“Yeah, but we’re dancing now.”
“This feels dangerous, given my tendency toward calamity.”
“I’ll keep you safe.”
If the incident with Benedict was any indication, I believe him. “But you can’t protect me from myself. Or you. Didn’t mean to say that. I just meant—” I must’ve lost my filter somewhere on the dance floor. Better not lose a contact too—I don’t have my glasses with me.
“Me? I’d never hurt you, Pippa.”
“I meant like if you threw a football and it hit me in the head. Because chances are it would.”
“My aim is true.” He looks at me for a long moment. Even though we’re moving, it feels like we go still, a fixed object in the middle of the dance floor universe with everyone whirling around us. His eyes search mine and then his expression of concern shifts to amusement, as if he realized something.
Awkwardly scrambling, because I know what he must be thinking, I blurt, “What you heard earlier about the crush was in the past and had nothing to do with my heart.”
I want to tell him that he already hit me hard in the chest, breaking that fragile thing in there, but follow my rules and think before I speak. I have to keep my shields up.
“We shouldn’t be dancing,” he says with a smile.
“Exactly. Now you understand. There’s no telling what I’ll bump into or break or?—”
“But I want to dance with you.”
“You want to see me do more damage by embarrassing myself in public. Is it amusing to you? And I thought Benedict was twisted.” I start to pull away.
He draws me closer.
“Chase, this is like me spotting a lion cub, going up to pet it, and not expecting to get scratched. I’m rambling. I’ll stop now,” I say more to myself than anything.
“I graduated from being called Cub. They call me the Lion now.” His voice is low, masculine, and has a flirtatiousness to it that tempts me to want to hear more.
“Exactly, and here I go, wandering into the coliseum and see a baby cub in the ring. It’s so cute. So cuddly.”
His lips corkscrew with a smirk. “Are you saying I’m cute and cuddly?”
I wrinkle my nose. “No.”
Yes. So cute. So cuddly.
Then, giving myself a shake and getting back on track, I finish my tragic anecdote. “I crouch down to pet the little fur ball. Then—” I snap my teeth. “The big lion silently comes up from behind and bites my head off.”
“I’m not a gladiator nor would I?—”
“Nice try, Bruiser. Let me remind you that once upon a time, you made it very clear that’s not the case. You and Freddie were the source of countless cases of embarrassment. Go find Abigail and her friends. Marlow made sure everyone knows all about the saucident, the chocolate, all of it.”
“That wasn’t us.” He frowns and it’s kind of adorable.
“Oh, don’t even try to lure me under your spell.”
“I’m not a sorcerer.” He chuckles like this is all very amusing to him.
“You never know.”
“What if things have changed?”
“What if we shouldn’t be dancing?”
“But we are.”
