“Do you think that’s silly?” she asks him.

I don’t, babe, is on the tip of my tongue. Tell me more about them. Tell me everything. Put me back on your Pinterest board. (Yeah, I had to look up what that was.) You be the woman who can rock whatever she wants because she’s fascinating and intelligent and sexy as fuck.

Greg leans in closer to her, his eyes heavy lidded. “I’m guessing you used real science to explain the details?”

“Of course,” she says.

He bites his lip. “Damn. That’s hot—”

“All right!” I announce and shove at Aiden to get up. Standing, I roll my shoulders and try to shake off the antsy feeling crawling all over me. “Let’s hit the VIP room,” I tell them, waving my hands in that direction. “More privacy and free food and drinks,” I tell Giselle when she gives me a weird look. “Hard to talk over the music out here.” It’s actually not loud in the mezzanine. But who cares.

“I could eat,” Greg says as he drains his glass.

Giselle nods, and they take off ahead of us down the stairs.

Aiden’s shoulder bumps me. “What’s the plan? How are we going to get this dude away from Giselle?” He bristles. “He paints clouds, for fuck’s sake.”

Is he boring? To me, yes, but . . .

Is he to her?

Regardless of the tangents on weather and living with his mom, she digs him, my head tells me as my chest tightens.

I motion to the bouncer to let Giselle and Greg in the area roped off by velvet to the right of the bar that leads to the VIP rooms as I hang back with Aiden.

“No plan,” I growl.

Aiden gets a mulish look on his face. “All right, I see; you’re leaving it up to me. Fine. I’ll handle this.”

“I hope your plan doesn’t involve hitting on Giselle. Those days are done.”

He shakes his head, a disappointed expression on his face as he takes me in. “We’ve established you’ve got it bad for her—whatever. I will let you have her, because you had dibs or bro code, whatever, but I’m going to cock up that date, and you can’t stop me.”

Before I say anything, he grins, backs up, and dances across the dance floor right in the middle of a group of women, who squeal and put their hands on his chest. He looks at me and calls out, “You want Giselle, and I can make it happen. She’s yours.” He’s wearing his “I got this” expression, the one he gets when he’s surveyed the defensive line and has a plan to score.

She’s not mine, my eyes tell him, but my heart isn’t in it.

That cliff looms, and with a few more tugs, I’ll be falling over . . .

Chapter 14

DEVON

Aiden’s version of I got this is clear an hour later. I came in with them earlier, got them a table with a view of the floor, and made sure they had a server for drinks. I told the waitstaff to cater to whatever they wanted, and they ordered several appetizers from the kitchen. I sat with them for as long as I could (about half an hour), but when Greg put his hand on Giselle’s knee, I jerked up and went to check in with Selena.

Now, Greg is leaning against the wall with three jersey chasers around him: a blonde, a redhead, and the petite brunette from the dance floor.

Greg drains yet another whiskey as he shows the girls a video of him doing the morning weather, a bemused smile on his flushed face. The blonde has taken off his jacket, the redhead is currently loosening his tie, and the brunette is batting her eyes.

Giselle is dancing on the small raised dance floor in the middle of the room. Alone. I scan for Aiden and find him in the back, utter delight on his face. Several other players sit at a table close to the dais, and I watch as Hollis sets down his drink, eyeing Giselle, then gets up and dances over to her. Dammit. Jack’s warning means nothing when a beautiful girl is in VIP.

Aiden gives me a grin, and I want to punch him. How can I be gone for thirty minutes and another of my teammates has zeroed in on her?

I can’t leave her alone, ever.

I’ve moved before I’m aware of it, jostling him out of the way. “My dance,” I tell him under my breath, and he steps back, hands up in the air.

After grabbing Giselle’s hand, I twirl her around and pull her into my chest. She feels fragile when I gaze down at her, smoothing hair out of her face, trying to get a read on her.

“I went to dance, and the girls swarmed in on him,” she tells me, her eyes shiny. “One minute he was telling me about precipitation in the Sahara—not much—and the next . . .” Her eyes dart over to Greg.

She has no clue she’s the most beautiful woman in the room, and it’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her, when another giggle sounds from their side of the room as one of the girls leans into Greg and gives him a kiss on the cheek.

I’m going to kill Aiden.

“Are you upset?”

Her nose presses into my neck as she inhales, and I lose my train of thought.

“Giselle? Talk to me.”

She says nothing, resting her head on my chest, and I exhale, tightening my arms.

“Look, I’m angry for you. I’ll beat the shit out of him,” I say.

“Cumulous clouds are the mother of all other clouds . . . ,” comes Greg’s excited voice.

Her shoulders shudder, and my anger notches up, but I hold it in, tracing my fingers down her spine to rest on the waistband of her skirt, idly brushing at the place where her blouse is tucked in. “Baby, talk to me. How can I make it better?” My hands rub down her back, lingering at the top of her ass before starting at her shoulders again. Her hair brushes against my jaw, and she smells like vanilla, sweet and thick and heady. God. So fucking good.

Her body shivers, and I think she sniffs.

“Baby, don’t cry, please . . .” I try to ease away and tip her face up, and she grudgingly lets me. “You aren’t crying,” I accuse as we stop moving, and I see the glint in her eyes.

She laughs, stuffing her face in my shirt again. “Oh God, no. He’s so awful. I tried, I did, but if he talked about clouds one more time, I was going to stick a fork in his face.”

A grin tugs at my lips. “You don’t want to go meet his mom?”

She guffaws. “My own is enough.”

“Ego bruised?”

“It’s worth you dancing with me,” she says with a smile and tangles her hands in my hair as we start dancing again, and I have no clue if it’s a fast song or slow, but I don’t want her out of my arms.

“Did you eat at least?” I ask a few beats later.

She smiles. “Should have just stayed home and ordered from Milano’s.”

“Nah, it’s your birthday eve.”

“I’d rather sit on your couch and watch Shark Week.”

“Bloodthirsty beast.”

“You like it.”

“I love it.”

She laughs, and I laugh with her. Watching her, the curl on her red lips, the way her eyes linger on me, holding my gaze . . . a sense of urgency flies at me, digging deep and taking up space in my chest. I want to be alone with her—just her, just me . . .

“Come on; let’s get out of here.” Clasping our hands together, I head to the exit, and she follows me.