AJ walked toward me and I smiled to myself as he reached for my hand and led me out the door. “Two o’clock Samantha,” my mother called out to me. I nodded and continued to follow AJ. I climbed into the car and sat unmoving while waiting for him to come around. He started the car and drove in the direction of the country club where the dance was being held.
From the corner of my eye, I noticed that he was staring down at my thigh that peeked through the high-cut split in my dress. I smiled and pulled the material to hide my skin, prompting him to sigh in frustration and then refocus his attention on the road. I imagined that he was trying to scrounge up the willpower to keep his hands to himself. Resisting temptation wasn’t going to be easy for me either tonight, but it had to be this way. It didn’t help that I was starting to dream about it almost every night – probably my body’s way of dealing with the deprivation.
Thirty-five minutes later, we were at the country club. He opened my door and extended his arm for me to grasp it. Droves of students were filing toward the building. I glanced over at AJ again and tried to feel him out a little more and found that his expression was still tense.
Inside, we quickly found Deanna, Karl, Randy and Chris. Randy of course was the only one who had already fixed a plate at the buffet. Good old predictable Randy. Deanna squealed and hugged me tightly. “You look awesome!”
“Thanks. So do you,” I replied.
Our theme was Atlantis and everything was so beautiful. It was almost like we were right inside of a fairytale – blue tablecloths with crystal decorations, the plates were gold and imprinted with seashells, and the lighting created a romantic ambiance. We spent the first couple hours of the dance talking amongst ourselves. I felt a little sad at the thought of the six of us not being together like this for much longer. While I was grateful that Deanna and Karl would be at Charleston with me, AJ Randy and Chris would be hours away. I did my best to stop thinking about it and tried to focus on the conversation.
AJ’s arm was draped across the back of my chair and he gently caressed my shoulder with his fingertips. They were warm against my skin and made it feel like an electrical current shot through me. I crossed my legs and instantly felt my resolve weakened slightly. My imagination started to run away from me and I let my mind go places that it was now forbidden to go.
“You wanna dance?” AJ asked, jarring my mind back to safer territory.
“Sure.”
He took my hand and we interlocked our fingers. We stood in the middle of the dance floor and I felt like my knees would give way. I wrestled with the thought that I maybe wasn’t as strong as I’d tried to convince myself. I wanted him in the worst way and he knew it. That’s probably why he deliberately slid his hands slowly down my waistline and let them come to rest on my hips. His fingers gripped my curves tightly and he pulled me into him. His eyes wandered down to my chest that was pressed tightly to his and our hearts beat in unison. He bit his lip and then moved his hands down another couple inches further. At this rate, I wasn’t going to make it and we hadn’t even started dancing yet. My head told me to pull away, but my body was ready for whatever he had in mind. I inhaled his cologne once when he leaned in and I lost the little bit of will that I had left.