Make Your Move - By Samantha Hunter Page 0,39

became an even louder, more intimidating place. But he looked down at Jodie’s bright eyes, and felt the sting of regret. He’d have to disappoint her. Better than making an idiot of himself and embarrassing her.

“Jodie,” he said, wincing. “I don’t dance.”

She looked surprised, and then her expression softened. She walked up close to him, her lips against his ear. “C’mon, I’ll teach you.”

“Here?”

“Sure, why not?” She held his hand, dancing backward, the movement of her body sinuous under the small black dress she wore, her eyes showing a daring light. “I love to dance, Dan. Come on, you’ll have fun.”

He very much doubted that.

Dan was pulled along after her, into the gyrating mass of bodies, and if he had been in outer space, he couldn’t have felt more out of his comfort zone.

In fact, he definitely would have felt more at ease in outer space.

Nerves kept him stiff, and not in the good way. He didn’t want to embarrass Jodie in front of her friends, but he just couldn’t pick up the moves that they tried to show him.

Finally, Jodie shooed them away and danced up close to Dan as a sensual song with a heavy beat started up.

“You know what?” she said, looking sultry and exotic under the low light. “You don’t have to do anything but be here with me. Let me do the work,” she said teasingly.

Dan wasn’t entirely sure what she meant until she started doing a dance that enthralled him, moving to the beat in ways that brought her into contact with his body at every point, sliding up and then down, dragging her hands over him in a way that made him forget anything but her.

“That’s it, see?” she said, smiling as she leaned in to kiss him, and Dan hadn’t even realized that while she danced around—and on—him, he’d started moving to the music’s beat, meeting her moves perfectly, in what he felt was the same primitive rhythm as many mating dances he’d observed in native cultures.

It was like sex with your clothes on, Dan thought, forgetting anyone else around them until they were rudely interrupted by someone who sliced between them accidentally.

No, it wasn’t an accident at all. The big guy was standing with his back to Dan, and had grabbed Jodie, pulling her against him in a graphic display of dance that Jodie obviously didn’t want to share. She pulled away and walked around to where Dan was again, and the big guy turned.

“Listen, if he screws like he dances, you’re better off going home with me, baby,” the guy said just as someone else bumped into Dan, jostling his glasses.

Dan straightened them, pulled Jodie over closer to him.

“She’s not interested,” Dan said levelly, turning away and taking Jodie with him.

“Maybe not,” the guy said, and Dan felt his hand on his shoulder.

He acted quickly, reflexively, grabbing the guy’s wrists and torquing it in such a way that the big man dropped to his knees with a shout that was mostly drowned out by the music. A few people around them looked on, but mostly they just kept dancing. Dan leaned down, increasing the pressure on the joint.

“Go. Away,” was all Dan said, eye to eye with the guy who winced and whined while Dan had him in the painful hold.

Meditation wasn’t all he’d learned from the monks during a stay in China after college. Six months in Tibet, away from the rest of the world, and he’d learned many, many things there. It had been his graduation gift from his parents.

How to meditate to control his biorhythms, how to speak Chinese and how to drop an assailant in the most efficient, nonviolent way possible. He hadn’t often had use for those skills, but kept his practice as fresh as possible.

When the guy walked away, Dan turned back to see Jodie looking at him with undisguised shock.

And lust.

Her blue eyes were dark with desire, her breasts, rising and falling slightly, just visible over the bodice of her dress, her mouth slightly parted. All signs that she was turned on, and her need triggered Dan’s.

“This way,” she said, and pulled him after her. And Dan was more than willing to follow.

She led him into a large room lined with coat racks, and Dan immediately understood what she was doing—it wasn’t hard to deduce as she pushed him through a thicket of coats and then brought him against her, kissing him thoroughly.

“Here?” he said when stopped to take a breath.

“Yeah, here,” she