“For spina bifida?”
I was about to answer when my phone started vibrating with a FaceTime call, and I glanced down to see two cherub faces grinning back at me. “I promised I would call and let them say hi to you. They’re big fans. I hope that’s okay.”
Lisa smiled. “Of course.”
I hit accept and waited until two excited voices stopped trying to talk over each other to greet them dramatically. “Munchkin! Twinkle toes! I thought you’d never call!”
The girls must have been using the webcam on the television because I could see their whole bodies, and they fidgeted and vibrated with excited energy.
“Sorry, Hale,” my sister yelled from somewhere in the background. “They got the drop on me!”
I laughed and winked at my girls. “Way to go, you two.”
The sound of muffled laughter floated from Lisa’s direction, and I glanced up to see her holding her hands over her mouth, trying to suppress her giggles.
Grinning, I turned my phone so the girls could see my lovely dance partner. “This is Lisa,” I told them.
They both exclaimed with glee and gushed for a minute until I finally cleared my throat so they would quiet down.
“Lisa, this is my munchkin,” I said, pointing at Lucy. “And this is my twinkle toes,” I finished, pointing at Lacy.
Lisa’s eyes went wide for a moment, and I knew it was because she’d clocked the wheelchair Lacy was sitting in. Then she glanced at me and back to the girls, and her whole body seemed to melt. Her face went soft before she looked at the ceiling, and in a voice so low I almost missed it, she sighed, “Crap.”
2
Lisa
Practicing with Hale for hours on end each day was torture. He was too darn sexy for my good. The pictures I’d seen of him hadn’t done him justice. Which was saying a lot since I’d already been wildly attracted to him before we met in person.
But I still thought I’d be able to keep my distance—figuratively, if not literally since we had to be close in order to dance together. I had even expected it to be somewhat easy. It was unfair of me, but I had assumed Hale would be the stereotypical professional football player looking for more time in the spotlight. I thought he’d be cocky and macho, unable to take direction from me because I was a woman. And arrogant about his abilities even though he had no dance training.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. Hale was smoking hot, but he’d barely reacted when I complimented his looks—besides pointing out that I should’ve called him sexy instead of pretty. He wasn’t afraid to work hard, and he never balked at me being in charge of our dance. And after seeing him interact with his nieces during that video call the first day and hearing why he’d signed on to do the show, he was even harder to resist.
Dancing with someone I was attracted to was a lot harder than I expected it to be. Even though I’d been paired with dozens of male partners over the years, none of them ever sparked my libido like Hale did. As we rehearsed my choreography, I had to keep reminding myself that I was a professional. Nothing about our bodies brushing against each other was sexual. Not even when my nipples pebbled so much that I had to resort to wearing a padded bra. Or when my panties were drenched by the time we took a lunch break each day, and I needed to switch them out with a new pair. And definitely not those times when I felt Hale’s hard-on brush against my belly or hip. Like right now.
As soon as we did the last step of our dance, I stepped away from him, suppressing a sensual shiver. “Great job.”
“Thanks.” I must not have hidden my reaction to him as well as I hoped since his dark eyes had a knowing gleam as his gaze swept down my body.
I forced myself to focus on the reason I was here…dance. “You really nailed the traveling basket lift that time.”
The first few dances on the show normally didn’t include many difficult steps unless the celebrity had previous dance training. I hadn’t planned on including anything more difficult than a split-over lift, where Hale would lift me in a circle, and I’d stylize the movement by doing the splits in the air. The lift was easy for the male dance partner but looked great for the audience.
I quickly realized that Hale could perform more complex moves than I’d anticipated when he’d nailed my choreography after only a couple of days. So I had amped up the complexity by adding in a few more lifts to really wow the audience. The traveling basket was the most difficult of the three for Hale because we had to go through three different positions—attitude, pike, and basket—which meant he held me for a full eight count. Even after I added those in, he barely broke a sweat, putting all those lean muscles that he’d earned on the football field to good use.