The muscle of his stomach flattened against my own, and he whirled us suddenly sideways. We broke into the circle of couples, me laughing in shock, and the music, the cacophony, came swarming back in. I hardly knew the steps to the dances, and it didn’t seem to matter. Patrick was, by contrast, proficient in all. He smiled wickedly, laughed as he caught and released me, spun me back into his arms, linked my elbow with his. His neck was hot where my hand touched it. When I mock curtsied at the end of a particularly quick song, his eyes sparked and he ran a hand over his face, as though it
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