The music had heavy bass and a bump-and-grind rhythm.
“I don’t dance,” he’d managed to protest once they were in the middle of the floor.
She gave him a pout and the wicked glint in her eyes had made his pants tighten. “Don’t worry. I’ll show you what to do.”
A touch on his shoulder brought him back to the present. Penny stood there with a smile on her lips. Her makeup was softer now, but she was just as beautiful. The slow song was about halfway through.
“Would the rest of the wedding party join in?” the DJ said over the speaker.
Luke shook off the past and held out his hand to Penny. She slipped her hand in his and followed his lead out to the dance floor. She moved into his arms like a missing puzzle piece.
Sam and Amber followed them onto the dance floor, drawing everyone’s attention. Amber put her feet on top of Sam’s and he held her hands. It was strange watching Sam with a child. As Luke’s pseudo-parent, Sam had been distant but controlling. Now he seemed perfectly at ease talking with his niece, even if he didn’t smile.
Luke’s attention returned to the woman he held in his arms for the first time in almost a decade.
“Looks like someone’s been practicing,” she said. That flirtatious tilt was back in Penny’s smile.
“I try to maintain appearances.”
“I’m sure you have your admirers.” A teasing glint in her eyes and a soft smile on her lips betrayed nothing of what she really felt, but that was Penny.
“I do love compliments.” He led them toward a darker area of the dance floor as other couples joined in.
“I bet you do.”
Years ago, that first night, when the music had slowed down she’d moved into his arms and her breasts had pressed against his chest, her body close to his. Hormones had flooded him, making it hard to think... Why was he getting wrapped up in the past?
His fingers tightened into the softness of Penny’s waist.
She closed the slight gap between them and whispered, “Stop thinking, Luke.”
“Why aren’t you with someone, Penny?”
“I’m with you right now.” Her eyes may never reveal her inner thoughts, but he noticed a slight hesitance in her words. Her body pressed slightly closer until there was no more than a whisper between them.
“You know what I mean.” Luke tried to hold on to the thoughts in his head as his body tried to make them all vanish. Her light perfume smelled like spring flowers, the scent’s innocence at odds with the seductive woman. It surrounded him, begging him to bend down and breathe in. To touch the warmth of her neck with his lips.
“Who should I be with? The town drunk, the divorcé with the ex from hell—”
“Sam.”
She stopped dancing and her lips drew tight. “Sam?”
Penny was in his arms and he wasn’t about to back off. Not when her soft curves filled in his rough patches. This was important. He didn’t want to step in between his brother and anyone, even if that anyone had been the only girl Luke had ever given his heart to.
“You two were pretty tight last time I saw you.” The last time he’d seen Penny, at his graduation party, she’d been kissing Sam.
She pushed against his chest, but he didn’t budge. Her eyes flashed up at him. Was that hurt? It had been there for a moment, but it was gone so fast he must have imagined it. It felt as if she was going to push again, but instead she softened. The walls closed in her eyes.
“Sam never meant anything to me.” She placed her hands back on his shoulders. “We never had more than a kiss. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you.”
“Why would he?” Some of the tension released from his grip. Luke’s brain was quickly losing the battle with his body’s needs. It shouldn’t matter why she kissed Sam or even that she did. It had been years ago. It had stopped him from making a major mistake.
Sure it had hurt then, but he’d brought it up now to draw out the woman he’d known from this seductress before him.
She shrugged. “You don’t really want to talk about Sam, do you, Luke?”
He didn’t know what he was trying to prove. He looked around the dance floor. Now wasn’t the time to rehash the past. No time would be the right time. “No.”
“How about a drink?” she said. Her gaze flicked over his face.
“A couple of glasses of wine between old friends? Why not. Wait here.”
* * *
Penny’s heart pounded as she sank into a chair and watched Luke walk away. Her knees had barely held her up. Without Luke’s arms around her, she would have been down on the ground. She watched him move through the crowd.
Sam had been a means to an end. She’d hated herself for using him, but it had done exactly what she needed it to. Luke had to leave for college without her.
As the DJ cued up some fast dance music, Penny took a deep breath. Tonight had turned out perfectly for Brady and Maggie. They were dancing with Amber in the circle of people on the dance floor.
If her knees recovered, she might go join them. A glass of wine appeared over her shoulder and Luke’s breath teased the hairs on the back of her neck. “I had to turn down a lot of eligible ladies to get back here.”
Glancing over at the bar, she took the wineglass and felt him sit in the chair behind hers. All of her cells were attuned to whatever frequency Luke gave off. At the bar stood a gathering of white-haired women all giving Luke come-hither looks and finger waves.
Penny choked back a laugh. She tried her hardest to look serious when she turned to Luke. “I hope you let them down easy. It’s just as hard to find a man at their age as mine.”
Leaning in so he could speak in her ear and be heard over the music, Luke’s cheek rubbed against hers, sending a wave of heat through her. “I always try to be gentle.”
“I’m sure you do.” She could feel his cheek lift in a grin. A shiver rippled down her back.
He moved back until they were eye to eye. “They were actually encouraging me to hit on the wedding coordinator.”
Penny glanced over at Rebecca in her peach suit. She was a few years younger than Penny and looked as if the pressure of this wedding was about to make her explode.
“I suppose you could go for Rebecca....” Penny put on a pretend thoughtful look.
The music changed to a slow song again. “Come on. You can tell me all about what that look means on the dance floor.”
Luke pulled her out of the chair and guided her into his arms. She’d given up on love songs when Luke left, preferring the rawness of modern rock. Slow songs messed with her brain and made her think about things she couldn’t
