Tropical Holiday Tails - Zoe Chant Page 0,10

back to the right footwork.

“Hmm,” Tex said dubiously. “I’m going to have to disagree with that, sugar.” He turned her deftly, and swirled her unexpectedly away from him—directly into the path of Lars, who was bearing down on them with a look of determination.

Her skirt was still swishing into place above her knees as Lars gently took the hand that Tex had released and put his other at her waist.

Her body on fire, Julie let him draw her close, gazing up at him in longing she didn’t know how to mask or stop.

He was not as skilled a dancer as Tex, and they collided knees several times when one of them stepped forward instead of back, but Julie didn’t care. There was no place in the world she wanted to be more than here, with Lars’s hand in hers, with his brown eyes adoring her.

It was every dream ball she had ever imagined, every princess fantasy that had ever crossed her mind. She was the heroine of a book, and here was her happy ending, all six foot something of gorgeous athlete, dancing with her, staring down at her, holding her like she was something precious and fragile.

“Julie,” he breathed when the music ended, and she realized that they had stopped dancing several beats before, simply standing, holding each other and looking into each other’s eyes like they’d found all the answers to the world there.

She made herself look away at last, as most people changed partners with the new song starting up.

“Julie,” he repeated. “Will you come walk with me? I have…confessions to make to you.”

Confessions of love? Julie’s heart was too full and confused to do more than nod.

She reminded herself that she was not in a novel, and she should be practical, but when Lars led her out the side door into the moonlit garden, she did not feel the slightest bit practical.

When Lars brushed the side of her face with one hand, she leaned forward and he caught her mouth in a kiss so sweet and lingering that Julie thought she might overflow from it.

“You’re crying,” he said in concern, drawing back and wiping her tears away with careful thumbs.

“I’m happy,” she promised. “I just…I thought you didn’t want me.”

He gave a little growl, gathering her close in his arms, and he kissed her again, less gently, this time. His hard body against her made it clear that whatever else he felt, he wanted her as badly as she wanted him.

“I will stop,” he gasped. “I will stop if you ask.” His hands were caressing every place her skin was bare, and he was kissing her neck with the same hunger that was burning through Julie’s veins.

“Don’t you dare stop,” Julie told him, sliding her hands up under his jacket. “No stopping. Nyet.”

They made it a few more steps, deeper into the scented green depths of the garden. Then he was lowering her into one of the flower beds. She tried to remember how to get out her dress, then gave up and hitched the skirt up as he was shrugging out of his jacket and fumbling with his pants.

Then, finally, tremblingly, he was pulling her damp panties down below her knees and Julie had only a moment to appreciate the fine length of him before he was straddling her, and driving into her. She arched up to meet him, crying out in a feral, desperate need as a crest of pleasure broke over her.

His weight on her, his strong arms around her, his ragged breath in her ear, the way he filled her, satisfying her need even as he raised more within her—Julie struggled to find words for what she was experiencing, and eventually stopped trying to think about it and let it wash over her, in wave after wave of bliss.

They rolled together in the flowerbed, and Julie heard fabric rip. Was it Lars’s pants, which she didn’t remember him fully removing? Or her dress, which at that moment she would cheerfully have torn from her body in order to have more of him against her skin?

She didn’t care, and neither did he, clutching her hips as she rode him, turning her over in the fragrant, bruised foliage.

At last, they lay together, spent and panting, and Julie felt like every romance book she’d ever read had fallen sadly short of the mark.

Lars could have lain in the flowerbed forever, holding Julie’s delicious curves in his arms in the tropical night air.

But after not nearly