One Last Dance

by Angela Stephens

  She felt suddenly frumpy in her soft, stretchy black yoga pants and a loose, white V-neck t-shirt. She’d considered wearing one of the many kicky hemmed, flirty skirts that languished in the back of her closet, like the one she’d worn to apartment hunt. But that had been a rare instance, and she didn’t want to give Henry the wrong idea. Her only concession to typical dance attire was the black heels strapped to her feet. Dancing with Henry, alone, in his apartment could lead to who knows what. Especially given the sexual tension that arose between them each time they danced.

  She hoped her outfit sent the message that she was not at all interested in doing anything other than dancing with him. Really hoped. Because if it came down to it, Sophie was pretty sure she wouldn’t actually be able to voice those words. Her body wouldn’t let her. She wasn’t even in the stupid building yet and already her nipples had tightened into sensitive points and her blood was beginning to heat. Just at the thought of being in his arms again.

  Sophie took a deep, slow breath and forced her feet toward the building’s wide, glass front doors. A doorman stepped up to open them for her, and she blinked at him in surprise. She didn’t miss the way his eyes flicked down to her outfit and the skin around his mouth tightened fractionally. She plastered on a smile and nodded in thanks, ducking quickly inside.

  The lobby was cool and quiet, the sound of her high heels on the marble floor loud. She glanced around, self-conscious, but she was alone. She hurried toward the elevator, clutching the code that Henry had given her.

  “You have to hit the button for seventy-five, and then enter the code quickly, or it will lock you out. If that happens, just call my cell.”

  She tucked a stray hair back into her ponytail, and studied the button panel. The floor buttons for seventy-three to seventy-five were separate from the others, and beside them was a smaller keypad that looked like a more hi-tech version of the one the alarm company had installed in her place. Sophie pressed the “75”, which made the keypad chime and light up red. She hastily entered the seven digit code, which she’d been so nervous about losing that she’d actually memorized it.

  The keypad went green and the elevator doors slid closed. She breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back against the metal box’s rich wood paneled walls. Her hands trembled. She flexed them, smoothing the t-shirt over her belly. The muscles there twitched.

  Sophie closed her eyes, hoping to calm her nerves—and hormones. But the minute she did, the darkness behind her lids filled with images of Henry Medina tugging her shirt over her head.

  She snapped her eyes open, staring instead at the electronic panel that ticked off the floor numbers in amber. She focused on the classical music straining softly out of the speakers and forced her shoulders to relax. Though she barely felt movement, the numbers flipped quickly by on the display. There was a faint click and hum as it switched from seventy-two to seventy-three and continued upward.

  The elevator drew to such a smooth stop at seventy-five that Sophie didn’t even sway. The doors glided soundlessly open. Henry was waiting for her. All the calm she’d managed to gather about her on the elevator ride fled, along with her breath, at the sight of the man. And the apartment behind him. He was dressed in charcoal grey slacks and a white button-down that was open at the throat, revealing a dusting of dark, wiry hair on his chest. His normally immaculate hair was slightly rumpled, as if he’d been running his hands through it.

  “Sophie. I’m glad you came.”

  She nodded, looking past him to the penthouse beyond as she stepped out of the elevator. To her left was what could best be described as a gallery, the muted gold of the walls adorned with what looked like very expensive artwork. Given where she was, she had no doubt that’s exactly what it was.

  Henry motioned her to the right, toward a sliding glass door that led out onto a terrace, and a truly amazing view of the city. She could see all the way to the river and the lights of the boats there as the evening dimmed. “Henry, my goodness. It’s lovely.”

  “It’s one of my favorite things about this apartment.” His smile was deep as he looked out over the New York skyline. She could see the genuine admiration shining in his ebony eyes as he looked out at the city.

  “I can see why.” Views like this, with all the lights glittering like stars below them, were partially responsible for making Sophie fall in love with New York City.

  He placed a light hand on the small of her back, ushering her around the corner with gentle pressure. Sophie shivered slightly as the warmth of his hand seeped through her shirt. She should have worn layers.

  As they rounded the next corner, Sophie gasped. She knew where she was, and yet, the view was still breathtaking. All of Central Park was laid out in the near distance, more lights flickering there like fireflies. On a small cafe table near the terrace wall, Henry had arranged a carafe of wine, two glasses, and a plate of fruit and cheese. He motioned her to have a seat. “Please. Let’s have a glass of wine before we begin.”

  She nodded, folding herself into the wrought iron chair with its plush velvet cushion. Henry poured them each a glass and handed her one. “I hope you like Malbecs.”

  He toasted her. Sophie returned the toast, sipping delicately at the rich wine. Flavors of blackberry and cocoa unfolded on her tongue and warmth trickled down her throat. “Mmm,” Sophie murmured.

  “Not the finest vintage, but it reminds me of Argentina.” Henry sat opposite her, popping a raspberry into his mouth before taking a sip of his own wine.

  Sophie tilted her head, studying his features. “Are you from there?”

  He chewed the fruit slowly, shaking his head. “I was born here, but my parents are both from Buenos Aires. They moved here a couple years before I was born.”

  She plucked a piece of crumbly cheese from the plate on the table before them and nibbled it, enjoying the contrast of the tangy creaminess of the cheese with the intense flavor of the wine. “Did you ever think about moving there? Argentina, I mean.”

  Henry rolled the stem of the wine glass between his blunt tipped fingers. “My father has a house there. I suppose I could, if I wanted to. But no, this is my city.”

  Sophie smiled. “I know what you mean. I’m from upstate but, more than anywhere else, this feels like home.”

  She sucked the last of the sweet juice of a strawberry from her thumb, slowly becoming aware that Henry’s eyes were intent on her mouth as she did so. Intent and scorching. She licked away a smear of sticky juice on her lower lip and saw the muscle in his jaw jump. He slowly raised his gaze back to hers, taking a deep draught from his wine glass. “Where upstate?” he asked, voice husky.

  “About two and half hours north of here, in the Catskills.” It was her turn to stare as he bit into a fig. She imagined those teeth closing gently over her nipple, those sensual lips sucking the hard bud, and shuddered. Moisture flooded the already slick folds of her pussy. Why couldn’t she control herself around this man?

  “That’s lovely country,” Henry said.

  Sophie blinked at him, trying to remember what the last thing she had said was. It took a minute. She sipped her wine to cover the lapse. “Oh, yes,” she answered, remembering. “It is. I miss it sometimes.” She shrugged. “So how did you get a place like this?”

  He rubbed his thumb idly over a rough spot on the table’s surface, glancing briefly up at her through his lashes. “I work in real estate. The company is my father’s,” he said. His voice had gone dead.

  His answer was brief, conveying the barest minimum of information. Best to move on. “Do you have music you prefer? I’ve brought some, if not.” She raised her iPod. Henry’s eyes flashed up to her, and she read surprise in their inky depths.

  He drained the last of his wine and stood. “You can play what you like. I’ve got a dock in the sitting room we can use.”

  Sophie took his extended hand, letting him draw her up out of the chair. “Well then,” she said, “shall we dance?”

  He didn’t answ
er. Instead, he led her through another set of sliding glass doors, into what he’d called the sitting room. It was a rectangular room, with a fireplace taking up nearly an entire long wall. A pair of loveseats had been pushed back, clearing a wide space on the floor, and a rug that was surely Persian was rolled up against the fire’s immaculate grate.

  The wood floor beneath was a deep cherry color and polished to a high shine. The iPod dock Henry had mentioned was on one of the matching cherry end tables, small and discrete. Sophie set down her bag. She took out her water bottle and drank a long sip before plugging her iPod into the sound dock. She keyed up a song and turned to Henry as the first beats drifted out through his speakers.

  When he took her hand and drew her against him, his hold was even more intimate than it had been in the past. His hand on her back slid from her shoulder blade to rest against the small of her back, just above the curve of her ass. He pressed her so tightly against his body that she could feel the hard round outline of his shirt buttons and the cool metal of his belt buckle touching the flat plane of her belly.

  Neither one of them added any space as they began to dance. Their hips and torsos twisted, their legs and feet moved to the beat, but they remained touching from shoulder to groin. Their previous two dances had stuck almost entirely to the accepted, classical form of tango. But not this time. This would be sensual.

  Sophie gripped the hair at the nape of Henry’s neck with curled fingers, her face pressed into the warm length of his throat, her right arm dangling gracefully at her side while he dragged her forward, one big hand wrapped around her left thigh, holding it to his hip.

  He pivoted, turning, supporting her entire weight as he bent over her, his breath ruffling against the hardened peaks of her breasts as he dropped his head. She slid her right hand over his chest, clutching at his shirt. His strength was the only thing keeping them up as she hung elegantly in his grasp. Sophie’s heart sank low into her belly, beating like a frantic butterfly between her thighs. She bit her lip as he spun her upright, swallowing her gasp as he moved into a calesita, like he had the other day. But this one felt different. That had been a bit of play, silliness. Today, he moved around her like a big cat stalking prey, his dark eyes hot on her face.

  Henry pulled her into his chest, his cheek pressing against her hair. She could hear the rasp of his breath in her ear. His hard thigh slid between her legs, rubbing deliciously against her heated sex. Sophie undulated herself, stroking the length of his body with her own. Never before had she danced quite like this—a vertical expression of a horizontal desire, indeed. Horizontal, vertical, at an angle, she didn’t care how so long as she could express it.

  She wasn’t the only one. Sophie felt the fleeting brush of Henry’s rock hard cock against her hip as he twisted and shuddered. His eyes snapped sparks at her, setting her skin aflame anywhere they rested. Pure, powerful want blazed through her veins, incinerating every other thought she might have had.

  And then he leaned her back into a colgada, and her bad knee buckled. Sophie slipped, and would have fallen, heavily, onto her back if Henry hadn’t caught her and righted her. He made to move them seamlessly into a molinette, but her knee trembled unsteadily beneath her. Sophie wrenched herself from his arms, stumbling blindly to the nearest loveseat, eyes filling with stinging tears.

  “Sophie?” Henry’s voice was rough with desire and worry. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze. Instead, she desperately massaged her aching knee where the muscles were beginning to knot and prayed for them to loosen. This was what she had feared. The weakness and ugliness of her injury bringing her low in front of Henry. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs as the tears spilled over her lashes and ran down her heated cheeks.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s my... I’m sorry. I’ll go.” She knocked the dock over in her haste to snatch her iPod as more tears poured down her face, wetting the front of her t-shirt as they dripped off her chin. She shouldered her bag hastily, trying to tuck her face against her shoulder so he wouldn’t see her tear-stained and blotchy. “I’ll just go,” she repeated, standing quickly. But her knee seized again and she cried out in pain, pitching forward. Henry’s strong hands caught her shoulders, cupping firmly, and pressed her back into the loveseat. She went, unable to stand on the knee anyway.

  He touched her damp chin. “Sophie, stop. Look at me,” His voice was quiet, but firm. She obeyed, raising her face to his. He nodded. “Good. Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

  Sophie’s fingers dug into the muscle above her left knee. She sniffled. “It’s my knee.”

  “I gathered that. What’s wrong with it?”

  She sighed, shoulders slumping. There was no way out of explaining at least some of it. She couldn’t get up and leave, after all. Her damn knee wouldn’t let her. “Six years ago I was in Thailand for a competition. I had an accident.” She swiped angrily at the tears on her cheeks. “It was a stupid slip and fall and I landed on a sharp steel plate. It should have been nothing. But it ended up costing me my career, and it still isn’t fully healed.” She finally raised her solemn gaze to his. “It’s why I don’t dance anymore.”

  “Until I asked you.” It wasn’t a question, but Sophie nodded anyway. Henry wiped some of the tears from her cheek. “And it hurts badly right now?”

  She bit her lip, but she could hardly deny it. She’d screamed when she tried to get up. She sighed. “Yes, it hurts badly.” It killed her to admit it to him, but when he asked her a direct question, she didn’t have it in her to lie.

  “Stay right here.” He was gone before she could reply. She heard the sound of running water, drawers opening and closing, the clink of glass, and then silence. She frowned, trying to breath through the pain of her knotting muscles, massaging her knee.

  She jerked up as the glass door slid open and Henry once more appeared from the terrace, arms laden with various objects. He thrust a glass of wine into her hand. “Here, drink this. It will help you relax.”

  “I should probably—”

  “Drink the wine.”

  She blinked in surprise at his commanding tone and sipped the wine. He set a bottle of aspirin beside her on the end table, near her water bottle. Next to that he set a jar of Tiger Balm. Sophie recognized the distinctive red and gold container. There was one in nearly every room of her apartment.

  Henry surprised her again, getting to his knees in front of her. The last item he held was a damp washcloth. He lifted her chin with his left hand, wiping her cheeks with the soft, cool cloth. Sophie sighed at the gentle gesture, and Henry smiled.

  “There. Now, let’s have a look at this knee.”

  His words sent hot shards of panic into her heart and she clutched her knee with her left hand. “That’s not necessary. Once I have the wine and the aspirin I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

  “Sophie,” he said, his deep voice brooking no argument. “Let me see your knee.”

  Sophie took a deep breath and moved her hand. She gulped wine, breathing heavily as he inspected the troublesome joint carefully.

  Henry smiled. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she breathed, answering automatically as she stared into the lambent ebony of his eyes. Sophie felt his hand lifting the hem of her pants leg, but didn’t care. Or rather, she cared, but she didn’t mind. His knuckles lightly brushed her calf as he raised the loose material up. He pushed it gently over her knee, fingers grazing her inner thigh as he tucked it out of the way. But his eyes never left hers.

  He smoothed the fabric, stroking the curve of her thigh, before lowering his gaze. Sophie tensed, sucking in a sharp breath and squeezing her own eyes closed, anticipating the shuttering of that heated gaze, the blank plasticity of his face as he struggled to contain his disgust. Just like Christian had before he left.

  She jumped, whimpering, as she felt him trace his fingertip along the side of her kneecap. The scar there wasn’t nearly as terrible as it had been, thick and twisted, before the cosmetic
surgery. But it was still white and raised. And the flesh of her thigh, just above the knee, was pale and pitted where the infection had eaten away at her. Her leg looked as if a large beast had taken a bite of it. Which was, in fact, how it had felt at the time.

  Sophie knew the knotted muscles would be standing out beneath her skin, writhing like serpents. But Henry’s touch was warm and gentle. He cupped the back of her knee, fingers digging cautiously into the locked tendon there. His thumbs gently massaged the twitching muscles above her kneecap, easing the strain. Sophie groaned.

  “That’s better, isn’t it?” Henry murmured. He kept rubbing, firmly but not too hard, until the cramp let up. Sophie let out a long sigh of relief, the tension easing from her shoulders as the pain lessened. Henry’s hands kept working, warm and dry against her skin.

  “Henry—”

  “Drink your wine, Sophie.”

  She did as he said, draining the last of the wine. He smiled at her. The look tugged in her belly, sexy and dark.

  “Good. Now, take some of those aspirin.” He was still rubbing. The warmth that had begun at his firm touch was spreading up her thigh, into her belly. She set the wine glass down and twisted off the cap of the aspirin bottle, shaking two of the small white pills into her palm. She tossed them back, sipping from her water bottle to wash them down.

  Sophie moved to draw her leg out of his grasp. “For a businessman, you’re pretty good at first aid.”

  His hands remained firm on her knee, not letting her up. “I have many talents. Don’t move. I still have to put the salve on.”

  “I’ll do that when I get home. So it doesn’t get on my clothes.” The second the words were out of her mouth, she saw the flare of heat in his eyes and knew he was picturing her naked. She was too, only adding him to the scene. They both inhaled sharply, staring at each other for a long, quiet moment.

  Sophie was intensely aware of his hands on her bare skin, inches from the apex of her thighs. Kneeling as he was, he was almost eye level with her. She didn’t know if he leaned in, or she did, or they both moved at the same time, but his mouth was only a fraction of an inch from hers. She felt his breath against her lips.