On and on it went, a revolving door of dance partners, each of them fun and sexy and nameless.
Until they weren’t so nameless at all.
A person April vaguely recognized from the resort’s waitstaff spun her back toward the center, and she fell directly into the arms of Daphne Love.
April’s hands went to Daphne’s shoulders, more to keep from bowling Daphne over than anything. But Daphne’s fingers pressed into her waist, soft and tentative. They stared at each other for a second, Daphne’s green eyes glowing. She was breathing heavily, a gleam of sweat on her chest from spinning through the crowd too, her cheeks flushed and that full mouth parted slightly.
April needed to pull away. Needed to laugh and twirl Daphne to the next dancer, but she didn’t want to.
She couldn’t explain it or understand. She waited for Daphne to move away as well, but Daphne didn’t do that either. Daphne stayed exactly where she was, still gripping April’s waist while others swirled around them in a blur of color.
April didn’t want to laugh and find another anonymous partner.She wanted to loop her arms around Daphne’s neck, so that’s what she did.
She wanted to press a little closer, so that’s what she did.
She wanted to move her hips against Daphne’s, so that’s what she did.
For a split second only, she felt Daphne sort of freeze up, and April nearly pulled away, but then Daphne’s arms tightened around her, pulled her even closer, and April gave herself over to it all—how Daphne smelled like smoky vanilla mixed with a little acrylic paint, the way her eyes grew darker as they moved, their legs slotted together like puzzle pieces, Daphne’s thigh pressing to her center, that sundress a tantalizing flare of cotton around them.
April’s whole body flushed warm.
They danced like that, completely entwined, faces close, breathing each other’s air. They didn’t say anything, and April barely noticed anyone else around them. She felt dizzy and light, as though she’d been filled with sparkling water. She tipped her head back, throat exposed, and felt the barest brush of Daphne—her lips, her nose, April wasn’t sure—against her skin. She closed her eyes, let herself get lost.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew this moment would feel different in her memory, once the music’s rhythm and the room’s energy didn’t feel part of her blood and bones.
But right now, she didn’t care.
Time seemed to stop, and the only thing that mattered was music and skin, the caress of Daphne’s hair and the way April couldn’t tell where her body ended and Daphne’s began. She was a heady drug, this person in her arms, and April didn’t want to wean off too soon.
But then the music changed. Still upbeat and fast, but less sultry. The shift forced April’s eyes open, and before she knew it, she was whisked away from Daphne, someone else pulling her intotheir arms. It felt like a scene from a movie, everything slowing down while April and Daphne drifted farther apart, their eyes locked on each other’s, the space between them growing wider.
“Hey, there,” the person who had pulled April away said in her ear, a white man with nerdy-sexy glasses and messy black hair who suddenly felt all wrong. April forced her gaze away from Daphne. The loss of contact was like a broken twig, an almost audible snap in April’s ears. She shook her head, tried to clear the gauzy feeling throughout her body, and hooked her arms around her new partner’s neck.
She wanted to get lost again. Wanted nameless faces, that beautiful anonymous nothing, but as the music played on, as she continued to twine her body with others, she kept seeing a green-eyed gaze in her mind, and fuck if she couldn’t look away.
Chapter
Twelve
Daphne’s hand outstretchedtoward April, their eyes still pinned on each other’s, like Daphne was some damsel in a movie whose true love had just ridden off into battle.
It took her a good three seconds to lower her arm, even longer to realize she was standing frozen in the middle of a tightly packed crowd trying to dance. Shoulders jostled her in different directions, and by the time April finally cut the connection, snapping her gaze away and toward her new dance partner, Daphne was having a hard time getting a full breath.
“Sorry,” other dancers said as they continued to bump into her.
She glanced around, everyone partnered up while she stood like a deer in the proverbial headlights. She tried to push her way out of the crowd, but just as she was about to break free of the group, her feet tangled with someone else’s, and she went down.
Hard.
And visibly.
The crowd went silent, a collective gasp rising into the air like a dust cloud. She’d caught herself on her hands, but before that, the offending foot had turned on its side, sending a bloom of pain around her ankle. It hadn’t hurt all that much, but the attention,the spectacle of it all, made blood rush into her cheeks. She scrambled to her feet, limping as fast as she could toward the studio door, her ankle screaming at her more and more as she went.
In the hallway, it was about twenty degrees cooler. She closed the door behind her, then pressed her back to the heavy wood. She looked down at her sandaled foot, which definitely looked a little puffy, and when she tried to rotate it in a circle, she hissed in pain.
Before she could figure out how to deal with it, however, she was sent catapulting forward as someone in the studio shoved the door open. She managed to stay on her feet this time, but her ankle was not happy. She stumbled and pinwheeled, a real elegant show, she was sure.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” April said, appearing at her side and grabbing her elbow. “Are you okay?”
