Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(2)

I chased the fleeting thought that I’d follow her anywhere.

She pulled me to a stop and turned to face me, her smile smaller but undeniable, her arm out to the side, palm posed in wait for mine.

“All right, are you ready?” she asked.

I slipped my hand into hers despite that it was extended to the wrong side. Everything was backward. My hand that should have gone on her waist hesitated.

I frowned.

“Put it on my shoulder,” she offered helpfully.

I did as I’d been told. My hand swallowed the curve.

My frown deepened.

“Okay,” she said with authority, “let me show you how to triple-step.”

I kept my smile put away. Just after my mom had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Tommy and I had taken classes with her to cross it off her bucket list before she lost mobility. But I held my tongue and did as Katherine guided, appreciating the feel of her hand on my waist and the sound of her voice as she taught me something I already knew.

The backward stance was difficult enough, but when she tried to put me in a sweetheart hold—my back to her front, her arms around my waist—she couldn’t get her arms over my head, which was over a foot above hers.

She let me go with her face pinched in frustration and a sigh on her pretty lips. “Well, that does it. You’re going to have to lead.”

“Oh, thank God,” I said with a sigh and a smirk, reversing our hands.

I took off, spinning her out and bouncing her around to the bopping beat of the music. Her face shot open like a starting gate, her black lashes shuttering as she blinked her shock away.

And then she laughed.

The sound was open, lilting and musical, a complete juxtaposition to everything about her. It was free, untethered, floating around us to twist together with the jazz music like its own song.

I should have realized right then that I was doomed, damned. But the novelty of her, the unexpected intrigue, the sheer sight and smell of her were too alluring to resist. I couldn’t tell you exactly why. Only that something in her and something in me sparked like a knife against flint.

I wondered briefly which was whom, deciding I was the flint.

Struck.

As I zipped her around the dance floor, she shifted, softened. Changed. I didn’t let up, too surprised by whatever was happening between us to willingly speak.

You see, I didn’t date—not in the relationship way at least. There were girls, plenty of girls—perks of my brother’s firm spot in the public eye—but I hadn’t dated in years. I was too busy keeping my brother out of trouble and taking care of my mom to have time or energy left over for a girlfriend.

I was too busy to be lonely. And that companionship hadn’t ever been missed. Not until that moment on the dance floor.

The music slowed, and her body pressed against mine. She fit into my arms with a click that I felt somewhere in the vicinity of my ribs.

I didn’t know what it was. All I knew was that I had no intention of ignoring it.

Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright and sharp. She was breathless, and the look in her eyes left me feeling it was only in part from the dancing.

“Why didn’t you tell me you danced?” she asked in all seriousness.

I shrugged one shoulder. “You didn’t ask.”

An upward curl of her lips. “How presumptuous of me.”

“Can’t say I blame you, Kate.”

The curl reversed into a frown. “My name is Katherine, with a K. Not Kate. Not Katie or Kat. Katherine.”

“With a K,” I echoed.

“Yes. I dislike nicknames.”

“Your friends have nicknames.”

Her brows flicked together. “Those are their names—Rin and Val. It’s how they were introduced to me.”

“By that rule, you should call me Theo.”

“I dislike nicknames,” she said again, her voice a notch lower and her brows a millimeter closer.

I chuckled. “I won’t make you defend your code, Katherine. I only wondered. What is it you do?”

“I’m a librarian at the New York Public Library.”

“A librarian,” I said, enlightened as a couple of Katherine-shaped puzzle pieces snapped together.

Her eyes narrowed. “Please, don’t make any pornographic librarian jokes. I don’t find them amusing.”

This time when I laughed, it was a full, deep rumble. “Anything you want, Kate.”

“Katherine,” she corrected. “You’re a wonderful dancer. Much better than me, and I’ve been coming here for months.”

“I’ve got something to confess,” I said, lowering my lips to angle for her ear. “Tommy and I had lessons.”

“Oh.” The word was full of air and breath as equally as it was contained.

When I straightened up and looked down into her face, her brow quirked like she was puzzling me out. Difference was, I knew how to school my face. When struck with the unexpected, it seemed that Katherine did not.

“Why do you smell so good?” she asked. “Is it your cologne?”

I considered for a split second what she could possibly be smelling. “I don’t wear cologne.”

She leaned in, tilting her chin higher so she could get her nose as close to my neck as possible. Her hand slipped into my lapel and fisted as she took a deep inhale. A little hum followed that sent a hot pulse through me.