The Dance Off

Frowning furiously, she tried to peel him away, to motion that she was on the phone.

He merely grabbed the offending hand and held it behind her, trapping it between them. He slid his other hand down the neck of her top until he found her breast, the hot sweet weight of it filling his palm and making him groan.

When he caught their reflection in the window, his hand down her top, her mouth open, her eyes hot and hard, he dipped his head to take her ear lobe in his mouth, not taking his eyes from her mirror image.

Then, husky as all get out, she said, “Thanks for the heads-up. Talk soon,” and hung up the phone.

She pressed her sweet backside into him and curled the hand holding the phone around his neck to pull his mouth to hers for a long lush kiss. Heat thundered through him, making his whole world a tight sweet ache.

Eyes locked onto her shadowy likeness in the window, he peeled her top away to reveal her breast to the air, her skin so pale and sweet against the tan of his big hand. She shivered, her eyes fluttering closed, her head rocking back against his shoulder.

He grazed her nipple with his thumb, and again as it pebbled beneath his touch. Her tongue snuck out to wet her lips. She might as well have licked him lower for the kick of heat that knocked the breath right out of him—

Ryder leapt away from her as music blasted right next to his ear. Rubbing at his ear, he glared towards the offending noise to see the phone still gripped in Nadia’s hand.

Already hooking her top back in place first, Nadia switched it to silent. “Sorry.”

He tilted his chin to the phone gripped in her hand. “Miss Popular tonight.”

“Hmm?” She blinked as if the lit-up phone weren’t still vibrating in her palm.

Which was when Ryder felt a frisson of disquiet scoot down his spine. “You going to answer it?”

She shook her head. “No need.”

“Why’s that?”

“I know what it’s about.”

“Seriously, Nadia, you want to play twenty questions? Or tell me what’s going on?”

A frown flickered across her brow and was gone just as fast. Then she lifted stubborn eyes to his. “The producers will be here in a little over a week. And I don’t even have to go to Sydney, as they’re coming to Melbourne. They’re coming to me.”

She didn’t have to say which producers. Her return to her old life had been hovering between them since the night she’d told him it was on the cards. And after the initial bombshell it had morphed into something far more constructive: a neat little end point to the affair. And yet as it coalesced from an insubstantial notion into a concrete event everything inside Ryder distilled down to two thoughts: one week and too soon.

So immersed in his own reaction, he hadn’t noticed that Nadia wasn’t looking at him. Her cheeks were unusually pale, and her knuckles had gone white around the phone. He’d seen her fierce. He’d seen her near belligerent. He’d seen her sweet and soft and he’d seen her surrender. But he’d never seen Nadia Kent worry about a single damn thing.

He closed in and slid his fingers through her hair, lifting her head till she was looking him in the eye; the tumble of emotions ricocheting through her slid right into him. All he could do was hold on tight and barricade himself against the tide. “You okay?”

Her jaw clenched beneath his fingers as she lifted her chin, denial in her every movement. But he knew her, intimately. And from one blink to the next he saw her—the real Nadia, the raw Nadia, the one who’d yanked him from the safe side of the ravine to the other. The side where he wasn’t in control of his actions. His thoughts. His desires. The Nadia that could only lead him into disaster. And yet he couldn’t look away.

“You’re nervous,” he said as realisation dawned.

“Of course I’m bloody nervous! I hardly proved myself reliable the last time I worked for them, so I’m coming at this with my chances hobbled from the outset. And what if I screw it up? What if I’m not in as good condition as I think I am? I haven’t had to choreograph on my own for years—what if the routine sucks?”

He ran both thumbs over her temples. “I’ve witnessed your work, remember. Hottest damn thing I’ve ever seen. If they won’t pay you to perform it, I will. Hang on a sec, I already did.”

She laughed, and then slapped him on the arm. He grabbed her hand and held it behind her.

Her eyes turned wild. Rebellious.

So he slid his other hand through her hair, cradling the back of her head, holding her in thrall. Then he dipped his mouth to brush hers. When she didn’t react, he kissed her again, barely a touch, then a luxurious swipe of his tongue across the seam. He felt her acquiescence in her melting body a fraction before she finally opened her mouth to him, sliding her tongue against his in a dance they both knew so well.