Book 4 - Page 70 (1/2)

Upstairs, a balcony lined the sides and back of the room, looking down on the action, and had begun to fill with a few people holding c.o.c.ktails. Already the floor had started to fill, and the humid air created by over a hundred bodies tripped my claustrophobic wire. As if sensing my impending panic, Ruby tugged my sleeve, pulling me to the bar.

“Two gin gimlets, tons of limes!” she yelled to the bartender. With a nod, he grabbed two gla.s.ses, filling them with ice. “I mean a lot of limes,” she added with a charming smile.

The oily hipster bartender smiled back at her, eyes stalling at her mouth before glancing at her chest and lingering.

Without thinking, I reached an arm around her shoulders, jerking her back against my front. The move surprised her. I could tell in the way she caught herself by wrapping both hands around my forearm, by the way she broke into a delighted laugh. Arching into me, Ruby slipped her hands behind her and around my lower back to hold me closer.

She turned her head, leaning against my chest and I bent so that her mouth was closer to my ear. “I’ve been crazy for you for months,” she reminded me with a small bite to my jaw. “Seeing you jealous like that just completely made my life.”

“I don’t share,” I warned her quietly.

“I don’t either.”

“And I don’t flirt.”

She paused, as she seemed to understand the depth of my reaction. I wasn’t even sure I understood the depth of my reaction. I’d never been jealous with Portia; even when she tried, by dancing at parties or getting drunk and flirtatious with friends. But with Ruby . . . there was an instinctive pull, some desire to claim her that made me at once uneasy and thrilled.

“I know I’m flirty,” she admitted, her eyes searching my face, “but I’d never betray anyone like that.”

And somehow, I knew that. In the dim light of the bar and in the midst of such a bustling crowd, our conversation felt even more intimate.

“I’m having more fun with you than I can remember having,” I told her. “I trust you, even though sometimes it feels like I know so much about you, and other times I remember that we’re barely acquainted.”