everything she’d known him to be. All the more reason for her to lay her cards on the table tonight. Well, tomorrow. Because she was pretty damn sure tonight was going to turn into an all-nighter with him. She had no desire for this date to end. She wanted it to unfurl through the darkness, and roll on into the sunrise.
After the euphoric finale on stage, she was the first to her feet, clapping and calling out bravo. Then she threw her arms around Brent’s neck, and planted a quick kiss on his lips.
“Thank you. I loved every second of it,” she said, standing on tiptoes. “I feel like I’m floating on cloud nine.”
A dancer’s high.
“I’m so happy to hear that,” he said, his expression earnest. There was no teasing, no joking. He really had wanted her to be happy, and hell if that didn’t make her heart beat in overdrive for him.
They clapped once more during the final curtain call. She picked up the thread of the conversation as the audience started to shuffle out, the bright lights flickering on in the Luxe Theater. “Even if it did make me feel the tiniest pang of regret right here,” she said, tapping her chest.
“I hope it wasn’t too hard for you.”
She shook her head. “Nope. Just makes me a little sad every now and then that I can’t do that anymore. But that’s all,” she said, as she ran her fingers along his arm. She squeezed his hand as they exited the row, replaying her words—can’t do that anymore. While she might not be able to dance like those performers on stage had—leaping, stretching, soaring beyond the atmosphere—there were other ways to dance. Oh yes, there were many other ways to move.
She tugged him close to her against the edge of the aisle seat. The crowds filtered by as she leaned in, whispering in his ear. “But I can dance for you. The way you like.”
Noise filled the theater. The chatter and hum of the crowd. The music that ushered the patrons out the door. The sound of shoes on carpets, of seats folding up, of phones buzzing. But beneath all that, she heard the sexiest groan escape his lips, a low rumble that came from deep within his chest. It touched down in her nervous system, and sent the desire that had been on a simmer all evening to a flashpoint.
Her pulse doubled. Her belly flipped. Want engulfed her.
“Now,” he said, his voice a husk.
“Do you want to come back to my—” she began, but he cut her off.
He produced a gleaming white key card from his back pocket. “I was hopeful,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
She adored that hope in him. She adored it for so many reasons. Because he had so much of it, because he could call on it whenever he needed to, and because he’d always freely shared it with her. His brightness, his happiness, his luck.
“Your hope will be rewarded, you handsome man.”
She’d take some of his luck tonight and make it theirs.
* * *
The elevator doors whooshed shut.
He was a coil, tightly wound. He grasped her face and kissed her hard as he backed her into the corner, in clear view of the camera that was surely watching anyone in the lift.
He didn’t fucking care.
They were alone.
She sighed, she gasped, she moaned as the elevator chugged higher into the sky. Somewhere it slowed and stopped. He glanced briefly at the number pad. Twelve. Not their floor. He returned to her lips, red and full and eager. The doors opened while he fused his mouth to hers, dropping his hand to her ass, gripping her soft flesh, with the kind of hunger that came from knowing there’d be no stopping tonight.
“Um, we’ll catch the next one,” someone behind him said, and the doors shut again.
“When did you get the room?” she whispered, her voice all breathy and sexy.
“Earlier today,” he said, rewinding briefly to his call with Nate. And then, holy shit. Fuck me with a chainsaw. The call with Tanner. He heaved a sigh. He’d packed a bag, and tossed it in the trunk of the town car on the way to pick her up, but had promptly forgotten about his flight the second he’d laid eyes on Shannon.
“What’s wrong?”
“I have to catch a flight to New York at midnight,” he said, frustration laced through every word, stringing them together.
She stepped away, her jaw falling open. “Seriously? It’s a quarter after ten right