“You still pining over that linebacker?” he’d asked, sitting back in his chair with a half empty bottle of Corona in his hand.
“You still chasing everything that wiggles right?”
“Touché.”
That obnoxious jerk got under my skin, and then Ransom flaked out on me and didn’t explain where he’d been until two days later when Keira watched us as he sang in front of the piano.
“I got caught up,” Ransom had lamely explained and I’d caught the distant attitude from him immediately.
“Too caught up to let me know?”
Ransom had snapped his gaze to mine, frowning like he wanted to yell at me, but then Koa climbed onto my lap and that attitude disappeared. “I’m sorry, Aly. I won’t miss another one.” And he hadn’t, not for a couple of weeks, but there was something missing from him now. He didn’t smile quite like he had that day he walked me to the Armada from the locker room and there had been no blissfully close calls of him touching me, looking at me like he had the night of the booster fundraiser. Seriously, that shit had me reeling for a week afterward.
There were fleeting moments, yeah, but not nearly enough for me. Still, the sparse moments when Ransom played the guitar or piano kept me feeling that maybe there was more to this than my own one-sided infatuation.
A touch of his arm against mine when he played, his fingers pushing up my chin while I sang so my “vocal chords would stretch,” that one I doubted was real. Even the strength of Ransom’s partnering as we practiced the Kizomba late into the night when the studio was dark and empty. All those small moments collected in my mind, adding into something that I wasn’t sure how to define. Ransom was a good person, very sweet, if not a little sad and when he looked at you, well. You damn well knew it.
I guess that was the problem. With him, with this new distance, I didn’t know what to make of the looks he gave me.
Like tonight, the way he’d been watching me as I danced—I’d catch him in the mirror, gaze on my neck when I bent into a dip, on my cleavage when I put my cheek against his chest, and it had seemed like something Ransom did unconsciously.
Of course, that was probably wishful thinking. I’d managed to keep distant, to not put too much thought into the way he watched me and rely on the detached attitude that had kept me protected from the world my whole life.
Now, with the music pulsing from the triple timed beats and Ransom using that natural swagger to amble toward me, I didn’t think my distance would be useful. There had been no argument to make me forget to keep him at arm’s length. There was no safeguard of me singing to distract from his touch or those long, focused looks I imagined him giving me.
There was only the music, that sultry beat of the drums and the buzz of us moving together as we practiced Kizomba. For an hour we’d moved around each other, touching, breaths hot and fanning against each other, fine tuning even the smallest movements, the sultriest touches, until my heartbeat was frantic and the distraction of stance or form could not lessen the feel of Ransom’s large arms around me or what that did to my body.
“That slide, one more time?” he asked and I answered with a nod, between deep gulps of water. Ransom clicked the stereo remote and that same music started again. He sauntered toward me with that easy swagger. His dark jeans hung low on his hips and his white t-shirt stuck to his wide chest where dots of sweat had formed. Before he took my hand or held me tight against his chest, Ransom flung his Kahuku Red Raiders ball cap across the room and his hair fell against his forehead.
My fingers itched to push that hair back.
We started again, slower than we had before and Ransom half stepped to the right, a small dip of his knee, setting up the step as I kicked my left foot behind me, putting all my weight on the ball of my right foot and my chest against Ransom’s while he moved us in a circle. My gaze lifted in small, deliberate glances until they stopped at his cheek, then slipped up once more to meet his focused stare. I wanted to know what he thought, wondered if what I felt humming between us was something my brain and lonesome libido invented.
On the downbeat, we straightened and began the work of our hips, rolling, him leaning into me so close, the outline of his jeans button dug into my stomach. This song was faster, the beat still seductive, still a temptation, and our bodies moved in synch, in perfect formation that only a few notes from Leann had elicited before she left us on our own. We were synchronicity, at least with the dance.
“Ready?” he asked but the way the word came out, that soft, almost whisper of his husky voice had me thinking if perhaps the question held a hidden meaning behind it. Ready for him? Not remotely. Ready to try that dip? Sure. And with my nod, Ransom continued the lead.
I extended one leg, moving it flush against his thigh. This had been our third attempt and by now I should have been used to how those thick muscles felt against my bare leg. I wasn’t. But I closed myself off, resting my center right on his thigh and bent my other leg with the front of my foot resting against his knee as Ransom moved his leg out to the side, taking the weight of my body with him. Third time was the charm and it worked, the full rotation of the slide happened quickly, easy, his effortless control like that of a professional. He moved us like I weighed nothing at all, like he knew my body and how to move it.
The step completed, I shot my attention to his gaze, letting a quick smile slip and Ransom stopped moving.
When he stayed perfectly still, I tilted my head, wondering what had put a damper on our small accomplishment. “What? I thought that was good.”
“It was.” That stare was steady, focused and I wasn’t sure what I’d done to make him lose his concentration.
“Ransom.” He still had my hand, kept his palm flat against my back and I pulled in closer, worried that something I’d done had pissed him off. “What’s wrong?”
He shook his head, barely a movement at all, and the corner of his mouth curved. “That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile.”
Warmth rose up my neck and I knew I was blushing, likely looking like an idiot as I stood there mumbling with his arms still around me. “Oh.” I didn’t try to pull away from him. “Modi, I…I’m sorry.” As habit, I glanced down, a little embarrassed by his attention, but then pulled my gaze away from our clutched fingers to look back up at him. “I didn’t mean to distract you.”
“It’s pretty,” he said, sounding astounded.
“What is?”
“That smile.” I held my breath when Ransom reached out and ran his thumb under my bottom lip. “You should show it off more.”
I could be completely wrong, but I think that was Ransom Riley-Hale flirting with me.
I was wrong, right?
Beautiful men didn’t typically hit on me. Certainly not the ones I wanted. Certainly, not this one and so I exhaled, stepping out of his arms to grab the stereo remote. The tiny controller fit in the palm of my hand and I had to shift through the tracks to get to the song I wanted. The entire time he watched me. I felt the heaviness of his stare on the back of my ankles, moving up my calves, my thighs, lingering on my ass and when that sensation did not go away, I glanced at Ransom in the mirror, surprised when it took him a second to return my gaze. He stared at me unashamed, like he didn’t have an excuse for openly gawking at me.
“Um, one more time? Last one?”
His only response was the drop of his chin, so subtle I wasn’t sure if he’d moved it at all. This time when he held me, his grip was tighter, felt more intimate and, God help me, that stare was intense, like he couldn’t focus on anything but my eyes.
The mirrors bounced beats and thumps around the room and I matched his stare, my body curling against his, matching the rhythm of the music and the steadily speeding of my pulse.
Bump, bump, bump of the song and on each beat, our centers came together, touching, flirts of our hips meeting, the ridges of his stomach when his shirt lifted, touching against my midriff, the soft, thick hair above his waistband scratching against my skin. We hadn’t moved our eyes and he came closer, leaned in tighter so that his forehead met mine and his hand lowered on my back, stopping just below my waist to guide me.