She polished off the Jell-O at the bottom of the cup. “Don’t care. Still gonna eat it.” She licked her spoon clean, and his eyes tracked every swipe of her tongue. He wasn’t even being subtle about it. Payback, motherfucker.

He abruptly got to his feet and stretched out his hand. “In keeping with our you-show-me-yours, I-show-you-mine theme, I sampled your thing; now, we test run mine.”

She frowned at his hand. “What does that mean?”

He bent over his laptop, played around with the mouse until “The Way You Look Tonight” was back on repeat, then motioned again for her to take his hand. “Only way to know if the song works is to test it.”

He was asking her to dance. Just like at Bootleggers, except this time, it was just them. She stared up at him as if he’d lost it. Their truce didn’t include dancing.

“I don’t think—”

“It’s just a dance,” he interrupted. “No big deal, right?”

Oh, this motherfucker. There he went again, pushing her buttons. She was onto him now. That widening grin said as much. If she protested too much, it would seem like dancing with him was a big deal when it wasn’t. It really wasn’t. She could do this, no problem.

She rose to her feet, placed her hand in his, and squeaked in surprise when he spun her right into his embrace. The closeness was shocking. She felt every bit of his hard body against her, the same body he’d bared to her hungry gaze in that fucking towel. Cherisse nearly tripped over her feet at that memory as they swayed around her living room. Dammit. Her heart was pounding so loudly, at least to her ears. She wondered if he could hear it. The pulse in her neck hammered away. Fuck, this was new. She didn’t like it one bit.

That why you’re clutching his arm like that?

Was she really? She relaxed her grip. He couldn’t know that this, their closeness, was affecting her in any way.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Fine. Great. Marvelous.” Pathetic. That’s what she was. Where was the cool-as-a-cucumber Sugar Queen who could give back anything Keiran could toss at her?

“Heart’s beating a bit fast there.”

“You can feel that?” she asked, absolutely mortified.

He laughed and spun her away, not missing a beat with the music. This time when their bodies met again, their faces were so close, she felt his breath on her cheek when he said, “I can feel everything.”

Just what the hell did he mean by that?

And his words made her all too aware of the lower half of his body. Those thighs clad in those cursed sweatpants.

As they swayed, it was getting harder to catch her breath. The song clearly worked. They should stop this. Keiran’s proximity was too much. If she said she was feeling uncomfortable now, he’d stop, except discomfort wasn’t her current emotion. Keiran’s gaze never left her face as they kept swaying. His touch at her waist felt like it would burn its way through her clothes to her skin beneath.