"Just using everything in my arsenal to impress the fair lady here—"
"Serena," I say.
"Serena, in the hope she'll forgive me for knocking her over in the most unceremonious way."
Dani and I both burst out laughing.
"Are you okay?" she asks after we both calm down. There's too much concern in her eyes for her to be referring to my near encounter with the floor. She must have seen me pulling away from James's arms.
"Of course she is," Parker, who seems blissfully unaware of anything, says. "If she isn't, she will be in a few minutes. There's nothing a gin and tonic can't remedy." He signals the bartender to make one.
"Can you get me one too?" Dani says, looking at him with hope.
"That's my girl." He puts one arm around her shoulders affectionately and the other one around mine as we watch the bartender make the drinks. "So, how come you never introduced me to your adorable friend before?"
"She didn't know her until today," a voice says from behind us.
Parker instantly stiffens and withdraws his arm.
Dani and Parker turn around, but I take my time. I wait for the bartender to hand me the drink, take a sip, and only then follow suit. I find James's gaze fixed on me.
"Then I can blame you for not introducing us earlier," Parker jokes, but his posture is far stiffer than it should be.
"Indeed," James says without taking his eyes off me. "Dani, I hope the drink behind you is for someone else."
A wave of warmth surges through me at such a blatant display of overprotectiveness toward his sister while Dani, understandably, scoffs.
"Would you mind if we finish our conversation?" James asks me.
The honest answer is yes, but he looks so determined I can't see how I can get out of this without causing a scene.
"Sure," I say and follow him, thinking it can't be worse than before with so many people around us who don't even have dancing to concentrate on anymore. My reassurance shatters when I realize the wooden wall behind the bar is a fake one, and the real wall is behind it. The room between the two of them is filled with empty tables and cabinets carrying every imaginable type of glass and porcelain plates. Unfortunately, there is plenty of space among the cabinets for two people to talk, sheltered from absolutely every guest's view.
"That wasn't polite," he says the second we're inside, and I can tell he's refraining from using a harsher word.
"I wanted to leave," I admit.
"And ended up at the bar?" he says with a laugh that feels forced. I wonder what wouldn't feel forced, what would alleviate the unbearable tension between us. As he stands with his back turned to me, inspecting—or pretending to inspect—one of the glass-filled cabinets, I have an inexplicable, almost frightening rush to close the distance between us and look him in the eyes, stroke him, touch him.
Kiss him.
"What do you want from me?" I ask.
His intoxicating ocean-and-musk scent invades my senses a fraction of a second later, when he pushes me against one of the empty tables, his arms around my waist again, every inch of his body glued to mine. He breathes heavily against my neck, and each warm breath of his against my skin sends shudder after shudder through my body. I think I'm trembling, but I can't be sure. The only thing I am sure of is I don't want him to step away.
He doesn't step away. Instead, he takes off both our masks and kisses me.
A thousand icicles glide down my skin and I discover that I am truly trembling. Violently.
And now I know why I came. For this. For the touch of his lips and the stroke of his strong, warm hands that have the power to turn every icicle into a flaming spear. One of his hands is still on my waist, the other one is on my thigh, furiously pulling up the fabric, until it reaches my skin. We both moan at the same time.
And then, just as suddenly as he started it, he breaks the kiss and pulls away his hand, allowing the fabric to cover me again.
"Do you want to leave?" he mutters in my ear in a low voice.
"What?" I ask in alarm. Of all the things I want right now, leaving is not among them. "No."
He distances himself from me, just enough to be able to look me in the eyes. And I thought they were dark while we were dancing! That was nothing compared to the deep dark blue they are now.