House Of Payne: Scout (6 page)

“Ladies and gentlemen!” The DJ boomed through his mic. “It’s that moment you’ve all been waiting for. Get ready to shake your tail feathers, because it’s time for… the Chicken Dance!”

“Dear God,” she heard Ivar mutter a scant moment before a flood of people hit the floor as the first, unmistakable notes of the accordion sounded.

“Follow my lead.” With a grin to cover how torn she was between gratitude that she’d dodged a bullet when it came to kissing Ivar and wanting that kiss in the worst way, she pulled out of his arms. “It’s time to show off your best chickeny moves.”

“I refuse to dance like a chicken.” On this, he seemed very firm.

“Oh, really? Beneath the Fournier dignity, huh?” Refusing to let his eyes go, she got her hands up, ready to cluck like no one’s business. Clucking was silly, not sexy. Clucking would keep her from wanting to kiss a man who was nothing but trouble. If it was the last thing she did, she’d get this man clucking. “That’s cool. I mean, you were born with a silver service in your mouth, Granny’s a frickin’ European baroness and I’ve yet to see you wear anything that doesn’t have a European brand name that most folks can’t pronounce, including me. This kind of shit’s way too common for you, am I right?”

Ominous clouds were gathering in his scowl. “Are you trying to piss me off?”

“Maybe. What’re you gonna do about it?” She grinned as the musical cue kicked in. With her eyes daring him to just stand there and do nothing, she clucked her fingers at him, then flapped her arms, then executed a minor variation in the dance by turning so that her butt-wiggle would be a fraction of an inch from him.

That’s right. Take a nice, long look.

She’d be the first to admit that of all her features—from the good parts of her, to the merely okay, to the oh-thank-God-for-camouflage parts—her ass was something to be proud of. It was one of the reasons she was so fond of the retro look. Pencil skirts and wiggle dresses gave her booty one hell of a frame to work with.

By the time she straightened to clap her hands with the beat, she stole a quick glance over her shoulder. Satisfaction curled through her when she found his attention was now nailed south of her waistline, and the purely masculine curve of his mouth told her he liked what he saw.

But he still wasn’t dancing.

She turned and went through the sequence again, pleased to see at least his scowl had vanished. He was now smiling, and the glitter in his eyes reminded her of a lion looking at his next meal. When she turned and butt-wiggled again, his hands latched onto her hips to bring her straight up against him, and the connection was so hot it made her catch her breath. Maybe it was her imagination, but she could have sworn she felt a hardening change in the contours of his body.

She wiggled one more time. Just to be sure.

Ooh.

Nope.

Definitely not her imagination.

The music called for one more clucking session, and when she turned around to go through the sequence, he still refused to follow the dance. But he looked more than ready to enjoy the last part of it, to the point where his hands were open and ready to catch some serious ass.

Tough noogies for him. If he wasn’t going to play, he didn’t get to
play
.

With a regretful shrug, she turned to her nearest neighbor to engage in the cluck-flap-wiggle-clap routine, all the while aware of Ivar’s disappearing smile. Her new partner, a cousin of the Panuzzi children whom she vaguely knew, was an enthusiastic flapper, and she laughed when he nearly took out the person next to him. But before she could execute her butt-wiggle, her hips were grabbed, and she was pulled unceremoniously back against a hard body.

“Mine,” Ivar whispered against her ear, and the graze of his lips made her shiver. With his hold pulling her flush against him, she knew he felt it.

She knew it, because of his low, predatory chuckle in response.

Too late, she realized that maybe the Chicken Dance could be sexy after all.

Chapter Six

The sounds of people calling happy, tired farewells to each other zipped throughout the emptying parking lot. Scout waved off Mama Coco and Papa Bolo before heading back inside the dance hall to gather up her shoes, jacket purse, and of course, Ivar.

She couldn’t believe he’d stayed for the entire party. She’d told him that he could leave any time he wanted to after he’d shown her that, while he had zero interest in chicken dancing, he was more than happy to play the role of cock of the walk. Instead, he’d insisted he couldn’t leave until he’d danced with Mama Coco, a move that touched her deeply. That he’d even given a thought to a lady he’d never meet again was something she hadn’t expected. And when he gently dipped her former foster mother, a move that made the elderly woman giggle like a young girl, Ivar had become the most beautiful man Scout had ever laid eyes on.

No. More than beautiful.

He was
perfect
.

She frowned, going to war with herself. No matter how hard she tried to overlook it, her instincts were telling her that she had to be on her guard when it came to Ivar Fournier. But damn it all, even her remarkable instincts could be wrong, couldn’t they? If he was the kind of guy who went out of his way to make an old woman feel young and girlie, he couldn’t be that bad.

Could he?

“Hey.”

She jumped when a hand landed on the small of her back, guiding her toward the exit. She looked up into Ivar’s dark-fringed eyes and could see nothing but a man smiling down at a woman he seemed content to be with. Like that, she shoved the rest of the doubts to the back of her head. For now, she would bask in the attention of an outrageously gorgeous and sophisticated man, and count herself lucky to have it.

“Hey, yourself.” Cool night air hit her flushed face as he steered them straight for their cars, with his parked in front of hers. “You were incredibly patient tonight. Thank you for that.”

“I was, wasn’t I?” Clearly not above indulging in some well-earned swagger, his smile was downright wicked. “I think I deserve some kind of reward.”

Truth be told, so did she. “Even though I’m on vacation, I’ll go ahead and talk with Payne. I think I can persuade him to at least consider contacting our clientele to see if anyone would like to voluntarily be a part of your project. I’m sure a lot of them will.”

As they moved into the narrow gap made by her car and the one parked next to it, his other hand came up so he held her from behind. Then, before she knew what to expect, he turned her so that her back was against the driver’s side door while he closed in to pin her there. In her estimation, she’d been in far worse places in her life. “I have no interest in my project being my reward. And I think you know it.”

Again, he spoke the truth. “I thought it was important to you.”

“At the moment,
ma fleur
, nothing is more important than you.”

The words alone almost buckled her knees, something that she hadn’t thought possible until that moment. People from South Deering didn’t get weak in the knees. “Did you really just say that?”

“There is no one else around here but me.” He leaned in a fraction, until his breath feathered her mouth. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No.” Dear God, she was lightheaded. Maybe it was the heavy solidity of him pressing into her that made her head swim and her thighs clench. Coupled with those seducing words, it was a wonder she was still coherent. “I just thought all you artistic types were obsessively focused on your work.”

“I am focused. Very focused. On you.” With each word whispered, he moved in until the light from the dance hall was blocked out, and his lips touched hers.

Oh, boy.

The ground dipped under her feet, and she would have sworn under oath that Chicago had experienced an earthquake. At the first probe of his tongue, her mouth opened while her hands glided over the breadth of his shoulders to his neck, then slid into the coolness of his hair. While her brain couldn’t decide whether it was a blessing or a curse that he felt even better than he looked, the rest of her didn’t have any doubt.

She only hoped he wouldn’t hear everything inside her singing the Hallelujah chorus.

Her body flowed against him without conscious thought, and all she could do was go along with it. The way she fitted against him was made that much more complete with the aid of his hands moving down her back to boldly cup her ass.

His growl of masculine approval was so low she felt it far more than heard it.

The taste of him was exquisite—rich and refined and complex, like the man himself. It filled her senses as he delved deeper, just the way she liked it. Eagerly she matched him stroke for stroke, and the hammering of her heart thudded against his chest so wildly she was sure he felt it. He retreated to grace her lower lip with a gentle, sucking bite before plunging back into her mouth, as if he couldn’t stop himself from reveling in the feel and taste of her. She
loved
that. The thought that he might find her as irresistible as she found him made her insane with an excitement that blasted apart all pretenses of caution and logic.

Who cared about caution and logic when this man made her entire nervous system stand up and tingle?

A shuddering breath broke from her as his lips left hers, and she was so far gone she didn’t care if he heard it. Her eyes opened slowly—when had she closed them?—only to find him staring down at her with eyes almost as dark as the night around them. Instead of the heady seduction she’d been expecting to see there, she saw a savage turbulence that seemed almost angry.

With her.

She blinked. She had to be reading that wrong. He couldn’t be angry. Hell, his hands were still gripping her ass like someone had glued them there. Whether he liked it or not, he’d initiated that rousing game of tongue-tag, and she’d responded by enjoying it to the fullest. No way was she going to get saddled with a bunch of post-kiss drama.

Unless…

Maybe she wasn’t as good a kisser as he was, and what she was seeing was flat-out disappointment.

“So, um.” Self-consciousness slammed her hard, fed by a hefty undercurrent of sudden inadequacy. Not surprising, since his usual playmates were members of royalty and A-list starlets. And what was she? An inked-out, welfare system-raised Chicago stray with an attitude as big as Lake Michigan. She’d enjoyed all sorts of slap-and-tickle play with the opposite sex, but always with her own kind. Maybe they didn’t like kisses with hot tongue action in the upper echelons of society. “That was unexpected.”

The turbulence in his eyes didn’t vanish, and his hands didn’t release from their possessive butt-cheek grip. If anything, they tightened until each fingertip dug in, and she loved every bit of it. “Was it really?”

“Yeah. But I’m glad it happened. I mean, it should shut you up for a while, at least when it comes to making noises about rewarding you for good behavior.”

“I would not get your hopes up, if I were you.” He rubbed her against him so that she could no longer ignore the hardening length of him against her lower belly. Her heart went on a gymnastic rampage, and his mouth curled when her breath caught. “I did stay the entire length of the party.”

Damn it, why did he have to say
length
? “True. But you didn’t dance the Chicken Dance.”

“But I did dance with Mama Coco.”

“You definitely danced with Mama Coco.” Her fingers sifted through his hair above the nape of his neck without conscious permission, showing her just how little she was in control. “I thought that was sweet of you.”

“It was sweet of me. It should prove to you that I am not the trouble you think I am.”

“Oh, you’re trouble, all right.” That was when she realized what his nickname was. “Good grief, why didn’t I think of it sooner? Of course you’re Trouble. It’s the perfect name for you.”

His brows quirked, getting her meaning right away. “Absolutely not.”

“Not even when I’m calling to you?”

“What part of
absolutely not
did you not understand?”

“You sound pretty convinced.” One of her hands left the thick silk of his hair to slide under his arm and travel all the way down to his ass, to mirror the hold he had on her. “So I guess you’d probably ignore me if I said something like… ‘hey, Trouble. Come closer, because I’m really liking the feel of you against me.’” She lifted her eyes to his, and she bit her lip at the single-minded focus of his gaze drilling into her. “Am I right?”

“
Ma fleur
, talk to me like that and I doubt I would even notice what you call me.”

“See? It’s not so bad.” She leaned in, brushed her lips along his cheek on the way to his ear, “Let’s try another one. What if I said, ‘I think I could become a fan of the way you kiss, Trouble, but to be sure we need to do it again.’ How would you—”

A large hand bunched in her hair to bring her face to his, and with a wild thrill of triumph she met his descending mouth. She’d always been adventurous when it came to intimacy, because life was too short to hold back on anything that mattered. Kisses mattered. Hot guys who appreciated her ass mattered. That meant Ivar mattered, if only for that moment in time.

No way was she holding back now.

The force of his kiss had her falling back against her car with enough force to make it rock. The flush along her skin went nuclear when he gave her his full weight, the press of his body against hers communicating the ballooning urgency within him. His knee wedged itself between hers in wordless demand. In response, she lifted a thigh as far as her dress would allow, caressing the outside of his leg with it. The juncture of her thighs pulsed with heat as he growled against her lips, and when he rubbed the hardened rod of his cock against her, the achy tightness deep in her belly made her moan into his mouth. He felt so good, so insanely good. It was like he was built for her. Instinctively she knew she’d never find anyone more chemically or physically suited for her than Ivar if she searched the world over…

A loud clearing of a throat had them both snapping around in a dazed kind of shock, if only because Scout had forgotten they weren’t the only two people left on earth. She blinked, blank-eyed and breathing hard, as she took in Sass and her date—Scout thought his name might be Liam—staring at them in apparent amusement.

“I hate to break up a hot and heavy make-out session,” Sass drawled, her curtain of silky black hair waving in the late night breeze. “But you guys were getting more intense instead of lightening up, so I thought I’d better try and get your attention now rather than later.”

Belatedly Scout realized she still had her hand clamped to Ivar’s butt cheek, and hastily moved it to his shoulder. Oy. Talk about awkward. “Not that I’m complaining, but why’d you have to bust it up at all? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’d just like to get into the car you’re making out next to.” Sass nodded at the car next door, biting her lip like she was doing her best not to laugh. “Sorry if this kind of puts a damper on things, but feel free to carry on once we’re out of here.”

“Forgive us.” Ivar abruptly let her go, much to her disappointment, then proceeded to shock the crap out of her by continuing on to his car. “We were on our way out as well.”

They were? Her gaze tried to catch his, but he was already focused on opening his car door. Until that moment she’d thought they were on their way to having some wildly hot and messy stand-up parking lot sex. Maybe that spontaneous sort of thing was too pedestrian for a refined blue blood like Ivar. Maybe the mere thought of something like that was too crude for him to deal with. Or maybe he was a frigging brooding artist whose moods swung from pillar to post in a blink of an eye, and he was no longer feeling it.

Or, maybe she should just ask him what the hell turned his motor off. With any luck, he’d be a sport and tell her how he did it, since hers was stuck in overdrive.

“Um… okay.” Sass looked from Ivar to her, and the faint cringe her former foster sister sent her spoke volumes.
Yikes
. “I’ll call you tomorrow, Scout. We’re doing lunch at Dino’s, so make sure you’re free.”

Sass should have been given the nickname Bossy, as far as Scout was concerned. “Right. G’night.”

As Sass’s tail lights faded away, Scout turned back to Ivar, unsure of her footing now that he had chosen to be fifteen feet away from her. “So, I guess we’re good now, right? You’re satisfied with your reward?”

He turned to raise a brow at her, and she was stupid enough to find that one look hot enough to dissolve healthy bone and muscle.

“You are joking, yes,
ma fleur
?”

His tone made her think that joking with him at that moment was a bad idea. “Joking?”

That arched brow slammed down. “You are not joking.”

She wasn’t called Scout for nothing. If she gave him the wrong answer, something told her that she’d land her ass in the fire. So she played it smart and kept her silence, offering only a vague shrug that he could interpret any damn way he wanted.

“I can still taste you. I can still feel your tongue stroking mine. The last thing I am, is fucking
satisfied
,” he gritted out, a dangerous snarl that made her take an automatic half step away. The move caught his attention, and for a long moment he simply stared at her before he looked away with a rough breath. “You need to know something about me. I have often thought there is something wrong with me. I have never merely
wanted
the same way other people want. I do not just
desire
. I burn. I hunger. When I find something that fits me, I feel like I
starve
for it until I get it. And just now I have discovered that your body fits against mine to perfection. Your spectacular ass fits into my hands. Your mouth seals against mine as if that is what it was created to do. So, no. I am
not
satisfied. I have no clue when I will be, but I can promise you that I will not stop pursuing you until I am.”