“You mean you’re drunk enough you don’t feel like getting up to go to the bar.”
Wayne grinned and pulled her close for a kiss that made me feel like a voyeur. “That, too.”
That was my cue to leave them for a few moments. I needed to stand, anyway, to gauge my own level of inebriation. Two drinks took me a lot farther than they had three years ago.
A space opened up at the bar as I approached, and the bartender gave me his immediate attention. I knew he was paid to flirt as much as he was to mix drinks, but his smile still flooded me with warmth. I’m no more immune to my sense of self being reflected in the light of another’s esteem than any other woman. I smiled back and ordered two more beers and a bottle of water for myself.
“She doesn’t want that. Get her a shot of Jameson.”
I didn’t turn to face the voice that had haunted me for the past three weeks. I nodded at the ’tender waiting my approval, and he slid the shot glass toward me without another word.
“Hi,” said the man from Sweet Heaven, and I turned.
“Hi.”
The crowd had grown as the night wore on, and now it jostled us closer. He looked down at me, his smile bemused. In the blue neon light his eyes looked darker than I remembered.
“Fancy meeting you here.”
My fingers curled around the shot glass, but I didn’t lift it. “Yes.”
His gaze traced the lines of my face; I felt his look as if it was a touch. Someone pushed toward the bar behind him, nudging him forward another inch. He reached to grab my arm just above the elbow, so the sudden impact didn’t make me stumble. He didn’t let go.
“Aren’t you going to drink that?” He nodded toward the shot without taking his eyes from mine.
“I’ve reached my limit.”
More people pushed to the bar behind each of us, pressing us together. His hand slid down my arm to rest on the curve of my waist. A touch so casual anyone watching would assume we’d known each other for years. A touch so blatant it made my breath catch.
“So, you’re a good girl.”
Another man who’d called me a girl would have earned a stomp to his foot and maybe the drink in his face. For him, my mouth curved. Closer we drew, magnets attracting, one to one, without the pressure of the people around us.
“Depends on your definition of good.”
His fingers splayed against my side, his thumb drifting back and forth along the smooth fabric of my shirt. “Are you flirting with me?”
“Do you want me to?”
“Do you want to do what I want?” My pulse pounded at his question, murmured directly into my ear.
We’d already aligned thigh to thigh, belly to belly. If I turned my head, our mouths would be close enough to kiss. His breath caressed my ear and the slope of my neck exposed by my upswept hair.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“I want you to drink that shot.”
I did without a second protest. It burned in my gut and shot liquid fire through every vein. He hadn’t moved anything but his hand, which now lingered at my lower back, keeping me tight against him though the crowd at the bar had eased a bit and there was no longer a need for us to remain so close together.
“Take down your hair.”
A command, but voiced as a request, and I reached to undo the clip holding it on top of my head. Released, it tumbled over my shoulders and halfway down my back. It brushed his face, still so close to mine.
“Dance with me.”
He pulled back to look into my eyes, his smile less bemused and his gaze brighter. Hungrier. He didn’t move his hand.
“Is that…what you want?” My hesitation sounded coy, and I hadn’t meant it to. I’d meant to sound sultry, to play the game.
He nodded, solemn. His eyes stared into mine, hard, and I could see nothing else. Could feel nothing else but the spots on my body where his body touched.
“That’s what I want.”
I gave him what he wanted. The dance floor, even more crowded than the bar, left little room for maneuvering, but most people weren’t really dancing. Bouncing up and down in time to the rhythm, maybe, and wiggling, but not dancing.
He took me by the hand, fingers laced, and put us in the center of the dance floor. One step, and he drew me close to him. Another, and his hands fit my waist like they’d been made to match my curves. Three steps and his thigh slid between mine. These points of connection grounded me, kept me tethered.
There could be no talking here, for even a shout would’ve been difficult to hear above the pounding throb of the music. The bass thumped its pulse in the pit of my stomach, the hollow of my throat, my wrists, between my thighs. The crowd surged around us like the ocean against rocks, parting and retreating to return in the next instant, surrounding us. It pressed in on us as the song changed and brought more dancers onto the floor.
He wasn’t smiling anymore, like this was serious business. Like he could see nothing else around us, like his world had narrowed to only me. I shivered at the look.
When he put his other hand on my side, up high, just under my breast, I startled but had no place to go. No retreat. I looked up, into his eyes, those light-and-dark eyes, and lost myself in them.
We moved together, and my hand slid from his shoulder to cup the back of his neck. The edges of his sandy hair tickled my knuckles. The heat of his hand branded me through my blouse. Heat flared, too, in my belly where it rubbed against his groin.
It had been a long, long time since I’d danced with anyone, an eternity since I’d had a man’s hands on me, since I’d seen my own desire reflected in another’s gaze. It stole my breath and drew my tongue out to lick my lips. The motion caught his attention the way a cat will watch a mouse.
His hand slid up my back to tangle in my hair, tip my head back, bare my throat to his mouth as he bent to slide his lips along my skin. I felt myself gasp but couldn’t hear it. He pulled me closer, and I gave in to his whim.
The crowd had become one body moving to the music’s sensual beat. One entity with us in the center of it, pressed so close I could no longer be certain where I ended and he began. His hand slid up to embrace my breast through my blouse. I blinked and saw nothing but his face shadowed with blue and green, the colors pulsing in time to the rhythm.
Nobody watched us. Nobody saw. We had become part of something bigger and yet remained separate from it. The couple next to us kissed, their tongues tangling as their hands stroked and kneaded each other. The dance floor had become an orgy of lust. I smelled it, tasted it, saw it reflected in his eyes and knew he saw it in mine. The song changed again, blending into the previous one without break.
Bodies all around us pressed us together. Sweat slid down my spine and shone on his forehead. Everything had become heat and beat.
His cock pressed hard against my belly. The sensation parted my lips in silent reaction, and his gaze watched my mouth again, his expression tense, as though he was in pain.
It wasn’t pain that thinned his mouth. I knew it by the way his jaw tightened when another surge of the crowd rocked me against his body. The hand on my ass splayed, then stroked upward to reach the small of my back, then down again to caress and press me against his erection.
I was lost. Lost in his eyes, in his touch, in the pounding pulse of music and lust. Lost in my own desire, which I’d denied for so long and now could no longer fight.
I saw the shift in his gaze and knew the exact moment when he recognized my reaction. If he’d smiled smugly or leered, I’d have fled. Instead, his eyes narrowed slightly, and his expression became a mixture