Chapter 7 #2
My voice wavers as I insist, “No, I’m fine. This is great.”
“You’re cleaning, Win.” He snorts.
“I’m fine, Charlie. Really. Don’t worry about me.” I force a smile as I rinse my bottle. After the week I’ve had, I’m too drained for small talk. For people to ask me where I’m from, what it’s like back home. I wanted to spend time with him tonight.
“Have you met my friend Malcom yet? I think you’d like his girlfriend. They’re just in the—”
“I guess I’m not really in the mood to be social.” I move to toss the bottle but Charlie intercepts me, warm hand covering mine, and a gasp pops in my throat at how good even that small touch feels. My eyes flick up.
“What are you in the mood for then?” he asks, voice low.
It must be a trick of light on his lenses, the way his gaze drops to my parted lips, then darts away.
My honest answer flashes in disjointed scenes in my head, but they all start the same: me and Charlie, alone.
Turns out even four-and-a-half percent alcohol by volume is enough to make bad ideas tempting.
I let go of the beer bottle like a hot pan, all the words in my head melting together.
He pivots and tosses it. “You want to get out of here? We can do something else. Or I can walk you back to your dorm if that’s what you want.”
My dorm. Alone. The two of us. My roommate’s in Austin until tomorrow. My thundering heart’s loud enough to drown the party noise in my ears.
I trace the intrigued angle of his neck, over his shoulder, his arm, and pinch my thigh so hard it might bruise in an effort to muster the courage to say a single word.
We shouldn’t. Right? Would he even want to?
I swallow.
Could one kiss be so bad? Would it ruin everything?
Excited cries echo from the other room, pulling me from my wild imagination like I’ve been dunked in ice water. The new Beyoncé song follows, and Charlie’s still watching me expectantly.
I’m not great with people. Or feelings. But dancing has always come naturally to me.
When my brain, my body, and my heart are all on different pages—like I’ve been Frankensteined together with parts that don’t match—it makes me feel whole again.
The world quiets until all I am is music and movement, tuning everything else out so I can just be. It’s the one time I feel in control.
I grin because I have a feeling I know what Charlie’s going to say to this. “Dance with me.”
He winces. “Ah, but I don’t—”
“Of course you don’t.” Before he can finish his protest, I grab his hand and drag him from the kitchen. “Everyone dances, Charlie.”
The living room is packed. There must be a window or two cracked, because over the tang of sweat and alcohol I can taste crisp fall air. Multicolored lights flash around the dark room as I squeeze us through moving bodies, the music so heavy it rattles my bones. I let go of his hand and I move.
The precision, the refinement, I’ve spent years honing in front of studio mirrors is nowhere to be found. This is all instinct, moving in whatever way feels good. Looser, more fluid, weightless—a call and response as the syrupy rhythm rolls through me.
Charlie hardly sways.
He turns down the corners of his smile and shakes his head, silently reiterating this isn’t his thing.
I take his hands in mine and guide him like a marionette doll, raising them as I twist serpentine closer to him.
He rewards me with the barest of grins. I drop one hand and send myself in a spin with the other, keeping my back to him, before finally releasing him.
“It’s not illegal to move your hips,” I yell over my shoulder as mine lead by example. “You’ve seen Dirty Dancing! Don’t overthink it.”
His mouth drops close to my ear, keeping his words quiet, just for me. “You make it look much better than I could.”
A wild thrill races through me and I smile. “Don’t play like you don’t know how good you look.”
“Thanks for the compliment.” An arrogant laugh caresses my neck and a shiver slices down my spin. “I still don’t dance.”
Packed in the sweaty drench of nameless bodies, lit only by flaring LEDs, this moment feels anonymous. Like we’re background filler in someone else’s main character moment, to be forgotten as soon as the director calls cut. The perfect mask to hide behind.
“Why do you have to be so boring, Charlie?” The ravenous pounding in my chest screams he’s the most interesting person I know, as my nerve grows a few more teeth. “If you don’t want to dance with me, I’m sure someone else will.”
I peel away only a millimeter before he reels me back.
“This what you want?” he murmurs, bringing his hand to the front of my hipbone, his fingers curling into my flesh.
“Yeah,” I gasp, layering a hand over his. His grip tightens. My eyes flutter shut as I tip my head back, smirking. “Does that make you jealous? The thought of someone else touching me?”
His other hand comes to my stomach. It burns a trail as it inches up, following the dip of my body as I suck in a breath. “Yeah,” he growls, “that makes me fucking jealous, Winona.”
“What?” I breathe.
“Don’t sound so surprised. I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you.” His words ghost against my charged skin. “Fuck, Win. These mixed signals are killing me.”
Hearing it out loud dazes me—like waking up and seeing a daydream come to life.
Charlie wants me.
The song slows and I roll the delicious, indulgent rhythm back against him, my free hand winding up to delve in his hair. His touch goes rigid, like he’s fighting to restrain himself. I swallow the growing pressure in my throat and act like I know how to play this part. “Friends dance, Charlie.”
“You’re so full of shit.” He huffs a laugh, sounding so fucking tortured my heart races, then snaps me back against him until our bodies are flush.
Every inch of him against every inch of me.
His hands comes out to play, roaming my stomach, my hips, my thighs.
“You think I touch all my friends like this, sweetheart?”
“Maybe for a night,” I say, breathless.
“I’d want you for more than one.”
The sparking, electric fire between us consumes me, hot and fast and uncontrolled.
Charlie wants me, I repeat in my head like a prayer.
I arch against him, against that hard strain fighting in his jeans, as we burn together on the dance floor.
We’re in the middle of the pulsing crowd but it feels like we’re in our own world.
No one but us knows what’s happening. The overtuned string of tension in my body snaps and I spin.
Violet and crimson and aquamarine lights flash across his face, and I want to know what each color tastes like on his skin.
Under the glow, his heavy-lidded eyes are dilated so wide they look infinite, like the dark depths of the ocean.
And, good god, I’m drowning. Splaying wide on the small of my back, his hand pins us back together, my small breasts brushing his chest as I wind my arms around his neck.
“You’re drunk,” he rasps, eyes darting across my face like he’s searching for evidence.
I shake my head. “I only had one.”
“What’re we doing, Win?” His thumb traces up and down my spine and his gaze homes in on my mouth. My head’s too woozy to come up with an answer.
For a moment, we both stare.
It is me who breaks first this time.
I slip and fall into a trap of my own making, winding my fingers through his thick, lush hair as I kiss him.
With instant ferocity, he kisses me back, one hand cupping the side of my face.
His lips catch against mine again and again, and as I part for him, inviting him deeper, I can’t hear his groan over the din of music but I feel it vibrate against my mouth.
That hum travels straight through my stomach and drops between my legs.
His tongue lashes against mine, hungry and demanding but dizzyingly indulgent.
So controlled it makes me moan. He cups the back of my neck, drawing me impossibly closer, and I tilt more, giving him complete access to me.
It’s hot and sweaty and I don’t know where I end and he begins.
He tastes like the sharp sweet of bourbon and feels so much better than I ever let myself imagine.
He jerks back suddenly, but before I can ask what’s wrong, he takes my hand and tugs me back through the crowd.
Back to his bedroom.
He closes the door behind us, muffling the bump of music.
I press a hand to my sternum, like the pressure might tame my galloping pulse, as I pace to his dresser.
My skin’s stretched too taut over my bones, my feet too big for my shoes.
Every inch of fabric on me is suffocating. I need to lose some layers.
“Jesus, Winona. What was that?”
A half-laugh, half-pant whooshes past my lips. “What? You never kiss a girl before?”
Two fingers apply gentle pressure to my shoulder, urging me to face him. I do. And my stomach bottoms out. God, he’s gorgeous. I want to trace the angle of his square jaw with my teeth. His mouth slants with soft awe, like he’s amazed I even exist. “No,” he murmurs. “Never like that before.”
My molecules have been rearranged by his tongue, deep in my mouth. I’ve been permanently altered, turned from solid into liquid, by the way this man looks at me.
We move at the same moment, our mouths colliding in the middle.
His hands frame my face and twine in my long hair, mine brace against his hard stomach, mapping out every line and divot I can make out through his shirt.
He kisses like someone who knows how to fuck—like he knows exactly where he wants to take me, and he’s in no rush to get me there.
Like he’s savoring every stroke of my tongue.