Page 67 of Habits

“Nobody.” I force out a smile.

Ethan looks between the two of us for a second. He opens his mouth to say something, but decides to let it go.

Smart boy.

“Sorry for that.” He removes an invisible curl from his forehead. He does that often, and it’s irritating as hell. How much can one guy be obsessed with his looks?

A lot, apparently.

“My dad wanted to introduce me to some people around.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I wave it off.

You could have stayed with him the whole night and made this easier for me.

“Wanna go dance again?”

Max tries to hide his chuckling, but when I elbow him in the gut, it soon turns into a cough.

That bastard will hear it from me later.

Swallowing the real answer, I make myself meet his gaze and smile. “Yeah, sure.”

Kill me now.

I slowly start walking toward the dance floor. There are a good number of couples, young and old, dancing to the quartet playing softly in the corner of the room. Round tables are scattered around. People are sitting and standing, talking in small groups, champagne flutes in the hands. The warm light illuminates the space, accentuating red and gold details.

Ethan falls in step behind me, his big hand settling on my lower back.

Low.

Too low to be considered appropriate.

The same feeling of unease returns in full force, but I keep my lips shut tight. It would be so easy to tell him to keep his creepy, too-soft paws to himself, but causing a scene in a place like this will only piss my mother off, and I’m not in the mood to deal with her attitude.

It’s one thing to cross her in the privacy of our house, but to do it in public surrounded by all her high-class friends and Dad’s colleagues … yup, that wouldn’t go well. So I suck it up. I’ll do one more dance. Just one more, and then I’llkindlyexplain to him that my feet hurt from the heels I’m wearing and go sit down at my table for the rest of the evening. That should do the trick.

We finally find an open spot. I start to turn around to face him and get this over with, but his hands land on my hips and pull my back to his front. His chin lingers over my shoulder, and I can feel his hot breath against my skin. It’s more like panting than breathing, and it makes me shudder.

My lips press in a tight line.

Just a little bit more. You can do it. Just a few more minutes and then you’re done. No more dancing. No more sleazy touching. No nothing. Done.

I repeat those words over and over again as the music continues playing. It feels like we’ve been doing this for an eternity, when in reality it’s probably just a minute or two.

Suddenly, he turns me around in his arms, pulling me closer. His face lowers, the tip of his nose touching the crook of my neck, inhaling me in as one of his hands caresses my naked back.

I want to scream in frustration. Why is he doing this? His touch feels all wrong, and his nearness makes me feel cornered, uneasy.

I swallow hard, getting ready to push him away.

Enough is enough.

But a hand wraps around my wrist, pulling me away.

Max.

I want to sigh in relief. That is, until I hearhisvoice.

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