Chapter 4
4
I open my mouth to deny Alejandro’s dirty little whisper, but his gaze stops me, warning me before I can do anything foolish, like lie.
“I can tell you do.”
His stare is too intense. He digs past my icy defenses, sees the real me, and roots out my shameful secret… He’s a walking wet dream…and my worst nightmare.
How does he know I crave being watched?
Alejandro sways with the music in the opposite direction, bringing me with him. With a gentle caress of my cheek, he directs my gaze back to his, cleverly making it look like a part of the dance.
“You know you do,” he murmurs. “You love that most every man in the room would kill to have your body against his and an up-close view of your smoldering sensuality melting the ice you wrap yourself in.”
His words make me shake because they’re terrifyingly true. “Stop.”
He performs an open step, then brings me back for a box. “Their stares cling to you as you lure them in with the sway of your hips perfectly timed with the beat of the music. They’re drawn to your femininity. Their gazes caress your breasts as your chest lifts with every move and breath. They watch the movements of your sleek thighs and ache to lie between them.”
A glance around proves he’s right. Easily a dozen men are openly watching Alejandro and me dance, their gazes ranging from more than mildly interested to sizzling with heat. Desire vibrates deep inside me, pulsing under my clit. How wet can I get before I stain the front of my thin, nearly transparent costume?
And how does Alejandro know exactly what turns me on?
Most people have only seen the driven dancer who yearns to win and make her family proud. No one else has glimpsed the woman inside who uses dance to express the sexuality she otherwise represses.
This man figured out my secret in the blink of an eye. He’s all but mocked my chilly reserve. Somehow, he sees beyond my facade, to the fear and emptiness that feed my ambition.
When the music ends moments later, I’m scared and so freaking grateful I can escape.
“Thank you for an interesting evening, Mr. Diaz. Perhaps our paths will cross again.” But not if I can help it.
He doesn’t let go. Instead, he continues to stare with that sultry hint of a smile. “I bought all of your dances tonight. Every last one.” He pulls me into a dance hold, but far closer than necessary. “Shall we?”
I stare at him, wide-eyed. Panicked. I’m expected to spend the whole evening with him, while he dismantles my reserve and exposes my secrets? That’s bad. Dangerous. Just being in his arms and hearing his words make me feel too vulnerable. What would a whole evening with him do to me?
“Why?”
“I enjoy watching you being watched and seeing the way it arouses you. I love knowing that so many men in the room are fantasizing about slaking their lust with you?—”
“You don’t know what other men are thinking,” I protest.
“Yes, I do. It’s exactly what I’m thinking. It’s even more delicious because I’m the man holding you in his arms.”
Oh, god. “This conversation is inappropriate.”
“Honesty disturbs you?”
“I’m not… I—I don't get aroused by knowing that men are watching me,” I lie.
“Really?”
He urges me into a cross again. As soon as I turn to step into the next box, he pushes against my hand, sending me spinning to face the wall. Then he’s behind me, cradling my swaying hips, his mouth hovering just over my sensitive nape in a darkened corner of the ballroom.
I shiver as he exhales on my sensitive flesh.
Then he reaches around to place his hand flat on my stomach again…but he aims high, flattening his palm on the upper swells of my chest and smoothing his way down.
“Hard nipples,” he comments. “They’re pretty, edible, want-to-suck-them-in-my-mouth nipples. I know I’m not the only man here who thinks so.”
I open my mouth to stop him with a hiss, but he keeps tantalizing me as he caresses his way south, down my ribs, over my stomach, until his fingers brush the front of my costume right over my very wet sex. He lingers. Shame and arousal crash inside me. I close my eyes.
“You’re always wet when you dance in public…like now, aren’t you?”
Pleasure spikes, hitting me full force, like a blast from a raging fire. I swallow back a shameful moan. Why does he have to be right?
If he can read me this well after a few minutes, I have no doubt he’ll quickly dig deeper—into my soul—unless I put distance between us now.
“Stop,” I demand in my best ice-queen voice.
“Answer me, querida. ”
“No.”
He dances me to face him again as one song segues into the next, this one a waltz.
“Don’t be embarrassed. Your arousal turns me on. It’s one of the reasons I chose not to give up when you rebuffed me at the Bartolino event. I want that arousal,” he whispers in my ear. “I want it in my hands, my mouth, all around my cock when I fuck you. Will you wonder then exactly who might be watching us?”
His words hit me like lava, sizzling my skin, charring my resistance and sanity. No one has ever talked to me like that. Between my brothers and the starchiness I wear like armor, no one has dared. But when Alejandro murmurs that sort of sin, he doesn’t just turn me on; he turns me inside out.
He’s dangerous. I can see getting lost in him and his smoldering promise of spectacular sex—the kind I’ve never experienced.
“That's enough,” I choke out.
“We haven’t even started. I fantasize about undressing you under soft lights, your back to my front, my hand smoothing your dress from your lush curves. I ache to brush my palms over your hard nipples before I roll them between my fingers. I’ll feel my way lower, down to your soft, wet pussy before I tease your hard clit. Slowly, I’ll ramp you up and stroke you until you’re desperate to come. Then I’ll bend you over and fill you with my cock—all while you suspect the hot stares of strangers rake you. Want you. Devour you.”
Desire pulses and flares with every mental image he draws with his words. I can see myself naked, flushed, writhing under his hands and body as he impales me. I feel myself dissolving at the thought of orgasming for him—and a roomful of aroused men.
No matter how much my body craves everything he says, I can’t. It’s bad for my image. Dangerous to my ambitions. No, no, no.
“I said that’s enough.” My voice shakes as hard as the rest of me.
He keeps on, as if I never protested. “I am co-owner of a club where you can express yourself in any way you like. In every way that gets you off. Sneak Peek was made for women like you.”
The club where Kristoff’s soon-to-be-infamous threesome video was filmed?
“I know what goes on there.”
A smile toys with those sensual lips of his. “Good. If we weren’t waltzing now, I would reach between those pretty thighs of yours, and I bet I would find out you’re even wetter now than the last time I touched you.”
I want to lie, but I don’t trust him not to dance me into a corner and test his theory.
“I need to use the ladies’ room.”
He hesitates, then releases me. “By all means.”
I turn away, resisting the urge to run to the sanctuary of my dressing room. No, I will walk. Calmly. Breathe in, breathe out.
I’ve done my part for charity tonight. Alejandro paid his money for a good cause. I gave him his dance and his cheap feel, too. He can pat himself on the back, knowing that he's dug up my most shameful secret and rubbed it in my face. I’m not coming back. If I ever see him at one of these charity events again, I’ll run in the other direction. Fast.
Before I can take the first step, he grabs my wrist and whirls me around. Suddenly off balance, I collide against him. My head snaps back, my mouth right under his.
“Come to Sneak Peek,” he whispers. “I will fulfill your every fantasy.”
He’s capable. Of that, I have no doubt. But I don’t dare give him that chance.