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“Yes?” It sounded like a question.

My hands were still on her hips. Why were my hands still on her hips? I needed to let go of her.

Why wasn’t I letting go of her?

James moved closer to me, until there was only a whisper between us. Now I was breathing with difficulty.

What washappening?

“Delaney?” she said, her voice buzzing in that low tone that gave me a second round of goosebumps.

“Yeah?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

She seemed like she was going to say something, but then she changed her mind, stepping back from me and taking hold of my wrists to remove my hands from her hips. Her skin was warm and made me tingle where she touched me.

James was touching me.

“I think I should get you some water,” she said, her voice rough.

“Uh huh.” Brilliant. I was doing a bad job at speaking. Blame the alcohol.

“Go back to the corner and wait for me,” she said, and normally I didn’t like people telling me what to do and would have told her to fuck off in any other circumstance, but I found myself nodding and doing what she asked.

I was also going to blame that on the alcohol.

Chapter Eighteen

James

I’d also hadthree drinks in a pretty short period of time, but I was much steadier than she was. Something told me Delaney didn’t drink all that often and it was hitting her like a ton of bricks.

It would have been utterly adorable if I wasn’t also worried about her doing herself a serious injury. Even leaving her to get water was risky, but I came back and found her leaning up against the wall with a zoned-out look on her face.

Fuck, she was cute as hell.

“You’re back,” she said, grinning at me. Delaney was smiling. Atme.

“Here you go, baby,” I said without thinking as I pressed the water into her hand, making sure she didn’t immediately drop it. Shit. I couldn’t stop calling her “baby” and it was a good thing she was a little too tipsy to notice. She wasn’t drunk enough to forget about tonight, but hopefully those little endearments would be forgotten.

I’d almost died right there on the dance floor when she’d touched my hips. Delaney had never touched me before. And she’d done it to try and get me to dance with her.

This was one of the strangest nights of my life and it wasn’t even over yet.

I made her down most of the water and then she hauled me out to the dance floor again, throwing herself into the music and dancing her ass off. She couldn’t stop laughing and it was contagious. The people around her cheered for her and even though some of her moves were utterly ridiculous, she was giving it her all and that was something to admire. I sure did.

Delaney had tried to pull me in, but I wasn’t going to dance with her like I would have usually danced with a woman at Sapph. She was just a visitor tonight. Having a good time in a place where men weren’t centered. It was probably a heady feeling after being fucked over by Connor. How could he have had this incredible woman for four years and just…banged someone else? If I had Delaney in my bed, I’d never let her leave. I’d bring her all her meals and make sure she had everything she could possibly need. I would have pampered her every moment of every day. Because she deserved it.

It was beautiful to see that she hadn’t let the breakup get her down. She was here and she was smiling and dancing and having the time of her life. I was just lucky I got to witness it.

“This is fun,” she said through a happy sigh after she’d finished the water. We’d been standing together against the wall and watching the crowd for a little while. A few people had given Delaney a once-over, but I’d put my arm around her to ward anyone off. She hadn’t noticed yet. Those drinks had really hit her hard.

Delaney snuggled into me, letting out another sweet little sigh. Oh hell. She was leaning almost completely on me and I could smell her, and I’d had a few drinks myself and this was all happening too fast.

“Do, um, do you want…” I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

“I would take another drinky drink.” Damn, she was adorable. And she smelled incredible and I wanted to grab her chin and tilt her head up just enough to kiss her. But kissing her tonight was out of the question. If I kissed her (which would be never), I wanted her to remember it was me.

My head had started spinning the second I read “kiss a girl” on her list. She’d brushed it off as something “everyone did” and that it was a standard rite of passage, but was it? Sure, a kiss didn’t determine your sexuality, but what if?