Anything to get away from your unexpected feelings for Mick, eh?
“Stai zitto!” she muttered through her teeth.Shut up!
“Didn’t say a word,” Mick replied.
She shot him a look. “Since when you do speak Italian?”
He shrugged. “Thought it might be come in handy.”
His gaze held hers for a second, and then he looked away, an expression she couldn’t decipher on his face. Was he embarrassed? Like he’d been caught out? Or was he smug? Like ofcoursehe spoke her second language. Why wouldn’t he?
Zeta’s heart hammered in her throat, and her head spun. He hadn’t spoken Italian the first time they’d met. She knew that for a fact. She’d uttered something under her breath during that first meeting, something about arrogant bastard Australians thinking they were so funny, and he’d replied with, “What was that? I don’t speak Klingon.”
But now he spoke Italian. Why? And why did it make her feel...something? Something almost scary, almost wonderful? She bit her lip.
“Okay everyone!” Lawson’s voice rose over the noise of the wedding guests—and her thudding heart. “Ready to dance to the happy couple’s future? Clockwise first, then counterclockwise. Aaaand….go!”
* * *
He collided into her.
Everyone went clockwise, the way they were meant to move.
He went counterclockwise.
Because he couldn’t stop thinking about Zeta and the question and confusion in her eyes. And the way she’d kissed him. And the wayhe’dkissed her back.Andthe way he wanted her on a level he truly didn’t want to analyze because it was a level beyond just physical, carnal lust, and fuck a fucking duck, he went the wrong way when the music started and slammed into her.
She stumbled. He instinctually went to stop her from falling, and in doing so, grabbed her boob. She lurched back from him, colliding into Elisa, who stumbled backward into Angus, who let out a surprised, “What the fuck?”. Suddenly, their side of the tarantella disintegrated into a mess of people going clockwise, counterclockwise, forward, backward, sideways and— Jesus, he had to get his shit together.
“Onya, Mick,” Owen laughed from the middle of the chaos as Bria laughed.
“And that was Michael Blackthorne messing everything up, boys and girls,” Lawson cheerfully announced over the microphone. “Give him a round of applause.”
And of course, everyone started laughing and giving him a hard time. Except Zeta. She studied him with that same confused question in her eyes that had started the whole thing.
He stepped forward a little, bowed with a flourish, and then grinned at Owen and Bria. “Sorry about that. Brilliant doctor I may be, I clearly don’t know my left from my right.”
Owen snorted, his own grin wide. “My brother, everyone. Always trying to be the center of attention.”
Mick bowed again.
Someone tossed a bread roll at him. Most likely Lawson. Food had been the cyber security expert’s projectile of choice back in their high school days.
He scoop up the bread roll, bounced it off his biceps, and snagged it mid-air. “Let’s dance!”
Everyone in the room laughed, and he turned back to his spot in the circle, his smile directed at Zeta.
Who wasn’t there.
He blinked and flicked a glance at Elisa. Frowned. Yep, definitely Elisa, not Zeta. The pregnant belly gave it away, as did Angus nuzzling a laughing kiss on her temple.
So where the hell was Zeta?
Go find her.
He pivoted on the spot.
“Any time now, brother,” Owen protested with a chuckle behind him. “No rush.”