The Thorndyke Trilogy 2: Dancing at Midnight

by Lynne Connolly

  She couldn’t even make it here. Was it nerves? She’d done much better at the run-through.

  For the Argentine tango, she was in red. The dress fitted closely, with few spangles but lots of slashes. After all, this form of the dance, the original tango, if Nathan was right, was created in the sleazy dance halls of Rio, where gauchos would come for an evening’s entertainment. The women were hired, little better than prostitutes, the men rough.

  When he’d told her that, she could almost feel sweat trickling down the groove of her spine and smell cattle and cheap cologne on the man. In her mind, she put Nathan in the role of the gaucho.

  Now all she could smell was fear, and it was hers.

  She had to snap out of this, or she’d never get the sensuality down. She’d rehearsed each little turn, each facial expression until she could do it in her sleep. But that wouldn’t be enough, not for this crowd. They weren’t happy with a woman who just took her clothes off. They wanted artistry. They were expecting more.

  The woman who helped with the preparation the dancers couldn’t do for themselves dragged her hair back, pulling it into a severe, twisted knot, and fastened it with a long chopstick. She had nowhere to hide, no sultry glances from behind her hair.

  She walked out once more into the darkness and found the chair set out for her. She sat, arranged her skirt, what there was of it, and placed herself into the first pose. Steve touched her shoulder as he walked past, turned around. He stood over her, his hand outstretched, as if asking her to dance. Then he’d jerk her into his arms.

  The music began, the wail of the accordion hitting the first notes, and she froze. She couldn’t remember any of the steps. Not one. They were all gone, her mind a blank. The music sounded foreign, not something she’d rehearsed for a week to.

  She was so dead.

  The lights went up, and she let Steve pull her up, but it was more like dragging a sack of potatoes than a sexy surrender. Steve’s eyes widened fractionally as he caught her panic, but he was a practiced dancer. She had to trust him to see her through. A lump so large that she could hardly breathe formed in her throat. She forced a breath in, but as she did so, someone ripped her away from Steve.

  Nathan.

  He was standing behind her in his usual black shirt and pants, nothing special, but his savage expression ensured nobody would be looking anywhere but at his face. It was stark, his fine cheekbones delineated, his eyes glittering with passion.

  Immediately as always, she responded to having his body plastered against hers, and her pussy softened for him.

  He stared down at her. “Do you want to stop this dance?”

  He’d felt her panic and come to her. As she recognized his response, she melted and her terror dissipated. Of course she could do this. “No.”

  “Let me guide you, and then we’ll go back into the steps.”

  Already the dance had gone on a bar longer than necessary, but starting it again would destroy the tension rippling over the club. She could trust him.

  He slid into her mind, showed her what he wanted her to do, and she did it. When he turned her, Steve stood behind them, foot tapping, arms folded, and as Nathan whirled her into the dance, he went into a flamenco pose of defiance.

  Two men as rivals for her in the dance. That worked. On the next beat, she pulled away from Nathan and went to Steve, who opened his arms to receive her, and they dipped into the rehearsed pose, her leg up, her arm outstretched.

  Nathan dragged her back. If Steve hadn’t released her, he’d have yanked her arm out of its socket, but as it was, she landed against him, her back to his chest. She lowered herself, and he spread his hands over her breasts. Kristen shuddered and turned her natural reaction into a theatrical one, exaggerating it.

  At that point, she began to enjoy herself. She and Steve had some practiced poses, and Nathan knew them all because he’d invented them.

  They couldn’t turn this into a perfect dance by critical standards, but they could put on a show and use the set pieces.

  Nathan spun her into him, and this time, he tugged the skirt away, leaving only a few ragged edges. It was designed to look as if he’d torn it off for real. The gasps of the audience were audible above the music. The lighting guy had given up on following them with spots, flooding the stage with muted light, but that was good, like the sleazy dance halls that were the origin of the dance.

  Her partner sank down onto the wooden chair, taking her with him. He arched his back, and she straddled him, pressing down as he pushed up. His erection bulged blatantly beneath the pants. This time when Steve came back for her, Nathan kept his attention on her and lifted his hand, palm out, and pushed him away. Steve turned his back and left, a lover spurned.

  Now the dance turned even more intense. Nathan slid his hand around the back of her neck, bringing her close for a kiss, but their mouths didn’t touch. Instead, she leaped up, spun around, and jerked up her chin in denial. He looped his arm around her waist and hauled her against him, pressing a hand against her throat and tipping her head back for him to bend to bite her.

  He really bit her. Then he spoke to her. “This is what I wanted. I don’t always dance according to the rules.” He nipped down her throat.

  “I thought your rule was to never dance with your lovers.”

  “I just changed it.”

  So she was still his lover. And his dance partner.

  He spun her away from him, his teeth bared, eyes fierce, and she dipped onto one knee, her other leg stretched behind her. In response, he mirrored her pose and looped his knee just inside hers. She breathed deeply, panted, knowing the light would catch the way her breasts heaved.

  At this point, he should have torn off her dress, leaving her bare breasted and in black satin panties, cut impossibly high. Together with the dangerous red flamenco shoes, they were all she had to finish the dance with.

  He did not.

  Slowly they rose, facing each other. Kristen gathered the rags of her skirt and did a flamenco move, bringing her heels together to rap on the floor in defiance.

  But he followed her, a predatory cat stalking his mate. Totally lost in the dance, she half turned, then back again. This time he came behind her and slipped his hands around her waist, one down over her abdomen, the other high, over one breast. He lowered his head, his forehead touching her shoulder. He was hers. Triumphantly, she lifted her arms high, and they held the pose for a second.

  That was when he removed her dress. The fastenings tore away. Before the audience could get a good look at her breasts, he covered them with his hands, lifting them slightly so they mounded over the top of his fingers. “Can you keep in the spirit of the dance and follow me?”

  “Yes.” Heat coursed through her when he moved his hands, stimulating her nipples.

  Dropping her head back against his shoulder, she let him caress her, and then he twisted her, and she spun, putting her back to the audience. He touched her, smiled at her in a heartbreaking way, and tore his shirt off.

  Unlike her costume, his shirt wasn’t meant to come off that way. He made it work, adding a touch of dragon strength to his movement. When a button stuck on his cuff, out of sight of the audience he extended a claw and sliced it off. Now they were both bare from the waist up.

  A feminine groan arose from the audience. Nathan was a fine specimen, really fine.

  He pulled the chopstick from Kristen’s hair, and it fell over her shoulders, a gleaming black cascade.

  Their dance grew more intimate. They moved as one, their steps in sync, him forward, her back, then in reverse, neither in control as they simulated the act of love in dance. He rolled his groin against her pussy. If it wasn’t obvious that he had an erection already, he made it clear a moment later.

  He turned her, kept one arm over her breasts, and caressed her stomach, letting his fingers stretch as far as her mound. She moaned, no simulation that, and moved into him, as she did in bed. As he enticed her to.

  Using their priv
ate movements in public drove her wild, but not wild enough to forget the dance. They performed the flicking and kicking part, but he took care to keep her nipples hidden, teasing the audience with the possibilities without allowing them a real look. She didn’t mind them seeing, but it seemed he did.

  He bent her back over his knee and came down over her to give her a kiss. This time, he turned it into a real kiss. He drove his tongue into her mouth, and she had no option but to suck on it and accept it, caress it as she lifted one hand to cup his cheek. He separated their mouths so they were a breath apart, licking her lips, tracing them with his tongue before sinking down, holding her tightly.

  The dance hadn’t ended this way before, but this time, it was right. It formed a fitting conclusion. He held her close and she held him, two lost souls coming together.

  The last haunting notes faded away, and the lights went down.

  Nathan stood, lifting her and then lowering her to her feet. When she stood, he wrapped something around her. Not her dress, not silk, but smooth cotton. His shirt.

  The audience was silent for that single, magic moment as they realized the dance was over. Chairs clattered to the floor as people got to their feet in one surge, and they applauded, cheered, wouldn’t stop.

  Flushing, she bowed and then bowed again. Her first instinct was to believe it was him. Nathan owned the club, he was a famous enigma, and he never danced in his own clubs, although people knew he could. There was no footage of him on the Internet—she’d looked—just rumors that he had started as a dancer. Some said a male stripper; others said a ballet dancer.

  “Both,” he murmured in her ear. He’d picked up her thoughts again. “I got rid of the evidence.”

  Not that she cared, because he responded to her generously, opening himself to her and sharing in her joy.

  “It’s not you, it’s not me. It’s us.”

  He was right. Without him, she was good and she could be better, once she’d conquered her nerves, easily capable of living up to the publicity. With him, she was spectacular because he evoked the passion she needed. He wouldn’t let her remain still but led her into the next move, their personal connection bleeding onto the dance floor. If people didn’t know they were lovers before, they did now.

  Eventually they stopped clapping, once it became obvious that there would be no encore. Nathan led her offstage, where the other dancers were applauding. This time, Kristen knew it was for their boss, Nathan. He relayed the thoughts he read in them to her. Jealousy of her, desire for him. Some of the men wanted her, the ones who hadn’t noticed her before. Uncertainty from one direction. Steve.

  Nathan beckoned to Steve, and smiling in acknowledgment, he led them to the back of the club and up the stairs that led to the gallery containing his office.

  A bottle of champagne sat in a bucket of ice on his desk. She didn’t know how he’d had it delivered.

  Nathan eased out the cork with barely a pop and poured the foaming liquid, giving her and Steve a glass each. She swiped off the sweat over her body before she took a seat on one of the black leather easy chairs before his desk.

  Nathan perched on the desk itself, the heavy mahogany surface accepting his weight without complaint. “We’re keeping this. You dance the waltz with her, Steve, and then start the tango, and I’ll take her from you. We’ll work out the details later. We need to do something afterward. We can’t leave them at that.”

  Steve drained his glass before he nodded. “That sounds good. So I’m the spurned lover?” He grinned. “I should get some sympathy for that.”

  “We’ll see if we can’t get you lined up with someone else. Make a narrative of it. So after Kristen and I finish the tango, you can appear with somebody else and win them.”

  “Or they can win me,” Steve said, holding out his glass for more. “Maybe something upbeat, like a salsa.”

  Nathan obliged him. “I like that. We’ll find someone to court you. I’m thinking Betty. Then a last dance with Kristen and me.”

  “A ballroom tango?” she said. No, that was too much like the Argentine. But it needed to be emotional. “A Fred and Ginger routine.”

  Nathan snapped his fingers. “Perfect. We’ll start first thing in the morning. Block it out and make a start.” He held the bottle, dripping from the ice, toward Steve. “Now get out so I can celebrate with my lady.”

  Steve grinned, took the bottle, and sauntered out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

  “You should close your mouth, sweetheart,” Nathan said softly.

  “You called me—”

  “My lady. You are.” He slid off the desk and held out his hands. She got to her feet lightly, gazing up at his face. He pushed the rags of his shirt off her shoulders so she was bare except for her panties and shoes. “I couldn’t bear for them to see what was mine.” He smiled ruefully, humor lighting his eyes. “That’s a strange reaction for a dancer. That was when I knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  She licked her lips, and he groaned before covering her mouth with his. He tasted her, making the kiss tender, caressing her lips with his.

  Giving everything to him, she flung an arm around his neck as he held her close to his bare chest.

  He released her mouth and gazed into her eyes. “That I love you.”

  Below, the crowd, liberated from tension, milled about. People lined up at the bar; others talked animatedly, their excitement palpable.

  But not as palpable as hers. Only one response was possible. “I love you too,” she murmured.

  He smiled and kissed her again, a reverential seal to their mutual opening. “Nothing else is as important as this. Everything else in our lives will take second place to this. We’ll talk about other things, I’m sure, but for now, I want to make love to you and then take you home.” He hesitated, and she caught the trace of a thought as he firmly put it away. He smiled. “Yes, there are complications, but I don’t want to talk about them tonight. When I saw your breasts bared to the crowd, I wanted to kill them all. Personally. I’ve danced with naked women before, bared myself for them on occasion, and I’ve never, never felt that kind of jealousy. Then you taunted me, little cat.”

  She let a secretive smile curve her lips. Yes, she had. Flaunted herself, but at the time, she’d been desperate to make the dance work.

  She loved this man, irrevocably. Whatever happened next in her life, she’d have this.

  Although the crowd couldn’t see them, they could see the people below, and in full view, Nathan made short work of her panties, then the remainder of his clothes. He kicked aside the rags of his shirt. “I need a costume I’m not going to destroy every night. That shirt cost five hundred dollars.” He laughed. “It was worth every penny.”

  She laughed, too happy to hold it in. When he held out his arms, she jumped up, wrapping her arms and legs around him, and he slid inside her pussy, the place that was made just for him.

  He walked her across the office as if she weighed nothing and pushed her against the glass separating them from the people below. Could the people below see anyone pressed so closely against it? She had no idea, but she wasn’t about to change her mind. If Nathan wanted to alter the role of the club from dance to live sex, that was all right with her. As long as it was her he was having sex with.

  Single-mindedly, he drove into her, reaching into emotional parts of her she had no idea he could reach. Mind and body, he was hers, and he let her know with every drive, every kiss.

  Lost in him, she held on and responded, arching into him, her clit meeting his pubic hair, grinding against him in an effort to find relief.

  “Fuck, you are beautiful,” he said, breathing the words against her lips before taking them hungrily again, thrusting his tongue into her mouth in counterpoint to his thrusts below. “This is yours, my love. All for you.”

  Still, she could hardly believe it. He loved her? No more than she loved him. She’d tried not to, knowing there was nothing in it for her but heartbreak
, but she gave herself up to him now. Dangerous but necessary in a visceral way she’d never experienced before. She hadn’t thought it possible.

  She came in a series of hot, hard pulses, crying his name repeatedly, her voice higher each time.

  He growled her name once and then came, his essence spurting inside her in jets, his cock swelling each time he shot his seed into her.

  Dazed, Kristen let him carry her to the big squashy sofa and sit down with her in his lap. Entwined, his cock still inside her, they kissed, caressed and repeated the words of love they’d held back before.

  Now there was no possibility of holding back.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Sweetheart, I have to go away,” Nathan said the next morning.

  Her heart sinking, Kristen leaned up, her elbow against the pillows. “Why?” Did he want to finish this already? Was he so commitment shy? “What we said to each other—”

  He caught her hand, smiling up at her. “I meant every word. No, my love, this is business.” He squeezed her hand. “Kind of.”

  Reassured, she nodded. Of course he’d have to carry on. Their personal bombshell couldn’t signify the end of their other lives. They’d have to get up and call Steve to tell him Nathan was going away, for one thing. “How long will you be gone?”

  “I’ll block out the dances with you and Steve, and then I’ll leave. I should be back tomorrow. The day after at the latest.” His eyes turned grave. “The clubs aren’t just to keep me busy. I also help Talents get away.”

  She blinked. “I thought you were all so big and strong you didn’t need helping.”

  “You’re wrong. We have our vulnerable ones, mainly the young and inexperienced. And civilians. Most Talents just want to live quietly in the community they’ve chosen. When they need to move on, when they’ve aged and their bodies haven’t, then we can help. There’s a network called the Thorndykes, who will move people, either because they’re being targeted and pursued or because they’re ready for another life. We’re discreet, and we act in confidence when required. We don’t ask questions unless it becomes necessary. We won’t help a Talent evade the law, for instance.”