CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Her mind was officially blown.

She’d seen countless ballets and watched thousands of modern dances, but Alvin Ailey had been her favorite since she was a girl, and also her fantasy. While other dancers dreamed of becoming a prima ballerina, Shannon had pictured herself in a starring role in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The company’s modern ballet style and athleticism had always spoken to her. As a young kid on the outskirts of town, growing up in a broken-down neighborhood, she’d been determined to dance her way out of her circumstances, and to win a spot in a prestigious company.

That had never happened, and while she’d moved on, picked herself up, and carved out a career that she loved, a small piece of her heart still longed to be the one on stage, still wished to captivate an audience as she herself had just been captivated.

As they neared the end of the show, the dancers moved with such passion, such exuberance that her heart was full, overcome with their joy in movement. She squeezed Brent’s hand in the darkened theater. He’d been such a trooper. She knew he wasn’t innately a dance fan. Most men weren’t. Hell, her own brothers didn’t go to the theater with her. And while she doubted Brent had personally delighted in the production, the mere fact that he’d taken her, watched with her, and focused on the stage meant the world to her.

He had stepped up from the second she’d shown up at his club last week to apologize. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he’d do whatever it took to win her back. He’d been honest, and open, and giving, and everything she’d known him to be. All the more reason for her to lay her cards on the table tonight. Well, tomorrow. Because she was pretty damn sure tonight was going to turn into an all-nighter with him. She had no desire for this date to end. She wanted it to unfurl through the darkness, and roll on into the sunrise.

After the euphoric finale on stage, she was the first to her feet, clapping and calling out bravo. Then she threw her arms around Brent’s neck, and planted a quick kiss on his lips.

“Thank you. I loved every second of it,” she said, standing on tiptoes. “I feel like I’m floating on cloud nine.”

A dancer’s high.

“I’m so happy to hear that,” he said, his expression earnest. There was no teasing, no joking. He really had wanted her to be happy, and hell if that didn’t make her heart beat in overdrive for him.

They clapped once more during the final curtain call. She picked up the thread of the conversation as the audience started to shuffle out, the bright lights flickering on in the Luxe Theater. “Even if it did make me feel the tiniest pang of regret right here,” she said, tapping her chest.

“I hope it wasn’t too hard for you.”

She shook her head. “Nope. Just makes me a little sad every now and then that I can’t do that anymore. But that’s all,” she said, as she ran her fingers along his arm. She squeezed his hand as they exited the row, replaying her words—can’t do that anymore. While she might not be able to dance like those performers on stage had—leaping, stretching, soaring beyond the atmosphere—there were other ways to dance. Oh yes, there were many other ways to move.

She tugged him close to her against the edge of the aisle seat. The crowds filtered by as she leaned in, whispering in his ear. “But I can dance for you. The way you like.”

Noise filled the theater. The chatter and hum of the crowd. The music that ushered the patrons out the door. The sound of shoes on carpets, of seats folding up, of phones buzzing. But beneath all that, she heard the sexiest groan escape his lips, a low rumble that came from deep within his chest. It touched down in her nervous system, and sent the desire that had been on a simmer all evening to a flashpoint.

Her pulse doubled. Her belly flipped. Want engulfed her.

“Now,” he said, his voice a husk.

“Do you want to come back to my—” she began, but he cut her off.

He produced a gleaming white key card from his back pocket. “I was hopeful,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

She adored that hope in him. She adored it for so many reasons. Because he had so much of it, because he could call on it whenever he needed to, and because he’d always freely shared it with her. His brightness, his happiness, his luck.

“Your hope will be rewarded, you handsome man.”

She’d take some of his luck tonight and make it theirs.

* * *

The elevator doors whooshed shut.

He was a coil, tightly wound. He grasped her face and kissed her hard as he backed her into the corner, in clear view of the camera that was surely watching anyone in the lift.

He didn’t fucking care.

They were alone.

She sighed, she gasped, she moaned as the elevator chugged higher into the sky. Somewhere it slowed and stopped. He glanced briefly at the number pad. Twelve. Not their floor. He returned to her lips, red and full and eager. The doors opened while he fused his mouth to hers, dropping his hand to her ass, gripping her soft flesh, with the kind of hunger that came from knowing there’d be no stopping tonight.

“Um, we’ll catch the next one,” someone behind him said, and the doors shut again.

“When did you get the room?” she whispered, her voice all breathy and sexy.

“Earlier today,” he said, rewinding briefly to his call with Nate. And then, holy shit. Fuck me with a chainsaw. The call with Tanner. He heaved a sigh. He’d packed a bag, and tossed it in the trunk of the town car on the way to pick her up, but had promptly forgotten about his flight the second he’d laid eyes on Shannon.

“What’s wrong?”

“I have to catch a flight to New York at midnight,” he said, frustration laced through every word, stringing them together.

She stepped away, her jaw falling open. “Seriously? It’s a quarter after ten right now.”

“The call I got earlier in the week when we were at lunch? About the New York club? They had to move the meeting to lunch tomorrow instead of dinner tomorrow, so I have to catch a red-eye tonight instead of a morning flight.”

She inhaled sharply. “Brent. We were on a date.”

“I thought we could fit everything in.”

Her eyes bugged out, and she stared bullets at him as the elevator landed on the twentieth floor. “You thought you could fit it all in? Fit what in? Taking me out? Fucking me? And then flying to New York at midnight? Is that before or after the fucking?”

The doors slid open. She dug her heels in, but he hadn’t come this far to have her pissed at him again. “Shan, let’s get out of the elevator,” he said firmly.

She shook her head. She was like a dog grabbing grass and refusing to walk. Tension twisted in his chest, squeezing his lungs. The last thing he wanted was to fight with her, not when she’d been melting in his arms moments ago. He pressed his finger against the open button, holding it. “C’mon. We can talk in the room.”

“We can talk here,” she countered, pointing at the floor of the elevator, then at him. “Because I’d really like to know when you were planning on telling me you were cutting our date short.”

“It’s not like we even made official plans for a sleepover,” he said, firing right back at her, his matchstick temper getting the best of him, too.

She narrowed her eyes, turned them into slits. “Oh, excuse me. I didn’t realize I had to book you to spend the night with me,” she said, puffing out her chest and practically spitting the words at him.

He held out his hands wide. “It’s not as if you’ve been giving me any signs that you wanted to.”

She gestured grandly to those red shoes that looked like sex on her. “I guess wearing the goddamn shoes you said you wanted to fuck me in wasn’t a big enough sign? Or maybe letting you finger me in front of the fountains last weekend? That wasn’t clear enough for you?”

“Those nights all ended,” he said, pointing out the flaw in her logic. He pushed hard against the silver button, fighting both with Shannon and the elevator that was starting to beep loudly.

“Looks like this night is about to go the same way then, doesn’t it?”

There was no fucking way he was letting her walk away tonight. The blaring grew louder, sounding like a siren. Shannon crossed her arms over her chest, pushing up her breasts, revealing the swell of her curves.

Curves he intended on having his hands on tonight.

His desire fueled him. Instinct led him on, a caveman drive. In a lightning blur, he grabbed her waist, lifted her onto his shoulder easily and carried her out of the elevator just as the doors whisked shut with a final ping.

“Put me down,” she shouted, pounding her fists against his back. Marching down the hall, he carried her away from the lift as she banged on him. “I mean it, Brent Nichols.”

“I will, woman. I will,” he said with a huff, setting her down carefully on her four-inch heels. She didn’t even wobble. She was born to wear stilettos. Pressing his palms against the wall above her shoulders, he caged her in. “Look, I forgot to say anything about the change in my flight. It happened this afternoon at four o’ fucking clock. This guy is running me around, working me over, and it’s not like I want to go to New York at midnight.”

She shot him a look that said she doubted him. “It’s always about work with you.”

“I am doing my best to manage it all. I want to spend every damn day with you,” he said, his voice hard and firm. “How is it not clear where I want to be right now?”

“Then why are you telling me now?” She sounded like a cross-examiner, punching holes in his argument. “Maybe when you picked me up tonight would have been a better time, not ten seconds before you try to bring me to a hotel room for one frigging hour, Brent. One hour before you have to jet out of town. You know how that makes me feel?”

“How does it make you feel?” he asked, dreading the answer.

Mercifully, she didn’t say whore. “Cheap,” she hissed.

“You are not cheap. You are classy, and gorgeous, and beautiful, and why can you not see that I would much rather spend the night worshipping your perfect body, and showing you how much I fucking adore you?” he said, his voice rising again. A door opened down the hall, and a man exited his room. Brent didn’t care if anyone heard him saying out loud how crazy he was for this woman. He dropped his hand to her shoulder, trailing the pad of his finger along her skin and down her bare arm. She didn’t swat him away, or bite him. That was good. “I meant to tell you that he’d called, and I was all set to say something about the change, but then I showed up at your place, and you looked like this,” he said, gesturing to her stunning figure in front of him.

Her lips quirked up. There, in that small crack in her anger, he had his chance. The door was ajar. He’d slink inside.

“Looked like what?” she asked, her tone segueing away from pissed, and towards that teasing seductress he loved.

“Like the only woman I have ever wanted this much,” he said, resuming his path along her arm, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake. He moved his hand to her waist, tracing circles with his thumb against her hipbone.

“How much?”

“So fucking much it consumes all my brainpower,” he said, relief flooding him as she began to relinquish her anger. “I swear, Shan. When I see you, I can’t fucking remember my name. I can barely figure out how to form words.” Her expression softened, and he inched even closer, pressing his forehead lightly to hers. “You’re all I see. You are perfection.”

She looped her hands around his waist. Ah, sweet victory.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“For what?”

“For getting so pissed,” she said, her tone sweet and soft now, wafting over him. “I just hate the thought of this night ending.”

“Good. I’m so damn happy you feel that way, because I do, too.”

She wrapped her arms tighter around him, tugged him against her in the cool, air-conditioned hallway. “I was looking forward to spending the night with you,” she said in the barest voice, and it sent tremors of desire throughout his body. “And when you told me you were leaving, it made me feel like you just didn’t care. Like you care about work more than me.”

“I care about you so much more,” he said.

“Brent,” she began, bringing her hands to his hair. “Let’s go to the room. I owe you a dance, and I’m going to make it so good for you.”

That was music to his ears. And his dick. And his balls.