Mara hated weddings. Not because she was bitter or jealous—at least that’s what she told herself—but because weddings magnified what she no longer had. At forty-one, separated but not officially divorced, she sat at the edge of her cousin’s reception with a half-empty glass of champagne and the fake patience of a woman who had smiled too much already.
The string lights strung across the vineyard glowed against her bare shoulders. Her green satin dress wasn’t chosen for comfort. It was chosen to remind herself that she was still a woman, not just a mother, not just an ex. The slit up her thigh whispered things she’d forgotten she wanted whispered.
And that’s when Ryan found her.
He wasn’t supposed to be her type—thirty-seven, broad-shouldered, a firefighter who still carried himself like every room belonged to him. He had been seated two tables away, and Mara had caught his eyes more than once, a look that lingered longer than politeness. He wasn’t slick, wasn’t polished, but he had something better—confidence without words.
When the music shifted to something slower, he crossed the floor. He didn’t ask; he offered his hand with a grin that said he knew she wouldn’t say no. And she didn’t. Her fingers slid into his, and he pulled her to the makeshift dance floor under the canopy of lights.
The first few steps were harmless. Swaying, smiling, his hand resting at the small of her back, her other hand resting on his shoulder. But the longer they moved, the closer he drew her in, until her chest brushed against him with every shift of rhythm. His cologne mixed with the night air, warm and clean, and she found herself inhaling deeper, longer.
Then his hand slid lower.
Not too low—just enough to let her know he was done pretending this was innocent. His palm pressed against the curve of her hip, fingers grazing the top of her thigh through the slit in her dress. Mara didn’t flinch. She leaned in. Her lips brushed his ear when she laughed at something he whispered, though she didn’t even hear what he said.
Her body wanted him to go further. She tilted into him, silent permission written in the arch of her back, in the way her nails pressed against his shoulder through his shirt. The music slowed to a near stop, and so did her breathing. She waited.
But he didn’t.
He kept his hand steady, right there at the line between safe and reckless. That restraint—that pause—that’s what made her flinch. Not because she didn’t want him, but because she did, and his refusal to take what she was offering made her ache more than any bold move could.
