Twenty-Two #2
About a half hour later, a familiar song comes on that gets Elle and Lucy excited.
The pair skip to the dance floor, and it’s not long before I’m the schmuck sitting at a bar, watching the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen shake her body in a way that should be illegal, too scared to do anything about it.
She looks ridiculous. Not in the usual sense of the word, but in the sense that there is no way she can be the same person that I found sleeping on the floor outside of my apartment three months ago. Every set of eyes in the place has been on her since she walked in, including mine.
Her blonde waves bounce beautifully off her shoulders any time she moves. She keeps doing this thing where she runs two fingers down her part and fluffs the back of her hair—and it is literally driving me wild.
Her shirt—if it can even be called that— lays longer on her front than her back. Every time she sways her hips, I can see the gentle curve of her lower back, and I don’t know what to do with myself.
“You alright, Ol?” Henry asks, nudging me with his elbow. I shake my head and down the rest of my beer. I need to get a handle on myself. “You need to go for it, man. This is painful to watch. She’s a great kisser, if that sways your decision at all.”
I turn my head so fast I get dizzy. “Excuse me?” Henry just chuckles.
“You’re proving my point for me, man. I can’t wait until you’re back in your right mind so I can give you so much shit about this.”
Liam doesn’t let his woman go solo for very long. A few minutes after Lucy and Elle move on to the dance floor, he follows, putting his arms around Lucy and taking her attention away from Elle. Elle doesn’t seem to mind though because she quickly finds someone else to dance with.
I squeeze the edge of the bar so hard my hand starts to ache.
Elle’s hips move left to right with the beat of the song.
The guy she dances next to, a real greaseball, puts one hand on her hip and takes a sip from his drink with the other.
Elle lifts up her arms and runs her hands through her hair.
The guy’s fingers trail up her back as he presses his front against her.
I push my chair away from the bar so violently I nearly knock it over.
“Oh, here we go!” Henry says like he’s announcing a boxing match.
I promise, I really don’t know how I got to the middle of the dance floor.
The moment is a complete blackout. All I know is one moment I had a death grip on the bar and the next, my hands are wrapped around Elle’s waist, pulling her away from the stranger.
The other guy curses at me and I square off with him, not really sure what my next move is.
My brain has completely lost its ability to reason.
I stand a foot taller than him, and he quickly realizes he wouldn’t have a chance.
Suddenly, I feel a warm hand grasp my forearm. I let myself be turned around because I know it’s her. She pulls me flush to her and wraps her hands around my neck.
“No,” she murmurs, pressing our foreheads together. The concern in her eyes brings rationality back into my head.
Elle runs her fingers down my arms and settles them on the loops of my jeans.
I feel her breath hitch as she presses herself flush against me.
I have no idea what she is doing, but the smell of her berry shampoo and the feeling of her chest pressed against mine leaves me with no reason to tell her to stop.
I think she’s trying to center me, to calm me down, but she’s really doing the opposite.
She applies pressure to each side of my hips, willing them to move. I gently place my hands on her back, and the burning feeling of her skin against mine feels like a brand. I move with her, swaying our hips left and right, riding the beat.
A wicked smile spreads across Elle’s bright red lips and I realize the trap I’ve let myself fall into. She’s trying to tease me. She turns around and presses every inch of her back against my front, and I’m sure she can feel the bulge growing in my pants.
“You’re killing me,” I murmur against her ear.
I’ve lost control. Every pent-up emotion—confusion, disdain, annoyance, desire—I’ve had for Elle since the moment I met her feels like it’s building up inside me, and I have no way of stopping it.
My grip on her hips gets tighter as I guide them to the beat of the music.
She presses a little harder against me and I think my world might just explode.
I grab Elle’s hand and she lets me lead her to the back of the room.
I slam open the back door of the restaurant and pull us into the alley.
I turn around quicker than she expected and press her against the brick wall that lines the back of the restaurant.
There’s no one around us and we’re at least twenty feet from the street. We’re alone.
Elle gasps when I cage her in with my arms, and I can barely contain myself when she flips her hair out of her face.
“What are you doing?” I growl, pressing my forehead against hers. I let my lips graze her cheek and her neck, her sharp inhale making my arms flex around her body.
“I was dancing,” she says, breathless.
“You were doing a lot more than that.”
Elle doesn’t answer. She looks me hard in the eye and a conversation passes between us, one powered by months of yearning, and I pull her closer to me.
Then her gaze flutters to my lips.
She crushes her mouth against mine, her lips hot as they open against my mouth.
She gasps again when I groan into her mouth, pressing every inch of my body that I can against her.
I move my arms to her backside, lifting her up so her legs are around my waist. She breaks us apart for a brief moment to whisper against my lips.
“Take me home.”