The next few minutes were spent hugging, laughing, and congratulating. Hope ran to the bar to order a bottle of bubbly to be brought to the table, and the buzz of pure joy at the celebration of love seemed to spread through the bar from then on.
Caught up in the energy, Ivy hardly noticed when her eyes went damp. This was love, the wild abandon of taking a leap and finding someone who caught you on the other side. It was incredible, wasn’t it? So where was this pang of heaviness coming from? She tried to swallow it down before her night morphed into a pity party. But there was something about seeing this kind of love, the kind that took openness and risk, that made her wonder if she’d ever have what it took.
Just as she thought the thought, there was a familiar tug in her chest. By the time Sean came up behind her, setting his hands on either side of the back of her chair and dropping a kiss to the top of her head, he’d already made his presence known. And somehow, the pressure in her torso loosened.
“Dance with me,” he rasped against her ear, making her hair tickle her neck.
That tickle shot right to her core. Holy cow, she was definitely not going to have any issues getting her juices flowing for this guy if he kept up these sexy ear whispers.
“Um, dance? Now?” she asked, even as she slid off her stool and turned to him. “I’m not much of a dancer.”
Sean tipped back his head and let out a rumbling laugh. “Bullshit, Ivy. I’ve seen you tear up a dance floor like nobody’s watching plenty of times.”
“Well, that’s because I generally assume nobody is watching.”
Sean intertwined his long fingers through hers and with one single tug, pulled her against his chest. “Then you haven’t been paying attention, baby, because I’ve seen plenty of people noticing you. Trust me.”
Without waiting for a reply, he led her toward the crowded dance floor in the middle of the bar. The girls were already going for broke, dancing around the newly engaged couple, arms raised, hips swaying. Ivy moved toward them, but Sean directed her off to the side, where there was a pocket of space away from the main crowd.
“But what about the others?” Ivy asked, her body already not caring about anything but the fact that he was touching her, his fingertips playing gently at her hips.
“Want you all to myself for now,” Sean murmured. He started to move with her, in sync with the beat of the music. That unbreakable thread that linked them guided their movements so that it was almost as if they were engaging in a highly choreographed routine and not dancing together for the first time.
Who knew dancing with Sean would be an overload of the senses? The unique smell of him mixed with the subtle scent of cologne, and the gratifying aura of all the happy, alcohol infused bodies around them in the bar. The sounds of the music pumping through the bar, the vibrations of it adding a friction to the air. The taste of champagne still on her tongue from the toast they’d made earlier, making her wonder if he tasted the same. The tickle in the places where his body touched hers. He hadn’t pressed himself on her. Their bodies weren’t knotted together in a gyrating embrace like many of the other couples on the dance floor. He held her with his eyes, and she felt the touch of them everywhere.
Then there was the visual feast of him, his height, his build, the way his shirt hugged his biceps, and back to his mesmerizing eyes. Ivy let all of it consume her, fill her soul, fusing the thread that connected them more fully to her heart.
This was dangerous, to let him affect her this way. He was too close already. Not only in a physical sense, but an emotional one. She recognized that his keen eyes were seeing more than what was on the outside. He was seeing inside her, and if she wasn’t careful, he’d see all the secret places that she was protecting. All the things she never wanted anyone else to see.
But in this moment, she couldn’t bring herself to care.
She lifted her arms, swayed her hips as she turned in a slow circle for him. Boldly, she stepped toward him, so close but still not fully touching, and mirrored his movement. She watched as his pupils dilated, until his eyes were more black than brown, and she let a healing sense of power fill her. For the first time in her life, she had a sense of being both fully in control and fully surrendered.
As one song blended into another, time passed, people talked to them, moved beside them, around them, and it was all one big part of this intricate dance she hadn’t realized she knew all the steps to. With each movement, her body became more and more alive with wanting, and with it the absolute knowledge that this was the man she had been moving toward since she arrived in Portland. This was the man who would help bring her peace.
Her heartbeat echoed everywhere. Her chest, her ears, her throat, but the pulse between her legs beat the loudest. It was a lusty ache that begged to be seen to. It was so unfamiliar, so demanding, Ivy pulled back, stunned.
“Now.” The urgent plea tore from her lips before she could explain herself.
“Now,” he repeated with a brisk nod, knowing, of course, exactly what she meant. Desire burned in his opaque eyes.
“Right now.” Ivy mirrored his nod. “Or I’ll explode.”
A tight, knowing laughter rumbled out of him as he grabbed her hand, pulled her through the throng of people, past the table where their friends sat calling after them.
“Where are you going?” Christine asked.
“We just ordered another bottle of bubbly,” Wendy added.
“Um, have a glass for me. We’ve, um—we’ve got to go.”
Before they even made it halfway across the bar, Hope appeared in front of them, halting their progress, her brown eyes sharp as laser vision. Hope glanced up at Sean with a sugary sweet grin. “Sean, Ivy forgot her purse at the table. You don’t mind getting it for her, do you?”
Sean’s gaze flicked between the women, then focused on Hope. “Of course not.” He headed off to where they’d been sitting.
Hope locked eyes with Ivy. “This is happening?”
Ivy took her friend’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “This is happening.”
