I’ve fallen.
He hands the vendor cash for the scarf, then takes my hand and leads me back out to the bustling festival on the street. The soca kicks back up to full volume and the crowd surges toward the next music truck.
Bodies press in from every direction and I stumble as someone’s elbow catches my shoulder. Before I find my balance, Alec’s hands are on my waist and he lifts me onto the low stone wall bordering the street.
I’m suddenly at his eye level. Face to face. His hands are still on my hips, steadying me, and the crowd swirls below us. The festival blurs to a wash of color and noise at the edges of my vision.
I laugh, breathless. “Nice reflexes.”
He doesn’t make a joke or crack one of his sardonic smiles. He doesn’t let go of me either. His fingers hold the soft hollows above my hip bones and his eyes are rooted on mine.
He pulls me toward him.
This kiss is nothing like the sweet one from earlier. His mouth opens against mine and his hand slides into my hair, cupping the back of my head. The sound I make is involuntary and swallowed by his lips before it reaches the air. His tongue finds mine and my brain whites out. Every thought I’ve been managing today, every careful negotiation about what I’m allowed to feel, gone. Just the hot, slick pressure of his mouth and the taste of rum punch and salt on his tongue and my fingers twisting into the front of his shirt because I need something to hold on to while my body decides whether my knees still work.
His other hand slides to my lower back and pulls me to the edge of the wall. The hard press of his body between my kneessends heat flooding through my thighs, settling into the low, liquid ache that’s been building since he put his hands on my hips and tried to learn how to dance.
His breath hitches against my mouth. The groan that vibrates from his chest into mine sounds tortured and strained. “We’d better stop this before we get arrested.”
I groan, but I know he’s right. We break apart. His forehead rests against mine. We’re both breathing hard and the festival noise rushes back in, and his eyes are dark and close and looking at me the way he looked at me the very first time we kissed. Like I’m the only thing in this street worth seeing.
Desire crackles between us, as palpable as the music vibrating inside me. Alec strokes my cheek, his gaze scorching. “How about that dance?”
I lick my lips. “Okay.”
We rejoin the crowd.
The dancing is easier now. His body has given up on analysis and surrendered to the music and to me. This time we move face to face, his arms wrapped around my waist, swaying together to a beat that neither of us is counting anymore. I can feel his heartbeat against my chest and his breath in my hair.
I don’t know what comes after this. I don’t know how to keep something this big alive across two thousand miles, or if the words I’m carrying are anywhere near the ones he’s carrying too. I don’t know if tomorrow will break what this week has built.
For now, I lean into him.
I hold on, and I let the music and this moment take us.
CHAPTER 23
ALEC
The suite door closes and the world goes quiet.
Not gradually. All at once. Ten thousand strangers and six hours of street music replaced by the hum of the air conditioning and the distant sound of the sea through the veranda doors. Ella’s still moving to a rhythm that isn’t playing anymore, her hips swaying as she drops her bag on the console table, and I watch the festival leave her body in stages. The bounce slows. The sway softens. She turns to face me in the dim entryway, and what’s left on her face isn’t the wide-open grin from the street.
It’s quieter than that. Warmer. A little sad around the edges.
Tomorrow we fly home. Different flights, different cities, two thousand miles of geography that didn’t exist while we were dancing. My brain, which the festival mercifully kept offline until now, has already done the math. It’s all ending too soon.
Ella steps toward me. There’s glitter on her collarbones, fine gold dust from costumed dancers who swept past us on the parade route. Her skin is flushed from the sun and the heat earlier today. Her lips taste like rum punch, which I can still taste when I lean down and kiss her.
The kiss starts warm, easy. Her mouth is soft and sweet. Her hand settles on my chest. My arm goes around her waist because that’s where it prefers to live now.
Then the kiss changes. Deepens. My hand slides from her waist to the curve of her lower back and I pull her closer. The press of her body against mine sends heat flooding through me so fast it nearly takes my breath. She makes a small sound against my mouth, barely audible. Her fingers curl into the front of my shirt.
I’ve been hard for most of the evening. Since the dancing, since her body moved against mine in the crowd and the friction of her hips ground against me through our clothes. That arousal never left. It just waited, and now it surges back with interest.
Her hand slides from my chest to the side of my neck. Her thumb traces my jaw. When she pulls back just far enough to look at me, her blue eyes are dark and clear in the low light, and the expression in them strips the last of my control.
I bring my hand to the strap of her sundress. Just my fingertips, resting on the thin material where it crosses her shoulder.
