Page 166 of IRL: In Real Life
He was in white, a soft resort shirt with the first few buttons undone, short sleeves, fabric moving when he moved. Against his dark caramel skin, it was unfair. His beard was fresh. His waves were clean. The diamond stud in his ear caught the last of the light every time he turned his head.
He looked like wealth, appetite, and bad intentions.
And months in, he still made my body react like this was new.
We moved through the crowd slowly, stopping for people we knew from home and from the wider orbit. Kendra looked me over once and said, “Yeah, okay, island Talia can stay.”
Bryce appeared a few minutes later with a drink in one hand and the self-satisfied smile of a man who was absolutely about to mind our business.
He saw Micah’s hand low at my back and laughed. “Aight, I’m not asking no questions. I know how to read a room now.”
That got a real laugh out of me.
Micah only smiled and pulled me a little closer.
Good.
Let them read it.
We had earned being obvious.
A little later, a woman in a sage silk dress and interest she was doing a poor job of disguising drifted into Micah’s line of sight and asked if he was joining a group heading downstairs after the mixer.
Micah looked at her.
Then at me.
“Nah,” he said easy. “Me and my woman already got plans.”
The woman smiled and retreated with enough grace to keep me from disliking her, but by then I was already too aware of my own body, the air, his hand, that phrase, all of it.
I looked up at him. “My woman?”
He leaned closer, mouth near my ear. “You got a problem with accuracy?”
“No,” I murmured. “You’re nothing else if not accurate.”
His laugh brushed my skin.
A little later, when the crowd thickened and the sun dipped low enough to make everybody look softer, Micah took my hand and led me out of the center of it. Not far. Just far enough. Pastthe loudest voices. Past the cluster by the bar. Down toward the quieter edge of the terrace where tropical greenery framed the overlook and the water stretched wide and darkening below us.
The breeze lifted the slit of my dress against my leg.
Micah came up behind me and wrapped me up from there.
His hands spread over me like this body was already familiar territory and he had every right to gather me back into him. I felt the heat of his chest at my back immediately. The brush of his open white shirt against my bare shoulder. The warm masculine weight of him closing around me while the sea moved and breathed in front of us like the whole island understood exactly what sort of moment this was.
I laughed softly, but it came out thinner than laughter should when a man knew how to hold you that way.
“Micah.”
His mouth touched the curve of my cheek first. Then just beneath my ear.
“You wandering off?”
“You brought me out here.”
“Mmmmm.” His hand spread a little wider over my stomach. “That’s not the same thing.”
