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glanced at the other couples dancing rather than into her eyes. After a few moments, he looked back to find her gaze still locked on his face. She stared at him in silence, her eyes darting back and forth between his.
    Finally, quietly, she said, “You’re not so bad yourself, Mr. Donnelly.” The hand she had gripping his neck slowly slipped down, smoothing the length of his tie, her eyes dropping to follow the movement.
    His body reacted to her hand moving against it, his muscles contracting under her touch. He stared intently at her face, noticing her lips part briefly before she tucked the bottom one between her teeth. Pressing his hand against the small of her back, he pulled her even closer to him. She dragged her eyes away from her hand, her fingers pressing lightly against his abdomen, and brought them back to his face. With their eyes locked, suddenly the air between them grew thick. He wanted, needed , to kiss her. To pull her closer and feel her lips finally on his. His eyes dropped to stare at her parted mouth, and he slowly brought his head closer to hers.
    When their lips were a mere breath apart, he paused—something that he would later kick himself for. Because, in that pause, the song came to an end, the deejay’s voice ringing through the reception hall, and the spell between them snapped like a rubber band.
    She jerked her head to the side, looking around as if she’d forgotten where she was. He could understand that—the past few minutes had seemed like it was just the two of them.
    Olivia stepped back from his arms, a nervous chuckle coming from her. “I should...” She trailed off, gesturing vaguely behind her. Not finishing her sentence, she shook her head slightly and turned abruptly, walking away from him without another word.
    Great. One date into the nine he’d promised, and he’d already fucked it up.
    * * *
    Alone in the restroom, Olivia locked herself in a stall, glad for a moment of reprieve. The cool door she leaned against was a pleasant contrast to the flush she felt working its way through her body. Reaching up, she touched her fingertips to her heated cheeks. Her breathing was constricted, her entire body felt warm, and her pulse raced, as if she’d just run a marathon.
    If she didn’t know better, she’d say she was aroused.
    But she did know better, and knew that couldn’t possibly be the cause. Because that would mean Ian had aroused her. And, well, she just wasn’t quite ready to look into that possibility.
    She’d been so sure that her sudden attraction to him was circumstantial, fleeting at best. Yet here she was, hours after he’d shown up at her doorstep, trapped in the women’s restroom because she was too chicken-shit to face what she’d been feeling out on the dance floor with him. Thank God the deejay had interrupted the moment, because, unless she was mistaken, Ian had been about two-point-four seconds away from kissing her.
    And, God help her, but she’d wanted him to. More than she’d wanted her skinny vanilla latte that morning, she’d wanted to feel his lips on hers. She’d wondered if they were as soft as they looked. If he’d be as good of a kisser as he was a dancer. If he’d be slow and sweet, unassuming, or if he’d take what he wanted, fast and aggressive.
    Jesus, it was getting hot in here.
    She took a deep breath and moved out of the bathroom stall, then grabbed a couple of paper towels from the dispenser and soaked them under the cool water. After she wrung them out, she pressed them to her heated cheeks.
    She needed to get a grip. She didn’t want to— couldn’t —jeopardize two decades of friendship with Ian simply because it’d been too long since she’d had a real, live man fulfill her needs as opposed to the battery-operated friend she’d come to rely on. Ian meant far more to her than a quick roll in the hay, and she wasn’t going to cheapen what they had with a one-night stand. She wasn’t sure their friendship could survive