We burrowed our way to the center of the dance floor. The music was so loud—we were two meters, maybe less, from the DJ booth—the floor vibrated in time to the thumping beat.

I was careful to keep Emily close. She threw her hands in the air and swayed her hips. When she turned around to face me, she was wearing the biggest smile I’d ever seen on her. It was so big and so infectious it had to be genuine. This girl clearly loved to dance. I found myself smiling back, despite feeling awkward as hell.

It didn’t help that people were staring. A couple close by were whispering to each other and pointing at us.

I tugged a hand through my hair, realizing a second too late I was probably looking electrocuted again. Everyone around me was moving to the beat. My legs felt like lead weights. The song kept going on and on—bloody hell, was this a remix?—and I prayed for it to end. Dancing with Emily for longer than I had to was a bad idea. Especially when she smiled like that.

“Come on!” Emily shimmied her shoulders. She was completely unselfconscious. Easy enough for her. She was a good dancer. A really good dancer.

I glanced around to see who was watching. Everyone.

Brilliant.

I sort of swayed from one foot to the other. I hated every minute of it.

Emily leaned in. Do not look down her shirt. Do not—

Too late. My eyes flicked to her chest. The front of her tank top hung down. I caught a glimpse of pink. Her bra.

“Hey.” She tapped my chin. “Up here, highness.”

I had no excuse. I didn’t offer one.

“Sorry.”

She waved a finger in my face. “Get your mind out of the gutter and just move. You’re doing great.”

She rolled her hips to the throbbing chorus. How the fuck did she move like that?

I kept swaying like a wanker. Emily kept rolling her hips. I was so aware of everyone’s eyes on us I felt like I was burning up. I did not get flustered like this. The attention was nothing new, but being center stage on a dance floor with Emily was.

The crowd was pressing Emily and I closer. A bead of sweat rolled down my back.

My shoulders slumped in relief when the song finally ended. But just as I was about to turn and head back to the safety of our table, the DJ came over the speakers.

“Seems like we’ve got a few special Bieber fans in the house! Here’s another Bieber banger, just for you.”

I stared at the DJ over Emily’s head, daggers in my eyes. No, I silently pleaded. I will pay you one hundred million pounds not to play this song.

Emily, however, leapt three feet in the air when the song came on.

“I love this one even more!” She turned her smile on me.

For a minute I struggled to breathe. That smile.

I had to look away. The night wasn’t supposed to go like this. Control was slipping through my grasp. I had to—

Emily leaned in again our faces inches apart.

I had to what?

“You look like you’re having your fingernails pulled out,” she said.

I wasn’t even attempting to sway anymore. “Yes, I imagine this is what it feels like.”

She grinned. “Here, let me help you.” She raised her arms and looped them around my neck, pulling me close. A wave of her perfume hit me.

I felt a sharp jab in my chest. What the hell? Emily had nearly choked when I touched her hand. But now she was fine with some total body touching on the dance floor?

None of it made sense. I couldn’t—this could not happen. But I also couldn’t pull away from her without drawing attention.

I ducked my head to murmur in her ear. “What are you doing?”

“Getting you to dance,” she said matter-of-factly.

I pulled back and met her eyes. They were sparking with confidence, daring me to pull away.

Daring me to do it.

“I’m hopeless,” I said.

She shook her head. “You’re just not letting loose. So what if you look like an idiot? Everyone else does.”

To demonstrate her point, she nodded at a guy doing a terrible version of the worm. He looked like he was having an epileptic seizure on the floor. He still smiled. Still kept on worming.

“Here. Let’s start with the shopping cart,” she said. “Follow me—just keep putting stuff in your cart.”

Leave it to Emily to make the shopping cart look cool. She was smiling again, laughing at herself as she plucked invisible items from an invisible shelf and dropped them in her invisible cart, all while moving in time to the beat.

“Come on, Kit,” she said.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and looked at her. Sickeningly cute. We were supposed to be sickeningly cute together.

I had to admit the shopping cart was cute. It’d make a great headline.

Fuck me for life.

With a sigh, I pulled my hands out of my pockets and made a shameful first attempt at filling my cart. Emily’s face lit up.

“That’s it. Okay, now let’s toss some dice.”

Emily curled her hand into a fist, giving it a shake before she released the pretend dice with a swipe of her arm. “Toss it. Toss that dice, Kit, I know you can.”

I gave it a go, and despite myself, I started laughing. This was so bloody ridiculous.

Ridiculous. And sort of fun.

“You’re getting there. Okay, let’s try the sprinkler. Go!”

Emily went all in on that one. She leaned back as she waved her arm in the air, pressing her hips into my groin.

Oh, it was on.

I sprinkler-ed right back. I didn’t realize I was moving my hips, too, until they ran into hers again. She bit her lip.

“Lawnmower,” she said, her ass swerving in time to the beat as she pushed that lawnmower. Pushed it.

She’d finally managed to look as stupid as I felt. And she knew it. Her smile was bigger than ever and she was singing at the top of her lungs, like she didn’t give a damn about anything except enjoying the moment.

Like she hadn’t a care in the world.

But she did. Clearly. We were here for a reason. We had a job to do. She was as tired and worried and stressed as I was.

But she wasn’t letting that stop her. She lost herself in the throb of the music and the apparent magic of Justin Bieber.

Jealousy ripped through me. How did she manage it? How did she wear her worries so lightly? I felt so fucking weighed down by mine all the time. Suffocated, even.

But somehow Emily managed to dance with hers.

It made me want to dance with mine.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I looped my arms around Emily’s waist and pulled her close. She laughed, letting me know it was okay. We began to move again, slower this time. I was actually sort of decent at this now. I was careful not to press her against me. But my body was very much aware of hers. Its heat. Shape. Movements. I knew this body.

I’d known it ten years ago. And I knew it now.

She slipped her hands around my neck again. Her breasts brushed against my chest. She was all softness. All girl.

For half a heartbeat, the entire world contracted to the space between my body and hers. There was no crowd, no terrible remixes, no fake engagements. It was just the two of us in our own private universe. And weirdly enough, I felt like I belonged there. Belonged with her.

I blinked, trying to get a grip on my thumping heartbeat. But that was hard to do when Emily was moving against me like this, when she was laughing like this, when her smile touched her pretty green eyes like this.

The energy in the room had changed. This wasn’t stupid dancing; this was real dancing.

I was really dancing with Emily. And I liked it.

“Your hips okay?” I murmured in her ear.

Her eyes flashed when they met mine. “Totally.”

I was more confused than ever about why she’d let me touch her hips but not her hand. I wasn’t about to ruin the moment, though, by asking. So I slid my hands down to her hips. She rolled them slowly—provocatively—against me, teasing.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek.

She was singing along again, looking down at her feet as she pulled me closer. Her fingers slipped into the hair at the nape of my neck. My body leapt, and for half a second I froze.

This felt…good. Too good and too real.

I liked this sense of freedom too much. I imagined dancing with Emily like this all night, only leaving when they turned on the lights and kicked us out. We’d flirt in the cab home. I’d take her up to my room. I’d fuck her slow and lazy and deep, like we had all the time in the world. Like I could just be a man for an hour. A man who was honest about what he wanted.

My heart strained against my breastbone. I wanted that so bad.

Emily’s nose brushed against my chin. I waited for her to freeze, to pull away. Instead, she looked up, keeping her face close to mine. Our eyes met. My stomach dipped. She was looking at me like…like she was interested. Genuinely interested. The air between our bodies crackled. Her eyes flicked to my lips; her body was moving slower now, closer. For half a crazed heartbeat, I thought she was going to kiss me.

And in that moment, I wanted her to. I wanted her to kiss me. Because bloody hell, I wanted to kiss her, too.

Which was a big fucking problem.