By Virtue Fall (The Shakespeare Sisters 4)

She smiled wickedly at him, feeling like a rebel. ‘A mojito, please.’

By the time he came back with the drinks the tango had started. The midnight changeover had seen a lot of people leave and there were a lot less couples on the dance floor. Juliet marvelled at how different this dance was to the salsa. The music was slower, the beat more deliberate, and the dancing was much more seductive. She watched the couple closest to them, swallowing as the man led his partner around, his hands firm yet sensual on her body, his chest touching hers.

She looked up at Ryan. ‘Can you dance like that?’ she asked him. She tried to imagine him holding a woman that way and moving her across the floor. A flame of jealousy licked at her.

‘Yeah. I can dance the Argentine tango.’ He took a mouthful of water. He sat down next to her, being careful to leave an inch between them. And yet she had the strangest urge to close the gap, to feel the warmth of his thigh against hers.

‘Is it hard to learn?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s a bit harder than the salsa. Though they say that if you can walk you can tango. It all depends on who’s leading I guess.’

She took another sip of her mojito. ‘I don’t know if I’ve got it in me to learn another dance. But it looks amazing.’

‘You could try it once,’ he suggested. ‘The Argentine tango is based on improvisation, so you don’t have to learn the footwork. You just follow where I lead.’

Pulling her lip between her teeth, she looked at him for a moment, then nodded, not taking her eyes off his. The sensible part of her told her to go home, to go to bed, to sleep off the alcohol. To end the night now, when everything was just fine and dandy.

But she didn’t want to. It was as if another Juliet had woken up from a long slumber, and was stretching her arms and getting ready to play. She didn’t want the night to end – not yet. She wanted one last dance. And she wanted to dance the tango with Ryan.

‘Okay. Let’s do it,’ she said, her gaze still locked with his. ‘Let’s dance the tango.’

Dancing with Juliet felt like some kind of exquisite torture. It had been bad enough when they were dancing the salsa, but at least the gap between them had given him some breathing space. Now, as the slow, sensual beat of the music enveloped them, it felt like a labour of Hercules.

He took a deep breath in. How many times had he danced the tango? He could pretend he was back in Buenos Aires, dancing with one of the locals, enjoying themselves without worrying about anything else.

‘Okay. We’re gonna need to get a bit closer for this one,’ he told her, wrapping his hand around hers. Instead of placing his hand beneath her shoulder blade, he slid it down to the small of her back, stepping towards her until their chests were touching.

She looked up at him through those vibrant eyes as he slowly began to move his hips to the beat. Then she moved hers too, her body still pressed against his, her lips falling open as she took a breath in.

He’d heard people call tango ‘a vertical expression of horizontal desire’, and right now nothing seemed more apt. He could feel her breasts pressing into him, could smell the sweet fruit on her breath, could hear the pounding of his heart as it tried to match the music.

Gritting his teeth together, he stepped forward, pushing with his hand until she mirrored his move. Then he was sliding her across the dance floor, his palm still pressed against the small of her back, the fingers of his other hand entwined with hers.

As they reached the centre of the dance floor he dipped her back, watching as her spine arched, and her hair cascaded down, exposing the delicate curve of her throat. When he lifted her up her eyes were wide, her flushed face matching his own excitement.

Christ, he wanted her. Wanted to kiss her like she’d never been kissed before. It was taking every sliver of self-control he had to stop himself from doing it.

As soon as the song finished, he let her go and took a step back,

trying to regain his composure.

‘Is everything okay?’ she asked him. He couldn’t tell from her expression if she was feeling the same way as he was.

It didn’t matter anyway. They were just friends.

‘Yeah. We should probably go now. It’s late.’ His voice was thick with grit.

She smiled at him, as if unaware of the effect she was having. ‘But the night is young. And the children are away. We can dance until dawn, remember?’

He wanted to laugh at how easy she made it sound. Right now he wasn’t sure he could make it another ten minutes. His whole body ached for her. ‘I’m beat,’ he said, even though he’d never felt so wide awake. ‘My bed is calling me.’

She slid her hand back into his. The sudden contact shocked him. They’d somehow changed places; she’d become the laid back relaxed one, and he was on high alert. ‘Okay, party pooper. I’d hate to steal away your beauty sleep. Goodness knows you need it.’ She raised her eyebrows at him, her lips still curved up in that sweet, sexy smile.

Even when they were sitting in the cab of his truck, he could still feel the atmosphere vibrating between them. He could smell her perfume, enticing its way into his senses, tempting him like he’d never been tempted before.

Frowning, he switched the ignition on and held firmly onto the wheel, sliding the truck into reverse. As he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road, he glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Ten minutes, that was all it would take to get them home.

He could make it couldn’t he?