by Virna DePaul
“Save a dance for me?” he murmured in her ear, and she trembled in spite of the heat from his breath.
“If you’re a good boy, I’ll do better than that.” She turned her head, meeting his eye. “I’ll dance just for you.”
He twitched against her leg, and she was sure the heat between her thighs would kill her. For a moment, it was just the two of them.
Then the breathless, thrilling moment was over, and they went back to taking care of the customers. For the sake of both of them, Erica kept the rest of their interactions as professional as possible. Otherwise, there was no telling what might happen.
Chapter Seven
He could hardly stand it. No way she knew what she was doing to him, or the supreme self-control he employed to keep his hands off her. A little brushing, a little teasing, that was one thing. Before long, all he wanted was to take her by the hips and drive himself into her until she couldn’t do anything but scream his name.
During the first lull in the crowd, he ducked into the kitchen to catch a bit of air and clear his head.
“How’s it going out there?” Brady filled a tray with some of the gourmet pub fare they served, then handed it off to one of the two servers on duty that night.
“Typical Friday. I need a breather.” He stepped out back, where the air was crisp and cool. It was just the thing for an overheated mind.
Had he really just agreed to go to a dance club with Erica? It was hardly his scene—then again, the thought of watching her dance was enough to get his engine purring. It would be worth it.
“Riley! She needs you out there! Stop fapping about!” Riley grinned at the sound of Sean’s voice, and went back inside.
* * *
Sure Footed was less like a dance club and more like a sardine can, Riley observed ruefully. Was this what people his age enjoyed doing? What ever happened to a nice, quiet football game at the pub?
Bodies thrashed around to eighties music. Eighties music! Something his mam would have listened to. But it made him smile seeing Erica looking so totally relaxed and confident.
She caught his eye from across the room and waved. He lifted a hand in greeting, then took a long swig of beer. Watching her move was like watching water flowing through a stream. She was fluid, graceful. As adorably clumsy and awkward as she could be in everyday life, she was just that beautifully coordinated when she danced. She seemed to feel the music on a deeper level than those around her. She wasn’t just moving to the beat. The music was literally moving her.
Then again, it might be me that’s moving her, he thought. He remembered her promise of a dance just for him. Was she dancing for him then? Or was there even more to come? He was hooked, either way. He couldn’t wait to see what the night promised.
She took a shot, offered by one of her girlfriends. That gave him pause. She was drinking a lot—not that it mattered whether or not a woman drank, but it did matter when Riley was considering sleeping with that woman. He wasn’t overly fond of the thought of a drunken partner. Much more drinking and he would have to postpone any festivities either of them had in mind. He didn’t play games with drunk girls.
She sidled up to him with a bright smile on her face. “What are you doing, sitting here all alone?” she asked, yelling to be heard over the music.
Riley raised his glass. “Enjoying the view,” he said, winking.
She grinned, and if her face weren’t already flushed from the effort of dancing he thought she might have blushed.
“If you think it’s good from far away, you should see it close-up.”
Something stirred inside him when he heard her words, saw the challenge in her eyes. Her voice was low, intimate. Reminding him of the way they talked to each other on the phone.
“You should dance with me. I’ve seen you move well enough,” she challenged.
“And when was this? And where was I, because I certainly don’t remember it.”
“At The Stylish Irish.”
He frowned. “I’ve never danced at the restaurant.”
“No, but you’ve moved well. When you’re behind the bar, and you’re not thinking about anything, you move very gracefully. You’re very…sensual.” Erica bit her lip.
Riley’s pants tightened around his growing cock. “Oh, sensual, is it?” He grinned, and she ducked her head.
“Yeah, so? What’s so bad about that?” She looked touchingly embarrassed. So she wasn’t all that drunk yet, if she could still feel embarrassment. That was promising.
“Nothing, nothing. I just wonder how close you’ve been paying attention to me all this time.”
“Very close.” All joking ceased. She was dead serious. There was frank, honest need in her eyes. He wanted to take her, then and there, the rest of the room be damned. “So, are you coming out there with me, or not?”
He couldn’t refuse an invitation like that, so he allowed her to take his hand, leading him to the floor. Her girlfriends gave them wide berth—Riley wondered if she’d already talked it over with them, letting them know her intentions for the evening. He saw the way they looked at them, with a mixture of amusement and jealousy, and imagined the gossip they’d be exchanging the next day.
Erica didn’t seem to care, and he followed her lead. She wore a tight, black tank top and tight jeans—the button-down she’d worn at the pub was a thing of the past, and her hair was no longer in its customary ponytail. Instead, it swung free and loose over her shoulders, a golden waterfall that rippled as she moved.
He took her hips in his hands, positioning her against his body as they swayed together. He didn’t know the song, only vaguely recognizing it. Erica seemed to know it, though, and was more focused on singing it than she was on dancing with him. Her slightly-off-key voice warbled as she belted out the lyrics with great gusto. He bit his lip to keep from laughing, enjoying the fun, goofy side of her even as he imagined skewering her tight, tiny body with his aching cock.
She smelled incredible, even a little sweaty as she was. He pulled her even closer, his face in her neck. She stopped singing, sighing instead when she felt his breath on her skin. She moved with him, then, giving him her body. Her arms wrapped around his neck. His thigh rested between hers, and she ground gently against it. He groaned in her ear, so close only she could hear it. She gasped softly. He wanted to lick her, suck on her, sink his teeth into her flesh until she cried out. The urge was so great, he had to break apart from her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, all wide-eyed innocence. Some girls would have played games just then, acting as though they didn’t know the effect they had. It wasn’t a game with her. She was genuinely confused. It was touching.
And made him harder than an iron spike.
“Why don’t we sit down?” he asked, feeling a little woozy. Probably all the blood flow to my groin, he thought, clenching his jaw. “I need a breather. It’s been a long time since I’ve danced.” She looked amiable enough, so he took her hand to lead her back to their booth.
He ordered a water for Erica, hoping that the drink and the dancing would help her sober up. No way she was in any condition to screw around with—despite the fact she’d been able to feel embarrassment earlier, she was definitely past tipsy. Conversation might sober her up, too.
“What do you plan to do with your business degree?” Riley asked, leaning in to be heard.
She pulled away with a look of surprise. “I didn’t expect you to want to talk about that tonight,” she admitted.
“Why not? We’re here together. How often do we get to find out more about each other?”
She shrugged, though still didn’t look convinced. “Honestly? Gosh, this is going to sound so dorky, but I want to get into the wine making business.” She winced, like she expected him to laugh at her.
“What’s dorky about that? I think that’s a great idea!”
“You do?”
“Hello, look around you. You’re in wine country. Why wouldn’t you want to make wine? It’s natural.�
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She beamed. “I know it takes skill, obviously. Once I get my business degree, I want to go to school to learn about wine.”
“That’s great. Really. You’re setting yourself up for success by planning in advance. I couldn’t be more impressed.” He wasn’t buttering her up, either. She had goals. How many people thought they could get into the wine business without a shred of experience? He’d already heard of a few who went bust in the short time he’d been in America. It was easy to look in from the outside and think a certain job or vocation was easy, until you stepped in and got your hands dirty and saw that it was no joke. Riley knew that all too well from running the pub. Not that they were hurting—far from it. But even with the experience they’d had with his parents’ restaurant in Ireland, The Crazy Yankee, the months he and his brothers had spent running The Stylish Irish on their own had taught them that it wasn’t as easy as it appeared.
He told her that, too. “When we were growing up, it wasn’t uncommon to find youngsters in the pub. Not drinking, mind you, but just sitting around with their dads or their brothers, watching a game. Teenagers, you know. And it always looked like so much fun. The barkeep would joke with the customers, share a drink with them, share stories. They were everybody’s favorite person, and for their part, they always knew the names and families of their best customers. It was like a big family. I fell in love with that more romantic image when I was a boy, you might say. And that only grew when my parents opened up their place back in Ireland, The Crazy Yankee.”
“Are you disillusioned now?” she asked.
“Not hardly. You’ve seen the way we all are at the restaurant. It’s not so different from what I described, is it?”
“No, now that you mention it. You have just as much fun.”
“Exactly. But there’s a fuck ton of hard work behind that, yeah? It just so happens none of us is a stranger to hard work. We were raised on it. Others might not have been so lucky. They might have looked at all the long hours and the fighting over budgets and hiring workers and negotiating with suppliers and given up already. You’re doing the smart thing, learning the business beforehand. When things get tough, you’ll be armed with knowledge and you won’t give up.”
“To not giving up.” Erica raised her glass of water, and he happily touch his own glass to it. Their eyes met as they drank, and he found himself smiling. She was the sort of person he could open up to. What other woman would he have talked to like that? Normally, women were fun. He enjoyed them. But Lucy was the only one he’d ever seriously talked to…until meeting Erica.
“You told me something you weren’t comfortable sharing. So I’ll tell you something to make it fair. How’s that sound?”
“Ooh! Ooh! Yes!” She clapped her hands, making him laugh.
“Okay. You can’t laugh. I swear, I’ll never tell you anything again.”
“Oh, this sounds very serious.” Erica’s face went stony.
He chuckled. Then confided, “I do know how to dance.”
She waited with an obvious look of suspense. “And?”
“My mam made us all take lessons, growing up. Now you know my deepest secret,” he said, shrugging.
Her eyes lit up. “Come on,” she said, tugging his hand. “Dance with me again. Show me what you’ve got.”
“Why don’t you dance for me, instead?” He leaned back against the cushions of the booth, arms stretched across the top. “I want to watch you dance.”
She blushed. “I don’t know…”
“What, all talk and no action? Come on. Where’s that swagger I saw at the pub?”
Her eyes narrowed and her chin tiled up, a sure indication she was about to accept the challenge. His pulse picked up speed, wondering what she had in store for him.
Chapter Eight
He wants a show, does he? Well. I’ll give him a show, all right. He’ll learn not to challenge me.
Erica walked back out to the floor, where her friends danced together, drinks in their hands. Marissa and Trinity, from school, and her roommate, Jenna. The three of them were having a great time, pouncing on her when she approached.
“How’s it going with him?” Jenna asked, leaning in. She knew who he was, having let him in the night before. She also knew from the number of times Erica had obsessed over him since the day they met.
“Not sure,” Erica answered. “Good, I think, but he’s a little standoffish. He wants me to dance for him.”
Jenna pulled away, eyes lighting up. “That doesn’t sound standoffish to me, girl. Get to it.” She gave Erica a thumbs up. Erica felt a little weak-kneed, but didn’t want to punk out when she had Riley on the hook.
The song changed, and she recognized it immediately. She couldn’t believe her luck. It was too perfect. Prince’s Darling Nikki. The slow, driving beat filled the club, and Erica began to move in time.
“Give me your drinks!” she said to her friends, who obediently held them out to her. One by one, she drained the glasses. In the back of her mind, she knew it wasn’t a good idea, mixing alcohol, but she needed some liquid courage if she was going to do this. Sure enough, the warmth of the spirits settled in her chest and stomach and below, filling her with a bold sense of resolve. She threw a casual glance back over her shoulder and saw Riley watching. Good. Let him watch. She told herself she never had to see any of the people there ever again if she didn’t want to, then got started.
She slowly swiveled her hips in a figure-8, then snapped at the waist and bent down to the floor, flipping her hair upside down as she did. Starting at her ankles, she moved her hands slowly up the outsides of her legs, then snapped her head back once she reached her hips.
She ran one hand up her side and over her neck, pulling her hair to the side. The other she ran across my stomach, then wrapped it around her hip. She spun around to face Riley with her eyes closed, then dragged the hand in her hair down the other side of her face, catching her fingers on her slightly-opened mouth as she traveled down. She grazed her breasts before crossing it over to the other hip, hugging herself. Her eyes opened to find Riley still watching. He sat back, his arms stretched out across the top of the bench, facing her. His eyes stared into hers.
She started moving her hips in slow circles to the beat, turning as she did. She rolled her head on her shoulders as if she were in ecstasy.
Once again her back was turned to him. She started bumping and grinding as if she were in front of a pole. They may as well have been the only two people in the room as Erica put a special little show on for him. Just for him.
Marissa and Trinity stared at her, shocked by the total one-eighty in her demeanor. Jenna pulled them aside.
Meanwhile, Erica’s legs were spread shoulder-width. She moved her hips back and forth as she made her way down to the floor, then grabbed her ankles and straightened her legs out. He wants a peek at my ass? Here it is, she thought. She glanced at him through open legs to confirm she still had his attention, and she did. Thank God. If he hadn’t been watching anymore, she thought she might have dug a hole in the middle of the floor and thrown herself into it. Instead, she slowly ran her hands up the backs of her legs as she straightened up.
Erica turned back around to face him, and by now his mouth was curled up at the corner into a sexy smirk that sent arrows of heat straight between her legs. She alternated between popping her hips from one side to the other and undulating like a wave from her breasts to her pelvis and back again, thrusting her hips toward him, biting her lower lip, never breaking eye contact. In her head, she said all the things she wanted to say to him, pictured everything she’d ever thought about him while touching herself. She knew it came through in the way she was moving, and she wanted him to see it in her eyes.
She was starting to attract attention from other guys—it was pretty clear. They were watching, edging closer to her. They weren’t dancing, but she got the feeling they all wanted the chance to break in on her. The song was going to end, and she suddenly wondered what the
heck she was going to do. Erica looked around to find the girls had blended back into the crowd, nowhere to be seen.
She threw a desperate look back at the booth—only to find a complete stranger eating the face off another complete stranger. That was not what she expected to see, to put it mildly. Her eyes searched the room frantically. Where the hell did Riley go? Her heart sank, caught between feeling too exposed and despairing over her dance going to waste. If he was willing to walk away like that, she couldn’t have been too effective.
The next song started, some sexy Latin song Erica didn’t know the name of but definitely recognized. Oh, balls. She felt like a minnow about to be descended upon by sharks as two random guys started to approach, one from either side.
Suddenly, she felt a presence close behind her. A hand closed over her right hand and carried it to her opposite hip. She panicked, until she caught a glimpse of a crisp white shirt sleeve and a whiff of familiar cologne mixed with the smell of whiskey, one which she’d come to associate with the O’Neill boys. Thank God, she thought, relaxing into him and letting him lead her.
They started swaying back and forth, their hips moving in time, his hand guiding her movement. She was so glad she knew how to follow. And once the relief of being saved from Lord only knew what on the dance floor passed, Erica became all too aware of the sheer force of the man pressed against her—but she trusted him, with all her heart.
And so her body followed the lines of his body as they moved. Her backside was pressed against his crotch as their hips undulated. His left hand traveled down her left arm, and once it found her hand, his fingers entwined with hers. He brought the hand up to his neck, then stroked his way down the length her arm and torso—a total “Dirty Dancing” move that made her catch her breath and turned her knees to jelly.
