‘Let it all go,’ he said softly.
Her hand tightened against his shoulder and her hips drew closer to his, their bodies blurring into one. It was as if she was floating. Everything felt soft-edged, enchanted.
Around her the room seemed to be slowing down in time to the music, and the song’s chorus was chiming in time to a melting ache deep and low down. It was way past midnight. She’d been alone with him for hours. But if someone had asked her, she would have said it had been no more than minutes.
Her heart jumped. So why did she feel as if they had always known each other?
His head dropped. His face was so close that she could feel his breath coming fast and warm against her cheek. And then his eyes locked with hers, the green of them so deep and unending that it felt as though she were drowning in them.
She could fight it, could push to the surface—but she didn’t want to. Bli
ndly, she reached up and ran her fingers over the first rough trace of stubble, seeing, sensing, feeling a need that was as palpable as her own. And then, standing up on her toes, she closed her eyes and kissed him—not gently, but fiercely, forcefully, with a hunger she had never felt for any man but him.
As their mouths touched he pulled her towards him, parting her lips with his, splaying his warm hands across her back.
She moaned softly. Her breasts were aching and she could feel every contour of his hard, muscular body. Only she wanted more. Wanted the touch of his hands sliding over her skin and the frenzied release that she knew they would bring.
She had missed him.
Pleasure danced across her skin. The blood was racing along her limbs as though towards some imaginary finishing line.
And then suddenly something shifted inside her. This intimacy was too much. Her pulse was beating too hard and too fast.
Her heart punching against her ribs, she pulled away. Silencing the tingling heat that was creeping over her skin, she opened her eyes and the room jolted back into focus.
The lights were too bright. She wanted to close her eyes. And her body was humming, the imprints of his hands stinging fiercely on her skin.
‘Excuse me—’
She felt dazed, unsteady—and, not wanting to meet his gaze, she spun round and walked swiftly off the dance floor, her legs moving automatically like some wind-up toy.
‘Kitty—’
They had reached the table and she turned reluctantly to face him. He was standing beside her, his hand resting on the back of a chair, and she tried her best to rebuild the barriers she had so casually smashed with one careless kiss.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
He frowned. ‘“Shouldn’t” usually implies a level of duty or obligation to something. Or someone.’
His voice was quiet, but there was a tension there that hadn’t been there before—one that matched the set of his jaw.
‘I thought you were a free agent.’
He let the words hang in the air between them.
Her throat tightened. ‘I am. That wasn’t what I meant.’
She clenched her hands. She was making a total mess of what she was trying to say, but she had so little experience of this kind of conversation.
He took a step forward, his green eyes searching her face. ‘You look pale. Here, sit down.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s so hot in here. I think I need some fresh air.’
But it was more than that. She could sense it...just out of reach, in the corner of her mind...like the answer to a crossword clue or a forgotten name that went with a face.
He led her out of the nightclub into the foyer. The cool air restored her a little, but her legs still felt as though they weren’t connected to her body.
Incredibly, the ladies’ cloakroom was empty.