**D1, Be the ONE! We are ZEROBASEONE!***
After debut, idol life is just getting started, and it's our time to bloom.
And so are the challenges...living in a dorm with eighteen people could never go wrong, right? Especially not with some love triang...
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The music swelled, sweeping up into another beat and another arrangement of notes. It was a slow, sensual song, with a rhythm that echoed the beat of a beating heart. The seductive strings pulled something from the depths of me. The music was making me forget.
As Gunwook danced with me, we seemed to be getting closer with every new seductive beat of the song—a dance designed solely as an excuse to bring two bodies together.
Ara and Briar were next to us but could have been miles away. There was no one here but us.
The dance was a challenge. A question. A sign.
It surprised me still, how we could dance together, how in sync the two of us had always been. The beat grew faster and faster. What had begun as slow and seductive now was the racing heart of the moments before a kiss.
When he pulled me back to him, the full length of my torso pressed to his, our bodies battling to keep up.
I had bedded a few men before, not many, but enough to know about seduction and sex. Yet, this dance right here, fully clothed, was as sexual as the act itself could be. And I felt it when he watched me, sweat barrelling from his brow, his eyes hooded in excitement. Nothing else mattered to him but wringing out every last bit of my pleasure on the beat of this song and the beat of his heart.
Another spin. Another violent crash into his arms, too fast to stop myself, too fast to keep our noses from barely touching.
I felt the slight, silent shudder in his exhale and wondered if it was from exertion. Felt the brush of hardness against my lower stomach and knew it wasn't.
His hand skidded down my arm, sending tingles all over me.
"Wookie," I whispered in his ear.
He swung me out again, breaking my words off. As he pulled me back in, those fingers played at that little dip in my spine, right where my skin met the fabric of my dress, as if he was trying to stop himself from sliding beneath it. I could feel it in the strain of his muscles that I knew better than to think this was from exertion alone, no Gunwook was strong. Moving and dancing was nothing for him.
Holding himself back, though? That was hard.
And worst of all, I knew he sensed it in me, too. The same desire that he'd brought to the surface of my skin. And I knew what drove him wild, earning the lust in his eyes, the flare of his nostrils.
It would be so easy to drag him to a dark corner of his nightclub, kiss him, drag his hand between my legs, and let him feel my desire for him. I could take him away, slide my dress off my body. Let him do all the things he wants to do.
And what a distraction it would be.
From my dark thoughts, my deep fears.
The music rose to its crescendo. I leaned close so he could hear me over the roar of the beat. "I know what this is, Gunwook. I know."
The room was so loud, his voice so low, yet I heard nothing but his words: "I'd spend the entire night dancing with you, Gio. I would spend the rest of my days like this if it meant you would finally choose me."
I blinked.
Something in his voice snapped me out of the haze of our flirting. I pulled away just enough to look at him. A question on my lips, even though I couldn't articulate precisely what it was.
Gunwook gave me a sad smirk.
"Grand finale of the song. Are you ready?"
The music was deafening now. The entire club bounced and swung. It was drowning out words and thoughts.
Before I could protest, he launched me into another sultry dance. And I threw myself into it with all I had.
My breath was heavy as our moves mimicked something else. I was lost in the beat, lost in him again. The dance took me to places I had never been before. I felt like combusting.
Everyone was staring at us.
As the rush faded, it sank in what we must look like.
Gunwook grinned. It was such a disarmingly pure expression that he didn't belong in a place like this. In a dance like this.
"So what? Let them talk, Jagi."
I pulled back, and stepped away from him. The room was spinning around me now. I was afraid.
Afraid of jumping in.
Because I knew if I finally let go, finally let myself be happy with him, my entire world would come crashing down.
