Page 93 of This Changes Everything

“Um, yeah. I did.” I laughed weakly.

“How the hell did you do that?” Maddy asked, baffled.

“Oh, I don’t know. I got pretty good at talking myself into and out of bizarre work situations. I’ve had worse,” I said, minimizing the story. “And my boss now isn’t like that. Ken’s great.”

“Yeah, but don’t you have to work with that Craig guy a lot?” Maddy kindly reminded me.

I gave her a poisonous glare. “Craig’s fine.” My voice was clipped. When I finally flipped my attention to Rory, I could see that his jaw was tense. He kept his dark eyes on me. “Alright, let’s be done with this. No one wants to talk about work. We’re in Vegas! Let’s dance!” I took Kara’s hand and led the ladies to the dance floor.

The dance floor was packed. People were pressed into each other. Drinks were sloshing about and making the hardwood floors ever stickier. All the girls were dancing together, and when Rory and Orson joined us, Rory spun me around, away from the girls and toward him.

“Hey,” he said. “Is everything okay at your work?”

“All good.” I shook my head and continued dancing.

“I don’t know if I believe you.” Rory lifted his hand to brush my hair away from my face.

“I’m okay. It’s in the past. It’s not that bad anymore.” I took his hand into both of mine and pulled it to my lips to kiss the inside of his palm. I held my lips on him and opened my eyes, looking directly into his. I could see that my kiss surprised him. I had done this with him before, at his dad’s funeral, and it surprised him then, too. My stomach collapsed, and I wondered if his had, too. “I promise you, I’m good. Now, for the love of God, Rory, dance with me.”

Rory and I danced all night. We may as well have been at the club by ourselves. I would usually have been concerned about how my friends felt about me abandoning them, but every time I looked over at any of my girls, they gave me an enthusiastic look. Kara even went so far as to give me a thumbs-up. Hannah looked nervous, but I could see the light in her eyes and knew she was excited, too.

We were sweaty, and our heartbeats pumped along with the music. Our foreheads collided, and we could feel our hot, alcohol-tinged breath on each other’s faces. Our hands tangled with each other as we swayed. Rory found my stomach and pushed my shirt aside in search of my bare skin. I draped my arms over his shoulders. His body pressed into mine, his chest, his hips. His hands roamed me openly and fearlessly. The music raged, and we felt every beat thrumming through us.

Rory tugged me all the way in to him and placed his forehead on my shoulder. Still bouncing to the music, I became a time traveler. I had felt him in this exact position so many times in the past. I could see us as teenagers on a couch, I could see us at prom, in his car, in New York, at his father’s funeral. Back in the club, I could feel him breathing on my bare shoulder. Then I could feel him pressing his lips into my shoulder. He gently lifted my arm as the music carried us away. He moved his mouth down my arm and kissed my bicep, the inner crook of my arm, down the soft inside of my forearm, my rose gold bracelet against my wrist, all the way to my palm, as I had done with him.

“Rory.” I was breathing heavily. He lifted his dark eyes to mine and bit the top of my thumb. “What are you doing?”

I might have said it out loud, but it also might have been in my head, because before I could think straight, or think at all, Rory brought his other hand to the back of my head and dug his fingers into my hair. His mouth landed on mine.

My heartbeat thumped against his chest, pounded in my neck, pumped through my lips. I pushed one of my hands through his curly hair and belted my other arm around his body until there was no space between us. It was exactly like how we were in the Jeep all those years ago. It was the same overwhelming, intense desire for each other. As we kissed, we clung to one another as if my arms were his and his arms were mine. Our hold wasn’t close enough; it wasn’t tight enough. We needed to breathe each other in more than we needed air.

His tongue plunged into my mouth, and we ruined each other once again, right there on the dance floor. I couldn’t hear our soft groans against the music, but I felt them against our sweaty skin.

We both stopped to take a breath and held each other’s hungry, desperate stare. Rory was a drug to me. I craved him. He was my center of gravity, and my life had been pulling toward him since before I even knew him. It was just like the first time I ever saw Rory Campbell. A steady knock had been rattling inside me, waiting for something to be let in, and when Rory and I finally connected, the quiet knocking stopped.

I brought our lips together again, and he pressed his hands into my ass, lifting me like he owned me, like I was his to grab, like I was his to take. My legs wrapped around him, binding to his waist. He spun me around, moving us away from the dance floor, until my back landed against a wall.

His hands dragged up my rib cage, pulling on my sticky skin, pushing up my shirt. My back pressed into the wall as his one arm moved around my waist. He held me tightly while his other hand slipped beneath my bra. Our kissing was feverish.

His thumb grazed over my nipple, and he squeezed, pulling out from me an unexpected moan that reverberated against his mouth. He groaned back, still squeezing my breast, and started sucking roughly on my neck.

“Wait, Rory.” My heartbeat was thumping louder than the music, throbbing against the top of my head.

He pulled back, immediately stopping. “What? What’s wrong?”

“People can see us.” I couldn’t control my shock as I sat perched on his hips.

“I don’t care. Ellie, I don’t fucking care.” He put his mouth back on me. His tongue pressed into my salty skin as he kissed me hard along the underside of my jaw. He bit into my neck, marking me up just as he had once before. His hand moved from my breast, down my side, and back to my ass, where he held me against the wall. He brought me down his body, then thrust against me, hitting me perfectly between my legs.

“Oh my god,” I gasped. Thank the good Lord I was wearing pants, because had I been wearing a skirt or a dress, things could have gotten out of control. Although let’s face it, they already had.

Rory kissed me again, holding my face with one hand, only this time I could feel him tear through my reality. My body started to contract. My skin buzzed and burned, and our electricity pulsed through me as he pushed himself hard against me once more.

“Holy shit . . .” I started shaking, feeling every sensation pull toward my center. “Wait, baby. Wait.” Rory stilled, and my heart jolted up into my throat. “I can’t—I can’t just come in the back of a club. I . . . I . . .” My mind was spinning. “We can’t do this here.”

I must have been having a stroke. I had never done anything like this in my life, and there was simply no other excuse for my delirium. Other than the fact that only Rory could eviscerate my self-control. Only Rory could unravel me. Only Rory could both bring me back to life and then dismantle it entirely.

Rory’s forehead fell to my shoulder again. His curls stuck to the side of my face. “Okay. Christ. Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry.” He was out of breath. “I need a minute.”