“You have to say something in French so I can hear you.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t.” She looked embarrassed. If it wasn’t for her russet complexion, he knew he’d see her cheeks redden.
“Why not? Maybe you can’t really speak it fluently . . . ?” He let the question sit out there as a challenge, and right away she took the bait.
“Je parle fran?ais couramment, mais je préfère parler anglais parce que c’est ma langue maternelle.”
His attraction to her catapulted into the stratosphere when she uttered the words. He definitely liked a French-speaking Shawna. Her voice had taken on a musical quality, as if she’d shifted into character when she spoke the language. Even though he had no idea what she’d said, the words happened to be some of the hottest he’d ever heard. The sudden movement against the zipper of his jeans proved how much he enjoyed them.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“I said I speak French fluently, but I prefer to speak in English because it’s my native tongue.”
Her smile blew him away. She had his undivided attention, and all of a sudden the thoughts that had plagued him since coming to visit his brother melted away. He ignored the guilt because all that mattered was right here, right now, with Shawna.
He was certain, in a way he hadn’t been before, that she was the kind of woman—no, the woman—he wanted to be with. But she’d be leaving the day after tomorrow, moving back to South Carolina. The thought sobered him.
“What do you want to do tonight?” A loaded question. One that, if he answered it honestly himself, would involve them spending the night in the most intimate of ways. “Let’s go to a movie,” he offered.
“I’m not really in the mood for a movie.” She twirled the stem of her glass on the table. “Ryan,” she said thoughtfully, looking down into the Chardonnay. “I can’t tell you how much—”
“How about dancing?” he rushed out. “You said you like to dance.” He didn’t want the night to end.
“I do.”
“There’s got to be somewhere we can go. What do you usually do on a Friday night?”
“Sometimes I go out.” She paused, giving him a considering look. “There’s a place not too far from here. My co-workers and I have gone a few times. It’s in the basement of a building and has this whole house-party vibe. They play a lot of songs from the eighties and nineties.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Ryan, I leave in a couple of days.”
“All the more reason to pack in as much as we can tonight, right?” He reached across the table and took one of her hands in both of his. The same jolt of electricity vibrated through his fingers, but this time he didn’t pull away. This time he embraced it, enclosing her smaller hand and holding on tighter when her fingers trembled. “I just want to spend time with you. I feel like something’s happening here, and I don’t . . . I-I . . .”
He fumbled, searching for the right words and coming up short, unable to explain what was happening but knowing he didn’t want to get off this ride they were on.
But maybe he hadn’t totally screwed up. Because she smiled the sweetest, softest smile that turned his insides to mush.
“I know what you mean,” she said softly.
Chapter Six
After circling the area several times, Ryan parked the car a few blocks from the venue. They took a set of stone steps below street level where music poured from the open doorway of a townhouse basement.
A few men loitered outside, smoking cigarettes and watching the women walk in wearing their booty-hugging dresses and sky-high heels. The predominantly African-American crowd squeezed into a space too small to accommodate a group of that size, resulting in a fire marshal’s wet dream.
Stuffed into a corner on a makeshift stage, the deejay called out, “Did y’all come here to paaaar-tay?”
A resounding, “Yeah!” erupted from the dancers.
“This place is crazy,” Ryan said. His breath tickled her ear.