I didn’t dance—ever. The few times I’d actually been to clubs, back in college, I’d been too self-conscious. I’d done everything possible to stay off the dance floor while trying to look as if I was having a good time. Now, though, as his arm captured my waist and snugged me tight against him, I was beyond caring what other people thought.
I forgot about my body, my nerves, even the people around me. The only thing that existed in the world were his eyes, gazing down into mine. I could feel the deep bass throb of the music pounding through my bones, lifting me like a wave, and I started to unconsciously move to it. He followed my movements, our bodies joined from thigh to neck, until I wasn’t sure if I was moving him or he was moving me.
I closed my eyes and just let go, flexing and swaying and twisting with him, my breasts crushed against his chest, my groin pushed hard against his. I could feel him throbbing there, the two of us separated by a few inconsequential layers of fabric. And I could feel my own response, the twisting heat inside me turning to slick moisture.
The beat shifted, the DJ mixing in another track, and Luka twisted me around so that my back was to him. His hands ran up my sides and drew my arms up and around his neck so that I was stretched out like an offering, almost hanging down the length of his body, my front exposed.
Immediately, his palms were on my hips, stroking upward, and it felt as if they were pulling the heat inside up with them. I still had my eyes closed, shutting out everything else as his palms moved up over my sides...up to the sides of my breasts. He rubbed there for long seconds, his thumbs just nudging the soft flesh, keeping me on the razor sharp line between where I’d allow it and where I’d stop him. He could sense me, somehow. He knew exactly how far I’d let him go.
And he was going to keep tempting me further and further. Leading me astray. Corrupting me. He wasn’t hiding it. He’d damn well promised it. And I was letting him.
For the mission. Just for the mission. I have to.
Bullshit.
His hands suddenly swept down my body, his fingers catching the hem of my dress. He began to slide it up my thighs, and this time we weren’t in the shadows. This time we were right out on the edge of the dance floor, with people all around us.
I didn’t open my eyes. I tried to tell myself that I was embarrassed, that I didn’t want to think about all those people watching us. But a deep, hot squirm inside me reminded me that wasn’t true. The feel of their eyes on us, the feel of the cool air against my—God, my bare thighs, how high has he got my skirt?!—was turning me on. Grinding back against him, letting his hands run all over me in the middle of a nightclub, I was more turned on than I could ever remember being, even during sex. Is this what letting go feels like?
His fingers were on my thighs. My inner thighs. Thumbs stroking at the very edge of my panties, then moving inward—
I had to open my eyes. That would nudge me over the line from arousal to embarrassment, and I’d stop him.
His thumbs drew a line upward, less than a fingers-width from the line that separated the lips of my sex. I groaned.
I didn’t want to open my eyes. I didn’t want it to end.
His thumbs lifted. Returned. Another line, this time practically touching my lips. I could feel his breath hot in my ear. He was as turned on as I was.
The next, one, I knew would be right on my lips, and then I’d be completely lost. I was liable to let him bring me off, right there on the dance floor.
My eyes fluttered open.
Either we’d drifted, as we danced, or the couples around us had gotten friskier. Immediately in front of me, a woman with long red hair was clinging to her partner, her legs wrapped around his waist as they kissed, his hands up under her skirt. To my left, a dark-haired woman was pressed between two men, one in front and one behind. The one behind her was kissing her neck. The one in front had unbuttoned her blouse all the way to her waist and was palming her breasts.
I pulled free of Luka’s hands. He let me go immediately. When I twisted around to look at him, there was no anger—if anything, he looked amused.
“I need to—” I realized I was panting. I pushed my dress down to cover me, my groin still throbbing with the memory of his hands. “I’ll...be back in a minute,” I told him. And turned and stumbled from the dance floor.
I didn’t even know where I was heading, at first. I just aimed for where the music seemed quietest and the lights seemed most steady. My whole body was trembling, my legs like rubber. I felt like I’d mainlined something. Every sense was intensified, every nerve ending twitching. I wanted his touch; I wanted his lips; I wanted him.
I found the bathrooms and almost fell through the door into the ladies room. In there, the lights were white and bright and I could think—just. A few other women were in there, redoing their make-up. I grabbed onto the edge of a sink, trying to get my breathing under control.
Staring at myself in the mirror, I replayed the evening in my head. I’d been completely unprepared for how I’d react to him, once things got started. I’d known that I liked him. I’d fantasized about his voice and then about his body. But I was realizing—too late—that something else was going on here, something far deeper than just an infatuation. It made no sense. I knew he was the worst sort of man. I knew the sort of things he’d done. I shouldn’t be able to like him. And yet I felt something between us, something soul-deep and undeniable.
He wanted me because he thought I was an innocent. I was an innocent, in some ways, probably far more innocent than he suspected. And, at the same time, I was lying to him, preparing to betray him. I’d seen that flicker in his eyes- that need for me that no man had ever shown. And I’d felt myself waking up, big chunks of ice that I hadn’t even realized were there cracking and splintering inside me as I was roused. Now that I was alone, I could feel myself shutting down again, closing up.
I couldn’t process it, standing there in a bathroom. I needed time alone to figure it out. But it was almost as if I’d briefly come back to life, after being frozen for—
For three years?
I stared at myself and shook my head. I didn’t like the implications of that. I couldn’t handle the idea that he might be that important in my life.
I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. The woman next to me, thrusting her make-up bag into her purse so fast that a lipstick went skittering across the floor. She almost ran out of the room. And I realized that the other women had left, too. I seemed to be alone.
And then, in the mirror, I saw the blonde from the dance floor step into view behind me. I had time to blink in surprise, just once, and then she grabbed the back of my head and rammed my head into the mirror.