33. Dance With Me
Dance With Me
Micah moves so fast, he’s a breath away from me as I’m pressed back against my new car.
Shadows trail behind him like smoke as he places his hands on the roof and leans over me.
‘When?’ His eyes are as dark as the night sky, glittering with stars as he searches my face. I don’t know what he hopes to find there.
‘Earlier. When he found out I was having dinner with you tonight.’ I may as well tell him the truth. It was my choice to come here and have dinner with him. And Jake chose to leave me for it. My heart tugs painfully inside my chest.
‘I won’t say I’m sorry. Except that he hurt you.’ His voice is a low rumble, and I shiver.
For a crazy moment, I’m sure he’s about to kiss me, and my eyes drop involuntarily to his mouth.
‘What does that mean? Enough with the innuendos and the hidden meanings, Micah. I don’t understand.’ I drag my gaze back up to his.
‘Not here.’ He steps away, and I feel bereft. The air left in his place is chill against my heated skin. I know he can hear my erratic heartbeat. ‘I promised you a birthday dinner.’
He hesitates for a moment before pulling me against him. The world blurs around us as he uses his Vamp speed to carry me through the castle to one of the smaller, informal dining rooms where we often used to eat together. Well, where I would eat, and he would make me describe the taste of my food.
When I first came to the Coven, he never drank blood in front of me, and neither did any of the other Vampires.
As soon as I realized, I put a stop to it.
It wasn’t fair to the Vamps, whose home it was, that a human girl’s invasion was stopping them from being their authentic selves.
In a way, it also helped me heal from the trauma of my parents’ death, stripping some of the horror from it.
That was the only time Micah ever tried to hide any part of himself from me.
The fire is lit, even though it’s not really cold this early in fall. The table is reduced to fit two settings, with flowers on one side and a candle in the middle.
Micah pulls out a chair for me and pours red wine to match his glass of blood.
I’m hungry, but I also have no appetite. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to taste anything with Micah gazing at me so intently, his words echoing through my mind: he’s not sorry Jake ended things with me.
Now he’s making me sit here, my body aware of every breath I take, the movement of my dress on my skin, the heat in his eyes that’s searing me. It’s the sweetest form of torture.
I’m so on edge I almost jump when Barclay walks in and places cheesy breadsticks in front of me with a flourish.
Micah has a grin on his face, and I can’t help the laugh that escapes.
I was expecting some fancy food, but of course, he got me what I love.
I enjoy a meal at a five-star restaurant, but I prefer food that warms the soul.
Comfort food, to share with those you love, or wallow in during a break-up.
‘Happy Birthday, Miss Evangeline. I hope you get everything you deserve.’ Barclay sounds genuinely sincere, and I think my mouth drops open as he glances from me to Micah.
‘Hold up,’ I say as he turns to leave. Tonight, I’m getting everything straight. ‘I thought you hated me, Barclay.’
‘Why would you think that?’ The old man sounds surprised, his grey eyebrows rising below his furrowed forehead.
‘Um, everything,’ I say, at a loss. He was always so abrupt, never once smiling at me, and seemed put out when he had to do anything for me. He always acted as if I were an inconvenience, and he only put up with my presence because Micah told him to.
Barclay looks toward Micah, and the Vampire nods.
‘I was doing my job, serving the Master. I never resented your presence here. And you didn’t only leave him, you know. You left me as well.’ I can’t hide my shock at his words. All this time he cared about me, and I’d had no idea.
Tonight is apparently a night for unexpected revelations, and I have the distinct feeling this won’t be the last.
Jumping up, I throw my arms around Barclay. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’
Now that I think about it, I doubt he’d had much to do with teenage girls, and then I’d come and upended his well-ordered life of the past few centuries.
He awkwardly pats my back and then shuffles out again as Micah winks at me from across the table.
To cover my swirling emotions, I shove bread into my mouth, biting into the soft crust to get to the melted cheese, not even trying to hide how amazing it is as I groan in appreciation.
Being here in a familiar space makes me feel free in a way I haven’t in far too long.
It’s not that I haven’t been myself, or that I want to go back to being that nineteen-year-old with her whole life ahead of her.
But there are parts of me I threw away, locked in a tower and left there, forgotten.
And I shouldn’t have. I was humiliated, and I never wanted to feel that way again.
To let anyone make me feel that way again.
Looking at Micah across the table now, I need to know the truth about that night. And more than that, I need to know what he feels for me now. Memory is subjective, but over the past few weeks, I’ve begun to wonder if I didn’t completely imagine his feelings for me all those years ago.
I’m almost positive he’s been flirting with me.
Ruby noticed. Jake noticed. He’s been subtle, but he’s always been self-contained when it comes to emotions.
I’ve tried to pretend it was nothing, to dismiss all the looks and comments, the innuendos and almost-offers.
And not only because I had a boyfriend. I am so afraid of being hurt by Micah again. Of misreading everything again.
Jake’s words have been a drumbeat in my soul all evening: I’ve seen the way he looks at you.
As I eat pizza and then mint chocolate chip ice cream, I ignore the rising tension between the Vampire and me. But it’s as if every bite I take brings us closer to something I can’t define.
Micah has his neutral mask on, but simmering beneath the surface is a host of emotions that have my body alert to his every movement, his every breath. Leaning back in his chair, idly playing with his glass, his eyes never leave mine, and they contain a heat that he’s no longer trying to hide.
So we talk, and joke, and laugh, the same as we used to, and it’s easy. But it’s almost as if I’m detached from it. As if there’s a whole other conversation beneath the surface that’s ratcheting my awareness higher and higher.
He’s been drinking blood steadily as I’ve eaten, far more than I’ve ever seen him consume before. As if he’s trying to keep the edge off his hunger. And I don’t think he meant my blood when he told me: it will never be enough.
Finally, I place my spoon on the table, downing the last of the wine. Micah finishes his blood, smiling as my eyes watch his lips. I am not imagining this. There’s an invisible string between us, tugging us inexorably closer.
Then he’s at my side, helping me to my feet before I can think of what to say or do.
‘Dance with me.’ It’s low and deep and smooth as silk.
One of his favorite jazz albums starts as he places his hands on my waist and tugs me closer. My hands slide to his shoulders, feeling the hard muscle, the immovable strength, through his jacket.
Micah dances as if he was born for it, or had thousands of years to practice.
He holds me perfectly, his steps smooth and elegant, eyes never leaving mine as I try to convince myself I must be imagining what I see in them.
It’s too dangerous to believe it’s real.
There’s nothing but a hairsbreadth between our bodies as I fight against the unbearable urge to tangle my hands in his hair and melt into him.
I don’t have only one idea of what a perfect evening is, but this would definitely be one of them.
Not only my favorite foods and dancing, but who I’m with.
How many times did teenage me wish for an evening like this?
How many daydreams involved Micah holding me in his arms and looking down at me exactly as he is now?
The fire is warm against my back, and the blood has taken the cold from Micah’s skin. Every one of my nerve endings is aware of every part of him, live wires shooting electric currents through me.
I don’t know what’s happening. I’m not even sure what I want, except not to think. To live and breathe and embrace this moment as if it could stretch into eternity.
Micah Saint James is looking at me as if he feels the same way, one hand moving around my back as he finally, gently, closes the gap between our bodies. Every thought flies away at the feel of his hard frame against mine, his fingers drawing circles on my back. I want so many things I shouldn’t.
But I can’t do this without knowing for sure. I’m almost drowning in him as I claw my way to the surface. I won’t survive having my heart torn to shreds again, the last ember of my tentative hope snuffed out.
‘You said.’ It comes out breathier than I expect, less sure than I want to sound. I swallow and try again. ‘You said you weren’t sorry that Jake and I aren’t together. What did you mean?’
He’s starlight and midnight, danger and salvation.
‘Tell me it’s not too late.’ It’s a reverent plea in place of answering my question.
But I don’t know what he means. Too late for what? Confusion fills me as I stare and stare and stare up at him.
He hauls in a breath, his hands holding me in place as if he’s afraid I’ll leave.
‘Tell me I’m not too late to have every part of you. To bury myself in you so deep I can’t tell where I end and you begin. That it’s not too late to hear you cry out my name as you come around me.’
My skin is too tight over my bones as heat sweeps through me. I’m tinder and he’s the spark, and a fire between us will burn me to ash.
But…he’s not offering me more. Not a life with him. Not his heart.
My heart wars with my mind. I thought all I ever wanted was for him to speak those words, to rewrite the history between us, a shimmering thread that was never broken.
He wants my body, and damn it if I don’t want to give him all of me. But I’m in love with him, and I cannot go through what I did before. Because a taste of him, one night, would never be enough. And it would be so much harder to rebuild my life again from the ashes of destruction.
The past and present blur before me. He’s a breath away from taking my lips with his. Every inch of him is fused to every part of me. I don’t think I’ve ever been so aware of another person as I am of where he’s searing into me.
It’s as if I’m someone else as I push against his chest and stumble back, shaking my head.
‘I need more.’ I’m not the same girl I was all those years ago, and I won’t apologize for my feelings.
I turn to leave on legs I can’t feel, not wanting him to see how hurt I am, to see the tears that press painfully against my eyelids, threatening to spill over endlessly.
My high heel catches, and as I stumble, he’s in front of me, and then I’m in his arms again.
Micah Saint James looks devastated and unsure in equal measure. He looks afraid. He looks like a fallen angel desperate for redemption.
‘I want nothing in the world apart from you, Evangeline.’ His hands cup my face, forcing me to look at him, to see the truth in his midnight eyes.
‘I’ve tried for seven years to live without you.
And the moment you walked back into my life, my resolve crumbled.
Everything I own, all my wealth, is meaningless without you.
I would give it all away for one taste of you.
Every breath I have is yours. If my heart beat, it would beat for you.
You make me want to live. These past few weeks have been torture.
I can’t sleep, I can’t think, blood tastes like ashes in my mouth. ’
‘What do you want, Micah?’ I need him to spell it out. I want no miscommunication, no misunderstanding between us this time.
‘I want you to say you’re mine.’