“And I feel happier. So, thank you, and I vote for a party a month,” I tell her. I lift my glass, clinking the edge to hers.
“Please. I say once a week.”
“Count me in.” And even though my Prince Wicked is nowhere to be found, I am so glad I came here tonight. “This party is everything I need. It makes me feel good again. Even if I haven’t met someone to take my mind off . . . well, all the things we like our minds taken off of.”
Eliza shakes her head, tsking. “You spent far too long feeling bad after Derek, Sage. You shouldn’t feel bad. Your ex was a cad.”
“Derek was the living, breathing manifestation of one.”
She sets a soft hand on mine. “But I know you’re not just talking about your ex when you mention things you want to take your mind off of. You still miss your parents.”
A sad smile tugs at my lips as I think of them and their passing a few years ago. That pain pulls on my heart, while the missing surrounds me. You can never truly escape that type of loss. You just learn to live with it. “I do miss them. I miss them a lot. I sometimes still wish I could turn to them for advice.”
Eliza squares her shoulders, looking like a loving queen. “Your mother would tell you that you’ve done a damn fine job moving on from that cad of an ex, and to keep moving on.”
I grin, hearing my mother say those words too. She was always so strong, so certain. She believed wholeheartedly in the conquering power of love, and the precious necessity of self-worth too. “You know what? She would. She never wanted me to be with someone who didn’t deserve me.”
Eliza scoffs. “Life is far too short for men who don’t deserve us.”
“Truer words.”
The music shifts to a low, pulsing beat.
“And you know what I say?” she continues. “I say you only live once. Embrace it. Life is a cherry. Bite into it.”
I laugh, tossing my head back, the mask moving with me. It’s a little heavy against my face, but I’ve become used to the weight of it. “And is that your rule to live by? Eat cherries?”
Eliza nods vigorously. “It is. Because cherries are delish.”
She turns in the direction of a handsome man who’s tapping her shoulder. The bearded guy. “May I have another dance?”
“Yes, you may, but I have to leave in a little while. I turn into a pumpkin soon,” she says coyly.
“Then let’s make the dance worth it before the clock strikes midnight,” he says, and she waves goodbye to me with her fingers and heads to the edge of the dance floor. I take a sip of my bubbly, glancing around. On the other side of the room, a black-masked, dark-haired man in tails lifts a glass of champagne, takes a drink, and sets it down on the table. The blond man next to him—at least I think his hair is lighter, but it’s hard to see behind the Phantom mask he’s wearing—gestures to the dance floor, then leans against a marble column.
They’re a handsome pair, perhaps wingmanning each other?
My eyes roam around the party. If the evening ends right now at eleven thirty, I’m content.
But, truth be told, I do wish for a little more. A little something extra. Something exciting for the next half hour.
I sigh, wishing.
“This makes me wish I knew how to fox-trot.”
I blink as the voice rumbles, sending a shiver across my bare shoulders. Can a voice do that? Well, the voice just did, and I turn in the direction of it.
Oh.
Oh, yes.
No wonder my body reacted that way. I drink in the view of a tall, well-built creature who fills out his tux and tails deliciously. The material hugs his frame in all the right places, and the shirt lies enticingly flat against his stomach. My eyes roam shamelessly. What can I say? I’m an abs woman, and he looks like he’s rocking a washboard.
The dark-haired man with the glass of champagne. The man who set it down so he could make a beeline for me perhaps.
“Fox-trot. Tango. Rumba, maybe. Are you wishing you took cotillion?” I ask playfully, as I check out his lips. Full lips. A five-o’clock shadow. Yum.
“I am. Maybe I would’ve learned the polka too.”
“Polka is vital for Vegas nightlife. But is cotillion still a thing?”
He gives a simple shrug of what looks like a very strong shoulder. “I don’t know. All I know is I can’t waltz for shit.”
The corners of my lips curve up. “I know how to waltz.”
He gives me a flirty smile. “Show-off,” he whispers, that growly tone sending a fresh flurry of tingles down my chest.
“Don’t you want to know my waltzing secret?”
He inches closer, his tone dark and decadent as he says, “I do want to know. Tell me. What is your secret?”
My breasts tingle, my nipples hardening just from the way he looks at me from behind his mask. From his voice too.
I lick my lips, answering him, “If you want to waltz, you just improvise.”
He scrubs a hand across his stubbled jaw, dark like his midnight hair. “Ah, the old make-it-up-as-you-go-along routine.”
I give a playful lift of my shoulder. “Sometimes you have to let go and take a chance.”
“Give up control?” he asks, and I can see an eyebrow rise above his mask. Or maybe I can feel it. The arch of it. The question in it. The way he’s asking something else entirely.
“Yes, sometimes I do that,” I say, my voice feathery as I imagine him having his way with me. As I imagine he’d want to. I bet he likes taking just enough control. The same amount I want to relinquish.
He hums approvingly. “Good to know.”
That heady feeling winds through my body, that sense that we’re on all the same wavelengths. Still, I toss out a question. “And why’s that? Do you like having control, then?”
The man takes his time before he answers, almost as if the reply is taking shape seductively on his tongue. “Sometimes I do.”
A shiver dances down my spine, the sparks of pleasure zipping through me. I study his gaze, trying to read his eyes behind that mask. They’re dark brown. Chocolate. Rich. Gorgeous. “Sometimes? I doubt that. You seem like an all-the-time control guy.”
He gives a light laugh. “Do I?”
“Yes. You do.”
He steps closer again, raising a hand, running it down my arm. Oh, holy hell. His touch is electric, and my breath catches as he says, “By day, I like having control. Often by night too. But it’s not a requirement.”
His voice is seductive, dreamy, and a little gruff too. It’s sandpaper and stubble. It’s whiskey and cigars. His confidence is like an enticing cologne—one I want to inhale.
He brushes a strand of hair off my shoulder, reminding me why I left it down. For this—for touch. He takes a beat, then asks, “And by night, what do you like?”
My pulse spikes, shooting all the way through the roof. “By night, I like what we all like,” I say, wildly turned on from the conversation. From his . . . obvious seduction. One I don’t want to end.
He runs a finger along the feathers in my mask. “And what’s that, lovely bird?”
I look at his full lips, wondering how they taste, how they’d feel on my skin. “At night, I like to be surprised.”
Those lips spread into a mischievous smile as he holds out a hand. “Dance with me.”