bore a pale pink flush from her drinks, and her eyes shone beneath the darkening skies as she stared back at him, her lips slightly parted.
In that instant, they weren’t Sammy and Olivia, ex-lovers locked in a silent standoff on a summer California night; they were Sammy and Olivia, slick with sweat and heady with alcohol, dancing the hours away in a Shanghai nightclub.
He blinked, and they morphed into Sammy and Olivia, entangled in passion on lust-drenched sheets.
Blink.
Sammy and Olivia, sneaking kisses in dark, intimate corners of dark, intimate restaurants in New York.
Blink.
Sammy and Olivia, lying on the grass, staring up at the stars and weaving dreams of what their futures would look like. They hadn’t discussed how those futures would intertwine or for how long; it’d seemed like a silly question, as irrelevant as asking whether the sun would rise the next day or whether the ocean would kiss the shores. There was an infinitesimal chance it wouldn’t happen, but it was for all intents and purposes a foregone conclusion.
What fools they’d been.
“What are you doing?” Olivia didn’t wrap her arms around Sammy as any woman in her current position would, but she didn’t pull away, either.
“Dancing.”
“We’re not moving.”
“It’s not that kind of dance.”
Olivia’s breath quickened. He could hear it, feel it, practically taste it.
Sammy’s eyes dropped to her mouth and traced a hungry path over the sensual curves of her lips. The delicate Cupid’s bow punctuating her top lip, the lush fullness of her bottom lip. The soft pinkness that he knew from experience would blossom into a passionate red under the right ministrations. A nip here, a graze of the teeth there, and she’d look properly loved.
“Sammy.” His name came out as a breathless sigh, its purpose trapped somewhere between a plea and a warning.
He hardened immediately, to the point where his erection threatened to punch a hole through his jeans. Lust roared in his veins and drowned out everything else—the doubts, the insecurities, the voices warning him what a bad fucking idea this was.
He’d been full of bad ideas lately, and he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Sammy fisted her hair with his free hand and tugged her head back. “Say my name again.”
He half-expected her to fight him, but Olivia obeyed without hesitation. “Sammy.” This time, it came out as a whimper.
He couldn’t have stopped what happened next if Zeus himself came down from the heavens and ordered him to cease and desist.
Sammy groaned and dipped his head. Olivia arched into him, her eyes fluttering closed.
Just one taste, he thought. Then I’ll get her out of my system once and for all.
Reason and willpower had fled, leaving only denial in its wake.
Sammy's and Olivia’s mouths were centimeters apart. His breath whispered across her lips before he claimed—
Fuck!
Something massive hurtled itself into Sammy and knocked him flat on his ass. Since he was still holding onto Olivia, she crashed down with him—or rather, she crashed down on him. Face-to-face, knees straddling his hips, her breasts right in front of his eyes.
His cock twitched with excitement.
Sammy was half-tempted to roll them over, pin her to the hard ground, and finish what he’d started, but the fall had hammered some sense into his head.
The lust-drenched fog enveloping him gradually faded, and he exhaled a sharp breath.
He and Olivia weren’t alone in their own little world, where the past couldn’t touch them and the future remained a hazy mirage. They were lying on the floor, limbs entangled, in front of dozens of bemused partygoers. He’d been this close to kissing Olivia, and they would’ve had to go home afterward and either pretend it hadn’t happened or act awkward as hell around each other for the rest of her stay. The other “options” weren’t options at all.
Fuck buddies? Fuck no. Not with an ex. That was like pouring gasoline on bone-dry wood—an explosion waiting to happen. And not in a pleasurable, orgasmic way.
Rekindled relationship? Impossible. They’d broken up for a reason, and that reason still existed.
Olivia stared down at him. Her eyes had cleared, too, though Sammy detected vestiges of her earlier desire.
The spell had broken, but neither wanted to acknowledge the death of a dream.
Their furry interloper took care of that problem for them.
Milo’s sharp bark shattered what remained of the bubble around Sammy and Olivia.
Sammy turned his head and leveled the adorable seventy-pound menace with an aggrieved glare. “Dude, seriously?”
Milo barked again, his tongue hanging out, his tail wagging with sheer joy. Apparently, he now had three favorite hobbies: