Page 155 of Stormbreaker

“You all right?” Riley asks, bending down and holding out a hand.

Suddenly, a different pair of hands shoves into my armpits from behind and lifts me like I weigh nothing. I look past my shoulder and peer up to find Rook’s green-and-gold eyes.

“Hi,” I whisper, completely thrown off by his arrival as something sparkly fizzes in my chest. What is he doing here?

I flip myself around so I’m pressed against him with his hands loosely on my hips.

Lifting my fingers, I rub the stubble on Rook’s jaw, making sure he’s real and not a figment of my imagination.

“Hey.” I hear Riley over my head. “We were dancing.”

“So you’re the one who let her fall?” he demands. He sounds kind of angry. It’s sort of hot.

“She tripped!”

Riley must say something else because Rook growls. It vibrates through my chest and does something funny to my stomach. His arms tighten around me, and I nuzzle into him, warm and safe.

“Get out of here,” I hear him say to Riley, and he must clear out because suddenly Rook is peering down at me, and it’s like we’re the only two people left in the room.

“We weren’t really dancing,” I say. “Now that I think about it, I was wishing I was dancing with someone else.”

“Yeah? Who?”

The look he’s giving me tells me he knows it was him.

But I don’t give him the satisfaction of answering.

“Why are you here?” I ask, and he shakes his head.

“Honestly? I have no idea.” He tucks a piece of loose hair behind my ear. “The room was lonely without you.”

My face stretches into a smile as my heart grows heavy with the weight of some emotion I can’t name.

“So, dance with me,” I say.

“I’m not really a dancer,” he answers, uncertainty crossing over his expression.

“I don’t believe that for a moment. Not with the way you move on the sparring mats.”

The corner of his mouth kicks up.

I take his hands and give him a little shake. “Come on! I know you want to.”

“How much have you had to drink?” he asks. “You just fell.”

“You’re so responsible,” I coo. “I just got dizzy, that’s all. I’ve had one drink.” I pause. “And a sip,” I add, thinking of the cocktail I dumped on Knox’s head. “I promise I’m fine.”

I start moving, swiveling my hips as he watches me with a hungry look in his eyes. Slowly, I turn around, my arms lifted, and then his hands close around my waist.

But I catch his wrists. “Wait, you didn’t want to be seen with me, right? You were worried about attracting attention.”

His jaw hardens, and his gaze flicks across the room before he looks back at me. “I did say that.”

“Hmm, too bad,” I say, then I turn to walk away. A moment later, I feel him behind me as he wraps an arm around my midsection.

“I changed my mind,” he whispers in my ear.

“So, you do dance?”