Dance Away with Me(42)

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 on an H-frame easel. With a fat pencil, he began drawing with broad, aggressive strokes. Nothing secretive or contained. No pages ripped off and crumpled on the floor.

She lay against the arm of the couch, her blouse half off, legs crooked along the couch cushions. One sock on, one sock missing, gazing toward him. Watching him.

The candles sputtered. Burned lower. His free hand went to his own shirt. The studio was cool, but he unbuttoned the top buttons. Perspiration glimmered at the nape of his neck as his pencil attacked the paper.

As the minutes ticked away, she grew more and more aroused. She wanted to pull off her blouse, strip away her bra. Get rid of her jeans, her underpants. But she would do none of that. If he wanted more of her, he would have to take it for himself. She wouldn’t make it easy for him. Not the way she’d done for Trav.

Always the seducer. Never the seduced.

The light was dim, but not so dim that she couldn’t see he was hard. She kept waiting for him to destroy what he’d created. For him to step from behind the easel and come to her. But his drawing arm kept moving. A curve. A slash. A dance. Pop and lock. Quick step, break step. Adagio, allegro.

She wouldn’t make the first move. Not again. In this new chapter of her life—however chaotic it was—she’d never again be the sexual beggar. She needed to be desired—to be wanted as much as she wanted him.

Work for it. You have to work for it.

A lock of hair had fallen over his forehead, but he was too absorbed in his task to notice. He existed in perfect, tortured union with pencil and paper. She was watching a genius struggle with his work.

And that’s when she understood.

He had a hard-on, all right. A hard-on for his art. For creation. Not for her. She was a means to an end. The great artist attempting to use her to break through whatever was holding him back. This seduction wasn’t carnal. It was only about his work.

She dropped her feet to the floor. The candle flames shuddered. He looked up at her and blinked, as if he’d been very far away.

She stepped between the candles and left him alone in the studio.

*

Ian dropped his pencil and shoved his thumbs against his eye sockets. He didn’t know exactly how he’d fucked up; he only knew he had. Despite mustering every ounce of his willpower to keep himself in check, he’d somehow offended her.