1
“Are we going to practice the lift or not?” Rick paced around the practice studio, sweat pouring down his forehead and cheeks redder than his T-shirt. “We’ve got two days to get it right before we go on stage in front of thousands. No re-dos like in a music video.”
Olivia remained sprawled out on the nearest bench, her chest heaving up and down as she attempted to recover from the latest round of dance practices. Why are we dancing more in one shot here than we ever will on stage? José had them rehearsing every piece of choreography back to back when in the actual show there would be five, sometimes fifteen minutes in between sets. Well, for Olivia anyway. Rick would be on stage whenever he wasn’t changing jeans and leather jackets. Really, Olivia had it easier. “I guess. Give me five minutes, okay?”
Rick puffed his cheeks and turned toward the barre. Fine thing if he could keep going. Olivia wasn’t a robot, regardless of how talented she was when it came to dancing for hours on end. She was still human. Human bodies had limitations. One couldn’t wind her up and watch her go at it again. So excuse me if I sit my ass down for a five minute breather. What, did Rick want her in the hospital right before they left to go on tour?
Four days. That’s how long they had before they got on a bus for Los Angeles, the first stop on Rick’s world tour. They got the day before that off, which meant they had about three days, including that day, to get their shit together and lay down a flawless practice. They had done it before, but that was before the, well...
Olivia didn’t usually make a habit of sleeping with her dance partners, but when it did happen, it wasn’t often she found herself going on tour with said partner.
I thought this would be easy. She and Rick Rodriguez, one of the hottest male artists around, had knocked boots three weeks ago, claimed by the height of passion that erupted when they danced together too often. Nope. Not the first time something like that happened to Olivia. Except her partners didn’t usually last for months at a time. Nor were they quite as good looking as Rick, who always came to rehearsals wearing that winning smile and flashing her knowing looks in between sets.
At first she didn’t think much about it. As she told Rick on the phone, it had happened, and they shouldn’t be ashamed of it. Yet they also shouldn’t let it consume them to the point of errant distractions. Like it had become. Or maybe Olivia was paranoid. At least I’m not pregnant. Last thing she needed to be paranoid about before going on tour!
“All right. Let’s do this lift.” Olivia stood up, her knees buckling as her legs protested. “Don’t drop me.”
They stood mere inches apart, Rick’s hands on his hips as the corner of his mouth went up. “Have I ever?”
“No, thank God.” Olivia would have walked out of the studio the day that happened. Yet Rick was deceptively strong. Sure, he had some nice muscle in those arms, but he didn’t look brawny enough to lift up a woman and twirl her, dip her behind him, or flip her over his shoulder. Three moves they would have to do on tour every night. The sooner they got it down like it was second nature, the better. “And don’t start today.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Rick bent down, lifted Olivia by the knees, and flung her over his shoulder, making her shriek as if she were going to throw up. She probably was going to. Like Clara. There’s a great memory.
Really, Olivia didn’t have much to worry about when it came to dancing with Rick. He knew what they were about at the end of the day. Even though Olivia often felt those fleeting feelings of attraction to him when they danced, she told herself that’s all it was: the dance. They got it out of their systems. Hot, unbridled sex that was certainly going into Olivia’s memory as some of the best she ever had. And that’s how it will remain. Yet sometimes, such as when Rick picked her up in such a way that she had to wrap her legs around his waist, she felt hot between the thighs and suddenly remembered what it was like to kiss that troublemaking mouth.
That’s why the world gave her cold showers. She would assume that’s how Rick dealt with that thing in his pants every time it came to attention when they danced. Yeah, I noticed!
After practice, Olivia stood in the corner with a duffel bag, judiciously applying deodorant to tie her over until she could get home and take that cold shower. A towel mopped up the sweat on her forehead, but there wasn’t much to be done about the sweat in her hair. She supposed she would have to deal with the fuzziness until she got it under control later.
“That’s an interesting look.” Rick stood beside her, checking out his appearance in the mirror. “In some parts of the world they would even say it’s attractive.” He winked at her. Olivia snapped the cap back on her deodorant and tossed it into her bag. “Sorry. Too blunt?”
“Not at all. I suppose the same could be said about whatever you’re growing on your face there.” She gestured to the permanent stubble gracing Rick’s cheeks and chin. “I hear some women find that sexy. Me? It grates.”
She should have seen the response coming. After all, she had spent most of her days with Rick since they started practicing over a month ago. “You didn’t seem to have problems with it before.” He didn’t wink again, and for that Olivia was grateful.
Olivia finished zipping up her bag and hoisted it over her shoulder. “Even I get desperate sometimes.”
Although she didn’t mean it as an insult, it was possible that Rick took it that way, but he continued to smile like a class clown as he watched Olivia saunter out of the practice room and begin her trek home.
Banter like that kept them sane. Olivia was further grateful that Rick wasn’t the kind of man who brooded for too long. The first time we saw each other after we did it, I thought he was going to throw a fit. Quite the contrary. Rick acted as if nothing had happened. It almost disappointed Olivia, although she never said anything about it.
The deal was that they wouldn’t bring it up or let it get to them, but they weren’t going to pretend that it never happened. That was silly. As long as they were on the same page that it was in the past, Olivia didn’t care. And as long as Rick continued to treat her with the same level of respect as before, she had little to complain about. So why do I want him to bring it up? Olivia sat on the bus, aware that everyone else probably thought she smelled like crap, and admonished herself for continuing to think of Rick in that way.
He was hot. He was charming. He knew how to dance and make her tingle. Almost her ideal man. Minus the fame part. He could keep the fortunes. Yet Olivia wasn’t about to get involved with a superstar. Bad enough that they had sex. Now, as she got off at her stop and trudged home, she remembered the way his strong, powerful body thrust into hers against the wall. Shower. Cold shower.
Sometimes it was easy to lose track of why it wouldn’t work out between them. If it were any other dancer, she might give it a shot. Start something casual that centered on having a good time as opposed to making a lifelong commitment. “I’m home,” she called, dumping her bag by the door. Her mother was in the kitchen and gave her a courteous greeting as Olivia went upstairs, taking off her clothes before she even got into the bathroom.
The shower barely did its job. Sure, she smelled better afterward, but her brain was still on Rick, and something had to be done about that.
To the Internet. Or, in Olivia’s case, her smart phone as she curled up on her bed and dried off. The first thing she did was look up Rick’s name. Hey, it’s me! Sure enough, one of the first pictures to pop up was a still from the music video. That was a precious stroke to Olivia’s ego.
She wasn’t here for that. Olivia scrolled right by the picture of her and clicked the title of a website that was dedicated to chronicling the love lives of celebrities. She was taken to Rick’s page and nearly fell over from the long list of names that were attached to his.
“How many women can one man date?” Olivia had to laugh at some of the names, however. She somehow doubted that Sophie Mendez, one of the hottest actresses on television, had ever been in the same space as Rick, let alone openly dated him. But there were a few others she vaguely recalled seeing in tabloids that past year. One of them was Christina Spiegel, a young woman of humble origins like Rick’s. According to the website, they dated for two months. After that, there came a long line of names, each one lasting shorter than the one before. “Yep. I knew he was a player.” Olivia closed her browser and rolled over, wet hair slapping against her bed. “All the more reason to stay away from him, girl.”
No matter how hot she found Rick, it wasn’t worth it. Olivia was better off focusing on her work. She only hoped that her heart and body would let her.