Page 30 of Bayside Heat
She glanced across the table at Mira and Matt, their heads bowed as they whispered to each other. Matt must have said something dirty, because Mira’s cheeks pinked up and she closed her eyes, which made Serena think of Drake’s lips on her cheek. She turned her attention to Emery and Dean dancing too close and slow for the fast beat. A few feet away from them, Desiree and Rick kissed, swaying to the music. They made relationships look easy, like life revolved around them, not the other way around. Why was it so complicated for her and Drake?
“Shit, woman. You look like a confused little kitten, and I know you’re no kitten.” Violet pushed to her feet. “We’re going to dance this shit out of you.”
Dean and Rick came back to the table as Violet yanked Serena up beside her.
“Harper’s with the girls,” Rick said, and pointed to the three of them dancing.
Serena couldn’t suppress her smile. Wearing a short, colorful hippie dress, along with several long, dangling necklaces, Harper looked like a flower child. Her long blond hair swung as she danced like she was on the floor by herself, her arms flailing, her chin tipped up, and her eyes closed. Beside her Desiree danced a little self-consciously in a cute maxi dress, while Emery ground her hips and shimmied in a skintight, bright-blue minidress.
Violet dance-strutted across the floor in her silver-heeled biker boots.
“Mira, want to dance?” Serena shouted over the music as Drake joined them at the table and set the drinks down.
“Yes!” Mira kissed Matt and headed toward the dance floor.
Serena turned to follow her, and Drake caught her by the hand, staring longingly into her eyes. In the next second that longing morphed to something darker, sending her stomach into a wild swirl. She didn’t think as she grabbed the drink he’d gotten for her and guzzled it down.
His eyes burned hotter, hungrier, as if her nervousness was turning him on as much as his interest was flustering her. She grabbed another drink from the table without a care for whose it was and downed it just as fast, taking comfort in the warmth of the alcohol as it slid down her throat. Drake’s eyes flared with a maddening, and equally exciting, appreciation. Never had she been so nervous around a man, so unsure of what she wanted. Or rather, what she should do. She knew exactly what she wanted—the six-foot-two man with eyes the color of night and lips as unrelenting as a bullying wave, who had stolen her heart when she was just a girl.
She turned and made a mad dash to the dance floor.
She weaved through the crowd, hips and shoulders swaying to the beat, feeling looser by the second as the alcohol numbed the worry out of her. Violet and Emery were slithering up and down each other’s bodies in some sort of dirty dance, while Desiree and Mira leaned in close, talking as they moved in purely PG fashion. Driven by the lust pulsing inside her and the tension-easing effects of alcohol, Serena joined Harper in an evocative dance. She gazed up at the colored lights, calmed by the music, feeling it throb and flutter inside her. This was what she needed, to lose herself in something other than Drake, to feel in control again.
“Finally!” Harper yelled over the music.
Serena answered with a bump of her hips.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you and Drake were a couple?”
Violet and Emery cracked up.
“What? We’re not!” Serena shot a look at Mira.
“Don’t look at me,” Mira shouted. “I see what Harper sees!”
Harper’s brows lifted in confusion. “Then I’ve really lost my hotness radar, because the way you two look at each other tells a different story.”
“It’s just a weird night.” Serena raised her arms over her head and closed her eyes for a moment to try to lose herself in the beat again, but all she saw was Drake’s sinful gaze. She opened her eyes as Chloe burst through the crowd and threw her arms around her.
“Sorry I’m late!” Chloe hugged her, then embraced the others. “Wow. You guys all look amazing!”
Violet smirked. “Don’t we always?”
“I know I do,” Emery said.
Chloe pointed to Serena and said, “Are you dressing to get one last quickie in before Boston?”
