Home > Laurel's Bright Idea(9)

Laurel's Bright Idea(9)
Author: Jasinda Wilder

I stared at his hand, then up at him. “Let go.”

His grin was dark, wolfish. He let go of my arm, but his hand instead slid around my waist and his other neatly twisted my empty wineglass from my fingers and tossed it off into the grass, then clasped hands with me. We were dancing, then, swaying to a Jason Derulo song.

He was so tall. Even if I’d been wearing my heels with their four-inch stiletto spikes, he would still tower over me, which meant barefoot in the grass, my face was chest height. I wondered at our joined hands: mine seemed so tiny nestled within his, so pale, so delicate. I could feel the guitarist’s calluses on his fingertips.

He swayed with me in his arms, stared down at me. “You’re beautiful, Laurel.” His speaking voice sounded like the contented purr of a lion.

I hated the way I was instinctually inclined to preen, to feel seen. “Thank you, Titus.”

He stepped back and held my hand, and the years of ballroom dancing lessons I’d been forced to take at the private European academy had me moving automatically into a spin, left me pressed back to his hard lean front.

“You dance amazingly well,” he murmured.

“A solid decade of ballroom classes every single day will do that,” I said.

“Really? Every day for ten years?”

“I went to a boarding school in Switzerland. You had a certain number of elective classes, and the options were ballroom, gym class which meant, like, soccer and whatever, and choir. There were others, too, but the only one that appealed to me was dancing, and I just stuck with it.” I smirked up at him. “What’s your excuse for being able to dance?”

He laughed. “Boredom.”

I frowned in confusion. “Boredom?”

He nodded. “Yup. Long story, so the short version is that I spent what the media called my vanished years in Brazil, in Rio. I was playing in this shitty fuckin’ local band who had no fuckin’ clue who I was, and I liked it that way. But I could just never sleep. It was two solid years of insomnia, so to just fill the time with literally anything except more drugs and alcohol, I did all sorts of crazy shit. Like ballroom classes. I can do a hell of a samba, let me tell you.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t see you doing the samba.”

He stopped moving, stared down at me. “No? How about the rumba? That shit is downright sexual.”

I shook my head, snorting. “There’s a big difference between being able to sway around in a lazy four-step, and being able to properly samba.”

“And you don’t think I can?”

“No, I don’t.”

He stepped closer, so our bodies were less than an inch apart. “Care to wager?”

I rolled my eyes. “Sure. Put on a song we can samba to, and if you fail to impress me with your magical samba skills, you have to leave me alone.”

“And when I prove you wrong, you sexy little doubter, you go on a date with me.”

“Deal.”

I had no doubt he could samba. But samba well? What he didn’t know was that I still danced regularly. It was my second favorite way to work up a sweat, the first being sex, obviously. I had a ballroom group I danced with down in the valley every Monday night, and these were not casual dancers, these were semi-pro, the kind who brought their own special dancing shoes. And they always fought over who got to be my partner.

Impressing me wasn’t easy.

He tapped me on the nose. “It’s a wager, then. Stay here.”

He went over to his laptop, spent a moment finding and cueing up a song, and then swaggered back to me. He had my shoes in one hand.

“Can’t samba barefoot,” he said.

“No, I guess not.” I slid my feet into the shoes, and then gestured at the paved area. “Grass, or flagstones?”

“Up to you.”

“Grass, then. Less of a risk of tripping on the cracks.”

He slid his vest off, folded it, tossed it aside on a nearby chair, and then tugged a braided leather cord from his hip pocket, used it to tie his hair back. The pop song that had been playing ended, and the distinctive Latin rhythm of a samba started.

I felt the eyes, knew everyone was watching.

Shit, this had been a mistake. Big, big mistake.

He was gorgeous. Fucking perfect, is what he was. Every line and curve and angle and plane of his body was hewn as if from marble by the hand of da Vinci himself. Bare-chested, wearing those ripped, faded black jeans tucked into knee-high biker boots with buckles and straps running up the front, the top several buckles left undone, hair bound back to emphasize his sharp cheekbones and deep-set tawny eyes and chiseled jawline…

Fuck me.

It was hard to breathe, to swallow, being this close to him.

The music was in full swing, now, and he held out his hand to me, waiting.

My downfall was the rhythm. I couldn’t not dance. My feet took over, put me into motion. Immediately, within the first few movements, I knew I’d lost the wager.

Titus could dance.

He led me, effortlessly.

His posture was perfect, his turnouts crisp and precise. His rhythm was flawless. What was more, he was enjoying it. He knew the dance well enough that he didn’t have to think about the movements, he could just focus on me.

Fuck it.

I threw myself into the moment, abandoned my intent to dislike him and let myself be led through the samba. His hands were everywhere, his body, his eyes. His smile was broad, contagious, and cocky. He knew he’d won, and he’d known he would.

As we danced, I saw the whole wedding party in a crescent around us, clapping to the beat, watching us move together in complete harmony, as if we’d danced the samba together a million times.

Finally, the song ended, and we were both out of breath, panting and sweating, and there was cheering and whistles.

“Laurel!” Lizzy was laughing as she came over to me. “When the hell did you learn to dance like that?”

Titus snorted. “You keep your ballroom skills a secret from your best friend?”

“Hush you, it’s none of your business,” I said, then faced Lizzy. “I’ve always danced. I still do, every Monday, with a club down in the Valley.”

Lizzy gestured at Titus. “So, I’m with him on this. You keep these incredible dancing skills a secret from me? I’ve known you for damn near fifteen years, and I don’t know you’re a master ballroom dancer?”

“It’s not a secret,” I protested. “It’s just something I do. It’s fun, I enjoy it, and it keeps me in shape.”

The whole group of girls was around me, then.

“Aren’t you the one who said you don’t get sweaty and out of breath unless there’s a dick involved?” Kat asked.

“You also said your only form of exercise was walking around while squeezing your butt cheeks,” Teddy added.

Titus was watching this exchange with a grin. He said nothing, though, just bit down on laughter and listened.

I huffed. Tried to ignore him. “Sex is still my number one exercise. I do walk almost every night, and I do squeeze my ass cheeks while I walk. I just also happen to belong to a ballroom club. It’s not a big deal.”

“It is, though, kinda,” Zoe said. “I feel like there’s a lot about you that we don’t know, and that we don’t know we don’t know.”

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