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He gestures at the open fire nearby, polishing off his drink.
“Well, Delia?” he urges, holding my eyes. “What do you say?”
Before I can unglue my tongue, he pounds his empty glass down on the counter with a loudclink!and grabs my hand.
“Um...I don’t know. I’m not much of a dancer and...you won’t even tell me your name?” I whisper.
“Come on. This is supposed to be a party and you should look like you’re having fun.” He pulls me along, leading me away with one arm slung over mine, shepherding me across the sand to an empty spot with mellow flames contained in rocks and string lights glowing overhead like fireflies.
“My name’s Chris,” he whispers hotly in my ear.
Chris.
My footsteps slow until I’m not moving.
It fits him, I guess.
The kind of hard, single syllable name worthy of bearing whatever big bad mystery he’s hiding. Probably a hard life, a secret life...a lonely one, maybe?
I don’t have time to dwell on it.
Chris has me yelling the instant he throws me over his shoulder. He hoists me up and swings me around for a frantic second before he pushes my bare feet back into the sand with ease.
Right where he wants me.
“Get out of your head, princess, and try to keep up,” he says, lacing his thick fingers through mine. “Surely you’ve done a slow dance on the beach before?”
“Duh!” I lie.
And I think he knows it, too, because he’s smirking fit to kill during the next sixty seconds with my feet tripping all over his.
But eventually, I find my groove.
It’s easier to keep up when he does most of the work, holding me tight, slowly leading us in winding circles.
When his eyes sharpen too much like broken sea glass, I look away, eyeing our shadows spinning on the beach.
Oh, but the way he holds me...there’s no escaping that.
I honestly don’t want to.
This man makes what should be an awkward, odd night dance with a stranger man feel weirdly natural.
“Too fast for you? Too rough?” he asks, whirling me in a slow spin with his hot breath in my ear.
God.
I’m not even sure what this feeling is.
Pulsingis the best word that comes to mind, except it’s my entire body. I can feel my happy heartbeat in my toes.
My brows knit together.
“Delia?” he whispers.
“Keep going,” I tell him, trying to unravel why I feel so conflicted.
Everything about him feels glorious, his strong hands burning in mine. But every moment together is also a reminder.
