Page 39

MARA

D inner was delicious. A luscious tomato bisque with a hint of sweet that would have had me moaning if my mind wasn’t preoccupied. I looked over my shoulder again, checking the doors to the ballroom. I sighed heavily.

“He’s gotta work, girl,” Edith whispered in my ear. “As it is, he spends way more time with us being a soldier than he does being a president.”

“I know,” I muttered. “But he said he’d be here for dinner.”

“Clearly, he’s having dinner in the Situation Room.” Edith wrapped her arm over my shoulder, pulling me in. “Don’t worry, girly. You’ll see him soon,” she said, baby talking to me.

I shrugged her off, causing her to snicker, and then leaned over my bowl to take another sip of soup.

We were in the ballroom with first and second shift, and everybody seemed to be getting along.

After almost ten hours of hanging out all day, people were forming bonds and getting to know one another.

In the back right corner by the windows, there was a massive game of Stallion happening—Rin’s idea, of course.

Currently, only the sergeants were playing.

For bragging rights, they claimed, but I had a sneaky suspicion money was involved.

The game looked way too intense for bragging rights alone.

Quills, Dails, Jay, Rincon, and Edith’s sister were throwing down, and several of their team members were hovering around them, watching with hoots and hollers.

In the other corner, someone had pulled a table over, and there was definitely arm wrestling happening. Money may or may not have been involved there too. A few of us still sat at the now mostly empty tables. But Edith and I were alone.

“So, Liddy said you finally talked to your cousin. How did that go?” she asked, shoveling soup into her mouth.

“Good, actually. It was nice reconnecting with him after all this time. How about you and your sister?”

“ Awesome ,” she drawled. “It was like old times, for sure. Oh! And I found out she got tatted up too.”

I smiled. “Really? Where?”

Edith gave a quick look around before pointing down south.

“What? No …” I winced. “That had to hurt.”

Edith’s devilish smirk played on her mouth as her eyes gleamed. “Like a bitch, she said. She’s got that flower thing.” She pointed her spoon around the room. “They all have one. It’s like a rite of passage or something.”

“Huh, interesting,” I commented, recalling my conversation with Javi and what the lotus meant to him.

I never thought about piercings or body art before.

It wasn’t super popular in Telvia. I was shocked when Javier got the one on his wrist. Raúl was not happy about it.

So when he got the second one across his chest a year later, he hid it from them.

I’d never even seen it, but I knew it existed since Jacob leaked the secret to me by accident one night.

Edith licked her spoon and then pressed it to her cheek as her eyes glazed over. “I think I’m going to get one…”

My eyes widened. “Really? Why?”

She shrugged. “I dunno…all the cool kids have one, so I kinda want on e.”

I laughed. “Are you serious? Where would you even get one? You practically live here now.”

“Yes, I’m serious. I think it would add a layer of sexy to me, dontcha think?” She batted her lashes at me. I just laughed. “Maybe a snake that winds up my thigh with a slithering tongue that points Jay in the right direction—”

“Oh god,” I grumbled, burying my face in my hands.

“Pen’s the artist. I bet if I ask her, she’d do it.”

I looked up. “Who’s Pen?”

Edith rolled her eyes. “Come on, newbie, get with the program. Sergeant Quills? The one with the blue hair? She goes by Pen.”

“Oh… She does tattoos?”

“Yup! She tatted ‘em all up. She even did the one on her neck herself . Isn’t that freaking cool?” She slouched. “When I grow up, I wanna be like Pen.”

I coughed, bringing my fist up to my mouth as I tried to suppress a laugh.

She twisted in her seat to face me. “So, how are you managing everything? It’s a lot of crap coming down on you. You’ve got to be overwhelmed.”

Overwhelmed? That was a hell yes , and the conversation with Javi had me thinking a lot about what I was doing.

I didn’t take his hand. I wasn’t ready. But something inside me was shifting.

I could feel it. I just wasn’t sure what it was or what it meant.

So I just shoved it all down into my Not Right Now Shitshow box and was wearing denial like a party hat.

“Ladies, step aside,” Jay called.

“What the—” I muttered as the table started to move. “My soup,” I complained as Edith stood and tugged my arm to have me follow. We backed away from the table.

Jay, along with a few others, moved it to the side of the room, clearing the middle just as the lights dimmed .

“Hey!” someone groused.

“They’ve got the best freaking sound system—” somebody else called from the left.

“What’s going on?” Rin stood up from his game, throwing his cards on the table. From one heartbeat to the next, the sound of drums and a guitar exploded in the room.

“ Aww yeah !” someone cried out, grabbing a Libertarian girl by the hand and dragging her out to the middle of the floor. Music thundered in the ballroom, and suddenly, everybody was rushing to the center of the room.

“You guys,” Rincon chided.

“Come on, Rin,” Liddy said with a smile as she grabbed his hands.

Apparently, they knew each other from years prior.

“We’re on break.” She pulled him to the middle and started swaying her hips.

He stood stiff while she bumped her hips against his a few times, and finally, he caved and started dancing with her.

Edith’s eyes glittered with glee. “Oh my god! A dance party! I love dance parties!”

“Well then you should join me,” Jay said.

“Ugh,” she put her hand in his face. “Don’t start with me, Jeremiah.”

He nuzzled his nose in her ear. “How can I start something when I’m determined to never finish?” It was so not a serious question.

Edith narrowed her gaze as a devious grin curled the corner of her mouth. “I’m still mad at you. You know that, right?”

He nuzzled her again, making her giggle. “Come on, baby. A guy falls asleep one time—”

“That was the second time!” she snapped back at him.

“Uh oh,” I teased. “Trouble in paradise?”

Edith glared at me, totally at odds with the deviant smile on her face, as a Libertarian guy walked up to me.

“How about you? Care to dance?” he asked, giving me a cute smile.

I waved my hand. “Thanks, but I’m— ”

“Taken.”

I just about jumped out of my sweater and jeans as I spun around.

And, oh my god, when my eyes landed on Wes, I would have jumped out of my underwear too if it weren’t for all the people.

He must have gone up to his room to change because gone was his military uniform and instead he was wearing a black t-shirt and dark blue jeans, making him look dangerous and oh so hot.

Coupled with his hair tied back with just a wisp of it falling forward, framing his eye…

he could have asked anything from me in that moment and I would have gladly given it to him.

“Wes.” I was hardly aware of the boy as he walked off.

“I can’t leave you alone anywhere, can I?” he said with a playful smile, taking my hand.

I tipped my head to the side. “I was a good girl. I stayed inside like you asked.”

“And yet you still managed to find trouble,” he teased, pulling me into him as his other hand wrapped around my waist. There was humor in his voice, but did I detect a hint of jealousy?

I rose up on my toes and brushed my lips against his ear. “Mr. President, I didn’t take you to be the jealous type,” I whispered.

“Then you were greatly mistaken,” he mused.

I smiled, placing my hand over his heart. “You don’t have to worry, Wes. I’m only yours.”

His heart quickened under my palm as he drew me closer to him, and then skimmed his nose against mine. “It’s not fair…”

“What’s not?”

His nose brushed a trail across my cheek until he kissed the ticklish spot under my ear. A wave of gooseflesh raked across my skin. “What you do to me...”

I turned my face into him, trying to catch his meaning. “And what’s that? I haven’t done anything. ”

He laughed, deep and throaty. “I think that’s the part that scares me the most.” He pulled back just enough to look into my eyes. “The fact that you’re not even trying and I’m already coming undone.”

I was gone. The look of animalistic hunger and absolute sacrificial need had my heart about ready to explode.

And when the music changed, the tempo picking up, we were on the dance floor.

He wrapped his arms around me, his cheek resting against mine as my back molded into the curves of his chest and hips.

We danced.

We danced until dancing slipped into something more than just a dance.

Dancing became sensuous movements that provoked and teased.

Dancing became hands that gripped, and grabbed, and dug.

Dancing became quickened breaths, and fluttering hearts, and a pulse that rocketed to the moon.

Dancing became so much more than just a dance.

And I realized I wanted more than dancing.

I wanted Wes.