Page 23 of The One Who Got Away

I know the past happened and I hurt you and I’m sorry...but what comes next?

Of course the waitress was nowhere to be found. I imagined that she was somewhere in the shadows, watching us, letting our appetizers die at the pass because there was a moment about to unfold, if I’d only take Lincoln’s hand.

Yes or no.

Jump or stop pretending.

I could let the moment pass. Go back upstairs, wash my face, put my slacks and blouse back on, and hold onto the bitterness and anger until it ate me alive. Pretend that I didn’t want to take his hand and dance until my feet hurt. Spin around and around until I was back at prom in my anti-prom dress, him in his suit, rocking out like we were the only people on the dance floor.

“I hate you,” I muttered, dropping my hand in his and letting him drag me to my feet.

His lips curled mischievously. “I know.”

There was no way he could see any better than I could, but he moved like some nocturnal thing, leading me toward a place where we could dance and not slam into tables and chairs. I was awash with sensations, even in the midst of being robbed of sight. I could feel his hand pulsing around mine. His cologne gently drifted around him like the music that whined and moaned around us. The desire that started in my belly, that pit of nerves and need—it wanted to fast forward through the dance and get to the part where his mouth was all over my body.

I sucked in a breath as we came to a hard stop. He tugged my hand and my body slammed into his. My eyes flew up to meet his gray ones, and I felt a part of him that wanted to fast forward, too. His cock, erect and as mouthwateringly thick as I remembered, was pressed against my abdomen. He always took the lead, but I couldn’t follow. I just stood, eyes locked on his, heart beating out of my chest, and I swayed.

I didn’t let my mind take me to a place of anger. That we were supposed to have a dance just like this, as husband and wife, would have tainted this. Where excitement robbed me of the ability to speak and I could look into those electric gray eyes and see that he was struggling to behave and keep it PG-13, because we were surrounded by onlookers who wouldn’t approve if he grabbed my ass. Or gripped my breasts and told me all the ways he wanted to fuck me.

There were no such public concerns here and his hands glided down the side of my body, his touch soft and fierce at the same time as he rounded my hips and rested on my ass, pulling my body closer still. Drawing me closer, to the point where I could make out every swollen inch of him. Where I could barely sway because I was trembling, lust whipping between my thighs. My pussy had already given up the ghost. The flickers of lust that were inevitable when we were in the same general vicinity were now flames and that ache down there, the ache only he could satiate, was going to do me in. I wasn’t liable for my actions because I was reaching around and grabbing his ass too, grinding against him. This dance was too indecent for the presence of Bach or Mozart or whatever high-class composer had crafted the song that hummed around us.

There was another sound that joined the violins and percussion. Deeper and coming from him. I paused mid dry hump and cocked my head at him. His grin deepened as he ducked his head and his lips grazed my ear.

He was singing “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The song that had been playing the first time we kissed in his truck in the student lot back in Rhoades. But instead of guitar and Cobain’s voice filling me with angst and the thrill of knowing he was about to kiss me, Lincoln’s voice was deep and sultry, turning the song into something overtly sexual as his lips wrapped around every word.

Some form of shock and awe captured me and my fingers flew to his mouth at the bridge. I traced the curve of his lips and the music vibrated through my fingertips. Lincoln Carraway didn’t sing for anyone but me. No one except me knew that he wanted to do chorus and musicals in high school. His father put an end to that as soon as the interest reared its head. Before, it was like pulling teeth to get him to do more than whisper a note or two and here he was, breathing the lyrics into me.

I didn’t know if it was Nirvana, three glasses of wine, or just being high off his body being so deliciously close to mine, but I raced my fingers through his hair and I found bliss. Our lips met and the song was forgotten. This room was forgotten. The past was forgotten. There was nothing and no one but him and me. I devoured him with a hunger that had me reeling, his moans echoing in me, through me. Our teeth clashed, but it just intensified my hunger. My need to taste him. To kiss him. I didn’t know what came next and I didn’t give a damn.

I didn’t catch the moment his hands migrated from my behind to my cheeks, but when I opened my eyes, he was holding my face in his hands like someone that thought all hope was lost and somewhere, somehow, a light flickered at the end of the tunnel.

His eyes darted behind me.

The waitress!

I spun around, clasping my arms across my body like she’d walked in on us mid sex, tangled up in each other. She looked as embarrassed as I felt and started stammering apologies.

“I didn’t want to interrupt, but your first course...” She trailed off, dropping her chin to her chest like we were the queen and king and the next thing out of my mouth would be ‘Off with her head!’

It was enough to sober me up, and I dashed over to the table like I was starving. “No problem at all.” I knew I was dialing it up to the level of being pretty obvious, but I ignored Lincoln’s gaze, coupled with hers. I dropped into my seat with a toothy grin and shimmied closer, tearing up the plate with my eyes and inhaling deep. Cheese and garlic took the place of Lincoln’s cologne. When he joined me, not vocalizing how delicious his soup was, I gave the waitress a thumbs up before I shook my utensils loose and snapped my napkin like a bullfighter. “Yum!”

She flitted away like a butterfly and left us to our meal. Well, me stuffing macaroni and cheese in my mouth and Lincoln stirring his soup.

I took a break, chewing my food slowly and swallowing. His eyes on me should have been unnerving since the gray was a dusky hue that told me he was still on the dance floor. It made my temperature rise, my skin rippling with goose bumps as he watched every movement. He was studying me.

“After giving me shit, you’re not going to eat?” I used my fork to gesture around us. “All these bells and whistles were your idea-”

“Can I make a confession?”

I stopped making circles with my fork, my heart tumbling in my chest. I wanted to say, ‘Talk to me, sing to me, fuck me, just don’t make this night end,’ but I played coy. “It’s your party.”

He shook his head, that naughty, disarming glimmer returning to his bright gray eyes. “It was my party. At first. It became our party after that dance.” He took his napkin and tossed it over his nearly untouched food. “And all of this was my way to woo you, to charm you. And when we were out on that floor, I remembered that what we have is raw and real and everything else is, well, bullshit.” He loosened his tie then yanked it off altogether, wrapping the silk around his fist. “I’ve wasted years chasing my family’s legacy, so filled with regret about the choices I’ve made. Every one of them took me further away from you. And I don’t want to sit through dinner and pretend like I’m not dying to be inside you.”

I hitched a breath. Hearing that should have offended me. I didn’t have a lot of experience in the whole dating thing but there had to be weeks, months of him making it up to me, right? This dinner was supposed to be the beginning of some grand romance complete with-

Ugh.

I wanted him too.

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