Chapter Thirty-Four: Too Good

She had him.

Or she would have, had the woman they met earlier not mentioned her mother.

"Little to lose...?"

He repeated, again fumbling his steps in the dance number that...perhaps five days were not enough to master.

"I could tell your mother."

A part of him readied himself for her reaction; he would hold her in place in case she tried to leave him dancing alone.

There were a few times when she reacted strongly, and from what he noticed, most of those times had to do with the mention of her mother or parental responsibility. The first was when Elle’s caregiver hurled insults at the child. She froze, and after a while, her expression turned panicky. The second time was a few minutes ago when she interrupted the woman she introduced as her friend. He typically would have forgotten that, but...he wanted to know more about her.

She robbed him of that.

He spun her, and the softness of her hair brushed his cheek, leaving a trace of her scent on his skin; he almost shut his eyes to experi