Chapter 27
27
Dancing with Dylan was a revelation. He gave himself over to the music in a way that spoke to the part of Sadie that loved to do the same. It wasn’t that Pete never danced with her, he was always willing to get up at a wedding or a party, but he usually required a few beers and a big crowd he could hide in. And it had always felt as if he was going through the motions, as though he had a few safe steps that he’d learned looked okay and he stuck rigidly to those. He didn’t feel the music, didn’t get pulled into the rhythm, didn’t dance because it was impossible not to move his body to the beat. The hair at her nape and temples grew damp with sweat and she was sure if she looked in a mirror her face would be shiny from the exertion. When she woke in the morning she’d probably regret it, but right now she didn’t care about any of that. She just wanted to dance.
As the first insistent beats of ‘Blue Monday’ came through the headphones, Sadie glanced at Dylan and they exchanged identical grins. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard the iconic track of her youth and yet it was as if it were yesterday. She knew every note, every transition before it happened, the lyrics coming unbidden to her lips. She wasn’t a mother or a grandmother, not a jilted wife, or a girl who’d been battered and bruised by a mother’s indifference, not even a woman with the shimmering promise of love just over the horizon if she reached for it. They were all parts of her, but she was more than that. For the first time in forever all the separate bits of her – past, present and future – clicked into place and she felt whole.
The ricochet beats ended and Sadie opened her eyes to find a breathless, sweaty Dylan watching her. The heat in his eyes tugged at something deep inside her, asking a question that called an answering need so fierce it was almost frightening. Over the headset she vaguely heard the DJ burbling about slowing things down and then the opening bars of ‘Love and Affection’ filled her ears and there Joan Armatrading was, saying she wasn’t in love but was open to persuasion.
You and me both, Joan.
And then she was in Dylan’s arms, eyes closed tight, hands stroking the damp curls of his hair, the dip at the base of his spine, the rough denim of his jeans at his waist. She could feel him just as restless, just as needy, and when his hot lips scorched a line against the side of her jaw she jerked back. Their eyes met and then they were moving, cutting a line through the other couples on the dance floor, barely pausing to tug off their headphones and dump them on the table by the door. And then they were almost running in their haste to get upstairs. They got to her room and she was fumbling for her room key but her fingers were shaking and God why didn’t women’s jeans come with proper pockets and all the while Dylan’s hot words were urging her to hurry, telling her how beautiful she was, how much he wanted her and she wanted to tell him to shut up and let her focus a second but then the slim plastic card was in her hand, in the slot, and they were through the door and kissing and kissing as if they needed each other to breathe.
There were too many buttons, too many zips and laces, and if anyone had invented a sexy way to take off a pair of socks then Sadie had never learned it, but somehow they made it to the bedroom and then there was no more time to think about anything other than how amazing it was that something so familiar could feel so very different, because it was Dylan who was touching her, Dylan who was asking what she liked, what she needed, and giving her all those things and so much more besides.
‘Bloody hell,’ Dylan gasped.
They were side by side, both staring up at the ceiling as they panted for breath. If Sadie could have got her brain to function enough to form words she would’ve agreed with him. She squinted, wondering why it was bright, and then a horrified realisation hit her. ‘You put the big light on!’
Dylan laughed. ‘It was that or break our necks trying to find the bed.’
‘But the big light, really?’ She scrabbled for the edge of the quilt, which was bunched up underneath her, trying to free enough of the material to tug it over her.
Dylan seized her hand in a grip that was both firm and gentle. ‘Don’t do that. I was enjoying the view.’
She rolled her head so she could mock glower at him. ‘Can’t you enjoy it in the far more flattering glow of a lamp?’
Chuckling, Dylan rolled off the bed and walked towards the light switch. There was a hint of softness at his waist and hips, but his shoulders were broad and his bottom as firm and muscular as she remembered it feeling under her hands. ‘Maybe you should leave the big light on,’ she found herself saying. When he paused to glance at her she shrugged. ‘It’d be a shame to spoil the view…’
He left her in the early hours, apologies spilling from his lips between kisses as she nudged him towards the door with laughing assurances that it was okay. She completely understood why he didn’t want the kids to wake up and him not be there. When he finally let her close the door on a promise they’d have breakfast together, Sadie leaned against the wall and closed her eyes with a sigh. How was it possible for something to be both the best and worst decision she’d made in her life? They were going home in a few days and right now she had no idea how she was going to be able to walk away from him.