Page 58 of Rebel Secrets
I glanced at Rocky, his cheeks flushed and his glasses sitting awkwardly on his nose.Sleeves rolled up and tie nowhere in sight, he looked like a professor who’d had one too many at a faculty gathering.His huge grin made me smile, but a little voice in my brain kept telling me to follow Erin.
“I’ll leave the dancing to you.I need to?—”
“You were dancing with Erin.I thought you two had a hate-hate relationship.”
My smile disappeared in a flash.“Who told you that?”
Rocky didn’t notice the sharp edge on my tone, his interest somewhere on the dance floor.Little brother loved to dance.Must have inherited that gene from Mom.
“No one had to tell me.It’s been common knowledge for years.”He shrugged.“You don’t get along.Hey, I’m gonna…” He pointed toward the dance floor, his feet already moving in that direction.
“Don’t let me stop you.”I waved him back onto the floor, taking a few steps back so I wasn’t in the flow of things.
Rocky headed into the fray without a backward glance.I watched him for a few seconds as he wove his way into the crowd, winding up beside Tressy, who let him grab her hand and twirl her around before joining in on the dance like he knew exactly what he was doing.Maybe he did.
I didn’t have a clue.And honestly, I didn’t care.My entire attention was focused on the hall where Erin had disappeared.
Almost everyone left at the wedding was on the floor or hanging out at the bar on the other side of the room.The band must have turned up the volume, the floor vibrating beneath my bare feet.
I started walking, skirting the crowd, sticking to the wall.My gaze focused on that hallway.She still hadn’t emerged.No one stopped me.Hell, I don’t think anyone even noticed me.Everyone was having too much fun on the dance floor.They bounced and laughed and shook like crazy people.
Good.I didn’t want to answer to anyone.Didn’t want to talk to anyone.I had one goal in mind.
Inside the hallway, the music became a little muffled.Still loud but not as overpowering as it had been in the great room.The air was also a little cooler here.I’d ditched my jacket hours ago, rolled up my sleeves, and I had no idea where I’d put my tie.I’d left my socks tucked in my shoes under the table.
Still, I felt like I was in a sauna, but the heat was coming from inside of me.
What are you doing?
Hell, I knew exactly what I was doing.I wasn’t being affected by the amount of alcohol I’d drank, though I’m sure that had helped bring down my walls.Those walls were in pieces right now, and I didn’t even want to build them back up.
She’d gotten under my skin.I didn’t know how.I just knew it’d been building, and I needed to do something about it, or it’d drive me crazy.
She wasn’t there.
I stopped before the end of the hallway, looking everywhere.I even walked back to the end of the hall and looked out over the dance floor to see if I’d missed her.She wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
Was she still in the bathroom?Was she okay?Had something happened to her?
Had she left?
I was on my way back to the ballroom to ask Rain if Erin had said goodbye when I saw the shadows shift at the end of the hallway.And I remembered that there was a door that led into the garden.
Maybe I’d had more to drink than I realized.Or maybe I just had one thing on my mind, and it wasn’t the layout of my parents’ house.
I should leave, and I didn’t mean follow her.I should go home, because what I wanted to do was stupid.I didn’t do stupid things.And I tried my damnedest not to do really stupid things that would cause issues I couldn’t fix.
And I still walked to the door and opened it.
She sat on a lounger at the edge of the gardens, looking away from the door.She must not have heard me.She didn’t turn, the music from the party covering my approach.I couldn’t see her face, but she had her legs drawn up to her chest with her arms wrapped around them.I couldn’t believe she was cold.The temperature had only lowered to about 75 degrees.
Then again, her dress left her shoulders and the lower half of her legs bare.That dress had made me question things about myself I’d never questioned before.Like why, until these past few weeks, had I never been attracted to her.
And I don’t just mean attracted.I meant, I wanted to kiss my way up her legs until I had that dress around her waist and had my mouth on her?—
I shut down the X-rated image in my head before it could go farther.Even though I’d been dreaming about the woman for the past couple of weeks.I wanted more than dreams.
Was it just the alcohol talking?
