by Stone, Holly
DANCE FOR ME
3
FROM THE DANCE FOR ME
EROTIC ROMANCE SHORT STORY SERIES
BY
HOLLY STONE
Dance For Me (3) Copyright © 2015 Holly Stone
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United Kingdom. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
“Why aren’t you dancing?” Mark faced the chair next to me towards the dance floor and plonked himself down.
“I don’t dance,” I said, shaking my head to underline the point.
“Everybody dances.” He slipped down in his seat as if he was settling in for a while; long legs stretch out in front, hands resting on his thighs. “I mean look at that guy.” I followed the line of his gaze to where my cousin Alfred was gyrating, tummy bobbing in time to the cheesy tune that seemed to be a firm favourite with wedding DJ’s the world over, and laughed.
“Exactly,” I said firmly. “Alfred is a perfect example of why not everyone should be seen moving their bodies to music.”
Mark snorted and shook his head, turning to look at me. “Now, I agree that some people are better at dancing than others, but everyone should do it. It’s like a human rule or something.”
“A human rule?”
“Yeah, you know. Things that just are…like respecting personal space, not farting in an enclosed area, that kind of thing.”
“Those sound like basic social skills Mark.”
“Well,” he said shrugging, “maybe they were bad examples. You wouldn’t say people shouldn’t sing if they didn’t have nice voices.”
“Yes I would!”
“What, even in the shower?”
“The shower’s fine but not in public.”
“Ah, so you do dance but just in the privacy of your own home?” I smiled at his triumphant tone thinking he seemed like a good guy. I’d only met him a couple of nights before at the resort where my sister was getting married. He was the best man; childhood friend of Dan her fiancé and he’d flown in from Hong Kong for the privilege.
“I’m saying nothing.” I tried to keep a straight face and when I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye I could see him smiling.
“So anyway,” Mark said, swivelling around to look at me more closely. “Who told you that you can’t dance?”
“Who says someone told me?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Whoever told you that is an arsehole, and everyone knows you shouldn’t listen to their shit.”
I couldn’t hold his intense gaze because I knew he would see the truth in mine; that he was right, someone had told me and I couldn’t forget it. He was also right that the man who’d said it was an arsehole. Trouble is, when you’ve been in love with someone and they have managed to crawl inside your heart, it’s inevitable that they worm themselves into your head too.
“So it was a nice wedding wasn’t it?” I said, glancing over at where my sister was snuggled up against her husband, holding the hem of her simple white dress so she didn’t trip. Andrea looked so peaceful which was something I’d thought I wouldn’t see again after her first husband had died. She was an amazing person, a true survivor and so unbelievably strong. Seeing her happy-ever-after should have filled me with hope but I’d had too much of it knocked out of me.
“It was a lovely wedding. They’re two amazing people who deserve something good. I couldn’t be more chuffed for Dan.”
“I know,” I sighed, hearing the wistfulness in my voice shining through like a beacon and cringing.
“So,” Mark said, loosening his tie and rolling up his sleeves. “Back to the dancing conversation. I have a plan.” There was a twinkle in his chocolate brown eyes that made my skin feel warm and I couldn’t help but notice his strong tanned forearms and broad shoulders. He looked like he’d played rugby in his youth, maybe still did in his spare time.
“Mmm, I don’t think I like the sound of that.”
“Come on. It involves alcohol, lots of it, and a long discussion about our favourite songs from our youth. And when we’ve settled on a suitable anthem, there’s the opportunity to stagger across the dance floor to that bowtie wearing freak over there to see if he has our song of choice in his CD box of delights!”
I opened my mouth to state my objections but he interrupted. “Uh uh uh, I haven’t finished Ailee. The deal is, if he has it in his collection we have to dance to it. If he doesn’t, we’ll come back here and watch all the fun. How about that? Deal?” Mark wiggled his eyebrows up and down with a huge grin plastered on his face and I burst out laughing.
“I’m taking that laugh as an agreement to my proposition but just to make sure…” He stuck out his hand to shake on it and I hesitated, wanting to do all the fun stuff with him but not the dancing. “Come on Ailee…time’s a wasting!” I held out my hand with so much reluctance he burst out laughing, then grabbed hold of it between both of his and shook vigorously. “Right…drinks!”
Mark stood up and turned to scan the table, taking in the carnage of empty wine and beer bottles, then grabbed my hand again and pulled me out of my seat. “We need the bar,” he stated, tugging me across the dancefloor, narrowly missing cousin Alfred’s flailing arm. “That man should come with a health warning,” he whispered in my ear as we passed through the reception room doors into the external bar area. It was quieter and brighter out there and I wondered what I looked like after seven hours of maid of honour duties. My hair was probably a complete frizz as the air was humid and I knew my forehead would be shiny. I cursed the gods for my high maintenance appearance. Tottering on my heels as Mark came to an abrupt halt, I rested my arms on the bar and looked up at him. He was at least a foot taller than me, ridiculous really. If I hadn’t been wearing my highest heels I might have looked like a twelve year old kid from behind.
“So many choices,” he said, grabbing the cocktail menu from where it had been resting in a pool of unidentifiable liquid and shaking it off. “Let me see…what kind of cocktail do I think you are…” He ran his finger over the drink options as he considered them, shaking his head as he discounted the ones he deemed unsuitable. “Mmmm…Sex on the beach?” He looked down at me from the corner of his eye. “No, I don’t think so. Too messy.” I snorted out a shocked laugh. “Screaming Orgasm?” Mark’s raised eyebrow was positively hysterical to witness. “Nah, too reserved.” I put my hands on my hips and huffed but he wasn’t fazed, switching his attention back to the menu. “Ah…I’ve got it!” I stood on my tiptoes, trying to see where his finger had landed but he turned his back on me, like a kid trying to hide his school work, and snapped the menu closed. “I’m gonna have one of these too,” he said, waving the barman over.
Looking positively bored, the hotel employee dragged himself to where we were standing and mumbled something that I assumed was ‘what would you like’. Mark grinned at me and then said in a very loud voice, “We would both like a Long Sloe Screw Against a Wall.” I looked at him aghast then snorted out the grossest sounding laugh when the barman said in the campest voice I had ever heard, “Wouldn’t we all.”
When the barman turned to the back of the bar to begin our cocktails, Mark doubled over, attempting to giggle silently but failing abysmally. “Oh my God,” I mouthed at him, shaking my head in general disbelief at what I was letting myself
in for.
Mark slumped down on a bar stool and pulled me towards him by the wrists. “So, Ailee. We have the drinks, now we need the music.”
“It’s gonna take more than one cocktail.”
His eyes flashed bright. “One slow screw not enough?” he said in a voice like pure sex. My cheeks reacted like furnaces and I died a little inside. “Hey,” he said, seeing my obvious mortification. “I’m just kidding around.” Mark gently squeezed my wrists and I looked down with a golf ball sized lump in my throat. “It’s got to be a Madonna track,” he announced. “Vogue!”
“Oh for goodness sake,” I said, with all the exaggerated exasperation I could muster.
“What! She was the Goddess of the 80s.”
She might have been but that doesn’t mean I want to Vogue at my sister’s wedding!”
“Okay, you may have a point.” Mark looked to the sky seeking inspiration. “Wham, Wake me up before you go go?”
“Ugh. Too cheesy.”
“Billy Ocean, Caribbean Queen?”
“Ooo…I like that one,” I said enthusiastically and Mark looked euphoric. “But no. Too groovy.”
“You’re a hard woman to please!” he said with a fake grumpy face, and I had the urge to smooth out his frown, to turn it upside-down.
“How about Duran Duran, Rio?”
“I like it,” he said after a few seconds, voice trailing and uncertain.
“What?” I asked, suddenly feeling like my suggestion was a terrible one. I wanted to paper over it so he wouldn’t see. “You suggest something else then.” Mark was still holding my wrists which should have felt weird but was actually really comforting. His thumbs rested across the vulnerable inside skin, and he was looking down at my palms, then his eyes flicked up to mine and I realised he was feeling my pulse and he knew my heart was beating faster. He felt my embarrassment in his hands.
I pulled away just as the barman turned around holding two ridiculous looking cocktails. “Wow,” I said, as he slid mine across the bar towards me, and I took a long pull at the straw, needing the relaxing effects of some more alcohol just to calm my ridiculous social nerves. “Mmm, delicious.”
Mark was quiet and I didn’t like it. He sipped at the drink a few times, passing his key card so the cost of our order would be added to his room charge.
“I think,” he said, turning to me with serious eyes, “That your idea is perfect and very clever. You want to know why?”
“I do.”
“I think you chose it because you think that the DJ won’t have it.”
I felt my heart sink in my chest. Mark thought I was a coward and that I was trying to play his game and sneak out of it at the same time.
“That’s not why I chose it,” I said quietly.
Mark didn’t say anything, just looked at me until I needed to fill the silence. He was a rock of a man but he wasn’t arrogant or boorish at all. It was as though he had radar for my angst.
“It was playing on the radio when I left my ex-boyfriend. It…it made me smile, when he sings that bit about Rio dancing on the sand. I did that when I was younger, when I was on holiday with Andrea. We went down to the beach with some of the locals our age and they had an old ghetto blaster. We were so drunk and happy. It was like a sign, that I was doing the right thing…walking away. That I might be able to get myself back.”
There seemed to be minutes of silent space between us but it was probably only seconds, then Mark reached around my shoulders and side-hugged me, tucking my head against his chest.
“Drink up,” he said, “I’ve got an idea that’ll blow this game out of the water.”
***
The sand was slightly cold under my feet where the heat left by the afternoon sun had cooled under the moon. Mark held my hand, leading me across the wide expanse of beach until we were further from the hotel and closer to the sea. It was a perfect balmy evening and I was so grateful to be away from that stupid dancefloor. He stopped and dropped my shoes to the ground, then pulled out his phone and started fiddling around with it.
“What are you doing?” I asked, still puzzled by his sudden change of heart and the idea he was so confident about.
“I’m looking for something. Have some patience woman,” he said huffily.
In the moonlight he was gorgeously ruffled and so tall I had to crane my neck to see the top of him. He looked at me with a triumphant grin.
Then I heard the music.
The song started with a ridiculous scraping sound, and then moved into a frantic synthesiser intro before Simon Le Bon belted out the first lines of Rio. Mark rested the phone down in one of my shoes and pulled me against him. I was so shocked I must have felt like a plank of wood in his arms, but then as he swayed us slowly back and forth I started to melt. I didn’t want to be the uptight person I seemed to keep morphing into. A flash of memory spun itself into my consciousness; Andrea’s hair fanning out behind her and my arms in the air as we danced our hearts out all those years ago.
I was buried against Mark’s chest, swamped by the size of him but I felt bigger than I had in so long. The alcohol was warm in my stomach, licking inside me to soften my hard edges. It was so much fun dancing with him that I smiled against his white shirt, nuzzling against his solidness. Then he grabbed one of my hands and spun me out like a professional. I was like a puppet in his control, twirling with my hair coming loose, the skirt of my silk tea dress flaring like a lily’s trumpet. He didn’t have perfect rhythm and being so big he was a bit heavy on this feet but he smiled like he didn’t have a care in the world, watching me do the very thing I had imagined the day I left Todd. A cool breeze drifted across the beach, picking up loose tendrils of my hair until they whipped over my face and I loved it. I loved it all.
Then he let go of my hand.
There was a moment, just a second, where I wanted to stop. I heard Todd’s voice in my head telling me I couldn’t do it, that I had two left feet and would embarrass myself. Then I saw Mark with his head tipped to the sky, dancing euphorically and I wanted that too.
I let myself go, raising my hands up like I used to, spinning with sand between my toes, swaying my hips, and started to sing along.
I heard Mark’s voice join mine, perfectly out of tune and it was amazing. When the song came to an end I looked over at him grinning at me and burst out laughing.
“You’re something else, Ailee,” he said with pride in his voice and I felt fit to burst.
“You’re something else too,” I said, taking his hand in mine and squeezing it. There was a flash of something in his eyes, a dark look of longing that I felt reflected in my heart. He tugged me into a bear hug, and I couldn’t understand how I could feel so utterly contented in the arms of a practical stranger. Even his smell was just right.
He bent to press a kiss to the top of my head. “You remember something Ailee. People might tell you things in your life but you chose to believe them. You chose to let them modify how you live your life. Anyone you meet who wants to change you is not someone you should be wasting time on, okay. You’re perfect just being you. Remember that, okay.”
I squeezed him tightly, wanting to convey how much it meant to me that he was with me at that moment because I couldn’t make the words come out of my mouth.
He tipped my face to look up at his. “You decide how you want to live your life and the people you spend your time with. You choose, okay.”
“Okay.”
He turned, looking back towards the hotel where two of the most important people in our lives were becoming a unit, and I knew he was going to suggest that we should go back but I didn’t want to. It was already so late, and anyway, I was confident Andrea wouldn’t mind. She was happiest when the people she loved were happy.
“I don’t want to go back yet,” I said quietly.
Mark didn’t say anything but looked down at me with serious eyes. “What do you want to do then Ailee?”
“Stay here, just us.”
He nodd
ed and I went to pull back. “And do what?”
I blushed, thinking about what it would feel like to kiss him, to let him touch me in ways no one had since Todd. He was so much bigger that I couldn’t help imagining how far I would have to open my legs to wrap them around him. Mark waited for me to answer but I couldn’t form the words.
“You remember what I told you, Ailee, about deciding. If you want something in life, you’ve got to learn to ask for it. No more hanging back, letting other people be in control.”
I want to…” I trailed off with so much heat in my cheeks it was a wonder I hadn’t fainted.
“Tell me what you want,” he said in the lowest sexiest voice I had ever heard, “Because I think I might give you anything.”
“I want…you to kiss me,” I said, looking down so I wouldn’t have to see his reaction but his fingers lifted my chin, holding my face so he could press his lips against mine. Our first kiss was so sweet, a simple and soft hello, and the way he held me gently, his big hands resting on my upper arms, had me melting. Mark moved against me so softly that when he pulled away I leaned forward, following his mouth as it retreated.
“What?” I said, not understanding why he had stopped in the middle of something so amazing.
“What else Ailee?”
“What do you mean what else? Why did you stop?”
“What else do you want? I need you to tell me so that I know you’re sure of everything. I want you to feel in control of what happens next. You get to choose, baby, just you.” He stroked his palm over my hair, pushing back the wispy bits that were tickling my cheeks but I couldn’t look at him. I felt too raw, too seen and it was good and terrifying all in one big bundle.
How can a person go from being steered in life to taking the wheel? Todd had been emotionally manipulative, subtle in his cruelty, pick, pick, picking away until I looked down at myself and saw nothing but holes. It had been four months since I walked away but the holes were still there, wind blowing through and taking my courage with it. It seemed that Mark saw the holes too and that was mortifying to me. That he wanted to help me fill them in with myself again was too glorious to comprehend. Dan had said his best man was the truest friend anyone could ever have and I thought he was waxing lyrical. Now I saw exactly what my brother-in-law was talking about.