“I am listening! He just said he has a bongo in his heart and a bird in his head!”
“‘Don’t leave me hanging on like a yo-yo’ isn’t exactly poetry.” He stood and struck the same pose she had, with one foot propped onto demi pointe and his knee crossed coquettishly over his standing leg, and popped his hip to the beat. “Viens danser,” he sang along.
“Non,” she replied, staring up at him like he’d lost his mind.
“Viens danserrrrr,” he sang louder, and maybe he had lost his mind a little. He was being ridiculous, he knew, but maybe the only way to best Carly Montgomery was to beat her at her own game. He grabbed her hand and tugged it, and she stood reluctantly, letting him hold on to her fingers and swing her arm back and forth to the beat. She rolled her eyes, but a few seconds later, her feet started moving, and she was stepping side to side as Gilbert Montagné sang about the magic of the Pacific Ocean, the waves and the sky. Then her hips and shoulders joined in, and Nick dropped his showgirl posture and started moving like Carly was, like they were on a dance floor with a foot or so between them, enjoying the silly ’80s beat of this silly ’80s song the French loved so much.Y a rien à faire qu’à rêver. Prends-moi la main viens danser, Montagné crooned.There’s nothing to do but dream. Take my hand and come dance.
The last time he’d danced to this song, he’d pulled Delphine into his arms, him in a sharp linen suit and her in a chic backless dress. They’d swayed under the night sky at a vineyard in Provence. About as far from Freshwater Beach as you could get, he thought, as he and Carly bopped together, her in her cut-offs and him in a pair of board shorts he’d never have worn in Paris.
“All right, fine!” Carly sighed loudly after a moment. “It’s a good song.”
Nick chuckled and kept dancing. “So I was right?”
Carly rolled her eyes, somehow managing to roll them in time with the beat. Well, New York Ballet School was known for prioritizing musicality.
“Sorry, Carly, didn’t quite hear that,” he teased.
“You were right,” she grumbled, though there was no real resentment in it.
“A little louder, please? So I can hear you over the good song?” She shot him a lethal look, but he just laughed and held out his hand, only half expecting her to take it. But she did, and in his surprise, he spun her around a little harder than he’d meant to. She gasped and toppled a little, falling towards him, but he put his other hand on her waist and steadied her. Once she’d regained her footing, they kept dancing, a few inches closer than they had been, and he could feel the muscles in her waist shifting under his hand as she swayed. Smell her shampoo clinging to the curls that had slid out of her ponytail as she danced. He swallowed, thinking that he should step back and restore the space between them. He should.
He was about to do it—really, he was—when the song ended and the next one began, a slower beat.On va s’aimer,Montagné sang.We’re going to love each other.
He knew better than to pull Carly even closer, but that was what you did when a slow song came on, wasn’t it? You pulled your partner closer, so that her hips touched yours, and you could run your hand from her waist to the small of her back. You watched her press her lips together, probably unconsciously, as the movements became less like dancing and more like breathing together. You let her slip her hand out of yours so she could twine her arms around your neck and bring your faces even closer together, until your pulse was pounding hard enough for her to feel it through your ribcage.
Human hand grenade, he thought.Back away slowly. No sudden movements.
She was so near now, just like she’d been last night. And just like it had last night, his body screamed for him to close the gap. Cover her mouth with his and taste her. She’d taste like the coffee he’d brought her, he thought, and suddenly he’d never craved coffee more than he did at this moment.
Let’s not make that mistake again, she’d said. But the way she was looking up at him through her lashes now, shy and nervous, made him hope she hadn’t meant it. Or that she’d meant it and was having trouble sticking to it. He sure as hell was.
“Carly?” he asked quietly, as their swaying slowed to almost nothing.
“What?”
“Last night …”
She swallowed, and he watched her throat work, watched the muscles shift under the smooth skin. His mouth watered.
“… was a mistake,” she finished his sentence. She lifted her chin and met his eyes, her face a picture of determination. But she didn’t remove her arms from around his neck, and he didn’t miss the way her gaze slid over his mouth on the way up.
“That’s right. Shouldn’t happen again.”
“Right,” she said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear her.
“Right,” he echoed, but she didn’t move away.
“Because you’re an asshole,” she breathed, and it almost sounded like she was saying it to herself. Reminding herself.
“And you’re a big-time ballet brat,” he said, just as quietly, letting the words flutter over the top of her ear. She shivered and bit her lip, and that was when he knew he wasn’t alone in this insanity.
“Swear to God, if you call me that one more time, I’m going to—”
“What? What are you going to do, kiss me again?”
For a moment Carly said nothing. She looked up at him, eyes glittering with defiance and unmasked desire. When she finally spoke, her words sent a thrill of triumph and anticipation racing up Nick’s spine.
“Try me.”
