Page 26 of Pretend it’s Forever

Dorian grinned at me as he caught my eye and murmured something to the person he was talking with before he came over.

“You showed.”

“I said I would.”

I looked around at the dark walls and gleaming wood fixtures, and nodded. “Nice.”

“I was going for comfortable elegance.”

“At least there aren’t any sparkled, gilded cages around.”

“You just don’t like the name of the other place,” he teased his wife.

Harper looked up at me and smiled wide.

“It’s good to see you, Carson.”

“Lovely to see you, Harper.” I leaned forward, took her hand, brushing my lips against her knuckles.

She laughed as Dorian scowled.

“Seriously?”

“Flirting with my friends’ wives is safe. Because you know I won’t do anything, and I don’t need to promise anything.”

“The typical bachelor line. I like it,” Harper said with a laugh.

“I’ll show you what you like,” Dorian snarled, then he whispered something that must have been salacious as Harper’s eyes widened, her cheeks pinkening.

“Should I ask?”

“No. Go dance, find a woman. And not mine.”

“Whatever you say,” I said with a soft laugh, before I said my goodbyes, and nodded at a few other people that I knew.

I got my bourbon and stood in the corner, watching as people milled about the seating areas, and then turned towards the dance floor.

Even in an elegant place like this, Dorian would want dancing. That was just how the man was, and it worked here.

Countless bodies thrummed against one another, not as if at a rave, but gentler dancing that mostly came in pairs. I rolled my shoulders back and realized that it had been a little too long since I’d had a woman. If I was continually thinking about Sophia as I had been this past week, I needed to find someone. So I sipped my drink, then set it down, nodded at the wait staff nearby—they would make sure nothing happened to it—and headed out to the floor.

With one look, the woman next to me opened her arms, and I grinned.

“Hello there.”

“Hi, I’m Melissa.”

“Carson.”

Then I wrapped my arm around her waist, and we danced.

After Melissa there was Lacey, and then Dylan, and Megan. And then two more women whose names I couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter. I just needed a night that had nothing to do with her.

And as if I had dreamed her up, a familiar layered scent washed over me, and I turned to see Sophia dancing in the corner with Harper, her dark hair flowing down her back, and a small smile on her face. She had a slight limp as she moved to the side, and I knew she had to be tired. What had Dorian and the others said to pull her out of her house at night? Because I knew she never left. But the fact that she was even out, considering everything that had happened, I was so fucking proud of her.

As the song ended, I said my goodbye to the other woman, and knew it was time to go.

My cock was threatening to push against my zipper, and that meant I needed to leave.