Shut Up and Kiss Me Read Free Page B

her head, giving both him and her friend an embarrassed smile, Will unconsciously broadened his shoulders in victory.
    Turning away from her friend, Mila took hold of her fresh drink, her gaze slanting in his direction. He watched as her lips molded over the glass, and as her eyes closed and her head tilted. Opening her eyes, she set down her drink and offered him another adorably shy smile.
    Yep. Different was exactly what he wanted.
    “ I’ll just be over there!” Nikki called out.
    “ So Mila,” he started, turning away from Nikki’s I’ll kill you if you hurt her glare that she was throwing over her shoulder as she walked back to the dance floor. “Are all your friends this vicious?”
    Mila’s face dimpled as she began to laugh—a small bubble of Southern amusement tinged with nervousness—and he couldn’t help but grin.
    “ I don’t have many friends,” she admitted, still smiling. “I’m still new to the city.”
    He’d figured as much, given her accent and inability to speak without blushing. Most people born and bred in New York were so accustomed to the busy lifestyle and the hordes of people that they hardly noticed it. Mila, he guessed, was still dealing with sensory overload from it all.
    “ I have a booth,” he suggested, gesturing toward the second floor balcony, a section of the club that directly overlooked the dance floor. “It’s quieter up there.”
    Swallowing thickly and shifting uncomfortably on her feet, Mila’s gaze followed his hand. “Okay,” she answered quietly—so quietly he hadn’t actually heard the word over the music, only realized it from the shape of her mouth.
    “ If you’re more comfortable down here—”
    “ No, no,” she said quickly. “A booth would be nice.”
    Grabbing her belongings and her drink, she stepped away from the bar and he offered her his arm. They both stood there for a prolonged moment, him holding out his arm in offering and her staring at the limb like she’d just encountered a piece of hair in her food.
    Laughing softly, he dropped his arm and gestured for her to step in front of him. “This way,” he said, placing his hand on the small of her back, the contact causing her to jump ever so slightly. Shy and nervous was turning out to be an understatement, and Will had a brief moment of wondering if he was embarking on a losing battle.
    One thing was for sure: different was definitely going to be interesting.
     

Chapter Two
     
    The stairs were perilous , at least for a woman like me. Holding tightly to the banister with one slightly sweaty hand and my drink with the other, I was simultaneously attempting to keep hold of both mine and Nikki’s purses all while feeling overly aware of Will’s proximity behind me, his hand on my lower back a constant reminder that he was there. And worse, once reaching the top of the stairs, several sets of eyes turned to look at me, each appraising and dismissing me within seconds. Any normal person would have felt offended at the slight, but I could only be grateful they weren’t staring. If that had been the case, I might’ve turned and run.
    “ This way.” Will’s words caressed my neck as he passed by me, looking back over his shoulder with a smile as he gestured for me to follow him.
    Nodding, I followed him, feeling more and more like a lamb headed off to slaughter. This was not me, this was not who I was. I didn’t wear skin-tight dresses and go clubbing, and I most certainly didn’t walk off to private booths with men I’d just met. I knew that much about myself. But maybe that was the point of tonight, and why I’d finally agreed to leave the sanctuary of my apartment: that I was finally doing something out of character. And if this night brought nothing but the realization that I could take risks—at least small ones every once in a while—then it wasn’t all bad. Right? God, I really didn’t have a clue what I was doing, did I?
    As we passed by the overlooking balcony, I