Chapter 7 #2
He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, willing the party in his pants to subside.
He wasn’t a teenager anymore; he could control himself.
Then his eyes dropped to Wren’s slim back and shapely butt, and he immediately doubted his statement.
There was nothing he wanted more than to plaster her up against that wall, run his hands over his body, and feast on her mouth.
“Nope. Too in your face,” Wren said into the silence. She scrolled again, and soon the same tune he recognized from dance practice on Friday filled the room. Wren moved into the center and immediately dropped into what looked like a complicated combination of steps, something he couldn’t follow.
“Something like that, but slower. Less,” she said, lifting her eyes to the mirror.
It was the first time she’d looked at herself since he’d arrived, and he wondered if she saw what he did, a sexy woman immersed in her craft.
He shifted, and the small movement caught her attention, and her eyes slammed into his.
Dane cursed himself, thinking he could watch her forever. He lifted his hand and smiled. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Wren pushed her hair off her forehead. “How long have you been standing there?”
He shrugged. “Five minutes?” He stepped into the room, walked over to her, and pushed one of the containers he held into her hand. “Milky iced Americano, double shot, they said it was your go-to drink in summer. You look like you need it.”
She took the cup and immediately lifted the straw to her mouth, sucking enthusiastically, her mouth pursed. Dane had to look at the ceiling again. “Thanks. God, I needed that.”
Wren pulled her shirt away from her chest and flapped it to cool herself down. Under the shirt, she wore a practical sports bra. The sexy ring in her belly button flashed. “It’s hot in here,” she said.
That could be because the chemistry between them was giving off some serious heat, but he wasn’t going to mention it. He looked around instead. “Aircon?” he asked.
“I forgot to put it on,” Wren admitted, then arched an eyebrow. “Besides, getting sweaty is part of the creative process.”
With her, sweaty meant smelling a little sweet, but not sugary.
Her scent, always something he was highly tuned into, changed with the heat, and maybe even with her mood.
When it reached and curled around him, he thought of blood oranges and sunlight.
And bare shoulders. The hint of salt on skin and dangerous decisions.
Handing him her half-empty cup to hold, she pulled her top up and over her torso and walked to the bench to switch on the aircon. Then she picked up a towel, wiping it across her face and glistening throat, and down to her chest. He swallowed and looked out of the window. Fuck, this was torture.
Wren rubbed the back of her neck and gestured to the window. “I saw Luna ambush you,” she stated. “What does she want?”
“Same old story; she wants me to buy the medical practice.”
Wren sighed. “She’s like a dog with a bone,” she admitted, sitting and placing one foot on the bench. How would her flexibility translate in the bedroom?
Jesus, Trafford, get it together!
“Being a family doctor holds no interest for you at all?” Wren asked, pulling her cup from his hand. Her fingers brushed his, and fire slipped into his veins. Awesome. Just what he needed. The solution was to stop looking at her, so he sat down on the bench and stretched out his legs.
“None. Besides, I have a job.”
“A job that lets you take a long vacation,” she commented. “Not many allow that.”
“Yours does,” he pointed out.
“But there are lots of talented choreos. I doubt there are that many trauma surgeons who specialize in disaster zones.” It was clear she suspected there was more to him being in H-Town, but he wasn’t ready to bite.
Wren put down her now empty cup, picked up his and took a healthy gulp of strong black.
She wrinkled her nose. “Would it hurt you to put some milk in it, Trafford?”
He pulled it out of her hands. “That’s Dr. Trafford to you,” he told her. “And yours had a double shot. If you drink mine too, you’re going to start seeing sounds.” He twisted to turn the cup to place his lips on the rim where hers had been.
Jesus. He was losing his mind.
Wren grinned at him and gestured to the dance floor. “That was what I was trying to do. Actually, it’s a good way to describe choreography, seeing noise and interpreting it.”
Remembering her music choices, he scowled at her. “For the record, I don’t think you should dance to anything that has the word fuck in it.”
She laughed. “You heard that, right?” She tried to snag his cup again, but he lifted it out of her reach. That was the advantage of being a lot taller. She pouted. “Killjoy.”
“And yes, I know I have to be judicious in choosing the song, and the routine,” she added, wrapping her arms around both bent knees.
Since her feet weren’t touching the bench, she held the pose by sheer core strength, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“I need to find something cool enough for the kids, but acceptable to the parents.”
“It sounds like a nightmare,” he stated. “Why don’t you ask the kids for suggestions about what music they want to dance to?”
“I thought about that, but I’m impatient,” she admitted. “It’s been a while since I felt the urge to dance, to move, to make something new, so I wanted to be on my own and experiment.”
He winced. “And I crashed your alone time.” He moved to stand up.
But her hand on his arm kept his butt on the bench. “No, I don’t want you to go. I was just trying to explain that I’m eager to dance, and that I haven’t felt like that in a while.”
He settled down again and, noticing that there was only a sip of coffee left in his cup, offered it to her to finish. She tipped the cup and wrinkled her nose when she encountered only ice. She pouted and shook the cup. “Sadness.”
“Are you referring to the lack of coffee or your lack of progress on the dancefloor?” he asked.
“Both.”
“Do you have a choreographer’s equivalent of writer’s block?”
She dropped her legs and rested the back of her head against the wall behind her. “I think it’s more accurate to say I’m having a bit of a life block right now.”
Silence, not uncomfortable, settled between them for a minute, maybe more.
“Why do I feel like you are having one, too?” she added. Dane folded his arms and sighed.
“Even if I was”—Of course he was!—“there’s no chance of me going into family medicine.”
“None at all?”
“I’d give it the same odds as me falling pregnant,” he told her. “Can you make your godmother understand that?”
Wren smiled. “I have as much chance of doing that as you have of falling pregnant,” she cheerfully told him. Then patted his arm. “She’ll get the message eventually, maybe. You just have to keep repeating yourself, over and over and over again.”
“Fabulous,” he muttered.
She turned to face him, her hip on the bench, her thigh touching his. He knew she was, at least, a little into him, but he didn’t read too much into her touching him. She was a dancer and touching people was a part of her process. “But why not family medicine?” she asked. “What’s so bad about it?”
“It isn’t bad, it’s just not for me.” He wouldn’t tell her that he’d find it more boring than watching paint dry. Because she’d touched him first, he rested his forearm on her knee. She didn’t seem to notice.
“Apart from the fact that I studied my ass off to become a surgeon, I work in a high-stress, high-adrenaline environment, where things move at breakneck speed. I have to make quick life-or-death decisions. I can go from amputations to head wounds to crush injuries and not take a break. Diagnosing sinus infections and listening to wheezy chests would drive me nuts.” He grimaced, hoping she wouldn’t think he was being a medical snob.
“Family medicine is also about being a counsellor, listening, and involving yourself in someone’s life. I’m not into that.”
She cocked her head to the side. “You like change and to quickly move on?” He heard a note of something, maybe sadness, in her tone, and saw it was echoed in her eyes.
He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling like he was wandering into quicksand and not knowing when he’d break through the top layer. “Well … yeah, I guess. Moving from one place to another—it’s what I’ve been doing for a while now.”
The second the words left his mouth, something shifted. Wren pulled her thigh away from his, then stood. Her mouth tightened, a small frown between her brows. Dane’s stomach dipped. There it was, emotional quicksand. He’d clearly stepped in it but didn’t know why. Or how. Or which way was up.
Wren rescued him by flashing a smile. “The kids will be here soon,” she said lightly. Too lightly, like she was trying to pretend everything was okay. He thought about asking why she’d retreated, but the tension in her shoulders and neck suggested that she wouldn’t welcome his question.
“I wonder if everyone who came last week will show up again today?”
Yep, definitely changing the subject.
Dane watched her, slender and sexy in her dance clothes, and knew—without question—that the class numbers were about to go up.
Teenage boys weren’t subtle; the word would’ve spread about the hot dance teacher in approximately seven seconds.
Hell, even his attention span short-circuited around her, and he was a grown man.
She dug into her bag and pulled out another loose top, cream this time, and tugged it over her head, smoothing it down her torso and covering her toned stomach.
Then she pulled out her hair tie, bent down, and shook her hair loose. Dane swallowed hard, as her special scent hit him in a wave. Since it was at its strongest, he decided it had to be from her hair, courtesy of her shampoo.
“You smell great,” he told her, his voice cracking.
“I do?”
“Mmm,” he’d lost the ability to use words, “I can smell citrus.”