Miles laughs. “No, don’t be embarrassed.” He touches my cheek for a second, then feels my blush with the backs of his fingers. “It was amazing. I think Peter’s soul left his body for a second.”

The flirty, nervous buzz in my chest dies at the mention of Peter. I know I’ve been a willing participant in this whole game, but the closer I get to Miles, the harder it is to tell what’s real.

“Well, what’s embarrassing about copping to a roommate sex fantasy right after your ex’s hot fiancée calls you dowdy?”

“She did not call you dowdy,” Miles says. He twirls me, pulls me back in closer, our bodies fitting snugly together, every point of friction its own little sun, heat and gravity and heat and gravity.

“Defend her all you want, Miles—”

“I’m not defending her,” he says. “I know she didn’t say that, because there’s no way she thinks that. I mean, obviously, you’re . . .” His eyes cascade down me.

“It’s fine,” I promise. “I’m fine with how I look, except when I have to stand next to my ex’s superhot girlfriend and really underscore the trade-up.”

Miles stops moving abruptly. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true,” I say. “Something better always comes along. That’s my curse.”

“Daphne.” He gives a low, scraping laugh, but his eyes stay serious. “You can’t see him right now, but Peter is literally standing in a gap at the edge of the dance floor, watching your every move, and in a second, I’m going to turn you ninety degrees and kiss you again, and when I stop, I want you to look to your left and see his face. Then you can tell me if he thinks his new life, without you, is something better.”

And as soon as he says the last word, he does it. Moves us in a half-turn, drops his nose along mine, and it’s like we picked up where that last kiss left off, everything already more urgent, intense from the jump.

And I’m not wondering what Peter thinks of all this when Miles parts my lips with his tongue, his hand sliding firmly down to the curve of my ass. And when Miles’s other hand winds itself into my hair, and my spine arches up into him of its own accord, I’m thinking only of the spicy scent of ginger, the taste of espresso macaron in his mouth, the feeling of his erection between us.

For a few seconds, I’m nothing but a body seeking more of his.

I only regain awareness when a couple of old ladies in beaded mother-of-the-bride-type sets start hooting and clapping for us at a nearby table.

Miles touches my chin with his thumb as he sweeps one last kiss over my mouth. He straightens up. “Look left,” he says scratchily.

But I don’t. Instead, I step back. Then I turn and run.

OceanofPDF.com

19

I plan to dart into a bathroom and catch my breath, convince my brain to quit spinning. But I don’t pass a bathroom, so instead I find myself bursting through the front doors so forcefully that the valet yelps in surprise.

“Sorry!” I stammer, moving toward the dark parking lot.

“Daphne!” Miles calls, jogging after me. “Daphne?”

I slow to a stop and try to seem and be as normal as possible. “I’m okay,” I say, facing him. “Just got a little dizzy.”

“Shit.” He comes closer, touches my waist as he hunches to peer into my eyes. “You’re probably dehydrated. Let’s sit down and I’ll get you some water.”

I shake my head. “No, it’s fine. I think I should just head home.”

“I’ll get the keys from the valet,” he says.

“No,” I insist. “I’ll grab a cab.”

He studies me with the wary concern of a veterinarian examining a dog who just scarfed down a full espresso chocolate cake. “If you’re leaving, I am too.”

Oh, right.

Because while my brain was claustrophobically swirling with Miles, he hasn’t forgotten that the love of his life is in there with another man.

“So you’ll wait here?” He ducks his head again. “You won’t run if I go get the keys?”

I shake my head. He lets go of my elbow and jogs back across the lot. By the time he gets back, I’m a little calmer.

He opens my door for me first, then goes to get in the driver’s seat, starting the engine. “When did it start?”

“When did what start?” I say.

Creases rise from the insides of his brows. “The dizziness.”

It takes a second to remember what he’s talking about. “Oh. Just while we were dancing. I already feel a lot better.”

He studies me for a long moment, then nods and backs out of the parking space. We drive in silence for several minutes, winding down the curve of the peninsula toward town, and I keep my eyes fixed out the window on the moon, watching it sparkle and vanish behind the tree line before popping back into view.

The truck slows, drifting toward the dirt shoulder, and I face the windshield, expecting to find a deer blocking our way, but the road is empty, still.

Miles puts the truck into park. “Will you tell me what’s going on, Daphne?” he asks in a gravel.

“Nothing,” I say.

“It’s not nothing,” he says. “Did something happen? With Peter?”

“No,” I insist.

“You can tell me,” he says.

But I can’t. That claustrophobic feeling is back, embarrassment and want mixed together. I push open the truck door and stumble into the dark.

Miles climbs out too. “Where are you going?”

“I just need some air.” It’s the simplest version of the truth.

He rounds the hood of the car to stand in front of me. “Did I do something?”

“No.” I’ve never been a good liar.

“Daphne,” he says gently. “Please just tell me what I did.”

And despite every intention of keeping all these feelings a secret until the end of the summer, I blurt, “You kissed me.”

His brow shoots up. “I thought that was what you wanted. I thought that’s what we were doing.”

“No, I know.” I step back, my spine meeting the side of the bench seat. “We were. I just—it’s different now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to play that game anymore,” I say. “I don’t want you to say things you don’t mean and do things you don’t want to do. It’s confusing.”

“Who says I did anything I don’t want to do?” he asks.

“You did,” I fire back. “You’re the one who told me you don’t want anything to happen between us—”

“I never said that,” he argues, stepping closer.

“—and I don’t want to be a prop to make your ex jealous, and I know I started it—”

“You’re not a prop,” he says, looking hurt.

“That’s exactly what I just was,” I counter. “You only want to kiss me when they’re there to see it. And I know I started it, but things are different now.”

Miles’s gaze drops on a hoarse laugh, a shake of his head. He steps in closer, our hips brushing.

Then he looks back up, takes my face in both hands, and kisses me again.

Rough, deep, messy, breathless.

With no one to see it.

Nothing to stop us.

His hips pin mine back to the side of the passenger seat. His hands move around to my back, spreading out over my bare spine, our chests pressing together, his heat cutting through the cold night. “I want to kiss you,” he murmurs, drawing back a mere inch, “every time you take a sip of something and make that sound.”

I pull him back to me, that sound slipping from my mouth into his. My hands climb into his hair. His scrape down over my sides, his thigh pushing in between mine. “I want to kiss you every time I walk past your bedroom and hear your laugh through the door,” he says, and his hands steal beneath the hem of my dress, all the way up to cradle my hips, my skin prickling like every cell wants to be a little bit closer to him.