Honor and Desire (Gold Sky #3) - Rebel Carter Page 0,56
could start a family. Her cheeks reddened when she thought of how one went about starting a family, and she cleared her throat.
“You do too. One like your own,” August said watching her carefully. “We could have that.”
Seylah forced herself not to think of their stolen moments at the gun range with him and nodded. “We could.”
“It would be good.” He held out his hand to her, palm up and fingers outstretched in a gesture that Seylah was quickly becoming familiar with. She placed her hand in his and threaded their fingers together.
“It would be,” she replied, following August as he stood from the bench and set off in the direction of her home. They walked hand-in-hand down the boulevard, eyes only for each other in the fading twilight, the lights that had once illuminated her feelings for him now lighting the path ahead of them in the darkening night.
“It would be ours,” she added and August drew her closer still against him until she was leaning against his side. The pose attracted a fair share of attention from the others out that night but Seylah had no eyes for them, and August seemed content to hold his tongue when he heard a chuckle from a passerby.
“I like the sound of ours,” he told her and they walked out onto the lane. “Ours sounds mighty good to me.”
Seylah nodded and rested her head against his shoulder. “It sounds perfect.”
August hummed in agreement and they walked in companionable silence. She relaxed then, August’s steady presence beside her making her feel at home. This was her place, right here beside August like she’d always been, and she smiled at the thought that it was precisely where he wished to be as well.
“I just have one question,” August said, breaking the quiet.
“What is it?”
“What exactly is fancy dancing?”
Seylah laughed and looked up at him. “I can tell you, or shall I show you?”
August tilted his head to the side and thought it over. “I’ve always been a man of action, and you are a woman cut from the same cloth.”
She nodded knowing what he was going to choose.
“Show me then, honey.”
She grinned at him and stepped away holding out a hand. “I was hoping you would choose thusly.”
“And now that I have, what follows?”
“Take my hand.” She wiggled her fingers at him excitedly and he chuckled at the gesture.
“Now what?” He asked when he was holding her hand.
“Put your hand on my waist,” she said, reaching for his other hand and placing it at her side.
“Ah, I think I understand your intentions now.” August’s hand slid lower until his big hand was splayed across her lower back, the warmth and weight of his palm made her shiver as he stepped closer still. “But we have no music.”
“We don’t need it. The demand was for fancy dancing, not music,” she reminded him.
“Very true.” August looked down at her then and Seylah was struck with how large he was. She knew that August was not a small man, she had compared him to a mountain with deep roots, had she not? But knowing and understanding, experiencing something, was vastly different. She was now intimately familiar with the feel of August’s hands, the warmth and touch of him against her that could set her body singing, how her head barely came to his lips, and the way his broad shoulders felt beneath her hands.
“I imagine it goes something like this?” August began to step through the paces of a waltz and she smiled up at him when he maneuvered her through the silent dance with a light touch.
“You’re a master of fancy dancing,” she told him, a note of surprise in her voice.
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Why do you sound so surprised?”
She shrugged. “We’ve never done this. For all I knew you were bound to step on me.”
“We’ve danced before,” he said with a frown. “When I escorted you to the dance.”
Her heart squeezed, remembering the night that had changed so much between them. “Ah, yes, that night.”
“We danced plenty then.”
“So we did.”
She turned away from him then, her eyes trained on the faint lines of the lane ahead of them, the light of the moon was now overhead and she wondered what someone would think if they happened upon the two of them dancing in the middle of the lane with no music.
“We should go home,” she told him, giving his hand a tug.