Waltz This Way

by Dakota Cassidy

  She ran a hand over her tangled hair, pulling it from the drool it was stuck to at the corner of her mouth. Bleh. Cotton mouth. She swallowed to relieve the dryness and wrinkled her nose. No doubt, she had morning breath, too.

  Huh. Nice room. Lots of manly colors like burgundies and navy blue strictly meant for only the manliest of men. The bed was a dark cherry with an iron frame.

  That must have been where all that clanking had come from last night.

  Last night.

  She gasped, putting her hand to her mouth to muffle the obnoxious sound. Why her brain was just now catching up with her nymphomaniac-ish lady parts was a mystery. It wasn’t like she’d been drunk on too much coffee to know what she was doing.

  Oh, Holy Mother of God. She’d thrown herself at Drew McPhee in a parking lot without even a little prompting. One minute they were screaming at each other and the next they’d landed in his apartment, tearing each other’s clothes off like they were next up in a potato sack race at a nudist colony.

  Mel threw back the covers then realized she was naked. In broad daylight.

  Her eyes flew to the bedside alarm clock. Seven. Damn.

  She dragged the sheet from the bed, wrapping it around her during a frantic search for her clothes. Where the hell were her underwear? From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a straight-backed chair with a plaid cushion to the left of the bed. On top of it sat her clothes, neatly folded, and her purse.

  She scrambled to pull her bra on, wincing when she found a tear in the pink lace. Grabbing her flannel shirt, she threw it over her head and pulled on her panties and her skirt, shoving her leotard into her purse.

  Peering around, she noted there was no connecting bathroom to at least run a comb over her hair, and there was no mirror in Drew’s bedroom either.

  Silly. Why would someone as good-looking as Drew need a mirror? He clearly didn’t need the kind of reassurance most mortals did.

  Drew… where was Drew?

  Maybe he’d gone out to leave her some dignity when she scurried out of his apartment like some cockroach caught in a darkened kitchen?

  Preparing to do her walk of shame, she opened the door carefully, poking her head out where she located the front door. The one she’d been pressed so tightly against last night they’d almost been labeled a couple.

  God.

  She’d make a run for it and not look back. The rest she’d figure out later while she berated herself for being such an easy lay. Mel made a beeline to escape—the white steel door her target.

  “So, was that the best date ever, or what?” a voice filled with amusement mocked.

  Mel screamed and jumped, dropping her purse.

  Drew came up behind her, curling a strong arm around her waist to pull her close. “So, your verdict?”

  Mel bit the inside of her cheek, desperately searching for the resources she’d called upon when she’d decided to play a part she had no business playing on anything other than a dance floor. Where was your sexy, aloof dancer when you needed her most?

  Drew turned her around, a piece of burned toast in his hand.

  Dressed in nothing but gym shorts, he made her knees weak all over again. “Uh-oh. Is someone embarrassed?” He grinned down at her.

  Of course, like everything else with Drew, his breath was perfect while hers smelled like the inside of a fifteen-year-old tennis player’s sneaker.

  He kissed the tip of her nose. “You know, I made a discovery last night.”

  Yeah, that she was an unruly, out of control tramp who needed a chastity belt. Praying the words that came out of her mouth next sounded self-assured when she was anything but, she gave him her smoldering tango eyes. “What did you discover last night, Drew?”

  “Dancers rock. Hardcore. I mean, I know I made fun of it, but wow—hoorah for flexibility.” He dropped a kiss on her lips then asked with a cheerful voice, “Toast?” He held up the burned bread under her nose.

  Her blood boiled. The nerve of this man. “I…”

  Drew hauled her so close to him, her back arched. “You’re speechless. Nice change. But I’ve got your back. You’re wondering what I’m thinking, aren’t you? When you woke up in a strange bed this morning, you thought, ‘Mel, what kind of a woman insults a man she barely knows in front of the entire town of Riverbend, then sleeps with the man she barely knows like he’s the last man on Earth? How can I look him in the eye after we did all those things?’” he drawled, mimicking a female tone.

  A strand of her mussed hair fell in her eyes. She blew it out of her face.

  Drew winced. “You need a toothbrush? I think I have extras.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Where were we?”

  “We left off after we did all those things,” she repeated.

  He nodded. “Right. Those things. Anyway, I’m sure you assume I think the phrase, ‘For a good time call Mel’ is memorialized on bathroom walls across the country, right? And don’t lie because I’ll know if you are.”

  Her eyes shifted to his shoulder. “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “Well, you can just put that thought right out of your pretty little head. I never once thought about bathrooms.”

  Mel struggled to get out of his grasp by clamping her hand on his forearm. “Let me go!”

  Stupidhead.

  He bit his toast, keeping her body flush to his and shook his head.

  “Hold on. Just gimme a sec, okay?”

  She stopped squirming and relaxed a little. “Fine.”

  “Let’s do this right and you don’t storm out of here until we hash this out, and you explain what the hell all that shitty attitude was about last night.”

  “Before or after our sexual free-for-all?” What kind of Neanderthal wanted to talk over a one-night stand?

  “Don’t play coy with me, Mel. You were anything but coy last night. So spill. I’m all ears, and I have coffee, which you look like you could use.”

  Calling all the sexually empowered! Could I get some empowered ‘it was just sex’ attitude here? It would really be useful right now.

  “What’s there to talk about? We had sex.” Oh. That was good, Mel. Good use of the ‘indifferent acquaintances with benefits’ clause.

  He let his lips fall to her ear and grumbled. “Boy, did we ever. Now I want to know why one minute you were calling me stupid—”

  “I didn’t call you ‘stupid.’ I called you ‘unclever.’ “ She remembered that much.

  “And right after that you were all over me.”

  “Huh. As I recall, you weren’t exactly not all over me right back, buddy.”

  “Well, c’mon. You have to admit there’s a certain kind of awesome involved in being accosted by a hot woman only seconds after she’s made it clear she’s just not into you. Do you take meds for all that mood swing?”

  She averted her eyes to her feet. “I don’t…”

  How could she tell him she’d purposely set out on their date with destructive intent and an even more destructive attitude? If this was purging, it was a good thing she wasn’t hoarding.

  “So I suppose you’re going to tell me you don’t know what came over you and you don’t do this kind of thing often, right?”

  “Not ever!” she shouted then bit her tongue. “I mean, I’ve never done something like this. Not that I haven’t had sex. I have. I just mean I’ve never had sex with someone I hardly know and don’t even particularly like.” She paused. “I’m rambling, yes?”

  “Yes, and it’s very cute. Well, until you got to the part about not liking me. What’s not to like? I’m a nice guy. You can’t deny I have mad bedroom skills. I was willing to pay for your coffee. What’s the beef?”

  “We have absolutely nothing in common.” Except that thing he did when he’d been… Oh, God.

  He scrunched his handsome face up in question. “How would you know? We were sort of at the ‘a little less conversation, a lot more action’ stage last night. You can’t possibly de
cide something like that so quickly. It’s presumptuous and rude. Again with the rude.”

  “I’m not being rude. I’m being practical. You don’t like the one thing I love most.”

  “Do you love radial arm saws?”

  “What? I don’t even know what that is.”

  “That’s the one thing I love the most, besides Nate. Do you like the smell of sawdust? Varnish? Stain?”

  Mel wrinkled her nose, relaxing in his grip a bit. “Not even a little.”

  “And I don’t like to dance. Big deal.” He shrugged his shoulders to accentuate it wasn’t a big deal.

  “That’s not the same thing.”

  “It is. Building things is my passion. It’s part of who I am. I like to use my hands to create things. You like to use your feet. Different but the same.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “My point is you don’t know if we have other things in common. We didn’t exactly talk about much because, you know…” Drew hitched his thumb over his shoulder toward the bedroom and wiggled his eyebrows.

  Red stained her cheeks. She felt it in the hot rush that left her dizzy. “We didn’t talk because we had a one-night stand. One-night stands don’t talk. They—they have—you know—and go home.”

  “Oh, don’t kid yourself, lady. This was no one-night stand. We’re going to do this again,” was his confident reply. A reply that irked her.

  Now what could she possibly say to that? If she said what they’d shared wasn’t a one-time thing, she’d be doing the same thing she did the first time around. Becoming infatuated with someone because he was good-looking, had paid her a compliment, and then upped the ante by being good in bed.

  It would defeat the whole purpose of what she’d set out to avoid with Drew to begin with. Not that she hadn’t already done that, to a degree anyway. To be drawn in further could potentially be history repeating itself, and she wasn’t ready for that. Not only did she not want to be hurt again, she wasn’t ready for any kind of entanglements, be they noncommittal sex, or otherwise.

  Then a thought occurred to her—he’d never said word one about relationships and dating. He’d said they were going to “do this” again.

  Translation? He was down for more sex.

  Just who the hell did he think he was? He wasn’t that good. Okay, so he was awesomely good, but there were other men who were just as awesomely good, right? Now that she’d worked herself up, her eyes shot daggers up at him.

  She pinched his forearm, making him yelp when he released her.

  “No, Drew,” she drawled, tilting her chin to the setting haughty, “don’t kid yourself. I’m not sure why you think you’ve got this in the bag, but there are plenty of fish in the sea. Fish who like to dance. In fact, I’m dating those fish. Lots of fish, pal. So remember that analogy about dipping my toes in the dating water?”

  Drew’s gaze mocked her, but he remained silent.

  Her eyes narrowed, she tapped his chest with a finger. “Of course you don’t. That was all just to get me into bed—”

  “Who got whom into bed?” Drew put his hands in the pockets of his gym shorts and chuckled.

  Right. She was the aggressor here. Whatever. “It doesn’t matter. What does matter is you said I should dip my toes into the dating pool. Well, guess what, Drew McPhee? You’ve been dipped.”

  Turning on her heel, Mel left him standing in the middle of his living room with all his presumptions.

  As she made her way out of the maze of apartment units and back to the parking lot in huffs of indignation, she located her father’s truck and beeped it open. Climbing into the cab, Mel took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.

  So she’d had sex. Good sex. Safe sex, even. That didn’t have to mean anything other than just that. Even Maxine said it was healthy to feed your libido.

  And wow, had she ever fed in a hitting-the-buffet-line way.

  What were you supposed to feel like after an encounter with a man you planned on never sleeping with again? Why did she have such an emptiness sweeping through her? Why did what was supposed to be meaningless have meaning?

  Was it because this was her first encounter since Stan and she was just reacting emotionally? Would this pass once she grew used to the idea of sex just for the express purpose of putting out a fire? Was she even emotionally on board with that?

  If this was healthy, to indulge in the occasional consensual liaison, why didn’t she feel healthy? Or particularly happy?

  And Christ and a peanut butter sandwich—how was she going to explain having her father’s truck all night long?

  Chapter 9

  Dear Divorce Journal,

  This entry is to serve as a written reminder to never date men with the name Ron who have mothers with the name Florence. In fact, this should serve as a reminder for me to never date anyone who even has a single living relative. Again.

  And the dating pool is definitely not heated. It’s cold, people.

  Cold.

  “Welcome, Ms. Cherkasov. I’m Winchester, Ms. Jasmine’s slave for life.” A regal man in a suit and tie bowed upon her entry to what Jasmine called her and her husband, Simon’s, love shack.

  Mel smiled at him, taking his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “No, no. The pleasure’s all mine,” he gushed, gripping her hand and taking her sweater.

  Jasmine breezed through the archway off the enormous living room and smiled at Win with affection. “You’ve got a fan in Win, Mel. He loves Celebrity Ballroom and when we told him you were Neil’s old partner, he looked you and some of your old footage up online—well, let’s just say he went all schoolgirl.”

  Win bowed in front of her with dramatic flourish. “You’re even lovelier in person.”

  Mel blushed. “And don’t forget twenty-five pounds heavier, but thank you.”

  Win clucked his tongue. “You don’t look a pound over twenty-two,” he teased.

  Jasmine hooked her arm though Mel’s and drew her into the lavish kitchen filled with shiny silver appliances and miles of colorfully swirled marble countertops. “And don’t listen to Win. He was Simon’s slave first. I took pity on him when I married Simon. Win’s never had it so good. So, c’mon, Frankie and Max are already here. You’re late, young lady.”

  Yeah. She was late. Late because she’d been out trouncing a man and trying to think up an explanation for her father about where his truck had been all night. There were always explanations to be made to the person whose truck you’d borrowed when you were out sharing your goodies.

  Thankfully, her father had still been sound asleep when she’d come in at eight fifteen to a woebegone Weezer.

  “I’m sorry. The morning kind of got away from me.”

  Because you see, I spent it freaking out about all the repercussions my hormones have created, so I lost track of time while I was counting them.

  “Hey, Mel!” Frankie called with a smile and a wave, eyeing her over the rim of her wineglass.

  Jasmine patted a bar stool at the wide island countertop beside Maxine, and Mel slid into it, keeping her eyes on the Caesar salad, cheese and crackers, and French bread in the center.

  Max nudged her with her shoulder. “You gonna look us in the eye and tell us you had sex, or do you want to do it from behind the bathroom door?”

  Frankie and Jasmine laughed when Mel let her head fall to her arms with a groan. “How could you possibly know? And don’t you three dare feed me the line about glowing. If I’m glowing, it’s the bright fluorescent glow of my shame.”

  “Okay, so we won’t talk about your glow,” Jasmine said, pouring Mel a glass of white wine and pushing it toward her. “Instead, let’s just talk about the guilt. The guilt that I smelled all over you the minute you walked in. Guilt I totally don’t get, but I got your back, if you need to make justifications.”

  “So who was he, and why so glum?” Frankie asked with a grin, lifting Mel’s head from her arms with the heel of one hand and holding out her wine wi
th the other.

  Mel made a face at her, taking the wine. “He was someone I work with, whose aunt I work with at the rec center, and I’m glum because it was a huge mistake. I don’t even know how it escalated to the point where we ended up—you know—at his…”

  Maxine waved a finger in the air with a smile of triumph. “Aha! Myriam Hernandez’s nephew! The hottie who saved you from that disgusting Fierce Whatever. I knew it. We all did. You could tell just by the way he looked at you that he was interested. Oh, and he’s delicious—all rugged and rough around the edges.”

  If only she could count the ways he was delicious. There were too many to list.

  “Drew McPhee…” she murmured as if saying his name out loud would make what happened between them any less real.

  Jasmine winked, rubbing her hands together. “So was it good? And don’t bother to play coy. It’s just us, and it’s okay to say it was good. In fact, say it a lot—out loud in the mirror.”

  Mel swallowed a gulp of her wine for courage. “Is this the part where I own my sexuality? Because I’ve never done anything like this before in my life.”

  “What exactly did you do, other than have sex for the first time since your divorce, with a man who’s utterly gorgeous?” Maxine grinned, taking a crouton from the salad and popping it in her mouth.

  Frankie shook her head of auburn curls and held up her hand.

  “Forget all that, I just want to know if it was good?”

  Mel let her head hang again. “Yes, yes, yes! It was good. It was the best sex I’ve ever had. Though, I’m not sure if I’m a good judge of the best sex ever because I’ve only slept with two people, last night being my second, but yes—okay? It was good. Great. More than great.”

  “Then you’re one step ahead of millions of divorced women who have their first sexual encounter and it blows big, fat chunks. So I don’t get the problem unless it’s got something to do with the ground rules. Like he said this was strictly about the sex and you thought that meant flowers and candy, and now you’re hurt. Or is it that you’re worried it’ll never happen again,” Maxine offered with a grin, biting a cracker, her green eyes amused.

  That shame she’d been feeling washed back over her again in a hot wave. “No! It can’t ever happen again.”