Page 16 of Midnight Kisses
Helen hadn’t tucked me under her wing for no reason. She’d admitted her agenda readily:marriage, good teeth, grandbabies.Foreboding twisted down my spine. Helen would probably murder me if she learned what her son and I had donein the bathroom on New Year’s Eve. She’d either write me off as an easy trollop, or she’d insist I immediately redeem her son’s honour by marrying him and producing grandbabies.
I hadn’t known Helen very long, but I suspected the latter.
I pushed my tiny mask higher up my nose and thrust a hand towards him. “Nice to meet you Miles. I’m Perry.”
His eyes ran over me. “Hello Perry. I see my mother has found herself a new candidate.” He raised an eyebrow at his mother over my head. “Despite warnings.”
Helen pretended not to hear him. She looked around the room and mouthed hello at someone across the room.
“Oh, it’s not like that.” I felt awkward. “We met tonight. I’m just…” His eyes weresogrey and I was flustered by memories of coming on his face. “…Perry.”
The orchestra struck up a waltz and Helen clapped her hands. “How wonderful, they’re playing the song I requested! Miles, why don’t you ask Perry to dance?”
I declined politely, keen to return to the safety of my bathroom. There was no way he would want to dance with me here, at this fancy party. Sex deeds in the bathroom because I was there and willing was one thing, butwaltzingwas entirely another. The thought of his impending rejection was crushing—I had an itching urge to shed this glamorous dress and retreat to safety. I belonged in my sweats, watching Derry Girls, not draped in satin while the mother of the man I’d trysted with tried to matchmake. This is what you got for being brave and having lofty ideas: embarrassment and chaos.
To my enormous surprise, Miles offered his arm. “Shall we?”
Helen literally pushedme into her son’s arms and he swept me onto the dance floor. Escape wasn’t an option. At this point, I wouldn’t have put it past Helen to have bribed everyone in the building to stop me from leaving.
If I could avoid eye contact and remain aloof behind my mask, maybe he would stay in blissful ignorance about who I was. Miles was the spoiled prince of this social set, clearly used to people throwing themselves at him, so there was no way he would remember me—a random girl he’d talked out of her clothes in the bathroom. No, not even random. An employee in the most miserable, demeaning role imaginable.
All I had to do was survive the next three (ish) minutes of one dance, then I could run. He’d never know who I was, so while our shared memories were, in some lights, embarrassing, they weren’t lingering.
Everything would be okay. I had the protection of anonymity.
CHAPTER 7
MILES
The womanI’d gone down on at New Year’s was avoiding my eyes.
Her hands were rigid on my shoulders, and her baby blues darted around the room, wide and wary, like she thought I was about to whip a jar of seasoning out of my pocket and begin devouring her—not in the fun way.
I should calmly and patiently reassure her, but she was acting like she was thinking about running out on me again, which wasn’t an option. Instead, I settled my hands over the full hips I’d been thinking about since the clock struck twelve three weeks ago, and tugged her close.
Maybe that was a dick move, maybe I should have asked first, but if she’d liked me enough to let me lick her pussy, she could fucking well like me enough to dance with me.
At first she was stiff. But after a quick look at my mother, she began to sway.
It was an excellent twist of fate that Perry had found me.
All evening, my efforts to track her down had yielded nothing. I’d been taking repeated trips to the bathroom hopingshe would be there—I did this enough that Sadie and her friends started making incontinence jokes—and the whole time she’d beenatthe party, getting baited and trapped by my meddling mother.
But I had her now.
Through the tiny mask that did exactly nothing to conceal her identity, she blinked up at me, and in that moment something in my chest gave way with a sharp crack. She had been dynamite in her black dress, reclining on that couch in the bathroom. None of the other horny fuckboys who frequented these kinds of things knew what a feast of a woman was hidden away in the bathroom, so I’d had her all to myself. Here, dressed like a princess, all she had to do was fucking blink those baby blues a couple times and anyone with any sense would get on their knees for her. I tightened my hold on her, indenting her flesh with my fingers. She inhaled sharply and the skin on her chest flushed red. I made a noise of satisfaction when I saw it, which made the red spread further over her substantial cleavage and up her neck. Her nipples pebbled and she swallowed.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I muttered.
“Like what?”
“Like you’ve just seen my dick and are picturing where you want to put it.”
Her pillowy lips parted as her jaw dropped. Immediately, my situation went from a semi to a full on problem.
“Iwasn’t.And you shouldn’t speak to someone like that—you don’t even know me.”
“Yes, I do. You’re Perry,” I relished the feel of her name in my mouth, just like I’d relished the taste of her before knowing this important detail. “Perry with the pretty pussy.”
