didn’t say it was.” The fingers at the small of her back rubbed a little, and the pulse beneath her skin turned into a throb. Low in her belly, heat clenched like a fist, then released, sending fiery sparklers of sensation through her body. “I keep thinking it’s my fault,” Vance continued.
She shook her head. “It isn’t. It’s a force of nature, like...like the green flash.”
“I looked that up, you know. It has to do with the atmosphere’s density gradient and refraction.”
What? Her brain was too tired for science, and she wouldn’t allow him to change the subject now. Vance’s leg moved between hers. It was rock-solid and the denim scraped deliciously against sensitized skin. “That doesn’t make a bit of sense.”
“Neither does this,” he grumbled.
“Don’t think I commemorated it in my diary with big happy letters,” she shot back, a little insulted. “I wasn’t prepared for this...this attraction thing to just show up. I assumed I’d have more of a choice.”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t think sex is always like that time you strategized your own deflowering.”
Now she narrowed her own eyes. “Yuck.”
“Exactly what I thought when you told me about it.” He heaved another sigh. “The truth is that yeah, sometimes it does just happen—the flash, the flare, the...”
“Burn,” Layla supplied. So he’d felt like this before...with someone else? With Blythe? In her belly, a green-eyed monster twitched its tail.
“The burn. Jesus, Layla,” he said under his breath. “What only you can do to me.”
Only you. The monster subsided and, feeling a bit smug, Layla found herself smiling at Vance.
Which made him glare at her, though she detected an answering smile deep in his eyes. “Hey. I find it extremely inconvenient, lady.”
What could she say to that? It wasn’t as if she found it any easier to deal with than he. So she closed her eyes and kept dancing. The band segued into another slow song—more heartbreak—but Vance didn’t stop moving. Instead, he pushed her head against his chest and she nestled her cheek there and breathed him in.
The sexual fire settled a little, as if it could be banked when he was this close. Her gaze took in the other dancers, the twinkling lights, the beauty of the warm night. Picnic Day had likely looked this same way thirty years before. “This event’s gone on every year of your life,” she murmured.
“Mmm. We have photos of me from the first one, being carried around in a baby backpack.”
She allowed her fingers to sift through the short hair at the back of his neck. “What’s the best Picnic Day you remember?”
He was quiet a long moment. “Actually, this one’s turned out not so bad.”
“Yeah?” Surprised and a little pleased, her head came up.
Vance looked down at her, his lips curved. “Yeah.”
Had she wished the day could be done? Layla thought. Not anymore. Right now she wanted the night to last forever.
And Vance was about to kiss her, she could read the intent in his eyes, so she lifted her chin to make sure he knew she’d welcome it. To shorten the distance between their lips, she even went on tiptoe.
But then she fell to her heels when Vance’s brother appeared beside them, Blythe at his elbow. “Shall we switch partners?” Fitz said.
CHAPTER TEN
IF DANCING WITH LAYLA hadn’t made his brain mush, Vance would have seen the trap coming and taken evasive maneuvers. As it was, Fitz had already moved off with the colonel’s daughter—what the hell?—and he was left looking into Blythe’s irrefutably beautiful face.
Blythe, who was his ex, and his brother’s girlfriend.
Didn’t that make him feel stupid? Vance shoved his hands in his front pockets and tried wiping his face of any expression.
“You’re looking well,” Blythe said, color rising up the pale skin of her neck. “I didn’t really get a chance to talk to you at the tavern the other day, but you, uh, you looked well then also.”
“Thanks,” he said tersely, recalling that afternoon and how he’d fed Layla chips laden with guacamole. He’d been in a shitty mood then, too, until she’d teased him about the dip’s aphrodisiac qualities. Thinking of that laughing light in her eyes, he almost smiled.
“So...” Blythe said, drawing his attention back to her and the present. She made a vague gesture with her hand.
Unlike Layla, Blythe had never been much of a chatterbox. God, their dates must have been made up of many long silences. He’d probably found it restful.
Now it struck him as too quiet. Passive.
Boring.
“Vance, I...” she