The Daddy Dance

by Mindy Klasky

  But all those sensations were her job. They were as routine, as mundane, as utterly bloodless as sitting down at a computer, typing an email, ordering supplies over the telephone.

  This was something different. This was something more.

  Rye felt the hitch in Kat’s breath, and a lazy smile spread across his lips. He’d watched her through the evening; he knew how quickly she had sobered as she ate dinner. He had no qualms about kissing her now. Kissing. Or more.

  “You know,” he whispered, purposely keeping his voice so low that she had to pull closer to hear him, “we left Andy’s too early tonight. We never got a chance to dance.”

  Her laughter was as soft as her silken hair. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly in dancing shape.” She waved a hand toward her walking boot.

  “I wasn’t thinking of anything too strenuous. Not your pliés or arabesques or that sort of thing.”

  “Mmm,” she whispered. “You’ve been doing your homework.”

  “All part of renovating the studio. I have to know how the space is going to be used, don’t I?” That was a lie, though. He had whiled away hours in Richmond, thinking about Kat, thinking about what she did for a living. He had gone online, looking for pictures of her, and he’d picked up a bit about dance along the way.

  He should have been working, of course, instead of spending his time online. Should have been focusing on Harmon Contracting. But all work and no play… He’d almost succeeded in convincing himself that his…research was good for business. That there was nothing personal in it. Nothing at all.

  “Ready to sign up for a class?” she asked, obviously amused.

  “I don’t think either of us needs any training.” He pulled her close, relishing her surprised gasp even as she yielded to his pressure. She felt marvelous in his arms, pliant but hard, melting into him even as she maintained her dancer’s balance. He leaned down and found her mouth, sinking into her sweet silken heat.

  Deepening the kiss, teasing her with his tongue, he raised his hand to the marble column of her throat. He could feel her pulse flutter beneath his thumb, a butterfly dancing against his flesh. His fingers wrapped around her nape, urging her closer, then skimming down the length of her spine, molding her fine-boned body to his.

  He shifted his weight to match the angle of her hips, signaling his intention by an almost imperceptible tightening of his fingers against her waist. She followed his lead flawlessly, as if this were one of her fancy ballets, as if they’d practiced these moves hour after hour, night after night.

  With choreography far more intimate than any Texas Two-Step, he guided her toward the couch. He half expected her to hesitate, to freeze, to refuse to follow his lead. But she sank down before he did, raising her arms above her head like some sort of exotic goddess, summoning him, asking him to join her.

  Not that he required much urging.

  Kat caught her breath as she lay back on the pillows of the overstuffed couch. Rye looked huge in the dim light from the foyer—sturdy and confident and present in a way that made her heart race. Sure, she had kissed other men. She had even fooled around on a couch or two. And practically lived with a jerk. But she had never felt this inner drive, this absolute certainty that she was doing the thing that she was meant to do, that she was with the man she was meant to be with.

  For a fleeting moment, she thought of her mantra—goals, strategies, rules. There weren’t any rules for the sort of passion she felt now. There wasn’t any wrong or right. There was just being. Being in her own physical body. Being with Rye.

  She needed to feel him, needed to know the weight of him against her.

  She twined her hands around his forearm, tracing the ropes of hard muscle, the scatter of chestnut hair. She tugged with a decisiveness that left no doubt of her intentions. “Rye,” she said. “Please…”

  She didn’t have to ask a second time. He sank beside her, pulling her onto his lap as he sprawled against the back of the couch. She felt the rigid length of him against her thigh, the absolute confirmation that she wasn’t imagining his interest, wasn’t fooling herself about his need for her. Knowingly, she traced her fingernail along the denim ridge, barely restraining a grin as he groaned.

  But there was more for her to explore, more of his body to know. Even as she yielded to another of his soul-rocking kisses, her fingers found the buttons of his shirt. Summoning all of her concentration, all of her determination, she undid one, and then another, and another. She tugged the tails of his shirt from his waistband and then did away with the garment altogether, tossing it onto the floor with reckless abandon.

  All the while, he was doing incredible things to her neck, laving the tender spot beneath her earlobe, tangling his fingers in her hair. A crimson glow ignited in her belly as he stripped away the scarf around her hips. When he trailed the silk across her throat, drifting it over her ruby charm, the throbbing heat that rose inside her nearly made her lose her concentration, almost forced her to yield to his ministrations, to fall back against the soft couch and let him do whatever he wanted to her.

  Almost.

  Instead, she remembered that groan that she had incited as she traced the outline of his need. She wanted to draw that sound from him again. Relying on her taut dancer’s muscles, she pulled herself upright on his lap. She placed her hands on his shoulders, straddling his waist so that she knelt above him. For one instant, she lost her balance, pulled askew by the unaccustomed weight of her walking boot, but his hands settled beneath her rib cage, holding her, steadying her.

  Before she could continue with the exploration she was determined to complete, he stripped his hands up her body, skimming off the clinging black of her top. She gasped at the sensation of cool air bathing her skin, but she was immediately warmed by the satisfaction in his gaze. While one hand spread against the small of her back, giving her the support she needed, the other flirted with the lace edge of her bra, delivering the attention she craved.

  His thumb brushed against one nipple, then the other, and the sensitive buds tightened so fast that she cried out. He repeated the motion, adding a caress to the smooth plane of her belly. The red-hot fire inside her turned incandescent. She arched her back, begging him for more attention, and he lost no time complying. One hand sprang the hook on her bra, the other bared her white and willing flesh. His mouth was hot against the underside of her breasts; his tongue traced arcane patterns that left her writhing. When his lips closed over one solid pearl, she thought that she would scream. When his teeth snagged the other, she did.

  Panting, eager, she forced herself to concentrate, to return to her original plan. With ragged breath, she pushed against his shoulders, making his head loll back against the couch. She left a trail of kisses along the line of his jaw, featherlight and barely hinting at all that she could do to him, for him. Her lips tingling from his rough stubble, she traced the line that had been bruised the week before, the now-invisible ache that she had given him when she had driven his pickup off the road.

  She followed the logical line of that diagonal, adding her tongue to the attention of her lips. She found the dark trail of hair that marched down his tight abs, and she traced its promise, first with her lips, then with all the soft heat of her mouth, ending with the knife-edged promise of a single fingernail.

  “Kat,” Rye groaned when the pressure became more than he could bear. He had to feel more of her, had to find the liquid heat that spoke to his arousal. He let his palms course over her sides, felt her eager body rise to meet his. He made short work of ripping open the walking boot’s straps. She sighed as he eased her foot free of the device, as he tossed the contraption to the floor. His fingers found the hidden side zipper of her crazy New York pants, and he caught his breath at the unexpected gift of lace that he revealed.

  She scrambled for his waist, for the f
amiliar bronze button of his jeans, but he caught her wrists, holding them still, bringing the fluttering birds of her fingers to rest beside her hips. There was time enough for his pleasure, time enough to find the complete release that she promised him.

  He walked his fingers along the delicate top of her panties, measuring the taut tremble of her belly. She followed his silent command, raising her hips to meet him, to beg him, to invite him to share in the glory that she promised. With the lightest of touches, he traced the hollow behind her right knee, the sensitive cave carved by her tendons. She bucked against the sensation, and he caught a laugh in the back of his throat.

  Kat moaned his name, reaching up to pull him down on top of her. She needed to feel his weight against her, needed him to anchor her. Something about the gesture, though, brought full realization crashing down upon her. She’d had no intention of bringing a man back to Rachel’s home. She’d had no plan to make love that night.

  She had no protection.

  “Rye,” she whispered, hating every word she had to say. “I don’t have…anything. We can’t…”

  “Hush,” he said, and the fingers that he traced along her inner thigh nearly sent her over some crazed edge. “We won’t.”

  Before she could flounder in the sea of disappointment that his words released upon her, his fingers went back to the lace edge of her panties, to the damp panel of silk beneath. “Rye —” she protested.

  “Hush,” he whispered again, but now he breathed the word against the most secret part of her, turning it into a promise. She closed her eyes as his fingers slipped beneath the lace; she caught her breath as his thumb found the pearl between her legs. One gentle flick, two and she was writhing for release.

  He laughed again, ripping away the last of the lacy barrier. She felt his stubble against her thighs, gently raking one leg and then the other. Forgetting her dancer’s control, she tilted her hips, longing for the ultimate pleasure that she knew he was prepared to give her.

  A single velvet stroke of his tongue. Another. One last, savoring caress, and then she was crashing over a precipice, clutching at his hair, tumbling down an endless slope of clenching, throbbing pleasure.

  Rye watched the storm pass over her body, the beautiful twist of her lips as she breathed his name, over and over and over again. When it was past, when he knew that she was drifting on a formless, shapeless sea of comfort, he eased himself up her body. She was utterly relaxed as he pulled her languid form to lie on top of him. Her hair spread across his chest, and the warmth of her flushed cheek soothed his own pounding heart.

  “Mmm,” she murmured, and her fingers drifted down his torso.

  “Rest,” he said, smoothing one hand down the plane of her back, while the other cupped the curve of her neck.

  “I want…” she whispered, but she drifted into silence before she finished the sentence.

  He eased himself to a more comfortable position, telling himself that his body’s demands would quiet in a few minutes, that the ache below his belt would ease. He underestimated, though, the force of the woman whom he cradled. He had not considered the power of her honey-apricot scent, teasing him with every breath he drew. He had not taken into account her soft pressure against his chest, his thighs, his entire excruciatingly primed body.

  But he managed to take comfort in Kat’s utter peacefulness as her breathing slowed. He waited, and he watched, and he held her until she slipped into the deepest of sleeps.

  Only then did he look around the living room, seeing the home that Rachel had let fall into disrepair. He could fix things up in short order. Rip out the awful carpet, put down a new floor. Replace the fogged storm windows with something that would insulate the house better. Renovate the entire kitchen, with its creaky old appliances.

  It wouldn’t take long. A couple of weeks. A month. He could stay in Eden Falls while he worked, keep an eye on every step of the process.

  No.

  He wasn’t going to stay in Eden Falls. He lived in Richmond now. He had a life for himself, a business that he had fought hard for. For the first time in his adult life, he was free to do what he wanted to do, free from family and clinging girlfriends.

  Kat shifted in her sleep, spreading her hand across his chest.

  What the hell was he doing here? Maybe he had come home with Kat precisely because he knew that she wasn’t sticking around Eden Falls. She had been absolutely clear—she was heading back to New York, just as soon as he could finish work on the studio. She was safe. She wasn’t going to take over his life. She wasn’t going to be another Marissa, teasing him, shaping his life to hers, then leaving him in her dust.

  Kat had already built a life for herself, a life outside of Eden Falls. She had remained true to herself, true to the promises she’d made when she was just a kid.

  Was he really such a wimp that he couldn’t do the same? He had vowed that he would make a go of things in Richmond. Moving away was what he’d always wanted, what he needed, to prove that he was a real man.

  He couldn’t give all that away. Not for an impossible future. Not for an unknown, unmeasured relationship with Kat, who had already found her own path to independence.

  A chill settled over the room as the final heat of their exertion faded. Rye fought against a shudder, forcing himself to stay perfectly still, lest he ruin Kat’s sleep. The night grew long, and he watched and waited and thought about all the futures that might be, and one that he would never, ever have.

  Chapter Six

  Rye stood in the dance studio, surveying the stack of hardwood flooring. Brandon was the cousin he’d enlisted for assistance that day. He was pretty sure the guy had only agreed to come over because he hoped Amanda Morehouse would be visiting Kat. Rye had probably implied as much, now that he thought about it. He didn’t feel too guilty, though. In the past, Brandon had roped Rye into worse duty on the family’s huge organic farm.

  “The staple guns are out in the truck,” Rye said. “The saw is there, too, along with the rolls of waterproofing to lay out beneath the wood.”

  “I’m pretty sure that I’m the one who taught you how to install a hardwood floor,” Brandon retorted.

  “Just trying to be helpful,” Rye said. He didn’t mind his cousin’s gruff reply. Instead, he took advantage of Brandon’s expertise to head toward the office, to the private refuge where he knew Kat was hard at work.

  Kat. Even now, he could feel her weight on his chest, her body melted and cooling after the pleasure he had given her. The memory, though, made a corner of his heart curl in reflexive avoidance.

  He hadn’t thought this through. He hadn’t realized quite how hard he was falling for Kat, how much she had come to mean to him. There was no way that their lives could ever come together—she was determined to get back to New York the second she was shed of that walking boot, if not before. It had been what? Three weeks already? She’d said that she was only going to wear it for a month. One more week—at most—and then she’d be gone forever.

  And he certainly couldn’t put all the blame on her for his current discomfort. He hadn’t been lying when he’d told her he had an early Saturday meeting in Richmond. Late Friday night, actually early Saturday morning, he had finally carried her to her bed, tucked her in beneath her comforter and stroked her hair until she fell back to sleep. But then he’d left, hitting the road, letting the freeway roll out beneath his headlights as he drove home in the dark of night.

  He hadn’t called on Saturday. Sunday either. He’d needed to put some distance between them—emotional space to match the physical one.

  This whole thing shouldn’t be as difficult as it was turning out to be. So what if Kat was heading back to New York soon? Rye could always come down to Eden Falls, stay here until she left. Who knew what would grow between them in the time that they had?
/>   No.

  He wasn’t going to do that again. Wasn’t going to cash in his dreams. If he walked away from Richmond now, he knew that he would never again find the nerve to build his own business. He would stay here in Eden Falls until he was old and withered and gray, until he couldn’t even remember what to do with a woman as intoxicating as Kat.

  Damn.

  He knocked lightly on the door frame. “Mornin’,” he said as Kat looked up from behind the desk.

  God, she was beautiful. Her hair was back in one of those twists off her neck, making her look like every schoolboy’s fantasy librarian. Her silvery eyes brightened when she saw him, and her smile made his heart ache.

  “I missed you,” she said. “It was a long weekend without you.”

  He was supposed to apologize for living in his new hometown. He couldn’t. No. He wouldn’t. Instead, he asked, “What did you do?”

  “Niffer had a T-ball game. You didn’t tell me that you’re a million times better coach than Noah is.”

  He shrugged, fighting against the pang that told him he should have been there for the game. “Britney was out of town, so Noah didn’t have an excuse not to be there.”

  Kat laughed. “Daddy was feeling so much better that Mama let him walk down to the park with us. We had to take it slow, but he made it. It was great to see him out of the house, soaking up the sunshine.”

  “That’s good news.” He felt stiff as he said the words. Awkward. This was terrible—he felt like he was lying to Kat with every word he said. Every word he didn’t.

  “How was Richmond?” she asked, the faintest hint of worry etching a thin line between her brows.

  He forced himself to answer with a hearty smile. “Everything is going great. That Saturday morning meeting was with a new client—a massive kitchen renovation. Yesterday, I met with a computer guy—he’s set up all my client files.”