Lips against my ear whispering, “Dance with me. . . . ”
He takes my hand without waiting for my reply, the hand clutching the penny. He takes it from my fingers and, when he wraps his arm around me, slips the penny into the little pocket at the hip of my dress.
We’re in the center of the dance floor.
We stand there, among the shimmering dresses, the bustling bodies, the noise. At the booth, my friends are gaping. Avery is doing Maverick with her eyes and I don’t want her to look at him. I don’t want anyone to look at him. He’s mine.
He’s looking down at me, jaw clenched a little in frustration, eyes smoldering with desire.
I check him out in his worn jeans and the soft T-shirt he’s wearing. He looks freshly showered and shaven. There’s a light shade of purple, high on one cheekbone, and it only accentuates his hotness.
I can’t breathe or concentrate or think when Maverick slides his arm around my waist.
I feel drunk. I’m a puddle in his arms.
His lips curl a little when I can’t move, and he takes my wrists to wrap them around his neck. “You don’t dance, Reese?” he teases me huskily. “You put one hand here”—he settles it on the back of his neck—“the other one here”—he settles that one on the back of his neck too. “You let me pull you close.” He does. Until our bodies are flush and I can feel him and I’m alive. And he whispers in my ear, “And you move with me.”
His hands open on my hips and splay outward, to encompass my ass.
This ass is mine. . . .
I lift my head, and he looks wicked. Smiling wickedly. I’m drunk with the sight of him.
His gaze flicks to my mouth, and I can feel him kiss me.
I suddenly press a little closer, then he whispers in my ear, “That’s right, Reese, dance with me,” and he reaches up to slide his hands down my bare arms, over my shoulders, down my curves as we start dancing.
He just fought. He just got into the finals, and I know this because I was clinging to news from the team like a junkie. Testosterone pulses through Maverick’s body in the usual fighter’s high, and I grab his jaw and press my lips to his, then quickly embrace him and keep moving with him as I whisper, “You’re going to the finals.”
He whispers back to me through the music, “That’s right. And I want you there with me.”
We’re still moving, but he eases back to put a few inches between us and study my face. His face is raw. His eyes are hungry.
There’s something more than desire in his eyes. There’s something primal.
And I think Maverick wants me for Christmas.
And for Thanksgiving. And Easter.
And I think Maverick wants me right now.
On the dance floor.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders, the square muscles that are straining his shirt. “Miles was my sponsor in AA,” I say, close to his ear so he can hear me through “Rollercoaster” by Bleachers. “AA prefers for heterosexual men and women not to sponsor each other, but I thought he genuinely wanted to help. He kept telling me that he saved me. And I thought I was in love with him because he gave me a chance to try to find myself. But a real man would’ve told me the truth. That I saved myself.”
“That just makes me want to pull out his testicles and feed them to the asshole.”
He pulls me a little closer, looking down at me in frustration, rawer and rawer as the music hums and beats around us. Bodies move, but the fire inside this building is alive as Maverick presses my body to his.
He lifts his head and scans the second-story balcony of the club, then stops dancing. Lacing my fingers in his, he leads me up the stairs and stalks purposely down the hall, peering into some curtained private rooms. He spots an open blue velvet curtain and he pulls it wider for me, tugging me inside, and I wait. Anticipation and nerves and need and love swirl around me as I stare at his back as he closes the velvet to the tiny private room with its cushioned bench a few feet away.
“Hey.” He comes over and takes one of my hips in his hand, pressing me back against the wall, eyes on my face. “I don’t like the way he looks at you. I don’t like him looking at you at all.”
“I hadn’t noticed he was looking at me, only sensed that you were close—”
He cuts me off, saying, Not close enough.
Lips taking mine. Tongue flashing into my mouth, his hands gripping my ass, squeezing my ass, lifting me by the ass and pressing me to his erection. “He’s looking at you like you’re his. And you’re not. You’re not his, Reese.” He sucks my tongue, commanding and without restraint as his fingers fly down the front buttons of my demure black wavy-skirt club dress.
“Did you wear this for him?” He touches the skirt of my dress, lifting it a bit before dropping it.
“No, I wore it for me,” I lie. “Because it’s soft and comfortable and it didn’t take up too much space in my suitcase.”