Page 33 of That Birthday in Barbados
Anders shakes his head, smiling. “Have you seen that uptight New Yorker I took to dinner earlier?”
“Uptight?!? Oh, wait. I was a little uptight about turning forty, wasn’t I? Didn’t someone say age is of no importance unless you’re a cheese?”
He laughs. “Or a bottle of wine.”
“I’d rather be a forty-year-old bottle of wine than a forty-year-old cheese.”
“For the aroma alone,” he agrees, taking another sip of his drink.
I giggle and pull him back to the dance floor.
“So you like dancing?” he teases, reeling me in again and putting me back in the very spot I wanted to be in all along.
“I don’t think I’ll remember in the morning how bad I am! And don’t remind me.”
“I like watching you move,” he says, dipping his head low, and grazing my cheek with his lips.
It’sas if I’ve had an arrow of desire shot through my center, and I’m thinking I am in serious trouble.
I’m not sure how long we stay in the middle of the throbbing throng of people, six songs, seven? My dress is clingingwhere sweat dampens my skin, but even so, I’m not ready to leave the dance floor when the song ends,and his arm drops from my waist. I’m disappointed when he leans in and says, “Let’s get some air.”
He takes my hand and leads me through the crowd, dodging dancers until we walk through a door and into the cool of the night.
People are waiting in line to get inside, and we find a spot in the shadows of the building. Anders leans against a wall, arms folded across his chest. “Girl can dance.”
“Not compared to you,” I say, laughing softly. The sky swirls above me. “I think that Red Door Mule has a pretty good kick.”
He smiles. “Also thought you didn’t get drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.” Did the n in drunk slur? “And you have to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“This . . . this flirting with me. It’s like . . . like holding a glass of water out to a woman who’s just walked through the desert when you have no intention ofgivingthe water to the woman.”
Anders smiles, tips his head. “Who says I’m not going to give her the water?”
“Well . . . you can’t. You’re young. She’s old. And the water won’t do her any good anyway.It’s too late. She’s all dried up,” I say, shaking my head and then forcing myself to go still since the sky just dipped toward us again.
He’s staring at me with the kind of heat in his eyes I’ve never had directed at me quite so intently.
“Baby, it’s never too late,” he says. With the quickness of a lightning strike, he swoops in, kissing me so long and with such deliberate expertise that I can’t breathe. Ireallycan’t breathe. And maybe I don’t want to if it means he has to stop. He’s the stray bolt from the sky, and I’m the ground, and there’s definitely an explosion going on here that demands life-saving action. I slide my arms around his neck and hold on, for dear life, actually, and while I’m at it, I kiss him back. Not with any kind of expertise, mind you. I’m so out of practice that without the muscle-relaxing effects of the alcohol I’ve consumed this evening, I’m pretty sure I’d be stiff as a board.
But, oh my gosh, he feels so good. And hetastesso good. I open my mouth beneath his, and we set about devouring one another, kissing like we’re oxygen-starved and the only place to find air is here in this life-inducing act of passion.
I anchor my hands to his shirt and tip my head back. His mouth leaves mine, and he traces a path along my jaw and down my neck to the hollow at the center of my neck. From there to the crest of my breast at the neckline of my dress.
“We’re going to need that water now,” I say. “We seem to have started a small fire.”
His laugh is explosive. “You’re incredibly funny,” he says, staring down at me now with smoldering blue eyes.
“Me? No. I’m not funny. I’ve never been funny. I’m serious. Serious people aren’t funny.”
He laughs again. “Okay. You can’t dance. You never get drunk. And you’re not funny. Quite a list we’ve got going here.”
I angle back, give him a long look that admittedly goes a little fuzzy around the edges.
“I’d better get you back to the hotel before that mule knocks both of us out.”
