Goddess of Love (Goddess Summoning #5)(45)

"Don't be sorry. Tell me what you were daydreaming about."

"I can't!" she blurted, then cleared her throat and tried to laugh nonchalantly, as if it was just some kind of silly girl thought that had made her blush and blurt. Instead of accepting her glib response, his hand tightened over hers and he said earnestly, "You feel it, too, don't you?"

She started to conjure up a laugh and a flippant remark, but something in his dark, intense gaze caught her, and it was as if she could see through his public layers to his private heart. Suddenly, inexplicably, she knew exactly what he meant.

"You mean our connection, don't you?" She said it so softly that he had to lean closer to her to hear. Their shoulders brushed, sending another tingle through Pea's body.

"I do. There's something between us. I felt it Saturday, and I came here tonight hoping to see you again - to talk with you."

Pea thought how ironic it was that she'd come tonight hoping to see Griffin, and this gorgeous man had come tonight hoping to see her. Huh!

He shifted restlessly in his seat. "I'm not good at this. I've never been good at talking to women, but you conjured me here - you compelled me here. Forgive me if I'm not more practiced at the arts of love."

"I think you're doing just fine," Pea said.

Chapter Fourteen

T here was a pause in their conversation while the waitress brought them their drinks, and Pea was pleased to note that he didn't take his hand from hers. They sipped their martinis silently while they just looked at each other - at first shyly, and then Pea felt the temperature of his gaze change and it seemed his eyes devoured her.

The Full Flava King's female lead singer handed the microphone over to the male lead. The music slowed and the lights dimmed, and he began crooning the old seventies love song,

"Always and Forever." Pea swayed slightly to the music.

"Dance with me," she said.

His body jerked as if she'd hit him.

"I don't dance. I can't."

But she saw something else in his eyes. She had no idea why he was so easy for her to read, but as odd and impossible as it seemed, she knew deep in her soul it wasn't that he didn't want to dance with her - she knew he was afraid to dance with her. His transparency gave her the courage to speak, to say words she'd never even considered saying to any man before.

"It's not really dancing." Her voice was gentle and persuasive. "It's just holding me in your arms and moving to the music."

He closed his eyes. "My leg..."

"Does it hurt?"

"Not enough to speak of," he said automatically, then with more honesty he added, "It...it just makes me move awkwardly, so I've never danced."

"Ever?"

"Ever."

"Then let me teach you." She stood and held out her hand to him. "Trust me. I promise it'll be okay."

Slowly, as if he were swimming against a great tide of the past, he stood and put his hand in hers, allowing her to lead him to the dance floor.

Pea guided him into position - his left hand holding her right, his right at the small of her back. Then she looked up at him and whispered, "Now just move slowly with the music. I'll follow you."

At first he didn't budge. They just stood there on the crowded dance floor, like a tableau, frozen in time. Then, hesitantly, he began to sway in time to the tempo. Pea followed him. Now that she was standing so close to him, she was impressed anew by his height and the breadth of his shoulders. He didn't look at her. Instead he stared somewhere over her shoulders, his entire body tense. She thought it was a little like dancing with a mountain.

"Relax, you're doing just fine," she said.

His gaze whipped down to meet hers and she was touched by his startled, unsure look. How could any man who was so big and muscular and handsome be unsure of himself? Men were so funny sometimes. A simple slow dance could completely throw even a macho fireman off guard. She squeezed his hand and smiled up at him. "Loosen up your shoulders before you break something."

"Am I holding you too tightly?" he said, quickly slacking his grip on her and taking half a step back.

"No, it's okay to hold me tightly. It's a slow dance." She closed the space between them. "When I said you were going to break something I meant something inside you."

"Oh," he said. "Oh, I see." He gave her a quick, nervous smile and settled her back into his arms, but he also stared over her shoulder as if the answers to the most complex questions in the universe were printed behind her.

"Hey," she said.

He glanced down.

"This would work better if you looked at me. Just forget about being nervous and concentrate on the song." And me, she wanted to add, concentrate on me, but she couldn't quite get the words out.

As if he'd been reading her mind, he said, "And you? Can I concentrate on you?"

She smiled. "Absolutely."

"That I can do." He pulled her even closer, and this time his gaze didn't leave hers.

"Every day love me your own special way...."

She heard the first part of the chorus of the love song, but the longer she met his eyes, and the closer her body moved to his, the more he blotted out everything - the song, the people around them, the world. How could she read so much in a face that was partially masked? It was like he was a code, but she'd been given the key to understanding him. And understand him she did. Overwhelmed, she saw desire and fear and loneliness and longing in his eyes. And love...incredibly, inexplicably, impossibly, she saw love.