Coming Home(109)

“You’ll see in a second,” he said, walking the few steps over to her stereo and hitting the button to turn it on. Leah watched as he placed the CD into the machine, and then he skipped forward a few tracks before hitting play.

The opening chords to Ray LaMontagne’s “Hold You In My Arms” filled the room, and Leah immediately closed her eyes. When she opened them a few seconds later, he was leaned up against the wall, watching her.

“I love this song.”

“Me too,” he said, pushing off the wall as he walked toward her. “I guess your taste in music isn’t so shitty after all.”

She laughed lightly, looking up at him as he came to stand in front of her.

“Dance with me,” he said, extending his hand.

“Dance with you?”

He nodded. “It’s my birthday, so you really can’t say no.”

“Hey now. Your birthday’s over.”

Danny glanced down at his watch. “Not for another two hours.”

She laughed as she gave him her hand, and he pulled her up to face him. For a second they just stood there, looking at each other, and then their smiles slowly faded as the atmosphere shifted. Leah dropped her eyes, the sudden intensity of the moment catching her off guard.

Danny gently raised their joined hands, and her heart began thumping erratically as she felt his other arm snake around her waist, his open palm resting on her lower back.

She took a tentative step toward him, their bodies almost flush as she slid her left hand up his arm and over the top of his shoulder, coming to rest just below the nape of his neck.

He started to sway them ever so slightly, and Leah smiled at the absurdity and the charm of them dancing in the middle of her bedroom.

“You’re much better at this than I expected,” she said. “Dance Dance Revolution was not your friend tonight.”

“Oh, I threw that battle,” he said dismissively. “I didn’t want to deal with Jake and Tommy being totally emasculated by my performance. Plus, every woman in the place would have swarmed me after that, and it would have been really awkward for everyone.”

She pressed her lips together, but the smile broke through anyway, and he flashed his dimples before he turned them around and dipped her.

Leah dropped her head back and laughed, and Danny slowly pulled her back up, looking down at her as he used their joined hands to brush the hair away from her face.

And then he leaned in, his cheek brushing against hers as he sang the next words softly in her ear.

When you kissed my lips, with my mouth so full of questions,

It’s my worried mind that you quiet.

Place your hands on my face, close my eyes and say

That love is a poor man’s food. Don’t prophesize.

In those first few seconds, it felt like her heart had stopped, but by the time the verse ended, it was pounding so wildly she was sure he could feel it against his chest; Danny lifted his head and she pulled back, her lips slightly parted as she stared up at him.

The sexy, throaty timbre of his voice still resonated in the room; it poured through her body, warming her veins and making her feel heavy and sedated, like drinking wine in front of the fireplace while a snowstorm raged outside.

It was sex and salvation and desire and serenity, stirring something primal and innately feminine in her.

Leah’s breathing became shallow as she continued to stare up at him, and he kept his eyes on hers, still swaying them gently to the music. It felt like a current was running just below the surface of her skin, making her hypersensitive to everything around her: his hand on her back, the soft sound of his breathing, the scent of his skin.