The Dance Off (4 page)

So much for not playing with fire. The gleam in the guy’s eyes turned so flinty it was amazing they hadn’t sent up sparks.

Then, right when Nadia was on the brink of recanting her rash invitation, a muscle twitched in Ryder’s jaw and his dark eyes began to rove. Over her neck, her collarbone, her breasts, her ribs, her belly, not lingering at any one spot longer than any other. Which only heightened the tension pulling at every place his eyes touched.

Point made—and points lost too, she rued—she slowly turned to face him, hands on hips as she waited till his gaze lifted to meet hers. “Take off your jacket, Mr Fitzgerald. And your tie. Dress shirt too, if you’re game. You can leave on your singlet. I just need to figure out where your stiffness comes from.”

He opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it. Instead merely leaving his gaze on hers as the double entendre remained, lingering on the air between them, all the hotter for not being touched.

Gaze snagged on hers, Ryder lifted his hands to his jacket, sliding it from his shoulders. Next came his tie. She had no idea where the things landed as she couldn’t take her eyes from his. For then she’d have to look somewhere else. Somewhere lower.

But when his long brown fingers went to the buttons of his shirt, her disobedient eyes followed as he slid them through the neat holes of his perfect white button-down one by one.

He tugged his dress shirt from his suit trousers, slid it from his arms and laid it neatly over the chaise with the rest of his gear. As it turned out, the guy wasn’t wearing a singlet after all. And when she looked up again, it was to find his eyes still on hers, daring, challenging, till defiance hummed between them, filling the dimly lit room so that the windows near vibrated.

“This what you were after?” he asked, the roping muscles of his long arms bunching as he held them out to the sides.

But Nadia couldn’t answer; by that stage her mouth had gone bone dry. All she could do was nod, then busy herself with getting rid of the dirty towel. She somehow made it to the corner of the room and tossed it into the plastic bin. Curling her fingers around the edge a moment, she attempted to calm her thundering heart.

Okay, so asking him to strip had been a reflex action. The curse of a quick tongue. She was her mother’s daughter after all. But she’d hardly thought he’d acquiesce. And how...

The men in her life had been lean. Not an ounce of fat on their undernourished bodies. Their faces on the edge of gaunt, the rest of them covered with the kind of muscle that clung in desperation to the bones. And waxed to within an inch of their lives.

Ryder Fitzgerald, with his hulking shoulders, big rolling muscles, thick thatches of hair beneath his underarms and whirls of dark curls all over his chest that dared not mar the taut, rolling muscles of his stomach before reforming in a flagrant V that disappeared beneath his trousers, might as well have been an entirely different species. Everything about him was bigger. Stronger. Lustier. Every inch of him gleamed with robust health.

And with one glance something primal had roared to life deep within her.

She glanced back over her shoulder to check if he was for real, and found he wasn’t even watching her. While she was deep in the grips of a wave of impossible lust, hands on hips, back to her, he was staring up at the damn rafters!

“Right,” she said, gathering her scattered wits and forcing herself to get a grip. “Clock’s ticking. Let’s do this thing.”

Ryder turned; silvery moonlight and golden light of the old chandeliers pouring over him till his skin glowed, making the absolute most of the hills and valleys of his musculature. If the guy could actually dance he’d have given Patrick Swayze himself a run for his money.

With each clack of her heels on the old wooden floor, Nadia’s tension ramped up and up. But this was a dance class. A close-hold dance class. Not touching him would only draw attention to her folly. At least that was what she told herself as her hand went to his shoulder.

His naked skin was silken, hot, it twitched at her touch, and the spark between them morphed into some living thing, twisting and shooting around them, filling the huge space with a crackling energy that struggled to be contained.

Nadia barely had time to take it all in, as Ryder didn’t wait for instructions. He curled his fingers around her right hand, placed his other hand in the small of her back and moved deep into her personal space.

Her gaze was level with his collarbone, the scent of his skin so near she was lost within the mix of rain, heat and spice, her eyes so heavy she couldn’t seem to lift them to his.

“Music?” he asked, his voice deep, low, intimate.

And it took half a second for Nadia to realise she’d yet to turn the damn CD player on. Snapped out of her haze, she swore under her breath and yanked the remote from the overturned waistline of her tights, and poked the thing in the direction of the stereo.

Norah Jones oozed from the speakers, warm and sultry. As she made to change it Ryder’s hand came down over hers.

“Seems as good as any,” he said, his gaze as good as saying,
Now you’ve got me where you want me, what are you going to do with me?

What she wasn’t going to do was tell the guy the song was too damn intimate for her liking, making her think of smoky jazz bars, and dark corners, and roving hands, and hot lips, and hot skin...

She lifted her chin, clamped her hand hard over his. “Start at your feet. Press them into the floor. Your leg muscles will switch on. Now soften your knees. Like you’re about to bend them, without bending them. Press your inner thighs together—”

At that his hips pressed into hers and Nadia prayed for mercy.

“Lift your torso away from your hips, like there’s a string coming out the top of your head and somebody’s stretching you to the rafters. Now chin up, shoulder blades back and down and—”

“Breathe?” he asked, his voice strained.

The laughter that shot from her was unexpected, and he rewarded her with a small smile.

“Can only help.”

Only when she felt in her bones, in that place inside her that knew dance better than it knew life itself, that they were positioned just so, she began to sway. Pressing his hand with hers, his thighs with hers, she tilted her hips to his until his movement matched hers. And even while every point of contact thrummed with awareness, dance-wise, compared to the week before, it was actually better.

“Feel that?” she asked several bars later.

“I feel something,” he murmured.

“Not so stiff tonight,” she said, and felt him turn to stone beneath her touch. “Oh, relax. I meant in the hips,” she added, giving his arm a shake to get him moving again. “Been practising, have we?”

A muscle clenched in his jaw as he grumbled something about the better he knew the steps, the fewer lessons he’d have to endure.

“Really?” she said, honestly surprised. “Good for you.”

He grunted. “I feel like I’m in one of those movies were you’re about to ask if I could be your partner in some dancing contest.”

She laughed again; this time it slid more readily through her. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, sunshine. You couldn’t keep up with me if you tried.”

“No?” Without warning, he took her by the hand and twirled her out to the ends of his fingers. Years of training kicked in and she went with it, using her weight to hit the end and swing back where he swept her into a dip that left her breathless.

It wasn’t the most graceful move she’d ever executed, and yet her breath thundered through her body as his dark shadow loomed over her, as his strong arm braced her back, as his striking eyes stared hard and deep into hers.

Her hands curled against his bare pecs, and for the first time she wondered about Mr Testosterone’s life beyond the hour they spent together Tuesday nights. Did he lift cars for a living? Chop down hardwoods? No, not a bump in that perfect nose, not a single scar on that dauntingly flawless face...

Then, far more gently than she expected, he eased her back upright until they stood hip to hip, thigh to thigh, in a loose ballroom hold.

“How was that?” he asked, shifting so that she fitted closer still. Close enough to see flecks of gold in his hazel eyes. Close enough that every breath in was filled with his scent.

“Needs work.”

“That’s what I’m paying you for.”

Well reminded, she pulled away and jabbed the remote until she found something less...Norah. A basic foxtrot, pure muzak, the least sexy sound on the planet.

“Your posture’s closer,” she said. “Now we’ll work on your feet. Because, my friend, they suck.”

* * *

Soon the hour was over. Sweat had added a sheen to Ryder’s skin, a muskiness to his scent.

“Okay,” she said, running her hands over her damp hair. “Work on your feet this week. Give me something else to pick on next time.”

As she went to walk to the chaise to gather her stuff his hand clasped her wrist, stopping her. She looked back, hoping he couldn’t feel the sudden flurry of her pulse.

“I thought it was something in the air, but it’s you, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry?”

“That scent?” He leant into her, his nose brushing the edge of her hair as his eyes closed and he breathed her in. “I caught it last week too. Thought it was coming through the windows.”

She opened her mouth to say...who knew what. Her throat locked up as her entire body stood stock still, riveted by the sensation of his intense attention, and all that intoxicating male body heat intermingling with her own.

“What scent might that be?” she finally managed, her words thick, as if she were speaking through a mouthful of marshmallows.

“It’s spicy yet sweet. Like brandy.”

She breathed in and figured it out. “Ah, my hairspray. Industrial strength.”

His eyes moved to her hair, which was in its usual dishevelled array after a day’s worth of dancing.

“I don’t use it on my hair. Not unless I’m performing.”

His eyebrows all but disappeared into his hairline. “Then where?”

“It keeps the leotard from rising.”

“Rising?”

“Up,” she said with a swish of her hand towards the offending area. And then she walked away, completely unable to help from looking back to find his eyes had zeroed in on her backside with enough intensity he might as well have been using X-ray vision to see beneath her skirt. And if she added a little extra va va voom to her walk? She was only human.

She grabbed her lucky black wrap cardigan, criss-crossing the cord around her ribs.

She turned everything off while her student made himself decent. Pity. It had been fun while it lasted. Heady, hazardous, but worth every agonising second. While it was imperative she keep her hands to herself outside the one hour a week, at least her fantasies now had something to live off for months to come.

As he had the week before, Ryder waited for her as she locked up, walking behind her as she headed down the rickety old staircase. It was kind of endearing, actually, or it would have been if the feel of him a step behind her didn’t make her knees give out on the already precarious staircase.

When they got outside, he motioned to his slumbering car, all vintage curves and glossy gleam, its swanky dash glinting through the heavily tinted windows. “Can I drop you somewhere?”

She looped her big soft bag over one shoulder and gripped the strap in front of her. “Thanks, but no. I live just around the corner. And I’ll be fine walking. I have a mean right hook.” She lifted her hands in a boxing move, then backed away from the temptation of the cool luxury of the car, and the man who owned it.

His eyes remained steadfastly on hers. “Then would you like to get a coffee?”

Damn.
Nadia nibbled her bottom lip and struggled to dampen the distinct tightening in her belly. “Thanks, but no. Hate the stuff. Stunts your growth, don’t you know. See you next week.”

Without another word, she turned and headed home, knowing he was watching as she walked away. She could feel it as surely as if his big hands were sliding down her back, over her backside, down her calves, deep into the arches of her sore feet.

Her pulse beat hard in her neck, her breaths coming tight and hard. And she was forced to ask herself, again, if she’d done the right thing saying no. A fling needn’t be completely out of the question—

No, it needn’t. Just not with Ryder.

The man had proven himself far too capable of wrong-footing her. And with the biggest audition of her life looming, she needed complete control of her feet. And the rest of her.

Yet, as she hit the corner, she looked back.

But Ryder was gone.

The heaviness that settled low in her belly had nothing to do with being alone in the dark. Living out half her teen years in New York, then Dallas, then Vegas meant it was nothing for her to walk through the shadows as easily as the pools of light.

No, it wasn’t human company she craved; it was one very particular human.

She scuffed her shoe against a crack in the footpath and swore beneath her breath. Trouble lurked down that path, and, as was the fate of a Kent, she’d be the one who’d pay.

THREE

Lights flashed through
the darkness and music through speakers too old to handle the beat as bodies bumped and ground across the dance floor.

Nadia lifted her bare arms over her head, eyes closed, hips swaying, feet burning, as deep in her bliss she tripped the light fantastic. For her that was
exactly
how it felt; when the killer groove of the song met the rhythm in her bones, filling her muscles with liquid heat, and sparkling across her senses. It was approaching divine.

Add a fall of silk, a length of rope, better yet a sparkling silver hula hoop suspended thirty feet above the stage, adding danger, suspense, and an audience hushed with a mix of hope for a touch of magic and fear that something might go wrong... Now
that
was nothing short of orgasmic.

Feet well and truly on the ground—unless you counted three-inch spikes a prop—the vertical-drop strands of her fringed silver sparkly top swished over her belly, sensual, sexual, lifting the experience a nudge higher. Especially when she could so easily imagine the stroke of the strands belonged to the sure, sensual fingers of a man with dark hair and dark eyes and a dark voice that settled like a purr in her very core. Since she couldn’t have him, she had to ease the sexual tension somehow, and dancing the hours away in a hip club deep within Prahran was the best way she knew how.

A sudden wave of dehydration swelled over her, condensing her vision to a pinprick. Knowing when she’d overdone it, Nadia wiped her hands over her face, slipped through the surge of sweaty bodies, and headed for the stairs that led down to the bar. And iced water. A jug of it for starters.

She skipped lightly down the stairs, doing a little twirl as the song upstairs hit its crescendo.

“Kiss me, Dancing Queen!”

Nadia felt herself grabbed. With a “Whoa!” she held onto a strong male arm, using momentum as much as the strength of his arm at her waist to haul herself upright. Then she looked up to find herself in the grip of a random guy. With golden curls and a wonky grin, he was cute as a button.

“What’s in it for me?”

“My mates bet me a twenty you wouldn’t. Too gorgeous, they said. Way out of my league. Do a guy a favour and show them different. I’ll split it, fifty-fifty.” The guy flashed his adorable dimple, proving no woman on the planet was out of his league.

When the dancing was as good as it got, it might even be better than sex, but sex sure had its place. And the guy was a serious honey. If she wanted a fling, a chance to scratch the itch that had been bothering her all week, this was it. Unfortunately the kick in her belly, the tension making her ache, wasn’t his to erase.

“I’ll have to pass.” She grabbed his hand, ducked under his arm and twirled away, leaving behind a “Hey!” as she threaded through the lighter crowd to find the bar.

Instead she found that while she’d been dancing Sam and her friends had made their way downstairs too, taking up a group of soft velvet couches in a warm little alcove in the corner of the busy bar. Nadia walked that way in time with the smooth song crooning gently below the sweet murmur of conversation.

Sam stood and waved her over. Tall, skinny, knobbly; like a newborn colt. With her long straight dark hair and fey grey eyes Sam was quietly beautiful. Though, perhaps that was only compared with her brother’s terrible masculine beauty, which was like a smack between the eyes.

Nadia nudged Sam’s fiancé, Ben, to scoot over.

“Don’t you go sweating on me, Miss Nadia,” said Ben as he made space. “This jacket is suede.”

Nadia eyed it, and raised an eyebrow. “That jacket is a travesty.”

“See!” Sam called across the couch. She grinned past the straw between her teeth, the other end of which was deep in a tall glass of something poison green.

Nadia spied the jug of the stuff, mist wafting from the ice sprinkled across the top—at least she hoped it was mist—and poured herself a glass. Dancing hadn’t erased the tight craving in her belly, and, since she’d stupidly given up a chance at a cute guy, poison-green cocktails might be her last resort.

She took a sip, shook her head at the beautiful bitterness, and settled into the lounge and the conversation swirling around her. The first real friends she’d made since moving home. Being able to talk about other things, fun things, silly things, serious things, things that had nothing to do with dance, was unexpectedly nice. Rare times she might even admit it was a relief. She’d miss them when she left.

Sam’s eyes suddenly widened to comical proportions as she spied something over Nadia’s shoulder. Enough that Nadia lifted herself from her slump and turned. And found herself looking into the hot hazel eyes of the man who’d sent her to drink.

“Ryder,” she and Sam said at the same time.

Nadia clamped her teeth around the straw so as not to say anything else incriminating.

“The big man!” called Ben, pulling himself to half standing to extend a handshake to his future brother-in-law.

Ryder moved in to take Ben’s hand, his shadow flowing over Nadia in the process.

He acknowledged the chorus of greetings with a smile in his eyes. Though when he finally looked down at Nadia, lifting his chin in acknowledgement, the glints hardened. Nadia crossed her legs to hold in the sensation that poured unbidden through her.

Belatedly, she noticed he’d changed. Gone was the ubiquitous pristine suit and in its place dark jeans and a dark sports coat. Beneath that an olive-green T-shirt that hugged the curves and definitions of his chest and made the very most of the flecks of green in his eyes. Nadia shoved the straw deeper in her mouth and took a hearty gulp.

“I’m so glad you came!” Sam called across the couch. “Was it the begging that did it? Or the promise of dancing? Ooh, you should dance with Nadia. Nothing like doing it for real to pick up some pointers.”

Nadia bit down on her straw so hard her jaw hurt. Oh, Lordy, Sam was playing matchmaker. Nadia would have to put a stop to that. Meaning she’d probably have to explain why.

She’d managed not to tell a soul here her plans as yet. Not at the studio. Not her mother. And not Sam and her friends.

Not that she had any concerns of jinxing things. She’d never been superstitious though she knew many dancers who were: lucky shoes, miracle lipstick, turning three times on the spot while chanting “Isadora Duncan” over and over. It was a little more selfish than that—she’d moved on a lot in her life and knew how people began to pull away when a job was near the end. She wanted
this
—the ease, the acceptance—a little while longer.

“I just remembered!” Ben jumped in. “The Big Man’s taking lessons too. I hear she told you you’d have to wear tights. Classic!”

Nadia opened her eyes wide at Ben but he just looked at her in sweet ignorance.

“Told you that, did she?” said Ryder.

“
She’s
sitting right in front of you,” Nadia muttered into her straw.

“How is he going, Nadia?” Sam asked. “I bet he tries to lead all the time.”

Nadia smiled at Sam. “He’s got potential, especially if he keeps applying himself.”

“
Applying
himself to dance?” Sam repeated, eyes wide and suggestive as she grinned at her brother. “Well, I never.”

Nadia made the mistake of looking up at the man in question to find his eyes glinting in warning. Unfortunately he didn’t know her well enough to know that he’d just tossed fuel on her fire.

She blinked up at him. “Turns out he has excellent posture too. Quite the form.”

Another beat went by in which the gleam in his eyes deepened, and the pulse in her wrist began to kick like a wild thing.

“In fact,” she continued, evidently unstoppable, “I have a few amateur ballroom enthusiasts on my books who are desperate for a male partner. If I let slip about your brother here, there’ll be blood in the water.”

The muscle twitched in Ryder’s jaw and he shoved his hands in the front pockets of his trousers, drawing her eyes down to what he’d framed all too nicely. Accident? Who knew? The man was an ocean of enigmas. Either way, by the time her eyes rose back to his, the pulse in her wrist had begun to beat loud and proud behind her ears.

Which was when the strains of a Kylie song filtered down the stairs and as one Sam’s friends shot to their feet, babbling about the song and the school formal and somebody falling off the stage, before they were all gone up the stairs in the search of the dance floor.

Ben remained, stoic in his charge of the bags and chairs, and not about to get his new suede jacket anywhere near the sweaty dancers upstairs. Then with the couch all to himself he shuffled deeper, and spread out with a sigh.

“Want to get some air?” Ryder asked, not having moved an inch.

She looked back up at him, and up, and up.
Did she? Hell, yeah
. “You okay, Ben?”

“As a lark.”

“Then air it is.” Nadia put her cocktail back on the table and stood, running her damp hands down the thighs of her jeans.

She pointed the way to a balcony populated with beer drinkers and followed as Ryder made a way through the throng and to a quiet patch of railing. Music pulsed through the windows above. Soft chatter spread from the star-gazers outside. While Nadia breathed deep of the cool night air, the busy street below, the Prahran railway station peeking between the nearby buildings.

Then, without preface, Ryder asked, “When I asked you out for coffee, why didn’t you tell me you had plans with Sam?” and with a darkness in his voice that Nadia hadn’t seen coming.

Completely foxed by the direction of his conversation, her incredulity was ripe as she blurted, “Why? Do you have a problem with that?”

He stayed silent, but the twitch in his cheek gave her the answer.

“You do!” She jabbed his forearm with a finger; when it hit solid muscle it bounced right back. “What do you think I’m going to do, corrupt her? Buddy, that venomous green potion masquerading as a drink back there was all hers.”

Ryder’s hands curled around the railing, the frown marring his forehead easing some. “She’s...open-hearted. She’s never been very good at protecting herself. That’s long since fallen to me.”

Okay, then. Not so much an indictment on her. This was about him. Nadia lowered her mental dukes. “I’d say Ben back there has you covered on that score.”

Ryder scoffed, his frown back with a vengeance.

“What? Ben’s smart, solid, and he’s clearly smitten with her. I’m totally jealous.”

“Jealous?” Well, that wiped the frown from his face. He turned to lean his elbows against the railing as he stared through the crowd at the young man scooched low in the soft seat, the collar of his jacket bunched up about his ears.

Nadia rolled her eyes. “Not of Sam, you goose. Of how much Ben adores her. I’ve never even been
close
to so adored.”

Ryder’s eyes slid back to hers, an eyebrow raised in raging disbelief.

“Admired by audiences, sure,” she said, floating a
who cares
hand between them. “Envied by other dancers, oh yeah. Enjoyed by men, you can count on it. But adored?” She shook her head as Ryder continued to stare at her as if she’d grown an extra head. “Don’t panic, Ryder. I’m not about to huddle in a corner and cry. A dancer’s life is an endless series of rejections with just enough triumphs thrown in to keep us hungry. We’re a tough breed, Kent women and dancers both. And it’s hard to be tough and adorable at the same time.”

“Puppies are adorable,” said Ryder, his eyes now roving over her face, her hair, her shimmering silver top that she’d not all that long ago imagined slid over her skin with his touch. When his eyes roved back to hers she felt a good degree hotter. “Baby bunnies too.”

“And your sister.”

“Alas, my sister has a tendency to be that, to my constant disadvantage. As for you...” Nadia fought the urge to twist and turn under his heady gaze. “Adorable you may not be. But only because you’re something else entirely.”

The urge to ask what he thought was so acute she only just managed to swallow it down. If she went there, there’d be no going back.

Instead she leant on the railing and looked out into the night.

“My adorable sister is really marrying the twerp, isn’t she?” Ryder asked at long last.

“Yeah,” Nadia said on a relieved laugh. “Did you think it was all pretend?”

“No. Maybe.” He ran a hand over his face, then through his hair, leaving it in spikes. And upon witnessing the first spark of vulnerability she’d ever seen in the man, Nadia felt her heart kick hard against her ribs.

In punishment, she bumped her hip against the railing hard enough to leave a bruise, and said, “I see what’s going on here. It’s like something out of a Jane Austen novel. The big sister—or in this case brother—overlooked, left on the shelf, while the younger sister shines.”

As hoped, the ridiculousness smacked the vulnerability from his eyes. Then he grinned, his teeth flashing white in the moonlight. “Alas, I am a confirmed bachelor.”

“Confirmed by whom?”

“Every woman I’ve ever been with.”

Not dated. Not known.
Been with
. Nadia breathed deep.

“I’m a determined man when motivated, Miss Kent. And my motivations lead me to work eighty hours a week in a job I take seriously. I am less motivated to give up my standing holiday in Belize every Australian winter, one ticket return. Or full rights to the remote control. And at the end of the day I go home to the bachelor pad to end all bachelor pads.”

“Posters of women in bikinis straddling large...motorbikes all over your walls?”

Guy didn’t even blink. “No. But it’s a damn fine idea.”

“Yeeeahhh,” she drawled, letting her grin out to play. “That’s what I thought. And yet even with such a fine example of determined independence to steer her to rights, your sister has succumbed to the dark side. Give in, big brother. It’s happened. Your little sister’s all grown up. Time’s nearing where you’ll have to find someone else to boss around.”

When Ryder stilled, Nadia wondered if she’d said something wrong. Pressed too far. But then his face creased into a rueful smile; his hazel eyes crinkled, attractive arcs bracketed his mouth, drawing attention to his fine lips.