by Alexis Daria
She tensed and abruptly pulled away.
Ooo-kay. No clue what that was about. Her hot and cold reactions were hard to keep track of, but it was better that they keep it professional.
Gina stepped aside, and others moved in to praise him, including—oh shit, that was Rick Carruthers.
Stone blinked, star struck, as Rick Carruthers patted him on the shoulder.
“Sweet moves,” the other man said. “I couldn’t do that even when I was your age.” Rick’s full head of hair had gone gray, but he still had the same charming smile and blue eyes that graced the CD covers Stone and his siblings had listened to when they were younger.
“Um, thanks,” Stone managed to mutter.
“I’m Rick.” He stuck out his hand.
“Stone Nielson.” Sweat broke out on Stone’s brow. He was shaking hands with Rick Carruthers. His brothers were going to flip. “I, uh, I’m kind of a fan.”
“Oh yeah?” Rick grinned. “Glad to hear. Although I can tell you’re going to be some stiff competition for me. What’s your first dance?”
“Fox . . . something.”
Rick chuckled. “Cool, cool. We’re doing the jive. It’ll be interesting to see how these old knees hold up.” He clapped a hand on Stone’s shoulder again. “See you on the dance floor, Stone.”
As Rick moved away and the crowd dispersed, someone else approached him. Stone knew it was Gina even before he glanced down at her.
“Welcome to The Dance Off,” she said in a low voice. “It’s pretty surreal, isn’t it?”
Stone shook his head in awe, watching Rick join his partner before leaving the set. Off to the side stood a short woman, her brown hair cut into a blunt bob, her lined face as familiar to him as his own mother’s. “Jeez. Is that Twyla Rhodes?”
Gina leaned against him as she checked out the middle-aged actress, teasing his senses with her warmth and her scent. “Yes, that’s her.”
“My siblings and I watched the Elf Chronicles movies all the time when we were kids.”
Gina pulled him down to whisper in his ear. “She’s the one who was being a diva about her costume. Apparently, she thought it was too modest and wanted to show more skin.”
His body tightened at Gina’s nearness. “Do you ever get used to it?”
“To what?”
“Brushing elbows with celebrities.”
A smirk played on her lips as she gazed up at him. “Need I remind you that you’re a celebrity, too?”
His face heated. “I don’t feel like one.” He wasn’t famous for being talented, like Rick, or even Gina. Looking at Twyla, who was iconic for her portrayal of an elf queen over thirty years ago, he couldn’t help but wonder what the hell he was doing here. He was a regular guy. He hunted and built stuff with his hands, and someone had come along and wanted to film him doing those things. For that, he was here, with the opportunity to earn a ton of money and attention.
The money. He had to remember why he was mixed up in all this. Money for his mother and his family, who waited for him back in Alaska. Nothing else. Not fame, not mingling, and definitely not a fling with his partner.
“People are people.” Gina shrugged, pulling him from his thoughts. “You’ll see that soon enough. Behind the scenes, it’s hard to keep up the celebrity façade.” She touched his arm lightly. “Let’s go. It’s our turn to film.”
As they took their places on the set, Donna entered the space and whispered something to the director.
Stone had once come face to face with a cougar while backpacking in Canada. Its green-gold eyes had fixed on him with an intensity that sent chills down his spine and screamed predator. Its whiskers shivered as it assessed him, and he never forgot the slinking feline curves of its spine and tail, and the speed at which it retreated when he shouted and fired a shot toward it, scaring it off. Donna reminded him of that mountain lion. Despite her wide smile, she had a hard look in her eyes. The times she’d interviewed him during rehearsal, the sharpness of her demeanor and questions made him anxious to get away.
He glanced down at Gina in time to see her lips tighten at the corners. So, Donna rubbed her the wrong way, too.
With a soft sigh, Gina gave his arm a squeeze. “Let’s get this over with and get back to dancing, okay?”
He nodded. “Okay.”
For the next two hours, Stone put his hands all over Gina’s body. He stood in the middle of the sets with Gina while Donna and the directors of both the dance intro and the promo stills instructed him to lift her, hold her, and grab her.
Finally, he understood her comment about this show making them intimately acquainted with each other’s bodies. Their foxtrot was tame in comparison.
It wasn’t that he had a problem with having Gina drape herself all over him. On the contrary, he liked it far too much. Having his hands full of her hot, tight body while she curled her strong limbs around him? Not the worst way to spend an afternoon. If they hadn’t been surrounded by production people, he might have enjoyed himself.
Except Donna’s hungry eyes kept him on edge, and it seemed like she had the same effect on Gina.
Gina was the consummate professional, of course, completely unfazed by anything Donna asked her to do. Sit on Stone’s shoulder? Sure. Wrap her legs around his waist? No problem. Rub against him while whipping her hair? On it.
But there was a tension in Gina’s body that hadn’t been there during their rehearsal, and a tightness to her smile. He also got the feeling Donna was pushing Gina to do sexier moves on purpose. Still, Gina handled herself with grace.
He, on the other hand, sweated through it, and needed his makeup touched up multiple times.
At the end of it all, Gina chugged a bottle of water and flashed him a wry smile. “You holding up okay?”
“I guess so.” He could barely look her in the eye, feeling like they’d just fucked in front of an audience. How the hell was he supposed to get through a dance in front of a ballroom full of people, on national TV? “Is it always like that?”
Gina was quiet for a long moment. “No,” she said in a low voice. “Not quite.”
Before he could ask why she thought Donna had been pushing them so hard—he’d lost track of how many times she’d shouted “More sexy!” at them—Gina punched his shoulder and said, “How much you wanna bet they’re going to go with the footage of you breakdancing?”
“No way.” He chomped on a protein bar. “Really? After making us do all that?”
She shrugged, like what they’d done had been no big deal. “They try to get as many options as they can. But unless Jackson García can also breakdance, my guess is that’s the footage they’ll use for our intro every episode.”
“Who’s Jackson García?”
“One of the other celebrities this season. TV actor. Also young and fit.” She gave Stone a once over. “Younger than you, but not as fit, I have to say.”
His cheeks warmed. “I’m not sure if that was a compliment or not.”
“Something in that realm.” She grinned. “Come on, let’s change and get back to working on your footwork. It’s atrocious.”
“That definitely wasn’t a compliment.”
“Nope. But it’s true.”
As they left the studio, Rick’s words came back to him. This was a competition. And Gina was the only one fully invested in his success. Despite his conflicted emotions toward her, he and Gina were a unit. They were in this together—no going back. For at least the next month, they were partners, and nothing was going to change that.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Hey, Gina! Hold on a sec.”
Gina paused outside the door of the rehearsal room as Lori Kim jogged up to her. “What’s up?”
A big grin lit Lori’s face. “We’re going out tonight.”
“Oh, thank god. I need a break.” After a week of rehearsals, everyone was going stir crazy. The celebrities were feeling the wear and tear of full-time dance practice, and the pros were pulling their hair out tr
ying to teach ballroom dance to a bunch of newbies with big personalities. Even the producers had given up on coaxing soundbites out of the cast.
Lori nodded emphatically. “We all do. I got the whole season fourteen cast onto the guest list for Club Picante.”
“Your ex-girlfriend’s still working there?”
“Yep. We’ve got VIP space at the end of the bar. Say you’ll come.”
“Come where?”
A shiver went up Gina’s spine at the rumble of Stone’s voice behind her. For a big guy, he walked lightly.
“We’re going to a salsa club tonight,” Lori told Stone. “Want to come? You’re on the list, too.”
“Stone, this is Lori. She’s won twice.” Gina hip-bumped Lori, who playfully elbowed her back.
“Hey, you’ll get there soon. I’ve just been on the show longer.”
“A salsa club?” Stone repeated, skepticism heavy in his voice. He turned his ice-blue gaze on Gina, and she sucked in a breath. “I haven’t learned how to salsa yet.”
Lori snickered and gave his shoulder a shove. “You’re not going to be judged on it, and you’ll have to learn it eventually, if you stick around. Might as well pick up the basics at a club.”
“It’s just for fun,” Gina said. “We could all use the break, and you don’t have to dance if you don’t want to.”
Stone narrowed his eyes, searching her face as if she held the answer. The look was so sexy it had her heart racing.
“I don’t believe that for a second,” he said, voice edging toward a growl. It was something he didn’t even realize he did, but every time it gave her a bad case of cha-cha-ing butterflies in her belly. “Going to a salsa club with a bunch of professional dancers will result in dancing, whether I want to or not.”
Lori shrugged. “We can’t force you. You’re too big. It would take all of us to get you on the dance floor.”
Gina imagined dancing with Stone in the close confines of Club Picante. Crowded, hot, loud, and dark—
It was a terrible idea. “You don’t have to go if you—”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll go.”
What? No. “Really?”
“Sure.” He jerked a shoulder. “It’ll be a good chance to get to know the other cast members better, right?”
“Cool. It’s gonna be fun.” Lori took off down the hallway. “See ya!”
“Ready to practice?” Stone asked when Gina just stood there, staring after Lori.
“Yeah, of course.” They entered the room and set up their mics. When she stepped in close to him, he put his arm around her in perfect hold, wrapping her in his strength, his warmth, and the fresh, piney smell a week in LA hadn’t diminished.
Her heart rate spiked. Sweat prickled at her hairline. Bringing Stone to the salsa club was a very bad idea, but maybe she could get through the night without dancing with him.
She signaled the camera guy to move out of the way or risk being run over. “Come on, let’s practice grapevines again.”
At the end of the day, they parted ways at the parking lot.
“See you at the club?” Stone asked.
Kicking herself for giving him the club info, it was on the tip of her tongue to say no, to make up an excuse. As if she needed to spend more time around him. She was already on the verge of spontaneous combustion. Could people explode from lust? She was about to test the theory.
She wanted to go out, though. Part of her wanted the chance to blow off steam with her coworkers, and another part didn’t want to leave Stone alone to deal with all the other dancers.
Yet another part of her really wanted to salsa with him away from the watchful eyes of Donna and Jordy. It tipped the balance.
“Yes. See you there.”
She rushed home to take a shower—a cold shower—and maybe change into something sexier.
* * *
Stone maneuvered his way through the crowd at Club Picante toward the VIP section in the back. The dark club was lit red and purple, and crammed with people dancing in the space between a stage and the long, shiny bar. The blasting air conditioner did nothing to dispel the scents of sweat, liquor, and cologne. Loud music vibrated up through his feet. He received a number of appreciative stares—from both men and women—but the crowd parted and Gina was there, leaning against a high table. She spotted him and raised her hand in a wave.
Everyone else fell away. He wasn’t stupid enough to convince himself that he was drawn to her because she was the only face he recognized. It was just because she was her.
It wasn’t smart to come out with her, but after a week of dancing around each other—literally—he wanted to see Gina away from the cameras. So far, he’d only gotten contradictory glimpses—polished Gina in Alaska, playful, practiced Gina in rehearsals, and superstar Gina at the promo shoot. Sometimes warm and flirty, sometimes cool and professional. Maybe tonight he’d finally get to know the woman behind the dancer.
When he approached her table, she scooted over to make room for him and lifted her cheek for a kiss, as she always did. Under the “nightclub smell” permeating the air, her signature scent teased his senses. He was closer to deciphering it—something flowery, with a hint of earthy spice, plus ginger from the candies she liked to eat during rehearsals. She’d put on light makeup, let her hair down, and changed into a red dress that hugged her body and drew his eye down her toned curves.
Her hand snaked into the crook of his arm and exerted slight pressure, indicating he should lean down. On her other side, a pretty woman with heavy-lidded eyes and a red-lipped smirk leaned her elbows on the table.
Gina raised her voice over the pulsing music. “Stone, this is my roommate, Natasha Díaz. She’s also on The Dance Off, but she’s been rehearsing at one of the other studio spaces.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said, ingrained manners feeling both out of place and necessary in this loud, obnoxious setting.
“My pleasure.” Natasha sent him a slinky, feline smile. She was taller than Gina by a few inches, with a lean, ballet-dancer’s build and tawny brown skin. Her eyes cut to Gina’s. “I’m going to get a drink.”
Natasha sauntered away, leaving them alone.
Alone, aside from the hundreds of other people in the club. Still, this was the first time they were together without producers or cameras.
Gina looked up at him through her eyelashes. “Don’t be nervous.”
His gut tightened. “I’m not.”
“You are. I can tell.” She rubbed his lower back, something she’d taken to doing in the last few days when she thought he needed soothing. If anything, it set him more on edge, her casual touch stoking the flames of desire.
Fuck. This had been a mistake. He should have stayed at the hotel and hit the gym, instead of coming to this club with the misguided notion that he needed to make friends, or that he could get to know Gina better without wanting her more.
It would never work. There was no point in even trying.
Her hand dropped away. “Oh, look. Natasha found room for us at the bar.”
Sure enough, Natasha was waving them over with one hand, her other arm draped over the backs of a couple seats.
Kevin Ray stood at the bar next to Natasha, easily recognizable with his light brown hair and skin freckled by the California sun. According to Gina, Kevin had won more times than anyone else in The Dance Off’s history, and his pictures were displayed all over the rehearsal studio’s halls.
Stone gestured at Kevin’s tumbler of amber liquid. “What’re you having?”
“This?” Kevin raised his glass. “Lagavulin.”
“Good enough.” Stone indicated to the bartender he’d take what Kevin was having.
“Wouldn’t have thought a guy from Bumfuck, Alaska, would drink scotch.”
Stone tried for an easy smile. How would Reed respond? “I get into town occasionally. Not much else to do in winter but get drunk.”
A petite woman slipped between them. It was Lori, the dancer who’d
invited him to the club. Behind her was a guy who greeted them with a wide smile.
Gina made the introductions. “This is Lori, whom you’ve met, and her partner, Jackson García.”
Stone ducked his head and lowered his voice so only Gina would hear. “The one who’s supposedly younger than I am, but not as fit?”
She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a snort. Her eyes gleamed with mirth. “That’s the one.”
Stone sipped his drink, rolling the strong, smoky flavor over his tongue. He glanced back down at Gina’s empty hands. “Are you having a drink?”
A quick, silent exchange passed between Gina and Natasha.
“Yeah,” Gina said. “I’ll have—”
“Let’s do shots!” Lori thumped a fist on the bar to punctuate her words. “You all in?”
After a short hesitation, Gina nodded.
Stone pretended to be interested in his drink while Natasha grabbed Gina’s elbow.
“You never drink during the season,” Natasha hissed.
Gina shrugged. “I know. It’s fine.”
Her roommate backed off, holding up her hands. “Mira, no soy tú madre. Just reminding you of your own rules.”
“I know.”
Stone leaned down. “What did she say?”
With a huff, Gina translated Natasha’s words. “She said she’s not my mother. Come on.” She grabbed a shot from the cluster set out by the bartender. Stone took one for himself, and when Lori counted to three, they all slammed them back.
It burned going down. Nowhere near as good as the scotch. And when was the last time he’d done shots at a bar? College? It wasn’t something he and his brothers did. Reed didn’t know when to quit, Wolf was a lightweight, and Winter said his body was a temple and he wouldn’t poison it with alcohol.
Gina sucked in a breath as she returned her glass to the bar. Her eyes watered a little.
Stone rested a hand on the bare skin of her back and stroked gently with his thumb. “You good?”
“I’m fine.”
Her skin told another story. “You have goosebumps.”
She held his gaze for a long moment, her expression unreadable.
