I took a breath to tell Theo he’d danced his one song and we could stop now, but then I caught the look on his face. I could only think of it aslonging.
My heart did the kind of backflip an Olympic gymnast would have been thrilled to land. I wasn’t sure itdidland it. I was too busy staring back at Theo.
He’d never looked at me like that before.
I held out the hand he wasn’t still holding, and a smile even I could tell was shy.
“One more?” I offered. “I can’t promise not to trip over your feet again.”
“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
I grinned at him, stomach swooping as he stepped closer. Theo didn’t hesitate this time, dropping his head onto my shoulder and curling his fingers into the back of my jacket.
How long had I wanted to hold him like this?
“More my speed,” he murmured against my shoulder as I took the lead, the two of us swaying together. My slow-dancing technique wasn’t really an improvement on my regular dancing technique, although it might have been a little safer for everyone else involved.
“Your speed is fine with me,” I said, letting out a long breath. It’d been one hell of a day. I wasn’t sure I’d processed everything that’d happened.
Theo was slow dancing with me at his sister’s wedding. We… we’dstarted outthis weekend pretending to be dating, but…
It wasn’t pretend anymore. Was it?
The sex had been very real, for a start. Even setting that aside, there was something…differentabout all this.
Theo wasn’t looking around to make sure people were seeing it. This wasn’t about showing anyone that he was taken, or wanted, or hadn’t been dumped the moment things were less than perfect.
“Gone quiet,” Theo murmured without moving his head from my shoulder.
“Focused on not stepping on your feet again.”
“I don’t mind if you do.”
This time, Theo did raise his head to look at me. The light was still fading, which made the string lights all the brighter where they reflected in his eyes.
Everything stopped when he looked at me. The music, the other people on the dancefloor, the rest of the Hamptons, the Atlantic ocean, the stars above. They all ground to a halt and fell away, and we were the only two people in the universe.
My heart pounded in my ears. I couldn’t have pointed to anything special about this moment over every other moment I’d spent with Theo, but there wassomething.
Magic. I couldn’t describe it any other way.
“Simon…” His eyes glinted as he trailed off, searching my face. I hoped he found what he was looking for there. I hoped he found everything he’d ever looked for in me.
I hoped, wildly, stupidly,insanely, that he was feeling what I was feeling, and seeing what I’d always wanted him to see. That I might not have been glamourous, that I wasn’t impressive, that, whatever he said, I was not one of the world’s beautiful people. That I could make up for all of it by lovinghim.
Not his surname. Not the idea of him I had in my head. Not the perfect boyfriend he tried to play until the illusion crumbled and he was forced to reveal that he had needs, too. And failings, and quirks, and some suboptimal habits.
Him. Theo. Everything about him. Always. Even when I was mad at him.
My heart shuddered to a halt along with the rest of the world as Theo put his hand on my cheek. I loved the way he did that. I’d never noticed him doing it before, but it was one more impossibly sweet thing about him to be in love with.
Fireworks burst in my head as our lips touched. This was a soft kiss, mouths parted but tongues kept behind our teeth, slow and lingering, Theo’s lips moving against mine. My glasses weren’t at all in the way this time.
I couldn’t have said what was different about this kiss, either. We were in front of pretty much the entire wedding, but it felt as though we were alone. It was soft, closer to chaste than sexy, but it sent heat surging to the pit of my stomach, a wave of lust tingling over my skin.
It was real. Real, in front of everyone. We weren’t faking anymore.
Weweren’t faking anymore.
