Chapter Twenty-Eight
Liv
The base thrums in my chest, pushing me to dance more, sing louder. Anything to drown out the battle between my heart and my head.
I shouldn’t be concerned with matters of the heart this soon after ending an engagement, but the truth is that my feelings for Elliot waned a long time ago. I liked that it wasn’t hard to be away from him.
I never wanted to risk another catastrophic heartbreak. Which is why Hayes being back in my life has turned everything upside down.
My brain tells me that I can’t trust him. He broke me once. He’ll do it again. My heart can’t stop beating for him.
Even now, I imagine I see him in a mass of people. I squeeze my eyes shut, tipping my face towards the ceiling and submerse myself in the music. I don’t need Hayes.
I don’t need men.
I’ll be okay.
An arm slips around my waist, jerking me out of the forced musical retreat in my head, making me gasp.
“It’s just me,” Natalie says. She must’ve just gotten here. “I’m going to the bar. Want anything?”
“Anything with tequila.”
“Sweet or strong?” She asks, backing towards the bar. It draws my attention over her head, and I blink a few times to clear my vision… Is that?
“Both,” I breathe, spinning away from her.
Thea registers my face immediately, closing the gap between us. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s here.”
“Who?” She asks, startled.
“Hayes.”
“Oh,” she sighs in relief. “I thought you meant your stalker.”
“I don’t know who my stalker is.”
“I know, I thought it was just some lawyer hunch or something.”
“Do you think he’s seen me?”
She peeks around my shoulder towards the bar. “Mmm, probably not.”
I whip my head around to check where he is, and he’s looking directly at me. Our eyes connect, and my breath escapes me.
“Yeah, sorry, he definitely sees you.” She rubs my arm. “Go talk to him.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s Hayes. Your Hayes. You don’t have to know, it’ll come to you.”
“And you think this is a good idea?” I ask skeptically. This is usually the type of thing my best friend should warn me away from.
“If he were anyone else, I’d say no.” She nudges my butt forward, giving it a soft tap-tap when we get to the edge of the dance floor. “We’re all here, you’re safe. Let loose and have fun. Don’t worry about anything else.”
“This is starting to feel like a setup.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she sing-songs as she skips back to the table where Jesse is. He won’t even look me in the eyes… This was definitely rigged.
“I believe this is your drink.” A short glass with a sugar rim appears in front of my face. I don’t have to look to know whose hand is holding it. The scars on his knuckles are a pretty dead giveaway, too.
“How do I know it isn’t drugged?” I ask as I grab the glass.
“My existence depends on you speaking to me, so rendering you unconscious would not benefit me in the slightest.”
I take a sip before I’m brave enough to face him. When I do, I wish I had downed the entire glass.
His subtle smirk and those crinkled blue eyes nearly melt me on the spot. How am I supposed to protect myself from someone who throws me so off kilter just by looking at me?
I take another sip from my glass because forming a sentence feels too complex right now.
He leans forward, and the liquor stills in my mouth, burning my tongue. “That is a very small tank top,” he whispers huskily, letting his breath skate over my shoulder.
“You don’t like my outfit?”
“I love your outfit.”
My mouth parts, and I force it closed. “Are you flirting with me?”
His grin widens, and if it were the sun, I’d shield myself from the overwhelming intensity. I love his smile.
“Does it offend you?”
It coils up my insides into a million knots, twisting all that I know about myself, but… “No, it doesn’t offend me.”
It feels good.
Too good.
“I think I need to dance,” I blurt out. I’m not ready to talk, I don’t know if I have the right words to say, even if I was. But I know dancing makes me feel better.
His mouth upticks in another smile just before he downs his glass of amber liquor and sets it down with a clink on the table behind him. “Is this another hobby you picked up in college?”
“Dancing? I guess, since no one ever asked me to prom,” I say pointedly, staring at him over the rim of my drink as I take another sip.
“And I’ll regret that the rest of my life, dove,” he says earnestly, taking my glass from me.
He threads his fingers through mine, pulling me back to the center of the dance floor. Everyone around us shifts naturally as if the spot was reserved for us.
Or maybe an ex-con and a 5’8 woman in heels just have that effect on people.
“You’re going to dance with me?”
“Do you want me to dance with you?”
Somewhere in my brain, I’ve frozen him in time, and he’s still the boy I knew in high school. It doesn’t make sense that he would even know today’s music well enough to dance to it.
I can’t fathom that he’s had his own life since then, and he’s probably danced with countless women in bars.
He’s probably taken them home.
He’s probably taken a lot of them to bed.
My stomach twists, souring my buzz. “I don’t know,” I admit.
He doesn’t react. He is too in control now as a grown man, but I’ve always been able to see under the facade. He’s reaching for me, and I’m running away.
I don’t want to run, but I’m afraid to stay.
The music picks up, and the lights start flashing as bodies around us react to the quickening tempo of the song.
He leans in close so I can hear him. “Dance, Liv. I’ll hold your drink,” his lips brush my ear, and a chill zips down my spine.
I’m dazed, watching him walk away and wishing he wouldn’t, but not being brave enough to tell him that.
Bodies collide with me, but it’s only the girls joining me on the dance floor. Thea smiles as she grabs my hands, forcing me to move my body while Natalie and Callie bounce around us, screaming to the song.
It’s all I need to let myself go. I don’t know how long I’m dancing or how many songs pass, but I know I’ve had one set of eyes on me the entire time.
My gaze washes over the crowd mid-twirl, and they always find his. Leaning his elbow against the high top table with that subtle, delicious smirk that tells me he’s thoroughly entertained by what he sees.
He never holds a grudge when I push him away. He’s always just watching and waiting.
This time, when my eyes lock with his, I can’t will them away, and my body gravitates towards him. His attention doesn’t stray as I work my way through the people dancing, and finally find myself standing in front of him at the edge of the dance floor.
“Thirsty?” He holds out my margarita, and I nod.
I step closer, drinking straight from the straw without taking the glass from his hand. I blink up at him after I’ve gotten my fill, feeling my buzz surge inside of me as he stares at me through hooded eyes.
His lips part, but I interrupt before he can speak. “I’m ready for you to dance with me, now.”
His mouth closes and opens, but he doesn’t form a word before I slip my hands up his sides, pulling him towards the dance floor. He’s still holding my drink as my body resumes its chaotic free styling of the beat.
Everyone is dancing, jiving, grinding, but he’s watching me, fueling me as my body twirls. Heat kisses my waist, and I gasp in surprise, but the contact disappears quickly, leaving my skin tingling in its wake.
My hands dance in the air as I bounce to the music, and his palm covers my belly, spreading more tendrils of the warmth that I crave, and turning me liquid in his embrace.
Except the warmth evaporates when I whip around to face him, as if he was never touching me at all.
My lungs heave, transfixed by the lights and the noise, tuning out anything else that isn’t in this bubble of just the two of us.
I lean in, and his adam’s apple bobs, swallowing thickly as I steal another sip from my drink. His gaze shifts from my eyes to where my lips are wrapped around my straw, and he doesn’t blink as I suck the stray liquid from my bottom lip.
His jaw ticks as his teeth grind together, but I turn my back to continue dancing, pretending I’m impervious to the inferno behind me.
It’s only seconds before fingers brush my hip, and then I’m seared by a lingering palm on my back. Always brief, always respectful.
Never enough.
Another chorus and every woman in the room throws their hands up to shout the lyrics, and when mine go up, his calloused hand engulfs my side from my bottom rib to my hip, sending sparks across my belly.
I need more. I need both of his hands on me everywhere.
His fingers begin to slip off me, and the subtle inklings of fire are replaced with panic as he rips my pleasure away.
We’re not dancing. This is a game of cat and mouse.
Each brief contact is edging me towards a pinnacle that I have no hope of reaching, and I might combust in a bad way.
I snatch my glass from him, sucking down the last drink with no cutesy teasing this time, and tap the closest random man on the shoulder.
“Hey, go put this somewhere for me!” I shout at him, shoving the glass in his hand. The poor guy looks dumbfounded but complies like a good boy.
I don’t bother confirming because my fingers are already threading around either side of Jensen’s neck, pulling him closer so my lips brush his ear.
“Dance. With. Me.”