The garden had grown darker, the fairy lights more pronounced against the deepening blue of the sky.
In this in-between space, reality seemed suspended.
"Dance with me," she said suddenly.
I blinked. "Here?"
"Why not?" She stood, holding out her hand. "Unless you don't dance."
I took her hand—delicate, warm, and soft against my larger, cooler palm.
Hers was the kind of hand that didn’t belong in boardrooms or around contracts.
No, she belonged to something slower.
More dangerous.
"I dance," I murmured, letting my thumb graze the inside of her wrist. "But not usually without a proper introduction."
"Tonight’s about breaking patterns, isn’t it?" she said, stepping into my space like she’d always belonged there.
She guided my hand to her waist, the silk of her dress slipping beneath my fingers like water.
"For both of us."
She fit into my arms like she'd been poured into them.
A perfect balance of softness and heat, molded effortlessly into my frame, her body brushing close enough for me to feel the whisper of her breath against my throat.
Her perfume wrapped around me—jasmine, vanilla, and something darker underneath.
Something intimate.
It made my thoughts stumble, my chest tighten- again.
I drew her in against me until our hips touched, the gold fabric of her dress catching faint moonlight as we moved.
She was lush, full, the kind of woman made to ruin a man’s self-control—and she moved like she knew it.
We found the rhythm without effort, each step pulling me deeper into her orbit.
Her long, dark hair spilled down her back in waves and made me want to bury my hands in it just to see if it felt as soft as it looked. Her body was sin sculpted into silk—voluptuous and soft, where a man could rest his hands, firm where temptation held tension.
And she held herself with a kind of confidence that didn’t beg for attention—it demanded it.
Dancing with her didn’t feel like a mistake.
It felt like foreplay.
"You're good at this," she murmured.
"Surprised?"
"A little. You seem more boardroom than ballroom."
I smiled, turning her in a slow circle.
"My mother insisted on lessons. Said a man who couldn't dance would never truly understand partnership."
