Lead and Follow (4 page)

She stroked a finger over his left nipple, where it hid beneath plain white cotton. Those earlier regrets transformed yet again. She hadn’t seen him naked. No, she’d been too busy gaping at Dima. Even as she wanted to think of that as a wasted opportunity, she couldn’t. Watching Dima strip had been wholly erotic in ways that rattled everything she’d believed about their relationship.

She swallowed. “If it wasn’t a one-time thing?”

“You have to ask?” Paul stepped back and bowed slightly as he kissed her knuckles. The move was gallant, but the wicked twist of his lips was just plain dirty. “Beck and call, sugar.”

Lizzie fished a business card out of her tiny red clutch. “Here. To make the calling part easier.”

He took it and frowned. “You danced together?”

“Me and Dima? Oh, sorry. I thought you realized.”

“Hell if I knew what that was,” he said with a shrug. “So those three championships of his Fabian mentioned? You too?”

A sharp kick of uncertainty made her clam up. What if she wouldn’t ever be that woman again? What if she and Dima never rediscovered the forged-strong steel that had made them champions?

“You should get back. I don’t want Declan upset with us.”

He mock saluted with the card. “Loud and clear, sugar.”

She knew he wasn’t talking about Declan’s potential ire. She simply didn’t feel up to strolling down memory lane with the bartender who’d just wet his dick between her thighs. Paul still smiled. He must find some of this amusing or he would’ve hightailed it already.

Checking her appearance one last time, she watched him in the mirror as he left Dima’s dressing room. What a swagger. All long legs and jeans and an ass she wanted to nibble. Nah, she wanted to bite.

If only it could be that simple.

She glanced over to the wardrobe where Dima had changed clothes. There’d been a moment when she believed he would actually join them. She inhaled sharply at that astonishing thought. By the absolutely fantastic hard-on he’d mustered while staring at Dima, Paul might not be averse. Watching a naked guy didn’t seem to be his regular thing—not that she knew much about him—but that only added an extra layer of incredible novelty.

Although…who would she be sharing? Her new fuck with her long-time partner, or the other way around?

Either way, it didn’t feel at all like she’d ever pictured a threesome. Maybe that’s because porn always turned it into a match where two guys wrestled over a woman. That wasn’t anything close to the pictures her depraved brain insisted on creating.

A way to have them both, have it all…

With a frustrated noise, she grabbed her clutch and headed back out to the club.

She didn’t want to kill more time at Devant, not having to dodge Paul’s eyes and Declan’s questions all night. Neither did she feel like heading back to the apartment. Dima would take that girl Jeanne back there, especially if he was pissed at Lizzie.

As if she could tell when he was pissed. Or happy. Or worried. That he had a dick and the capacity for an erection were about the only signs she had of his reaction to that encounter.

She didn’t have anywhere else to go. All of her friends were, well, her competition. They’d continued on without her, with the best of them polite enough to assume she’d be back on the circuit in no time.

Her head pounding, Lizzie waved goodbye to Mr. George. When she stood at the club’s threshold, she glanced back. Paul caught her eye from across the packed floor. He touched fingers as if to the brim of a cowboy hat before ducking back to work.

She stepped into the vigor of Chelsea on a Saturday night. Without the patience to wait for a bus, she hailed a taxi. No use delaying the inevitable. She needed to go home and sleep. She needed to talk to Dima, maybe even apologize for the way she’d behaved. Apologizing to him wasn’t her favorite thing because he never seemed to care one way or the other. Stoic wasn’t strong enough of a word for him. She didn’t need Freud to know that probably explained why she baited him with sex. Or spoke the common language in dance. At least then she found something hot and vital beneath his cool, reserved shell.

The taxi sped north into Hell’s Kitchen.

Pressing her head against the cool window, she gazed without focus at the bright lights. A gentle rain began to fall, which only refracted the colors to smaller slivers. After paying the driver, she raced out of the car and up the brownstone steps. Key code. Front door. Safe and dry. She trudged up the stairs as if a firing squad awaited her in their living room.

More often than she wanted to admit, she’d lain in bed listening to Dima and his occasional one-night stands get it on. Headboard banging. Girl shrieking. Hell, sometimes it’d been another man—their thrusting rhythm even harder, meaner. Only Dima’s moans and grunts of pleasure tempted Lizzie to slide her trembling hand down her panties. She’d stroked herself, circling her clit faster and faster, as their rhythm turned orgasmic.

Always she would lie there in the aftermath of overwhelming release, panting, her mind full to bursting with images she’d believed she would never see in person. Justifications jumped to mind quickly, defensively.

Just like porn.

Could’ve been anyone.

Only an easy way to get off.

She didn’t want him. She didn’t want to be the one he made scream.

No way could she handle it. Something too raw had been scraped open. Considering the little display she’d enacted with Paul, she deserved whatever Dima dished out. That didn’t make the prospect any more palatable.

She wanted their old life back. Her career. Her partner. No complications. Just the satisfaction of winning and knowing her place in the world. At the top of the second flight of stairs, she smacked her knee out of spite. The ruined knee.

Making plenty of noise in the lock, she allowed enough time for his date to freak out and grab a blanket, if she turned out to be the modest type. With Lizzie’s luck, that girl Jeanne would be the sort of exhibitionist who liked screaming and moaning.

Hands shaking. Breath shallow. Inner thighs tender from straddling Paul. Christ, she was a mess.

The apartment was dark. Quiet. Still.

Relief swished down her spine, leaving her boneless. She could shower, rest and regroup before having to face him again. But the back of her neck prickled. She was reaching out to flip on the floor halogen when his voice pierced the dark.

“Don’t.”

“Shit, you scared me,” she said on a squeak.

“Sorry.”

She didn’t think he was. Otherwise he wouldn’t be sitting on the couch in the dark. Open shades in the dining room let in light from the streetlamps, bathing his bare chest in a golden glow. Her mouth had gone dry. She didn’t know what to say or how to say it. Two months back in each other’s company and they were still behaving as politely as strangers.

God, I miss you.

She cleared her throat. “I didn’t think you’d be alone.”

“And I didn’t think you’d be home so soon. Wasn’t he worth waiting for the end of his shift?”

Ice clinked in his glass as he sipped. A vodka bottle was open on the coffee table. Since when did he drink hard liquor? He was such a health nut, and his parents’ slow demise into the throes of alcoholism had turned him into a near teetotaler.

Lizzie frowned. Maybe he wasn’t as closed off as she always thought. The drink in his hands was the equivalent of waving a bright red flag. Maybe he was as lost as she was, but that didn’t mean sitting down and having a heart-to-heart. She’d survived fifteen years as his partner because of their common purpose. There wasn’t much to interpret when training, traveling and winning were their only goals—well, and keeping each other sane in the process.

Now, however. No goals. No way of getting inside his locked-down thoughts.

She tossed her clutch on the desk, knowing its momentum would mess up his careful stacks of bills and papers. Time to try out her theory. “You should know he was good, Dima. You were listening at the door.”

Had Lizzie missed the mark entirely, he would’ve denied it with a look of indignation. He didn’t.

She smiled very, very softly to herself and crossed to the back of the couch. Her heels sounded overly loud on the hardwood. None of this made sense. The terrible, taunting refrain of
mine, mine, mine
—it was back. She couldn’t tune it out. Dima Turgenev was her best friend. At the moment, poised on possibilities, she wasn’t seeing him as just a partner. She wanted a taste of something more.

She slid her hands over his shoulders and down his naked chest. He was tense. Incredibly tense. His little intake of breath encouraged her more than any words.

“You did,” she said. “You listened at the door of your own dressing room.” His taut stomach muscles bunched beneath her fingertips. “I wonder if you could hear him come over the music.”

He swallowed. “No.”

“Such a gorgeous low groan,” she whispered against his neck. “But I’m sure you heard me.”

Another swallow. His heart thundered beneath her palms, which only stoked the fizzle and pop in her blood. Oh, this was not good.
Really
not good. Because the concept of coming on to two men in the same evening—one of them the partner who rarely merited a second look—should’ve been repulsive. Trampy. Maybe even desperate, knowing she was only trying to prove herself after her injury.

Instead she felt powerful and so sexy. She would’ve traded every second with Paul had the choice been between riding that hot cowboy and stroking the firm, graceful muscles of Dima’s chest.
Since when?

“I heard you, little one.”

“And?”

“And…I’m glad he satisfied you.”

Lizzie stood abruptly. Leave it to him to kill the moment. When he danced, he could convey any emotion,
every
emotion—from playful to outright panty-wet sexy. He was as much a talented actor as he was an amazing dancer.

Offstage, he had the reserve of a sealed bank vault. Again she wanted him to break loose. Shout and cuss and call her names and
claim her
. Anything other than the torture of being ignored. Was this why he’d been so quietly pissed at her for not coming to see him perform at Devant?
Damn.
Her fears aside, she should’ve been there for him.

“Never mind.” She turned toward her bedroom.

Dima grabbed her wrist and kissed the tender skin inside. “Me, though? Not satisfied at all.”

The rhythm of her heart stuttered. “Oh?”

He dragged her arm down his body, slowly, giving her every chance to withdraw. She wound up bent over the back of the couch, her breasts pressed against his nape, her arms stretched down his lean torso. With their fingers twined, he settled her palm over his cock.

Rock hard.

She fought to speak, knowing the volume would be all off. The rush of blood in her ears was just too strong. “What about Jeanne?”

With a move more suited to the dance floor, he grasped beneath her arms and pulled her over the back of the couch. Lizzie found herself lying on her back, stretched flat across his lap, with his thighs arching her spine. Dima, the man she’d known since he was a preadolescent kid fresh over from Moscow, stared down at her with the intensity he only revealed on stage.

When the stakes were their highest.

“Don’t you know, little one? She was the wrong blonde.”

Chapter Four

Dima had stretched Lizzie across his knees plenty of times. Hell, he’d flipped her upside down, put his face between her thighs, even smacked her ass, all in the name of good choreography. Like any red-blooded man, he’d noticed her body, especially as they’d both matured. He wasn’t dead.

Just the opposite. He was coming alive.

After breaking up with Svetlana six months earlier, and as Lizzie’s sexual teasing intensified, he’d had trouble keeping his desires in check. He couldn’t help looking at her differently. New fantasies. Darker needs. He wanted to lick her, just to see if her skin tasted as sweet as it was smooth. Yet none of those daydreams held the suspended power of this moment.

Her stomach was a flat plane as she arched back over his thighs. The sleek red dress clung to the tempting swells of her breasts. The skirt hadn’t been long to begin with. Now it barely covered the apex of her toned thighs.

Considering the state of her panties the last time Dima had seen them, she might not even be wearing any.

The hot rush of his blood in his ears almost drowned out her raspy, panting breaths. He spread his hand wide over her stomach. When his pinkie grazed the hard thrust of her ribs, his thumb slid into a delectable dip. Her pussy was only a few inches lower. So close.

Christ, how could he be so close? This couldn’t be happening.

Beneath his gaze, however, his little one was waiting for him. She watched him with the sort of anticipation that burned in her eyes when they slayed the competition. Fierce. Greedy. Eager.

Keeping a steadying hand on her stomach, he leaned forward to set his empty vodka glass on the coffee table. He didn’t drink often. Experience with his parents—too much alcohol and too few goals—had left him wary of the poison.

The evening’s events had demanded a little release.