Hot Moves

Her heart hammered madly in her chest. He was too close, too hot, too there. “Easy, big fella,” she said as evenly as she could muster. “It’s just a dance.”

Yet his touch overtook her focus. She needed to concentrate on something safe, Thea thought in a panic. Not those eyes, not those green, green eyes with their glint of humor, not those eyes that made her want. And if she didn’t look there, she’d find her gaze slipping down to his mouth, which was way too near. Every time she looked there she found herself wondering what it would feel like to brush her lips against his, wondering how he’d taste. Wondering what he’d do if she leaned in out of the blue and pressed her mouth to his.

Ridiculous, she thought impatiently. The man was a stranger, they were at a milonga. It was absurd.

And she couldn’t stop wanting it.

So she focused on the point of his jaw. Nice. Safe. Square and strong, darkened a little with a day’s growth of beard. If she leaned in and put her face against it, it would be rough, warm. And it would put her closer to that clean scent that didn’t seem to have a thing to do with conventional colognes. Maybe shampoo or soap? Whatever it was, if she could get a deep, deep breath of it she thought maybe she could die happy.

The music caught her by surprise when it began. She found him looking down at her in amusement. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

He leaned in. “Better focus,” he said softly in her ear. “Teachers can’t get distracted.”

With every step, she could feel his torso shift, as though beneath his clothes his body were stripped down to muscle and sinew and bone. With every step, she became only more aware of him against her. And it sent her mind vaulting along carnal pathways, speculating if this was what it would be like to have him pressed against her naked, on top of her, so that she could feel his every movement as he poised himself over her, bringing all that heat and want and tension and lust—

“Okay, ready for me?”

She stared at him. “What?”

“My hot move.”

She gave an uneven laugh. “Sure.”

Looking down a bit, he led her through the eight-count basic that Robyn had taught them. Thea watched his face. He was concentrating on his feet, his lead, working his way through each segment of the figure. His lashes were darker than she’d expected, a sheaf of his hair hanging down over his forehead. “And, done.” His eyes flicked up to meet hers.

She felt the jolt all the way to her toes.

“Good memory,” she managed, unable to look away.

“You think I’m good at the eight-count basic, just give me a try on something else.”

Thea had a pretty good idea he wasn’t talking about tango anymore. She stared up at him, watched desire replace the humor, desire overtake everything. He bent his head toward her—

And the song ended.

For a moment neither of them moved, caught in a frozen tableau of awareness, lips a hairsbreadth apart.

Thea moistened her lips. “I should…dance with someone else now.”

“Do you want to?” he asked, not looking away as a new song started.

“It’s not a question of want…”

“Then don’t. Stay with me.” And he pulled her back into his arms.

NIGHT HAD TRULY FALLEN now, the moon high overhead. They danced in the dappled shade of the trees. She was extraordinary, Brady thought, looking down at her as they moved through the steps. Shadows pooled dark in the hollow of her collarbone, her shoulder itself milk pale in the moonlight. Beneath his fingertips, her skin was bewitchingly soft. If he stretched more he could press his lips against it, inhale that subtle scent of hers, something that wrapped around his senses and evoked images of candlelit Buenos Aires cafés with slow moving fans turning up by the ceiling.

He could feel his pulse beating the slow thud of demand, like some clock measuring off the moments until they could be together, alone. He thought of the look in her eyes when the first song had ended, a heady mix of arousal, want and seductive surrender. He wanted, needed to see it again—when she was under him, taut and twisting with desire.

The music died away and a new song began. The milonga was quieting now, couples spreading out. They’d danced their way to the edge of the area, he saw. “Want to take a break?” he asked.

Thea glanced at the couples. As far as Brady could tell, they seemed to be doing fine. “Maybe for a few minutes.”

The two of them walked slowly toward the river walk. Behind them, the music continued. On the pavement, away from the lights, things were quieter, more peaceful. Across the Willamette, lights glimmered, making reflections on the dark water.

“It’s so beautiful,” Thea murmured. “Most places, they’d cram office buildings and condos and hotels along here.”

“Used to be a freeway, then they shut it down and turned it into a park.”

“Bravo. Usually it’s the other way.”

His teeth gleamed in the half-light. “That’s Portland. Hell of a town.”

“Are you from here?”

“Born and raised. I guess that makes me biased.”

“Maybe just a little.”

“So how about you? You said you’re visiting?”

“My friend Robyn is part of the tango club. She needed a hand…”

“So she brought in a pair of hired stilettos.”

He made her laugh. “I guess so. She knows I’m hooked on the dance.”

“It shows. You can’t dance the way you do without feeling something for it.”

“You do it long enough, it becomes a part of you.” Thea drifted to a stop and leaned against the railing overlooking the water. “I guess that sounds silly.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

She turned away from the river, looking back at the milonga. A breeze stirred the lanterns in the trees. Their moving patterns of light and shadow silhouetted the figures dancing. A woman’s voice, throaty with longing, floated through the evening air; and behind it, the instruments formed a mournful chorus.

“She sounds heartbroken,” Brady murmured. He stepped away from the railing, slipping one hand along to cover Thea’s, swinging around to come slowly to a stop before her.

“She is. ‘Mi Noche Triste.’ My sad night,” she translated. “It’s a very famous song in tango.”

“Do you know the story?” He leaned in to press his hands on the rails, trapping her between them, his gaze holding her transfixed.

“She weeps for a lover who has abandoned her. She sits in the dark. At night, she falls asleep with the door ajar because it lets her imagine that he is coming home. That’s tango, the dance of longing.”

“What do you long for?”

“What makes you think I long for anything?” He was close to her now, so close.

“Everybody wants something.” His lips were a fraction away from hers.

“And you? What do you want?”

“That’s easy.” He could tell she felt his breath as he said the words. “I want you.”

And then he leaned in and took.

3

IT WAS A BIG, WIDE WORLD, but somehow the entire thing reduced down to just one sensation—the press of Brady’s lips to hers. Thea stood absolutely still, not even breathing, every fiber of her attuned to it. Mesmerizing warmth, a surprising softness, a beguiling friction that tempted her lips to part.

Her breath shuddered out.

And then, oh, then, the taste of him, the slick dance of tongues that sent butterflies flitting about her stomach and a slow roll of tension forming within her.

She felt herself trembling. Everything in her clamored to dive into the kiss hard and deep, to crush him against her, but here he’d barely touched her and she was quivering. And it rocked her in some fundamental way. She wasn’t a virgin, but there was some part of her that wasn’t really touched, some part of her that would be his alone.

And so Thea kissed him.

She’d wondered as the years rolled by what it might be like. She’d wondered if she’d forgotten how, if she’d be able to relax and enjoy it any more. But with his mouth on hers, she let all that go and immersed herself in the kiss. Her hands framed his face, fingers threaded through his hair. Changing the angle of the kiss, she nipped at his lips, her tongue dancing against his. Her soft exhale was a barely audible moan.

And suddenly everything changed. She’d kissed men during her life, even once or twice in the years since New York, but it had never been like this, this overwhelming surge of sensation. She’d kissed men but it had never raked her with wanton need. She didn’t want easy exploration any more. She wanted it relentless and direct. In a flash, she turned the kiss hard, lacing it with demand.

Brady’s hands clenched the railings until his knuckles whitened.

Thea trailed kisses along his jaw, making an impatient noise down in her throat. She traced her fingers down his chest, nuzzled against him.

She could feel him getting hard.

“Don’t you want to touch me?” she breathed, her hands lingering around his belt, slipping under his untucked T-shirt to trace the lines of his abs.

He gave in and crushed her to him.

She hoped her low laugh told him she didn’t want gentle any more—she wanted it as hard and fast and urgent as he did.

He ran his fingers up the length of her thigh and into the high, high slit of her dress. And when she raised her leg up farther and wrapped it around his waist, it about snatched her breath away. So close, yet not close enough. All she wanted was to feel him naked against her.

“I think we need to get somewhere private,” Brady said raggedly.

“Now,” was all she said, urgency throbbed in her voice.

“My truck’s close. We can go to my place,” he added. “It’ll be quick.”

“I hope so,” she said.

The trip to the truck took too long, or maybe it only seemed that way because he kept stopping and pressing her body up against a lamppost or a building so that he could fuse his mouth to hers, kissing her like he was storing up oxygen enough for the next part of the journey.

She didn’t want to wait, Thea thought as Brady helped her into the Jeep. She needed him now. Needed more now. She shifted when he got in, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss on him. “How far is your house?”

“A couple of miles.”

Far enough.

She ran her hand up the inside of his thigh as he pulled away from the curb, feeling the tough denim fabric against her fingers. And then tracing the hard outline of his cock as she got higher. She reached for his belt buckle.

He gave her a quick, startled glance. “What are you doing?”

“Eyes on the road.” She pulled his zipper down. His cock, when she pulled it out, was heavy in her hand, already half hard and getting more so by the second. She let out a long, uneven breath. “Drive carefully,” she told him, and unfastened her seatbelt so that she could lean across and put her mouth on him.

She’d always loved giving blowjobs, that hard immediacy, that complete and utter connection to a man’s arousal. It had been so long, though. Nerves warred with anticipation. And then the fascination took over. Brady’s cock was long and stiff, thickest just below the head. She nuzzled it and it bobbled against her with urgency. Experimentally, she gave him a lick and was rewarded with the sound of his breath hissing in.

And she abandoned subtlety and slid it into her mouth, taking him deep and fast so that she wrenched a groan out of him.

HE WAS GOING TO LOSE IT right there, Brady thought. Thea slid his cock in and out of the liquid warmth and it was all he could do to keep from nudging his hips toward her. And he was glad it was late at night with only a handful of cars on the road because suddenly he didn’t give a damn about his lane or his signals or anything but the slick wet heat of her mouth and the way her tongue wrapped around his shaft with every bob of her head, stroking along the underside of his cock, inching him closer and closer to orgasm with every motion.

She wrapped her hand around his shaft and squeezed and he groaned again. And then she started to suck, keeping her head still, running her hand up and down.

And god, it was all he could do to hold on. He concentrated on the road and he recited batting averages in his head and the peaks of the Cascades and named every type of hop and malt he knew because there was no way, no way he was going to let himself come before he’d gotten her home, before he’d watched her face as she’d orgasmed, before she was underneath him, naked, abandoned and wrapped around him. Before he’d buried himself deep inside her.

There would be time, he thought, grinding his teeth as he drove up to his house. There would be time for everything.

Provided his molars held out.

Then he was turning off the engine and gingerly easing his aching cock back into his jeans.

The house was dark but he didn’t care. All he was looking for was to get inside as quickly as possible. It needed to happen fast.

More. The demand drummed in his temples as they went through the side door. Moonlight streaming through the windows formed silver trapezoids on the linoleum of a kitchen floor.

“Roommates?” she asked as he led her into the living room with its broad bay window.

“Not unless you count my kayak.”

“Good.” And she flowed up against him, sliding her hands up under his shirt, ravenous for the feel of his body.

“You were so hot tonight. I saw you out there dancing and I thought I was going to die,” Brady whispered against the side of her throat. “All I could do was watch you move and think about what you’d look like if you were out of this dress.”

He trailed his fingertips around her shoulders to the nape of her neck where the red silk came together. His lips licked her collarbones. “And what you would say if I just started undoing it.” He heard the growl of the zipper and felt her shiver as his fingertips traced the sliver of exposed skin. He purposely slowed his touch, made it excruciatingly slow and deliberate, as though he had all the time in the world.

She made an impatient noise.

He slipped his fingers inside the open back of her dress. “What’s your rush? We’ve got all night.”

SHE COULDN’T TELL HIM that her rush was because she was unable to believe it was real, that she wanted to experience it all before she woke up and realized it was all a dream. That was how it always went. She had girlfriends like Delaney who talked about the orgasms they had in their dreams. It never worked that way for Thea. Oh, sometimes she’d dream of arousal, maybe even of kissing or touching a man. The urgency would build, the anticipation. And then, somehow she’d find herself somewhere else and they’d be gone, no matter how hard she looked, leaving her to wake, empty and wanting.

But Brady’s hands were on her, his fingers tracing the widening triangle at the back of her dress as the fabric fell away. And finally it was completely open, loose against her. He teased them both, his fingertips tracing the groove of her spine, the point where her back flared out to the rounded curve of her ass. And then he slipped his hands up the front of her, tracing over her flat belly, over the slight rise of breasts and into the deep vee of skin revealed by the neckline of her dress.

Thea shivered. He felt goose bumps rise in the wake of his fingertips as they brushed over the sensitive skin. He bent down and traced the line of her neck with the tip of his tongue, searching out the hollow at the base of her throat.

She ran her fingers up into his hair. And with a quick shrug of her shoulders, sent the dress slipping down her arms and cascading to the floor.

“OH, HONEY.” And Brady’s mouth went bone dry. There was the pool of red fabric on the floor and there was Thea, wearing nothing else save a ridiculously small scrap of something silky at her hips and her red stilettos. She was long and lean and lovely, sleek and strong and slightly curved. And he wanted to just stare because she was so beautiful, he wanted to devour her, run his hands and tongue over every inch of her at the same time. So he stood, helpless, while she gave one of those knowing smiles, those female smiles of wisdom as old as the hills and walked forward to slide her fingers under his shirt.

“I think you’re overdressed.” She circled around behind him. “Yes, definitely overdressed,” she murmured and pulled his shirt off over his head.

And then he felt her move up to press her bare breasts against his back and he swore the top of his head was going to blow off. Thea gave a throaty laugh at the noise he made and stepped away. “Now who’s impatient?” She trailed her fingers down his lats as she moved away. “Anyway, I don’t know what you’re so upset about. You’re the one who’s behind. Maybe you ought to get out of those jeans.”

She turned around and walked over to flop down on the couch, lying flat with her arms crossed under her head and her legs kicked up over the arm, those mile-high red heels still on.

Brady watched her a minute, poleaxed.

“I’m waiting,” she said.

Galvanized into action, he stripped off the rest of his clothes and crossed to the couch. Now he was the one who was shaking, out of eagerness. He didn’t know where to start. He wanted every bit of her at once.

THEN SHE LOOKED UP at him, dark-eyed and tempting, and bit her lip. “Are you going to touch me or do I need to do it myself?” she asked, sliding her fingertips down her throat.

Brady dropped to his knees beside the couch and put his hand over hers to stop it. “I think I can take it from there.”

And he did know how to take it, she thought, closing her eyes to better savor the sensations as he licked his way down her chest and over the slight curve of her breasts. The strands of his hair trailed over her skin, making her shiver, making her nipples ache to be touched. He took his time, though, kissing his way inward in a spiral, making her wait, lingering over it while he traced circles over her other breast with his fingertips.

Now it was she who made the inarticulate noise of need. But he wouldn’t be hurried. Instead, he circled his way slowly up the peaks and she watched as her nipples transformed to hard red beads, watched her breasts swell.

Then she closed her eyes and lay her head back to feel as he drew first one nipple, then the other into the wet heat of his mouth, rubbing with his tongue, biting lightly with his teeth to send the sharp twinge through her, followed by slick caresses that had her arching and gasping.

And he moved lower then, tracing his tongue across her belly, kissing, roving at will.

And lower still.

He shifted to press his mouth between her legs, moving them apart with his hands. Her heart hammered like it was trying to work its way out of her chest. Open to him, touch, sight, taste, scent. The skin of her inner thighs was hypersensitive. She felt the brush of his beard, the heat of his breath.

And then his mouth was on her.

Shocking in its heat. Overwhelming in its suddenness. No matter how she’d imagined, how she’d expected, she was nowhere close to the vivid immediacy. His mouth was on her, against her, searching out the most intimate part of her.

Making her gasp.

He didn’t tease, he didn’t make her wait now. He found her with his tongue. Just one touch was enough to have her crying out. But there was more, oh, more as he leaned in, tracing maddening patterns over her clit, stroking it again and again, sending her jolting against him, her hips moving helplessly, her head thrashing back and forth.

Insistent, unrelenting, he took her up until she was wound tight with tension, until every slick caress sent heat washing through her, until she didn’t think she could stand any more. She was poised on the edge, where sensations and senses merged until it seemed as though she could see vivid rainbows of color at his touch, the shades growing darker and more intense until suddenly she was flung over the edge in a wash of blinding white and an intensity of sensation that had her crying out and shuddering and shaking.

It seemed long moments later that it ended. Brady straightened. “Come on,” he whispered and took her hand to pick her up off the couch.

His arms were warm around her. She barely noticed the hallway, the bedroom they entered. All she could see was the bed. When he laid her down on it and stripped off her thong, she shivered. He ran a possessive hand down her hip, over her thigh and calf and down to her stiletto. “Nice shoes,” he murmured, kissing her. Thea reached for the straps at her ankles.

“Uh-uh.” He put a hand over hers. “Leave them on.” And then slipped onto the bed beside her.

The feel of his naked body was blissful, extravagant, a warm luxury. For a moment, she didn’t move, still absorbing the sensation in a sort of giddy disbelief. There was something glorious about closing her eyes to savor his weight against her as she sank back onto the mattress.

He leaned over to his bedside bureau. There was a crackle of foil as he sheathed himself. Then he poised himself over her, his face taut now with the need for control. She felt the startling slip of his cock against her still sensitive clit as he rubbed himself through the slickness. She looked up into his face. Anticipation threaded through her.

The time for finesse was gone. His eyes were hot, dark, driven.

Desperate.

“I want to be in you,” he whispered.

And with a sudden thrust of his hips, he was.

Thea cried out blindly. There was nothing like this, no sex toy, no vibrator, nothing that could make her feel this completeness, this connection, this reality. Hot and hard and silky soft and insistent, he was all the way inside her, filling her completely. His body surged against her, as much force as flesh, making her feel every least fraction of motion. And he went deep, so deep it wrenched a cry from her every time he sank himself home.

The sensation overwhelmed her. She’d thought about it over the years, tried to remember what it was like. Nothing had prepared her for the reality. She wrapped her arms around him, her fingers slipping on the muscles that bunched and tightened with the motion.

And he watched her, his eyes narrowed with pleasure.

She’d wrapped her legs around his waist but it wasn’t enough. She wanted to feel him deeper. She worked them up higher, around his sides. And finally, higher still, over his arms to rest her ankles on his shoulders. Turning his head, he kissed her instep, then he looked down and his eyes darkened.

She could see. If she glanced down where they came together, she could see it all, the thick shaft of his cock, sliding in and out of her. And it was incredible, suddenly so real. “Oh, Brady,” she said softly. “Look at it.”

AND HE DID—at her face, her breasts, the long sweep of torso down to where they were intimately joined. But it wasn’t that that overwhelmed Brady. It was the excitement and arousal in Thea’s voice, the fascination in her eyes. “I want you to come,” she whispered. “I want to feel it, I want to see it.”

“Not yet,” Brady ground out. “Not until you do.”

“I already did,” she purred. And when she brought one of her hands down to caress her own breast, squeezing it with obvious pleasure, that was it. Too much. More than he could take, the sight, the sound, the scent, the sensation. He pumped into her again and he could feel it starting, could feel himself go past the point of inevitability, his curse turning into a groan as he felt the rumble and gather and tightening and he poured himself into her.

It took a moment before he could do anything more than breathe and hold himself feebly on his elbows. Thea slipped her legs down so that he could roll onto his back beside her.

“What’s wrong?” She frowned at him in concern. “The condom didn’t break, did it?”

“No. I just came.”

“I noticed.” She kissed him. “I liked it. Didn’t you?”

He felt the bliss spread over his face. “Oh yeah. But it seems to me like you missed out on the deal.” He traced his fingers over her torso.