“Ladies and gentlemen,” the deejay announced. “Marcy and Dave would like their bridal party to join them for this second dance.”
My heartrate ticked up a notch. Jay set his beer down and his gaze lingered on me. I felt it like a blast of heat, warming me all the way down to my toes.
“Let’s do this.” He cast a hand to the dance floor which was filling with the monstrous bridal party.
I was so short, and he was a giant. I gave him a skeptical look.
He nodded, as if understanding my hesitation. “Yeah, we’re going to look awesome. C’mon.” His hand swung from the dance floor to me, extended in an offer. I took it. His roughly calloused hand gently tugged me to my feet.
The music was slow and sultry. I let him lead me onto the hardwood floor, and when he reached a clear space, he turned to face me. Breath constricted in my lungs. His arms slipped around my waist, and mine moved without my permission. My fingers laced together behind his neck, and since it was such a long way up, I had no choice but to press tight against him.
Not that I was complaining.
-4-
JAY
Kayla’s waist was tiny. I could span both of my hands around it and probably get my fingertips to touch. I did have large hands, though. A definite advantage on the field.
We shuffled along in a circle, swaying to some love song that was usually too whiney to bear. Only, it wasn’t tonight. The song wasn’t nails on a chalkboard. Instead, it sounded sort of . . . sexy.
I wasn’t an idiot. The girl in my arms had a lot to do with it. I’d looked real smooth earlier when I’d almost dropped and broken her phone. Kayla’s effect on me was powerful.
Her asking me for my number had been awesome. I got hit on all the time, but the number those girls were interested in was the one on my jersey. When was the last time I’d been into a girl who didn’t know who I was? Sophomore year?
Kayla smelled nice, like coconut mixed with something sweet and citrusy. Her warm fingers on the back of my neck felt good. Shit, having my hands on her felt good, too, and her tight body pressed against mine was even better. She seemed nervous, though, because her shoulders were tense. I didn’t want it to be awkward for her, and I sure as hell didn’t want her to step away.
I took one of my hands off her waist, set it on my neck, and began to massage.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
I loaded my voice with a joking tone. “My neck has this awful crick in it from looking down at you.”
It took her a second to catch on, but she looked willing to play along. “You think I like staring at your cummerbund? It’s practically at eye-level for me.”
My hand returned to the small of her back, and she melted a little. Got close enough I could feel the deep breath she took as my fingers traced tiny patterns over her spine. I wanted to know what she’d taste like if I kissed her. If I bent down, covered her mouth with mine, and slid my tongue against hers.
Before this night was over, I was going to make that happen.
I craned my neck down so my lips weren’t too far from her ear. “What do you do for fun?”
“I’m really into . . .” She made a face of displeasure, and I’d swear she was looking right at the bride. Marcy and Dave had rotated close to us on the dance floor. There was that strange look again, only this time it was from both newlyweds. Why did they look at us like we were an abomination?
Kayla’s attention swung from Marcy to me. “Actually, I can’t talk about it.”
“Talk about what?”
“Sports,” Kayla said as Marcy cleared her throat, “. . . bras.”
What the hell? “You can’t talk about sports bras?”
“Sure can’t.” She gave a definitive nod.
“Well, that’s disappointing. I mean, I had so much I wanted to discuss with you about them.”
She feigned seriousness. “Sorry. It’s just too controversial of a subject.”
“I guess so.”
It was quiet, and slowly Marcy and Dave drifted away. Kayla seemed to relax, but her voice stayed low. “I made a promise to Marcy I wouldn’t talk about football tonight. Or any sports, really.”
I tensed at the mention of football, hoping she couldn’t feel it. “Why’s that?”
“Because Marcy claims I’m ‘obsessed.’ I would say I’m ‘enthusiastically interested,’ but I want to prove a point to her. She challenged me to go one night without bringing up the subject.” One of her hands slid down over my collarbone, coming to a stop on the center of my chest. Her expression was pleading. “So, we can’t talk about sports. It’s too risky. I’m already going through withdrawal and I’ll cave if you say anything. Even though I really want to ask if you were offense or defense when you played in high school.”
Whoa. My brain didn’t know where to focus first. A whole evening not talking about football? Yeah, I could handle that. My life was about to shift back into it fulltime. It’d be great to hang out with a girl who was interested in me as the guy, not the player.
“Okay, no worries,” I said. “I don’t find that idea . . . offensive.”
She smiled wide at my thinly disguised answer. “That’s not cheating, right?”
I grinned right back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
As the song faded out, a thumping, up-tempo beat replaced it, and Kayla’s eyes lit up. She stepped back and began to move her hips to the rhythm, but I was less excited. I could deal with a slow dance, but fast dancing was a hard pass.
The deejay encouraged people onto the floor, and as they filled in around us, I put my hand on her shoulder and whisper-shouted in her ear. “You wanna take a walk with me?”
She slowed to a stop. I could see she wanted to dance, but her gaze turned to the back wall of the ballroom, which was mostly glass. The country club’s clubhouse had a great view of the eighteenth hole.
“The sun’s gonna set soon,” I added. “Let’s take a walk on the golf course before it gets dark. C’mon, grab your drink. You can spank the planks when we get back.”
“Spank the what?”
I wasn’t going to make it easy for her to turn down my offer. I left her standing on the dance floor and strode toward our table. Good. She was following me. We made our way out of the ballroom, through the main clubhouse space, and ducked out the back door.
“They couldn’t have asked for better weather,” Kayla said when we stood on the stone patio.
“Yeah.” I sensed she was looking at me, but my focus was finding the right trail to go down. There were three golf cart paths, and the one on the left wound into the woods.
Left it is.
I tried not to walk too fast, but keeping up didn’t seem to be a problem for her. Her dress swished quietly as we strolled down the narrow, paved path. It was humid, but not awful, and the sun was so low in the sky, it had disappeared behind the tree line.
We didn’t talk as we moved deeper into the forest. We took sips of our drinks and moved further away from the clubhouse. All the way until it felt like it was just us and the noisy bugs humming in the trees.