I shake my head. “He didn’t say snogging the dance floor,” I say, still laughing. “He said snoggingonthe dance floor.”
“Which means …?”
I want to kick myself for the way my breath catches. It’s just vocabulary, I chastise myself. No need to be weird about it.
“Kissing,” I say, and Grant’s expression changes so slightly. I could swear his eyes dart quickly to my mouth and back up again.
“Which we don’t want to do,” he finally says.
“Definitely not,” I lie.
We dance in silence as the floor fills with guests, all pairing up to bob tastefully around us. Evidently, it’s socially acceptable to dance at these things, so long as you’re not the first to do it.
“Although …” says Grant, and my pulse revs.
“Although?”
“We’re not exactly making a scene anymore,” he points out. “It … might help, is all.”
Say no!my mind screams.Headbutt him instead! That’ll make a scene!
“It might,” my idiot mouth says instead.
“Just for the mission,” he says quickly. “And then I’ll never touch you again, I promise.”
I swallow. “Right.”
He lets out a heavy breath.
“Okay,” he says softly. “Well … here goes nothing.”
My expectation fornothingis a stage kiss—a showy, ultimately hollow smooshing of mouths for maximum dramatic effect.
Instead, Grant gently pulls me closer. His fingers reach up and skim over my temple, smoothing my hair back, curling around my ear before coming to rest along my neck, his thumb lightlybracing my jaw. His eyes search mine for just a moment before they drop to my mouth.
When he leans in, I close my eyes on instinct. The air feels so charged with static that I half expect a shock. But when his lips meet mine, it’s with an easy comfort that catches me off guard. As welcome and familiar as climbing into bed at the end of a long day.
I surrender to it at first. How could I not? I feel weightless, and also like my whole being is concentrated in every place Grant is touching. His hand sliding into my hair, curving around my neck. His other arm winding tighter around my waist. The rasp of his stubble, and the soft insistence of his lips, kissing me like I’m the home he’s been longing to get back to.
The home that isn’treal.
Rational thought kicks on like a delayed generator responding to the power failure in my brain.
I pull away from him with a sharp step back, catching the hem of my dress on my heel in so doing. I stumble into a frowning man with slicked-back hair and wing-tip shoes. “Fuck.Sorry. I’m sorry.” I look back up at Grant’s bewildered face, his arms still extended as if they haven’t quite figured out that they aren’t holding me anymore.
Enough is enough. I need to get out of here, out ofthis.
I make for the door with absolutely no idea where I’m going and not much of a care, as long as it’saway. I need to do something. I need this to end. I need out.
I take off down the steps with my dress inelegantly rucked up and dart into the street. A Mini Cooper just barely misses me, horn blaring. I keep running. I figure if I run until I can’t breathe, I won’t be able to think, either.
When that fails—when I can still feel Grant’s hand on my back and his lips on mine, and when my heart clenches with the longing to have stayed there in that kiss, and when I realize I’mrunning past uniform white-pillared townhomes that lookjustlike the one Anna Matthews has posed in front of on Instagram—a fresh wave of vehemence takes over and I start yelling.
“Anna!” I call out as I march down the picturesque street, hands cupped around my mouth. “Anna Matthews!”
I know it doesn’t make sense. I know there are a million of these houses in London and she could live inanyof them. But logic is no match for desperation. And on the off chance she’s nearby and can hear me, I can explain everything and she can make it stop. She has to. Because if she doesn’t and I have to go back there …
I hear my name and it spreads goose bumps over my exposed back. I don’t turn around. I keep shouting.
