Grease Monkey Jive (49 page)

Dan nodded. “If she knocks me on my arse, I’m holding you and Fluke responsible for keeping me out of the loony bin.”

Mitch punched his shoulder. “If she knocks you on your arse, get the fuck back up and let her do it again.”

Dan grabbed Mitch in a quick tight hug, reaching out to ruffle Fluke’s hair. There weren’t words for mates like them.

As the rhythm and blues soul-beat of
Dedication to my Ex
rang out, he went to the barrier. He could see Alex and Scott moving onto the floor opposite him. Part of him wanted to screw the dance routine and just grab her and carry her away, but she hadn’t wanted him here and maybe Scott was right. He’d know what she was thinking when she was in his arms and dancing.

When he jumped the barricade this time, he wanted to be noticed and the cheer that went up told him he’d succeeded. He focused on Alex, moved straight at her, figured Scott would work out how to get out of the way, but he’d walk straight through him anyway if he didn’t. Alex turned and her mouth dropped open, then curled into a brilliant smile. She came hard into his arms, his name on her tongue, and the real world was suspended a second while they took each other in.

Dan never lifted his eyes from Alex. He followed her lead and his body remembered what to do. He forgot the audience. He was saturated in the sense of her, teasing, touching, gripping, holding. She was air and water, shelter and survival.

When it got to the part of the routine where he was supposed to break away from her – would have danced with Anna, he kept hold of her. “I’m not letting go.”

She spun in his arms, said, “Trust me,” and broke his hold. She danced away, spinning and tossing sultry looks over her shoulder. He would have given chase, but she stopped him with a hand, a look, and then she ran at him and in the second before she jumped, he knew what she was going to do, the ultimate sign of her trust.

She leaped, extending her body out straight, so he caught her hips and lifted her over his head. He turned her once, conscious of the strength in her as she held the position, head high, arms out, back arched, ankles together, an exotic bird in flight.

When he lowered her against his body, held her limb against limb, she was laughing, stunning him again with her abandon and delight. They danced the end of the song tight and close, never breaking contact at hand or chest, shoulder or back, all the rules about framing and distance dissolved with the story line of the song. This was no lover’s tiff that would leave Dan a sobbing mess, a loony bin candidate. This was his life and he was not letting it go.

As the track ended and the applause came, somewhat staggered at the unexpectedly personal and steamy connection between the two dancers, they were speechless, both of them breathing heavily from exertion, from the speed of their emotions and the raw need to be properly alone. The start of the next track and the awareness of two new dancers on the floor drove them back into the entrance, hands clasped, not watching where they were going.

They had no words, just their private language of sighs and sharp-caught breaths, throaty groans, and vibrating hums. Dan dragged Alex into a shadowy corner, but his caution was cursory – he didn’t care who saw. He only wanted to touch and caress, claim and brand, to wrap himself in Alex and never know the end of it, never untangle her from him.

Her kisses were open and wet and reverberated through his chest, made his muscles throb, his hips thrust. When her hands went to his hair and she laughed to feel it bristle, he ate her mirth and fed it back to her as fire no water could put out.

On the edge of combusting, knowing he needed to urgently find a new place to be with her he said, “Come with me now.”

She dropped her head back, sighed, “Yes,” and he sucked on the pulse beating in her neck. She breathed, ‘No, oh, wait,” but she pressed her hips to him.

He pulled away, panting, eyes heavy lidded with lust. “We’ll wait, but not long. I need you and I won’t wait again.”

He knew it was probably sensible to be with the boys, Scott and Trevor, Sylvia and Gwen; a dusty corridor wasn’t where he wanted to be with Alex. He wanted privacy and the uninterrupted time to assure himself he had her back. But being with them all was a trial of another nature. He could hold Alex’s hand, but couldn’t get close enough to her to wipe out the pain of their separation, to dry the seal on their reunion. They couldn’t talk privately, so he didn’t know what she was thinking.

What he saw reflected in Sylvia and Gwen’s faces told him he’d won. In Scott he saw relief and in Trevor what looked like pride. The boys were loud and laughing about Ant’s bet. It was a bust because none of them had considered he wouldn’t show up.

He let the conversation wash over him and counted the seconds till he could be alone with Alex. When Scott came to take her back onto the floor for the judges’ final results, he relinquished her hand with regret, with a kiss that tugged at her bottom lip, and with fresh light in his heart and shining from his face.

Barry Barton was in his element, praising the competition organisers, the administrators, the staging team, his fellow judges, assistants, and the competitors themselves. He got genuine laughs and heartfelt applause and he did a good job of building the tension before announcing the final scores and the winning couple.

While he talked, Alex stood in the circle of Scott’s arm, the smile never leaving her face, her eyes never leaving the space where Dan stood. Seeing him come towards her on the dance floor, looking so rough, so unmade, jeans that were too loose, a singlet smudged with grease, barefoot, a look of hot determination on his face – he was like something out of her imagination.

It wasn’t real until she crashed into his arms and felt the hardness of him, heard him exhale in her ear. She’d thought she was sunken and broken and then he was there and every part of her body had strained to respond, to rise to him, to be repaired by him. The craving in her was shocking, unearthly, immediate, and total. She’d surrendered to him in a half-breath, claimed him urgently, and lost herself completely. Only the vaguest sense of where she was and why had stopped her leaving with him. He was entirely too consuming. He made her forget everything. He was utterly dangerous.

He scared the hell out of her.

As recognition dawned, her smile withered, and she dug her fingers into Scott’s arm. She didn’t want to be without Dan, but she couldn’t be with him either. He’d take her independence, shoot holes in her self-reliance, and make her slave to his love. She’d be repeating the pattern of two generations by losing herself for a man.

Suddenly she wanted to run, to get away from him while she still had a chance, while she still had this distance and he wasn’t touching her, claiming her, enchanting her, but Scott was holding her fast and Barry was talking about prize money, announcing twenty thousand dollars for second place and ten thousand for third. She heard the buzz in the room and murmurs of delight from the competitors as Barry announced the donation in the name of the late Janelle Maddox and then he read the scores and Brad and Anna had won and it was the only right thing happening.

She heard her name called, she heard Scott’s yell, saw Trevor jump the barricade and start towards them, watched Gina flounce off the floor, instead of accepting third prize. She held Scott’s beaming face in her hands, said, “I love you. I’m sorry,” and she ran.

Once it was a surprise he’d prompted. Once he’d expected it, almost willed it as punishment earned, and it hadn’t come. This time Dan didn’t see it coming and the sudden sting of it, the way the smack sounded, made him step back, put his hand to his face. Alex’s body was vibrating with anger, fire sprayed from her eyes even as they went glassy. She’d come off the dance floor at a run and stormed past them all and he’d followed knowing something had broken in her. The corridor was empty, the sound of celebration and the closing party starting outside, and she’d come at him with fury and fear in her face.

“You can’t just come back, seduce me again, and then pay for me like you think you own me!”

He shook his head, as much to clear the surprise of her slap as to answer her. “That’s not what I did.”

“It is what you did. I didn’t want you here. I don’t want your money.”

He kept his voice low, a counterpoint to her shouting. “You don’t get to tell me what I can do,” then shifted back as she came at him.

“You can’t buy me like a disposable whore.”

He grabbed her arms to hold her still, calm her panic, and make her hear him. “You know that’s not what I think. I’ve never treated you like that.”

She shook him off, stepping back out of reach, but her eyes never left his. “You did just now. Thinking you could come in here uninvited and own me.”

“No one will ever own you, Alex. I just want to be beside you.” He saw that idea register in her eyes, but then they shuttered with a lack of conviction. “Is this about the money? Give it away. It means nothing to me.”

She threw her hands up in frustration and spun about, walked away, one step, two, and then wheeled around and came at him again. “Where did you get money like that from?”

He didn’t recoil, though he felt the mean kickback of her accusation. “You mean how did an unemployed, ambitionless grease monkey like me get that kind of money? Are you scared I pulled a heist? I earned it, Alex. I can give it away if that’s what I want and I can earn more. It’s just money.”

She was breathing heavily, barely contained enough to speak. “It’s not just money. It’s what you do to me. You turn me inside out. You know you do. It’s a weapon. I can’t think straight around you. I can’t have you in my life because you’ll ruin me. I’ll be good for nothing.”

Dan ached to hold her, but he flexed his hands, watched the expression of anguish mark her face. “You’re some kind of beautiful ruin.” Even his voice pained, it came out frayed, but there was nothing threadbare about his desire. “I love you and I’m coming for you, whether you like it or not.”

“You’re not listening to me. I don’t want you. You’re no good for me.”

“I’m listening, but I hear something different. I hear fear and hurt and some of that I put there, but I’m not hearing you ask me to leave.” She wouldn’t. She’d just given him her trust again, that moment when she’d jumped and soared above his head in the Bird, there was no taking that back. It was spent, received, and invested for the future.

She threw her head back and closed her eyes. “I don’t want you. I can’t say it any clearer.”

“That’s not what you’re body tells me.” He closed the distance between them, steadied his voice, and gestured to the dance floor. “Out there, your body told me what you want.”

She was unravelling, her resistance coming apart. “My body is a traitor, suckered by you, betraying me. I don’t want you.”

He stepped closer. “Then tell me you don’t still love me and walk away.”

She was trembling, her hands shaking uncontrollably, her voice pummelled soft. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

He might still lose her, but he wasn’t finished fighting and she was worth every risk, every chance to get knocked down, to get back up, and take the hit again. “Then do what’s in your heart.”

Tears streamed down her face and she swayed on her feet. He put his finger under her chin and brought her head up, saw an ocean of torment in her eyes. “I’m not letting you go again. I’m still paying for that mistake. We’re not done. Not even a little bit. I’m coming for you. If you don’t want me, you’d better run, you’d better hide, because I’m not giving you up til you can tell me you don’t love me as much as I love you.”

The only sound was the wet slick of her blinks. He kissed her then, gentle, tasting salt, tasting the fight in her, and she kissed him back, but her hands came up and her fists were angry, tattooing against his chest. Then they opened and curled around his neck and the kiss took a new flavour from the first tentative tugs of surrender.

He had to move. He didn’t trust himself not to push this too hard. She needed time to think. He released her chin and stepped away abruptly and she rocked back until she leaned against the rough brick wall, flattening her hands on it either side of her body for support.

He steeled himself to walk away, down the corridor towards the emergency exit. He’d hotwire the Valiant, get his stuff later from Mitch, use the hidden key for the flat, give Alex time to catch her breath, then come for her. At the point where the corridor curved he turned back. She was where he’d left her, frozen in place, watching him. He couldn’t read her expression, but she wasn’t running.

He lifted a hand and caressed the air as he would her face, feeling her still in his skin and in his heart, and then he turned and left.

She should’ve run. But where? To him? Away from him? Her body said one thing and her head something different. She was a mess of indecision. But he couldn’t just leave. He couldn’t say he loved her. He couldn’t say he was coming for her and walk away like that.

“Alley cat, what happened?”

Scott was white-faced. She didn’t know how much he’d seen or heard, but it was enough to make him look stunned and for his voice to shake. “When you ran like that, I thought you were upset about not winning. What did he do to you? I asked him to come. I should never have interfered.”

Alex hesitated. What was the truth, her body Dan’s willing slave, her brain in bloody rebellion? “He didn’t come because of anything you did. He came for me and I got so scared. I thought it was really over. I fooled myself about him not being right for me, thought I’d have to find a way to live without him and that it would be better not to start it up again. I thought if I gave in, I’d be just like Mum and Gran, weakened by a man, always vulnerable. But it was never over in the first place. And I have a chance to be different with him.”

She grabbed Scott’s hands. “He makes me stronger, Scott – he makes me stronger.”

Scott said, “Oh God,” his eyes popped and his mouth dropped open.

“I panicked. I thought he’d tried to buy me with the prize money. He said he didn’t care about it. I tried to send him away.”