by Jianne Carlo
Her throat worked. “Would you mind if I dashed back to my room alone?”
Fuck yes, he minded. Joe ground his teeth before replying, “Let’s go for it.”
Before she could object, he lifted Susie out of the shower, swathed her in a thick terry, and pointed her toward the door. “Meet you in the kitchen in fifteen minutes.”
“Okay.” She snuck an over-the-shoulder peek at him.
He winked. Joe knew her competitive nature enough after their run to expect her in the kitchen in ten or less.
By the time Susie appeared eleven minutes later, he had the table on the outside deck laid and had opened a couple of bottles of wine. His favorite new toy, an iPod, was anchored in the latest docking station and blasted the music and lyrics of “My Eyes Adored You” from the sideboard in the dining room.
“Wow an iPod—how cool.” She marched over to the sideboard. “I promised myself one with my first paycheck.”
He resisted the urge to tell her she’d have one first thing in the morning.
Instead he drank her in. She wore a dark blue swingy skirt with a ruffled border that skimmed her midcalf, a creamy poet shirt cut to drape below her buff shoulders, and a three-inch laced-in-the-front black leather belt. Her damp waist-length hair glistened as she twirled to face him. Her bare feet added a primordial edge to the wild, gypsy portrait.
“Nice outfit.”
“Thanks. Made a pit stop at a boutique by the college today.” She smoothed the cotton fabric.
“Food should arrive any minute. Come here, gypsy woman.” He crooked a finger. “Dance with me.”
“Dance?” She curled one foot on the other’s instep. “Trust me. Not a good idea.”
Joe shook his head. “All women love dancing.”
Her lips stretched into a thin line. “You’re staring at one who doesn’t.”
“What’s not to love? Come on. Humor me. I’ve been thinking about dancing cheek to cheek with you since the pool.”
“You saw me naked at the pool and thought of dancing?” She arched a brow. “Don’t believe that one for a nanosecond.”
He rolled his eyes, stalked across the room, and tugged her into his arms. She stiffened, back so rigid he could’ve sworn her vertebrae had fused in protest.
It hit him all at once. “You’ve never slow danced with a man, have you?”
She laced her fingers together and rested the side of her palms in the middle of his chest. “You’re a genius, you are. If you must know, there wasn’t a whole lot of time for anything as frivolous as dancing during high school and college.”
“Mine either.” He thumbed the dimple in her chin. “I don’t have a clear image of my mother. Not quite sure she even could identify my father. There’s only her name on my birth certificate. My gran-gran raised me. When I was sixteen, she died. From then to when I graduated high school I lived in a series of foster homes. Got to college on a football scholarship. Coach Tommy decided learning to ballroom dance would somehow improve our agility and reflexes. I had a great teacher.”
“You like it, don’t you?” Color rode her cheekbones, but she’d relaxed a tad, not so unpliant in his embrace anymore.
“Yep.”
The doorbell rang.
“Saved by the bell.” She twisted out of his embrace. “I’ll get it.”
“It’s only a reprieve.” He followed her to the door.
“I’m paying for this.” She jammed one hand on her hip. “I insist.”
“I have accounts with most restaurants in the area. They charge all orders and bill me monthly.” Joe rolled a shoulder. “Next time it’s your treat.”
She accepted defeat, but only because the delivery guy sat on the ringer and drowned out her objections.
“Yo, man.” Bob’s mouth sagged when his gaze landed on Susie standing to Joe’s right. A blush redder than an overripe tomato stained his freckled face. “Um. I mean. Good evening.”
“Susie, this is Bob who delivers for about half the restaurants in the area. Thanks.” Joe took one of the two brown bags from Bob, palmed him a ten, passed the parcel to Susie, winked at the boy, accepted the other bag, and kicked the door shut.
“I was going to give him the tip.” She tucked the bag to one side.
“They add in a standard twenty percent and once a month I throw in a little extra.” Joe jutted his head at the kitchen. “I set up the deck.”
“Really? That’s great. I love decks. Mike and Melanie added on one to their cottage this spring. Nothing like being outdoors and barbecuing. Food smells so much better in the outdoors.” She marched to the kitchen.
“Who are Mike and Melanie?” He liked following in her wake, tracing the jaunty sway of her hips.
“My older sister and her husband.” She dumped the bag on the counter and turned in his direction.
“Plates and serving spoons are to your left. I have bottles of red and white wine on the outside table as well as glasses, napkins, and cutlery.”
“You’re so efficient, Mr. Huroq.”
“Saving time so I’ll have more during which to devour you.”
She burst into laughter. “I’m no grammar major, but that didn’t make sense.”
“You got the gist.” He pulled out the stacked boxes from both parcels. “Earn your keep, gypsy. Dish out the food.”
“Hummus, hot pita bread, couscous, lamb kabobs, and a Mediterranean salad.” She inhaled the curls of steam rising from one of the containers. “Bread is my greatest weakness. Aside from curiosity, that is.”
Dark eyes twinkling, she stared at him, and the flag dropped.
Rockets burst.
Fireworks exploded.
All the corny clichés in the galaxy felled him into the next universe. An ache mushroomed beneath his ribs, and he wanted no secrets between them.
“I can’t imagine any of my male relatives admitting taking ballroom dancing lessons. You might be a mercenary, Joe Huroq, but you’re no obnoxious alpha. Male.”
Ouch.
Maybe some things warranted a little cloak-and-dagger—for the present.
Hold on.
What did the three-second pause between alpha and male mean? Between her earlier tongue-in-cheek Red Riding Hood allusions and her use of the unusual word alpha, he’d take odds she knew all about wolf shifters.
“Whoa!” He held up a hand. “Now you’ve insulted my manhood. I issue a challenge. A dancing duel. After dinner.”
She crossed her eyes, thrust one leg forward, and tapped an alluring foot. “Make that a dance lesson and you have a deal.”
His full plate almost slipped to the floor. “You mean it?”
“If a football player can learn how to dance, I certainly can. Heck, how hard can it be? I should warn you, though. The only time I ever went to a dance, my date complained about his near-broken toes. Apparently I have a heavy tread and no musical rhythm whatsoever.” She sashayed to the deck ahead of him.
Though Susie’d tossed the sentences out as if she considered the passive-aggressive nasty words amusing, Joe’d picked up on the slight waver in her voice. What asshole had convinced her she couldn’t dance? Had no rhythm? Time to remedy that notion.
She oohed and aahed over the half-dozen lit bamboo torches stuck in the newly sprung lawn needles. Bent to smell the lilacs he’d picked up at the gas station store on the way home but forgotten after finding her semicatatonic in the bedroom.
He insisted on tasting food from her fork. And then had an excuse to feed her choice morsels of his, which, for some odd reason, gave him a rampant boner.
Nature cooperated with his intentions, and though the aroma of the fire-ravaged lot opposite warred with the sweetness of the pea blossoms climbing a trellis to the right of the deck, a gentle breeze carried only the orange-honey aroma of the ruffled petals. Between the fragrance of the food, the perfume of the blossoms, and the vanilla of the candles, the atmosphere proved conducive to romance.
When a bead of wine coated the middle of h
er lower lip, Joe surrendered, scooted her onto his lap, and slurped the ruby drop.
She looped her arms around his neck and sighed. Her hot breath did a slow samba over his mouth. The smoldering sparks went straight to his groin.
“I’ve been waiting for you to do that all night long.” Her voice had taken on a low, husky tone.
“Anticipation. It’s a heady emotion.” He slipped the first button of her shirt free.
She drew in a deep breath and focused her complete attention on his hand.
He slid his fingers under the soft cotton and encountered bare, satiny skin. Shuttering his eyes to hide the amber flare of primordial, possessive lust, Joe swirled his hand over the firm mound. Trailed a lazy path up the curves, and a slow smile chased his lips when she stopped breathing altogether.
The smell of that sweet spot at the back of her neck, the memory of the taste of the fuzzy clump of hairs there heated the blood coursing through his veins. He nuzzled her nape, outlined the perfect circle of her breast in smaller and smaller increments, taking great pains to avoid any contact with her nipple.
A low growl erupted from her lips. She arched her back.
He lifted his head. “Thirsty?”
For a second she didn’t react, and then she blinked a few times in rapid succession. Her glazed expression sharpened, and her mouth pursed. She shot him what could only be described as an I-know-your-game challenging expression.
“Not in the least. And I’m full. I think it’s time for that dancing lesson.”
“Right you are.” He lifted her to the side. “I’ll clean up. You go put on those stilettos you wore this morning.”
She frowned while she stacked the cutlery on one plate. “Why do you want me to wear three-inch heels?”
He decided to forgo the battle of the dishes and focus on winning the war of wills. “I’m six-three. You’re five-eleven. Ergo three-inch heels equals dancing cheek to cheek.”
Not to mention the other activities made conducive by their being almost equal in height. Oh yeah. Standing fucks, one-legged around-the-waist fucks, and if she could do a standing split, why then, he was definitely king of the world.
Susie grinned and near skipped into the kitchen.
He cleaned up and started the dishwasher before heading to the living room.
Joe selected his favorite playlist on the iPod. He loved big band classics. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the opening strains of “The Way You Look Tonight” sung by a new artist he’d discovered, the Italian-Canadian singer, Michael Bublé.
Normally he was a tried-and-true Sinatra fan, but the young singer had a bruisin’ bluesy voice, and the new digital recording and jazzy full-strength orchestra had wowed him on the first listen. He’d saved this song and this version for the right woman.
The click of heels preceded his mate’s entrance to the dining room. Joe had moved the furniture against the walls and rolled up the carpet. The marble floor was the perfect foil for the modified fox-trot most people called slow dancing and the song’s double-single-double-single timing demanded the more intimate hug-and-sway version. With Susie uptight about any form of dancing, he hoped to ease her into the rhythm and then keep her loose and relaxed.
She took his breath away.
“You look beautiful. Wild, carefree, ready to embrace life with outstretched arms.” He held out his hand.
Color rioted across her cheeks. The thick fringe of her black lashes fluttered. She interlaced her fingers with his.
Unable to resist, he skimmed his lips over her knuckles and reeled her in. Curved an arm about her waist, marveling at the narrow span, and leaned his forehead on hers. “Perfect. Thigh to thigh. Breast to chest. Groin to groin. Sex to sex. But best of all, mouth to mouth. We can kiss for hours without a cricked neck.”
A delightful giggle burst through her lips. “Not the seductive words I’d expected.”
He swayed to the music’s hypnotic beat, slid his hand down to her bottom, and pressed their bodies together. “When I saw you in the cafeteria earlier, the first image that popped into my head was you in those heels butt nekkid.”
“Still not seductive, but more what I had in mind.” She exhaled audibly, her taut nipples clearly visible through the translucent cream fabric. Tangling her fingers in his hair, she leaned into him, shot him a sultry, half-lidded peep, and rubbed her mound over his erection.
His cock throbbed. Age-old beast instincts snatched control. He inserted his leg between hers, keeping the feet pattern closed, forcing her to grind and cradle his erection.
“Joe.” She fisted her hands in his shirt. “Let’s go to your bed.”
Blood surged to his groin, his scrotum tightened, and his balls contracted sharply. Not since his lust-crazed teenage days had he vaulted from raring to spilling in less than nine seconds.
He gritted his teeth and calculated the pi ratio to fifteen decimal places. His pulse slowed as he concentrated, and gradually he pulled back from the edge.
“Soon,” he crooned. “I promised you a dance lesson.”
She tilted her head back, and he grinned at her pouted mouth and disgruntled frown. “I want another kind of lesson.”
“One dance lesson. As many as you like of the other.”
One brow quirked. Her lips curled into a kitten-finishing-the-last-lick-of-cream smile; she wriggled her hips side to side and paused to center her pussy at the base of his arousal. “You know the saying about a bird in the hand? If I were you, I’d get mine while the getting’s good.”
“No distractions, gypsy. You’re creaming again. Getting ready for me. Your cheeks are flushed. That elegant, arrogant nose of yours is quivering like a mare scenting the stallion flanking her rear. I want to take you like a randy stud. Get you on all fours. Lick every inch of your saucy rump. Bury my nose in your juices.”
As he whispered into her ear, grazing the tip with his lips, Joe eased them into the center of the room, not dancing per se, more moving her forward with his pelvis, and subtly grinding her pussy with his cock. He kept a firm hold on her rear, cupping the delicious thigh-ass ridge, savoring the way her muscles bunched.
“One lesson, then you can decide what happens next.”
He rested her left hand on his right cusp and laid their interlaced fingers on his left shoulder in the requisite position for any slow dance. He began the double-single-double-single steps of a beginner’s slow dance and closed his eyes in anticipation of the twirl into the magic of moving with the music as one.
Her whole body tensed. Joe peeked at her. She was focusing on her feet, and her nails dug into his shoulder.
“We’re doing a slow dance. Two steps, then a single, then another two, and then a single again. Here, let’s practice. Loosen up.” He splayed his fingers over her rear. “Listen to the music and follow my lead.”
He guided them into a sliding forward step. She pulled back. Palm to the small of her back, he urged her into another step. She strained away from him and tried to switch to his leading position.
The turn became a lurch-and-stumble side movement.
He planted his feet, knotted one hand in her hair, and locked their gazes. “Relax. Just follow my lead.”
“I don’t know what you’re going to do next.” She squinted, annoyance written plain and simple in the lines creasing her forehead. “Isn’t it supposed to be three steps? You know, one left, one right, and then turn.”
That would have them crashing to the floor in a heap of snarled legs and feet in a heartbeat.
Rigid couldn’t begin to describe her stance or spine. She leveled a narrow-eyed stare at him. “It’s simply never going to work.”
His gut cramped.
“It would be much better if I led.”
Chapter Six
The shrill of panic spiking Susie’s heart rate had the blood thundering in her eardrums.
Joe’s lips moved.
She heard nothing but the roaring in her head.
Part of her craved his dominan
ce. Yearned to yield to him, to surrender her body to his rule, to give him leave to discover the secret fantasies she’d buried, to submit her soul to his care. But the logical Susie, the one who didn’t trust her own instincts, wanted nothing more than to run away. Pretend the last two days had never happened. Get out while the getting was good.
Before she lost her heart.
Before she lost control.
Before she turned into the type of woman she’d sworn to never become. A white wolf woman who needed an alpha to be complete.
Alpha me not.
The phrase was her mantra, her motto, her goal. It had been the reason she’d avoided males of her kind.
“This isn’t going to work,” she repeated.
No alpha for her.
“It will.”
She opened her mouth to blow him away with a slew of ready reasons of why nothing could work between them. His lips captured hers, and his tongue shattered the tiny molecule of rationality still clinging to her gray matter into a black hole.
Gawd, the man could kiss.
He had the talents of a snake charmer, but the hypnotic melody played through his lips, his touch, his inferno of an embrace. He surrounded her, enshrouded her, coated her pores with the potent, primitive pheromones of male supremacy. He engaged all her senses and stomped her waning protests into oblivion.
Not capable of a single coherent thought, not able to formulate a word, she molded her body to his. Knit her fingers through his thick curls, pressed him closer, and followed his lead. Accepting the invitation of his wicked tongue as he waltzed caresses from the roof of her mouth to the two-step exploration of her teeth, he swirled her into the blazing heat of him.
His lips enticed, entranced, with slow suckles and soft nips. His toothed exploration of her jaw had her knees wobbling. When he tongued her ear, she clung to him for support.
He nibbled the lobe gently.
A conflagration centered in her pulsing clit ignited. Her pussy folds slickened, and the creaming intensified under his languid perusal of the rim of her ear. Heated dampness coated the skin at the juncture of her thighs.
