by Tami Hoag
Katie was mesmerized. Now she knew what Nick had meant when he said dancing was the ultimate combination of art and athleticism. She couldn't take her eyes off the Highwayman, couldn't let herself blink for fear she would miss something. His dancing was powerful and beautiful, the way she had imagined Nick's would be. He moved with strength and agility, speed and grace.
The more she stared at him, the more she realized he was built like Nick. As he shed his black shirt he revealed hard, broad shoulders and a trim waist. The rippling play of muscle over bone, skin over muscle, fascinated Katie. The ridges of muscle across his stomach made her breath catch as he rolled his hip in time to the sensuous, throbbing beat.
The music never slowed. Nor did the High way man. Gradually he bared a body that should have been cast in bronze. To see that body only intensified the strength and elegance of the dance. To be unable to see the face behind the mask only intensified the air of romance and mystery. For the first time this evening Katie couldn't wait to see the dancer up close.
“He's coming this way!” Maggie looked as if she were ready to explode from excitement. She was bouncing on her chair like a jumping bean.
It sounded as if Zoe was hyperventilating, but Katie couldn't bring herself to look. She couldn't take her eyes off the dark, handsome stranger who was moving their way in a series of sinuous twists and turns. As he drew near she thought it was remarkable how much his body resembled Nick's—the way his chest tapered to his waist, the way his belly button wasn't quite centered, and the way that mole sat just to the right of it, the mole that was shaped like a crouching bunny.
Katie's shocked gaze shot up into the equally shocked gaze of the Highwayman. They went pale simultaneously. It was Nick!
He was on the other side of the room in a flash; then his act was over, and he vanished from the stage behind a sudden cloud of smoke.
Now she had some idea what it felt like to fall off a cliff, Katie thought. Her stomach seemed to be somewhere in the vicinity of her ankles. She felt as if she'd just let go of a live wire. With a shaking hand she raised her glass to her lips and took a long drink of white wine, hoping it would steady her nerves.
Nick was an erotic dancer. He hadn't been kidding when he'd told her. He wasn't just any erotic dancer either. He was the headline act at one of the hottest nightclubs on the East Coast. He was the Highwayman, the act every woman in the room had been waiting for with her heart pounding in her breast in anticipation. Nick, who in some ways seemed so shy, was moonlighting in a G-string!
The wild applause and cheers of the crowd began to penetrate Katie's stunned brain. What if Maggie and Zoe had recognized him? What would she say to them? They would want to know why she hadn't told them Nick was the famous Highwayman.
Why hadn't Nick told her himself? She didn't count the time he had tried to tell her at the Drewes mansion because she hadn't taken him seriously and he'd known it. There had been plenty of opportunities for him to try to tell her again. Obviously the cape she had found on his bed the day of the concert in the park was the same cape he had worked so expertly tonight. Why hadn't she recognized that cape? More to the point, why hadn't he explained all this to her when she had found it?
She couldn't decide whether she should feel angry, hurt, embarrassed, or all three. One thing she was certain of: Nick was going to get a piece of her mind when she saw him.
“Wasn't he wonderful?” Zoe was panting as if she had danced every step of the performance with him. “Didn't I tell y'all he was gorgeous?”
“Gorgeous? Sugar, the word doesn't even come close to describing him!” Maggie fell back in her chair, fanning her flushed face with a limp cocktail napkin. She shook her head in amazement. “Not even Nick has a body that perfect.”
Katie's dark brows drew together in annoyance. Nick did too have a body that perfect. Part of her wanted to tell them so. She was proud of Nick, she realized with no small amount of astonishment. He was a marvelously talented dancer. The fact that he stripped to his skivvies—well, even less—as he performed didn't enter into it. The fact that hundreds of women got to stare at his beautiful body as he danced was of no consequence.
The hell it wasn't, Katie thought as she took another drink of her wine. The idea of all these women getting to see what Nick hid under his clothes was distinctly disturbing to her. The fact of the matter was, she was jealous. It was the first time in her life she had ever felt that way about a man. The sensation was a little frightening and strangely invigorating.
A stand- up comedian had come out onstage to do her act while the crowd and the dancers caught their collective breath. Katie didn't even try to focus her attention on the woman. She had so many things on her mind, she ignored the raucous laughter of the crowd, and she ignored the waiter at her side who was trying to slip her a piece of paper.
Unobtrusively he tucked a folded note into her hand as if he had had much practice at the secretive move. “One of our gentlemen asked me to give this to you,” he whispered.
“Thank you.” She opened the note in her lap. It was barely legible. The handwriting was bold, hurried, and messy—the way Nick wrote when he wasn't wearing his glasses. Either he wanted her to meet him backstage, or he wanted her to beat the backstop. She tucked the note into her skirt pocket and turned to Zoe, who was all wrapped up in the jokes the comic was telling. “I'm going to step out for a breath of fresh air.”
Zoe lifted a hand in acknowledgment and nodded absently.
Katie let the waiter lead her around the fringe of the crowd to a door marked Employees Only. He knocked twice. The door was pulled back a crack. A hand reached out and pulled Katie to the other side, into a hallway where fluorescent light glared off white walls.
Nick leaned back against a wall and shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark green robe. His hair fell onto his forehead in damp, gleaming curls. A white towel was slung around his neck. He looked impossibly virile, but Katie tried to ignore that.
“Nick Leone, you have got a lot of explaining to do.” She jabbed a slender finger in the direction of his breastbone but stopped short of touching him. Nick looked down at her with brown eyes that were at once apologetic and apprehensive.
“I know,” he said, wincing at the censure in her voice. “I'm sorry, honey. I meant to tell you. I tried to tell you a hundred times, a million times—”
“You never quite got the job done.”
“The timing always seemed wrong.”
A door opened to his right, and one of the other dancers emerged. Katie recognized him as the cowboy who had danced earlier. He was blond and tan and wearing nothing but a towel hitched around his lean hips and a sexy grin. “Great job tonight, Nick.”
“Thanks, Derek.” He turned back to Katie, who had squeezed her eyes shut and was blushing like a bride.
“Isn't there somewhere more private where we can discuss this?” she asked through clenched teeth. She had seen enough scantily clad men to last her for a while.
Nick crossed the hall and knocked on the door of Jack Clark's office. He stuck his head inside. “Jack, can I borrow your office for a few minutes?”
The manager of Hepplewhite's glanced up from his paperwork. “Sure, Nick.”
Determined to be annoyed with him, Katie frowned as Nick took her by the elbow and ushered her into the office. A handsome, dark- haired man stubbed out a slender cigar in a crystal ashtray and stood up behind the desk.
“Katie, this is Jack Clark, the manager of Hepplewhite's. Jack, this is Kathryn Quaid.”
“It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Quaid,” Clark said smoothly as he moved toward the door. “Are you enjoying the show tonight?”
“Oh”—Katie gave him a wavering smile—”it's been quite an evening.”
Jack chuckled. “We'll take that as a compliment. If you'll excuse me, I'll let you two have a little privacy.”
“Thanks, Jack,” Nick said, mentally bracing himself for what was liable to happen as soon as the door closed behind his b
oss.
Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined Katie would show up at Hepplewhite's. Katie liked going to the movies, a quiet dinner, a leisurely walk in the park. She wasn't at all the night- on- the- town type. When he'd danced up to her table and looked down into those stunned gray eyes, he had felt as if the floor had suddenly dropped out from under his feet. “Katie, what are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” she said, incredulous. She paced an imaginary line on the deep red carpet a few feet away from Nick, her hands planted on her slim hips. “I would ask you what you are doing here, but it was pretty self- explanatory.”
“I tried to tell you before,” he said in his own defense. He couldn't placate his own conscience with that flimsy excuse, and he was certain Katie wasn't going to be impressed by it. “I really did, but I'm not always good with words. I didn't know how to explain it to you. I was afraid you wouldn't understand.”
“This was what you meant when you said you were going to be working for a friend a couple of nights a week, wasn't it? This is how you're making back the money you had to spend on the curb and gutter, isn't it?” she asked, putting all the pieces of the puzzle together in her mind.
“Yes.”
“This is why you never want to tell anybody about your past, isn't it? You'd rather let people think you were a spy or a jewel thief than tell them the truth. You're ashamed to tell them you're a stripper.”
“Erotic dancer,” he corrected her, anger lighting fires in his dark eyes. “I'm not ashamed of it. I'm proud of being a dancer. I think I do a damn good job. The reason I didn't want to tell anybody was because I didn't think they'd understand. I guess I was right, huh, Katie? You don't understand. You're the one who's ashamed. You're ashamed of me.”
“I am not!” Katie insisted, squaring off with him toe to toe, not the least intimidated by his towering height or the glower he wore, which made him look as ruthless as any mercenary. “I'll thank you to stop putting words in my mouth, Nick Leone. I thought you were wonderful. I thought you were magnificent—and that was before I knew it was you!”
“You—” Her words penetrated his anger, and he caught himself in midtirade, his expression softening from one of hurt and fury to one of stunned surprise. “You thought I was won derful?”
“Yes,” Katie said, relaxing as the fight drained out of her. “Your dance was so powerful, so elegant. The part where you spun around and around with the cape waving above your head took my breath away.”
“You liked that part? I've been thinking of changing that,” he said in a conversational tone of voice.
“Oh, no, don't change it. It was riveting.” Suddenly Katie pressed her hands to her temples and shook her head in amazement. “I can't believe we're having this conversation. I can't believe my Nick, who won't put his glasses on in public, is the same man who flung his clothes into a sea of screaming women.”
A delighted smile split his dark face. He felt a little flutter in the vicinity of his heart. “Your Nick?”
Katie's cheeks bloomed as pink as her skirt. “A figure of speech,” she muttered, staring down at her shoes.
Nick stepped behind her and slid his arms around her waist. He dipped his head down to nuzzle her ear, and murmured, “I like it.”
“Do you?” Tingles ran over every inch of her body. She had a hard time keeping her mind on the conversation and off thoughts of the way his muscles had gleamed under the stage lights and the way his hips had undulated so seductively as he had danced to her table.
“Very much,” he whispered in a silky voice. He ran his lips down the column of her throat and back up as his hands splayed across her tummy, and pressed her back into the heat of his body.
When Katie closed her eyes she could see the rippling of his hard abdominal muscles and the trickle of sweat that had trailed down the line of ebony hair on his belly as he had performed. She could feel the thick sexual tension that had filled the air as he had moved as sleek and powerful as a jaguar, every eye in the place on him.
She twisted around, lifting her mouth to Nick's, demanding his kiss, giving him free entry to the sweet warmth beyond her lips. When he raised his head and sighed, she looked up at him with her heart in her eyes and whispered, “How could you ever think I'd be ashamed of you?”
The sharp, firm edges of his lips twisted into a wry smile. He ran a finger down her dainty nose. “You're so prim and proper, such a Southern lady, I wasn't so sure you'd have room in your life for a stripper from Jersey.”
“Erotic dancer,” she corrected with a tender smile. She lifted her hand to the lean, hard plane of his cheek. He was so tough, so masculine, yet the look in his velvet brown eyes was one of uncertainty and hope. It won him yet another corner of Katie's heart. In the back of her mind she realized there weren't many corners left. Nick was going to own the whole thing soon. Whether or not she was being very smart about the situation she couldn't decide, but it certainly felt right.
“After your act, when everybody was cheering and applauding, I wanted to turn to Maggie and Zoe and tell them it was you because I was so proud of you.”
“You did?” His eyes twinkled as he turned her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. Her hand was so tiny and feminine in his, the contrast made his stomach tighten.
Katie nodded. From the spot he'd kissed a shiver ran up her arm and spread through her, teasing all her nerve endings into awareness. “And do you know what else I felt when I heard all that clapping and screaming?”
“What?” The word was no more than an exhalation of the breath that had caught in his lungs as he gazed down at her.
“Jealous,” she whispered, still a little amazed herself.
“Jealous? You were jealous?” he asked, looking extremely pleased with this tidbit of information.
With an embarrassed smile she nodded again. “I didn't like the idea of all those strange women drooling over your body.”
Nick could hardly contain his elation. He wanted to let out a war whoop and dance around the office. He had been so afraid Katie wouldn't understand, that she'd want to walk away from him when she found out about his dancing. Instead he was getting admissions from her that he had hoped for but hadn't expected to hear for quite a while.
He was ready to take steps toward a more serious relationship with her, but he had sensed—and respected—Katie's hesitancy. He knew she wasn't one to let a man get too close too quickly. It was her reluctance that had won her the title Ice Princess from men who hadn't been patient enough to earn her trust. She was giving him now a huge victory when he had braced himself for utter defeat.
“But they don't know it's me,” he pointed out to her. “Only you know it's me behind the mask.”
“That's right.” She smiled, pleased to know she was the only woman who had unmasked the elusive Highwayman.
Running his hands back from her face, over her satiny dark hair, Nick gave her a look burning with sensual promise. “I wouldn't mind giving you a private performance sometime.”
“Oh?” The word quivered on Katie's lips as erotic images of Nick dancing just for her filled her head. She could feel her bones melting to the consistency of butter on a hot stove, and leaned gratefully into Nick's strength as he bent and kissed her again.
Need surged through his body, followed by a groan that came from the depths of his soul. “I'd give you one right now if this weren't a borrowed office.” He lifted her hand and slipped it inside his robe, pressing it to his chest so she could feel his heart thudding under his ribs.
“Feel what you do to me, Katie,” he demanded. He ran his hand down her back and over the delicious curve of her bottom, and drew her against him so she could feel his need not only beneath her hand but straining urgently against her belly. “I care about you so much. I want you so much, Katie.”
His words set off an avalanche of trembling inside her. He wanted her. She wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him! Katie had never known such need before—the need to hold and cherish and e
xpress her feelings in a purely physical way, the need to have a man want all those same things with her in his arms. However, this wasn't the time or the place. Any minute Jack Clark was going to want his office back. Then there was still the matter of her own secret.
Nick could feel her pull back from him slightly— emotionally as well as physically. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, banishing the physical distance. “I know you're not ready for that step yet, kitten. I won't push it. But when you are ready, I'll be here, and I'll want you just as much as I want you right now.”
She looked up at him with misty eyes and a smile as soft as dew. Another corner of her heart went to him gladly. Aside from his daring her to kiss him that first time, Nick hadn't pressured her in any way. His patience had done wonders in helping her relax with him and with the idea of gradually entering into a more physical relationship with him. No other man she'd known had possessed his patience. “Thank you for understanding,” she whispered.
He smiled against her lips, falling a little more in love with her for letting him see her vul ner ability, then he made a little face at her and asked, “Now, just what are you doing here, Katie Quaid?”
“It was Maggie's idea,” she explained, feeling like a schoolgirl who'd gotten caught at a wild party. It was all she could do to keep from giggling. “This is what she wanted to do to celebrate her birthday.”
“I should have guessed Maggie would be behind it,” he said with a chuckle. “Is she having a good time?”
“What a silly question!” Katie laughed. “As my brother would say, she's in hog heaven. So is Zoe.”
“What about you?” he asked, tickling her. “Are you enjoying yourself, Katie?”
She squirmed in his arms but didn't try to escape. It was more fun to snuggle against him. “More than I had thought I would. I didn't have any idea what it would be like. It's a lot of fun. You guys are fantastic dancers.”
