She slicked her tongue across her lips, and I groaned. I had to readjust when she ran her hands up her body, skating over the sheer black crop top I almost swallowed my tongue seeing her walk out in tonight. Ash curled around her, but she was focused on me—she only saw me.
His hands moved further in on her thighs, and this time she didn’t pull him away. He dragged his nose up the side of her neck, but I didn’t see him, and she sure didn’t feel him.
She felt me.
We never talked about what we felt—what I wanted. We never went beyond the nights.
But this was the closest we came to admitting it. This was the closest we came to feeling it.
It wasn’t Ash behind her, it was me.
It wasn’t Ash’s hands on her thighs, his cock against her ass—it was mine.
And when the fantasy became too much to bear, I decided to say fuck it and stood.
Her eyes widened as she watched me prowl across the dance floor like a lion stalking its prey.
“Fuck off, loser,” I told Ash when I finally reached them.
He lifted his head up from where he stared down her body and met me with smiling eyes, releasing Nova from his hold. When he walked past, he bumped my shoulder and muttered, “Wondered how much you could take before coming over.”
I didn’t dwell on what he meant because Nova’s chest pressed to mine, her hands moved around my back to hold me close. I didn’t wait a second longer. With one hand on her hip, the other slid across the bare skin at her waist until I reached the ridges of her spine, rising under the shirt until I hit the black strap of her bra underneath. With one flex of my arm, I jerked her the non-existent distance to me, pressing her soft breasts to my hard chest.
She gasped, goosebumps prickling under my touch, her bright eyes darkening to a deep emerald. Dipping my knees, I slid my thigh between her legs and swayed side-to-side. She mimicked my moves, losing herself to the music thrumming through us, from me to her and back again. It bound us together. It didn’t care about the complications holding us apart. It ripped them away and moved us as one.
Her hands drifted over my chest, up my shoulders, and around my neck, driving her fingers into my hair. The scrape of her nails shot down my spine and straight to my cock. When my length grew harder, I knew she felt it. Her eyes flashed with a fire.
We never talked about what filled the space between us. We never talked about what it was—how it was mostly an excitement and comfort in finding a spirit so similar to our own. It hadn’t been hard to just let it be and enjoy what we could. But something shifted with her eyes on mine, her heat sliding across my leg, my dick pressing against her—something that felt too important to ignore. This wasn’t just a friendship growing into something neither of us understood. No, this was desire, and it burned like a raging inferno, decimating any lines we tried to draw.
I dropped my forehead to hers, closing my eyes, unable to keep looking at her and not devour her right there. “Nova,” I pleaded. I didn’t know how to stop, and I just hoped she did.
Her head tipped, and I held my breath, waiting for her lips to press to mine, but as promised, like nails on a chalkboard, everything came to a screeching halt.
We both winced and looked to the stage, watching Oren sing Living on a Prayer with the passion and confidence of someone much better than him.
Another high pitch scraped along my nerves, and Nova’s shaking body snapped me out of the daze I’d been locked in. I looked back to her, watching her cover her mouth and try to hold back her laughter.
The fire ebbed but didn’t fade. Enough to at least let me laugh with her, part in relief, part in sheer horror over Oren’s singing.
“How is he so musically inclined and yet so tone-deaf?” Nova asked around her giggles.
“Not a clue. I guess that’s why he plays drums. He hears it all in beats rather than tunes.”
Ash appeared next to me, punching my shoulder, officially making me let go of Nova so I could punch him back.
“Fuck, he’s bad,” Ash said with wonder.
“But he looks so good doing it,” Brogan said, moving to stand beside Nova.
She laughed again and looked to me, her smile softening, letting one last bit of the flame burn between us. It had vanished so quickly, I almost didn’t think it existed at all. Wanting to remember a moment longer, I gently reached out and grazed my fingers against hers. She twisted her hand and hesitantly linked her fingers in mine.