“I shouldn’t be surprised you don’t remember. You sounded wasted.”
She’d looked scared when I’d mentioned the voicemail, but now she looked terrified. “What happened? What’d I say?”
I felt bad she’d spent the last five years not knowing what happened, but that wasn’t my fault. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It fucking matters, Kyle.”
Anger heated in my veins. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s done. Let’s just move on.”
Could she see how serious I was? It’d be a waste of time to argue with me, because I would win.
Her expression fell. It appeared she understood, but she didn’t look happy about it one bit. Her gaze went severe, but she bit back her words, and my heartrate ticked up a notch. There was calculation going on behind that gorgeous face of hers. Whatever she throws at you, you can handle it.
“All right,” she said, her tone cool and calm. “What happens now?”
I tried not to mentally stumble over her shift in tactics. “I feel like we owe each other a real goodbye.”
Not the goodbye we’d planned to exchange five years ago, though. I was a lot of things, but not a masochist, and kissing her would only bring pain. I loved my memories of her lips and all the different kisses they’d delivered. Sexy, passionate, sometimes sweet.
What if I kissed her now and it didn’t live up to what had grown legendary in my mind? It wasn’t worth the risk.
“Dance with me first.”
I froze. “What?”
“It’s New Year’s Eve. I got all dressed up, and . . .” She appeared to stopped fighting what she wanted to say. “I thought this conversation was going to take place on the ballroom dance floor.”
A calculated move. She looked unbelievable in her dress, which she’d probably worn to distract me, and it was working. She’d caught me staring at her chest more than once, and her satisfaction was evident. Fuck her for flaunting what I couldn’t have. She wanted me to look, so I did.
I glanced out the window, staring at the skyline. It had begun to snow, and fat snowflakes wafted downward. The only light in the room came from the shimmering pool, so the view was even better without our bright reflections competing against it. We were only two muted shapes in the glass.
“There’s no music.”
“A smart guy like you? I’m sure you know how to work Pandora.”
I didn’t want to dance with her. The idea of letting her get close was dangerous. But her eyes flared with a challenge, and I wasn’t one to back down. If she thought this ploy was going to work, I’d show her how wrong she was.
So I went to my suitcoat I’d left hanging on the chair back, dug out my phone, and picked the first station I found that would work. I propped the phone against my empty glass and stood.
Ruby watched me wordlessly as I unbuttoned my cuffs and began to roll back the sleeves of my dress shirt. It was warm in the pool room, but it climbed to a thousand degrees when I looked at her. The song playing from my phone sounded like Michael Bublé, a slow, jazzy number.
Alarm was loud and incessant in my brain.
The dim lighting. The sultry music. The view. Everything about the environment was seductive and romantic. I stepped up to her, opened my arms, and invited her into my embrace. The only consolation was she seemed to hold her breath as she set her warm hand in mine, as if she was as wary of this as I felt.
I’d fucking swear my body remembered the feel of her. My arm slipped behind her back and rested comfortably there, as if happy to be home. Her hand not clasped in mine lay gently on my shoulder. But tension made me stiff, and I focused on the movement rather than the girl in my arms.
I took my first step forward, and she followed my lead. My mother had taught me a basic dance pattern once, and I fumbled through the sequence, rusty, but good enough. Ruby’s face was tipped up toward mine, but I refused to look at her. Instead, I stared out over her head, eyeing the buildings beyond the glass.
Bublé serenaded us as the snow outside continued to fall. We’d turned two rotations before I felt myself start to slip. My posture softened and I drew my arm in, pulling her closer. No, dammit. I couldn’t slip further. The ache for her, which had dissipated over the years, was back and stronger than ever.
She slid her hand up my shoulder, moving it up until it cupped the back of my neck and demanded my attention. Her soft, delicate fingers were more powerful than anything else, and I had no choice but to obey.
My heart stopped. Even shining with unshed tears, her eyes were breathtaking. I was right back in that bookstore, staring at her as we argued over the last used copy of an intellectual property textbook. She’d been so pretty with her bangs falling over her eyebrows and annoyance skewing her face. There was no way I was letting her leave the store with that book and without getting her number.
The steam in the room seemed to thicken, slowing everything down, especially my thoughts. Ruby pressed further into me, and I allowed it. I could feel every inch of her against me as we swayed to the music, and I was greedy for more contact. Our hands let go at the same moment, so I could move mine to join my other in the small of her back, wrapping my arms around her. She encased my jaw in both hands, and I didn’t want to think about why she was trembling.
She didn’t blink as I leaned closer. She didn’t even take a breath.