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Pamela rolled her eyes at him and then turned me back around.
“You see?” Chloe teased. “He only has eyes for you.”
“Completely smitten,” Pamela agreed.
I felt a flutter in my stomach and told myself it was nerves. No way could it be actual butterflies. I was in love with Aiden, not Grayson. The two brothers couldn’t be more different. Grayson and I had nothing in common. He just felt sorry for me. I was just one of the few girls he hadn’t conquered yet. It had him curious, but his interest, if it was really there, would fade. I was just a shiny new toy at the moment.
“I think it’s sweet,” Chloe said, while Pamela shook her head and laughed.
“I think it serves him right. As many girls as he’s made fall for him? It’s about time he gets a dose of his own medicine.”
I stumbled at the insinuation. “You think he’s fallen for me?”
“Enough chatting,” Pamela said with a knowing smile. “We’re supposed to be dancing. So, first I want you to just hear to the music. Listen for the beat. Close your eyes if it helps.”
She’d changed the subject, and that was fine by me. I couldn’t think about Grayson anymore, so I closed my eyes. The song was one I didn’t recognize, but the underlying beat was easy to pick out. The base was so deep that it vibrated in my chest. “Okay, so what am I supposed to do now?”
“Now? You just start to move.”
Like that was any kind of instruction?
“Try bobbing your head in time with the beat,” Chloe suggested.
“Or shifting your weight,” Pamela said. “Bounce on your toes. You have to get your whole body moving.”
I tried to copy their movements, but I felt like some kind of bobble-head whack-a-mole doll. There was no way what I was doing was considered dancing. My panic started rising, and I stopped moving. “Maybe some people just aren’t meant to do this.”
As I complained, someone stepped up behind me and I felt a pair of hands grip my upper arms. “You’re overthinking it.” Grayson’s low, soft voice sent shivers up my spine. His hands slid up my arms to my neck, and then he buried his fingers deep in my hair, massaging my scalp. “You need to loosen up.”
Slowly he pushed my head forward, rolling it from side to side until he brought it back to rest on his shoulder. He rubbed my shoulders next and then slid his hands down the entire length of my arms, leaving a trail of goose bumps where his fingers brushed along my skin.
I gasped at the sensations he was causing in me, and my eyes fluttered shut. He began to sway slowly, and my body, having melted into complete mush, matched his movements with more grace than I’d ever managed in my life.
“Dancing,” he said, “is about feeling, not thinking.”
Grayson lifted one of my arms above my head and rested it on the back of his neck. My fingers instinctively dug into his soft, thick hair. I hadn’t told them to do that. I felt Grayson’s cheek lift into a smile against the side of my head, as if he fully approved of my actions.
“Now we move together.”
His arm came around my waist, and he suddenly knocked his knee forward into the backs of mine, forcing them to unlock. Unprepared for the shift in weight, I buckled, but he’d been ready for this. He caught me, held me up tight against him, and began moving us in an almost-circular motion.
My entire body heaved a shudder of pleasure, and then I drifted away from reality into a world where nothing existed except for the two of us.
Grayson moved artfully, seductively, to the music until I felt like we were one and the same with the beat. I had never experienced anything like it. I don’t think I could have even imagined anything like it.
My body burned everywhere it was pressed against his, and every other part of me yearned jealously for the same feeling. I felt so relaxed I could almost sleep, and yet my heart pounded wildly in my chest.
“You’re doing it, Aves,” Grayson whispered against my ear. His breath caused more shivers to explode through me. “You’re a natural.”
“I’m not doing anything.” I sounded dazed and a bit breathless. Probably because I was dazed and breathless. “You’re doing this. I’m just letting you.”
Grayson laughed low and dangerous. “The guy is supposed to lead, but he’s only ever as good as his partner.”
His lips touched my neck just behind my ear, and it felt so good I let out a barely-audible whimper. His entire body tensed in response. “Aves,” he whispered in a strangled voice, “I want to kiss you.”
My mouth responded before my brain had even processed his words. “I’ve never been kissed before.”
Suddenly I was facing him, my hands resting lightly on his chest, his hands on my hips holding our bodies together in ways my mother would disapprove of. It was like the shower all over again except nowhere near as i
Grayson stared down at me as if he was stranded in the Sahara and my lips were the last drops of water in his canteen. “I know,” he said. “I want to be your first. Right here. Right now. Tell me it’s okay.”
His mouth was right there. His chest heaved as if his lungs were fighting for oxygen. His heart pounded beneath my hand. I could feel his need for me, but what surprised me was the intensity of my own desire. I wanted him to kiss me. With every fiber of my being I wanted his mouth on mine. I ached for it.
Even my heart begged for the co
“Aves?” It took Grayson a minute to figure out what happened. “Crap! Aves, I’m sorry! You okay?”
“I need to get out of here!” I gasped. “I want to go home.”
Grayson took me straight to his car, no questions asked, and headed back toward my house. He was quiet until the only evidence left of my freak out were the tears that continued to trickle down my cheeks.
“Aves, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t think. I just, I had you in my arms and you felt so good I—I didn’t think. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kiss someone so bad in all my life.”
I turned my face to my window, leaned my forehead against the cold glass, and muttered, “I’ve never wanted someone to kiss me so bad in all my life.”
The surprise of my confession caused Grayson to slam on the breaks. The car screeched to a stop.
“What? You wanted me to?”
I tried to wipe away the rest of my tears as Grayson pulled the car over to the side of the road.
“Of course I did!” I groaned. “Every single girl at that party tonight would have wanted you to kiss them had they been in my position. Grayson, I wanted you to kiss me so bad it physically hurt.”
“Then . . . what happened? What was the problem?”
“The problem was that it was you I wanted! I wanted you to kiss me. Not Aiden.”
Grayson opened his mouth to say something and then shut it again. He looked at me for a second as if I’d asked him some kind of trick question. “Um,” he finally said. “You know, I’m really kind of okay with that. Relieved even.”
“Well, I’m not! I feel awful!”
I started to cry again. I knew I sounded like I belonged strapped to a gurney in a room with padded walls, but I couldn’t help it. I was drowning in a sea of guilt.
“I feel like I cheated on him. I know it’s stupid. We weren’t even ever together, but I loved him so much. I’ve dreamed about kissing him for so long. I have a million different scenarios written in my diary of how it would all play out when it finally happened.”
Grayson chocked back a laugh. “You do not.”
I gave him a grim look. I did. Detailed fantasies.
“I gave him my whole heart. It hasn’t even been three weeks, and I barely cry about it anymore. I have all these new friends, and I do all these new things as if Aiden never even existed. As if he wasn’t my whole universe for my entire life. It’s like I completely moved on. And I didn’t just almost kiss anybody. I almost kissed his brother. What kind of person does that?”