Take the Chance (Top Shelf Romance #9) - Brittainy Cherry Page 0,145

Jackson took Darlene’s hand and gave an exaggerated bow.

“Care to dance?”

She shot me a glance and a smile, then nodded her head. “I’d love to.”

He led her to the dance floor with a parting glance at me. Jackson, that smooth bastard, had taken a ballroom dance class as an undergrad. I watched him spin Darlene expertly across the floor, and goddamn, watching her dance...

Her dress whirled over legs that seemed to go on forever, and her body moved through complex steps effortlessly. She was better than Jackson, but they looked good together. Watching them, I suddenly felt ravenously hungry. I took a long pull of my cocktail.

It had been ages since I’d drunk anything—the vodka went straight to my head. I started to order another and drank Jackson’s instead. By the time the second copper mug was drained, the room’s muted light had taken on a pleasantly fuzzy glow, and I watched my best friend dance with Darlene with a small smile over my lips.

He met my eye several times, eyebrows raised to his hairline, and inclined his head at his dance partner as if to say, What are you waiting for?

I only grinned back. I was content now to wait. I’d been off my game, true, but I realized with Darlene I didn’t need one.

The song ended and Jackson bent Darlene over his knee in a deep dip. Her back arched as if she had no bones, and when he hauled her up, her face was radiant.

A slow song began, “Cheek to Cheek” sung by Ella Fitzgerald, and I pushed myself off the bar, through the crowds.

“May I?” I asked, cutting in before Jackson could answer.

“It’s about damn time,” he muttered under his breath.

“You’re going to need a new drink,” I told him as he slipped away, and then I was holding Darlene.

I slipped an arm around her slender waist, and held her other against my chest. Her body radiated soft warmth through the silky material of her dress, and I imagined her lean muscles moving under my hands. Her face was flushed from the dancing, and her eyes were crystalline blue over her red lips.

“I wondered if you were ever going to come over here,” she said.

“I don’t dance,” I said. The vodka had stripped my words down to the bare bones. “I liked watching you.”

“Jackson is very good.”

“You’re better.”

“Mmm, now I know what you were doing instead of dancing,” she said with a small smile. “Are you having a good time?”

“I am now.” I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.

She held my gaze for a moment, then laid her head against my chest.

“I’m having a good time too,” she said. “Maybe a better time than I should.”

“I know.”

“I’m supposed to be working on me.”

“I know,” I said again. “I can see my finish line from here. I should keep going but…”

“But what?” she asked against my heart.

“I don’t want to kiss you drunk, but I want to kiss you.”

Her breath caught and she raised her head to look at me, her lips parted. It took everything I had not to kiss her anyway, but it felt wrong; with vodka on my breath and my thoughts clouded and dizzy. I’d kissed a hundred women drunk or tipsy, but something stopped me with this woman.

She deserves more.

“You want to kiss me?” she asked.

I tilted her chin up with a loose fist, and my thumb brushed the skin just beneath her lower lip. My mouth was clumsy with the alcohol, but the booze had freed my emotions that I’d kept on lockdown, always, and I was helpless against her beauty to keep them in.

“I think about you,” I said. “A lot.”

“I think about you, too,” she whispered, and I smelled the sweetness of Maraschino cherries on her breath. “And Olivia.”

Instantly, my arms held her tighter at those words. “You do?”

She nodded. “And I know it’s fast, but I feel like,” she swallowed. “I don’t know what I feel. Like I’m supposed to be getting myself together and not getting swept up in all the things I usually get swept up in. I keep saying I need to work on me, but I’m doing everything right and I still feel like something’s missing.” Her eyes were impossibly blue as they gazed up at mine. “Is it you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. But maybe it could be.

I held her and turned a slow circle, possibilities whispering in my ear.

“What do you want, Darlene?”

“I think I want you to kiss me, too.