AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He was a brainiac doctor, but he apparently still found plenty of time to work those biceps.
With her body warm and wanting at the thought, Mariah whipped to her back, eyes open, hoping…
Still no Sawyer.
She pressed her lips together in disappointment and tried to ignore the rush of her pulse.
So he was having doubts. Or feeling embarrassed. Both?
Not good. Not promising at all, but Mariah could work around that. Until Sawyer, she hadn’t ever met a man who caused the incessant hum deep inside of her that made her imagine her own white gown and veil. She wasn’t going to allow the one who did to get away without at least a first date.
With a strong enough sense of purpose that she could ignore her dull headache, she popped out of bed, started the shower, and began plotting.
* * *
The last Sawyer knew,salsa dancing didnotinvolve a stripper pole.
Shit, not only had he had an ill-advised drunken sleepover but it turned out it’d been with a woman who had moves that should be illegal. He was trying his damnedest to push his life in a new, better, more “grown-up” direction, but it seemed he’d regressed about fifteen years in the past week.
The moves Mariah was making as her body worked its way up the thin pole… Sawyer couldn’t peel his eyes from her. She twirled her graceful body, effortlessly grasping the metal with deceptively powerful thighs. As she spun and twisted, her ginger-colored hair flew in a tantalizing circle, making his fingers itch to touch it.
He still had no recollection of touching it — or her — the other night. And at this particular moment, with her alluring body moving like that before his eyes, that became a major regret. Mariah was the sexiest, most alluring woman he’d laid eyes on in some time.
Never mind that she was wearing a utilitarian bodysuit, performing in an unromantic, fluorescently lit dance studio with four women of various fitness stages looking on. Sawyer was mesmerized. Captivated as she managed some kind of complex vertical spin, writhed down the pole, disengaged herself from it, and ended on her knees with her back arched and her head extended back. He couldn’t avert his attention from her slender, exposed neck. Had he tasted that neck?
In an instant, Mariah broke the pose and the spell and popped to her feet with a nod to the other women — pole-dancing students, it appeared. Sawyer was still transfixed, so he saw very clearly the second she spotted him standing there in the front entry room of the dance studio, gawking at her like a love-starved bachelor through the interior window. Her eyes widened momentarily, and then she sent him a private, sultry look that was gone before he could be sure he’d seen it. He frowned, perplexed, and she continued to speak to her students with words he couldn’t quite make out as she used her hands to emphasize her message.
Sawyer swallowed hard and looked away, realizing it was a mistake to come here. He should’ve waited until she was at her apartment. The last thing he needed was images of her twisting that body around a suggestive pole — she’d been in his mind throughout his disastrous day of golf Sunday, as well as at work the past two days, as it was. On the course, he’d held the bottom spot in their foursome, and he hadn’t determined which had been more to blame — the hangover or the woman who wouldn’t get out of his thoughts. At work, one of the nurses had accused him of being preoccupied more than once, and then she’d made a game out of it. He’d never admit he’d still been puzzling over his weekend.
Call him crazy, but that was not the type of guy he’d hire for the director of surgery if it were his decision. Just because Tennyson wasn’t there to witness the debacle he’d made of his life in the past three days, that didn’t mean it was okay.
If Mariah hadn’t seen him staring at her, he’d get the hell out of here stat. But he’d already wimped out of facing her once. Time to apologize and get out of her life for good. Focus on the job he still hoped like hell to get.
He moved to the far wall, away from the window, to wait for her class to end — and to fight the urge to get another eyeful of the intriguing, pole-dancing Mariah.
3
Mariah was off her game big-time.
She’d blown one of the moves she’d been trying to show the class, for starters. Her leg had nearly slipped as she’d demonstrated the brass monkey. Then she’d misread the clock and tried to dismiss them ten minutes early. And now, as her overzealous student, Karen, was going on and on after class about a routine she’d been practicing at home, Mariah realized she’d missed half of what had been said.
All because of the man standing out in the entryway.
At least she hoped Sawyer was still there. Without even considering how the gesture would come across to Karen, Mariah checked the clock again. Shockingly, only two minutes had passed since the other students had left the floor.
“Why don’t you show up ten minutes early next week and you can show me,” Mariah finally said. “I’d love to see it.” She forced enthusiasm into her voice — not something she usually had to do, but if Sawyer left before she got out there … well, she’d just have to chase after him. Because she was not going to miss a chance to talk to him. He’d barely left her mind the past three days.
She pulled on shorts and a tank top over her bodysuit and slid her feet into flip-flops as she bade her last student good-bye. Then she forced herself not to rush to the outer foyer.
God, he was still breathtaking.
“I suspect you gave my ladies a thrill,” she said to his profile as he gazed out the front window toward the street. Her voice came out shaky, and she crossed her fingers he didn’t notice — or at least didn’t realize he was the cause of it. “We don’t get eye candy here in the studio very often.”
Sawyer pivoted toward her. “I had no idea that’s the kind of classes you teach.”
He didn’t sound judgmental, exactly, just … unsure. Mariah held in a laugh. “Pole-dancing? Every Tuesday night and Sunday afternoon. Sunday’s a bigger class, and that’s where my professionals are. Tonight’s group is more for fitness.”
Sawyer looked over his shoulder, out the exterior window, as if he was afraid to be caught here. “Pole-dancing for fitness.”
