Page 61 of The Bad Wedding Date

The song boomed, and we swayed, our movements in slow motion, not making sense. I had no desire to speed any of it up. I wanted to stay here forever with the sound of Bruce Springsteen singingSecret Garden.

We weren’t touching.

Hell, I became desperate to touch.

Desperate to hold.

Desperate to step closer, kiss, tug, tear away his clothes, and make him mine if only for a dance.

As if reading my mind, his grin brightened, flashing bright, white teeth, and creasing his cheeks in a way that made my chest ache from want. He licked his lips. I envied his tongue.

He slowly brought his hand up to my hair, pushing his fingers through it before he tucked it behind my ear, letting his fingertips linger along my neck to savour the goosebumps that rose to life beneath his touch.

He felt them.

I felt them.

He didn’t speak a word, and I couldn’t. He’d stolen my breaths, inhaled them into his greedy body, leaving me starving for air until he chose to kiss me and breathe me back to life.

We kept moving, swaying in time now to the slow but loud song blaring to life around us. This was a spell I’d fallen under, and I’d never been more grateful for bad magic.

He leaned in. His aftershave invaded my senses, making me heady and weak. So weak, my lashes fluttered, and my knees began to tremble. His free hand trailed up my arm, a tender caress that robbed me of more life.

“Tell me you want it,” he whispered. “Admit it to me, and I’ll give you everything. That’s all you have to do, Charlotte. That’s all you have to say.”

I wanted to speak. To scream at him how much I wanted him—how much I needed him, but no words would come out. I was choking on desire, desperate to tell him. To vocalise this unrivalled passion cursing through my veins.

No matter how many times I opened my mouth to speak, I’d become mute, unable to do anything but look at him now through pained eyes as I tried to make himfeelmy need for him to take me, touch me, devour me, ruin me, kiss me, save me… wreck me. I didn’t care. But we hadn’t known each other long enough for him to read my distress as desire, and when he saw the first tear fall down my cheek, his smile slipped, and his scowl came to life. Grey eyes searched mine before he pulled away and stepped back, removing his touch from my skin, turning me cold again.

No, no, no, no!I wanted to scream, but I remained silent, and the longer I didn’t speak, the farther away he retreated…

Until his face disappeared into a cloud of smoke around the dance floor, and the song drifted away to nothing, leaving only the sounds and delighted laughter of the very family I’d been trying to drown out.

“No, Fraser. No. Come back. I need you—”

“Charlotte! Charlotte…” a voice hissed, panicked and desperate.

I didn’t have time for it. I needed to get back to the dance floor with Fraser. I need to run after him, chase through the smoke, grab his arms and throw myself at his lips. I needed everything he had to give because underneath his spell had been the only place that I’d ever really felt safe.

Adored.

“Charlotte!”

“Fraser,” I croaked. “Don’t go.”

“Charlotte, you need to wake up,” he said, and this time I felt him shaking my arms to stir me.

Reality hit me like a freight train, and my eyes burst open to see Fraser’s face only an inch away from mine. That golden hair. That perfect blond beard. Those eyes. That smell that was uniquely him.

I blinked once… twice… a third time… and the realisation that he was leaning over me and hadn’t left me unable to breathe on that dance floor came as such a relief, I did the one thing I shouldn’t have. I reached for him. Hooking my arm around his neck, I yanked him towards me until his lips crashed against mine.

A soft moan rumbled in my throat. He felt better than I’d imagined, his lips warm and soft… yet still.

Far too still.

My eyes pinged open as true reality caught up to the sleepy haze I’d been in only seconds before. Fraser’s wide eyes stared back at me while our lips remained locked. I was too stunned to let him go, and he seemed too stunned to ask me to, leaving the two of us in a kiss without movement.

A kiss I so desperately wanted to take further.

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