The music stopped, and he stepped back. The pressure that had been building in his dick waned enough for him to have a semi-coherent thought in his head, and it was this: I like this girl. A lot. Fuck.
“Okay, people, we’re turning on the big TV! Five minutes to go!” Someone had stood on a chair to make that announcement, and now one wall of the room lit up with Times Square, a split screen between the crowd and the suspended ball.
She stood next to him. He didn’t look at her but he could feel the distance between them, exactly how far he’d have to lean to jostle her with his arm, his hip, his shoulder. Exactly how far he’d have to turn to press himself against her.
The countdown was at –4:06. All around them, people shifted and jockeyed for position, an unsubtle effort to end up near the person they’d least hate the idea of getting kissed by at midnight. Owen was still beside the tall blonde. Go, Owen. If Miles couldn’t get him a medal for his acts of friendship this week, standing back while Owen got laid would be a good consolation prize.
Miles was feeling a lot better now about having chosen to stick this party out. Partially on Owen’s behalf, but also on his own. Because the woman next to him wasn’t the person he’d least hate the idea of getting kissed by at midnight. Not at all. Despite the fact that it wasn’t what he was supposed to feel, despite the fact that it made no sense and scared the hell out of him, she was the person he most wanted to kiss at midnight.
At that moment, he realized he’d never asked her name.
Chapter 2
Nora Hart’s whole body was buzzing. Her head, from all the bright blue and hot pink mixed drinks she’d downed, and as much from the excess of sugar as from the abundance of alcohol. But the rest of her, too. Her fingertips, her toes, her inner thighs, which were warm and tingly, a spreading liquid heat that kept filling more of her body until she was pretty sure she would do something crazy. Crazier, that was, than what she’d already done. Not that what she’d done was so outrageous in the scheme of all the possible things, but it was unusual for her. Flirting shamelessly with a guy she’d never met, asking him to dance, and then dancing with him like that.
And now they were standing here, watching the clock count down, and she was going to kiss him. Or make him kiss her. Or make him want to kiss her.
He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at the clock with so much focus that she felt certain he was deliberately not looking at her.
Around them, people were shifting. Sidling. Edging away from a desperate hanger-on or closer to a hot stranger, in an effort to get in a position to get kissed.
But he wasn’t moving. That was a good sign, right? Now would be the perfect time for him to excuse himself to get a drink, but he was stalwart.
“Do some of these guys have panicked expressions on their faces?”
He laughed and surveyed the crowd. “That guy by the window. He looks a little trapped.”
“What about the guy with curly hair?”
“He’d go out the window if he could.”
They watched for a moment, but apparently the social awkwardness of fleeing the scene was stronger than his fear, because the curly haired guy stayed put.
Beside her, Miles shifted from one foot to the other, which brought his shoulder so it nearly touched hers. The little hairs on her bare arm stood at attention. Even they wanted to get closer to him.
The heat in her body had started when she’d first felt his eyes on her. She was used to having men ogle her breasts, and mostly she ignored it. But she’d been checking out this guy before he began to stare at her. She’d seen him lurk as if the party were a spectator sport. He’d come in with the scruffy-looking blond guy, and he’d barely made conversation at all, had hung around the periphery, drinking beer and observing. He had sad eyes. Or maybe she had made that up because he was hot and she wanted to give him a dark artsy soul to go with his dark hair and dark eyes and slashed eyebrows and Christian Bale mouth.
She was watching him, in fact, when “Come On Eileen” started playing and she began to dance, and she was watching him when the girl behind her gave a preternaturally loud and painful shriek, so she saw his gaze come up and search for the source of the sound and settle on her breasts. And instead of wishing she were built a little more … conservatively, she was glad, for a change, that she had the power to catch and keep men’s attention. She waited, because inevitably he would become curious about who was attached to the breasts, and indeed, up came his eyes, and—
She really dug it that he didn’t look away in shame when she caught him staring. He made a face like, Shit, you caught me, the curved, slightly twisted, sensual mouth almost but not quite smiling, the eyes still sad. And she grinned at him because she liked him. Could you like someone with whom you’d exchanged no words, only—to put it as fairly as possible—some gawking and a single wordless expression of amusement and apology?