“It’s neither, I guess. I’m just reeling. I never expected any of this.”
“Doesn’t that mean we shouldn’t trust it?”
“Potentially,” he admitted. “But that’s what happened on the day… I pulled away because I didn’t trust what you made me feel. I needed to regroup. Then, you didn’t contact me. For three full weeks, Samantha. That changed things.”
She snorted. “Because I wasn’t willing to stroke your ego and other things, you sulked?”
“No. It just really gave me time to think. To think about you.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
He growled. “Why aren’t you taking this seriously?”
She fell silent as she reached for her glass. “What’s to take serious? This is a phase, Josh. I knocked you off your feet when I told you what Jamie was really like, and you’ve been unsteady ever since. You’ve gone above and beyond for me. I know that. I also truly appreciate it. But at the same time, I don’t want your pity.”
Josh scowled. “You think this is about pity? Dammit, Samantha! It has nothing to do with pity. Nothing at all!”
She flinched. “It seems like it to me.”
“How can this be about pity?” He grabbed her and hauled her against him; even though he knew it was a dick move to use his strength against her. When their bodies collided, it was as natural as breathing for her to settle into him—she relaxed, didn’t tense up and try to pull away.
She fucking molded herself to him.
Moving against him in such a way he felt certain, and the thought fucking petrified him, that she’d been made for him.
He nearly choked at the thought, but the choke turned into a low groan when she arched her hips and used the angle to tilt back and look up at him.
“That wasn’t fair,” she said on a whisper, her words low and unsteady, her eyes like midnight pools he wanted to dive headfirst into.
“None of this is fair. Neither of us are ready for anything like this.”
She swallowed thickly, nodded slightly. “You’re right. We’re not.”
Because she sounded so final, her words frightened him. He tightened his grip about her and demanded, “You can’t deny that we have something together, Samantha. You can’t deny what we make each other feel.”
Her smile was shaky as she lifted a hand and pressed it to his chin. “I’m not denying anything.”
He blinked.
She wasn’t?
Music in the background suddenly started up, and she tensed then softened against him as she whispered, “Dance with me?”
He almost flinched—he didn’t dance. But she was so soft in his arms, so pliant and molded to him that it would be half-pleasure, half-torture to have her moving against him as they danced to the soft, innocuous jazz.
He kept her tightly pressed to him as he began to move, feeling a little stiff and awkward for not having done this since the horrendous classes his mother had had him endure as a child. But with her in his arms, everything was different.
Nothing was the same.
Not the dance, not the night. Not even breathing.
With her in his arms….
He closed his eyes, his own thoughts overwhelming him. They were like a lightning bolt through the sky, one that hit him square in the solar plexus and that made him feel alive for the first time in a lifetime.
He didn’t understand it.
Wasn’t sure if something like this could be understood.