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She smiled, her face still turned to the dancers. “Old fogey music.”
“Classic romantic music.”
Her smile deepened, even as she tried to fight the muscle in her cheekbone. “I’m not dancing with you.” The way she shifted, sending her skirt brushing against his legs said otherwise.
She must’ve felt that, because she looked back at him and their eyes caught.
“It’s only a dance, but I guess you have a partner who’s waiting for you.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “God, you’re good at this game. Who in their right mind from this crowd wants to be the partner of the jailbird’s daughter?” She held her hand out. “One song. I haven’t danced like this in years, and I might not get the chance again any time soon.”
He took her hand, warm and smooth in his. Just that touch enough to spark up his spine. “You’ll get the chance.”
“This isn’t a function on the society calendar. I hardly know anyone here, but I had to start somewhere.”
“Anything on the calendar you want to attend, I’d be delighted to bring you as my plus one.”
“Why? How does it help you to be associated with me?”
“You’re not mud.” More like starlight. “You’re not your father.” He placed her hand on his forearm, bringing her shoulder close, and they started for the other room. “You’re not his crime, nor are you responsible for his victims. And I can afford not to care what people whisper about me.”
They’d reached the edge of the dance floor and he turned to Lenny, took her left hand in his right, and held it just under shoulder height with his elbow bent and tucked in. She reached her right hand to the top of his other arm, and he closed their circle by putting his fingertips to her shoulder blade. Her skin was bare and warm and for a moment they both stilled. His heart might as well have started a drum solo, it kicked so hard, almost painfully swelling in his chest.
“Is this okay for you?” he said.
His extra height was much more pronounced when they were this close. She had to tilt her head back to look up at him. Just that motion made him feel a hopelessly wild surge of attraction for her. Sherin was right; he needed to find a way to start having fun with other people again. He wasn’t sure when exactly he’d stopped, and he hadn’t felt like he was missing out until right now.
“I figured you knew how to dance properly,” she said.
He moved them off, stepping forward with his left foot as she stepped back with her right. “I don’t do it often. My apologies in advance if I dance you into someone or step on you.”
“If you manage not to do neither of those things you can have your moratorium, and I’ll read your info pack on Prime Minister Ozols.”
A challenge. The ripple of excitement he’d felt when Lenny put her hand in his, half flavored by surprise and half by knowledge he would enjoy dancing with her flipped into something more. Not fun, not for him, this was too fraught, the stakes too high, his arrythmia too distracting. But it was better than he’d hoped. He’d predicted Lenny would show, not that there’d be any moment of the night where they’d touch, let alone that he’d have her in his arms and the effect that would have on him. He felt like he floated them two feet off the floor.
He piloted her backward to Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” touching her only where permitted, the proscribed space between their bodies, and succeeded in not crashing her into anyone until a couple in front stumbled and he stopped short, extending his arm across Lenny’s back and pulling her closer to avoid a wild elbow.
Her breasts bumped against his ribs, and his instinct was to crush her to him, to feel her body everywhere his was overstimulated. He grunted in restraint. Reflexively, Lenny’s hand closed over his arm and her chin lifted, brows up in surprise, a quirk at her lips, not quite a smile, a conspiracy. “Damn, you saved me.”
“I would if you’d let me.”
She shook her head with a laugh. “I meant—”
He relaxed his hold on her and moved them off. “I know what you meant. You’re quite able to save yourself.”
“Yes, I can.” Her eyes stayed up on his a few seconds longer than was comfortable for either of them, and the song came to an end.
She pulled away, face lowered, as she smoothed her hands down the skirt of her dress. “Thank you.”
A tinkle of piano, Nora Jones’s “Come Away with Me.” He wasn’t ready to let her go, to lose the thrill of liquid want in his blood. “One more?”
Up came her eyes, a grin on kiss-perfect lips, as she stepped easily into his arms. “It occurs to me that the longer we do this, the more chance I have that you’ll step on me and our deal will be off.”
He’d stepped on her before he ever thought to ask her to dance, putting himself in her way with little thought about what she needed, more concerned about his own agenda and discomfort. “The fact I haven’t now is fate.”
“You’re a con. You don’t believe in fate.”
He inclined his head and piloted them around a couple who were simply swaying. Not fate, not luck, either. They were direction and determination by other names.
