“Thank you.” My voice came out softer than normal.
“No problem.” His smile faltered, and his eyes sparkled with an emotion I couldn’t place.
Did he feel that, too?
We stayed like that for a few moments, the rush of the water below us mixed with the sounds of laughter and people moving behind us. Over the normal noises of the pier, a Latin beat floated around us. There was a concert and a gathering crowd not far from us.
Jake craned his neck. “It looks like people are dancing over there. Want to try?”
I never danced in public. My dad teased me that whatever musical skills I should have gained from being of both African and Mexican descent seemed to have been obliterated by my rural Iowa upbringing—I had no rhythm. I shook my head slowly. “I have a hard rule about dancing in front of people.”
He raised an eyebrow. “C’mon, I’m sure if they’re public lessons, it’s just the basics.”
I bit my lip again, looking over his shoulder at the gathering crowd. A tinge of worry skittered through me, unsure about interrupting this odd sensation of confidence I felt standing and talking with him. I was getting used to our back-and-forth, gaining certainty he was into me. “I am a terrible dancer. It will be embarrassing.”
His grin was easy, and he wasn’t what I’d expected when we met—I’d been so sure his polo shirt and developed muscles were cues he’d be cocky and demanding. Jake was a nerd—a hot nerd—and seemed completely comfortable with himself. “Are you worried that knowing you’re a bad dancer will make me like you less? Give me some ammunition to use later?”
I winced and willed my body to not recoil. Ammunition is exactly what I’m worried about. “I don’t know,” I said, glancing at the growing crowds, then back to my date.
“What if I told you something I’m bad at? Then we’d be even, right?”
“Maybe . . .”
“Imagine the shortest, least-coordinated person you knew in high school, the one who wore suspenders to gym class and corrected everyone’s grammar. The grown version of that guy gets picked for basketball teams before me,” he said with a straight face. “I am horrible. People think because I’m tall, I might have skills, but I can’t make a free throw to save my life.”
“No one ever taught you?”
“No,” he hedged, squinting one eye and twisting his face. “I was taught. Repeatedly. My dad’s a high school basketball coach, and my twin sister played in college. I just never could get the hang of it. My buddy Eric asked me to consider just keeping stats for our rec league instead of actually playing.”
My lips turned up at his story, and I had to hide my amusement. Something about the image of my tall, broad companion missing shot after shot from the free-throw line eased my mind. More than the image making me smile, his ability to admit it, to just put his shortcomings out into the world to make me feel better . . . that was unexpected.
“Did I convince you to dance with me?”
I raised my arms over my head, positioning my hands the way my dad had taught me in my childhood driveway, and mimicked shooting a basket. “Nothing but net.”
Do something embarrassing. Here goes nothing.
He reached for my hand, lacing his fingers with mine, and we walked together toward the crowd, where the music blared from large speakers, the percussion and horns building a palpable energy around us. Jake gripped my hand tighter as we ducked through the throng of bodies.
Onstage, a man with a microphone instructed the crowd. Near us, a middle-aged couple in matching blue T-shirts and jean shorts held each other, and two women in their seventies juggling brightly colored cocktails and pretzels ignored the instructions and made up their own steps.
The voice boomed from the stage. “Okay! Let’s get going, now that we’ve learned the basic steps.”
“We missed the beginning already,” I said into Jake’s ear.
He shrugged. “We’ll catch up.”
“Jake!” I hissed again, a touch of panic rising in me, not knowing what would come next. I looked at the couples near us to see their movements, trying to memorize how they moved to the loud beat.
“We’ll be fine,” Jake encouraged as he slid his arm around me, his palm resting against a shoulder blade. “Follow my lead. I’ll step forward and you step back, and then the other way.” His lips grazed the top of my ear, and I willed him to trail down to my neck again to that spot that had made me shudder in anticipation the night before.
From the stage, the voice boomed through the microphone. “And one, two, three.” Around us, the crowd undulated like a wave.
Jake pushed toward me gently, stepping forward with one foot, but I was focused on what the woman next to me was doing and I didn’t move in time, so his body collided with mine. He chuckled and spread his fingers across my back, which felt amazing, and I got distracted and stepped with the wrong foot the next time, bumping into his chest again. My gracelessness knew no bounds.
How does everyone else already know how to do this?
I growled at myself, huffing out a heavy breath and pausing my movements to catch back up to the beat. All I had to do was step forward and back, right? I have a flippin’ PhD. I can figure this out.
“You’re doing great,” he encouraged, squeezing my hand.
“You’re a bad liar,” I returned over the music, taking a successful step forward but then second-guessing myself on the next beat and stepping on Jake’s foot. It’s literally counting to three and knowing left from right.
“Here,” Jake said, pulling me flush against him, our thighs touching, chests against each other. Sandalwood and soap filled my nostrils, and my frustration about dancing ebbed into more memories from the night before. “I’ll push my leg against yours, and we’ll step together, okay?” He nudged my left leg with his right on the beat, and our hips twisted in unison, then back, and I followed his movements, relishing the roll of his body against mine as we moved with the music. The crowd fell away. There was only the beat and him. I stopped worrying about the steps and followed his lead. A minute passed, the music swirling around us, our bodies still flush.
“Don’t overthink it.” Jake spoke near my ear, his hot breath stroking my skin, and I stifled a sigh, a tingle zipping through me. “Trust me, okay?”
He has no idea what he’s asking. I’d never been a good dancer, but I had been an eager dancer for most of my life. Not knowing the steps and being hopelessly without rhythm had never stopped me from getting on the dance floor until Davis told me I was embarrassing him. By the time he stopped telling me and started showing his disappointment or anger, I’d long since stopped dancing.
“One, two, three,” the man onstage counted, and he and his partner demonstrated some kind of complicated spin as we rocked back and forth. He said something about the left foot—or was it the right? Crap, I’d missed a few key details. I was comfortable with the step we’d been doing—that was my dancing sweet spot, and I worried if I broke the rhythm it would never come back.
“Five, six, seven.” The instructor counted the beats from the stage. Did he say step forward on four or five?
Jake squeezed my hand and raised his arm with a reassuring grin, nudging me to spin. The slick soles of my sandals helped my movement, and I twirled, clutching his hand, the breeze and motion catching the light fabric of my top. I spun once, then twice, the crowd and the lights from the stage a blur. I wasn’t graceful, and the spin stopped when I tripped into Jake, steadying myself against him.
I laughed into his chest. “I told you I was no good.”
“I’m having fun.” He guided me back to the beat, and we moved together. “Plus, it gives me an excuse to touch you.”
I glanced up to meet his eyes. “Were you looking for one?”
His hips rolled with mine, and a heavy breath escaped my lips as he cupped the back of my neck. “Hoping for one
.” The pressure and rhythm of our bodies in the middle of this crowd, the music blasting all around us—it was too much. We’d been laughing and teasing, but that all seemed to fade into the heat of the moment as our steps slowed. His gaze was intent on mine like he was seeing something rare and cataloging it in every detail.
No one has ever looked at me like this.
He lowered his chin, and I closed my eyes in anticipation of his soft but unyielding kisses. I opened my eyes suddenly when the music changed and the surrounding crowd surged at the popular tune, jostling us. New people moved closer to the stage, and the already crowded dance floor was instantly packed. I glanced left and right, panicked at the sudden influx.
Jake must have read my expression, because he took my hand. “C’mon. I’ve got an idea. You’ll like this better.”
Eight
Jake squeezed my hand, casting his gaze toward the massive gears of the Ferris wheel as we jostled forward and began our ascent into the sky.
“You okay?” I asked.
He looked a little pale, his body rigid. “I must really like you. I can’t believe I suggested riding this thing.”
As we rotated higher into the night, I touched the plexiglass surrounding us and then looked back to Jake. It was late, and we’d managed to snag a car all to ourselves. I’d told him we didn’t have to ride it, even though I’d admitted to loving Ferris wheels earlier in the evening. He’d insisted, and we, once again, found ourselves suspended in the air.
“Tell me more things about you. It distracts me.”
“Um . . . let’s see. My favorite food isn’t ice cream. I told a little white lie last night.” Well, I told more than one, but let’s keep this light.
“What is it?”
“It’s cake, but that sounds so gluttonous.”
“Maybe if your favorite food is an entire sheet cake,” he joked. “What else?”
“I kissed my best friend’s husband back in college, before they were together.”
“Awkward?”
“You’d think, but no. They are, like, the perfect couple and we joke about it now. I’m not sure what else to tell you. I don’t have that many interesting things to share. What about you? What Jake trivia should I know?”
“People seem to think it’s strange that I’ve never seen Star Wars.”
“How is that even possible?”
“You look shocked—do you like the movie?”
“Movies—there are many, but yes, the original trilogy is at the top of my best-films-of-all-time list.” I elbowed him playfully in the side. “I’m not sure we can still hang out . . . This is a big revelation.”
“Well, since you can’t ditch me at the moment, it’s your turn.” He nudged his closed hand against the outside of my thigh.
The pressure of his touch against my leg sent all kinds of sensations pinging through me. It short-circuited my thoughts, and I said the first thing that came to mind. “I own an embarrassing amount of fancy lingerie I never wear.”
A curious expression crossed his features, and his gaze fell to my chest, his eyes darkening.
My nipples pebbled, and I gasped, realizing what I’d implied and what he might be imagining. “Oh! No! I always wear underwear! I mean, of course, not always, like not in the shower. I-I just meant I buy fancy, expensive stuff I never wear.” Open mouth. Insert entire leg.
He laughed, his tone husky, and rested our linked fingers on my knee. The same spark from earlier flashed up my thighs. Shaking his head as if resetting, the edges of his mouth tipped up. “My turn?”
I nodded, eager to move past my gaffe.
“What are the odds? I also own a staggering number of lacy underthings I never wear.”
I released his fingers and slid my hand up his arm to push his shoulder, feeling silly and buoyant and miles away from ordinary. He was making fun of me, but it didn’t feel cruel. “C’mon, a real one!”
“Okay, okay.” He glanced over my shoulder at the view, then focused on my face again. “Hm.” He ran a hand through his hair. He tilted his head. “Did we agree these needed to be embarrassing?”
“I think it’s safe to say I’ve set a precedent.”
“Fair enough. Okay . . . I was a virgin until I was twenty-three.” His voice lifted at the end of his statement as he considered the number.
“Really?”
“I was a chubby, shy kid through college.” He rocked forward in his seat, folding his fingers over the edge. “If I’m honest, women kind of scared me back then, so I was a late bloomer well into working on my MBA.”
“Seems like you’ve figured out how to talk to women since then.”
“It might just be you.” He flashed a boyish, playful smile. “That one must earn me something juicy, right?”
I stretched to stroke my fingernails over his shoulders, then let my hand fall to scratch lightly up and down his spine. I was about to pull my hand away, embarrassed at the intimacy of the gesture and unsure why I’d done it, when his voice rumbled with a low groan.
“That feels really good.”
My heart thudded in response to his words, the low timbre of his voice, and the way his body curled at my touch, and he inhaled sharply when I increased the pressure. “That’s not getting you out of your turn, but I can’t remember the last time someone scratched my back.”
The fluttering low in my belly diverted energy from my brain, and I blurted out the first thing that came to mind again. “I haven’t had sex in over three years.”
“Wow,” he mouthed, slowly.
It didn’t seem that shocking until I said it out loud. Three years. It was even longer since I’d enjoyed it, and I’d never gotten to the big finale, not with anyone else. The sex with Davis had never been good, but eventually, I dreaded it. On the rare occasions he was interested in me enjoying myself, he’d lose patience quickly, asking aren’t you done yet?
Jake’s voice dipped low. “Why so long?”
“That’s the last time I dated anyone, and work got busy. It kind of just happened.” I let my hand fall from his back and gazed out at the twinkling city and the lights reflecting off Lake Michigan, sensing his stare but avoiding his face, afraid I would find pity there. It was pitiful.
His head bobbed out of the corner of my eye.
“What about you?”
His elbow brushed against mine. “No one’s made my heart skip and my toes curl in quite a while.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been with someone who made me feel that.” But you kind of do.
We sat in companionable silence for a minute before he spoke. “I have to go back to the no-sex admission. Three years? Are you ready to explode all the time?”
“Sometimes,” I admitted with a shrug. It wasn’t until the last few months that I’d felt antsy, missing sex. I didn’t plan on saying more, but something about the heat from his body made me keep talking. “But I have ten fingers, an expensive vibrator, and a stash of AA batteries. I get by.”
Jake’s mouth dropped a little as his gaze wandered to my fingers.
With a chuckle, I wiggled them in a quick flourish before changing the subject. “So, are you always like this?”
He paused before shaking his head, looking at me with surprise, eyelids a bit hooded as his gaze fell on my fingers again. “Sorry, I’m going to need a minute after that.”
He scrubbed his hand over his jaw. “Am I always like this . . . spilling my guts and praying I don’t plummet to my death on a weeknight?”
I bumped my shoulder against his and grinned. “You know what I mean.”
“No, it’s definitely not normal to spend a night like this, but I’m not usually spending nights with sexy, funny, interesting, sexy women. What about you?”
“Not normal for me, either.” This night was shaping up to be the furthest I’d been from normal in years.
“And you said sexy twice.”
“It was intentional.” He curled his fingers with mine again as he’d done all night, his thumb tracing over my palm. “I’m glad I’m not just another in a string of men you’ve taken to fake proctology appointments.”
“I promise, you were my first.”
He pulled my hand to his lips. My breath hitched as he dropped a kiss on my knuckles. “I’m honored to hold that distinction.”
Jake squeezed my hand again, eyes still locked on mine.
“Are you staring at me to avoid seeing how high up we are?”
His gaze warmed me from inside out and made me nervous at the same time.
“Yes.” He trailed the pad of his thumb over my lower lip, then against my cheekbone. “That and . . .” He lowered his lips to mine, slowly, his fingers curling around my neck. The view, the night sky, and the people below became background noise.
In the back of my mind, I counted the moments like the dance steps. One, two, three. But when his soft tongue nudged at my lips, I stopped counting. The force of the kiss took my breath, but I didn’t want it back. When we pulled apart, he stared at me, a heat in his gaze that made me feel powerful.
“Damn,” he said quietly, still holding my head.
“Damn,” I repeated. I wanted to be kissed like that again, like I was something special, something wanted, like I was . . . someone.
Nine
My hands shook at my sides, and I tried to control my nerves, but my pulse quickened as I once again watched Jake open the door to his room. This time he didn’t fumble with the key card, and once the door closed, our eyes met for a moment, a taut undercurrent of want passing between us.
How to Fail at Flirting Page 6