"Oh." Irina pressed her hands to her cheeks, which were suddenly very hot. She couldn't hide behind her hands, because she'd mess up her makeup, but at least they were cooler than her face. "No, I…yeah." Most of her sudden lust fell away into a sad smile. "I thought I'd done better, yeah. But the other competitors are very good." No one would say Irina Zarabaka was a bad sport, dammit.
Mick's heavy eyebrows rose dubiously, but he nodded. "If you say so. Ah, sure, look now. I don't want to come on like a lunatic, but you looked unhappy and I thought you were brilliant, so I wanted to ask?—"
He was going to ask her on a date. Irina's chest filled with unexpected enthusiasm and anticipation. She'd never been approached by a random guy that shewantedto go out with. She was already smiling, ready to say yes, as he said, "—if you'd like a ticket to a gig at the Marquee tonight? I'm DJing and I can get you in free, if you'd like?"
"Yes!" Irina blurted it before she actually heard everything he'd said. Unexpected disappointment washed through her, and her face heated again. It wasn't adate, obviously. Random strangers didn't just walk up and ask other random strangers for dates. And that was fine! It was very reasonable! He'd been here at her performance and it was quite a thing for him to ask if she'd like to come see him in his element! Probably!
Although going out to a dance club, or whatever the 'Marquee' was, sounded absolutely exhausting, honestly. She really wanted to go back to the hotel and lick her wounds. Irina started to take a breath to try walking back heryeson, but a smile lit Mick's face and she kind of forgothowto breathe. He was actually breathtaking. Adorable, somehow, even if he was possibly the largest human being she had ever personally spoken to. She found herself saying, "Yeah," again, and smiling way, way up at him. "That sounds great, actually. Um, what's the Marquee?"
"A music venue down in the docklands. I'm—" Mick suddenly looked stricken. It wasn't an expression that sat well on his big, muscular self. Irina wasn't sure he'd ever had to look stricken before. Things that distressed or upset other people probably just looked him up and down and decided he was too big to bother.
Cautiously, she said, "Are you all right?"
It was dark, with amber-colored streetlights the only source of light, but Irina was fairly certain Mick blushed. "Grand, yes, I just—I was going to say, I'm going there now, to the Marquee, and did you want to come along with me, but then I thought, why would a woman want to go somewhere in the dark with a giant man who was a total stranger?"
Irina didn't mean to put her hand out on to his arm, but it happened anyway. Her hand was absurdly small against the massive muscles of his forearm. She'd never touched anyone assolid as he was in her entire life. His gaze dropped to where her hand rested on the soft knit of his sweater, and he froze like he was afraid he'd accidentally knock her into the river if he moved.
To be fair, the river was only about thirty feet away, just on the other side of the street, and Irina was pretty sure he could, in fact, just casually throw her that distance if he felt like it. She was equally sure he didn't feel like it. Trying to sound reassuring, and feeling like a mouse reassuring a lion, she said, "I think that sounds great, too. If you really don't mind."
"Mind? What? Av carse not," he said, soundingsoIrish that Irina's heart practically sparkled. It was adorable. "Why would I mind? I'll call a taxi, yeh? That way you're not alone with a…" He grimaced, apparently from the bottom of his soul. "With a madman."
"Are you a madman?"
"No, but I sound like one! I'll need my arm back," he added regretfully.
Irina squeaked and pulled her hand back, folding it behind herself. "Sorry. I don't usually go around touching people without permission. That was weird of me." Itwasweird of her, but she wanted to do it again. She liked touching this great huge man. She bet she would like him touching her, too.
The very thought made her blush from the collarbones up. Fortunately, Mick was looking at his phone. "All right, there we go. Taxi will be here in a minute. It's only a few kilometers, but it's a bit of a walk. And your feet must be tired."
Irina glanced down, surprised. She was wearing low, clicky heels, because she'd been an idiot who thought she might make friends and celebrate after the first stage of the competition, but she'd only been in them a few minutes. "No? I just put these shoes on."
"Oh, no, I meant after all the bouncing and jumping and tapping and—" Mick made fluttering motions with his great big hands, and Irina laughed.
"And the whimsical skedaddling?"
"Aye!" Mick flung his hands out wide, then laughed, a great big deep sound that shivered through Irina's bones. "Whimsical skedaddling is a grand auld phrase for it, isn't it?"
"It is." The taxi arrived, pulling up to the curb, and Mick held the door for Irina as she climbed in, throwing her purse ahead of her. "A man on social media came up with it after he watched Irish dancing for the first time. 'Professional whimsical skedaddling,'" she said cheerfully. "The whole community embraced it. We turned into professional whimsical skedaddlers overnight. Well, except those of us who are still amateur whimsical skedaddlers."
"You're good enough to be a professional," Mick said with more conviction than correctness, given how poorly she'd scored in the evening's competition.
Still, she said, "Thank you," politely, and then, hesitantly, "You're a musician?"
"Me? God, no. Oh! The gig. No, I'm a DJ. I'm playing the Marquee a few times this summer."
Irina blinked a few times, trying to wrap this giant, body-building man into her idea of a DJ. Not that she'd spent a lot of times at DJ'd clubs, because she was always, always,alwayspracticing…but still, her idea was mostly slender men in baggy clothes, perhaps with sunglasses or baseball caps, definitely with headphones, not…notthis.
Not six foot four of solid muscle. Not a snugly fitted cream-colored sweater that accentuated the muscleonhis muscle. Not well-fitted slacks and shiny shoes, rather than the incredibly tight, skinny slacks that so many guys seemed to favor these days. Irina thought they most looked like they were wearingclothes a couple sizes too small. Somehow wearing well-cut slacks didn't disguise the fact that Mick had massive, delicious, well-muscled thighs, either. They just promised all sorts of wonderful hints at what lay beneath.
All of a sudden, for the first time in her life, Irina thought she reallyunderstoodthe appeal of lingerie. If well-cut slacks on hugely muscled thighs counted as lingerie, anyway.
She was almost certain she'd gotten badly off track there, mentally speaking. Honestly, though, that was a relief. She'd thought she would spend the entire evening dwelling on the lousy performance that hadn't even felt lousy at the time. Instead, less than an hour later, she was on her way to a dance party with the sexiest huge stranger she'd ever laid eyes on.
A dance party he was kind of leading, she reminded herself, which led her to a question she'd meant to ask before she got distracted by Mick's thighs. "Um. I don't mean to be rude when I ask this…"
"No chance,acushla."
Irina didn't know what that meant, but she liked the sound of it. She hesitated over asking, then plunged on with the first question she had: "If you've been hired to play a big venue…don't you have to be kind of a big deal as a DJ to do that?"
