Before I even think, my hand is on the bare skin right above her waist. Warm. Firm. My grip possessive. She startles, then melts, actually melts into me, relief softening her shoulders as my other hand shifts to her lower back.
Her palms slide up my chest. Then around my neck. Her body presses into me and fits against mine like she was always meant to be here. We’re still dancing, technically. But it’s not a group thing anymore.
It’s us. Just us. Her breath hitches when my thumb brushes the hollow of her waist. I feel it everywhere. She looks up, her blue eyes wide, pupils blown, and for a second, the entire world blurs out.
“You okay?” I murmur against her ear.
Her voice is barely a whisper. “I am now.”
And God help me, I want her. I want her so fucking bad I’m afraid of myself. There’s not an inch of space between us, her legs almost straddling one of mine. Her chest is rising and falling rapidly, her heart pounding hard enough for me to feel it. At least, I think it’s her heart. Maybe it’s mine. The lines are blurred again, like they always get around her.
The song shifts again, something slower, dirtier, and that’s when I realize that if I don’t get her out of here, I’ll probably do something in front of everyone that we can’t walk back from. My lips brush against the locks of hair around her ear. “Let’s get some air.”
She nods instantly. We leave the floor, my grip still on her skin, now hot and slick with sweat. The group barely notices us go. She grabs her purse and jacket from a bench in our section.
We don’t talk as we exit the club, step into the cool night, or even when we start walking toward the hotel. We don’t have to. Everything we didn’t say in there is hanging between us like a live wire.
Her jacket slips from her shoulder. I catch it. My fingers brush her skin. She shivers. I want to stop walking. I want to push her against the nearest wall. I want more than I should.
We reach the hotel, enter the lobby, stride to the elevator, and I press the call button. We step inside. Doors close. Silence so thick you could cut it with a knife. Her chest rises and falls too fast. She’s looking anywhere but me.
Which is exactly when I move. Slowly. Deliberately. My hand slides up the bare skin above her hip. The other braces on the wall beside her head. I lean in, breathing her in and she smells like jasmine and something sweeter, something that is just her.
She lifts her eyes until they lock onto mine. And that’s all the permission I need. I’m done holding back, done wondering. I kiss her. Hard. Hungry. Like I’ve been waiting years instead of days.
She kisses me back with a soft, desperate sound that almost brings me to my knees. Her fingers tangle in my hair. My hand skims up her rib cage as she arches into me, like she’s been waiting for this too. It’s messy. It’s hot. It’s everything and so much more than I thought it would be.
The elevator dings. The door opens up to her floor. We freeze, our mouths separating, our foreheads still touching, breathing each other in, both of us wrecked. She whispers, voice trembling, “Dean… we can’t.”
Pain slices through me. It’s sharp like broken glass, and I force myself to step back slowly. Carefully. Every inch feels like something vital is being torn from me.
She slips out of the elevator, then turns to look at me, eyes soft, regret shining through.
“Goodnight,” she whispers.
“Sadie-”
“Don’t make this harder.”
The doors close. I stand there alone, heart pounding, wanting her more than I’ve ever wanted anything I can’t have. And I know, with sick certainty, this isn’t going away.
Chapter Fourteen
Sadie
All I Wanted
Paramore
I wake up knowing three things:
One, I slept like garbage.
Two, my lips still feel like him.
Three, there is no universe where I’m normal around Dean Ross today.
The sheets are crisp and too white and expensive in the Sapphire way, like even the fabric expects you to behave. My room is quiet except for the low hum of the air conditioning and the faint city noise leaking in through the window. There’s some delivery truck grumbling, a siren far away, a bird squawking, Nebraska being Nebraska.
