The Wedding Fling by Meg Maguire Page A

stranger who’d managed to invite herself along on his evening. He was also a master of playing the free spirit himself, and if Leigh’s front was anything like his, he wondered what burdens it was designed to hide.
    He grabbed a fresh beer, dodged gyrating couples to make his way to Leigh and her dance partner. They were getting quite cozy, though surely not as cozy as Rex would prefer.
    “Mind if I cut in?”
    Rex departed with a shameless show of bowing and hand-kissing. Laughing, Leigh turned to Will. “You better deliver, Captain. He was good.”
    Will obeyed, moving in time with the music in his lazy fashion. “You might want to grab yourself some food before it’s all gone.”
    She glanced at the grill. “I’m not hungry just yet. All I want is this.” She stepped closer, and Will got distracted by the movement of her hips, the sheen of sweat along her throat in the firelight.
    “You afraid of me?” she teased, noting his scrutiny.
    “Only thing I’m afraid of is bats. I’m just trying to be professional, Miss Bailey.”
    She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Oh, right. My chaperone. Very professional when you wheedled that bribe out of me.”
    “I returned it, didn’t I?”
    “You did. And you can earn it back if you’ll dance with me properly.”
    “What they call ‘proper’ dancing around this place will get you pregnant.”
    Leigh laughed again, a pure and thrilling sound. “Maybe not properly proper, then.”
    Will switched his bottle to his left hand and put his free palm to Leigh’s waist, stepping closer, close enough for their knees and thighs to brush. From this near, she made him feel big in a primal, aggressive way he hadn’t experienced in a long time.
    She had that dancer build, a slender neck and long torso, proportions that seemed slightly improbable. Proportions women craved for themselves—the kind they respected, free of the more obvious curves that men’s magazines sold like prime rib. Leigh moved as Will hadn’t known American women could, as though no one was looking. As though she danced for the sheer physical pleasure the movement gave her. A supremely unprofessional thought had Will imagining what else her body might demand of his.
    They edged ever closer. The drumbeat seemed to slow to the precise rhythm of sex itself. Will’s thigh crept between hers, their hips separated by the barest of spaces. Her smooth hand settled on his ribs beneath his open shirt, her attention on his body as tangible as her touch.
    He opened and closed his mouth, his fuzzy brain unable to supply one of the taunts that had so quickly come to characterize their rapport. Blood redistributed to dangerous places, and he strained to think of something boring. Something safe. Something to distract him from the curious, agile body brushing his.
    As if someone upstairs had been misinformed that Will deserved a favor, the music wound down. The two of them stepped apart as the band disassembled for a break. Will and Leigh looked at one another, her pursed lips telling him she’d awoken from her little carnal trance. His collar somehow felt tight, despite all the buttons being undone.
    “Thank you,” she murmured.
    “I do okay, as a partner?”
    She nodded. “You did just fine. You’re actually quite pleasant when you’ve got your mouth shut.”
    He shook his head and smiled. “Want some grub?”
    “Sure.”
    He found Leigh a plate and she foraged at the grill. All the makeshift seats were taken, so they sat on the sand, off to the side with a view of both the ocean and the party.
    “This is really lovely,” Leigh said between bites. “Just what I needed.”
    “Good.”
    “I know you weren’t supposed to let me hang out, so thank you.”
    Will shrugged. “I’ve never done what I’m supposed to. Just par for the course.” He studied her as she took in the scene. Her face had gone from pretty to sexy in the firelight, those grayish irises looking dark and liquid now, reflecting the