Page 46 of The Wicked

“So why rush back? There’s a club right around the corner, and I owe you a dirty tango.”

If he kept stoking those darn flames, I was going to self-combust.

“How do you figure that?”

“I dragged you away from your drawing class. The least I can do is take you for a quick spin around the dance floor.”

“I’m not a car.”

“I’m well aware of that. I assume a joke about excellent bodywork would be inappropriate here?”

My eyes rolled all of their own accord. “Who says romance is dead?”

“Romance? So you admit this is a date?”

“I admit nothing.” But memories of the night at the Peninsula, of moving to the music with our hips so perfectly in sync, overruled common sense. “Fine. One dance, not a tango, dirty or otherwise, and then you can take me back to Baldwin’s Shore.”

Not to The Lookout, though. He could drop me at Applejack’s on Main Street, and I could get a ride home from the bar. I didnotwant Garrett anywhere near my family.

“One dance,” he agreed. “And if you insist, we can save the tango for our third date.”

16

SARA

One dance? Yeah, right.

The Rockfish Club themed its evenings by decades, and tonight, we were in the ’80s, dancing to Cyndi Lauper and INXS and Tina Turner and Michael Jackson. Charming did a pretty good moonwalk. The cocktails were two for one, and since Garrett was driving, that meant more for me. I hadn’t had a night like this in, well, ever.

The music brought back memories, of dancing around the house in Virginia with my parents on the weekends, of Dad spinning me in the air and Mom singing. Happy memories. And those happy memories were being overlaid with new ones that were every bit as good but a whole lot dirtier. Away from the scrutiny of Hadley’s friends, Charming lost the last of his stiffness, and— Actually, no, that was a lie. There was still stiffness, but it was in a different place. The first time his hand slid down to my butt and tipped me against him, I felt it and went rigid myself.

But because the alcohol and the darkness made me both brave and incredibly stupid, I just grabbed handfuls of his T-shirt and pulled him closer. It felt as if I were having an out-of-body experience, except instead of my old soul floating above, a new soul had replaced boring old Sara, and now she was getting a taste of the life she would have lived ifcircumstanceshadn’t taken over at the age of nine. I’d always pretended to be someone I wasn’t, but tonight, I finally came to terms with a truth I’d been denying for sixteen years. Ihatedpretending. Sara was an imposter.

Saralisa was the real me.

I was finally snatching a rare moment of happiness.

In a second-rate nightclub where the floor was sticky and the bathroom walls were covered in phone numbers and the lecherous bartender called everyone “darlin’” and spent way too long reading the slogan on my T-shirt. It was too hot for a sweater, so I was stuck with “Please don’t make me do stuff” written across my boobs, words that Charming was studiously ignoring. But none of that mattered, not when he looked at me as if I were the only other person in the world.

Our bodies moved as one, and his hands roamed everywhere, from my ass to my shoulders to my neck. I ran my fingertips down the muscles of his back, relishing the way they rippled under my touch, but then he spun me to face away from him, pressing into me and letting me feel that hardness again. Light fingers skimmed the underside of my breasts, and this wasn’t dancing; it was foreplay. Long, loud foreplay.

He plucked my necklace free from my shirt and held it up to the light. “What’s this for?”

“A relic from another life.” I twisted in his grip, and the little key on its silver chain dropped back to my chest. “Why haven’t you kissed me yet?”

It was the alcohol talking, not me.

“Do you want me to?”

“I think so?”

He fisted my hair in one hand but made no move toward my lips. Instead, he just watched me. Waited.

Well, I wasn’t waiting. I stood on tiptoes and touched my lips to his, then realised I’d made a mistake because I had no idea what I was doing.

“You need to lead,” I murmured against his mouth.

Four small words, but they unleashed a wild animal. Charming’s fingers dug into my scalp, holding me in place as he pushed down on my bottom lip with the thumb of his other hand. The last vestiges of my common sense retreated as his tongue advanced, and I melted against his chest. The air between us was electric. Charged. Everyone dancing around us disappeared. His hips rolled against mine, still in time with the music, and my thighs clenched with need. Who was this woman, dancing so wantonly, so…so, uh, sweatily? And who was this man? I still knew barely anything about him, but maybe it was better this way? Relationships—if you could call this craziness between us a relationship—were all about give and take, and I wasn’t in a position to give, not with my mind anyway. Therefore I couldn’t take little pieces of him either. No questions, no answers.

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