Page 46 of Strictly the Worst

“Ouch. This tastes like a hangover waiting to happen.”

“We still have some last minute work to do tomorrow,” I remind him. “We can’t drink too much.”

He winks at me. “It’s a proven fact that dancing prevents hangovers.”

“Not if you have to drink a bucket of punch to get the courage to do it,” I mutter.

“Why would you need liquid courage to dance?” he asks me, looking genuinely curious.

“Because some of us have two left feet.”

He looks down my legs, as though he half believes me. And I’m so glad I decided to touch up my pedicure today. No chips, no hard skin, just pretty feet.

A half smile pulls at his lips. “I’ll take it easy on you,” he promises me. “At first.”

His eyes catch mine and it doesn’t feel like we’re talking about dancing anymore. “It’s not my first time,” I say.

“I know. But it’s your first time with me. That’s different.”

Okay, we’re definitely not talking about dancing. Or are we? It’s hard to tell with Linc. “Don’t take it easy on me just because I’m an amateur compared to you.”

His smile gets wider. This damn punch has a lot to answer for. “You have to learn to walk before you can run, Carmichael. We’ll start with something easy. Slow. Then we’ll work up to the crescendo.”

“You’re calling me Carmichael again,” I say.

“I always call you Carmichael.”

“Last night you also called me Tessa.”

His gaze softens. That smile is still there but it feels less of a challenge, more of a prize. “Did I?”

“Yep.”

“It didn’t feel like a Carmichael moment, I guess.”

“What’s a Carmichael moment?” I ask him, because I can’t even imagine what he means by this.

“A Carmichael moment is when you’re being you. Challenging. Fighting me.” He tips his head to the side, his eyes scanning my face.

“And a Tessa moment?”

He presses his lips together, as though he’s assessing his answer before he responds. “A Tessa moment,” he says, “is when you need kindness.”

“Maybe I need kindness more than you think.”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “I think you do. So are you gonna come and dance with me or what?”

“Just one,” I tell him. “And you have to be gentle with me.”

He shouts out a laugh and pulls me up, taking me to join the others dancing in the sand.

LINC

She feels different tonight. And yet weirdly the same, too, in the best kind of way. It reminds me of that time I had a full body scrub in a Turkish bath. Having your top layer of skin scraped off by an angry looking man with a hand full of what felt like glass shards wasn’t exactly my favorite experience of all time.

But the result was amazing. For a few days, my skin was as soft as a baby’s. It also gave me a little insight into the ‘beauty is pain’ mantra my mom always uses.

Fuck that. I like pleasure. Especially the pleasure of dancing with this woman.

---