I swayed with the rhythm of the music, hips rocking, hair sticking to the back of my neck, my smile widening with each passing second. My eyes slipped shut, the world narrowing tothe pulse of the song and the fizz of liquor in my veins. And I let go — of the tension, of the stress, ofhim.
Just for a moment.
When the band ended the song and introduced another, I finally peeled my eyes open, and the scene around me had shifted.
Gisella and Palmer were gone. I assumed they’d gone off to get new drinks or take a break from the crowd. Eli was at the bar with Bernard and a gaggle of locals, slamming back shots and howling with laughter. Cameron and Leah were still nearby, though they’d moved closer to the front of the stage, and they might as well have been alone with the way they were tangled up in each other.
One camera duo was with Eli and Bernard at the bar, the other had tired of the endless footage of Leah and Cameron drunkenly making out and was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if they’d taken off with Gisella and Palmer.
I scanned the space, registering it with the kind of lazy awareness only alcohol and exhaustion could bring.
And then I felt it — the faintest touch on my left hip.
It was the graze of a knuckle, rough and warm, curling just under the tie of my bikini like a question mark.
Feather-light, so much so that it was almost nothing at all.
But it seared my skin like a branding iron.
I didn’t have to look to know who it was.
My heart lurched into my throat, strangling me as it stalled out. I froze. I couldn’t will my hips to sway to the music anymore, not with that touch anchoring me to a past I realized I’d never escape.
Finn’s warmth invaded my space even though he was still a safe distance away. I chanced a glance, secretly, tilting my head to the left like I was looking at the bar when really I was cataloging him in my peripheral. And there he stood, his eyes onthe band, head bobbing a bit to the beat like there was nothing out of place.
But his knuckle dragged along the skin beneath my bikini, from the front of my hip to the back, and then he slid his finger beneath the tie.
That was the spark.
I went up in a blazing inferno, heart stuttering back to life before it kicked hard and fast like a snare drum in my chest. I swallowed, keeping my eyes on the band, but I felt it when Finn moved in closer, when he slid to stand behind me.
His finger toyed with my bikini again.
Oh, God.
I should stop this.
I should walk away.
But I was rooted in place, drunk off hours of alcohol and the heat of his forbidden touch.
There was no question — he knew what he was doing. It didn’t matter that he kept his eyes on the band and pretended to be innocent. His halo was askew, flickering and threatening to burn out altogether with every millimeter of space he annihilated between us.
We were hidden by the crowd, tourists and locals dancing all around us with their hands in the air. I once again found myself scanning for the location of the cameras, and when I found them focused elsewhere, my insides liquified.
Because I knew Finn noticed their absence, too.
He slid up fully behind me, confident and careless all at once as his other hand found my hip, too. He had me framed in his grasp now, and his fingers bit into my flesh as his hot breath washed over the back of my neck.
My eyes fluttered shut, tongue sweeping out to wet my bottom lip as I desperately tried to hold onto my morals. But they were washing away quickly, the buzz dampening myinhibition, the darkness of the crowd daring me to test my limits, the heat of Finn’s touch too intoxicating to resist.
I gasped when Finn pulled me closer, one hand still holding fast to my hip as the other wrapped around me and splayed across my abdomen. The tip of his nose ran along the back of my neck, a groan vibrating out of him when I let myself fall into his touch.
My body melted into his, back to chest, and that devilish hand of his slid up higher until his thumb slipped beneath the string between the two triangles of fabric covering my breasts.
I whimpered, both desperate for myself to come to my senses and stop this and desperate for him to keep going, to push the boundaries more, to throw all caution to the wind and take me as his willing prisoner.
Memories of our past assaulted me one after another as the lights acted as a film reel over my closed eyes. A flash and we were there in my bunk in Greece, laughing and shushing one another as we peeled off every article of clothing. Another flash and we were walking hand in hand through the streets of Kontokali, pointing at the mansions and guessing who lived there, what their lives were like, before the conversation turned to whatourlives would be like.