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His cheeks went so red she was afraid they might catch fire, so when he said, “No, not me,” she knew with perfect certainty that he was lying. He, at a minimum, had done the Electric Slide at least once and enjoyed it, but it was something he kept secret.
Petra was so charmed by that small shame her heart actually thumped. But in deference to his discomfort, she moved away from the topic of dancing and returned to his career plans. “When are you planning to take your exams?”
Somehow, that had been a wrong turn in the conversation. Jake went from secretly embarrassed to overtly disheartened. “Uh ... I took ‘em today—yesterday, I guess. Friday. Flunked four out of nine.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
He shrugged—one of those shrugs that tried to convey it was no big deal but really conveyed how huge a deal it was.
With that shrug, Petra got a fuller impression of this man, and she had an answer for her earlier musing: she should not stay back and wait for him to make the next move—the move which would likely start them on the path to her bed. Jake needed not to worry whether he was doing the wrong thing or have to work out what was the right thing. Maybe that was why their kiss behind the bar had been so gently intense; he’d relaxed into it because she’d made the move.
A new song started then, Lily Rose’s “Know My Way Around,” and Petra smiled. Perfect. She walked around the corner of the island, right up to Jake, and set her hands on his chest, under his kutte. She’d noticed it before, behind the bar: there was definition under his shirt. Just like his arms, which showed muscle—ropy, not bulky—and a thick vein over each bicep. He was thin, but he wasn’t skinny.
He finished his drink and set the empty glass aside, then stared down at her with laser-sharp eyes. But he didn’t put his hands on her.
Sliding one hand up, brushing her fingers up his throat, over a jaw and a chin grown stubbly as the night aged toward dawn, she drew one finger over his bottom lip and the cut there. The skin around it was turning purple as the bruise set in.
Jake caught her hand in his and pulled it from his mouth. He held it aloft, still staring at her.
“Does your lip hurt?” It hadn’t slowed him down before, but maybe it was becoming more sore.
He shook his head. Conflict waged behind his eyes, but she couldn’t understand it; she didn’t know him well enough for such an insight.
So she did what she’d done earlier, but this time she used no words at all. Letting him keep hold of the hand he had, she slipped her other hand over his shoulder and up, to hold the back of his head. She brought his head down as she rose to her toes, and she kissed him.
Again, she felt that buzz move through him, and knew it was relief. He liked, maybe heneeded, her to lead. And again, she was charmed.
As before, she kept their contact light, soft. This was the beginning of things, and she liked to take the whole journey and not race to the end. As before, she felt Jake take note of her movements and mimic them. They started simply touching, lips brushing lips, breaths mingling. She took his bottom lip between hers and sucked very lightly, careful not to open his cut again. A few seconds later, he sucked her bottom lip, just as lightly.
This was a dance. They were even holding each other as if they were dancing, her arm around his neck, his hand on her hip, his other hand holding hers aloft.
Petra sent her tongue out, brushed its tip over his mouth, pushed gently in, and he sighed. The sound carried the hint of a groan.
She could fall into this kiss and stay forever. It was just ... perfect. He was a stranger, and they weren’t yet even fully embracing, but this moment felt like a true intimacy, the kind that reveals.
Then Jake dropped her hand and pushed his fingers into her hair, holding her head, and his other hand slipped around from her hip to the other, and they were really embracing. His tongue met hers and he groaned more loudly, but he didn’t try to take over.
Pressed up now fully to his body, Petra could feel his firm strength, and she could feel as well his want, a steely ridge against her belly. Wanting to feel more of him, Petra set the hand he’d freed on his hip and pushed under his t-shirt. The first thing she felt was an inguinal crease, and she couldn’t help but brush her thumb back and forth over that inexplicably alluring muscle.
The muscles right above that V-cut began to jig, and Jake’s next breath stuttered. Petra smiled against his lips and slipped her hand higher, over a firm, smooth belly. No rolling terrain of gym-rat six pack, but strong and fit and delightful.
With another soft groan, Jake broke away from their kiss but went no further. His hold of her didn’t change. He simply tipped his head down, away from her mouth, and rested his forehead on her head. Each breath came harshly from his mouth, as if he’d run up the stairs to her apartment. His belly flexed with each one.
He didn’t speak. Petra thought to ask if he wanted to take things to her bedroom, but his quiet stilled her own tongue. Maybe words would disrupt the magic between them, douse the spark.
So instead, she leaned back, smiled up at his serious, almost stunned expression, took his hand from her head, kissed his scraped knuckles. When he only watched her, his expression keen but unchanged, she tugged lightly on his hand and then let it go.
Stepping out of his arms, keeping her eyes locked on his, she walked backward a few feet, toward her bedroom door. She turned and finished the trip, turned again after she pushed the door all the way open and flipped the switch that turned on her bedside lamp. Then she pulled her shirt up and off.
Jake stood right where he was, staring silently, his eyes still locked with hers. Petra was starting to think he wasn’t actually interested—and then he moved. As he walked toward her, he began to shrug out of his kutte.
She stood in the doorway until he was almost near enough to touch her; then, with a teasing smile, she reached back to unhook her bra as she backed into her bedroom.
He saw the chair beside the door and dropped his kutte over its arm. Seeming to understand that she wanted them to undress themselves, he stopped there and began toeing off his boots.
With most of the room between them, they watched each other undress while they undressed as well.
Oh. Oh goodness. Jake’s body was beautiful. Lean and strong. A crease between the flat planes of his seemingly hairless torso, stretching from his navel to the notch between his prominent collarbones.
