Zion’s eyelids grew heavy as his head tilted aside, and his grasp on my hips relaxed. Gedeon plucked Zion’s shirt out of his high-waisted pants, and his hands slid underneath the material, their journey headed upward. Firelight cast shadows on an exposed patch of sandy skin, the flavor of which my taste buds craved to explore.
“See those flames?” Zion rasped, jerking his chin at the bonfire blazing near us. “Describe them to me.”
“They’re…” The bursts of orange, yellow, and red attacked and deflected, bowed and rose, the dozens moving as a wholewhile retaining their individual shapes, coasting like maple leaves in a river, unbothered by the splintering wood underneath them. “Free. Drifting. There’s no order.”
“Exactly. Dancing is the same; there are no set-in-stone rules.” Zion guided my hips to the left, then right, and shook his head at my staggering. “Close your eyes.” He patted Gedeon’s palm on his chest. “Both of you.”
Gedeon frowned at me over Zion’s shoulder, and my eyebrows rose in the manner his often did as a response to a challenge.
He skimmed his lips against Zion’s neck one last time and stilled, surrendering to the order.
I followed, submitting to Zion pulling me closer.
“Imagine you’re a flame.” His command stole control of my legs. “Flow like it.” His pelvis moved from side to side, and with me fixed to his front and Gedeon to his back, we had no choice but to mimic him. “Relax your muscles. Loosen your joints. Forget the ground exists.”
“Uh...” Easier said than done.
“Don’t overthink it.” Zion alternated the pressure on my hips, coaxing them to sway. “If you feel like taking a step, do it, but if there’s no pull to move your feet, then you don’t have to.”
I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Not one of my ten toes was willing to cooperate. Add in two heels with their own minds, and?—
“Kali,” he warned with a hint of lethality, and his fingertips dug into the top of my ass. “If you don’t comply, I’ll throw you over my knee, use your pants to tie your ankles and your panties to secure your wrists, and then spank you until you sing louder than the drummers.”
His threat coaxed a whimper out of me, and I gulped to tamp down my squirming.
“Perhaps ruffling her feathers is what she needs,” Gedeon murmured.
“I’ll dance,” I croaked out, not a drop of courage residing in me to open my eyes.
Zion hummed his satisfaction, and it nudged me to listen to the rocking of his hips.
Slowly, the oscillation of our bodies dissolved the square we were in. The wisps of concrete dissipated like a fog, and the aroma of roasted meat and vegetables ceased watering my mouth. The crowd’s chatter hushed until it died completely, and the crackle of fires receded.
The drumbeats formed a tidal wave that pulled me under, the rhythm morphing into a current coaxing me to move, to yield to their might, to?—
Zion’s grip on me firmed up.
I tensed up, scrutinizing our surroundings, hunting for trouble?—
And relaxed.
Gedeon had stopped moving. He still stood flush with Zion’s back, but his focus had strayed away from us.
Not far from our trio, Conall, Nissa, Dain, and Aanya laughed as they danced, all of them smashed together, a pile of twined legs and clumsy turns as they repeatedly staggered into each other.
Dain guffawed as Aanya tried to duck under Nissa’s arm during a spin and failed, tripping and face-planting right into it. Conall steadied his partner before she could sprawl on the ground, rewarding her clumsiness with a kiss on her temple.
Admiring his friends, Gedeon blinked rapidly, his throat bobbing.
“Are you…crying?” The whisper of my disbelief drowned in the pulse of the drumbeats.
“No,” he scoffed with a note of hoarseness.
Reaching over Zion’s shoulder, I swiped the inner corner of Gedeon’s eye and raised my forefinger, the tip gleaming with wetness. “What’s this then?”
Gedeon’s palm glided higher, coming to rest low on Zion’s throat. “The rain.”
My snort joined Zion’s.
