Waltz This Way
Page 37
Now Neil smiled, too, and rolled his hips. “I got a couple of moves.”
She rolled her tongue in her cheek. “Oh, yeah,” she challenged.
“Care to show them to me?”
He threw his arm around her waist and hurled her over his arm, bending her spine. He gave her his Celebrity Ballroom smile and cocked an eyebrow down at her. “Is that a challenge I hear in your voice?”
Mel placed her hand on his opposing shoulder like she had a thousand times before. “You bet your ass it is.”
He rolled his neck. “Well, then, it’s on,” he said, cocky and husky before lunging her body upright and taking her sailing across the fl oor into a Viennese waltz.
And they danced— like they’d always done— as one.
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and the swift movement of their unifi ed feet was all that mattered, Mel found forgiveness.
Neil was her best friend, and instead of blaming him for keeping Stan’s secret from her, she saw his position all these years from his eyes. He’d wanted to protect her.
It was what every best friend wanted.
When their dance ended, Neil pulled her close, their chests rising and falling in choppy breaths.
She gazed up at her best friend and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow with affection. “I love you, Neil. I just want you to be happy, okay?”
He returned her smile, a smile that didn’t have any reservations.
“Me, too, Mel. Me, too.”
Mel gave him a hard shove toward Stan. “Then maybe you should go try and fi nd some happy, huh?”
He blew her a kiss before escaping through the crowd of Drew’s family to fi nd Stan.
Drew came up behind her, dragging her close to him. He bent down and whispered in her ear. “All’s well?”
She snuggled into him, warm, undeniably happy. “All’s well.”
“Did I tell you how amazing you looked out there with Neil?”
Mel swung around. “I don’t believe you did.”
“What kind of boyfriend am I?”
“The kind who’d better excel at covert ops. We need to get out of here pronto, Double O Seven. It has, after all, been a whole week,”
she said suggestively, letting her lower body press into his.
He settled her hips against his, kissing her lips in swoon- worthy fashion. “Well, then, we’d better bust a move, huh? I’ll lead,” he said, beginning a slow sway to the music, inching his way toward the door.
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the sky fi lled with dozens of stars. Drew pulled her around back to the parking lot where his truck waited and unlocked the passenger door, helping her inside.
Then he backed away, crossing his arms over his chest. “You know, there’s just one little thing we need to clear up before I take you back to my place and ravish you from head to toe.”
She shivered, but it wasn’t entirely from the cold. “Well, hurry it up, dancer. It’s freezing.”
“I don’t recall you returning my declaration of love. Now how can that be, Ms. Cherkasov?”
Mel put a fi nger to her chin in thought. “You know, it must’ve slipped my mind.”
He shot her a cocky grin. “I can wait as long as you can.”
She wagged a fi nger at him. “C’mere.”
He pointed to the space between her legs. “There?”
She nodded. “Riiight there.”
He took the two steps in seconds. “Here?” he asked, slipping his arms around her back.
“Yeahhh,” she cooed. “That’s good.” So. Good.
“I await.”
Wrapping her legs around his waist, she drew his mouth to hers.
“I love you, Drew McPhee. I love you. I love you. I love you.”
His chuckle against her mouth left her tingling. “One more time.
Just so I’m sure I heard right.”
Her eyes met his— confi dent and bright. “I. Love. You. Drew.
McPhee.”
Running his knuckles over her cheek, he replied. “Well, woot to that. Let’s go home and celebrate.”
And they did.
Oh, did they ever.
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E P I L O G U E
Dear Journal,
Do note, I no longer call you my “divorce journal.” That’s because I don’t consider myself divorced anymore. Nay. In fact, I proudly wear the label “married”—and the label Mrs. Drew McPhee.
Score!
O ne ye a r a nd f i ve m on t h s lat er
“Drew, if you don’t stop now, we’ll never make the dance. I’m the teacher. I kind of have to be there.”
Drew didn’t stop. Instead, he kissed his way up her thigh and pressed his hot lips at the line of her panties. “You don’t really want me to stop, do you, dancer?”
When his fi ngers moved her panties over an inch and his mouth found her core, she shuddered against him. “Nooooooooo. I really don’t want you to stop, but we’ll be …” She gasped at the touch of his tongue on her clit. “Late. We’ll be late.”
His moan against her fl esh vibrated, making her leg lift higher over his shoulder. Still warm and damp from his shower, his skin stuck to hers in a delicious suction. Replacing his silken tongue with his fi ngers, he slid up her body. “I can’t help it. You look so hot in that dress, I had to have a piece of that,” he joked, capturing her lips.
She clung to his shoulders, pulling him with her as she hopped up 9780425245507_WaltzThisWay_TX_p1-344.indd 339
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on the bathroom counter in their new home. The home Drew had designed for her and Joe.
The home, one year down the road and a Vegas wedding— Elvis-style— later, she now shared with not just her father, but Nate, Weezer, Jake, and a stray cat named Amos.
And Drew, always Drew.
Drew’s job, though more demanding than his position at Westmeyer, allowed him plenty of time to spend with his family, and he worked from home one day a week. He and Nate had continued working on the dance studio, and it was almost ready.
Which meant it was time to branch out by handing in her resignation at the end of the school year. She was sad to leave the boys, but they’d know where to fi nd her if they wanted a good dose of Ms.
Cherkasov, and she’d welcome all of their left feet with open arms.
Mel gave him her best smoldering gaze, then spread her legs wide. She wiggled her fi nger at him. “We’ve got all of fi ve minutes.
Make me smile, McPhee,” she teased.
His groan when she wrapped her hand around his cock and placed it at her entrance never failed to make her dizzy with lust. She tilted her hips, letting them rest at the edge of the counter when Drew drove upward into her.
Her sigh was one of completion when he fi lled her. He never failed to make her want to consume him. She kneaded the hard planes of his back, enjoying the ripple of them under her palm. Her legs went around his waist and her hands left his back to rest on the cool marble of the sink. Mel’s head fell back on her shoulders when her nipples tightened at the sound of their lovemaking.
Drew cupped her ass, driving into her in slick, hot thrusts, pulling her t
o him. Her cry was primal when release clawed its way to the surface of her desire.
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She dragged him close, using the strength of her legs to keep him fl ush to her, burying her face in his strong soap- scented shoulder.
“Christ, woman,” he gritted, just before his muscles fl exed and he climaxed, too.
She fell back on her elbows and sucked in gulps of air when she caught sight of her silk dress. “Now look what you’ve done,” she chastised lovingly, sitting up and winding her arms around his neck. “My dress will never be the same.”
Drew nipped at her neck. “I’ll buy you another dress. All I can say is you brought it on yourself. If you’d just stayed downstairs and waited in the kitchen where all good women belong, maybe baked some cookies or something, I wouldn’t have had to get you semi-naked. It’s those damn thigh highs, honey. They’re smokin’ hot.”
She kissed his jaw and giggled. “Hah! This bathroom will see more action than our kitchen ever will, and I wore them just for you, but the plan was to have you take them off me after we were done at the dance with the boys.”
Drew growled in her ear, low and husky. “I can do that, too.” He stood up. “Hey, you think you’re ready for this? Are the boys ready for this?”
“Are you questioning my teaching skills? Didn’t I teach Nate’s class to dance, only to fi nd out Nate hates to dance? I’ve done this twice now. I’m an old pro, and Nate graduated his fi rst year in my class just fi ne.”
He lifted her off the sink. “You’re a hot pro. So, you think Stan and Neil will make it? Last e-mail we got from the happy couple, they were off in Bali.”
Mel grinned. So much had changed. The road to forgiveness had gotten easier with each day that passed.
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couples had been produced. Stan and Neil had begun dating a few months after that night at the dance studio, and they’d made the news of their love offi cial just two months ago. “I know they wouldn’t miss it, if they could help it.”
Drew placed her on the fl oor and made his way into their bedroom of grays and blues with every available wall space covered in family photos, the bedroom where they spent many nights making love, laughing, talking. “I’m surprised Nate’s as excited as he is,” he said, slipping into his shirt.
“Well, a little birdie, cough, Aunt Myriam, cough, told me that a certain girl, whose name is Mercedes— but you didn’t hear that from me— is going to be there. I’m sure hormones and puberty play a huge role in his desire to show off his waltzing skills.”
Drew winked laciviously. “Aha. Damn women’ll get you every time.”
Sitting at the edge of the bed, she gazed up at her husband. His handsome frame still took her breath away. Watching him dress was one of her favorite things to do. “Sherry’s going to be there, too …”
His face hardened momentarily, then eased. “She should be. She’s his mother.”
“She’s been sober fi ve months, that’s longer than any period in her alcoholism. Nate’s so proud.” Inspired by Nate, who’d fi nally made the choice to not see his mother again until she was sober, Sherry hit rock bottom.
It had been an ugly night in the emergency room for Nate and Drew, when they’d gotten a call fi ve months ago that she’d been in a serious auto accident. With Stan’s help, and his resources, Mel had convinced Drew that Sherry could be helped— if she’d just reach out.
She’d done just that, and now she was in a sober living facility, painting again, happier, and making plans to spend more time with her son.
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Stan continued to make gestures, small and large, in order to prove he needed Mel’s forgiveness— like helping talk Sherry into rehab— a facility Stan knew well from the occasional dancer’s bout with addiction. And though she’d told him time and again, it wasn’t necessary, Drew had reminded her that this was Stan’s way of helping all the lives he’d turned upside down, sit right side up again. He was trying to earn her forgiveness, and there was something to be said for the amount of time and effort he was putting into it.
She hadn’t completely forgiven Stan. There were still moments when something reminded her of her old life, the things she’d never experience because she’d been wrapped up in Stan, and they still stung. But lately, she smiled more than frowned when she thought about him. And that was a huge leap from wanting to set him on fi re.
Drew fi nally shot her a smile. “I’m glad for Nate. He deserves the best mother she can be.”
Nate poked his head around the doorway, hands over his eyes.
“Can I come in?”
“Wowww! Somebody looks pretty handsome.” Mel rose on tiptoe and sniffed. “And is that cologne I smell?” She whistled her appreciation.
“Whatever,” he drawled in his usual teenage disinterest. “Hurry it up, Dad. We have to go. Stan and Neil are downstairs with Grandpa Joe, and Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Myriam are already there.”
Drew gave Mel a wicked smile. “What’s the rush, pal?”
Nate gave them a dramatic sigh. “You know exactly what the rush is, Dad. I know you know about Mercedes, and do I have to explain the fl ux of hormones to you again?”
Mel’s snort was a sputter. “Okay, okay. We get it. I don’t need another speech on the species known as teenager. Go get Stan and Neil into the truck. We’ll be right there.” She gave him a peck on his cheek and watched him head down the hallway to the stairs.
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She swatted her husband’s gorgeous backside. “You heard him.
Hurry it up. Mercedes awaits. You wouldn’t want to be responsible for thwarting young love, would you?”
Throwing on his jacket, he nipped at her lips. “Oh, the horrors.”
Just as Mel rushed to their bedroom doorway, Drew grabbed her hand, dragging her close to him. “Hey, in all the chaos, fi nd the time to save me a dance, would ya?”
She straightened his tie, yanking on it to pull him to her lips. “Did you really just say that to me, Drew McPhee?”
“Nate and I have been practicing at the studio. I think I fi nally nailed that running fi nish in the quickstep.”
Yeah. He’d nailed it— when he’d slid into the wall like he was sliding into home plate. “I can’t wait to see.”
“Just do me a favor.”
“Anything,” she cooed up at him, her eyes warm with love.
“Make sure you clear a path. I’m good at the starting. Not so much on the stopping.”
Mel laughed until tears stung her eyes. She cupped his face in her hands, loving that while he continued to be the worst dancer ever, he tried at every given opportunity to learn. “I love you, Drew. Crappy dancing and all.”
“You can tell me all about it tonight when I take those thigh highs off.” He wiggled his dark eyebrows suggestively at her.
Mel threw her leg around his hip. “Promise?” she purred.
He rubbed her chin with his thumb. “That’s a promise, Mrs.
McPhee.
A promise she knew—as sure as she knew the steps to a cha-cha— was one he’d keep.
Forever.
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Document Outline
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Table of Contents
—Booklist