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She groaned, her face against his throat. “I had a moment of panic when we got here, room full of people, one main entrance, not my favourite thing. Sometimes I need to take a deep breath first. I should’ve told you.”
He should’ve figured that for himself.
“It only lasted a few seconds.”
He sighed, rubbed his palm up her neck where tendrils of hair not swept up on her head curled. “And then I act like an idiot, pushing and shoving.”
She lifted her head. “He deserved it and there were a half dozen people ready to step in and help you.”
“There was probably a better way.”
“I didn’t for a second doubt you had that under control, and yet he was this big heavy guy, taller than you, broader than you. A bully through and through, but the minute you stood up and faced him, he was finished. Did you know people were applauding?”
He’d missed that, too much noise in that room to be able to identify it.
She put a finger to his top lip and traced it. “I am so gone on you it’s ridiculous.”
“Oh God, please let me take you home.”
Her finger gone, she stepped back. “Not until I’ve watched you accept your awards, not until you’ve danced with me.”
“You drive a hard bargain. And the word to amplify in that sentence is hard. Jesus, Georgia.”
She laughed, champagne bubbles in a flute. She led him to the ballroom. It took a while to make it to their table, folk stopping him to say hello, wish him luck or comment on the altercation with Groone, who no one had seen since.
He did a short stint on stage announcing the winner of the Hall of Fame award. Then he was back there twice to pick up his Dulcets for lead character in an animated feature film, and best character voice in a television cartoon series.
He’d lost count of the number of Dulcets he’d won over the years, but not the number of times he’d heard Georgia sigh with pleasure against his cheek. That was the real win.
The Dulcet was a titanium dust collector shaped like a vintage microphone. Georgia was temptation in the shape of warm, willing flesh. One he had to find somewhere to store, the other he knew exactly where to put for safekeeping—tucked into a nook of his heart.
She led him to the dance floor, as she’d led him to the stage, competently, confidently. This is the way he wanted Angus and Taylor to see her. Once on the wooden surface, he wrapped her close. They weren’t going to be moving too far, too quickly or with too much vigour. He suffered the occasional congratulatory backslap and a few sloppy kisses, but the more he focused in on Georgia, the closer he held her, the tighter the circle they danced in, the more others were too intimidated to approach, and finally he had her alone and still in his arms in a sea of movement he could only sense, and was no competition for the symphony in his head.
Something in this woman spoke to a part of him with a longing carved from the sanctity of home and the freedom and risk of a deep space exploration. Georgia was safety and adventure made from a body that was beautiful to him, a psyche he knew was damaged and a spirit that fought to recover from her past. He’d not thought to find such laughter and light in her after the despair of her story and now he wasn’t prepared to let it escape him. He wouldn’t endanger this; he wouldn’t move too fast, he wouldn’t push her away by becoming too intent on her.
He spun her around and she laughed, clutching his shoulders. He might well have backed her into someone. He should’ve asked her to lead, but even in her heels she’d never see around him easily, and he was well enough known that anyone who wasn’t watching out for him had it coming.
He kept her there for three songs. Long enough to be sweating in his jacket, not so long she’d grow weary of his lack of grace, his stodgy plodding.
They took up the minimal amount of space for two people who craved each other in the back seat of a limo without it being technically indecent. By the time they were at her place, he was jacket and tie-less, largely untucked and heavily mussed. He was itchy with need, and she was spun out of soft sighs and urgent kisses. He’d tried to keep his hands from ravaging her, because stopping was going to be heart attack hardcore.
She led him straight from the kerb to her front door without a pause, but he checked himself with a tight jaw and clenched fists when he heard the clang of her door keys.
“Last chance to,” he had to clear his throat, “send me home.” God, he was breathing like Darth Vader for real, filthy with need all the way to his voice.
“Last chance to run, Damon. You already know I’m likely to be crazy.”
He dropped the Dulcets and his jacket on the floor, an unholy thud, and stepped forward, pinning her to the closed door, crowding forward so their bodies met; heat and tension, rigid and soft. This was crazy, this half-cut madness he felt for her. He might’ve been seventeen again; experienced enough to handle himself, but not so familiar with this dance that he had much control. All he had was a tattered collection of will and intention flayed threadbare by lust.
“I like that dress, but I’d like it a lot better on the floor.”
She groaned and dropped her keys. Unless he backed off she wouldn’t be able to bend down to get them. He didn’t back off; she squirmed until she realised from his increasingly desperate breathing that he liked it.
She leaned back, her weight flowing against him, her arms coming up over her head to wind around his neck. “You’re not real, are you?”
He was near supernatural with the need to get inside her flat, inside her body, have nothing between them except their skin, their heartbeats, and the otherworldly slick wet heat of their joining.
Now he could let his hands wander, down her bare arms, over her chest, up the column of her neck to her face. There were pins in her hair to pull out. He scattered them all over the landing till his hands were full of her hair and she was panting.
