A Stormy Spring

by MacKenzie, C. C.

  Amy received looks of sympathy and grimaced as she nodded.

  Becca began the stretches, a discipline that took twenty minutes and she kept a close eye in the mirror on form and technique. On the floor, sixteen heartbeats calmed as screaming muscles ached holding the poses. This was the part of musical film production the public never saw. No one spoke; they didn’t have the energy for it. She kept them moving until sweat cooled on her skin and her energy levelled out.

  Pulling a skinny vest and sweatshirt over her leotard, Becca waited for Amy to wander across. The girl’s reluctance brought a twitch to her lips. Amy was nineteen, full of promise and she’d go to the top if she managed an attitude adjustment.

  ‘Think yourself lucky that it’s me and not Justin, because he’d kick your skinny ass.’

  Doe like eyes went ‘who-me?’ wide. Amy flushed as she wrapped an eye-wateringly yellow scarf around her neck and released black glossy curls. Her full lips pouted.

  Since she’d seen it all before, Becca was unimpressed. ‘You’re limping. Take off the right shoe.’

  Amy dropped to the floor and bit her lip as she eased off her black leather jazz shoe.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d noticed.’

  Becca studied a swollen toe joint then caught her eye.

  ‘I have Jedi eyesight. Ice bath for that. See Sergei, the physio, tomorrow.’

  Amy’s chin jerked up. ‘But tomorrow I’m...’

  Becca silenced her with a finger point.

  ‘See that face right there? That’s what worries me about you. I hear that Amy was dancing until two this morning in five inch heels at The Blue Lagoon.’

  Amy apparently had lost the power of speech which suited Becca just fine.

  She continued, ‘The doormen date a couple of the dancers. It’s a small world, kiddo, and I have Jedi ears. Take this as a formal warning. If I don’t see a change in your attitude you’re out. I have five dancers who’ll replace you tomorrow. Talent isn’t enough. You need discipline, commitment and a professional dedication.’

  Fat tears welled up in Amy’s big eyes and she blinked frantically before taking a heaving breath.

  ‘I’ve wanted this my whole life,’ she whispered.

  Becca remained unmoved by the Oscar winning performance.

  ‘So does the dancer who’ll replace you. So does every single person here today.’

  Amy bowed her dark head, trembling fingers lacing her shoe.

  She rose and her eyes met Becca’s. ‘I’m sorry. I promise to do better.’

  Becca shrugged. ‘Words are cheap. I want to see hunger for success in those big eyes.’

  Amy nodded once before rushing away, her feet echoing in the empty space.

  Because she had too soft a heart, Becca left the disciplining to her choreography partner, Justin. He’d have chewed up the little dancer and spat out the bones.

  After pulling on thick socks, she tugged on her jeans and thrust her feet into black sheepskin ankle boots. There were times and this was one of them when she felt ninety-eight instead of twenty-eight.

  A cough from the entrance to the studio had her whirl around. How often had she been told not to lock up alone? The studio wasn’t situated in the best part of the City and they’d had a couple of nasty incidents.

  Whoever was there was hidden in the shadows and Becca’s heart took a leap into her mouth.

  She whooshed out a breath as Lucas Del Garda stepped into the studio.

  Relief warred with a spear of physical attraction so powerful it had her punch a fist to her frantic heart.

  ‘God, you gave me a fright.’

  He was dressed like a city slicker in an immaculate dark bespoke suit and fabulous shoes.

  In the tatty room with its chipped paint and battered floor, Lucas appeared totally out of his comfort zone, like a pheasant in a henhouse. Her memory had played tricks on her too, she realised. The man was much taller and broader than she remembered. Those too intense dark eyes slammed into hers and her knuckles rubbed the thundering pulse between her breasts.

  That warrior’s face looked leaner, sharper somehow and the slash of a mouth didn’t just look annoyed. Her breath caught in her throat. He looked absolutely furious.

  He stalked towards her like a big black panther, his shoes echoing too loudly and Becca found herself taking a couple of steps back. She hadn’t phoned him even though she’d thought of nothing else but him every day and every long and lonely night.

  He stopped.

  The toes of his shiny shoes nudged her scruffy boots.

  ‘Did you lose my contact details?’ His deep voice was like a whip and it lashed across her heightened sense of awareness making her flinch. The lyrical tone of Spain turned her knees to jelly. God, he smelt wonderful. Clean and healthy male with a musky cologne that made her ache to take a big bite out of that strong jaw. His nostrils flared and she was acutely aware she desperately needed a shower.

  Becca couldn’t look away from those amazing eyes. The world tilted as she had the bizarre sensation of falling into melted dark chocolate.

  She blinked. ‘No.’

  Running his teeth over his bottom lip, Lucas’s eyes narrowed fractionally.

  Just as he’d thought, she’d chickened out of calling him and he had every intention of finding out why.

  She smelt of shampoo, clean salty sweat and warm female. The deep sting in his groin, an unremitting companion for days, throbbed harder warning him he was standing too close to her for his own good. The flush that rose over her neck and into her cheeks had him tilt his head down in an attempt to meet her eye. But it was the hectic pulse in her throat that caught his attention.

  He permitted his gaze to study her beautiful face as she bit down hard on her full bottom lip. She was all flushed and flustered and it did much to restrain, to ease his temper.

  ‘Where is your cell phone?’

  Those big blue eyes flicked to his.

  ‘Why?’ she asked belligerently.

  ‘I want your number.’

  ‘I don’t know my number. I never ring myself,’ she muttered by way of an explanation.’

  Lucas suspected as much. ‘Which is why I want your phone.’

  Hoicking up her decrepit kit bag of soft leather from the floor, her face flushed as she rummaged for a while before producing a cell phone.

  Fascinated Lucas stared at the tiny device in the palm of her hand, then at her.

  ‘It is broken.’

  Becca peered at her old Nokia bound in sellotape then looked at him.

  ‘The screen’s cracked, but it works just fine.’

  ‘It is a dinosaur. I will get you a Smartphone,’ he said in a silky voice.

  Her look of utter horror had him bite down hard on his bottom lip.

  ‘I don’t want a Smartphone.’

  ‘They are useful for email.’

  Big blue eyes searched his face. ‘Who am I going to email?’

  ‘Me. I travel a great deal, Becca, we need to keep in touch.’

  She stared at him as if he was speaking in tongues and he took advantage of her confusion to help her on with her jacket and steer her outside. He would need to talk to her about locking up alone. The area was not safe.

  However, a glance at the tilt of that cute little chin told him she wouldn’t be particularly receptive to advice.

  Becca, Lucas was coming to realise, had a stubborn streak a mile wide.

  As he waited patiently while she locked up he noticed his Bentley was attracting attention from a motley crew of local boys. And John, his driver, was chatting to a colossal black man with beaded dreadlocks who turned and beamed a white smile at Becca.

  ‘Hey, girl. You go ‘in up in the world?’ The music of the island of Jamaica rumbled in his deep voice.

  ‘Hey, Sergei. Looks like it. Amy’s dropping by to see you tomorrow. Toe joint.’

  ‘No problem.’ Sergei stepped into Lucas’s airspace and stuck out a hand the size of a dinner plate. Sharp bro
wn eyes held his. ‘Sergei Lobo.’

  Without missing a beat Lucas took the hand. ‘Lucas Del Garda.’

  Sergei eyed Lucas’s suit. ‘Corneliani?’

  ‘Nope. Brioni.’

  ‘Nice.’ That big hand still held his, tightened and the smile widened. ‘You tak’in the babe home?’

  The babe mewled under her breath and Lucas grinned. ‘I am.’

  Sergei released Lucas’s hand and stepped back. ‘Good. I’ve told her not to lock up by herself but does she do as she’s told?’

  Lucas looked him dead in the eye. ‘She has trouble following basic instructions.’

  Sergei’s deep laugh rumbled in his powerful chest. ‘That’s because she’s a woman, my man.’

  By the look on her face Becca wasn’t finding the exchange funny. She was also engaged in an undignified tug of war with his driver over her bag. Since John was built like a tank, he won, his lips twitching as he stowed it in the trunk.

  With a shrug of defeat, Becca made herself comfortable in the back seat of the Bentley and gave a royal wave to the wide eyed kids and a grinning Sergei as Lucas slid in beside her.

  The car purred away from the kerb and she turned to him with glittering eyes.

  ‘You’re too bossy and controlling, Lucas. I don’t like it. How did you know where to find me?’

  Becca had no idea just how bossy and controlling he could be when it came to her. This was a new side of his personality that had caught him by surprise.

  He couldn’t remember a time when he’d offered a woman a cell phone. He couldn’t remember a time when a woman had refused to call him either. And he certainly couldn’t remember ever having to knock the door of a woman’s next door neighbour to find out where she was and he didn’t like it one little bit. And that fact made his tone cool.

  ‘One of your neighbours. Nice girl. Chatty. Blonde. Skinny. Baby face.’

  The description made her smooth brow crease. ‘Julia has a big mouth,’ Becca told him.

  Their eyes tangled as the silence stretched endlessly between them.

  Becca tore her gaze away first and Lucas watched her carefully as she chewed her bottom lip staring unseeing out of the window.

  She had the most expressive face. It showed every single emotion. At the moment annoyance was winning the battle over intrigue and arousal.

  Eventually, she turned back to him.

  ‘What are you doing, Lucas?’

  He didn’t miss the wariness in those big eyes and kept his voice soft.

  ‘We need to talk. I am taking you home.’

  Peering out the window to get her bearings, she studied ivory sand stone Georgian facades as they slid into a road that housed the seriously wealthy and members of the foreign diplomatic corps. The car purred to a halt in front of wide stone steps. Two vast iron planters stood to attention holding shiny leafed olive trees guarding impressive double doors painted a glossy black with modern stainless steel handles.

  She released a long sigh and turned to him with raised brows.

  ‘Your home, I take it? I’m not staying the night.’

  Without a word, Lucas opened the door and helped Becca out.

  As she passed him he bent to whisper in her ear,

  ‘It is polite to wait until you are asked, querida.’ And wasn’t disappointed when the heat of mortification burned her fabulous cheekbones.

  If he had anything to do with it, she’d be staying the night and tomorrow night and the night after that.

  Carrying her kit bag, he whisked her into the house, up a wide central staircase of white marble and took her to his bedroom suite.

  She spun in the middle of the room to confront him.

  Her eyes scorched into his.

  ‘What, no preliminaries? No foreplay? Just strip, Becca, and let’s get down to it?’

  Oh, she was not happy he realised with a heightened sense of anticipation.

  Her blue eyes flashed. Her breasts heaving, she stood with her hands on her hips, chin up and itching for a fight. And there was nothing he’d like better than for them to roll around the floor in a wrestling match.

  Then another idea entered his head.

  ‘I was thinking along the lines of sharing a bath or a shower. However, that is an excellent idea, querida. I will go first.’

  Taking his time, his eyes on her face, Lucas removed his jacket, his tie and started to unbutton shirt cuffs, his shirt. She made a sound that reminded him of a hissing kitten. He shrugged off his shirt, toed off his shoes, his socks, his hands going to the buckle of his belt and those big blue eyes went wide and dark with arousal. They studied his shoulders and torso following the dark path to happiness leading to his groin. She swallowed audibly, the pink tip of her tongue ran over her full bottom lip and he indulged himself in a personal fantasy of what she could do with that amazing mouth. Sliding the belt out of his trouser loops, he tossed it and unhooked his trousers, unzipped his fly and dropped his pants. He stepped out sideways and heard her gasp as her hand went to her throat in a purely feminine gesture that made him smile.

  Using his thumbs, he slid down his Calvin’s and his erection bounced free before he kicked them away. She was too pale now; her lips blood red and her breaths were jerky little sounds in her throat. Her eyes were riveted on his erection which swelled, straining out towards her of its own volition. Oh, she wanted him alright. Testing, he held his aching cock in his fist and pumped slow and hard, once, twice. The deep moan in her throat made him a very happy man and almost made up for the days and hours she’d made him suffer by her silence.

  He turned his back and strode into his bathroom.

  Terribly aroused, Becca couldn’t believe it.

  The male body held no secrets for her. But she’d never seen one so potently masculine or so rock hard in her life. The man had no shame. He’d stripped and pleasured himself in front of her, then he’d simply walked out.

  What on earth was he playing at?

  She heard a bath being run, a torrent of water gushing. Then the sound of a shower and a deep baritone voice. He was singing?

  On legs that felt boneless she wandered into the bathroom to ogle a huge oval stone bath. The room was a breathtaking example of exquisite grand design. The walls and floor were covered in slabs of ivory granite. Two stone washbasins matching the bath were built under a wall of mirrors, along with under shelves holding fluffy white towels. The foaming water in the bath smelled divine. He’d added something floral with a hint of lavender.

  ‘Dive in,’ Lucas called out to her as he shampooed his hair and rinsed under a blasting spray. He made quick work of the rest of him, paying particular attention to his thick erection and Becca couldn’t look away. His throaty laugh had her gaze jerk to his and she read a wicked mischief and a dark lust in those amazing eyes.

  He slapped off the shower, wrapped a bath sheet around his hips totally unconcerned that the fabric tented over his arousal. She couldn’t tear her eyes from him as he dried his hair with a hand towel.

  ‘I’ll see you downstairs. My housekeeper has dinner waiting.’

  What had happened to sharing a bath or a shower? Torn between relief and bitter disappointment, she remembered the last time they’d taken a shower together and how he’d rocked her world.

  What the hell was he playing at?

  There was nothing worse than losing the power of speech or being wrong-footed Becca decided as she turned in a circle desperately trying to kick-start her brain and get her bearings.

  Lucas popped his head around the bathroom door and grinned at her.

  ‘Oh, and we have laundry facilities if you want to wash your underwear and that sexy leotard. And I have a spare pair of your panties. I put them on the bed.’

  Sexy leotard? He’d watched her dance session? And he’d found the panties she’d lost in the hotel?

  She didn’t know what to think. And wondered what on earth was the matter with her because the fact he’d kept her panties gave her an illicit little t
hrill.

  Temptation tugged her towards the bath. She turned off the steaming water and after a pitifully short debate decided if she couldn’t beat him she’d join him. Stripping down to her skin, Becca piled her hair on top of her head and slid into the water. It felt fabulous and she found herself relaxing for the first time since Lucas had entered the dance studio.

  She didn’t need to ask what he wanted with her since it was more than obvious. And she’d missed him terribly too. It wasn’t a chore to be attracted to a gorgeous man like Lucas. She knew he wasn’t the type to stick to one woman. If she decided to have an affair with him she’d need to keep her wits about her. He had a tendency to be controlling and she wasn’t sure she could cope with that.

  He’d get her a Smartphone would he? That’d be the day.

  Once she’d finished in the bath, she padded into his amazing bedroom, her attention riveted by the heavy wrought iron bed that took centre stage. It was enormous. Lying on the pristine duvet of Egyptian cotton were the black satin panties. The thought of his fingers touching the silky fabric brought Becca out in goose bumps.

  Her gaze wandered about the magnificent room. The space was light, airy, and lethally masculine and decorated in tones of black and white. There were a couple of huge comfortable sofas in crushed black velvet set at right angles along with two sets of arched double doors of dark panelled wood.

  Her inquisitive nature got the better of her and she opened a set to find a dressing room that was organised to within an inch of its life. There were racks and racks of suits, colour coded shirts and rows of fabulous shoes she knew were hand made. Belts were looped in especially designed glass fronted drawers. Perhaps Lucas had a touch of OCD because not only were sweaters organised by colour but even his jeans were regimented. This was another mark against him. She was messy around the house, always had been, and always would be.

  Becca dressed quickly in her jeans and skinny vest. She didn’t wear a bra since she didn’t have much to put in one. The fact didn’t bother her. Make-up wasn’t an issue either although she slapped plenty of moisturiser on her skin. Her mother was French and had drummed into her the evils of the sun and the benefits of a disciplined skin care regime.