read LE PETITE MOULIN ROUGE.
Tate curled an arm around my waist, guiding me through the front door. “Are we seeing Moulin Rouge tonight?” I asked.
“Close, but not quite. We’re in the Moulin Rouge tonight.”
The lounge had set up tables and decorated the insides of the bar like a small-scale replica of the Moulin Rouge, complete with a stage and dancers, and girls walking around selling cigars. Tate handed tickets to someone standing at the door, and they directed us through the crowd to a table near the front.
“What the…? How did you even know this was happening?” I was shocked that a guy like Tate would go to such lengths to keep the lesson themes alive. It made me excited and nervous, and even though my skin was heated as his hand came in contact with my waist, a chill skittered down my spine.
“My family gets invited to shit like this all the time,” he said. We slid into our seats, and Tate shrugged as if this wasn’t crazy. Sliding his chair toward mine, he closed what little distance there was between us and rested a hand on my knee. Pleasure blasted through my body, hardening my nipples, and I hugged the feather boa tighter around me, hoping he wouldn’t notice my obvious response to his touch.
“It’s not just a show, though.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “It’s also a dance lesson. Before the show starts, they’ll teach the women how to cancan.”
He draped his arm over my shoulders as my spine bristled. I’m expected to dance tonight. I hadn’t danced in years. Especially not for an audience. His thumb circled my shoulder, and moisture clung to the back of my neck.
“Unless you don’t want to. Then we can watch everyone else learn it and make fun of how crazy they look.” He leaned in, his lips brushing against my ear, and I had to suppress another shiver of excitement as he did. I remembered the feel of those lips on mine. I liked it.
But more than that, I liked the lengths to which he went to make me comfortable. He was taking it slow, just as he promised. He hadn’t kissed me, even though I could see—hell, feel—how much he wanted to. I was touched by that. His actions reached down somewhere deep and squeezed something inside of me I thought was long gone. Something I thought I’d never get back. “Although,” he whispered, his words leaving warm little puffs of air tickling my ear. “I’m a little bummed I won’t get to see you up there flinging your skirt over your head.”
He leaned back in his chair, dragging those incredible lips away from my ear, and God, oh, God, I wanted nothing more than to grab those suspenders and yank him back into me. “I’ll do it,” I answered quickly, my body doing the talking, not my brain. Because whatever I’d felt just then, I really really wanted to feel it again. I wanted to please him. For the first time in my life, I wanted to show off for a guy I liked.
Tate was a tiny sliver of sunshine in the middle of a hurricane. And maybe it was time to finally follow those instincts. To shelve inhibited Shelby for a night and see what happened. Maybe by finally moving beyond one chapter of my life, I could begin a new one.
My hands curled against the satin skirt, bunching the ruffles against my skin.
“Bonjour, monsieurs et mademoiselles.” An actress with the show moved to the center of the floor as a spotlight hit her. “Let’s bring all the women up here, and we’ll begin with the cancan.”
“Shelby,” Tate said, grabbing my hand and gently pulling me back into my seat as I stood. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
I was nervous. More nervous than when I played Clara in The Nutcracker when I was thirteen. Which was crazy. It was the cancan. It was meant to be frenetic and clumsy and silly.
Nothing depended on this. Nothing but having fun and letting loose a little.
I took a deep breath and stood, giving Tate my best smile. “I know. I actually think I want to.”
I filed into the small crowd of women as our teacher first went over the basic cancan steps. Knee up. Leg up. Bounce, bounce, ruffle your skirt. Repeat. And so on and so forth. When we finally had all the steps, we put it to music with the live band and the