Chapter 13
DREW
The song stretched out, slow and easy and with that rhythmic bass that demanded touching.
Callum and Victoria drifted off the floor first, finding a table near the window where I could see Victoria lean into him and say something that made him laugh.
I loved seeing my brother so happy. Cleo lasted another song before Dash pulled her toward the bar with the promise of something stronger than champagne.
Neither of us made a move to leave the dance floor.
We were surrounded by other couples taking advantage of the excuse to rub bodies together without looking weird in public.
The space between us had closed by degrees.
Her hand was still in mine and my arm had found its way further around her waist. I was pulling her closer a little more with each chorus.
She wasn’t pulling back. Her head was tilted slightly down, not resting on my shoulder but close.
Her warm vanilla scent had me thinking about sweet things.
And that made me want to know if she tasted sweet.
The DJ knew what he was doing. The next song was slower still. Something R and B that made a body just want to bump and grind.
“Is this anything like you imagined?” I asked softly.
She looked up at me. “What do you mean?”
“Prom. The one you never got.”
She thought about it. “Better music,” she said. “Better food. Better venue.” A pause. “Better date.”
“Jared Daniels set a low bar.”
“The lowest.” She smiled. “Although.” She tilted her head, considering. “I’m missing something.”
“What?”
“An ugly corsage. You know the ones. Baby’s breath and a carnation dyed a color that doesn’t exist in nature, pinned to your wrist with a ribbon that cuts off your circulation.”
I glanced over her shoulder. One of the arrangements on the high-top table nearest to us was filled with white roses. I released her hand.
“Drew, where are you going?”
I reached past the couple standing near the table, plucked a single rose from the edge of the arrangement, and turned back to her.
“Hold still,” I said.
She went still. I reached up and tucked the stem carefully behind her ear, into the soft wave of her hair where it would catch. I took my time making sure it sat right. My fingers brushed her temple and I heard a soft inhale. I stepped back and looked at her.
“There,” I said. “Now you’re perfect.”
She blinked and then she was smiling at me with that full smile that went all the way up to her eyes. Hell, I think her ears moved.
“You stole a flower from a centerpiece,” she said.
“Your corsage.”
“In my hair.”
“It’s a flower. It fulfills the prom requirements.”
“We’ll have to do the prom pose soon,” she teased.
I took her hand again and pulled her back in.
I was not going to think about the way she’d gone still when my fingers touched her face.
I was not going to think about any of it.
We were dancing. The song shifted again.
Something with a little more rhythm underneath.
A few more couples moved onto the floor and the energy changed.
I spun her once, just to do it. She laughed and came back around.
“Nice,” she said. “Very smooth.”
“I have a few moves.”
“Let’s see them then.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You first.”
She gave me a look that said challenge accepted and then she did something that involved her hips moving in a way I was completely unprepared for. Natural and absolutely deadly. She grinned at me over her shoulder.
“East coast moves,” she said.
She laughed and turned back to face me, and then she was doing something with her knees and hips and I was thinking some very R-rated things. I laughed because if I didn’t laugh I was going to do something significantly less appropriate for a professional event in front of my entire family.
“You’re terrible,” I said.
“You asked to see my moves.”
She was delighted with herself. We kept dancing.
I had to remind myself this was not a woman I was trying to take home at the end of the night.
We were just having a good time. It was not about foreplay on the dance floor.
But damn, her dancing certainly made me feel like that’s where things were headed.
By the time we decided to take a break, we were both exhausted and a little sweaty.
“That was fun.” She sucked down the vodka spritzer I got for her.
“You’re a good dancer.”
“I haven’t danced in forever. I forgot how much I love it.”
“We’ll have to go out while you’re here. More dancing. Club dancing. You can show off those hip moves.”
She winked. “Wait until you see me twerk.”
The party wound down and people started to thin out.
The bartenders started quietly consolidating.
The servers made their final passes with the last of the dessert trays.
I did the circuit one more time. Shook hands and made promises to be in touch.
By the time I got back to the center of the room, most of the family had said their goodnights.
Callum found me near the bar. He put a hand on my shoulder.
“You pulled it off,” he said. “Good job. Really good job.”
“We pulled it off.”
He and Victoria left with Cleo, the three of them disappearing into the warm dark of the parking area. The New York cousins had already gone back to the estate to collect their offspring.
And then it was quiet. Or quieter, at least.
I found Kensey in the side room where the models had gotten ready. The models had done their jobs well tonight, showing off the outfits up close and personal where all the guests could see them.
Kensey was carefully moving the garment bags back onto the rolling rack, checking each tag against the list on the clipboard.
Annika’s team had already done the majority of the breakdown, but there were a few remaining pieces that needed to be consolidated and accounted for before the rack went into the van.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said.
“I know.” She didn’t stop. “Hand me that one.”
I picked up the garment bag near me and passed it over. She checked the tag, made a mark on the clipboard, and hung it on the rack.
We worked through the rest of it quickly. It wasn’t much. Fifteen minutes, maybe, and then the staff would handle everything else. The van was already pulled around to the service entrance and one of Annika’s people appeared to take the rack. Kensey handed over the clipboard. Done.
She leaned against the wall for a moment and looked at her feet. Then she looked at me.
“I’m ready to not be wearing these shoes,” she said.
“Then let’s get out of here.”
She picked up her clutch from the small table where she’d left it and we walked out through the side entrance.
The night air was warm and still smelled like the ocean.
I loved that it always smelled saltier at night.
The brine marinated in the sun all day and then came out to play.
The limo was waiting. The driver had the door open before we reached it.
She slid in and I followed. The door closed behind us and the world outside went quiet. She lasted approximately four seconds.
She reached down and slipped both heels off in one quick motion. She groaned and flexed her feet. “Sweet Jesus.”
“That bad?”
She turned to look at me with the expression of a woman who had been through something. “These shoes are works of art. Annika has impeccable taste and I would die for her. But my feet have been screaming at me for the last two hours. Men will never understand the torture devices known as heels.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because it’s a fashion event and you take your heels off when you’re dead, apparently. That’s the rule.”
She leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes for just a second. The party lights and noise were already behind us. In the soft interior light of the limo she looked beautiful and tired and completely at ease in a way she hadn’t been when we’d pulled up to the venue hours ago.
“Give me your feet,” I said.
She opened one eye. “What?”
“Your feet. Put them up.”
She looked at me for a moment with the expression she got when she was deciding whether to argue.
Then she turned sideways on the seat and swung her legs up, settling her feet in my lap.
I wrapped both hands around her left foot and pressed my thumbs into the arch the way I knew worked, firm and slow.
The sound she made should have been illegal. My cock nearly knocked her foot off my lap. I quietly shifted in my seat to keep it from making itself known.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, that’s it. That’s the thing. That’s exactly the thing.”
Fuck me.
“How do you know how to do that?” she asked.
“I have many hidden talents.”
She laughed softly and let her head fall back.
I kept working, moving up toward the ball of her foot, then back down.
She was quiet for a moment, just breathing.
I watched the tension ease out of her shoulders and her neck.
The flower was still in her hair. I moved to her right foot. She made a small sound of relief.
“This is the best part of the whole night,” she said.
My thumbs pressed slow circles into the arch. I worked my way up toward her ankle, and then, without entirely deciding to, I let my hands drift slightly higher. Just past her ankle. Just to the curve of her calf. My fingers massaged the calf muscle that was very tense as well.
She didn’t pull away, and if the noises she made were any indication, she approved.
I kept going. Slowly. My hands moved up the back of her leg.
I felt the shift in the air between us. The easy, comfortable warmth that had been there all night was still there, but there was something electric about it now.
I suspected she had felt it before, but I knew for certain she did now. There was no way she couldn’t.
Neither of us said anything. My hand continued to run over her calves and teased just an inch higher before moving back to her feet.
We both moved at the same time. She sat forward and I leaned in.
Her hand came up to my jaw. I kept one of my hands on her calf and slid the other one up to the back of her head. My lips brushed hers. She kissed me back, and it felt like something that had been waiting a long time to happen.
When we pulled back, neither of us moved very far. I stared into her eyes. She was my best friend and I wanted that relationship and then some.
“Come to my place?” I asked softly.
I didn’t have to say more. We both knew what I was asking.
She smiled. “I’d love to see your new house.”
Yeah. That’s what she wanted to see.
I pushed the button to speak to the driver and told him to go straight to my address.