The Dance Off

He glanced again at his barren drafting table. Felt the restlessness rise, and struggled harder to press it down. Because the older he got, the harder he worked, the more successful he became, the less he was satisfied. And the more he wondered if, despite every effort to the contrary, he was beginning to experience the germination of his father’s identical inability to endure. With work, with family, with relationships of any kind...

Ryder closed his eyes.

Of all his father had done in his life, it was the women the man had hurt who stuck deepest. His mother. Sam’s mother. Hell, even when Fitz had been married to Sam’s mother there had been so many others they’d long since morphed into a blur of false laughter and real tears. So many, even now Ryder found himself catching certain perfumes in a crowd and feeling nauseous.

In fact it was probably the smart move to remember. To shine a big bright light on their pain. Because he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t more like his father than he’d ever admit. Which was why he’d never risk committing to someone only to find out one day that it wasn’t enough.

And even while he knew it was counterproductive, that he’d regret it in the morning, he purged the ugly memories as well as the cavernous blankness that was his future the only way he saw how.

Nadia.

He eased himself deep into an armchair, closed his eyes, breathed deep and found the scent he was looking for. Exotic, spicy, hot. Her taste erasing all others. The memory of her skin warming his ice-cold hand. The memory of her smart mouth easing the knot in his belly. Her red-blooded response to his touch, the burning pleasure, the aching tension, filling him up.

As he sank into every nuance of that kiss he wondered how hard the week would be, waiting to see her again. Wondered if he could. Wondered what it was about her that made him wonder at all.

FOUR

Nadia paced, trying to diffuse the surfeit of energy coursing through her body, while out of the corner of her eye she watched the old clock on the wall as it ticked down the minutes to ten o’clock.

Rehearsing her audition piece hadn’t taken the edge off; in fact her concentration was so shot she’d damn near killed herself! A friend had once broken a wrist rehearsing after a couple of champagnes. With the bumps and bruises now covering her body, Nadia was going to add Don’t Fly Frustrated to the list of aerial acrobatic no-nos.

It had been a week since she’d seen Ryder. Since he’d kissed her till her bones had turned to syrup. And since then she’d spent every one of those nights writhing under the influence of the hottest sex dreams of her life.

Even the kids in her Tiny Tots class that morning had picked up on her dark mood, if the higher than average number of them clinging to their mothers’ legs was anything to go by. Nadia had breathed deep and blamed the incessant heat of the past couple of weeks.

Sam hadn’t helped either, making little comments through the entire lesson the Thursday before, laughing as she’d asked what Nadia’s intentions towards her brother were.

Argh! She didn’t need this. With her pedigree she could have taken her pick of classes populated with an embarrassment of hot young things with dancers’ vigour, endurance, and sex drive, which was why she’d taken a job that put her in the path of senior citizens and two-year-olds in tutus.

Because she was so close. Less than two months now till the producers were coming to Australia. To see her. To give her a second chance. And she was ready. Pride mended, body more supple and stronger than it had ever been, ambition rekindled and honed to ferocity.

And then Ryder Fitzgerald had gone and kissed her and turned her into a walking livewire with the attention span of a fruit fly.

She was going to make him pay; it was the only way. She was going to work the man so hard before the end of the night he’d be begging for mercy. If he turned up, that was.

A minute ticked by. Nadia dragged her fingers through her shaggy hair before throwing her hands in the air and growling at the walls, her voice echoing in the lofty space.

“Should I come back later?”

Nadia spun to find Ryder standing in the doorway, the arch framing him like a painting. When her eyes rose to meet his it was to find his gaze was focused intently on her stomach, which was bare except for a silver Lycra bra-top over which she’d thrown a button-down shirt so she wouldn’t cool down too fast.

Sensation feathered across her belly as she remembered all too clearly how those same eyes had looked the second before he’d kissed her senseless. All hot, and dark, and fierce. As if he’d wanted to eat her alive.