Page 13 of Shared By the Pilots

I laughed as he swept me up in the dance. For the next half hour, we lost ourselves in the music. The thing about salsa dancing was that it required close physical contact. I could feel Luke’s body heat, and his energy, as we moved around the dance floor. Our breath and sweat and hair mingled until we were practically the same person.

Luke and I had an incredible amount of chemistry. Far more than I thought we had at dinner.

“Just admit it,” he said as we took an Uber back to the hotel.

“Fine,” I replied with an exasperated sigh. “I assumed you couldn’t dance because you’re a white guy.”

“And what did you learn tonight?”

“That there’s at leastonewhite guy who can dance. I can’t speak for the rest of you.”

The Uber driver chuckled to himself in the front seat.

As we walked into the hotel arm-in-arm, I said, “Do you think about hotels differently since you worked in one as a teenager?”

“That’s right,” he replied. “Some men have flashbacks about Afghanistan. I have flashbacks about creepy guys asking the front desk for way too many bottles of hand lotion.” He shivered.

“Poor teenage Luke, giving random hotel guests masturbatory aids. I bet you’re still traumatized.”

“Traumatized might be the funniest thing anyone has ever called me,” he said.

“The funniest thing anyone has ever called me is fragile.”

He turned to look at me. “It seems very unlikely that anyone would call you fragile.”

“Not fragile like a flower,” I said. “Fragile like a bomb. As in, I blow up a relationship at the smallest excuse.”

“Right. Like dumb chins.”

“Okay, but seriously. You should have seen this guy’s chin. Or lack thereof. It was practically nonexistent.”

“You haven’t discovered anything about me that makes you want to blow up this date?” he asked.

I made a show of thinking about it. “Hmm. Not yet. But maybe I’ll find something in your hotel room.”

The smile disappeared from Luke’s face. We walked along, still arm-in-arm, but it felt like everything had changed. He was stiff, like when we first started dancing at the club.

“I, uh, actually have a rule of my own,” he said. “I don’t sleep with women on the first date.”

“Just men, then?” I said, hoping a joke would lighten the mood.

That got a chuckle out of him. “Even if I were bi, I would have the same rule. I don’t sleep with someone too quickly. It’s served me well over the years.”

I suppressed my wince. We’d just had what I considered the perfect date. I couldn’t imaginenotgoing up to his hotel room after tonight. And I really, really wanted to see if we had the same chemistry in bed as we did on the dance floor.

I made myself smile. “Well, now I really want a second date.”

“Good thing I tricked you into giving me your number earlier.”

We got in the elevator together. He pressed the 12 button, and I pressed 11. There was an uncomfortable silence as the elevator rose up into the hotel tower.

“This is me, 1105,” I said as the doors opened. I held out my hand. “Thanks for a great evening, Luke.”

Rather than shake my hand, he braced me by the shoulders and threw me up against the wall of the elevator, crushing his lips against mine and smothering me with his hard body. The world seemed to fade away, leaving only the soft hum of the elevator lights and the electricity of our shared attraction. It was a spark that sent shivers down my spine, a moment that held the promise of endless possibilities and the beginning of an unforgettable evening together.

Except it wasn’t the beginning of the night. It was the end. Luke pulled away slightly and rumbled, “I never said I don’t kiss on the first date.”

“I can see that,” I purred back at him. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay there in his arms, to follow him to the twelfth floor anddemandto see what else would happen. I wanted to thrash and rage against his stupid rule, because a second date—even if it magically happened tomorrow night—felt like an eternity away.

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