Dance Away with Me - Susan Elizabeth Phillips Page 0,76
the coffee table next to her. “But I will.” She reached behind her back to lower the zipper of her dress.
“Stop right there.” As much as he wanted to see more, he wouldn’t see it like this. Not with that stricken look on her face, which made him feel as if he’d turned her into a ten-dollar hooker.
“I need you on my side tomorrow,” she said.
His grip tightened on his pencil. “I’m aware of that. Stay the way you are.”
And so, instead of sketching her lying naked on the purple couch in his studio, she posed for him as she was. Legs drawn to her side, skirt ruffled around her thighs, head tilted. He was furious with himself.
* * *
Tess told herself she should be relieved by how detached he was. The idea of lying naked and passive in front of him, of letting him study her as if she were an insect mounted with pins, was beyond disturbing. But instead of relief, she felt like some sort of sexual pity case. She wanted more than that, so why didn’t he?
Always the seductress. Never the seduced.
She sat up. “Have you seen enough for tonight?”
“Are you getting tired?”
“Yes.” A lie. Her nap had refreshed her.
His pencil abruptly stopped moving. “I can’t believe you tried to buy me with sex.”
He hadn’t been angry at the time, so why was he upset now? She brought her knees under her. “I didn’t have anything else to barter with.”
He came to his feet in one abrupt movement. “You had your . . . your character. Your intelligence. Your . . .” He struggled for words. “You can cook!”
His reaction mystified her. “Why didn’t I think of that? Go along with my nefarious marital scheme, and I’ll make you meat loaf.”
He came closer, looming over her. “When we go to bed together, it’s going to be because we both want to be there. Not because you’re sacrificing yourself like some kind of vestal virgin.”
“Did you say when we go to bed . . .”
“I did.”
“But—”
“Don’t pretend not to understand. A woman like you who oozes sex . . .”
She blinked. “You think I ooze sex?”
“You know exactly what I mean. Those eyes. That hair. Your body.”
She swallowed. “I can go along with the eyes, and I guess my hair is personal preference, but the body?”
“That’s enough. More than enough.”
He whipped his T-shirt over his head.
Chapter Fourteen
He loomed above her, the flames from the potbelly stove licking his bare chest. He held out his hand, and she gave him hers. That simplicity of his big hand folding around her smaller one felt more intimate than anything they’d ever shared.
He drew her to her feet. She gazed into those dark, silver-sluiced eyes. How had she ever thought they were cold? He pressed his thumb into her palm and drew a delicious circle there. “I need to make sure we both understand. . . . This has nothing to do with tomorrow.”
It has everything to do with tomorrow.
He circled her palm again. “Let me hear you say it.”
If that’s what he needed to hear . . . “This has nothing to do with tomorrow.”
“And everything to do with tonight.”
If he picked up his sketch pad, she would never forgive him. “I’m not on the pill.”
“No problem. Those condoms you love so much . . .” He touched the pocket of his jeans. “I don’t go anywhere without them, not when you’re around.”
She smiled. “Flattering.”
His big hands slid down her back. Her skin hummed. Maybe tonight could be a singular point of time for them, disconnected from the rest of their lives. He paused at her waist. “You’re killing me,” he groaned. “All I want to do is strip you naked and take you right here. But . . .”
No buts!
“. . . this could screw up everything between us in a hundred ways.”
“For a man of few words, I’ve heard enough.” She took over. She clasped her arms around his neck, went up on her toes, and parted her lips. Her fingers played with the thick, crisp hair on the back of his head. She caught his bottom lip between her own. Lingered there. Enticed.
Always the seducer. Never the seduced.
His body pressed hard against hers. She tilted her hips and rubbed against him like a cat, but kept her tongue tucked away where it belonged. Trav wasn’t big on tongues.
His palms cupped her rear with only the thin layer of crimson fabric separating her skin from his. She waited