hat resembled peace. Not when Aaron was so … big and hard and warm against me.
That was probably why I tripped. Before I knew what was happening, my feet had messed up the beat and tangled together, and they would have probably sent me straight to the floor if not for the man—the pair of strong arms wrapped solidly around me—who held me in place.
“Thank you,” I muttered, feeling my face heat up and my body tense up further. “And sorry.”
God. I had never blushed so much in one single night. I didn’t recognize myself.
Aaron’s arms tightened around me. “Just for precaution,” he said, bringing me even closer.
Each and every nerve ending in my body turned into the end of a live wire. My skin tingled, my heart raced, and my mind whirled.
“Oh. Okay.” The words reached my ears, strangled, as if it had come out of me in a gurgle. “Thanks.”
The skin on my face heated up further.
Aaron hummed, just as his thumb brushed my back very lightly, drawing one single circle that left a tiny trail of goose bumps behind. Goose bumps that traveled to all corners and nooks of my body.
As much as I told myself that this was a simple physical reaction to being held against a male body, being held by a man’s arms, it was Aaron’s male body and Aaron’s arms after all. So, either I had been alone for too long or I was losing my mind. Because this felt … good. Really good.
Too damn much.
Those ocean-blue eyes shifted to my lips briefly. So quickly that I was convinced I had imagined it. It didn’t matter though because then his face dipped, getting as close as it had ever been and making me forget all about that. Making me notice instead details that I had never paid attention to before. Like how full those lips were, which I saw pressed in a line so often. Or how his eyelashes were long and dark and framed the blue in his eyes so perfectly. Or how I could see the lines of the soft creases adorning his forehead, right above the spot where that frown that was almost a fixed feature rested.
I was so lost in all that that one of my feet tripped again, but Aaron’s arms tightened their grip around my waist as he shifted his head to one of my sides.
“Aren’t you supposed to be good at this, Catalina?” he asked a few inches from my ear. I felt the air leaving his mouth on my temple.
Trying not to pay any extra attention to how close his mouth was from my face, I focused on my feet and answered almost absently, “What do you mean?”
Aaron’s diligent and smooth motions spun us one more time to the soft tune.
“I thought you were supposed to carry the beat in your blood,” he explained in a low voice, his head not giving up an inch of space. “Or was it the music in your veins?”
I hoped my ears were not red with embarrassment. “This is not my style,” I lied. I’d never done a worse job at dancing, and it had nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the man I was currently flush against. “Or maybe it’s my partner that’s not the best fit.”
Aaron chuckled. It was low and short-lived, but it reminded me of the way he had laughed earlier, leaving me a little out of breath.
And so, I inhaled through my nose, trying to restore my breathing and immediately regretting it. Because what an awful idea that had been. The worst idea. All I had accomplished was filling my lungs with Aaron’s scent.
Aaron’s very nice and very heady and very, very masculine scent.
Could I unsmell it, please, universe? Please.
“Was that you admitting something you are not good at?” Aaron asked, pulling me out of my head. “To me?”
“I never claimed to be a spectacular dancer.” Not when my partner was someone who certainly succeeded in distracting me so damn much. “Plus, all that rhythm in your blood stuff is nothing more than a stereotype. There are more than a few hundred Spaniards who can’t follow a beat to save their lives.”
“I bet there are. I’ll keep leading then.” His voice was low, a little closer to my ear than before. “But just in case you belong to those few hundreds.”
“If you must,” I muttered because what was the point of denying something that was so obvious? I was doing a poor job at it. “I didn’t know you danced.”
Just when I thought it was physically impossible for Aaron’s body to fold around mine any more, for our bodies to come any closer, he dipped his head further. Impossibly low. His lips hovered directly above the shell of my ear. “There are a few things you don’t know about me, Catalina.”
My body went even more rigid in response. A flutter taking flight in my stomach.
I forced myself to remember that I was here to pretend I was his date—of sorts. That I had put on a little show at fighting that woman over him at the auction. So, fake or not, to everybody else, I was supposed to be someone who would welcome this kind of closeness and not someone who would jump back, startled.
So, I settled my hands on his hard chest with a little more decision. Unfortunately, the gesture only managed to turn that flutter in my stomach to a full-on flapping and waving and whirling riot.