Just long enough.
I move before anyone else can.
The crowd parts for me, and I stop in front of her, close enough to breathe the same air. I bow my head and extend my hand.
“Dance with me, Babygirl.”
Her inhale is sharp when her eyes lock onto mine through the carved hollows of the mask.
And then her lips part, soft and stunned, the word slipping out of her.
“Bastien—”
The music builds, and the room narrows. For a moment, everyone else disappears. Because she realizes. Even behind the mask, she knows who’s come for her.
She hesitates, then her fingers slip into mine, my grip closing around hers. We move into the current of dancers. The crowd closes in around us, an ocean of silk and wool. Soft laughter drifts across the surface, and violins stretch into a note that sounds almost sinful.
My hand grips her lower back. The silk of her gown shifts beneath my palm, warm where the fabric thins.
She tilts her chin up, gaze lifting to the mask, studying the shape of me, reading what the world can’t see.
I guide her into the first slow turn, and the violins dip lower, joined by a slow, aching sweep of strings.
Her fingertips rest against my shoulder, feather-light. Even through the suit, I feel the precision of her touch. I keep my palm anchored at the small of her back, guiding her with subtle pressure, turning her through the shifting bodies.
She follows without hesitation.
Without realizing it, she’s moving exactly where I want her.
Her mask renders her unreadable to everyone else, but she isn’t unreadable to me. Not when her pulse betrays her.
We turn through the sea of dancers, gowns whispering past as everyone else blurs into motion and light.
On the next turn, I lean in and my lips brush the shell of her ear, barely a touch, more breath than contact.
“You look beautiful tonight, Babygirl.”
“You look handsome, My Wolf. And that mask…” Her fingers skim the edge of it. “It’s amazing. Very fitting.”
She doesn’t stop moving, and neither do I. We glide across the floor as if we’ve danced this way a hundred times, or a thousand, in lives we haven’t lived yet.
But under the mask, in the heat where her body aligns with mine, something shifts. A crackle, a recognition drawn taut. It wasn’t there a breath ago. Now it pulses between us.
Her hunger.
And mine.
The song bends into another, the strings deepening into something darker, a shift elegant enough that no one stumbles. My steps never break. Each rotation is deliberate, drawing her inch by inch toward the dimmer edge of the dance floor, where the chandelier’s reach fades.
The dancers around us shift and part in waves. In the gaps, the path clears exactly where I want it to.
And then, movement across the room.
Jon David.
His head turns, eyes locking onto Laurette. His stance sharpens, shoulders stiffening beneath his tailored jacket as he tracks us.
Our gazes collide across the glittering expanse, and I don’t break eye contact. The mask turns my stare into something colder.
