Taking her hand, he spun her around and caught her in his arms. “You are never to tell anyone about this, Rhonda Lee.”

“Lips are sealed, darlin’—except during sex.”

“Good girl.” He started to move and then abruptly stopped, looking at her in a panic. “That night…I didn’t do anything else, uh, embarrassing?”

She snorted while she watched and emulated the foot moves of the other dancers. “I got two words for ya, hoss. Play. Bow.”

Oh please, someone shoot me now.

Ronnie took a step back, wrinkled up her face, and shrugged.

“What does that mean?” Shaw looked down at what he wore. “It doesn’t look right?”

“It looks fine.” Actually, the man looked astounding. “Tuxes are just…” She shrugged again. “Boring.”

He threw up his hands. “And what would you suggest?”

“What are you asking me for? I don’t care what you wear.”

“I’m asking you because you’ll be with me when I wear this on New Year’s Eve.”

Ronnie took another step back. “What? When did I agree to that?”

“You didn’t. But you’re my date for New Year’s.”

“And you decided that when exactly?”

“When I met you.”

“And you assumed I’d say yes?”

“Yeah. Unless you have another date.”

“If I had another date, I wouldn’t be here with you now.” Annoyed, she walked up to him. “I date one male at one time. I may not date ’em for long, but I don’t overlap.”

Shaw slipped his hand behind her neck, the skin tingling where he touched her, and pulled her close.

“Good,” he murmured. “I’d hate to have to kill a man for being in my way.”

“Don’t get too attached, hoss. This is temporary.” Fun, but temporary. Right?

“You going somewhere I don’t know about?”

She tried to answer him, to tell him that soon she’d be gone just like she’d done so many times before. But he massaged the back of her neck and she had to grab his hand when her leg started to shake.

Staring at her, Shaw looked down at her legs and she stumbled away from him before he could start again.

“Man, am I hungry!” She cleared her throat so she wouldn’t yell the next sentence like she’d yelled the first. “How about some dinner?”

“I know a perfect place. Great Italian and amazing desserts.”

“Perfect.”

“What about the tux?”

Shrugging, “If it’s the best you can do.”

“It’s Armani.”

She pointed at her jeans. “And these are Old Navy. Don’t care when I’m hungry. Let’s move,hoss.”

Brendon took another bite of the mass of dark chocolate fudge cake with Belgian dark chocolate candy, “enrobed” in dark chocolate sauce monstrosity they’d ordered for dessert. The plate it came in took up half the table. Luckily they only ordered one and decided to share.

Ronnie scooped up another spoonful. “Okay, have you ever been in love?”

They’d spent the whole day together and Brendon had never enjoyed himself quite so much with a female. Ronnie kept things light and funny, seemed to enjoy life in general, and adored his kids. Now they ate at one of his favorite restaurants for dinner, grabbing seats outside so they could watch the world speed by while they downed two prime rib dinners. Rare.

Brendon crunched on the walnuts his half of their chocolate dessert contained. “Once,” he said after a moment of thought. “When I was thirteen. Her name was Denise Leweskie. I learned how to polka for her.”

He expected Ronnie to laugh at him, his sister sure as hell had in seventh grade until he shoved her into his gym locker with his unwashed jock.

But Ronnie didn’t laugh. Instead, she said, “That’s nothing. To impress a polar bear I met in Switzerland, I once got on two tiny sticks and flew down a snow-covered mountain.”

Brendon blinked. “Do you mean ski?”

“Yeah. Never again. Which is exactly what I said when I went flying off that mountain. I also said it in the hospital, too. And while I was in traction.”

Focusing on the dessert in front of him to prevent himself from laughing in her face, he asked, “Didn’t you take lessons first?”

“Lessons? Oh no. I didn’t need lessons.” He glanced up and found her shaking her head in disgust at her own idiocy. “You see, Sissy said I wouldn’t need lessons. ‘You’re a shifter,’ she said. ‘We can do anything,’ she said. And the fact that I’d had six hot chocolates laced with tequila had me believing she was right. So, there we are on this mountain some-the-fuck-where in Switzerland, at midnight—”

“Midnight?”

“Yeah. And I was standing at the little kid’s run, thinking to myself, ‘Girl, have you lost your goddamn mind?’ and Sissy says, ‘If you’re going to impress a polar, Ronnie Lee, you better get over to that other run…way up there.’ So, like a damn fool, up there I went.”

“And how old were you exactly?”

“Nineteen, I believe. Nineteen and dumb as a load of bricks. Dumb and horny.”

“And the polar bear?”

Ronnie gave a slow grin that made his cock hard. Brendon had to admit, he was beginning to love that smile. “Let’s just say he made the nights go very fast in a lonely Swiss hospital where the staff, mostly jackals, mocked me.”