Winning Moves (Stepping Up 3)

“I have something scheduled before the TV show auditions get going and my work here is done. Casting is complete and any minor things I could help with are finished.” She pushed to her feet, slashing long blonde hair behind her ear. “And on that note I should go to my room. I have an early flight.” She pointed at Kat. “Keep him in line. I have to deal with him in a month when we start the crazy travel for the television show auditions.”

“I will,” Kat assured her, but the jest in her voice was strained, gone with Lana’s reminder that Jason would soon be leaving. “Have a safe trip.”

Lana hurried from the room, leaving a strong wave of powerful perfume behind her. “One last traveling job,” Jason said. “One more and I’m done.”

He’d read her discomfort, responded to what she’d not spoken aloud. He knew her like no one else did. He had been her best friend, never replaced by another, and that reality made it hard to call what was between them just sex. But it was just sex, because people who loved each other, really loved each other, found a way to be together.

Kat slowly let her gaze slide back to his, and she felt the connection in every pore of her body. It’s sex, she told herself. Chemistry. You want him. He wants you. It means nothing. “I said my last tour was it for me, too,” she finally managed. “No more travel, yet in a few months I’ll be traveling with this show.”

“Kat—”

“Whatever you’re going to say, this isn’t the time or place.”

“Then let’s go somewhere else.”

“That would be good,” she said. “I have a challenge with a couple of the dancers I need to talk to you about.”

“There’s a bar on the top level of the hotel. It’s quiet there and I could sure use a drink. It’s been a hell of a couple of weeks.”

Heat pooled low in her tummy. “We both know how well I handle my alcohol,” she said, cringing at her reference to their past, the past she couldn’t seem to avoid. “I still have to drive home.”

“Stay at the hotel,” he said. “I know you prefer home. Living on the road is rough, but so are the late nights and early mornings right now. Exactly why the studio provides you a room.”

She wanted to go have a drink with him, she wanted to talk to him, to touch him, to just be with him. And a part of her said to just do it, do him. Get this damnable need for him out of her system once and for all. Another part of her said he was a drug, and she had an addiction she had to break, or she’d never really live her life. And you didn’t beat an addiction by doing more of the drug. You broke it by just saying “no.”

Thanks to this show, their paths were going to cross. She couldn’t start down a path of hopping in and out of bed with him when he was around, and really expect to move on with her life. Right. Exactly. That made perfect, logical sense. Damn it.

Kat inhaled and bound herself to mature logic, and reached to ensure temptation did not become indulgence. “How about the diner again?” she finally said. “I haven’t eaten and we can talk there.”

* * *

WITH KAT BY his side, Jason stopped at the doorway of the very public, very unromantic, diner. He didn’t love her location preference, but after spending an eternally long week of wanting her, he’d take what he could get. And no matter how challenging it might be to give her time to digest that not only was he here, he was here to stay, he was committed to taking things on her time line. Well, with a little nudging to hurry things, he thought.

“Two?” the hostess asked.

“Two,” Jason agreed, and then leaned in and whispered to her, before slipping her a large bill.

She smiled and motioned for them to follow her. “This way.”

Kat frowned at him as they fell into step behind the woman. “What did you just do?”

“Moi?” he asked innocently, hoping the little French reference would remind her of their honeymoon in Paris.

“Oui, vous,” she replied quickly.

He laughed at the “yes, you” in French, pleased with both her reply, and the fact that the hostess had just led them past double glass doors to a private, empty seating area.

He and Kat slid into the booth across from each other and when they were alone he wiggled an eyebrow. “Just how much of your French do you remember?”

“If you’re asking if I can still talk dirty, I’m pretty sure it would come back to me, if I tried. I’m also quite certain I can remember how to curse you out in French.” She grimaced. “You paid the hostess to put us back here alone.”