A question and a want that echoed his own.
He looked at her now. Saw her lips part. Saw that question again even as her eyebrows dipped into a confused frown.
He flicked his wrist, and she twirled back to him.
She didn’t have to, but she did.
Her fingers slid up his chest to rest on his shoulder, and her thighs almost brushed his as they moved together to the music. Nick was no longer singing “Tonight”. Now his world-famous rock star cousin was singing “Bleed”, a song the world knew he’d written for his wife after they’d rekindled their relationship after fifteen years of separation. It was a song about being unable to deny what was between them any longer.
Swallowing, Mick looked down at Zeta. Her stare was locked on the space above his shoulder. Adamantly.
Stubbornly.
A soft chuckle fell from him before he could stop it.
She scowled. “What?”
He grinned. “I can tell you’re trying not to look at me.”
Something flickered in her eyes, but her gaze stayed locked on the same spot above his shoulder. “Why would Iwantto look at you?”
He chuckled again but didn’t answer. What he did do was use the hand on the small of her back to draw her a little closer to his body.
She didn’t resist.
Fuck, he liked that. A lot.
They continued to move together. He knew someone was still singing. Was it Nick? Or maybe it was Josh, Nick’s son and a rock god in his own right. It was just background noise to Mick. Both the rock stars would find it hilarious their cousin had reduced their multi-platinum voices to mere white noise, but that’s the way it was.
Right now, the world was a fuzzy cloud with only one thing in focus—Zeta.
Say something. Anything.
“So youcandance?” she murmured, a gentle rebuke in her voice.
“Dancing lessons until I was seventeen,” he confessed.
Her stare slid to his then.
“For footy.”
A frown replaced her shock. “For what?”
“Sorry,” he said, smoothing his hand a little farther up her spine and then back down to the small of her back again. She moved closer to him, and her hips were pressed to his now, not just brushing up against him as the danced. Did she know that she’d done that? “Football. I mean, rugby union.” He snorted out a laugh. “Almost every sport involving a ball and feet is called footy here.”
She rolled her eyes, smiling as she shook her head. “Of course. Why not?”
Her smile turned impish, and something purely carnal and male in him reacted to the expression. What would it be like to see that same expression playing with her lips when they were both naked together and—
“So you learned to dance to play a sport requiring no dance moves at all,” she clarified, humor dancing in her voice.
“Best way to keep from being crushed on the field,” he said, trying to keep his body under control. Maybe he should dip her again, just to get some space between them.
“I see,” she said. “So you reallydoknow how to move.”
His heart thumped faster, and he risked everything by drawing his head a little closer to hers. “You better believe it, baby,” he whispered.
“Oh, I do,” she whispered back.