by A. J. Chase
Abruptly, Chandler put two fingers on her chin and pushed it up so that she was forced to look into the deep hazel pull of his eyes. "Don't think about anything but the music and the need."
As if she could think about anything in his arms aside from how much she wanted him. It would have been an impossibility. She was certain that she would forget the moves, stumble over herself, but he knew his own dance as well as she did, and it didn't take anything but instinct to fall into the familiar lead and follow pattern and momentarily he was right. She forgot everything else but him.
Every brush of his hot skin that the choreography called for moved a powerful surge of electricity through her body, like raw contact with a downed power line. Her mouth moved close enough that she could have kissed him with little effort. He dipped down to her throat, arched her back like Kyle had done a million times in the last week, buried his face in her cleavage just as the choreography called for, but Kyle had never let his tongue flicker just so slightly from his mouth and graze the inside curve of her breast. Instant heat assailed her, made her legs weak, and, had he not been there to support her, she might have collapsed.
Armand and Chandler had worked hard to ensure that the number was beautiful and artistic, but it was also blatantly sensuous. His hand curved where his breath had left goose bumps against her skin and his thumb grazed her nipple. It hardened immediately in response, and his hand stilled a moment too long before moving on with the moves. She could feel his rigid erection against her stomach as the dance progressed, but thankfully no one else could possibly know.
Their bodies were melded together, caressing, playing at the thing she had refused to even consider when it came to him. But her body was far past consideration at this point. She felt herself grow heavy and moist. She wanted him with a senseless desperation. The kind he had so casually described just minutes before. The music reached its crescendo, and he grabbed a fist full of her skirt, raking it over her butt with so much force his fingers dug into her skin, and pulled her up to meet him. Their mouths ended only a breath apart as the music crashed to a halt.
She heard someone speak as if from a hundred miles away. "Okay, yeah. That was better."
God, she couldn't think, couldn't stand by herself. Couldn't do anything but ache. For a moment she had to fight the almost uncontrollable urge to move that fraction and take his mouth. The need rolled over her like an errant wave, swamping her, drowning her. For a crazed, heated moment she considered pulling him down to the stage and tasting him, tearing those pants off him to see if the rest of his skin burned as hot as his chest. She was barely able to control the impulse. Tears of strain and frustration stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. She had lost her mind.
With incredible force of will, she pulled away from him and leaned against the wall. She crossed her arms across her chest and shut her eyes trying to recover from the exertion of resisting his incredible pull. She had to pull herself together. She could only hope that the others weren't looking too hard and could believe it was the physical demands of the number that had left her breathless.
He immediately left the stage swooping down to pick up his shirt. He pulled it over his head, the whipcord muscles in his back working as he slid it on. She heard someone next to her make a strangled noise of appreciation, and she thought it was Kelly. Yeah, she was right there with her.
"From the top." He called from the shadows he had melted into, a disembodied voice that sent a shiver up her spine.
She would have thought he had been unaffected by their contact if not for the seared in memory of him straining against her stomach. She suppressed another groan and walked to Kyle on shaky legs. She was so so screwed.
CHAPTER TEN
Though she could see some general improvement the number was worse for Fielding and Kyle than it had ever been. She was always just a fraction behind the music still having trouble standing on trembling legs. Her body was so sensitized it railed at the idea of Kyle, or anyone other than its basest desire, touching it. Every time Kyle touched her too intimately, she instinctively jerked away even while she was trying not to. That made things hard in the midst of a dance that was pretty much nothing but intimate touching.
When it was mercifully over she leaned back against the wall again, still needing the support. Chandler came back into the light and her stomach jumped at his sudden presence. She was so far gone now. So dangerously far gone. She pressed her hand to her mouth.
"That was better. Most of you." He looked hard from her to Kyle. "Miss French, you will see me in my office immediately. Mr. Merck you will see me in my office at ten until two. The rest of you are dismissed for lunch."
He disappeared into the labyrinth of rooms between the two stages without as much as a backward glance. She blew out the pent up air that she hadn't realized she'd been holding. No wonder she was so dizzy. There was a collective sigh of relief around her, and everyone began to talk at once.
"Don't feel bad you guys, he's just a jerk." As ever, it was Leslie who struggled to bring a little sunshine back into the room.
"It's okay." Fielding watched the door that he had slipped out of, afraid he was suddenly going to reappear before she had time to collect herself. "I'm not scared of Chandler." Then she realized with horror that she had used his name and so casually. She had gone stupid. "Bentley," she added quickly, giving the impression, she hoped, that she had meant all along to use his whole name.
Charlotte's sly look told her that she was probably not altogether successful. "Quite the teacher's pet, eh, Fielding?"
She felt a prickle of fear. She could not have people inferring a relationship between her and Chandler. Not now. "Whatever. Choosing me as a partner was a punishment not a privilege. Leslie's right, he's just a jerk." She had to force the words past her throat. Maybe she wasn't such a good actress after all.
"Well, he can punish me any time he wants," Charlotte returned, a calculating grin on her sensual lips.
Kelly looked over to the door he had exited. "He's very…oh, hell. I can't think of a nice word. That man is painfully hot. I mean, did you see him? That back…" Her voice trailed off, and she shivered slightly.
Fielding stared at her for a moment reconciling the feelings of jealousy that she ought not to have with the reality that women were going to think Chandler was sexy. What was more it was none of her business if they did.
Charlotte laughed deep in her throat. "Who knew he had a body like that under those clothes. But some of us suspected. Didn't we, Miss French?" She was sly again.
Fielding was still trying to come up with a decent response to that, aside from slight nausea that someone might be on to her heated fascination with Chandler, when Leslie shuddered. "Well, he scares me."
Charlotte's new smile was cat with a canary. "Well, maybe he should. I know something you guys don't, and if you're really good I'll tell you after lunch."
Fielding stared at her now feeling fully sick. She knew. She knew about Helena and maybe the others girls too. But what could she do to stop Charlotte? An appeal to her better nature didn't seem like it would be too helpful. She suspected that Charlotte only had one nature, and they were looking at it. It was not like it was a secret but it would bias the others. It wasn't fair to Chandler.
"Well, I agree with all of you chicas. He's smoldering hot and psycho scary." Kyle slid his shirt on and glanced at his Wicked Stepmother watch. "Well, I guess I'm off to have my last supper. God be with you, Fielding."
Leslie's little nose crinkled as she frowned at Fielding. "I can wait outside his door for you."
Fielding waved her off. "It's fine. All he's going to do is yell at us. I'll see you after lunch, okay."
She said goodbye to Leslie and then headed into the hallway. She considered heading right to the dressing room and changing out of that idiotic get up Chandler had provided them but decided not to bother. As uncomfortable as she was, in about forty-five minutes she'd be back in it.
She grabbed Bob's ab
andoned button-up shirt and slid it on like a robe. As the man was massive, it hung below her butt and made for pretty good coverage. She sighed and headed left for her dressing down.
Chandler cursed himself, and his utter idiocy, all the way back to his office. What had he been thinking? Bloody well nothing, obviously. In the most straightforward part of his brain his motivations had been simple. He'd wanted to scold her for interrupting the flow of the rehearsals, something he just couldn't stand.
Another part of his brain had simply seen the opportunity to hold her in his arms while there was no way he could slip, and he could not overlook that chance. Not when he'd been aching to touch her for two months. And there, at that moment when he'd been so painfully honest about the way that he wanted her, even if it was just in generic terms, there had been no way he was going to refuse his body the chance to just imagine what it would be like.
It had taken him the entire second run through for him to get his body under control and come back out where people could see him. Look at him, in his forties running around with an aching erection like some kind of randy schoolboy. He had been stupid to allow himself to touch her. Stupid and mad.
There was a soft knock at the door, and she poked her head around the corner. He felt her sweet mossy gaze from his buzzed brain straight down to his crotch. "Are you ready for me?" She asked in that soft, throaty voice. Was he ready for her? Good Lord, yes.
"Come in." She stepped into the room sporting a large green shirt over that impossible costume. What had he been thinking approving that costume? Armand had liked it, and at the time he simply hadn't cared. Now he was sorry he'd ever seen it, especially on her. What little there was of it. She leaned against the wall and pulled the shirt tightly around her, as though it would be some sort of shield between them. She looked wary and tired.
"I'm ready for my set down."
He sighed. "I'm not going to yell at you." In fact he was thinking hard about asking her to leave before he was unable to resist the urge to finish what the dance had started. And judging from how tight his groin was still feeling, he didn't think she had all that long to get out of this room. He felt strongly that he ought to tell her to run, but he couldn't force the words out of his mouth. She smelled like something spicy and rich, mingled with exertion from a morning of dancing. His mouth was so dry he couldn't even get it open.
Fielding was still dizzy from his earlier assault on her senses. She was cautious not to stand anywhere near him. In fact she needed to be far enough away from him that even if she couldn't resist and accidentally reached her fingers out, she would not brush skin. She couldn't stand it, not here where there was no audience to stop her from falling prey to her impulses. She wasn't that strong, not nearly that strong.
He seemed to snap out of his daze he'd fallen into and leaned against the front of his desk crossing his arms over his chest. The tightly coiled waves of tension that rolled off him belied his casual posture. "Whatever is the matter, Fielding? You are by far my most gifted dancer, and yet you are the absolute worst at this number. Why is this so hard for you?"
She was agitated, unable to say that Kyle repelled her, the outfit freaked her out, and the moves felt too foreign. What if he changed partners, the outfits, and it turned out it wasn't those things at all? "I guess I'm just not able to sustain that level of sensuality."
He was off his desk in a shot, ruining her careful positioning by crossing into her space. She tried fisting her hands again, the nails cutting half moons into her skin. She backed against the wall, unable to get any farther away.
"That is simply not the truth. I felt it all through the number. If you could produce sensuality with me, why can you not reproduce it with Mr. Merck?"
She had to say something so that she could get out of this room before she made a terrible mistake. The air felt thick with her tension. God, she wanted him. She had to get out. She cried out the first thing that came to her mind—the truth. "I'm not attracted to Kyle."
At once, she knew she had made a tactical error. She could see in his eyes that he had immediately made a connection to the flip side of the comment. She was not attracted to Kyle, but she was burning for him.
His eyes darkened, and he stilled, almost unnaturally, every muscle in his body rigid. His voice was tight. "You are far too young."
His tense band abruptly broke, and his mouth was on hers before she had even realized that he was moving.
She immediately melted into him, too relieved to be touching him to think any harder about the bigger picture. There was no way she was walking away from him now. His mouth tasted incredible, and his body felt so insanely good against hers. She was momentarily faint from the release of her painful fight to resist her attraction to him. She wanted to crawl into him, heady with the chance to give in to her most profound weakness—this man with his mouth on hers.
His kiss was like the man himself. Intense, hot, rigidly controlled. His tongue plunged into her mouth, no polite hedging for him. She writhed against him, desperate to get more, to go deeper. He tasted like the insanity that she felt every time she was in his presence. Her hands clutched at his shirt. She sucked his bottom lip into her mouth and bit.
Another layer of his control seemed to crack. He slammed her against the wall with his body and delved deeper into her mouth, consuming her with his firm lips, his burning tongue. His hand moved across her thighs and curved over her butt, pulling her up hard to meet him, his fingers biting into her skin. She went willingly. Anything to get closer, to touch more.
"I have wanted you." His words were rough in her ear before his tongue dipped into the curve. She shuddered.
He was mad, completely bloody mad. He wanted to stop, had to. But her mouth was so hot and clinging under his. He never should have kissed her. Never should have started at all, but she…no! There was simply no excuse. So she was almost unnaturally sexy, and her mouth tasted like heat and sin and every fantasy he'd ever had. That was his problem not hers. She had not come in here asking to be violated.
But she didn't act violated. She acted like she was asking, begging, for more. Her hips reached up for his, and her movements mirrored his, eager and desperate. Chandler could feel every inch of her through her absurd excuse for a costume. He anchored his hands against the wall, resting his head against her forehead. He had to get some kind of control over himself. He had to. It was imperative, a matter of life and death, that he walk away from her this moment.
He opened his eyes to see her green ones staring back at him questioningly. Her lips were swollen and ripe, and his three-day beard had left his mark on her. He moved against her again because he couldn't help himself. Control. He was always in control. Just because it had snapped for a moment didn't mean it was gone forever. He kissed her again, just the barest touch telling himself it was the last time. Her tiny pink tongue darted out and traced the inside of his lips. Whatever grip he had been gaining slipped away, and he plunged into her mouth again.
Fielding's brain and body short circuited by the riot of sensations that barraged her. She had felt him pulling away from her, getting a hold on himself, and as much as it pained her she'd known it was for the best. Her detachment and even so much as the rumor of objectivity were gone, burned to ashes. But she still had a job to do. She could not bear the thought of letting him go without another taste, just a little one. But a little one was all it took. His hold must have been more tentative than she had expected, because he surged forward, drank her mouth, his long, elegant fingers touching over-sensitized skin.
She had to touch too. She felt like she would melt—die—if she couldn't feel his skin. She splayed her hands over his taut stomach, and the muscles there bunched even tighter. His wild intake of breath told her that she had not been one-sided in her obsession.
"Good lord, yes," he said, shuddering, his voice raw and harsh against her neck.
She had to get out of these clothes. Had to get more skin against skin before she incinerated, lost all sen
se of reality. There was a sudden harsh pounding, and it took several moments for the sound to have any meaning to her passion-fogged brain. Someone was beating on the door.
Her face flamed as he pulled away from her like a shot, almost losing his balance in the process. They had gone way beyond appropriate producer/dancer etiquette. Way beyond anything that she knew how to comprehend. And all the while the door had just sat there, unlocked. She could only thank a higher power that whoever was on the other end wasn't the kind to just barge in.
"Just a moment." His cry was hoarse, and he was as agitated as she had ever seen him. His ran his hand through his savagely disheveled hair and picked up Bob's shirt. He threw it at her and she barely caught it with wildly shaking fingers. He looked feral, dangerous. There were dark slashes of angry color against his cheekbones and his breath, like hers, was still labored. He shook his head and met her eyes warily. "That was stupid, Fielding. Mad and stupid."
He opened the door and stared at the person who had brought sudden reason back in to her little fantasy. She didn't know whether to be grateful or bitterly angry. She was a little of both. She heard Daphne's sweet, breathless voice. "Mr. Bentley, there's a fire on the catwalk. You'd better go, right away."
Cursing, Chandler pushed his way past Daphne and disappeared into the hall. Fire. She had to get out of the building. But right now she had to sit down before she collapsed. Trembling she slid on Bob's shirt and fell into Chandler's chair. It smelled like Chandler, and as the scent surrounded her she felt suddenly like sobbing. What were the words he had used? Mad and stupid. They certainly were that. She had just awakened the Devil in a major way and now, just as Mac had warned, she was trapped in Hell.