As it turned out, the feeling of walking on broken glass wasn’t just something pop stars sang about in catchy tunes. Sandy waltzed through the next few days—literally and figuratively—feeling as though one wrong move would slice her to painful pieces.

“But your dad is going to be okay,” Melody asked her as she, Rita, Calliope, and Laura sat in the left field bleachers at Haskell’s baseball field on Sunday afternoon. Melody licked her way around an ice cream cone but still managed to appear full of concern.

“The stent surgery was successful,” Rita answered in a round-about way. “Dad says he feels better already, but he’s been known to say things so we won’t worry.”

“It’s a good thing he got to the hospital so fast,” Calliope said.

“Yeah, the paramedics were amazing.” Rita took a bite out of her own ice cream cone and made a relieved sound.

Sandy didn’t know how she could eat with everything that was going on. She still didn’t know how she and Jogi had made it through Friday night’s competition. It was only a day and a half ago, but she could barely remember any of it. She’d been so distracted with worry about her dad, frustration over everyone who kept trying to express their sympathy when all she wanted to do was focus, and outright anger at Richard Bonneville and his slimy attempts to take over the bank. If she thought about it, her distraction was probably the reason she and Jogi danced well enough to make the next cut. There was no way he could complain about her not letting him lead when she was barely aware that she was dancing at all.

And now they were in the quarter finals. They were one step closer to getting everything both of them wanted. So why did she feel more despair than ever?

“Sandy. Sandy. Hello, Sandy.”

Sandy blinked and shook her head, snapping out of her thoughts as if she’d reached the end of her bungee cord and was yanked back. “Huh?” She glanced down the bleachers to find Rita and her friends staring at her.

“I said that I was impressed by how well you and Jogi did on Friday night, all things considered,” Laura said.

“Oh. Thanks.” Sandy sat straighter, rolling her shoulders and adjusting her seat in an attempt to bring herself back from the edge. She even tried to smile.

Her friends weren’t fooled.

“The two of you look good dancing together,” Calliope said. “You look like you belong together.”

“Really?” Sandy shrugged and tried to school her face into a casual expression. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Oh, come on.” Laura rolled her eyes.

“What?” Sandy challenged her. But the familiar impulse to debate and defend herself faltered before it even started. Which was the most alarming thing she’d felt in the last few upsetting days.

Laura fixed her with a flat stare. “The cat’s out of the bag, you know. Jogi let it slip that you two dated.”

Hearing someone else say it felt like a weight descending on her shoulders. Sandy glanced out over the field as whoever was up to bat for the Southside Salamanders hit a fly ball into left field, only a couple dozen yards in front of where they sat.

“He told you it didn’t work out too,” she said, soft enough that she wasn’t sure her friends could hear her. In a way, she hoped they didn’t. The hollow disappointment of things not working out with Jogi was the icing on the cake of every bad thing that was closing in on her. It reminded her of how bittersweet it had been to break down in his arms in the ER the other day, how comforting his arms had felt around her. It brought to mind the wild ecstasy of him bringing her to orgasm beside the lake. They were broken up. He could have just left her to cry on her own with everyone watching her in the ER. He could have had sex with her at the lake without a condom and she wouldn’t have lifted a finger to stop him. But no, in both cases, he’d saved her from humiliation and self-destruction when he didn’t have to.

It took another few seconds to realize that Rita and her friends were all staring at her in silence. The game had turned exciting out on the field. The Salamanders were having a rough season, but there they were, crushing the Bonneville Bears, and not one of their group was paying the slightest bit of attention to the game. They were waiting for her—waiting for her to either burst into more pointless tears or put her big-girl panties on and do something.

Sandy drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know what to do,” she confessed. It was mild as far as confessions went, but to her, even that kind of admission was terrifying. “I don’t know what to do,” she repeated. “I feel like I’ve made one wrong step after another in this whole thing with Jogi, but he keeps…keeps just being there, being a wonderful person when I…I don’t deserve it.” She glanced down at her hands.

“Of course you deserve it.” Melody snorted. “Duh.”

Sandy glanced warily up at her. “You don’t know what I did to him.”

Three sets of eyebrows rose in unison, all her friends. But not Rita. Rita pressed her lips together and glanced discreetly at her ice cream. Because Rita knew the whole story. It was time for the others to hear it too.

“I submitted Jogi’s winning photo to the National Parks Service contest without his permission,” Sandy said. “He specifically told me that he wasn’t going to enter, that he didn’t feel he was ready.”

“He did?” Laura looked surprise.

“You did?” Calliope asked.

Sandy nodded. “And it wasn’t just that.” She sighed. “I wouldn’t leave him alone about his photography. I kept pushing him to do something with it.”

“But he did do something with it,” Laura said slowly. “He put some things up online—”

“And had them plagiarized,” Calliope added in an undertone.

“—and he’s been trying to get a gallery show,” Laura continued.

Sandy hadn’t thought too deeply about that. She wasn’t vain enough to chalk Jogi’s efforts up to her influence, though. And being reminded of the trouble he was having with the plagiarist didn’t make her feel any better.

“The long and the short of it is that I was too pushy,” she said, “and that I kept hounding him even after he told me to stop. I wasn’t particularly respectful to him, and….” She sighed, lowering and shaking her head. “I didn’t appreciate him for who he was until I’d driven him away.”

A round of sympathetic encouragement came from her friends. Rita rubbed her back with a look of sisterly solidarity that went beyond sweet platitudes.

“I’m sure you could get him back,” Laura said, then winced. “I mean, if that’s what you want.”

It would be far too easy for Sandy to direct her anger at Laura’s overly black-and-white view of the situation or to explain away her friend’s enthusiasm as naïve and foolish. The problem was, she wanted to believe in Laura’s version of happily ever after.

Especially after the interlude at the lake.

Sandy sighed. “What I want is irrelevant if I’ve already blown my chance.”

“I don’t see how you blew your chance when Jogi was there at the hospital with all of us on Thursday,” Rita said, almost too quietly to be heard.

Almost.

“Jogi was at the hospital with you?” Melody sat straighter.

Sandy felt a new wave of confessions coming. “He was.” She sat straighter and took a breath. “We were out at Lake Enchantment, practicing for the competition, when I got the call.”

“That’s right.” Laura shifted into a faraway look. “Jogi took Thursday off.” She faced Sandy again with a smile. “You two spent the day together?”

Sandy replied with an ironic laugh. “It wasn’t exactly a romantic rendezvous.” Except that it had definitely been heading in that direction before the call came in. Who knew where they would have ended up, if not for her dad?

She would have ended up apologizing for the way she’d treated him all those months ago. She would have laid herself bare in more ways than one. And who knew what would have happened then.

Who knew indeed.

“What’s that look for?” Rita asked, her expression flickering between confusion and amusement.

“I think it’s for me slapping myself upside the head,” Sandy admitted.

“Oh, really?” Calliope asked, exchanging a look with Melody.

Sandy let out a breath and thumped her hands on her knees. “I don’t like feeling vulnerable,” she said, sounding anything but vulnerable. In fact, her confidence was growing by the second. “I hate not being the one in control of things. And Jogi makes me feel out of control.”

“But that’s a good thing, right?” Melody asked.

“Yeah, isn’t that what love kinda is?” Calliope followed.

“How would you know, Miss ‘I’ll only date a guy if he’s perfect’?” Melody ribbed her.

“Hey, I’ve dated lots of guys who weren’t perfect,” Calliope defended herself, then finished by mumbling, “That’s why I broke up with them.”

Melody smirked and elbowed her.

“The thing is, you have a point,” Sandy told Calliope. “It’s like dancing. You’re never going to get it right if you don’t let the guy lead.”

Rita snapped straighter. “So help me God, Sandy, if you’re suggesting that women should be subservient to men, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

“No, no.” Sandy made a snorting sound. “God, no. I’m not saying anyone should let men lead in a relationship.”

“Good,” Melody said, making an exuberant gesture of relief.

“But it might be a good idea to let love lead,” Sandy went on. Her confidence shrank. “Which, I’m not gonna lie, I suck at. And it really terrifies me. And I’ll probably make a fool of myself in the process.”

Rita blinked. “Sounds like you’re thinking of doing something.”

Sandy took another breath, pressing a hand to her stomach. “Well, I don’t know if it’s an actual thing that I’m going to do, but it’s been too crappy of a week for me to sit by and let everything fall to pieces because I’m treading unfamiliar ground.” She slipped off the edge of the bleachers and stood.

“So….” Rita prompted, raising a brow.

Sandy spread her hands in a gesture of defeat that felt oddly liberating. “I’m going to go do something I should have done weeks ago.”

“Which is?” Laura played along with the same teasing tone Rita had used.

Sandy smiled, actually feeling happy for a chance. “I’m going to find Jogi and apologize for being a bitch.”

“And then you’re going to jump his bone and ride him like a green-broke stallion, right?” Melody suggested.

Sandy crossed her arms and smirked. “No, and then I’m going to ask him if he needs my help with the plagiarism thing. Ask. Not tell, not push.”

“And then you’re going to get naked and squish with him,” Calliope laughed.

“No.” Sandy laughed with her. “I’m going to make amends where and how I can, and then focus on winning this dance competition and saving the bank.” A burst of emotion surprised her at the end of her statement. Her dad would be so proud of her if she could set aside her own problems to help with his.

“Well, all right then.” Rita scooted off the bleachers to give Sandy a hug. “You go, girl.”

“Yeah,” Melody added. “You go get your nasty on with Jogi.”

Sandy rolled her eyes and smirked at her goofy friends. Although she wasn’t entirely opposed to doing things their way.

If he knew what was good for him, Jogi would have been at Haskell’s baseball field along with his friends and everyone else in town. It was a beautiful late-summer day. There wouldn’t be many more days like it. And baseball games were always fun in Haskell. But instead of hanging out with his friends, eating food that was terrible for him, and getting a kick out of the kids running around in gangs without another care in the world, he was stretched out on his sofa at home, a video game controller in his hands, electronic explosions filling the air.

He played on autopilot, back itching with the need to quit. He was wasting his time. Too many things needed to be done. The author who’d stolen his photograph still hadn’t replied to his repeated requests to cease and desist. Sandy’s bank was in even more trouble than it’d been in just a few days ago. The new week’s dances were going to be announced in class the next day. But most unsettling of all, he hadn’t seen Sandy since Friday night.

And he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since Thursday morning.

He wanted her. That much was obvious. She’d been so sensual at the lake, come so readily and completely when he touched her. What guy in his right mind wouldn’t want more of that? So why was it that when he thought back to Thursday, the thing he couldn’t forget was how brave she was to stand up to Bonneville in the middle of a crisis and how overwhelmed he’d been that she’d turned to him for comfort when her entire family was standing there?

His unproductive thoughts were cut short by a knock at the door. It coincided with his soldier being blown to pixelated bits by demon warriors, so he tossed his controller aside and pushed himself up and over to the door. Whoever it was had better be ready for a cold reception. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with—

Sandy was standing in the stairwell on the other side of the door. “Hi,” she said, her smile flickering between uncertainty and strength.

“Hi.” Jogi let his shoulders drop. He cursed himself for being dressed in an old t-shirt that needed washing and gym shorts. He hadn’t bothered brushing his hair since his morning shower either.

“Hi,” Sandy repeated, her smile growing. He might have been in a crappy mood, but she obviously wasn’t.

Then again, his mood was improving in a hurry.

“Everything okay?” he asked. “How’s your dad?”

“He’s doing much better today,” she said with genuine joy. “He still has to take it easy for a bit, but Mom is determined to beat him into shape.”

“Glad to hear it.” He nodded, smiling in spite of himself.

He had a lot to smile about. Sandy looked good. Far more relaxed than the other day, although he did detect more than a little tension hanging over her. Her thick hair was pulled back in a braid instead of the sophisticated chignon she usually wore, and her face bore only a hint of lipstick. She was dressed in a fashionable sundress and wore her trademark heels, though. Best of all, her skin had a sun-kissed, spicy glow to it, especially where the v-neck of her dress showed off the generous swell of her breasts.

As soon as he realized he was staring at her cleavage, he also realized they were standing there in silence.

“You gonna invite me in?” Sandy teased. “I promise you won’t regret it.”

He definitely wouldn’t. Although his head, his heart, and his dick all reached that conclusion for different reasons. He grinned and rolled his eyes at himself, then stepped back and extended an arm to invite her into his apartment.

“I haven’t been up here in months,” she said as she entered. She drew in a deep breath. “God, I love the way this place smells.”

“Would that be the perfume of cooking oil and coriander from my misguided attempts to cook like my mom used to?”

“Yes,” she answered without a hint of sarcasm. “You’re a better cook than you think,” she told him, pivoting to face him.

Jogi shut the door and moved slowly to join her. “Is that why you’re here in the middle of a Sunday afternoon? To tempt me to cook for you?”

He was trying to keep the mood light, but her face pinched with discomfort. Great. Things were going downhill already.

“Jogi, I came to apologize,” she said.

And just like that, maybe they weren’t. He shrugged. “Apologize for what?” If it was for the way she broke down at the hospital, he would have to lecture her on how it was okay to need a shoulder to cry on in a crisis.

Instead, she answered, “For a lot of things.”

The wry glance she sent him through her deliciously curled eyelashes filled him with curiosity. “Like what?”

She bit her lip, sighed, and walked over to lean against the back of his sofa. Jogi watched her every move, then rushed to the sofa himself to turn off the video game so that he wouldn’t be distracted.

“I messed things up between us,” she said. “You have no idea how much I regret that.”

Jogi’s heart sped up. She had tried to apologize to him for something right before she got the phone call about her dad. Was this a continuation of the same apology? It would have been smooth if he could think of just the right thing to say to make her feel more at ease getting whatever it was off her chest, but once again, he was tongue-tied.

Sandy seemed to sense that, and it clearly made her nervous. She fiddled with the trim along the top of his sofa with one hand, eyes glued to her fiddling. “I like being in charge,” she said. “It’s why I became a lawyer. I like debating. I like winning.” She glanced up and met his eyes with a wavering smirk. “I’m sure you figured that out about me.”

“Uh, yeah.” He crossed his arms, wondering where things were going.

She chewed her lip again and lowered her eyes. “It’s hard for me to figure out when to be Sandy the lawyer and when to, well, stop.”

“Understandable.” Although what wasn’t as understandable was why listening to Sandy confess her shortcomings was pushing all the right buttons in him. Instinct told him to take her in his arms, though whether to comfort her, kiss her, or dance with her remained to be seen.

She shook herself and stood. “I don’t know what I was thinking after the orienteering event. I knew I wanted you, but I thought it was only physical. Maybe I thought I could enjoy myself for a while and then we’d both move on without getting attached.” Her gaze faltered, but she forced herself to keep looking at him. “I didn’t count on you being such a wonderful guy.”

He shifted his stance, let his arms drop. “Thanks.” It was the only thing he could think to say, but it hardly seemed adequate.

“And that’s why I felt so strongly about entering your photo in the competition.”

He tensed. The last thing he wanted was to go there again. But the vulnerability in her expression kept him listening, whereas before he would have shut down.

“I love that picture,” she confessed in a soft voice. “And not just because you took it. In that picture, I look so…relaxed. So free. I never saw myself that way, but you did. And I…I wanted the world to see it.”

A rush of emotion, of finally understanding something that had kept him tied in knots for so long, brought a half-smile to Jogi’s face. “You could have told me sooner. You could have said a lot of things sooner.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t.” Jogi raised his brow. “I know it’s hard for someone as open as you to understand, but for lawyer Sandy to admit to something so vulnerable, even to tell all my friends that we were together, would have threatened everything that I’ve worked so hard to project.”

She was right. He didn’t understand. “Why?” he asked with a shrug. “Why does it matter what anyone else thinks?”

“Because I assumed things would end at some point.” She looked away. “And I knew that if I was quick to tell everyone we were together, they would all assume it was my fault when it inevitably fell apart. People would blame me for being callous. They’d all get on my case for treating a great guy like a toy.” She glanced back to him, looking completely miserable. “Which I did.”

His mouth dropped open, but he still didn’t know what to say. He shut his mouth and shook his head. “So you broke up with me because you liked me too much and thought we would break up anyhow?”

“Technically, you broke up with me,” she reminded him. Her cheeks flushed rose. “But maybe I sabotaged things because…because I was scared. I’m sorry. You deserve better.”

“Better treatment, maybe, but not a better person.”

She burst into a smile that involved blinking fast enough to make him wonder if she was trying not to cry. “See what I mean? You’re a great guy, Jogi.”

His lips twitched and he crossed his arms again. “Is there a ‘but’ coming?”

“No.” She shrugged and took a step closer to him. “No but. I just wanted to say what I should have said a long time ago. That and I’m glad we got paired together for the dance competition.” She paused. “We are going to win, you know.”

“Of course, we are.” Jogi smiled.

“And I’m grateful that you were there to help with things in the hospital the other day,” she went on. “That meant a lot to me.”

“Hey, any time.” He shrugged.

“And since I don’t have a whole lot of ways I can make it up to you at this point, since I burned a lot of bridges, I wanted to offer to reach out to that guy who plagiarized your picture. As a lawyer. Pro bono. But only if you want me to.” She held up her hands to prove her point.

“Thanks. I could probably use that, since the jerk hasn’t replied to any of my emails.” It would take a load off his mind to know that he had a trained professional in his corner.

And yet, even with that load lifting, he still felt as though the air crackled with unresolved tension.

That was made even worse when Sandy nodded and said, “Okay. That’s what I came over to say.” She hesitated, almost as if she were waiting for him to initiate a turn in a dance, then started for the door.

“Okay,” Jogi said. He followed her across the room, then jumped ahead to hold the door for her. “Thanks for being so honest with me. It’s never easy to look back at things.”

“In this case, I really wanted to.” She reached the open doorway and turned to face him. “Thanks for making it so easy.”

“Any time.”

There was another silence. A voice inside of him screamed at him to do something. “See you at dance class tomorrow night?”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “I can’t wait to find out what our next dances will be.”

“Me either.”

Neither of them moved. Neither of them said anything.

“Well, bye.” Sandy broke the silence at last.

“Bye.” Jogi raised a hand in a lame wave.

Silence again.

Sandy inched forward, planting a short kiss on his lips.

She started to pull back.

Jogi reached for her, drawing her into his arms and closing his mouth over hers in a kiss that made the one they’d shared at the lake the other day look like child’s play. His hands spread across her back, and he pressed his hips into hers. Sandy made a sound as if she’d been waiting for that kiss her whole life and would have died if he’d waited another second. Her arms slipped around him as she brushed her tongue along his.

They took a stumbling step back into the apartment, and with a loud crash, Jogi kicked the door shut. His mouth continued to ravage hers as he gathered up her skirt in his hands. He wanted to feel the heat of her skin, to taste every inch of her. He wanted her breasts in his hands, his mouth. He wanted to sink himself inside of her and lose himself there.

She must have had the same idea. In an instant, her hands were under his t-shirt, pulling it up and off before they were halfway to the bedroom. They bumped into the doorframe as she raked her fingertips down across his chest, teasing his nipples. He managed to tug off her dress before they reached the bed. All the while, their mouths joined and parted, tasting whatever they could whenever they had a chance.

They broke apart as their legs hit the side of the bed, but only long enough to shed the rest of their clothes and shoes. Part of Jogi thought he was insane for letting the fire of what they knew was good between them carry him away, but a far bigger part of him knew that this was exactly what they should be doing. They were dance partners, after all, and sex was the oldest dance there was.

As soon as they were both naked, they melded back into each other in a kiss that chased rational thought far from Jogi’s mind. Even more mind-blowing, instead of stretching Sandy across his sheets like he’d planned, she pushed him to his back and climbed on top of him.

“You were good to me the other day,” she purred, dipping down to flick her tongue across one of his nipples. “Let me be good to you now.”

“Okay,” he said, the word turning into a groan as she kissed her way across his stomach and abdomen. “But first.”

He pulled himself farther up the bed, regretting that he moved away from her as he did. He had a feeling the whole thing was going to move fast, though, and he wanted to be ready. He rolled to open his bedside table and pulled out a whole strip of condoms.

“Is that a challenge?” Sandy asked, one brow raised.

The way she straddled his legs, her breasts heavy, her nipples large, her skin as smooth as chocolate, the smoothness between her legs where, once again, she’d shaved, tempting him was more than enough of a challenge as far as he was concerned. He throbbed with need to be tight inside of her.

“Consider it a goal,” he panted, and rolled fully to his back again.

She laughed low in her throat. “I do very well with goals.”

Those were the last words either of them were capable of. She leaned forward just enough to slide her hands across his chest, down his abdomen, and over his erection. He let out a ragged sigh as she took him in hand, gripping just enough for him to half lose his mind as she stroked him. The pleasure that radiated from her touch, pouring urgency through him, had him gripping handfuls of the quilt that covered his bed.

That was nothing to the sensations she roused in him when she shifted and brought her head down, taking him into her mouth. He groaned with the pleasure of it, barely able to catch a breath as she drew him in more and more. He’d always had mixed feelings about women swallowing him, but Sandy did it with such deliberateness, such obvious enjoyment in bringing him pleasure that he felt himself near the brink in no time.

“Stop, stop,” he panted, warning her of how close he was.

She let him go, drawing him out slowly with a flicker of her tongue across his head that nearly undid him right there. “So soon?” she teased.

“You undo me,” he replied, barely able to find the air for the words.

She must have liked that. A downright wicked grin spread across her face along with the pink heat of their lovemaking. She reached for the condoms, tore one open, and sheathed him. And then she slid up to spread her hips over him, guiding him to her entrance.

He surprised them both with a strangled cry as she bore down on him. The sensation of her taking him in and squeezing him had him breaking out in a sweat. But that was nothing to the hurricane of pleasure that hit him when she found her rhythm. She lifted just enough so that he could watch her—watch the slick sheen on her skin, watch her breasts shake, watch the look of abandon and ecstasy that came over her as she rode him.

She rode him hard. He gripped her hips and thrust with her, as turned on by the sight of her using him to pleasure herself as with the intense sensations lighting him on fire from his groin to his fingers and toes. When she slid one hand down her abdomen the smooth flesh of her mons to touch herself, he lost it. Orgasm crashed over him with a feverish intensity. He burst inside of her, then continued to burn as she slammed into her own orgasm. Her face contorted and she cried out as she took him in to the hilt. It was one of the hottest experiences of his entire life.

And like a storm passing, it was over. Every drop of energy drained from Jogi as Sandy collapsed on top of him. They lay together, sweating and panting, in stunned silence. The tell-tale signs of sleep closed swiftly over him, try as he did to fight it. He wanted to wrap Sandy in his arms and tell her how good they were together. He wanted to make sure she was happy and comfortable. Beyond that, he wanted to know where he stood.

But that could all wait. Because, in truth, as hot as things were between them in bed, they had a long way to go before those dynamics translated to the rest of what made a relationship work.