by Unknown
“Okay, I’ve offi cially stopped breathing now, and I’m freezing. Oh, my God, Jackie! Thank you. Thank Frank. Thank the kid down the road— thank whomever’s responsible for cutting me this kind of a break.”
“You go fi nish dinner with your men, kiddo. I’ll catch you at the airport myself. E-mail me, honey— bye!”
Mel stared at the phone for a long moment, well after Jackie had hung up, unable to process the kind of turn her life had taken.
“Celebrity Ballroom. That’s major, Ms. Cherkasov,” Nate said, grinning. “You should be really proud. Aren’t you proud, Dad?”
“Very. How about we talk about this on the ride home? Mel’s going to lose her nose to frostbite if we don’t, and you have school tomorrow.”
She helped Drew and Nate clean up, then let Drew lead her to his truck, still in disbelief.
As they drove back to her father’s, Drew said, “You’re very quiet, Ms. Cherkasov.”
“It’s shock,” she said on a chuckle. “Can you believe my incredible luck?”
“I can,” Nate chimed in. “You’re an awesome dancer.”
“Thanks, Nate. You’re not too shabby yourself.” She slipped her hand into Drew’s, taking deep breaths.
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The ride home was fi lled with chatter from Nate in the backseat, chatter she couldn’t process fully due to her excited panic. When they pulled up to her father’s, Drew jumped out to walk her to the door.
He pulled her into his embrace and gave her a quick kiss under the glow of the outside lamp. “You go do girly stuff like scream and jump up and down, and I’ll see you at school tomorrow, okay?”
Mel shook her head. “I just can’t believe it. Hey, thanks for tonight.
I really enjoyed it.” She ran a hand over his chest with a smile.
“Well, chili cheeseburgers at Joe’s can’t top a gig on Star Ballroom.”
“Celebrity Ballroom, and says who?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” He pecked her lips once more without much passion, but Mel chalked it up to Nate’s presence in the truck.
“You bet.” She turned to head in and called, “Night, Drew.”
But he’d already made his way down the path that led to the driveway.
!
“So cool about Ms. Cherkasov, right, Dad?” Nate said when he got back in the truck.
Drew fought his irrational thoughts and forced his tone to an even calm. “You bet.”
“She’d be so awesome. She’s a great dancer, and she’s always nice when she gives us critiques. Everybody will love her. Bet her Q-score goes through the roof.”
Lights from passing cars whizzed past him in a blur while he tried to focus on Nate’s words. “What’s a Q-score?”
“It’s how they rate her appeal to the television audience.”
“How interesting.”
Nate’s impatient sigh fi lled the car. “You don’t really mean that, Dad. You’re pretending to care.”
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“I am not.” You are, too. “I’ve no doubt Mel’s Q will go through the roof.” It had with him. Why wouldn’t it with everyone else?
“It’s a ‘Q-score’ and I wonder if this means she’ll have to move to L. A. That’s where they tape. If she did that, I guess she’d have to leave Westmeyer. That would so suck. She’s the best teacher we’ve ever had.”
Drew clenched his teeth. Yeah. He wondered that, too.
!
“Ms. Cherkasov,” Drew rumbled in her ear from behind.
She shivered, his cologne resting in her nose and making her dizzy. It had been a week since they’d last made love, and she was anxious to get this cocktail party over so they could spend the night together while Nate was at Selena’s and before she had to leave for L. A. “Mr. McPhee?”
“I bring you spirits to dull the pain of watching Ms. Willows fl irt with Dean Keller after only two glasses of wine.”
Mel giggled, turning on her heel to smile up into his face, taking the glass of red wine from him. “I dub thee my knight in pain needing dulling.”
“Have I told you, you look amazing tonight?”
Mel leaned into him, savoring the heat of his large frame and his sweet words. “I don’t remember you telling me, but I do remember you showing me just a snippet of how amazing I am when you tried to put your hand up my dress in the car.”
“Well, then let me make this right.” He leaned into her, his voice silky soft in her ear. “You look amazing, and if I don’t get you naked in the next thirty minutes or so, I can’t be held responsible for dragging you out into the hall, throwing that hot body of yours up against a locker and making love to you right there in the hall. I need you. Soon.”
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Mel’s breath shuddered and the sinful anticipation they’d built up all week long was threatening to boil over. She took a sip of her wine, running her tongue over the rim while she held his eyes. “Well, then.
Go make the rounds and hurry it up. We can’t afford to be fi red because of our bad case of lust.”
He groaned, winking at her before moving away to mingle.
Mel watched him from the corner of the room, supple, sleek, so handsome he made her mouth dry. He was like some beautiful animal, feral and proud, and he had no idea how damn sexy he was.
“Hey, Mel!”
She was startled from her lustful thoughts when Gwen Timmons approached her, drink in hand. Oh, hell. She’d forgotten all about Gwen’s date with Neil. She was so wrapped up in her nerves about her audition and Drew, that she’d missed her workouts with him this week. “Hey, Gwen. How went the date with Neil?”
Gwen’s face darkened just enough to cause a ripple of alarm in Mel, but then she said, “Oh, it was fi ne. I guess we just didn’t connect on all the right levels.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. He really is a great guy. Just hard to pin down.”
Gwen rocked back on her heels. “Harder than you think.”
“What do you mean?”
She waved a hand at Mel. “Nothing. Forget it. It just didn’t work out. No harm, no foul. I’m off to check out the new phys ed teacher.”
Gwen teetered off just as Drew came back across the room.
“I have to talk to Dean Keller, and then we’re outta here. Deal?”
She pouted. “But they have Triscuits and cheese in a can. I can’t believe you’d make me leave before they break them out.”
“I have something much better.” He wiggled his eyebrows and headed out of the staff lounge to the tune of her breathy sigh.
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!
“Drew, please come in,” Dean Keller said, gesturing to the chairs in front of his desk.
Whatever Keller wanted, he’d better spit it out fast. Mel, in her almost but not quite low enough cleavage-revealing dress was set -
ting his drawers on fi re. He wanted those sexy legs ending with the nude pumps on her feet around his waist while he was buried balls deep in her— ASAP. “How can I help you, sir?”
“I have some bad news, Drew. I hate to do this— especially now that the holiday season has begun.”
He clenched his glass of cheap
Scotch. “Is it Nate? Is everything all right?”
Keller shook his head, folding his lean hands together on top of the desk Drew had fi xed just last week. “Nate’s fi ne, Drew. It’s his tuition.”
Drew shifted in discomfort. “Sir?”
“Tuition’s going up, Drew. The school can’t afford to pay you any more than they already do with budget cuts and so on. Next semester there’ll be a ten percent increase.”
His stomach dropped. “I don’t know that I can afford that, sir.”
“I fi gured you’d want to know. We value both you and Nate here at Westmeyer. Your work is meticulous, bar none. We’d hate to see you leave.”
“Then I’ll fi nd a way.”
“You’re a good man, Drew. I know if there’s a way, you’ll fi nd it.”
If Keller was right about anything, he was right about that.
He’d fi nd it.
Somewhere.
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!
“Hey, what did Dean Keller want?” Mel asked when he brought her coat.
He looked away and held out her jacket. “More things to fi x.
There’s always something in this creaky old place. So, you ready?”
“ Hurry— get me out of here before Gwen does a stripper dance on the buffet table for Coach Gartner.”
Pulling on his own coat, he asked, “Things didn’t work out with Neil?”
She sighed in frustration. “No. Nothing ever works out with Neil.
He’s just not a one- woman kind of guy.”
“Yeah. I didn’t get that vibe from him.” He took her hand and pulled her out of the staff lunchroom and into the deserted hall, fl attening her against the wall to kiss her before she had the chance to ask him what he meant.
He made her forget everything when he slid his hand into her jacket and cupped her breast through the thin material of her dress. “Ahem. I think you’d better button your jacket and take me to your dungeon.”
Drew chuckled against her lips, the rigid press of his shaft noticeable. “At your command.”
They literally ran to his truck, hand in hand, the anticipation of some alone time magnifying their fl ight. Drew jumped into the truck, turned the ignition on to crank up the heat, and pulled her almost over the console to capture her lips in a fi ery kiss. “Woman, you’re going to break me being so sexy. It was all I could do to keep my hands off you in there.”
Her breathing was shallow, and the place between her legs ached with heated need. “Well, now you don’t have to. So get this chariot moving, huh? The faster we arrive, the faster we can be naked.”
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Drew took the wheel, leaving one hand on her thigh, and pulled out of the parking lot. The radio played something bluesy and soft, making Mel smile and close her eyes.
He trailed his fi ngers along her thigh, inching the skirt of her dress higher in slow, agonizing increments. When he reached the top of her thigh- high nylons, he cleared his throat, tracing the ridge of them, skimming beneath them to tease her fl esh.
Her nipples tightened to sharp peaks, hard and ready for his mouth. The vision of his head bent at her breast made a soft moan escape her lips.
Drew’s fi ngers whispered over her fl esh again and again until they reached his apartment complex, teasing her, torturing her with anticipation. It was a race to see who could fl ing open the door and reach his apartment door fi rst.
They were both laughing and out of breath when he jammed the key in the door, dragged her inside, and slammed it shut without bothering to turn the lights on.
Instantly, his hands were on her, lifting her to wrap her legs around his waist. “Christ, I want you, Mel,” he murmured, his breath hot against her ear while he fl ipped his shoes off and settled them on the couch.
She bracketed each side of his face with her hands, driving her fi ngers into his hair, and pulled him down for a kiss, relishing his heavy weight on top of her. The thick press of his cock, hard and insistent, made her lift her hips to grind against him with a level of desperate need that was bigger than the last.
Clothes came off in a heated rush until her hands were on his bare chest and he was dragging her dress up and over her head.
He stopped cold when he realized she had no panties on, only a garter and some thigh- high nylons. His appreciation was a thick groan.
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Mel reached down to unsnap them, but his hand was quick to thwart her as he hauled her to him, their chests pressing tightly together. “Don’t you dare take those off. You had no panties on all night and I had no idea. I think punishment is in order,” he ground out against her mouth, thumbing her hard nipples.
Her lips sought his, craving his tongue in her mouth. She felt naughty and wanton. “I thought I’d surprise you. You like?”
Drew sat her up, capturing her gaze with his intense blue one. “I like everything about you, Mel, but I especially like your idea of lin-gerie. They stay. Now, turn around,” he ordered thickly.
Mel obeyed on a shiver, her stomach quivering, her legs weak when she leaned over the back of the couch. She felt the heat of Drew’s naked body behind her, heard his hiss when he wrapped his arm around her waist and laid a cheek against her spine.
He let his hand slide between her legs, driving his way through the damp curls at the apex of her thighs and spreading her swollen lips while he pressed hot kisses along her spine.
Mel arched into his lips and thrust against his hand, her chest heaving. The anticipation of what was to come made her grip the edge of the couch with shaky hands as Drew slipped over the globes of her ass, licked and nipped them until she was quivering.
“Spread your legs, Mel,” he demanded from beneath her, slipping between her thighs and licking at the sensitive fl esh of them.
Her heart began to crash and blood raced through her veins, hot and electric when he said, “I’ve waited all week to taste you. I can’t wait anymore,” just before he thrust his tongue deep inside her.
Mel battled a scream at the hot, wet invasion, bucking against Drew’s mouth and clinging to the back of the couch. His head, dark, the silky feel of his hair against her thighs, all lent to the most erotic vision she’d ever experienced.
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it along the swollen bud, lapping at her until the sweet sound of her fl esh being driven to climax became an erotic level she’d never attained before.
When Drew’s hands kneaded her ass, when he pulled her to his mouth so tight, she gripped his hair and came hard, the release a hot wave of sweetness, sharp and heavy.
Tears sprung to her eyes it was so mind- blowing. She slid down his body, weak and shaking to fall into his embrace and curl her head into his neck.
He cradled her against him with one hand while the other reached for his discarded pants. He pulled the foil wrapper of a condom out and tore it open with his teeth, slipping it on then settling her in his lap, his back against the couch.
Mel straightened, whimpering when he pulled a nipple into his mouth and teased it with his tongue. She lifted her hips, wrapping a hand around his cock and positioning him at he
r entrance.
She drove downward with force, hearing Drew’s growl of pleasure, savoring the grip of his hands on her hips.
He pulled her forward so their fl esh met chest to chest and drove his hands into her hair. “I can’t get enough of you, Mel. Never enough,”
he rasped.
Their lips found one another’s, clamping together in a molten blend of lips and tongues while their hips crashed together. He fi lled her, stretched her, pulsed within her as he stroked, thrusting again and again.
Drew was the fi rst to clench his muscles; they fl exed then tightened beneath the palms of her hands. Her nails dug into his rippling fl esh, clinging, begging him to come with her.
His last thrust was forceful and fi lled with the growl of his release, and then Mel let go, too, lost in the ache of spiraling need. It coiled deep in her belly then let go like a spring of heat. Her teeth clenched 9780425245507_WaltzThisWay_TX_p1-344.indd 268
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at the intensity, the realization that she didn’t know how she’d gone half her life without experiencing this kind of lovemaking. It was unthinkable to never have it again.
With that last racing thought, she came, too, driving downward one last time to the tune of their fl esh connecting and the bliss of completion.
They sagged against each other, their chests crashing together while they fought for air. Mel smiled into his neck when he said,
“Wow. Maybe we should wait a week more often.”
“This is me wholeheartedly protesting.”
He tangled his fi ngers in her hair. “Just can’t get enough of me, can you?”
“No. It’s your lumpy couch I can’t get enough of.”
Drew slapped the cushion’s worn fabric. “This is a great old couch I got at a garage sale. Don’t hurt its feelings.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, but do you think we could move to the less lumpy, not as easily upset by my insensitive comments bed. My back is killing me. Besides, if we’re having an overnight, we can’t be up all night doing that thing we do. We have to be at your mother’s by noon for Thanksgiving dinner. My father’s thrilled he doesn’t have to defrost a turkey.”