“I wish.”
“Precious gems sewn into the sheets?”
“Just fabric.”
“Trained monkeys to fan you and feed you ripe fruit.”
“There’s a fireplace, a flat-screen TV, and jacuzzi jets in the tub,” she says. “I imagine the closet has some nice robes. I didn’t check, though.”
Outside the window is dark, the moon behind the manor house, paths through the garden picked out in low yellow light. I can see two rows of small buildings that must be the chateaus, and beyond that, a deep darkness that can only be forest.
“But no, it’s not really worth nearly a thousand dollars a night,” she goes on. “Particularly when you live in the area and could easily get a ride back to your house and sleep there, but since I’m not the one paying for it, I choose not to look a gift room in the… door.”
“Look a gift room in the door?”
“In the fireplace?” she tries again, laughing, her nose wrinkling.
“What’s in that?” I ask, pointing at her drink. “Besides a tree.”
She takes the very small branch between two fingers and stirs the drink with it.
“This, Seth, is Ava and Thad’s signature drink, a dark and snowy,” she says. “And the tree is a rosemary garnish, thank you.”
“Looks like a tree,” I deadpan.
“For someone who makes a living from booze, you sure are shockingly unsophisticated,” she teases.
I grin and drink the last mouthful of whiskey in my glass.
“Shockingly?” I say, putting my glass down. I hold out my empty hand. “Can I try?”
She takes another sip, then holds it out to me.
“It’s rum, ginger beer, cider, and… I forget, something else,” she says.
I take a drink of it, the garnish grazing my face, faint lipstick smudges visible on the rim of the glass.
“Cranberry,” I say when I finish, handing it back to her.
“Not bad, right?”
I take a step closer to her and there it is again: the urge to touch her, brush a stray curl from her temple, take her hand. I do exactly what I should do and ignore it.
“Finish it and come dance with me,” I tell her.
Her eyebrows go up and her lips twist slightly as she keeps herself from laughing, an expression I learned long ago.
“I think what you mean is, I’d be ever so thrilled if you would honor me with this dance, Delilah,” she says, her voice breathy as she fakes her worst Gone With the Wind accent.
“What I mean is come dance with me,” I say. “You still owe me one from before.”
“I owe you no such thing.”
“Well, you said you’d light me on fire if I danced with anyone else,” I say. “Here’s your chance to avoid arson.”
“Is that a threat, Seth Loveless?”
“No,” I say, and now I’m grinning as she tries not to laugh. “It’s an opportunity.”
“I don’t think I exactly said I’d light you on fire,” she points out. “I’m pretty sure it was much more confusing than that.”
I take a step closer. How long ago was it that I touched her chin? An hour, ninety minutes? Too long. I feel like we’re in a bell jar, the outside world hushed and blurry, just the two of us here.
I feel like I should kiss her, even though I know that’s not true.
“Delilah,” I say, quieter, lower. “Come fucking dance with me.”
“That was even less polite,” she whispers, eyes alight.
“If I asked nicely you’d chew me up and spit me out.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” she says, and she actually looks puzzled.
“Wel, I’m not going to risk finding out,” I say.
“Would it be so bad?”
“Letting you chew me up and spit me out again?” I say. It’s too honest.
I manage to stop my tongue before I say I don’t mind so long as you leave teeth marks, which she has. She’s left them more than once. I think she’s left teeth marks on my heart.
“You’re really overestimating my powers, Seth,” she says softly.
I’m not overestimating a damn thing. I’m half convinced Delilah’s a sorceress for the power she has over me.
I lean down until our bodies are just barely touching, put my lips an inch from her ear.
“Please?” I ask, and I swear I try to sound as polite as I can but it comes out all dirt and gravel, the word ripped from somewhere deep in my chest.
Her hand is on my shoulder, and it feels more dangerous than staring at a pack of hungry wolves.
“Only because you asked nicely,” she murmurs, and she takes my arm, and we head to the dance floor.Chapter SixteenDelilahI’d forgotten how Seth can dance.
It’s not that he’s an amazing dancer from a technical standpoint. He knows the same handful of moves as anyone else, knows how to stay on the beat, can move his body in the same rhythms.
It’s that none of those things account for the experience of dancing with Seth, the way that he throws himself into it wholeheartedly, as if being on the dance floor with this wedding cover band is the crowning experience of his life.