Cheers ring out, glasses clink. Elliot bends to hug them both, and then returns to his seat beside me.

Beneath the table, he takes my hand. His is shaking.

“That was awesome,” I tell him.

He bends, smiling as he takes a bite of his salmon with his free hand. “Yeah?”

I lean over, press my lips to his cheek. His skin is warm and a little rough now, like the mildest sandpaper. It’s all I can do to not bare my teeth and bite him the tiniest bit. “Yeah.”

When my lips come away from him, they’ve left twin petals of lipstick. I reach up, reluctantly smearing it away with my thumb. I sort of liked it there. Elliot continues to eat, smiling at me as I fuss over him, and never in my entire life have I felt so blissfully like someone’s wife.

The feeling is bubbly, like being drunk from a shot—the way it warms the path from throat to stomach. But here, everything feels warm. I pull his hand in mine closer, onto my lap, high on my thigh. He pauses with his fork en route to his mouth, sending me a sly smile, but then takes the bite and chews, leaning to his left to listen when Andreas taps his shoulder.

The music begins for the first dance, and Andreas and Else stand, moving out into the center of the room, dancing solo for only a few bars before the DJ calls everyone out. And then Miss Dina and Mr. Nick are out there, and then Else’s parents, too. Elliot looks over at me, eyebrow raised in obvious question . . . and here we go.

He leads me to a spot near the center of the dance floor, pulling me with an arm around my waist until I’m right up against him: chest to chest, stomach to stomach, hips to hips.

We sway. We’re not even really dancing. But our proximity sets my body on fire, and I can feel what it does to him, too. Right up against me, he’s half-hard, his posture exposing the hunger he feels.

I want closer, too. With one hand clasped in his, the other on his shoulder slides around his neck, then—slowly—into his hair. Elliot tucks our joined hands against his chest and then bends, pressing his cheek to mine.

“I love you,” he says. “I’m sorry that I can’t help my body’s reaction to you.”

“It’s okay.” I count out fifteen heartbeats before I’m able to add, “I love you, too.”

He reacts to this with a tiny catch in his breath, a slight tremor in his shoulders—it’s the first time he’s ever heard me say it.

“You do?”

My cheek rubs along his when I nod. “I always have. You know that.”

His lips are close enough to my ear that they brush against the shell when he asks, “Then why did you leave me?”

“I was hurt,” I tell him. “And then I was broken.”