Page 45 of Back for More
“Please. My dad learned everything he knows about flirting from me.”
“First of all—Hah!Secondly, are you openly admitting to flirting with me, and third…are you actually flirting with your assistant right now, Mr. Carver?”
His grin almost disappears for a second, but he lowers his chin and pins me with a stare that I feel directly between my legs. “Are you actually telling me not to flirt with you right now, Miss Barnes?”
I feel hypnotized by those dark, penetrating eyes, but thankfully Alecia squeezes my shoulder as she and Neal head for the dance floor.
“Girlfriend!” she yells. “We’re going to another bar after we dance—like two songs! Come on! Both of you!” She doesn’t wait for us to join her, which is smart because she’d be waiting forever.
“Wanna dance?”
Two words I never thought I’d hear Wes Carver say to anyone.
I furrow my brow at him, incredulous. He’s looking at me so seriously, like he’s really asking me if I want to dance with him, and I just have to giggle. Giggle! For the first time in like, seven years. My cheeks feel warm and my hands feel clammy, and I’m trying so hard to find my inner snarky goddess, but I think she’s already out there on the dance floor.
“With you?”Lame. That is literally the lamest thing I could have said.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to insist that if you do any dancing tonight, it will be with me.” He grins again, thank God, and it puts me slightly more at ease.
I rest one hand on a hip. “Are you as relentlessly expressive a dancer as you were at that prom?” I’m being hilarious, of course. At prom, he just shifted his weight from one foot to the other while casually scanning the room and nodding his head occasionally. It still looked hot, though.
“I’ve definitely added a few moves to my repertoire since high school,” he says, scratching at his chin with his thumb.
I watch in slow-motion as that hand reaches out toward me, and I am about to take it when Little Miss Prom Date decides to serve me up another helping of karma salad.
“Well hello, stranger!” She steps between us and wraps her arms around Wes’s waist. “Fancy meeting you here!”
“Oh hi, Scarlett. How are you?” He pats her on the back very politely before pulling away from her. I guess he needs to be friendly, just in case she ever decides to invest in an office building or something.
“Awesome! I’m really great. Just here to dance and have some fun. How are you?”
“Good, I’m good. Just here with friends. Great to see you—have fun.”
He steps around her and leans in toward me, cupping his hand over my ear, his lips so close that he’s almost kissing my earlobe. “I’m pretending to say something really important to you, so nod your head but don’t laugh. I don’t want to piss her off. I just want her to feel uncomfortable and go away.”
I do as I’m told. Like I said, I’m very good at taking direction. I place my hand on his wrist and then say into his ear, very solemnly, “Like this, you mean? Am I doing this right?”
He places his hand on my shoulder reassuringly and then leans in and says, “That’s good, but could you do it again with a little more emotion?”
I grab his blazer with both hands. “Oh my God! I am soooo sorry, Wes, that’s awful! Since when? It’s not the end of the world, you know—you could try Viagra.” I smirk at him and then glance over at Scarlett, who is still standing there with her arms crossed in front of her chest. I stage-whisper into Wes’s ear, “I think we’re going to have to try another tactic.”
He nods slowly. “Exactly what I’ve been thinking all day.” He takes my hand and leads me to the dance floor.
My brain isn’t quite certain what he means by that, but the butterflies in my stomach are dropping dead due to the sudden climate change. Scarlett disappears from my peripheral vision, along with all of my memories of the way Wes and I used to interact with each other, and I am powerless to stop myself from following him. I stare down at my hand and the way he has claimed it with his, with such a gentle possessiveness. I don’t think I know how to be the girl who allows herself to be gently possessed. Do I? I can only hope, as this Motown classic ends, that it will fade to some awful Flo Rida song and he’ll attempt a weird white guy hip-hop move that just looks stupid and turns me off.
I look over at Nealecia. They are basically dry humping each other in time with the music, completely unaware that they’re in public. It’s cute. It’s not the girls’ night out either of us envisioned, but I guess neither of us are complaining.
Until “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire fades to “Beast of Burden”—also known as the sexiest slow dance song of all time.
Fuck you, DJ. You’re killing me.
Wes stops in the middle of the dance floor, lowers his head, and his shoulders shake with laughter. I’m glad he finds this amusing, because I don’t expect my knees to support me through to the second verse. He turns to face me, a look on his face that I can only describe as resignation. He pulls me in close, and those big warm hands settle onto the middle of my back, holding me against him as our hips sway together.
This is the opposite of every other close encounter we’ve ever had. We’re in public, for one thing. There’s no frantic grabbing or grunting or groping. Maybe it’s the vodka, maybe it’s the damn disco ball and the blue lights, but I feel myself suddenly surrendering to this thing that I’ve spent nearly a decade wanting and fearing.
I lean back, relaxing my neck and letting my head and shoulders roll around to the beat as my arms dangle at my side, trusting that he won’t let me go.
On some level, I guess I always trusted that he wouldn’t let me go, no matter where I went.
No matter how either of us tries to push each other away, it’s the pull that defines us.
I slip my arms around his waist and press my cheek against his chest.
I don’t know what to call it, and I certainly don’t know why he puts up with me, but for this one dance, or maybe even for the rest of this one night, I make a silent promise to myself and to Wes that I will let him lead.
