Girl Least Likely to Marry

The song ended and the pace picked up a little. A couple behind them bumped into Cassie and she stumbled and stood on his foot. ‘Oh, God, sorry,’ she gasped, pulling away as her front collided with his.

His broad, muscular front.

‘Hey, there, it’s okay,’ Tuck said, steadying her under her elbows, holding on as she tried to pull away, keeping her close. Their bodies were almost—but not quite—touching. ‘No harm done,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘Why don’t you just lay your head here on my chest and stay awhile longer?’

She should tell him to go to hell. But her nostrils flared again as something primal inside her recognised him as male. And he smelled so damn good.

A whisper ran through her head. Do it.

Lay your head down. Shut your eyes. Press your nose into his chest.

Cassie fought against the powerful urge as long as she could but she was losing fast. Each sway of his body bathed her in his eau-du-male scent and before she knew it her cheek had brushed against the fabric of his jacket and was angled slightly, her nose pressed into his lapel.

She inhaled. Deep and long. Every cell was filled with him. Every tastebud went into rapture. Every brain synapse went into a frenzy.

It was so damn good she never wanted to exhale.

It was only the dizzying approach of hypoxia that forced her hand. She quickly breathed out, then took in another huge greedy gulp of him. His scent seduced her senses, stroked along her belly, unfurled through her bloodstream.

She pressed herself a little closer and her eyes rolled back in her head as his heat flooded all round her.

Tuck was surprised when Cassie’s body moved flush against his after her standoffishness. But he liked the way she fitted, her body moulding against his, her head tucked in under his chin nicely. And she let him lead, which was a novelty. Most women he danced with weren’t so passive in his arms.

They danced all flirty and dirty and sexy.

Not that Tuck had anything against flirty, dirty or sexy. He was all for them. But too often it felt like an act. As if the women he dated felt they had to gyrate and shimmy and generally carry on like a B-grade porn star to attract or keep his attention.

Okay, he’d never had a reputation for longevity—his two-year marriage was a sure sign of that—but he was, at his most basic, a guy. And just being female was enough to keep his attention.

Ever since his divorce he’d gone back to his partying ways—living the dream, a different woman every night—the ultimate male fantasy. But he’d forgotten how good this felt, how nice it was to slow-dance, to hold a woman and enjoy the feeling of her all relaxed against him.

Even if she did think he was dumb as a rock.

‘I think you’ve got this dancing thing down pat, darlin’,’ he murmured against her hair.

Cassie just heard him through the trancelike state she’d entered. Each breath she drew in fogged her head a little more, stroking along nerve-endings and leadening her bones. She was pretty sure she was drooling on his jacket.

But he had her in his thrall.

His hands felt big and male on her hips, and hot—very hot. She was aware of every part of her body. It was alive with the scent of him.

His chin rubbed the top of her head and she glanced up. Her gaze fell on the heavy thud of his carotid again, pulsing just above his collar beside the hard ridge of his trachea. Her mouth watered a little more and Cassie sucked in a breath.

‘Well, hey, y’all!’

Cassie dragged herself back from the impulse to push her nose into Tuck’s neck, grateful for Marnie’s interruption. She looked at her friend, who was dancing with a preppy-looking guy, still a little dazed.

‘It’s getting hot in here,’ Marnie said, then winked as her partner danced her away.

Cassie blinked at her retreating back and then glanced at Tuck, who was looking intently at her with his intense extra-terrestrial gaze.

What was she thinking?

She searched her brain for an answer. How great he smelled. How great he might taste. But more than that. She’d been thinking how small and feminine she felt tucked in under his chin, his hands shaping her hips.

How female.

She blinked, shocked by her thoughts. Since when had she cared about that? But her gaze was filled with his perfect symmetrical features and it all became fuzzy again. Why couldn’t he have a prominent forehead and squinty eyes and a crooked nose? He was a footballer, for crying out loud, didn’t they break noses regularly?

Why didn’t she feel like this about Len, her fellow researcher-cum-occasional-lover? She’d never once had to quell the urge to sniff him. They worked together every day, occasionally accompanied each other to university functions, and every once in a while he got antsy and irritable and they had sex, so he could concentrate on what was really important—astronomy.

She’d never slow-danced with Len. Nor did she want to.

She’d never wanted to crawl inside his skin.

It was a scary thought, and Cassie tried to pull away as another slow song started up, but Tuck held her fast and her damn body capitulated readily. Too readily. It was obvious biology was going to win out over intellect and logic tonight and that just wasn’t acceptable.

She needed to defuse the situation, to distract herself from the dizzying power of him.

‘So,’ she said, reaching for a safe, easy topic of conversation, ‘Tuck isn’t your real name?’

It was hardly Mensa level, and they weren’t about to unlock the secrets of dark matter, but at least it would give her back some control.

Mind over body.

And he looked like a guy who liked to talk about himself.

‘No.’ Tuck shook his head. ‘My Christian name is Samuel. Samuel Tucker. But no one calls me that. Except my mother.’

Even his wife had called him Tuck.

‘And Great-Aunt Ada,’ Cassie reminded him.

Tuck smiled. ‘And Great-Aunt Ada.’

Cassie frowned. ‘Why not be called by the name you were given?’

Tuck shrugged. ‘It’s a nickname.’ He looked down into her genuinely perplexed face. ‘Don’t they have nicknames in Australia? You’re called Cassie instead of Cassiopeia.’

Cassie shook her head. ‘No. Cassie is an abbreviation of my Christian name, not a nickname. If that were the case for you, you’d be known as Sam.’

Tuck waited for her to spell abbreviation for his poor addled brain. If she hadn’t felt a hundred kinds of right, all smooshed up and slow dancing against him, he’d be getting kind of ticked off by her attitude towards his mental prowess.

Instead he was prepared to humour her.

‘Except Tuck sounds cooler.’

Cassie frowned. ‘Cooler? Who says?’