend her own age, especially when it came to tracking down New Year’s Eve parties and eligible, kissable guys.

  “All right, brace yourself,” Kitty said as they rounded the corner near the bowling alley and started toward an apartment above a shuttered bodega where the New Year’s Eve party was already in full swing. “Melody invited fifty people, so it’s going to be crowded. I guarantee you’ll be glad you wore a sleeveless shirt.”

  “Right,” Faith said, her mouth suddenly feeling dry, yet sticky at the same time.

  Even though the apartment was still a block away, she could already hear the pulsing throb of dance music. People were dancing in there—dancing, the only thing more stress-inducing than kissing. Faith was not a bump and grinder; she was a stand-in-the-corner-and-roll-her-eyes-at-the-people-dry-humping-on-the-dance-floor kind of girl. Hopefully she’d be able to find a guy of the same opinion and avoid any embarrassing wiggling to music in public.

  A guy. A strange guy she’d have to make some kind of conversation with before the kissing started.

  Faith swallowed hard. “I can do this, right?”

  “You can totally do this, and I’m so glad you’re here.” Kitty gave her arm a squeeze as they headed up the stairs toward the second-floor apartment. “With John out of town at that stupid convention, I was dreading making an entrance alone. And don’t worry, I’ll stick close.”

  Faith nodded and tried to smile, but failed. Now that she was seconds away from being surrounded by other young twenty-somethings—twenty-somethings who had social lives and partied on a regular basis instead of hanging out at bars with firefighters a decade older than they were, or snuggling on the couch with their cat every Saturday night—she wondered what the hell she’d been thinking.

  This wasn’t her. This was the opposite of her, and was probably going to be about as enjoyable as being electrocuted. Repeatedly.

  She was seconds away from telling Kitty adios and making a run for it, when the door at the top of the stairs opened and Melody March appeared on the landing. The curvy blonde’s hair was teased into a huge bouffant. Combined with her cat’s eye eyeliner and black chiffon baby-doll dress, she looked like a nineteen fifties movie star, making Faith feel underdressed in her jeans and boots.

  “Kitty and Faith!” Melody held out her arms, wiggling her fingers for them to hurry. “I’ve been watching for y’all from the window for an hour. Get up here and let me get you both a drink.”

  Kitty laughed and fell into Melody’s hug with ease. The moment they parted, Melody reached out, drawing the taller Faith into her arms and squeezing tight.

  “I’m so glad you could come,” Melody said, pulling back to smile up at Faith. “Kitty has told me so much about you. I know we’re all going to be great friends. Well, as long as you two don’t try to make me go running,” she amended with a laugh. “Because the only way I’m going running is if I’m being chased by zombies.”

  “And zombies would probably be slow,” Faith said. “So even if they were chasing you, you still wouldn’t have to run.”

  Melody grinned. “I like the way you think. Come on in, let me take your coats.” She ushered them inside, raising her voice to be heard above the music. “What can I get you? Beer, champagne, or some deceptively sweet punch that will knock you on your butt if you have more than two glasses?”

  “Beer,” Kitty said. “But none of the light stuff. It tastes like pee.”

  Faith’s eyes flicked from one side of the party to the other, relieved to see several clutches of people avoiding the dance floor. But there were still a sufficient number of partygoers bumping and grinding to make her feel on edge.

  “I’ll have some of that punch,” she told Melody, figuring she could stand to be knocked on her butt a little.

  “Great, be right back.” Melody turned, threading her way through the crowd toward the makeshift bar set up on the kitchen counter.

  There were punch bowls and cups, every kind of drink container imaginable—from martini glasses to shot glasses to those giant red wine glasses Faith tended to break. The food spread on the other side of the room was fancy, too, giving the gathering a more elegant vibe than the average kegger. But then Melody was a professional caterer, and obviously had a leg up on other hostesses, and the space was very party friendly.

  The apartment was the roomiest Faith had seen in a long time—a large open concept layout that gave people plenty of space to spread out. It was definitely packed, but it didn’t feel claustrophobic, and by the time Faith sucked down her first cup of punch and prepared to go looking for her second, she was feeling decidedly more relaxed.

  “You need anything?” she shouted to Kitty, who shook her head and held up her still half-full beer before turning back to the guy she’d been talking moonshine cars with for the past twenty minutes.

  Faith made her way toward the punch bowl with a bounce in her step, surprised to find that she was having a good time. She wasn’t dancing, but the music and the party vibe were fun, and she was enjoying chatting with the handful of guys who had set up camp with her and Kitty at the edge of the room.

  Unfortunately, though, none of the guys she’d met so far were kiss-worthy prospects. They all seemed genuinely nice, not the sort who would be up for a no-strings-attached make out session. She needed someone else, someone with the same cocky swagger Mick had, the kind of guy who would think nothing of kissing her senseless and then walking away.

  Mick wasn’t the one who walked away, and you know it.

  Faith ignored the thought and ladled out another glass of punch before turning to retrace her steps.

  The only reason Mick hadn’t walked away was because she had walked away first. He was only interested in her because she was hard to get. If she were to make the mistake of indulging her curiosity about Mick Whitehouse—finding out if his kisses were as intoxicating as she remembered, discovering if there were more to him than a nice sense of humor and a handsome face—she had no doubt he’d walk away so fast it would give her whiplash.

  She’d seen it happen to her mom way too many times. Getting involved with a guy who made your head swim when you kissed him was a bad idea.

  Speaking of swimming…Melody hadn’t been kidding about the punch.

  Faith glanced down at her cup, surprised to find it already half-empty. She was going to have to slow down if she didn’t want to be unconscious on Melody’s chaise lounge before midnight. In fact, it might be a good idea if she grabbed a few chips and pretzels, something to soak up the alcohol before it went to her head. If she slipped outside onto the deck, she could cut around to th
e other side of the apartment to where the snack table was without setting foot on the dance floor. She might be having fun, but she wasn’t ready to venture into that unholy territory yet.

  Kitty was still deep in conversation, so Faith eased around a group of guys discussing the last Falcons’ game, and headed toward the glass door leading out onto the deck. The apartment wasn’t huge; Kitty could find her if she needed her.

  She stepped outside and paused, pulling in a deep breath of cold, head-clearing air, before turning and plowing face-first into a brick wall.

  No, not a brick wall, she realized as she stumbled backward. A guy built like a brick wall. The behemoth’s heavily-muscled chest completely filled her vision, blocking her view of the other people hanging out on the deck behind him.

  “Sorry.” Faith tilted her head back to look up at the wall’s head.

  It was a decent head, with blue eyes, a strong jaw, and several eyebrow piercings. Or was that several eyebrows?

  Faith squinted, relieved to find that the man possessed the requisite two eyebrows and a mere three piercings. Good. She wasn’t that tipsy.

  “No worries, I’m Trent.” He held out a hand, which Faith clasped, letting her eyes roam up and down Trent’s body as they shook.

  His arms were covered with tattoos that wound around and around his forearms before disappearing beneath the pushed-up sleeves of his black sweater. He was definitely a gym rat—you didn’t get muscles that defined without a heck of a lot of work—and somehow managed to exude swagger, even while standing still.

  In other words, he was exactly the type of guy she’d come here looking for.

  Their chance meeting should have made her happy. Instead, it made her stomach sink. Trent was perfectly good-looking and even smelled nice, but something about him turned her off.

  Probably the something that isn’t Mick Whitehouse.

  “Faith.” She tightened her grip on his hand and forced a smile, determined not to think about names that started with “M.” She’d done enough of that the past two weeks. The whole point in coming to this party was to move on and quit obsessing.