The Dance Off

Then she said, “That routine was part of an audition piece I’ve been working on. Sky High, the company I used to work for, are casting a new show. And I’m on the shortlist.” She paused to swallow. “If I get the job—when I get the job—as soon as humanly possible I’ll be moving there.”

“Where’s there exactly?”

“Vegas.”

“As in Las Vegas?” The other side of the world.

Her mouth twitched. “Is there any other?”

“Good point.”

Truth was, he had no idea what he was saying; he was marking time. Dammit, his skin still thrummed from some of the hottest sex of his life. He couldn’t think forward an hour much less weeks.

“Vegas,” he echoed again. And as the ripples fanned to the corner of his mind, so many things began to make sense. Her reticence to make good on their attraction. Her drab apartment. She’d not put down roots because she’d never intended to stay.

“When?” he asked.

The flicker in her eyes making it clear she knew he’d been sideswiped. Damn. “They’re en route now, but it depends how many dancers they decide to see in each place before they get here. I’m just waiting for the word.”

She said it with a smile. Yet it was Nadia’s complete stillness that got to him. Any other time even her very breaths moved through her as if she were dancing, yet she sat in his arms so still, so inert, she might as well have been made of air. Because this conversation was that important to her. Or that uncomfortable. Whatever it was to her, it clearly carried weight. He carried weight.

“Okay, then,” he said.

It must have been the right answer, as her sinuous body settled deeper into his lap. He dragged his thumb gently over her lower lip and when she lifted her face to his followed with a kiss.

A kiss filled with sweetness, and tenderness, yet humming with heat.

And as his desire ratcheted up faster than ought to have been physiologically possible, he knew her imminent departure from his life was a blessing in disguise. He clearly couldn’t keep away from her even if he wanted to. This woman who so effortlessly lured him into temptation. Who made him clamour to tap into the darkness, the consuming desires, the inner storm he’d all but eliminated from his life.

As for Nadia? There was no getting away from the look in her eyes as she’d told him she was going away. He’d glimpsed that look before in the rare moments when she let her guard down, when she’d unexpectedly opened up to him, when she’d forgotten to be on show and simply was.

A woman like that needed a different kind of man in her life. Not a man who worked more hours than not. Not a man with the complicated responsibilities he had. Not a man who’d never confuse lust for forever. And damn sure not a Fitzgerald.

SEVEN

Nadia stretched out her limbs and groaned; the slide of soft sheets over her body as lovely as her all-over ache was wicked. Her body was used to being pushed to the edge of endurance and then some, but the past couple of weeks with Ryder had educated her as to muscles even she never knew existed.

She tilted her head to find the man himself sleeping on his back, the crumpled sheet covering one thigh and half his torso, moonlight pouring through his bedroom window over the hard dips and planes of his body, glinting off the dark hair covering the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the heat of him warming even her side of his bed.

Watching him, this man who took her places she’d never before been, her hands circled her wrists, rubbing at marks that had faded days before. She’d underestimated Ryder in giving him a private dance. Expected him to be dissuaded by her stunts. She’d also overestimated her own willpower, as every day since, every time she was with him she told herself it would be the last, her resolve caved.

Her fault probably, for unlocking the danger junkie in him. How could she have known that beneath the slick suits he was so audacious, a sensualist, fearless? That she’d be the one left gasping, breathless, and shaken again and again and again.

The twin threads keeping her sane as they embarked on this impossible affair were the countdown to Sam’s wedding and her impending audition. Not that they talked about the fact that their association had a big brick wall looming at its end, but they hadn’t needed to; the ticking clock was simply there.

With a sigh she lifted her gaze to the two-storey wall of glass that filled the far side of Ryder’s floating bedroom as well as the entire beach-side wall of the floor beneath. She guessed it was past midnight. Time to leave if she wanted some sleep.