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“It freaks me out too, you know,” she finally said…to the windshield.
Eli scratched the back of his neck. “You’re going to have to be more specific than that. What freaks you out? Spiders? A citywide blackout that might elicit a purge? Me saying how much I like you?”
Beth spun abruptly to face him. “That!” She pointed at him. “Well, all three, actually, but the last part scares me the most.”
He narrowed his eyes. “So just to be clear, how I feel about you freaks you out more than an impending purge?”
Beth laughed, but then her expression grew serious. She shook her head. “Do you know why I’m not half in the bag and speaking without a filter?”
Eli opened his mouth to respond, but she didn’t give him a chance.
“Because I don’t drink.” She threw up her hands. “I don’t drink. I don’t date. I don’t do anything…except dance. And it’s not because anyone forced me to give those things up, by the way. My mom wasn’t, like, one of those dance moms you see on TV. Every path I’ve traveled has always been my choice. I simply chose single-minded focus on dancing until I achieved my goal.” She pressed her lips together, waiting for his response.
“What about all that stuff you said about letting off a little steam? About knowing what to do when I had my dehydration situation?”
She shrugged. “Saw it in a movie, I think. The point is, this?” She motioned between them. “I’m as clueless about it as you seem to be. I’m not supposed to want anything other than getting back on my own two feet and rehabbing this stupid injury so I can audition again. Yet here I am, freaking out about how much I might like you with the added fear of knowing that you most likely aren’t ready to like someone like we…um…might like each other.” She winced.
He stared at her, every goddamn emotion warring in his head and his heart. All he wanted to do was silence the noise.
All he wanted was her.
He clicked open his seat belt, then hers, and leaned across the center console. She didn’t move, only stared back, chest rising and falling with each shaky breath.
He cupped her cheeks in his palms, her flesh molten against his.
“Unless you tell me not to, Tiny Dancer, I’m going to do something I’ve been wanting to do ever since the last time I did it.”
Her throat bobbed.
“I might be smaller than you, but I’m five foot five. That’s the minimum height for a Rockette, I’ll have you know. But…I’m mighty,” she whispered.
“The mightiest,” he whispered back.
She skimmed her teeth over her bottom lip, and it took everything in his crumbling will to keep from nipping at it himself.
“Tell me we shouldn’t,” he continued.
“We shouldn’t.”
“Tell me this won’t end well.”
She nodded. “I never wanted to be here in the first place. I’ll be running back to the Big Apple the first chance I get.”
Eli’s chest squeezed. Whatever happened between them, this part was inescapable. Beth Spence didn’t belong in Meadow Valley. She was all bright lights, big city, and equally big dreams. This would end badly simply because it would end. But none of that mattered when his lips were this close to hers.
“But you’re not running now,” he told her, softly brushing her cheeks with each thumb.
She closed her eyes and hummed a soft sigh.
“Couldn’t even if I wanted to. But…I don’t want to. Not now.”
Tell me to stop, he willed her to say as he dipped his head, his mouth dangerously close to hers. But she didn’t move.
His bottom lip brushed hers.
“Wait!” Beth slapped her palm against his chest.
Eli threw himself against the passenger door. Shit. He’d misread the signs. Or maybe there were no signs at all. How would he know? He hadn’t done this in years, hadn’t wanted to in just as long. And shit, he was tipsy. Maybe everything he’d been feeling had all been in his head and his head alone.
