Chapter Fourteen #2
Holding his wrist, I moved his hand, gliding it over, then down the side of my breast. His whole body tightened. A muscle pulsed in his cheek. I kept moving his hand, sliding it down my ribs, then settling it on my hip as I did a very deliberate roll of my hips with the music.
The speakers were too close, too loud, so I couldn’t hear it, but I felt the vibration as a sound moved through his chest.
His hand tightened, and I could feel the self-preservation in the touch, the way his hand ached to move lower, to slip under my skirt, then slide up my thigh.
Instead, he gripped hold of me as his hips started to move with mine to the music.
The heat of him radiated through me, and my own breathing hurried to match the rise and fall of his chest.
All thoughts split apart as soon as they formed. All I could think of was the feel of his firm body behind mine, the scent of him, the way he seemed to vibrate with barely repressed desire. How mine felt the same way.
His fingers left my hip, and there was a moment of disappointment before I felt his arm sliding up my belly, his arm settling under my breasts, his hand splayed over my ribs.
Was the deep breath I took deliberate? I’d never know. But I felt the way Raff’s fingers flexed as my breasts moved against his arm.
The DJ mixed one song into the next, the music taking on this thick, slow, sensual beat that swirled through my chest and settled in my belly as our bodies met the new rhythm.
My whole body was pulse and ache and a need so deep I could drown in it.
There was no stopping the way I leaned back into his body, how my face angled inward.
Raff’s head ducked, his cheek near mine, making my heavy lids slide closed.
Almost involuntarily, his thumb twitched, shifted, teased over the swell of my breast. The movement was over before it even began, but there was no way to hide how affected I was as a shiver worked its way through me.
That seemed to snap whatever control Raff was clinging to.
His head dipped lower, his breath on my neck, making me arch my head away, inviting him in, silently begging for more.
He was happy to deliver, his nose teasing up the column of my neck, making my breath and heart hitch in sync. On the path back down, his lips pressed into my skin—a barely there brush that had a soft moan escaping me, the sound absorbed by the music around us.
But Raff heard it or felt it.
His hand moved from my ribs, sliding over my chest, then closing around my throat, using it to turn me back toward him.
Then there he was, waiting.
I couldn’t tell you who moved first. It was more like a collision. Our mouths met like impact—no hesitation, just heat, and lips, and a sharp, breathlessness that came from wanting too much, too fast.
The kiss tipped—slower, deeper.
A warm, tight ache constricted my chest as I started to turn toward him.
But it was right at that second that the DJ spun the track, making the crowd erupt in cheers, making us jolt apart.
For just a second, we stood there staring at each other, breaths fast and shallow, eyes wide, trying to wrap our heads around what just happened.
I snapped out of it first, turning and fleeing toward the ladies’ room before I did something monumentally stupid. Like beg him to take me home and fuck me all around the glass house.
A soft whimper escaped me as I rushed into the bathroom, finding myself in an anteroom with lush pink velvet couches.
I dropped down onto an empty one, burying my head in my hands and trying to remind myself that distance was the right decision, even as my body throbbed and begged me to walk back out there, grab Raff’s hand, and tell him to take me home.
“Whoever he is,” a voice said, standing near the couch, “he’s not worth it.”
I’d always had a deep appreciation for the support a woman could find from other drunk women in a ladies room.
But just this once, a little voice inside my mind whispered: What if I think he might be?
“Yeah,” I agreed, sitting back and taking a few deep breaths, tamping down the desire still flickering in me. “You’re right.”
I got to my feet, exhaled hard, then made my way back out of the bathroom before I chickened out and tried to escape through the window or something equally humiliating.
I saw Raff before he saw me, leaning casually against the wall, his foot pressed back against it, waiting for me to reemerge.
I wasn’t prepared for the kick to the gut I felt at seeing him. Or the way something red and ugly simmered inside me as a pretty little redhead in a two-piece dress made her way up toward Raff. She was all simpering smiles and hair twirls.
The part I hated the most was that I couldn’t even blame her, couldn’t hate her.
He was gorgeous.
And he didn’t belong to anyone.
Certainly not to me.
Raff’s posture stayed casual, showing no signs of genuine interest that I could see.
Until his head swiveled and locked in on me.
He pushed off the wall and made a beeline for me, making the redhead’s lips part as she watched him.
For just a second, there was something intense about his gaze as he approached me.
But I blinked, and it was gone.
In its place was the loose, boyish charm, the playful smile as he slung an arm around my shoulders. It was not in the possessive way a part of me was still aching for, but something casual and friendly.
“I was about to send in a search party.”
With that and nothing else, he escorted me back up to the VIP section.
Where he proceeded to act like nothing at all happened. While something felt fundamentally changed about me.
I just sat there silently, accepting the drinks people kept passing to me, sinking deeper into myself with each passing moment.
Eventually, we all made our way back to the stretch, minus Dixon, but with two extra women, then drove back to the beach house.
I didn’t know what everyone else did.
I kicked off my shoes and dragged my confused and drunk ass upstairs, washed off my makeup, changed into pajamas, and crawled into bed.
Thanks to the drinks, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, oblivious to what was happening in the house.
Until, suddenly, a hand closed around my throat.