26. Makin’ Babies On Dance Floors
26
MAKIN’ BABIES ON DANCE FLOORS
DAKOTA
“ Y ou remember the first song we danced to?” I ask, taking his hand. The heat from his fingers flies directly into my heart, warming me up from the inside.
“Course I do, ’cause I don’t have a terrible memory like someone I know,” he teases, guiding me from the sticky table onto the stickier floor. “I remember everything about that night. We were just teenagers, but I’d been practicing dancing with my mama the night before, and I couldn’t wait to impress you with my new moves.”
He wiggles his brows.
My heartbeat stutters, and I can only manage to get out one word. “Really?”
“Oh, yeah. When you showed up in that pink lace dress, I couldn’t take my eyes off you. I had a pretty big crush on you then, not that you noticed.”
“You did?” I breathe out, my stomach tightening, core igniting.
“Still do.” He shoots me a wink, dropping that truth like it weighs nothing.
I think we’re both feeling the effects of the alcohol, but drunkenly sleeping with my best friend doesn’t sound like a terrible idea tonight. In fact, dragging him into the outdoor shower sounds like a brilliant idea.
I can’t tell if he’s teasing or serious, but thanks to the margarita, I’m feeling playful. “Wyatt Dale Patterson. Are you flirting with me?”
His fingers inch up my waist, climbing higher and higher. “Yes, ma’am. I have been for a while now. You gonna put me out of my misery and flirt back?”
Before I know what’s happening, he’s swinging me around the dance floor, my hair fanning in an arc of waves. “Wyatt!” I laugh-shriek, feeling bubbly thanks to the margarita and his words.
He stops twirling me all of a sudden and gazes at me with such intensity, I forget we’re in the middle of a packed dance floor. Couples circle around us, but he just stares at me with parted lips.
“What?” I pant, brushing a piece of hair stuck to my lip gloss. “Why’re you looking at me like that?”
He swallows.
I wait.
“You called me Wyatt.” Everyone two-steps, moving in a coordinated circle, but we still. Chest to chest. Heart to heart. He leans in so his stubble velcros to my cheek. “I forgot how much I like it when you say my name. Say it again for me, would you?”
My breath hitches at his rough tone. He notices. His Adam's apple bobs again.
When I don’t say anything, he scrapes a hand down my back and fists the cotton of my dress. “Say. It. Again,” he rasps.
His rumbly words send a ripple of desire down my spine. “Wyatt…”
It’s a plea. It’s a moan. It’s a revelation.
It’s all of the above.
This feels a lot like flirting, but I think it’s the alcohol making his voice sound all gritty. But it’s not the tequila making his thumbs brush my hips. Or making me lean into his touch.
That’s all on us.
I lift my chin, aware of prying eyes in this bar. “Everyone staring at you is going to think we’re together if you keep dancing with me like this, you know? You’ll have the whole town talking.”
“Good.” With a firm tug, he jerks me forward into his warm chest. “I want this whole town talking about us.”
Before I can even process the way he just handled me, he starts twirling me around the dance floor with a confidence I’ve never seen from him. He was always a good dancer, but now he’s got this casual saunter to him that, I’ll be honest, is ridiculously sexy.
I think men who know how to dance also know their way around a bedroom. Nine out of ten times, if he’s got moves on the dance floor, it normally means he’ll have moves in bed, so maybe I’m wrong about Wyatt. I can’t stop imagining what it would be like to have his head between my thighs, looking up at me with glistening lips.
I step on his boot, and his low chuckle sinks into my body, then drags lower, and lower, until my legs clench.
Damn legs.
“Someone’s a little rusty,” he murmurs, close to my lips. Has his voice always been that sexy, or is that the margarita haze?
“It’s really easy to overthink a two-step,” I retort, staring down at my treacherous feet. “And the tequila isn’t helping.”
“Then stop overthinking and follow my lead.” He lowers his hand so it rests just above the curve of my lower back, refusing to let me go. “You’re trying to take control like you always do, but you can’t control a bull, and you can’t control me. Now, listen,” he whispers, warm breath coasting the shell of my ear. I shiver, and I feel his smile against my cheek. “Close your eyes for me.”
“What?” I rear my head back, but he reels me back in. “I can’t dance with my eyes closed. I need to watch where I’m going.”
“No, you don’t. I’ve got you.” He squeezes my waist harder. “Close. Your. Eyes.”
That demanding voice is doing things to my body. My eyelids flutter closed like they can’t help but agree to his command.
“That’s it. Now, follow my lead, like this. One-two-one,” he chants. “One-two-one. There. Just like that. You’re doing so good, honey.”
My heart races. That praise shouldn’t sound so sexual.
Heat singes my core as he begins leading us in a smooth two-step around the dance floor, and I lean into him, closing my eyes. I can’t stop myself from resting my cheek over his heart, but it used to be his heart that pounded harder than mine, and now my heart’s beating at a rapid pace.
As he leads and I follow, I’m thrown back to all those times we would go two-stepping over the summer, but when we were young, we would both fumble around the dance floor. There’s no fumbling from Wyatt now—only me.
He’s smooth confidence for miles.
For the first time, I let go and stop overthinking. All my worries over my dreams, our friendship, the Pbr, they drift away on the sound of the fiddle. I let myself feel and dance, and before I know it, he’s whispering in my ear.
“Look at me, honey.”
And I do.
The tip of his nose skims mine, and his hands trail higher up to brush the underside of my breast. “See, that’s what you need to do when you get out on a bull. You can’t control the ride, so just roll with it. Sometimes, the best things in life happen when you let it be.”
I close my eyes, flowing with him. I’ve been fighting so hard for control—control over the bull, over my future, my career, my love life—that I forgot what it was like to just be . When there are so many doubts buzzing through my head, I think, sometimes, I latch onto the things I can control so I have power over something.
The song fades out with a soft strum, and the fiddle player steps up to the mic. “Alright folks, unless you’re dancing with a family member, I want you all to lean in and kiss your partner good. No pecks allowed in this here bar.”
“What?” I balk up at him. “She wants us to kiss?”
He sucks in a breath through his teeth. “Yeah, looks like it.”
The fiddle player zones in on Wyatt. “I’m lookin’ at you and that partner of yours, cowboy. If your lips aren’t locked in the next five seconds, I’m coming down there to push you together myself.”
It feels like every head in the bar turns to stare at us. I’ve always liked the spotlight, but still… I can’t kiss Wyatt in front of all these people. Except, I kind of want to. And the fiddle player is still staring, and now there’s a half amused, half resigned smile playing across Wyatt’s mouth, as if to say well, what’re you gonna do?
“What do you say?” he breathes the words against my lips. “Should we give ’em what they want? Your call.”
My shrug turns to putty when his hands skate up my waist. It’s only one kiss. What harm will it do? I’ve kissed plenty of men before, and he does look damn good in those Wranglers hugging every inch of his perfect ass.
I tangle my fingers in his hair. “I guess we have to. Let’s give ’em a show.”
“I don’t care about what they want. I only care about what you want,” he says, brushing his hand beneath my hair to cradle my neck. “Do you want me, honey?”
His green gaze is right in front of mine, and his hand travels higher and higher up my ribcage, close enough that just an inch more and he’d graze the underside of my breast. He doesn’t though. He stops while his other hand cups the back of my neck. I never realized how big his hands are.
Big and warm.
He’s leaning in—closer, closer, closer—and I’m not pulling away. The tequila, the smoke, his mountain laurel scent, it’s all a heady combination, jumbling my thoughts.
When he cups my jaw in his rough hand, I stand on my toes to reach his height.
And when he dips his head, I loop my arms around his neck.
And then, when he kisses me, I kiss him back.
Oh, do I kiss him back.
I expect it to be clunky, but the moment our lips touch, they start moving together like muscle memory. His breath is tinged with the whiskey he’s been sipping all night, and my lips part in an invitation. His mouth moves slow and deliberate against mine, almost like he’s trying to start slow and make this last.
Most men treat kissing like a pit stop on the way to sex, but not Wyatt. He kisses like it’s the main event, not the lead-up.
He moans when I trace my tongue along his bottom lip, hoping to capture more of his taste. His tongue flicks against mine in response, and it’s just a little test, but it opens the gates to a more ferocious kiss.
We absolutely devour each other, and I forget all about the fact that I’m kissing Wyatt Patterson, the boy I’ve known for years. All I can think about is how I want more, more, more of this man. My hands tangle in the strands of hair peeking out beneath his cowboy hat. When I tug, a groan falls from his mouth into mine, and I suck in the noise, wanting to hear it again.
His hands travel down my spine, squeezing me against his tall frame, and I trail my fingers down his chest to dip them into his belt loops to pull him closer until there’s no space left between us. He takes me with his mouth. A deep groan scrapes through his throat, and my nipples tighten to hard points at the noise.
He tugs my hair back to get better, deeper access to my mouth. I arch into his body, and a rush of heat tingles down my spine when I feel him hard against me. He’s hard enough that people will notice, and I start blazing with need. I imagine having him inside me, and the heat just continues to spiral until I’m gasping.
This might be the best kiss of my life.
A throat clears into the mic, and the noise snaps me out of Wyatt’s spell. He stops kissing me first and pulls back with the smirkiest smirk I’ve ever seen on a man, but on him, it still manages to look boyishly charming.
“I said to kiss your partner good,” the fiddle player chastises in amusement, for everyone in the bar to hear. “Not make a baby on the dance floor.”
Wyatt gives her a half-sheepish, half-blasé shrug, but there’s something simmering beneath the surface of that expression, something intense.
He tucks me against his side, and from the tightness of his grip, I’m not sure he’ll ever let go.
“Have you seen this one?” he calls back to her. “I couldn’t help but get carried away, but we should probably head out, so we don’t accidentally make any babies on dance floors.”
The fiddle player winks at him. “Good call.”