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Thirteen
DAKOTA
My dance with General Burke was slow and sweet and downright beautiful. For a wily old veteran the man still had a few great moves left in him, and he didn’t mind showing those moves off as we glided together across the ballroom floor.
Dancing with Jace however…
“So do you think he bought it?”
My ‘husband’ and I were on the other side of the floor now, swaying gently to another old song. He had one arm pinned firmly around my waist, with the other holding my hand.
“Maybe,” Jace shrugged. “Where’d you get the rocks thing from? That was brilliant.”
I laughed softly. “That was another boy. Another time.”
“You really shared your candy with him?”
“No, I made that part up.”
Our bodies were close now, and drifting closer with every few steps. I didn’t mind at all. In fact, I might’ve been guilty for some of the drifting.
Gotta keep up appearances, right?
My gaze crawled over Jace’s big arms, his broad shoulders, his hard chest. I breathed deeply as I pressed my face against that chest, inhaling his sweet, cologne-infused scent.
Sure. Whatever you need to tell yourself.
“I think you did fantastic,” he told me. “Burke’s not an easy man to impress, and an even harder man to bullshit. Somehow you pulled off both.”
“Yeah, well I think he might also have a soft spot for smiling young women.”
Jace rolled his steel-grey eyes and grinned back at me. “Don’t we all.”
I punched him playfully in the arm, then slid my face back against his chest. Being against him felt sogood. So totally and completely safe.
“Hey, remember that night we were in the pool together,” Jace asked, “after everyone left? And somehow we ended up sort of wrapped around each other, floating in the water, face to face?”
I nodded against him. “Yes. Of course I do.”
“We stared at each other for like a full five minutes without saying anything,” he went on. “It should’ve been awkward, but it wasn’t. It was actually one of my favorite childhood memories.”
I thought back, calling up memories of that night. I could remember how incredibly lucky I’d felt at the time. Lucky, but also warm and safe and protected… just like now.
“I wanted to kiss you so badly that night,” Jace admitted. “But I couldn’t, because of Tyler.”
I pulled back to look up at him. We were staring again like last time, and it still wasn’t awkward.
“I wanted you to kiss me too,” I breathed. “But I was afraid, and not because of my brother.”
“You were?”
“Sure. You were a pretty big catch back then. Tall, strong, funny. Captain of the lacrosse team. But we were around each other so much, I was terrified that if things got screwed up…”
“… it would be weird between us, from then on.”
“Yes.”
I couldn’t believe he was saying this. Now, after all this time.
