Last Dance for Cadence

by Maren Smith

  “No, it’s not,” Marcus agreed, “but that’s just the way life is. You may as well resign yourself to it now, because I have a feeling that you’re going to find a lot of what I tell you to be unfair, starting with tonight.”

  She glared at him.

  “I think the boys would like it if you came with us to dinner.”

  “I can’t pay for it,” she said flatly.

  “I don’t expect you to. But I do expect you not to sulk.”

  “I’m not sulking,” she said, even flatter.

  He gave her an indulgent smile. “If you stick that lower lip out any further, you’ll trip on it. Michael wears that look upon occasion. It drives me crazy.” He gave her a cajoling nudge. “Come with us. The pizza parlor here is delicious. They’ve got a mile-high Meat Monster that is a carnivore’s absolute wet dream.”

  “Gross!” She tried to get off his lap again, but now for a completely different reason. Suddenly, her need to cry was waylaid by her involuntary urge to laugh. She swiped impatiently at her tears, scrubbing them out of existence with the palms of both hands. “That’s disgusting.”

  “What is? Meat or wet dreams?” He looked mildly concerned. “Please tell me you don’t mean meat, because I am not one of those doctors who advocates the vegetarian lifestyle.”

  “I like meat,” she grudgingly admitted.

  “Then you’ll come?”

  She hesitated. Her bottom still hurt, but how strange was it that she should be feeling better right now? She didn’t understand why that should be so. Maybe that old adage about women sometimes needing a good cry before they could get on with their lives was true. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. You’ve already seen more of me than any other employer ever has. We…” For some reason, as she stole a quick glance at his eyes and then his mouth, all she could think about now was that near-miss kiss they’d almost shared that morning. “We really should try to keep this…relationship as professional as possible.”

  “That’s one reason.” Marcus nodded. He stroked her hair once and then let his hand drop down her back to give her hip a fond pat. “Come anyway. It’s not a date, it’s just pizza. You, me and the boys.”

  It definitely wouldn’t be a date if the boys were there. In fact, that would almost make it part of her job, wouldn’t it? And really, what difference did it make between having dinner at the Doctor’s kitchen table or in a public pizza parlor?

  No difference, except perhaps that a public pizza parlor would be far less intimate.

  She was going to have to use her cane.

  Cadence almost flinched, just the thought of being seen in public with that thing was enough to make her want to stay home.

  “Come on,” Marcus cajoled. “Come with us. If you don’t, Buddy won’t want to go either. He’ll be too afraid I’ve fired you.”

  Cadence could feel herself wavering. “For Buddy, then,” she said, but try though she did, she just couldn’t convince herself that that was her only reason.

  Patting her hip again, Marcus let her go, allowing her to climb up off his knee for the first time. Her bottom protested having to stand. She felt swollen, her battered flesh flaming hot and, oh, so very sore.

  She reached back, unable to help cupping and ever so gingerly rubbing. “You’ve killed me.”

  Marcus smirked, but his eyes were on her hands. Her skirt had fallen down. There wasn’t much that he could see, just the vague shape of her bottom framed by her fingers and folds of soft cloth, but he still watched as if he wished his hands were doing the rubbing for her. “You’re barely pink, sweetheart. I went easy on you.”

  “Liar,” she exclaimed, without thinking.

  The gray steel of his gaze flicked back up to her face, but he didn’t take exception. He gestured to the door at the back of his office. “There’s a mirror in the bathroom. Take a look if you like. Your little bottom can take more than what I just gave it.” He smiled when he stood up. “Call me a liar again and it will.” He gave her chin a fond chuck, then pressed the handle of her cane into her palm. “Don’t forget this.” As if wielding a smile might make the command more palatable, he leaned in close to her and, in a soft and sultry whisper, said, “If you’re a very, very good girl during dinner tonight, when we get home, I’ll let you put your panties back on.”

  Her face flamed and the heat shot out from her sore bottom to lick in between her thighs when he walked away from her then, pausing at the coat rack just long enough to snag her panties. He showed them to her briefly before tucking them into his pocket.

  Apparently, for the length of dinner at least, she was going to have to go without. The fire in her wounded bottom shot straight up through her legs and into her womb, releasing a gush of liquid wanting to flood the tops of her thighs.

  Cadence touched her hands to her burning face, as embarrassed as she was enthralled.

  God, what was wrong with her that that should turn her on? He was, that’s what. He was driving her crazy.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The pizza parlor was called Mama Mia’s and it occupied the back half of the only gas station within 15 miles of the highway turnoff to Corbin’s Bend. A sandwich and ice cream counter was stationed between Mama Mia’s and the actual station, with a room dedicated to arcade games and which was, at any given hour, occupied by at least a dozen teenagers in full-on loofer mode. Still, for being located in a gas station, dinner was wonderful.

  Cadence couldn’t remember the last time she’d had pizza, the dietary regime of a dancer being every bit as strict as most super models and professional body builders. Pizza was just one of those bad habits she’d never indulged in. Of course, she wasn’t dancing now. So when they called their order number and Marcus brought the large-sized Meat Monster back to the table, Cadence not only had one slice, she had three. She washed it down with a large Coke and barely felt more than a twinge of guilt over the fact that it wasn’t diet.

  “Who wants ice cream?” Marcus asked, and when everyone but Cadence cheered, he looked at her pointedly. “What about you?”

  “I couldn’t eat another bite,” she groaned, patting her stomach. “You’re going to have to roll me back to the car as it is.”

  “How about I carry you instead?” Marcus winked at her over Buddy’s head. “We’ll save the rolling for the next time we go out.”

  “This is business,” she reminded him as he led the boys back into the gas station for ice cream.

  He didn’t say anything back, but even she had a hard time trying to keep the business aspect of this in mind when he brought back a chocolate-vanilla swirl cone and insisted on sharing it with her. Just the act of putting her mouth on soft serve that was melting where the heat of his mouth had just touched it, felt sexy to her. Admittedly, it never should have. Her bottom although not as hot as it had been when she’d first stood up fresh off his knee, was still very tender. Particularly on the lowest part of her right bottom curve, where his hand had seemed to focus just a little more often than it had upon her left side. And he’d been right. When she had gone to look in the bathroom mirror, the pinkness of her flesh had been soft and blushing, not bright red and blistered. He hadn’t spanked her anywhere near as hard as it had felt like at the time.

  He had been careful with her. He had used restraint then and he was seducing her now. What she couldn’t figure out was, was he doing it deliberately or was he as helpless in this as she was?

  Date or not (and she was determined not to think of it as a date) he refused to let her take the ice cream cone from his hand. Instead, he took a bite, then held it out for her to do likewise. He smiled all the while until she eventually gave in and licked. When she did, his gaze locked on the tip of her tongue and didn’t look away until it was once more safely tucked inside her mouth, teasing her taste buds with the flavor of the soft serve.

  “Cadence? Cadence?” Buddy patted her arm and kept right on patting until Cadence looked down at where he was kneeling in the booth smack in between her and M
arcus. “Do you like chocolate or vanilla best? I like butterscotch.”

  “Butterscotch is pretty good,” she agreed.

  “Want to try some of mine?” Buddy copied his father, holding out his cone for her to steal a sample.

  “Yummy,” she said, after the smallest taste. He beamed.

  Across the table next to his brother, Daniel perked a little. “Mine’s pistachio.”

  He stretched his cone out far enough that if she leaned across the table she could, laughing softly, sample that too. She had never been a fan of pistachio, but she made the appropriate yummy sounds. “Very creamy. Very green.”

  Both Daniel and Buddy snickered.

  Sitting all the way on the outside of the opposite bench, Michael looked at his cone and then at her. After a moment, he extended his too, offering little more than a reserved, one-shoulder shrug as he said, “Do you like coffee?”

  Surprised that he would offer at all, Cadence ignored the shooting pains that ravaged both legs and heaved herself up far enough off her seat to lean over and try a taste. “Mm,” she said honestly. “They’re all very good, but I think coffee might be my favorite.”

  Michael settled back in his part of the booth, the same as before, still quiet, but not quite so sullen. He finished his cone and didn’t look at her again.

  When everyone had finished their dessert, Marcus directed the boys to take the trash to the nearest garbage bin and lay a tip on the table.

  She’d sat too long. That was the first thing Cadence thought when she tried to scoot out of the booth and stand. Her knees were so stiff and sore. She rubbed them both, stifling a wince as she realized how swollen they were. She had overdone it two days in a row and her legs were not going to be forgiving.

  “Do you need me to carry you?” Marcus asked, slipping his wallet back into his back pocket.

  “Don’t,” she said, much more sharply than she intended. “I’m fine. I don’t need to be babied, and I really don’t like it when people try to.”

  She didn’t like it when Marcus folded his arms across his chest the way he was right now, either. It made him look broad and imposing.

  “Buddy says that every now and then,” he said mildly. “I’m going to tell you what I tell him. A baby is someone who wants everything his own way. Asking for help when you need it is how you know you’re becoming a big boy.”

  “Great.” She lined herself up at the edge of the booth. “Just what I’ve always wanted to be: A big boy.” She reached back to get her cane. She was going to need it just to get upright, but with any luck, once she took a few steps, maybe some of the stiffness would melt out of her knees and make moving easier.

  “Do you need a hand?” Marcus was about to reach for her arm when a tall, auburn-haired woman waved to him from across the restaurant.

  “Marcus!” Grinning, she made her way to the Devons’ table. “Fancy running into you here!”

  Was it a trick of the light or did the doctor just wince? If he did, he covered it with a smile quickly enough, leaving no trace of it by the time he turned to confront the other woman. “Hello, Carla. We’re about to leave, actually.”

  “You brought the whole family,” she noted, but she was looking right at Cadence when she said it. Cadence didn’t know if it was still a trick of the light, but although the woman remained smiling, there was a distinct hardening in her eyes that suggested she was anything but happy to see Cadence there. “Who is this?”

  “This is Cadence Westmore, my new nanny.”

  It was definitely no trick of the light. Carla’s eyes hardened, becoming twin slits of ice. She managed to keep her tone light, but it was anything but genuine. “Oh, you’ve hired someone already?”

  “You put in a good application,” Marcus said diplomatically. “The competition was just really tough.”

  “It must have been,” Carla said. She forced her smile to broaden and turned it on Marcus. “But, you did find someone.”

  “Yes, we did.” Marcus nodded once, made quick note of where each of his boys were, and then held out his hand to Cadence. “Well, it’s past our bedtimes and we still have baths to get through, so…”

  “Of course, of course.” Carla took a step back, as if to prove she wasn’t keeping them there. Then she looked at Cadence and, in particular, Marcus’s hand held out to take hers, and then her gaze dropped to the cane. “Oh…I didn’t realize she was disabled.”

  And there it was—the dreaded ‘D’ word.

  Cadence stiffened. “I’m not disabled. And you don’t have to talk about me like I’m not sitting right here.”

  Right before her astonished eyes, Carla took Marcus’s arm and tried to draw him aside. She didn’t lower her voice though, so Cadence heard every word when the other woman said, “Marcus, honey, I understand wanting to give the less fortunate a helping hand, but are you sure she can do the job?”

  The cane hit the floor almost before Cadence shoved all the way up onto her feet. It hurt like hell, but she had her head held high when she walked right past them both and headed for the door. She was limping. There was nothing she could do about that, but she walked and she did it without the cane.

  “Cadence! Cadence!” Buddy ran to catch up with her. He grabbed onto her hand and she was so angry at that point that she almost jerked away from him before she realized who had hold of her.

  “Cadence,” Marcus called after her, but she didn’t stop and she didn’t turn around.

  “Hey.” She was just about out the door when she felt a tug at her other side. It was Michael, shrugging in under her arm. “You can lean on me if you need to. Yeah, she drives me crazy too.”

  She wanted to look back, to see if that itching she could feel at her back was because Carla and Marcus were staring after her, but she refused to let them see her as uncertain or vulnerable. Michael looked back, however.

  “Dad’s got your cane,” he commented as they pushed through the door and out into the parking lot.

  Great. Just great.

  “Good for him,” she said shortly. “It can go back in his office. I don’t need it anymore.”

  She heard the bell on Mama Mia’s entrance clang open a half second before a large hand grabbed onto her elbow.

  “Boys, go wait for us in the car.” Marcus handed Michael his keys, but held onto Cadence, keeping her on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, in full view of those windows and, she was sure, Carla, who was watching them from the inside.

  Cadence tried to take back her arm and walk away, determined to let Carla see her as strong, but Marcus held on. He tried to put the cane back in her hand, but she promptly let it fall to the pavement between their feet. “I don’t need it and I won’t use it!”

  “I will take you back to my office,” Marcus returned. Retrieving it, he tried again to press it into her hand and this time to fold her stiff, uncooperative fingers around it. “Cadence, I swear to God…”

  “I don’t want people to see me with this stupid thing!” she hissed, painfully aware that the boys had to be watching them from the car. Even more painfully aware that people inside Mama Mia’s might be watching too.

  “How badly do you want people to see me bend you over my knee right here and now?” Marcus shot back.

  “I’ll use it at home, but not in public!” Damn it, that came out like wheedling! Not at all like the strong, authoritative compromise she’d intended it to be.

  “You will use it every single time you take a step, in private or in public, and if I have to impress upon you how seriously I feel about this, then I have no problem taking you home right now and doing that. I went easy on you before. That will not happen again if I have to spank you twice in one night for the same exact thing.”

  “What about how I feel?” Cadence demanded. She finally yanked back on her arm hard enough to evade his grip, but although she so badly wanted to just throw the cane across the parking lot, she kept it in her hand. Something told her that throwing it, even just dropping it right
there at his feet, would have been akin to throwing that last straw onto the back of an already overladen and gradually growing more pissed-off camel. Or maybe she was the camel, because she just couldn’t stop herself from pushing. Even knowing how this was going to end, she still pushed. “When do I get to impress on you how serious that is?”

  “When you can walk without falling!”

  “In the meantime, I have to do what you say?” she said, her voice beginning to rise even though she struggled to keep it in whispers. “I have to put up with it when people look at me like that?” She flung an accusing finger back at the restaurant. “Did you even hear what she said?”

  “She thinks you’re taking something away from her, so she’s lashing out,” Marcus said grudgingly. “What she doesn’t realize yet is I wouldn’t have her on a bet. I just haven’t found a nice way to say that.”

  “You want a hint?” Cane in hand, Cadence stormed back to Mama Mia’s door and threw it open. “He’s not interested!” she shouted across the restaurant. Everyone looked at her, including Carla, who glared. Her cheeks turned pink. She even had the nerve to glance around her, as if wondering how many of those present would be able to connect her with the crazy lady shouting from the doorway. Cadence decided to make it easy for everyone and pointed right at her. “And call me disabled again, I dare you!”

  If the door weren’t on a hydraulic hinge, she’d have slammed it. Instead, she had to make do with the limited satisfaction of flinging that blasted cane down at Marcus’s feet and limping back to the car without it.

  “Well done,” Marcus called after her. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

  Getting into the passenger seat, Cadence slammed the door, then sat there, arms folded across her chest, waiting for the consequences of her actions to stop glaring after her, pick the cane up off the parking lot and follow her to the car.

  “Are you fighting with Dad?” Buddy asked, sounding small in the backseat.

  “No, honey. We’re not fighting,” Cadence lied. “We’re just disagreeing about differing opinions in a very loud voice. Adults sometimes do that, Buddy.”