The Singles Table (Marriage Game #3)(60)

“I can’t believe you came.” She threw her arms around him and gave him a hug.

His arms tightened around her. “You said you would have invited me if I’d been free. I didn’t want to miss the chance to see you, so I asked Elias to handle the meeting with Lucia.”

“I never imagined you’d be interested after I threw you out of my apartment.” She released him when he gave an indignant huff.

“You didn’t throw me out. I left of my own volition.”

“It was a metaphorical throw.” She sat on the edge of the stage, and he eased himself up beside her.

“That’s the problem with lawyers,” he said. “You’re too good with words. Simple guys like me don’t have a chance.”

“You’re hardly simple. A little uptight, perhaps. Definitely a workaholic. Inflexible. Controlling. Maybe a bit broody—”

“I’ll stop you right there before my ego gets too big to contain.” His lips twitched at the corners. With his shirt open and his suit jacket folded neatly in his lap, he looked more relaxed than she’d ever seen him during the day.

“What did you think of the rehearsal?”

“It was very entertaining,” he said. “I wish I could dance like that. I have two left feet and no sense of rhythm. Avi doesn’t know what he’s in for when I show up for his groom squad dance rehearsals. I’m probably unteachable.”

Zara jumped up on the stage and held out her hand. “I’ll show you a few moves.”

Jay hesitated, searching the empty theater. He was always so concerned about his image and reputation, and yet when they were alone together, he was a different man.

“Everyone is gone,” she assured him, pulling up the “Dhinka Chika” remix on her phone. “It’s just us. You can screw up as badly as you want and no one will see you.”

Jay jumped up on the stage and carefully placed his folded jacket over a Styrofoam rock.

“Hands in your pockets and move them from side to side.” She demonstrated the move, swaying in time to the music.

Jay gave her a horrified look. “I might be morally corrupted if I spend too much time with you.”

“After last night, I’m pretty sure it would be the other way around.” She rocked her hips back and forth. “Keep your hands in your pockets and do this, or are you not familiar with the pelvic thrust?”

“I think you know the answer to that question,” he said, his voice smug.

Watching him now, it was hard to believe this was the same man she’d met on the paintball field. Beneath the walls and the shadows, he had an almost playful sense of humor.

“I am at once delighted and horrified to know that you excel at that move.” She danced beside him, keeping him to the beat.

“?‘Horrified’ is not a word commonly associated with my bedroom skills,” he said dryly.

“Jay Dayal.” Her hands found her rolling hips. “Are you cracking jokes?”

“Not about things that matter.”

He was suddenly serious and Zara’s skin prickled in warning. She liked what they had. A little sex. A little fun. Maybe even a little friendship. Why mess it up with “things that matter”?

“At least now I know how to motivate you to stay on the beat.” She held her hands in front of her, palms forward, fingers slightly curved, wrists rotating back and forth. “Keep thrusting and add this movement.”

“I am shocked by your filthy mind.”

She slapped a hand to her chest. “In my innocence I cannot imagine what you find offensive about turning two doorknobs at once, but I suspect you’ll prove a master of this move, too.”

Jay proved adept at turning doorknobs while doing a pelvic thrust so she motioned for him to stop. “I have one more for you. It’s very easy. You don’t need to move your feet. Just your hands.”

“Am I turning on or off light switches?” He lifted an inquisitive brow. “Jackhammering concrete? Painting a fence or waxing a car?”

“I’m opening your belt.”

He jerked back when she reached for his buckle. “I don’t think—”

Zara cut him off with a sigh. “I’m not intending to ravish you onstage, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m planning to show you the belt step made famous by Salman Khan in the movie Dabangg.”





? 18 ?



“Of course. That’s exactly what I thought.” Jay let out a long, slow breath. “The belt step.”

This was a bad idea. He was already aroused from the hands-in-the-pants, pelvic thrusting, and the turning of doorknobs. Things were going to get out of control if she put her hands on his . . .

Chiefs. Buccaneers. Patriots. Steelers. Packers. Cowboys. Eagles . . . He focused on mentally listing every football team in the NFL so the part of him warmed up by all the sexually suggestive moves didn’t get the wrong idea.

“Hold one end of the belt in each hand and pull your hips with alternating hands.”

Taking a step back to put a safe distance between them, Jay yanked one side and then the other, forcing his hips to jerk in either direction with little thought to the beat of the music playing in the background, and a lot of thoughts about football.