Waltz This Way

by Dakota Cassidy

  “Do I detect a question about Neil in there?”

  “What’s the deal with the two of you?”

  “You know what the deal is. He’s my ex-dancing partner.”

  “Were you two ever involved?”

  “Nope. We’ve always just been friends. In fact, he’s one of my best friends and always will be.”

  “Well, okay then. See how easy that was? I ask, you answer. Over.”

  “I promise the next time you use the words ‘one,’ ‘night,’ and ‘stand,’ I’ll ask the true meaning.”

  His thumb caressed her chin in a maddening circle of sensuality.

  “Funny. So funny. So how about Saturday night at my folks’ place? It’s total mayhem, wall-to-wall kids, but the food’s great, and obviously, you can’t help but enjoy the company.”

  “Oh.” She gave him a dejected look. “So what you’re saying is, if I come to dinner Saturday, you’ll be there, too?”

  “I’m the enjoyable company.”

  “Sorry. I totally thought you meant your mother and father.”

  Leaning down toward her lips, Drew dropped a light, yet lingering kiss on them. Soft, but sizzling, her brain began that meltdown it had experienced when they’d last been this close. “Still funny. So do we have a date?” he asked, letting his hips graze hers with just enough pressure to assure her he was a man.

  Mel bit back a groan of longing. “Date. But…”

  “Stipulations, Ms. Cherkasov? Special requests? Like do you prefer your forks hand-washed in rose petals and pressed-linen napkins?”

  Mel giggled. Giggled. Lord. “No. I just want to be clear we’re on…you know…the same page.”

  “Is this the part where you tell me I should pack the condoms I bought in bulk and save them for a rainy day?”

  “Well, maybe you could leave one package out…”

  His smile was disarming, making her belly quiver. “I get it. What happened between us was something you weren’t ready for. Or at least didn’t expect. You want to get to know each other better if I ever hope to see you do that thing with your leg again. Am I hitting a nerve?”

  She let out a small sigh of relief. “I think we should find out if the only thing we have in common is that thing I do with my leg.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith. Okay. No hanky-panky until I know what you like on your hamburger and what your favorite color is. So, date?”

  “Date.”

  In an instant, there was nothing but the chilly air between them when he backed away, leaving her wanting. Drew smiled, popping open the door of her truck, and waving her in. “I’ll pick you up at six—you’d better be ready.”

  Mel climbed into the truck, tucking her dress under her legs to give him a saucy look. “I might even shave my legs—it is your parents’, after all.”

  Drew wiggled his eyebrows. “A vast improvement since we were last naked together. I’ll have to tell my parents how highly you think of them.”

  Mel was glad for the dim light in the truck. It hid her non-shaved legged shame. “I’m going home now before you spoil this lovely occasion with your despicable lies.”

  Drew’s laughter made her stomach do somersaults. “Bye, Mel.”

  “Bye, Drew.”

  He shut the door with a wink, and it was all she could do not to throw the door back open and beg him to kiss her good night properly. Turning the key in the ignition, she drove away before she was forced to show him she hadn’t shaved her armpits.

  * * * *

  Drew spent the drive back to his apartment grinning like he’d just scored a prom date.

  A grin he couldn’t seem to wipe off his face.

  Somehow he’d managed to turn the debacle of their romp a few weeks ago around. When he’d gone over their final conversation in his mind after she’d stomped out of his apartment, he’d been pretty hazy about what had made Mel so angry with him.

  Then he’d chalked it up to artists and their crazy sensitivity, and it had made him angry that he’d fallen into the same trap again without even realizing it. Creative women and he just didn’t mix. They were temperamental, flighty, and worst of all, moody. Or maybe he was just jaded from a really bad experience. Coupled with Mel’s bad experience, that left some serious jaded in its wake.

  As the week went on and Mel had done everything but wear dark glasses and a hat to school to avoid him, he’d found himself alternately perplexed and experiencing that horrible emotion associated with the word “used.”

  At first, he found he was pretty hacked at the potential that he was just another body—even though his gut warred with the idea Mel was a friends-with-benefits kind of woman. Naturally, being a man, it never occurred to him he’d said something Mel would take so literally. Knuckle-draggers never did.

  When he’d discussed his confusion about Mel, leaving out the sex-capades, his mother and sisters had reminded him that he was just an insensitive man and Mel was a newly divorced, probably rubbed-raw woman. They’d ordered him to give her a break.

  Given a little time and distance, and the fact that she was all but hiding in the faculty bathroom, though he still didn’t understand what she was angry about, Drew had to concede and had set about giving her a break. While he gave her that break, he’d thought up a thousand different ways to get her to go back out with him.

  Seeing her up close tonight instead of just the backend of her as she ran away from him had prompted him to try again.

  Simply because he couldn’t get her out of his head for more than a minute or two before his thoughts strayed right back to her supple skin and soft lips pressed against his in the dark of his bedroom.

  Because he couldn’t forget how she looked with her dark hair spread across his pillow and her long thighs wrapped around his waist. Because when he was buried balls deep in her, it was different than any other woman he’d ever experienced.

  Making love to her had been insane. Incredible. After much thought, he was more than sure their encounter was something she didn’t do often, if at all. When he’d had time to analyze it, Drew recognized the signs. It was in the way she couldn’t meet his eyes the next morning, and the wild, glazed-over look of disbelief on her face.

  Still, knowing she was fresh off a divorce, definitely vulnerable and touchy, he wanted more. But it wasn’t just the sex he wanted. He wanted her to look at him like she looked when she danced. He wanted to touch whatever place was so deep inside her that it made her eyes flash fire and reflect the kind of passion he’d tasted on the tip of his tongue.

  He had no answer for why he found Mel so enticing. It wasn’t all about that petite, rounded figure and her unruly head of curls. It was something else, something he tried to put his finger on, but it eluded him nonetheless.

  He’d decided not to question chemistry. It either was, or it wasn’t.

  Now that he was certain Neil wasn’t in the picture and he wasn’t treading somewhere he didn’t belong, he intended to set her Bunsen burner on fire.

  * * * *

  “Well, where the hell is he, Theresa?” Neil yelled into his phone, cracking the door to his rental in the parking lot of Westmeyer where he was due to pick up Mel for a late-afternoon workout.

  His personal assistant didn’t deserve his ire.

  Stan did.

  But no one could find Stan. He’d had Theresa use every single contact he’d made in his time on Celebrity Ballroom, but to no avail, and it was driving him insane.

  The only information he’d gathered on Stan’s whereabouts was he was holed up in Europe in some cottage somewhere with that conniving bitch Yelena while the show was on hiatus. To suggest that information was reliable was shaky at best.

  “Look, Theresa, I’m sorry. I know I’m being a class-A asshole, but someone has to know something. He can’t have just disappeared. Do me this, call me if you hear even what you think might only be a rumor, okay?” With a defeated nod, he hung up just as he caught sight of Mel with a pretty blonde talking just outside the school
doors.

  Her dark head was nodding at something the woman was saying, and then she laughed, lighter and more carefree than he’d heard it in a long time.

  He swept up the steps, controlling his rage and slapping a smile on his face. “Ladies! Great day, huh?”

  Mel gave the blonde a quick look before addressing Neil. “Neil, this is Gwen Timmons. She teaches something really smart that I think I’ve already forgotten how to pronounce.”

  Gwen giggled girlishly, brushing back the strands of her bob when the wind picked up. She plucked it from her pink lipstick and said, “I teach biology. It’s nice to meet you.”

  Neil went directly into charming mode. It usually happened without him even realizing it, but today, he needed to slather on the good-natured when he was feeling anything but. “Ah. Pretty and smart. A lethal combo.” He smiled his Celebrity Ballroom smile.

  Mel slipped her arm though his, giving him her I-have-an-idea eyes. Shit. That was always bad for him. Her eyes were coy and hooded. “So I was thinking, maybe you and me and Gwen can grab some lunch sometime. You know, talk dissecting frogs or something.”

  “What all good lunch discussions are about, right?” he joked, evading Mel’s request, yet knowing exactly where this was going and hoping to nip it in the proverbial bud. It was either that or wrap Mel’s pretty scarf around her mouth to shut her up.

  She meant well. She wanted for him what she thought everyone wanted. He wanted it, too. It just hadn’t worked out that way, and Mel forcing women she thought were his perfect match on him wouldn’t change that.

  “So lunch, then?” Mel encouraged, nudging him just below the ribs with a discreet elbow.

  Gwen waited with such anticipation in her expression, Neil’s gut twisted, much the way it always did when he was backed into this particular corner.

  He fought back a sigh of exasperation and instead turned up his charm meter. “I have to fly back to L. A. for a charity gig, but maybe after?”

  Gwen’s face brightened. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Good deal. So, you ready, princess? The crunches, they call.” He looked to Mel, staving off the desire to throw her over his shoulder and lunge for his car.

  Mel groaned her displeasure. “Who’s ever ready for crunches?”

  “Oh, I love to work out,” Gwen chirped. And it showed in her slender figure covered in a slim skirt and her toned arms, stemming from the blue shirt she wore that complemented her eyes.

  Mel stuck her tongue out at Gwen. “Look at how much the two of you have in common. And as an aside, I’d much rather be eating a box of Twinkies. So c’mon, you Jane Fonda wannabe, let’s do this. Gwen, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Neil waved to her and led Mel down the steps. When they were out of earshot, she tweaked his arm. “She’s pretty, right?”

  “Adorable.” Keeping his interest in this Gwen to a minimum was crucial to his surviving Mel’s matchmaking.

  “So I did good, huh?”

  “Mel, here’s a crazy revelation. I don’t need any help getting women.”

  “No, what you need help with is getting the right woman.”

  “What’s your definition of ‘right’?”

  She shrugged, jumping into the passenger seat and putting her seat belt on. “You know, the kind who want to settle down, have kids, a mortgage.”

  “Whoever said I want that kind of woman?”

  He caught her wincing out of the corner of his eye. “Did I over-step?”

  “If I told you yes, would it make a shit’s worth of difference?”

  “Not a lot. I’m always going to want you to have—”

  “What you want,” he finished for her.

  She shot him a deadpan look. “I don’t want a wife and a mortgage.”

  “Me neither,” he confessed.

  “So no Gwen?”

  He heard the hope in her tone, and the last thing he wanted to do was trash her efforts. Clearly, she’d talked him up to Gwen, who’d fairly waited with bated breath for Mel to bring the idea of lunch up.

  “Fine. Gwen. When I get back from L. A. Maybe next week, okay?”

  “Sweet. I knew you couldn’t resist her. She’s too adorable.”

  His cell phone rang, cutting off any further discussion of Gwen and lollipops and rainbows for now. He noted it was Theresa again.

  “Hey, T. Flight change?”

  As Neil listened, he kept glancing in the rearview mirror to be sure his expression remained unmarred by the words he was hearing about Stan.

  That sonofabitch.

  Chapter 11

  Dear Divorce Journal,

  Dating a man who has a child should be a challenge, right? There’s always the issue of acceptance, and usually, that involves a long road of defiance on the child’s behalf before the light at the end of a tunnel. At least that’s what I’ve read. But I have to say, hands down, ex-wives are a much bigger challenge, and shall, hereafter, be dubbed major craptacularness.

  Drew knocked on Mel’s father’s door at exactly six sharp, dressed casually in black jeans and a heavy brown and beige sweater, his dark goodness never failed to make her insides feel like the consistency of a slushy.

  Joe had insisted he answer the door, partly because Drew was Myriam’s nephew, and that had struck fear in his heart for her safety, but mostly because he’d told her there’d be no repeat of Twinkle Toes, if he had anything to say about it.

  “Mr. Hodge?” Drew stuck out his hand with a smile. “Good to meet you, sir.”

  Joe accepted it, but didn’t return Drew’s smile. Instead, he used his scowl from the rare date she’d had in high school. “That’s me. Did you bring your tutu?”

  Drew chuckled, obviously not at all offended by her father’s sense of humor. “I left it in the car. It’s just so big and fluffy.”

  Joe obviously warred with a smile, then beat it down for a stern expression. “So you’re that crazy Myriam’s nephew.”

  “Her reputation precedes her, I see. Has she been responsible for any untoward acts on your person?”

  “She’s responsible for so many untoward acts, I lost count. So what are your intentions with my Pop-Tart?”

  Drew’s eyes danced with amusement. This was a test to see if not only Joe could hack Drew’s sense of humor, but if Drew could hack Joe’s. “Well, first I thought we’d rent a hotel room. You know, like over at Larry’s? They have an incredible hourly rate. I bought in bulk, just to be safe. Then, you know, after we wear out the quarter massage machine, I figured we’d have a pretty hearty appetite. So I thought we’d check out the gas station to see if they still have that ‘buy one microwave sandwich, get the second free’ deal. I don’t just dole out a fancy Happy Meal on the first date. It takes time to earn those kind of reward points in a relationship.”

  Joe’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t believe you didn’t consider the moonlight miniature golf. It’s only a buck a game on Saturday nights and if you bring a guest, it’s free. Whole lot cheaper than Larry’s quarter massage machines.” Joe made a face of disappointment. “I’ve lost all respect for you, son.”

  Their unified cackling followed by chummy slaps on the back made Weezer bark. He pushed between the two men at the front door and knocked his hip against Drew’s thighs, showing him who was the alpha male. Mel grabbed him by the collar, but Drew stopped her with a hand to her arm.

  He knelt down and sat at eye level with Weez, rubbing his ears.

  “You think I should have done the miniature golf, too, don’t you?”

  Weezer licked his face, making both of the men cackle louder.

  Mel nodded her head, grabbing her purse and slinging it over her shoulder. “All right. It’s clear my well-being is a total joke to the two of you heathens. Let’s get out of here before my father talks you into double coupon days at the Stop & Shop. I can’t believe I shaved for this.”

  Drew turned to Joe and stuck his hand out again. “Pleasure to have met you, sir. I promise not to let Mel spend too much ti
me with the massage machine.”

  Joe slapped him on the back with a grin. “You two have a good time.”

  Drew took her hand, enveloping it in his, and pulled her out the door into the cold night air. Leaves in orange and brown scattered the ground, crunching beneath their feet.

  He scanned her white crepe fitted shirt with the pleats on it and her plum skirt with a flare just above her knee all the way down to her low-heeled black pumps with a strap, and gave a smile of appreciation. “I like your hair down.” He reached up and grabbed a curl, twisting it between his fingertips and giving it a light tug to straighten it. “I didn’t realize it was so long.”

  She brushed at the strands that fell to the middle of her back with her hand. “It’s unruly, hard to control, and impossible to manage.”

  But she’d fought with it like it was a saber-toothed tiger for almost two hours in preparation for this date.

  “It says something that you went to all this trouble for me.”

  Mel fought a blush. “It says I couldn’t find a scrunchie.”

  “Is that what the purple eye shadow and pink lip gloss were about, too?”

  “No. That was to impress your family. You don’t want them thinking you date bag ladies, do you?”

  He chuckled. “You look pretty hot, Mel. So you ready?”

  Drew opened her door for her, and she hopped up into the truck, giving him a questioning gaze. “For?”

  “For the onslaught of people. There’s a lot of us.”

  “If they’re like your mother and father, I’m in. Give me names to work with.”

  As they pulled from the curb, he ran off a list of his sister’s names, their husband’s names, and various nieces and nephews while Mel quietly listened.

  “You’re really quiet. Did I overwhelm you in sheer people alone?”

  Mel grinned. “Don’t be silly. I’m just paying attention. You know, listening. Key to our dating, as I recall.”

  Drew winked. “Right.” He flipped the satellite radio in his truck to an Elvis station. Okay, so they had one thing in common aside from their incredible chemistry. She loved Elvis.

  They drove out of the Village while Mel stole glances of him from the corner of her eye, relishing his strong jaw and the light stubble littering it in the fading sunlight.