Dance Away with Me - Susan Elizabeth Phillips Page 0,49

she was inside.

The couch cushion sagged next to her. “You’re tired now. We’ll settle this when you’ve had a couple of decent nights’ sleep.”

His rough kindness didn’t surprise her as it once would have. She’d sensed this softness inside him, a sensitivity he worked hard to keep buried. She made the mistake of looking up.

He was sitting so close. . . . Her fingers curled involuntarily into the chair arm. Their gazes locked. At first, she saw only his concern for her, but as the schoolhouse wall clock ticked into the heavy silence, something changed. A pulse leaped at the base of his throat, and her own breath quickened. His palm settled on her knee like a caress, and the warmth of his body filtered through her clothes. It was as if her refusal to take the paycheck had shifted the landscape, built a bridge where before there had only been a valley.

The schoolhouse rafters groaned. A gust of wind rattled the windows, and his eyes grew half-lidded. The periphery of the room began to fade into the shadows—the walls and windows, ceilings and doors, melting away.

Her skin prickled as a flame came to life inside her, skittering here and there, creeping toward the borders of what had been frozen. She couldn’t look away, and neither, it seemed, could he.

His lips moved. He spoke one word in a husky voice. Bedroom.

She stood. With no thought at all. Brought to her feet by the rush of blood in her veins.

Bedroom.

Now he was the one holding the baby monitor. The old schoolhouse clock ticked away as she followed him—not to the back bedroom—but upstairs. Bed. Room. Bed. Room.

The clock’s rhythm matched the syllables that played in her head but not what he’d said, because the word he’d spoken so softly had been, “Studio.”

Dazed, she moved inside.

The room was dark, but he didn’t turn on the ceiling lights. Instead, he flicked on a lamp that did little more than cast a watery glow. She stood by the studio door and watched as he set down the baby monitor and began pulling fat white candles from the wooden shelves. One after another, he placed them on the floor in a half-circle around the purple velvet couch.

Only a single candle remained. He set it on a shelf above the couch, turned to her, and gestured. She knew what he wanted. Didn’t know. She stepped between the candles and took a seat on the cushion at the end beneath the outlaw candle on the shelf.

He struck a match and began lighting the wicks of the floor candles. When the match grew too short, he blew it out and lit another. Flicking shadows danced up the walls, and the air grew heavy with the scent of sulfur.

Her breath quickened as he stood before her. His hand went to her hair. He tugged on the tie that held it up, and a messy waterfall tumbled to her shoulders. His hand lingered. Tunneled into the tangle.

She tried to find a wisecrack—something—anything—that would dispel the charged air crackling between them. His hand moved from her hair to the top button of her blouse. His knuckles brushed her skin as he slipped it open. That smell of sulfur filled her nostrils.

He unfastened the next button, the one after that. Her blouse parted in a deep V. With the tip of his index finger, he drew the V down over one shoulder, exposing the swell of her breast above the worn lace of her bra.

He gently pressed her against the arm of the couch. Her legs automatically extended on the cushions. He took off her sneakers and set them outside the circle of candlelight. He removed one sock—only one—from her top foot. His hand gently encircled her bare ankle. One thumb pressed into the hollow there and stroked that small sensitive place.

It wasn’t like her to be passive. She had no experience with impassiveness. Always the seductress. Never the seduced. Yet here she was, letting him do it all.

He brushed his thumb against her cheek as he rearranged a lock of hair. Her blouse fell lower on her shoulder, but he wasn’t satisfied. He hooked her bra strap with his finger and slipped it down, too.

She saw herself as he did. The naked curve of her shoulder, swell of her breast. The drape of her blouse at her elbow and the thin white bra strap across her arm.

He barely took his eyes from her as he propped a giant pad of paper