All Fired Up (Kate Meader) (10 page)

Go easy on me, Officer Shane. It’s my first offense.

“I can’t believe you brought me here,” she gritted out while they rattled through the introductions.
Padma. Kumar. Vladimir. Esme.

“If I’d told you, would you have come?”

Maybe.
“Probably not.”

Roberto and Corinne. No, Corina.

Shane flashed that cocksure grin. “I get the impression you don’t have a lot of fun.”

Taken aback, she fought to keep her defensiveness in check. “I have fun. I have plenty of fun. You don’t want to say that to a woman whose body could crush you.”

Introductions abandoned, his gaze made a lazy trip down the body she claimed was lethal. “It could?”

“Hell, yeah. My kickboxing skills are legendary.”

A short, ruddy-faced man with a pink fringed shirt and a ten-gallon hat was fiddling with a boom box, sending out tinny snatches of country. Good grief.

“What else do you do when you’re not kicking the crap out of people, LT?” Shane asked.

Her volunteer work at Lurie’s Children’s Hospital took up most of her spare time, but it was too special to share with anyone even if that anyone was a someone like her husband. Not even her family was any the wiser.

“I work a lot so I don’t have time for hobbies.”

“Except kickboxing.”

“And spin class, Pilates, yoga.”

“So all your leisure pursuits involve the gym?”

Leisure? That made it sound as though she enjoyed herself, which wasn’t right at all. The gym was a studio, her body was a project, and every class she took brought her closer to the goal of perfection. Working out fed that primal need while reading to the gorgeous kids on the sixteenth floor at Lurie’s fed something deeper. Her soul. Between those pursuits and reforging the connection to her family, she had no time for anything else.

Especially dates with her husband.

“I like to keep in shape. You have your…” She gestured around the room and swallowed her rising panic. People were starting to line up in a rather professional manner. By now, she should be used to feeling like the odd one out but each new situation produced its own difficulties. “I have a personal trainer.”

“There are better outlets for your energy.” Shane’s fingers brushed against her elbow as he nudged her a few inches to his right. She pretended it didn’t send a blood-hot rush through her. Sure she did.

Cara had never encountered a man with such a devastating effect on her body. With that torrent of sexual awareness came heat that seeped into her skin and warmed her muscles, making her feel protected. This was how she had felt when they had collapsed in a drunken heap on the bed of his hotel room in Vegas. With Shane she felt horny
and
safe.

Her mind blurred in confusion and she turned to eye the position of the dance line behind them. They were right up front, which meant everyone had a prime-seat view of how many steps she was going to mess up. Ten years of ballet was probably not going to help. Why hadn’t she signed up for those Zumba classes?

“I thought you just moved here. How come you’re Mr. Popular?”

“Took my first class last week after Maisey invited me. Everyone’s so friendly. It’s a great way to meet people.” He smiled, a slow burn that made her light-headed. She should have had a yogurt before she came out. “It can be tough in a new city.”

It can be tough in an old city, too.

He thumbed the brim of his hat, and a secret smile played on his lips. Cara’s insides turned pea green with the knowledge of how much pleasure the perky Maisey’s gift had given him.

“You know you look ridiculous, right?” Her heart sank at the emergence of her inner mean girl. She could never stay down for long.

“Why thank you, darlin’,” he said with a twang that went straight to the fork of her legs. The music started, an up-tempo number worthy of some hootin’ and hollerin’ from the cheap seats behind her. She could have sworn she heard a “Howdy, partner” in a thick, Indian accent.

Shane turned on that cornpone grin, cocked his head, and took a step to his right.

“Let’s dance.”

Chapter 5

Shane didn’t consider himself a good dancer. He tended to forget the steps or lose himself in the music’s beat so completely that there’d been times he started out with a partner at a club and then found himself spinning alone like a gobshite by the closing bars. Most women preferred their dance partner’s undivided attention so his lack of focus on what he was told was the true purpose of dancing with a woman—make her look good—usually resulted in a hissy fit or worse. Like a glass of Southern Comfort and 7 Up in the face. That shit stings.

But line dancing wasn’t like real dancing at all. Even Kumar was rocking the Casbah like nobody’s business and if an old Pakistani bloke with a turban could get the hang of it, anyone could.

Except Cara.

She was hands down the most elegant, poised, knock-him-over-and-call-him-Stanley woman he’d ever met but she couldn’t dance for toffee. He’d turn to the left and she’d turn to the right. He’d bend at the hip, only to see her pitch forward precipitously and then right herself with a surreptitious glance to see if anyone had spotted her.

Shane couldn’t help but spot her. He had been spotting her all night, from the minute she’d walked out in those jeans that fit her like snakeskin. If he’d thought she looked good in yoga sweats or tight little skirts, she owned him in those jeans. And then there was that white shirt she’d hitched up over her belly button. It billowed like a breezy sail around her slender frame and when the light caught it just right as she gave a wobbly turn, he could see her breasts’ silhouette framed like a truck’s mud flap cameo.

She was trying, though. Lord, how she was. Her teeth dragged along her plump bottom lip that looked kiss-swollen without being kissed. A patch of perspiration on her forehead broadcast her effort. The heat of her skin had gotten all jumbled up with her perfume, creating a brand-new floral-hot woman scent that drew his body in with every pivot.

He’d only asked her out to rile her up, see if he could crack that cool façade of hers. In her office, he had spouted some claptrap about alcohol giving fate a helping hand. Neither of them had bought it, but the minute he’d seen her cradling the bloody cat in her arms, a certainty about the unabashed rightness of it had conjured up strange weather patterns in his brain. That night in Las Vegas, he had experienced hope for the first time in forever, and now, with Cara at his side, his gut bubbled with it again. After years of feeling like his existence was one big old mistake, how could a drunken lurch down the aisle feel so right?

“How’re you holding up there?” he asked, sending her a look that he hoped she understood. The one that said they could leave at any time. He might even have meant a little more by it. She wanted out of the marriage and forcing her to maintain this charade as a prop to his self-esteem was the ultimate in dick moves.

Her tight smile broke into a wider one and his mind flipped like a flapjack. Damn, he was going to push his luck as far as he could because that blast of winter sun was worth it. And while pushing his luck, he’d push his guilt about his dishonesty down deep.

The instructor, Big Mac, who was actually five foot nothing and not in any way deserving of the moniker, came over to see how his child-sized hands could be of service.

“Quick turn, sugar,” he said with both hands on Cara’s hips. She quick turned her way out of his grasp like she’d been scalded. Good thing, too, because Shane was about ready to deck the little shit.

“I just don’t have any rhythm,” she said with a wide-eyed stare of sky blue that hit Shane in the chest with the force of a cannon ball.

“Everyone has rhythm, sugar.”

“It might be better if I could stand farther back and see how other people are doing it. When I’m looking at you, I’m just seeing it done backward,” she said to Big Mac. “No offense. Sugar.”

“Let’s head to the back row, darlin’,” Shane said in his best cowboy. It sounded pretty damn good, actually.

She arched one skeptical brow. “Back row? You trying to take advantage of me?”

“Any chance I get.”

That drew her singular laugh, a naughty giggle that warmed him through and made him wish he was funnier. With a quick pivot, she was already barreling to the back of the room, leaving him no choice but to follow her.

As they started up again, she watched the line in front, her focus avidly trained on their feet. “Hey, look, I’ve got it,” she said, starting on the wrong foot. “Oh, don’t look.”

A deep laugh rumbled through him. “Ah, you were so close.”

He loved that she wasn’t giving up, the unexpectedness of it. It took a lot to surprise him and Cara had managed to surprise him. More of that, please.

“Do you mind if I…” He sidestepped behind her.

“Be my guest,” she murmured, but he was already fanning her waist with his hands, her girth so narrow that his fingers almost met at her navel. She released a little whooshing sound that he felt in his groin—maybe he had surprised her, too. The complicated-looking braid in her hair had flopped to one side, leaving the slender column of her neck exposed, her pulse pumping out that sexy scent that made him glad he was holding onto her. He was supposed to be teaching her about balance but he was having a hard time maintaining his own.

“Bend as you place your right foot forward,” he said in an unintentionally husky tone.

“Like this?” She pitched forward, and her stellar arse smashed right into his stiffening dick.
Yeah, exactly like that.

“More like this.” He placed his hand on her belly, his other on her spine, and pushed her over a couple of inches. “Not at such an angle. No need to jerk so much.”

“Hm,” she hummed, sending his balls into red alert. Just that beautiful little sound, low in her throat, and he was a goner. They were in a church basement with a host of people learning to dance and all he could think about was slipping his twitching fingers below the waistband of those second-skin jeans until they were clamped by her tight, wet—

“Shane?”

“Yeah?”

She twisted her swanlike neck so his lips brushed against her cheek. Painfully late, he realized that his entire body was flush against hers, but especially the harder-than-concrete part barely contained by an overworked zipper.

He pulled back, unable to let go completely. Not yet. “You got it?”

“I think so,” she said, a smile in her voice. A few more tries, without his favorite part meeting his favorite part of hers, and she seemed to be getting the hang of it. They separated and returned to the line.

“Thanks for being so patient,” she said with a slice of brightness that boosted his heart through to the church nave above their heads. “I know I’m not the easiest student.”

“No problem. We’ll teach each other.”

*  *  *

“Bye, beautiful Cara.”

“Oh, bye…”

“Kumar,” Shane whispered.

“Kumar,” Cara called out to the elderly, but surprisingly spry gentleman with the moves like Jagger.

The rest of the class trickled out on a wave of burbling chatter and laughter, leaving Cara with Shane and a few stragglers. She couldn’t believe how much fun she’d had tonight, and she owed it all to Shane’s patience and good humor. No one knew better than Cara how difficult she was to be around, how uptight she was. He brought out a part of her she’d forgotten existed or maybe had never existed. The part that didn’t care how she looked or what people thought of her. More important, she hadn’t needed alcohol to get here.

She turned back to Shane, who, in that Stetson, looked every inch a Nashville god only to find him locked in Maisey’s tractor beam. Perk-in-boots lay her fingertips on his chest every time he said something funny—well, it wasn’t all that funny but she thought Shane was Mr. Hilarious. That he did nothing to resist Maisey’s charms didn’t escape Cara’s notice either.

“We’re all going for a bite to eat,” Maisey said to the small group remaining, but her gaze never left Shane. She gave her eyelashes an extra vehement batting. “You said last week you wanted to try Sunita’s Kitchen up on Devon Avenue.”

Shane’s eyes brightened as Cara’s heart sank. “Right, they do that head-blowing red curry everyone raves about. The one that’s supposed to make you blind.”

“Better you go blind doing that than something else,” Maisey said with a bedroom giggle.

He gave a warm smile in response.
Oh, come on.

Encouraged, Maisey turned on a high-wattage grin and tilted her head up to her target. It was incremental but he moved his body slightly in Cara’s direction, and she couldn’t resist a mental high-five. Shades of high school all over again.

“Oh, you should come, too, Cara,” Maisey conceded. No flies on her.

“What do you think? Danced up an appetite?” He laid his hand at the base of Cara’s spine, sending a heated flush across her body. His gaze held hers steady, but as the seconds ticked by, panic evicted pleasure and took up residence in every cell.

This was usually the point in the proceedings where things turned tricky. Maybe if it was just the two of them, she could muddle through, but she was no good in groups. All that “try this” and “split this.” Wondering if people were judging how she looked when she chewed or why she had eaten only a third of what was on her plate. Plus, Indian food was so far outside her wheelhouse that she’d undoubtedly make a fool of herself. Best to cut off the inevitable weirdness about sharing a meal, that eminently normal ritual, the cornerstone of dating and relationships. A normalcy she could never hope to attain.