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“How are you doing?” Kate says softly from behind me, and I turn and smile at her, trying to look anywhere but down her torso.
“I’m good. You?”
She purses her mouth before she nods, and with that hesitation, I suddenly want to hear all about her day.
“Kill anyone today?” I say with a wink, and she laughs shaking her head.
“Not that I’m aware of,” she says, “but I can’t rule it out just yet.”
Her eyes dance at me as she licks her lips, and I track the progress of her small pink tongue from one corner to the other, tripping over my feet. I swing my gaze back toward Jo. Jesus Christ.
Jo snags a table on the long wall by the dance floor. If I sit with Kate, I’ll rub up against her like a cat in heat, so I gesture to a seat and move around, sitting on the opposite side of the table, and lean over to chat. But Darren levers himself down, right next to her, and introduces himself, and within minutes she’s asking him about his arm and they’re too far away for me to comfortably join in their conversation. I shift back and stare at the few couples who are dancing.
Darren’s hair flops over his forehead, and he keeps tossing it back as he gives Kate open white smiles, leaning in like he’s telling her state secrets. She taps his sling and cocks her head, and he starts twisting his body as if he’s describing the exact moment he damaged himself. He’s taking full advantage, the bastard. I want to jump over the tabletop and damage his other arm … tell her that I do parkour, too … tell her that he’s not interesting just because he’s injured. Why didn’t I sit beside her? Why didn’t I think that Darren would chat her up? I blink away from her smiles and his answering grin, the way his eyes roam her face, cheeks, mouth. Dammit, I’m crap at all this, and so out of practice. I grind my teeth. So what? I’m not her keeper—if she wants to be chatted up by a decent guy, who am I to intervene?
As if he realizes that I’m torturing myself incessantly in my head, Janus leans into me and gives me a nudge. “You going to let that carry on?” he whispers, nodding at the pair of them.
“What?” I say, scowling.
“He’s chatting up your woman.”
“She’s not my woman.” This is not fucking helping.
“Come on, Fab, she likes you. Don’t let her slip through your fingers,” he says, and I growl at him in return, eyes skimming over where Darren’s head is bent toward Kate’s.
“I’m not going to behave like a caveman,” I say.
“Ask her to dance.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I nod at the few couples on the floor. “Have you ever seen a techie that could do that?”
We’re all terrible dancers. Not that it hindered our ability to pick up women at college, but in a wild moment one day we decided to go to a class—our dancing was appalling, but the women were a revelation.
“Well, you’ve got to drag her away from him somehow. Why didn’t you sit next to her?”
“Because I’m a fucking idiot,” I mutter, tipping back my beer. “I’m not making a play for Kate.”
“Just get up off your butt and go talk to her,” he says, and before I can think any more about it, or listen to any more of the crap in my head, I push up and walk around the table. And her eyes stray to me and dart up my body like she hopes no one is watching. Her eyes meet mine, and her cheeks go pink. Fuck, yes.
I stand behind her and lean over her shoulder. Darren glances up and frowns, but I stop looking at him and concentrate on her, leaning right in, my lips on a small mole right under her ear. She does a whole-body shiver, and suddenly I’m high as a kite.
“Want to dance?” I murmur.
Darren sits back, mouth a flat line as he folds his arms across his chest, but she nods and presses her hand into mine as I pull her to her feet.
Her fingers feel small and rough wrapped in my palm as I pull her forward toward the music, beat thumping through my blood as we make our way to the back of the floor, close but not touching, and I splay my hand across her back, the tip of every finger on her spine.Salsa music.That’s a fail on exhibiting any kind of dancing skills.
“I can’t dance to salsa,” she mumbles, grimacing, and my lips curl up.
“Me neither.” I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it, just swivel your hips.” And she raises her eyebrows at me, making me laugh. And somehow between the pair of us we manage to settle into some kind of rhythm.
“I think Darren’s plotting my murder,” I say.
“He seems like a nice guy,” she says.
Did I completely misread this situation? She likes him?Fuck. I study her flushed cheeks.
“Have you been friends long?” she adds.
