Lost But Found

Wrenching myself forward I managed to break free of his surprisingly strong grip, but it required so much effort that it sent me spinning through the crowd. Bouncing off a few people and hearing their frustrated cries before I came crashing into something as tall and firm as a brick wall.

I cling to it like it was a bulwark in a storm, holding on until I felt arms slowly wrap around me and hold me and I tense, anticipating the movement up and down and the way those strong fingers are going to curl into me and the way they will make their intentions and their desires and their cravings known to me, but the moment never comes. The arms hold me, the body I’m pressed against swaying slightly with the music, but they never impose quite the same as the others did.

So I pull back in time and look up, staring up at a face that is looking beyond me to the jackals who had once had me and who is giving them a look that tells them to back off, that this man who has me in his arms is absolutely not to be fucked with.

He’s taller than me by more than a head. He’s broad and he is muscular and he is ramrod straight, standing with his back up and his head back and his jawline rigid and defined.

Beneath the layers of his clothing I can feel his strength but I can feel the clothing as well, far too nice and far too nicely wrought to have any place in this party. He’s wearing a suit that is a little old fashioned but the colors on it are brighter than they ought to have been and they all work together so well, creating a tone of authenticity and eccentricity all at the same time.

But it is the mask that I keep coming back to. The mask of a masquerade, hard and curved and appointed with jewels that catch the lights of the dance floor and feathers that flutter in the breeze of the air. It covers enough of his face that I can only make out his hair pulled back from his head and his lips, pursed in an almost grimace of judgment.

I wonder what it would be to kiss those lips, to feel those lips on mine. Lips so strong and masculine, so demanding of me to be the woman that he wants and needs. Surely those lips of his could make me feel things. Surely they would fit so well on mine.

When he moves it is sudden, a sharp twist down as his eyes bore into me from above. He doesn’t speak but he cocks his head to one side, his eyes glimmering in the light and asking me without words if I’m okay.

And I feel compelled to nod with honesty, because I am. I want this man to know that he protected me, that he saved me. I need him to know how safe I feel in his arms.

The music downshifts to something lower, slower but without the grind that I’d heard until now. It’s not a slow song exactly but it’s slow enough that swaying in his arms feels right to me and I can let him hold me for a little longer before he lets me go.

Not far enough to slip from his grasp but far enough to step back. My hands still pressed against his chest but my body not quite pressed up against him and my feet moving in time to a dance that I never knew that I knew. His hands on my hips, one sliding off of my body and touching on the wrist of my hand, pulling it away from his chest and pulling it out, pulling the two of us into a traditional dancers hold.

He is in the lead, his hand on my waist and my hand in his. I am following, my hand clinging to his as I wrap my fingers in his and I press my hand harder against his chest to trust that he will guide me.

Swinging me to the right and stepping around with me. Turning me around in a swoop that cuts a circle in the crowd and separates us for a moment. Holding me to him and then spinning me away, executing movements that I’d seen but never knew that I knew.

And when he spins me out my heart flutters, but it flutters twice as hard when he pulls me back in again. When I am crushed against him and the air is pressed out of me and I am left, by every definition of the word, entirely breathless.

Eyes wide and lips parted and ready for him to take me, ready for him to have me. Ready for this stranger whose name I do not even know to spin me and twist me and dip me into the glittering nights sky.

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