Page 6 of Business Casual
I laugh, grip her hand, and spin her once, watching the material of her dress flare around her legs. I get a tease of ink on the smooth line of her calf before I tug her back to me and set us across the dance floor.
“This isn’t what I signed up for,” she grumbles up at me.
“What did you sign up for?”
“A perfectly respectable top hits pop song and four feet of distance between us.”
I tug her closer. My nose nudges her ear. “Liar,” I whisper.
She tilts her face until her nose brushes against mine, wide gray eyes blinking up at me. I think it’s the closest I’ve ever been to her. I like it a lot.
“Yeah,” she smiles, slow and teasing. “You’re right.”
A deep, rumbling groan rushes out of me. Only half of it is for show. “Say that again, but lick your lips a little when you do.”
She laughs. “Maybe later.”
“That sounds promising.” I adjust my grip on her and ease our steps into something slower. Something she can follow with her bare feet against the rugs. Her shoes are still probably sitting kicked to the side in the big red barn. I think she waited all of six minutes into the reception to slip them off.
She hesitates slightly behind the beat, attention focused almost entirely on her steps. I squeeze her hip and then her hand. I thought she was sitting on the side of the dance floor because of her moral opposition to fun. Not because she didn’t know how.
“Follow my feet with yours,” I tell her. “I won’t let you fall.”
“I know you won’t,” she mumbles with her eyes cast down. It’s the bare minimum of compliments, but it’s enough to have me tugging her the slightest bit closer, every puff of her breath warm against the hollow of my throat. I like the way she feels beneath my hands. I like the way I feel with her against me. Like one of those flickering light bulbs I twisted around the trees last night at two in the morning, trying to make this day as special as Stella deserves.
A smile hooks the corner of her mouth as she falls into the rhythm I set, her face watching mine in consideration. I always get the feeling Nova wants to crack open my head and take a look around.
I’d probably let her and thank her for the pleasure.
“Did you bribe the DJ?”
“For what?”
“The song.”
“What about the song?”
“It switched to a slow song as soon as I came over here.”
I did bribe the DJ. Best twenty bucks I’ve ever spent. I would have given him my Rolex if he had the sense to barter. I clear my throat. “A gentleman never tells.”
She gives me a look.
“What?”
“You. A gentleman.” Her fingertips inch under one of my suspender straps. She toys with it and then snaps it against my chest.
All the blood in my body surges in one direction, and I have to force myself to keep moving around the dance floor. This is a development. Nova doesn’t typically flirt back. She entertains it, sure, then moves our conversation along to something mundane.
This is a first.
My eyes narrow. I’m suspicious. “I’ll have you know I can be very gentlemanly.”
“I’m sure you can.”
“I’d be happy to demonstrate.”
She tucks herself closer to me and I get a hint of honeysuckle. Paper and fresh-spilled ink. “I’m sure you would.”
