Her long blonde hair was down, held back by a Dutch braid with a crystal ribbon running through it. Her eyes were rimmed with silver eyeshadow and black eyeliner that turned into wings at the corners, and her lips were Rockette-style red. She was stunning.
“Is that the costume?” The top was a formfitting, black, glittery bustier, and then she had on a long, asymmetrical black skirt cut through with lace. He would have chosen something slinkier. The skirt was going to get in the way during several of the tricks.
“Yeah.” She smiled wryly at him, twisting the glittering silver crystal bracelet on her wrist. “Don’t worry. The skirt tears off.”
Patrick whipped his head so quickly that his neck creaked. “Beg your pardon?” Was he a man or a mouse?
He could hear the laughter in her voice. “When we do the first lift, after the tango section and theAmendrops, you tear off the skirt.”
He collected his mouth from where it had fallen on the floor.Shit, was it hot in here?Usually they turned the ambient temp way down, but he must have a fever. “Is it complicated?”
“No.” She turned to show him the tearaway tab at the back of the skirt, and his gaze arrested at the small dip in her lower back. She would taste like sugar and spice there, he was sure. “Just make sure you throw it far enough so we don’t trip.” She turned around, forcing him to look anywhere, everywhere else but at the perfect curves of her ass.
“Should we practice it?” He had said that remarkably well for someone who was currently wolf-panting on the inside.
“Probably, but I don’t think we have enough time.” Indeed, Maria had finished talking about Nikita’s contributions to Dancesport and was finally introducing the Standard showcase group dance.
Patrick heard the opening of “The Saddest Song” and rolled his eyes at Anita to cut the tension he felt building inside of him. “Ballroom’s never subtle.”
Anita laughed quietly. “Nervous?”
He felt the fluttering in his stomach, but it evaporated as he took her hand in his.There.He looked straight into her eyes, her lashes elongated, her makeup flawless. He could look at her forever.
“Not now.”
The audience applauded for the group showcase, and Patrick led Anita to the on-deck area, her hand tight in the crook of his arm.
“And now, dancing to Hozier’s “Take Me to Church,” Pennsylvania’s own Patrick O’Leary and Anita Goodman!” Maria and the crowd started cheering, applauding, and they stepped onto the dance floor.
She took her position, head bowed, expression seductive, then started to move as the song began. Patrick stepped into herbacklight and took one of her hands. A few moments of hands meeting and pushing away, then he pulled her into a tango section, feeling the warmth and strength in her body pressed to his. At the prelude to the first chorus, he dipped her low, turning her slowly as she reached a hand up to his face. At the lastAmen, she placed her head on his shoulder, he wrapped his arms low around her waist, and as the chorus commenced, he whipped the overskirt off and lifted her high into the air. Underneath was a short, silver negligee that accentuated her hips and legs. Dimly, he could hear the crowd roar its approval, but he and Anita were now deep into the conjoined rhythm. They spun, performed sliding doors, moved into some Argentine tango, some waltz, some rumba, and with each chorus there was a lift, a trick, each building on the last. With one, he flipped her up onto his back, where she curled into a tuck as he spun her slowly. With another, he took one outstretched leg and curled it around himself, loving the feel of his hands on her body, the way she instinctively responded to him. Every movement was sensation, instinct. Reach and pull and slide and spin.
The last chorus was a rapid succession of mixed dance moves, spins, all with her pressed against him, so close he could taste her breath mixing with his, and then there was the final spectacular star lift. He held her on her side, her arms and legs extended as he spun her two, three, four times, then tucked her into both of his arms, still spinning, gaze fixed on hers, slowing gently until he set her feet to the ground. He knelt before her, reverent, arms around her waist and her palms extended against his temples.
Patrick was aware of nothing else for a few moments more, not that the music had ended, not that the crowd was on its feet roaring with applause. In that moment, it was just him and Anita alone on the dance floor, bathed in a single pool of light, wrapped around each other. They were one, two parts of thesame whole, two wings of the same bird. That instant stretched and bowed like a galaxy around them, the pair nestled in the other’s gaze. He wanted this to be forever. He wanted to kneel at her feet, worship at her altar. Did this mean she would let him? Hope fluttered tentatively in his chest.
She broke eye contact with him with a slight turn of her head, and he crashed back to the ballroom in Harrisburg. Winded as though he had just leapt from an airplane, he stood, pasting a smile on his face. He turned Anita out and bowed with her several times, the audience still cheering and chanting their names.
As he took Anita’s hand to lead her off the dance floor, she whispered, “That went surprisingly well.”
“Yeah,” he panted. Focus. He needed to focus. What had just happened? He wasn’t naked, was he? Usually he only felt like this when he woke up from an erotic dream.
“I really need to talk to you.” Adrenaline flooded him, but he could not hold back the gate any longer. This was it. This was his moment, his one perfect, shining moment. She had felt it, too. He knew she had. They could not have danced like that otherwise. “Can we find somewhere quiet?”
Anita turned and gazed intensely at him.Yes, her eyes said.Yes.
Patrick could not run from the dance floor fast enough.
****
“Oh my goodness!”Maria. Shit, Maria.Fanning herself dramatically with her clipboard. Excellent timing, as always. “You two certainly delivered.”
“Hello, Maria, thank you for the opportunity.” Was her heart still beating? It was so fast she could not tell if it was racing or at a standstill.
She was acutely aware that Patrick’s eyes had gone dark, nearly black like the sea during a hurricane. For a moment onthe dance floor, for the whole dance, really, she had never felt so connected with someone. It was the most sensual foreplay she had ever experienced, and she forced herself to focus on the task at hand. Not on the heat of his gaze burning through the thin fabric of her costume. Not on the way his hand clutched at hers like she was his life preserver, and they were caught in a riptide. Not on the way that sexy dimple of his kept winking at her, calling to her, like catnip.
“I knew it. I just knew it!” Maria gushed. “I knew the two of you could pull off something amazing. Patrick, thank goodness!”
Maybe if Anita was super pleasant, Maria would just leave, and she and Patrick could get back to—Whatever the hell it was they had been about to do. Make out on the dance floor? Strip Patrick naked and have her wicked way with him? She wasn’t into exhibitionism, but she was so heated at this point she might have agreed to anything.
