Her lips quirk up, like she’s letting herself off the leash for once. “We lost power for about an hour, that’s all.”
“Same for me.” I sip my hard lemonade. “Honestly, I can’t complain. Storms here sometimes end in calls for the lifeguards to help the coast guard in the middle of the night. As far as I know, there were no issues last night.”
Helena sips her drink as well. “That’s good.”
A comfortable silence falls between us, one punctuated with the crash of the surface over the shore in the distance.
Helena breaks first. “Is there anything fun to do here at night? Not counting ‘almost die in a storm’ and ‘watch lifeguards rescue drunk tourists.’”
I tap the side of my glass. “Actually, yeah. There’s a bar downtown—Seamuse House. They do live music on Fridays. Band tonight is supposed to be good.”
“Is that a date?” she asks with a grin on her face.
My heart leaps again and my breath hitches. “Do you want it to be?”
Are Cole and I going to get a chance to show Helena it’s worth taking a chance on scent-matches?
She picks up her hard lemonade bottle and twirls it between her fingers. “I haven’t been to a bar in ages. I’m not really allowed to go back home. I’d love the chance to go now and get to know you better, if you want to.”
‘Want to’?I’ve been thinking about a chance like this since the moment I first met her. “Zane won’t care?”
She shakes her head and her smile doesn’t drop. “Zane and Italked outwhat’s happened, not just between you, Cole, and me, but between Zane and me. This is… an unexpected potential pack, but one nonetheless. It deserves a chance.” She leans in, eyes glinting. “If you’re too scared, I can always find someone else to show me around.”
“Terrified,” I admit. It’s true. Scent-matches are so rare that this feels like alock it in or fuck it up forevershot. “But I think I’ll risk it.”
The best thing about Seamuse House is the way it doesn’t try too hard. It’s just wood beams and battered floorboards. Its walls are tattooed with old show posters, and a stage no higher than my shin. By the time we get there after dinner, the place is already humming with beer and cider sweat in the air.
The band is tuning up. People crowd the stage, and Helena tilts her head, inviting me to watch with her. I make a mental note to thank whoever invented live music and low lighting, because I can’t imagine a better place to disappear for a few hours.
We trade sips of cider. Her fingers brush mine every time she sets the glass down. I try to keep it cool, but her scent is like a punch, twice as strong as this afternoon. There’s honey and something tart underneath, like lemon zest, and I can’t stop thinking about how it would taste if I licked the hollow of her throat.
I force myself to focus on the band, but then Helena’s lips are at my ear.
“Want to dance?” she asks.
“I’m not a good dancer.”
“That’s fine,” she says. “I’ll lead.”
She pulls me to the fringe of the stage crowd, where the music’s thickest and the bodies are close. The band launches into a driving, foot-stomping song, and Helena moves right away, hips rocking in a deliberate rhythm that doesn’t even try to keep up with the beat. She brings my hands to her waist, her back pressed against my chest. I can feel every tremble in her shoulders. She smells incredible, and I’m suddenly aware of howmuch I want to touch her everywhere—and how impossible it is not to.
She turns in my arms, close enough that I can see the gold flecks in her blue eyes. “You’re not so bad.”
I realize my hands have wandered higher than is strictly appropriate. She doesn’t seem to mind.
The music slows down, and she wraps her arms around my neck. I keep my hands on her hips, fingers splayed, feeling the heat of her through her dress. We sway together as the sound of the band fades into the background noise of our breathing.
“I haven’t done this in forever,” she murmurs.
“Me, neither,” I admit. “Last time I danced, I think it was someone’s wedding and I tripped over a speaker cable.”
She leans in so her lips brush my jaw. “Well, I promise I won’t sue if you break my foot.”
The song ends, but we don’t move away from each other. Her hands slide down my arms, tracing the veins and scars from summers spent dragging idiots out of the surf. There’s a hunger in her eyes now, and I want to feed it.
When the next song starts, we drift toward a dark corner where the lights barely reach. Helena moves backward, letting me chase her, and when her back hits the wall, she pulls me in—hard. Our mouths meet like we’ve both been dying for it. When I lick her lower lip, she gasps, nails digging into my shoulders.
There’s no one paying attention, not in this crush, so I let my hands roam. The shape of her waist. The rise of her hip. More tentatively, the line of her thigh under the hem of the dress. She arches into my touch and slips one of her hands beneath my shirt to press her palm against my chest. Her fingers are cold but electric.
