I walked up behind her, noting that she was taller in her heeled boots. Even so, I towered over her. Stroking a finger over the soft skin of her arm, I knew that all pretence of fighting this attraction was suspended, at least for these few moments. I vaguely noted her friends, both facing me, but couldn’t tear my eyes from her bare shoulder long enough to acknowledge them.
Jacqueline turned, and my eyes were drawn straight to the plunging neckline of her top. Holy. Hell. I snapped my gaze back to her face.
Brows raised at my quick but blatant inspection of her chest, she seemed to hold her breath, and I let myself be caught by her mesmeric gaze. I wanted her trust. I didn’t deserve it, but I wanted it. This was no time to be sidetracked by dessert.
She’d yet to release the intake of breath, while I recalled our engaging email exchanges – her comical admission of friends who bartered the use of her pick-up for beer, and the way she’d talked about her students – boys who must have been crushing out of their minds during every music lesson. I couldn’t stop the stupid smile stealing across my face, but I wasn’t the one who’d shared those exchanges with her.
Way to not be creepy, dumbass.
I leaned in, intending to take a moment to compose myself as well as avoid yelling the Hello I meant to say before leaving. Instead of expressing an innocent greeting, I found myself drowning in her scent – the subtle honeysuckle that had etched itself on to my olfactory sensors that rainy day weeks ago. So sweet. My body tightened, and with enormous effort, I murmured into her ear, ‘Dance with me?’
I pulled away, watching her. She didn’t move until her friend poked a finger in her back and gave her a firm nudge in my direction. She reached her hand forward as I reached to take it, and I escorted her to the dance floor, telling myself, Just one dance. Just one.
Yeah. That didn’t happen, either.
The music of that first song was loud, but slow. As long as I’d been watching her, she’d refused invitations to dance every slow song. She’d flinched from the touch of every guy, almost inconspicuously, but none of them seemed to notice. Maybe alcohol had dulled their senses. More likely, they simply didn’t sense her anxiety at all, and wouldn’t have known the grounds for it if they had. They didn’t have my knowledge of what she’d experienced. In addition, years of martial arts had trained me to discern the barest of physical reactions. Hers were clear to me, as were their origins.
I hated the fear that asshole had instilled in her, and I wanted to dispel it.
As we danced, I took both of her hands, gently, and brought them together behind her back. Her breasts brushed my chest and it took every sliver of willpower to keep from crushing her closer. She moved perfectly with me, closing her eyes. Earning that fragment of trust from her only made me want more.
She swayed, probably more affected by the cheap tequila in the half dozen margaritas her friends had furnished than being in the circle of my arms. When I released her hands to hold her body more firmly, she grabbed on to my arms like she was falling. Inching upward, those hands tracked a slow path to link behind my neck, and I waited for her eyes to flicker open. Her chin lifted, but her eyes remained shut until she was fully pressed against me – and then they flashed open, and she stared up at me.
She swallowed like she was summoning courage and stretched closer, curiosity in her unguarded eyes and lightly puckered brow. She didn’t know me – a fact evidenced by her question: ‘S-so what’s your major?’
Ah, fuck.
I wasn’t ready for this fantasy to end – and end it would, as soon as I told her I was the guy she’d been emailing with all week – her tutor, who wasn’t supposed to touch her like this, let alone the ways I really wanted to touch her.
‘Do you really want to talk about that?’ I asked, knowing she didn’t. It was just an opening for more. More that I couldn’t give.
‘As opposed to talking about what?’
This was what you got, when you became too cocky about how principled you were, walking that straight and narrow. You slammed right into the one thing you couldn’t have, just because it crossed your path while you were focused on your almighty integrity. Jacqueline Wallace wasn’t mine to take, and her needs weren’t mine to uncover and fulfil.
‘As opposed to not talking,’ I said, wanting one slice of time with her, unspoiled by the secrets between us.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, a slight blush in her cheeks. But she didn’t let go. And she didn’t pull away.
I drew her closer still and leaned to inhale the scent of her again, committing it to deeper memory. ‘Yes, you do,’ I breathed, my lip grazing the soft skin just behind her ear. She gasped gratifyingly, and I couldn’t decide if that reaction was the most enchanting or the most unfair thing I’d ever heard. ‘Let’s just dance,’ I said, holding my breath, waiting for her answer.
She nodded once as another song began.
11
Landon
When I started racking up detentions for tardies from sleeping in and my grades began slipping, the consequences I’d expected didn’t happen. I thought Dad would try to ground me or yell at me. I thought he’d set up a parent conference with Ingram or take away my allowance. But nothing changed.
Sometimes Grandpa grumbled at me, but most of his griping happened when I didn’t pick up after myself or pitch in on chores, so I figured out how to run the washer and help cook, and I kept most of my crap stuffed into my room.
Over dinner one night, Grandpa said, ‘You need to learn a vocation, son. Might as well be fishin’, what with the gulf so handy and all.’
As he plopped a spoonful of potatoes on to his plate, Dad scowled, but didn’t contradict him – which was weird. So when summer came around, I was conscripted into working on the Ramona – named for my grandmother. Getting up early sucked, because most nights I partied on the beach with the guys and staggered home late, no longer bothering to sneak out or in. I only got three or four hours of sleep before Grandpa woke me up, which he’d taken to doing with a pan and serving spoon when my alarm didn’t do the trick. Nothing echoes like a metal pan in a tiny room with no windows.