Leaf, Erin M. - Tango Trio [Dream Marked 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (3 page)

Tessa cleared her throat. “Yeah, fine.” She looked out of the window, noting that the boxes beneath her front window were peeling a bit.
Have to paint those soon
.

“You’re gonna like it, I promise,” Parker said. He smiled over at her and pulled onto the road. Tessa tried really hard to keep her eyes on where they were going and not on his hands, but it was a losing battle. She could
smell
him again. Between his lovely muscles and strong hands and the scent of him, Tessa was going crazy. She squirmed in the seat as she felt a trickle of moisture between her legs.

“Um, you know I suck at dancing, right?” Tessa said.
Jesus
. She could smell
herself
. She hoped he couldn’t.

“You’re just saying that because you’re shy, but I’ve seen you move. You’re graceful just walking across a room.”

Tessa stared at him. What? Parker watched the way she walked? He shifted into a higher gear and eased the car around one of the hairpin turns on the rural road, a small smile playing around the corners of his lips.

“You think I’m graceful?” she asked.

Parker glanced at her, the tip of his tongue wetting his full lower lip. Tessa nearly stopped breathing for a moment. “Yeah, baby. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Um.” She rearranged her skirt. What to say, what to say. She watched Parker shift again. God, manual transmission was kind of sexy. “I have no response to that,” Tessa finally said.

Parker smiled but didn’t take his eyes off the road. “No response necessary.” Tessa shifted again, wishing her arms would stop itching. Parker wrinkled his nose and sniffed. “Did you get a new perfume?”

Tessa frowned. “No. I don’t wear perfume, you know that.”

“You smell like lavender. And something else.” Tessa watched her friend take a deep breath. “Something yummy. Sweet.” He risked a quick glance at her, and Tessa watched a blush crawl up his neck for the second time that day. Holy shit. Tessa bet he was smelling her arousal. What the hell was going on?

“Thanks, I think,” she said then bit her lip.
Thanks? Could I sound any more moronic?
“Uh, just my usual soap. Lavender scented.”

“Huh. Smells good.” Parker didn’t look over again. Tessa watched his arms, the muscles flexing as he handled the steering wheel and gear stick. She liked the shirt he was wearing. Red brought out the honey-gold highlights in his hair. And he had a bit of stubble that gleamed golden in the late afternoon sunlight. She wondered if it would feel as raspy as she remembered from her dream. She looked at his legs in their snug black denim. She could see the muscles of his thighs working as he tapped the clutch and gas pedals. So hot.

“So, where are we going?” she asked in an effort to distract herself. It wasn’t like her to get so wrapped up in the way a guy looked, let alone Parker, of all people.

“I got the name of this dance teacher from a friend of mine. He’s supposed to be the best ballroom instructor in the valley. When I called up his studio Thursday, he said he was running a weekend special—two lessons for the price of one.”

“You planned this on Thursday?” Tessa tried to remember what she did on Thursday. “We hadn’t spoken in a week. How do you know I’ve been holed up?”

“Darling, you’re always holed up.” Parker laughed.

“So what’s this guy’s name?” Tessa rubbed at her arms. They were more than itchy now, and they were feeling a bit sore. She hoped it really was poison ivy and that she wasn’t about to come down with some heinous allergy.

“Jared. Jared Nolan,” Parker answered as he maneuvered the car into town. “His studio is right outside town.”

Jared?
A chill ran through Tessa. That was the name of the man in her dream this morning. Coincidence? She hoped so. “Did he seem nice?” Tessa hoped he wasn’t cruel like the dance teacher she’d had when she was a girl. The old woman used to smack a wooden pole against the long barre if the girls didn’t extend their arms enough. She’d terrified Tessa when she was four, though now she supposed not all dance instructors could be that mean or they wouldn’t have any students. Still, she felt a tiny pang of anxiety.

“I guess. He seemed nice enough.” Parker sighed. “How am I supposed to know? I don’t notice things like that.”

Tessa lifted an eyebrow. “Did he have a low voice? High? Was he polite?”

Parker glanced at her, his forehead wrinkled adorably. “Low voice.”

“Did he sound sexy?”

“Are you kidding me?” Parker asked, incredulous. The car swerved slightly before he brought it back under control.

“Parker! Watch where you’re going!” Tessa yelled as her heart leapt. After a minute without any more car-related disasters, she burst into laughter. “Oh my God, if you could’ve seen your face!”

Parker shook his head, and he braked for the red light. “You’re such a pain.”

“You love me,” Tessa retorted, immensely cheered by his irritation.

He swung his arm over the back of the seat and looked at her, silent for long enough that Tessa began to grow uncomfortable under the weight of his stare. “Yeah, I really do.”

She shivered at the low tone of his voice. Whoa. He really meant that. “I love you, too, Parker. You know that.”

He smiled and pulled out when the light turned green. Tessa looked at his arms. He had a bruise on the inside of his left forearm. “What’s that on your arm? Did you hurt yourself?”

Parker glanced at his skin. “I don’t know. It’s been itchy for the past few days, though. Both arms.” He lifted his right arm off the gear stick and showed her a similar mark. “I don’t know what it is. Maybe I’m allergic to something at the construction site. They were pouring a new kind of concrete this week, and it got everywhere when one of the buckets exploded. I had the shit all over my clothes.”

Tessa froze as she looked at the small dark patches on his arm. “They look like the bruises on my arms.” How was that possible? What were the odds that they both had the same kind of marks on their arms? So weird.

“Wait, what?” Parker asked. “What bruises?”

“I’ve been itchy, too, but it’s spring. And I was weeding. I get itchy every year, so I wasn’t worried, but today I ended up with these marks.” She showed him. “Maybe we ate something bad. Remember we tried that new restaurant last weekend? The calamari was a bit weird.”

Parker was shaking his head. “No, that makes no sense. An allergic reaction to the food would’ve happened a lot sooner.” He fell silent. Tessa could tell by the set of his shoulders that he was worried.

“What do you think it is?” she asked. Her head hurt, too, all of a sudden. Parker glanced at her but didn’t answer. Tessa frowned, about to press him, but then he pulled up a long driveway and parked before an old farmhouse with what looked like an extra wing tacked onto the side. “Is this the studio?”

“This is it. Nolan Studio.” Parker gestured to the small sign hung near the entrance of the addition. “He told me the door would be open and to just go on in. The lesson starts at six o’clock.” He turned off the car and got out, shoving his keys in his pocket. Tessa forgot all about her headache and itchy arms as she wondered how the hell he was going to dance in jeans that tight. He walked around the car and opened the door. “Nervous?”

“Oh please,” she scoffed as she accepted a hand out. When their palms touched, her skin tingled. She felt a stab of heat between her legs but firmly suppressed any outward indication of her attraction. This was getting ridiculous.

“You can’t fool me, you know,” Parker teased as he shut the car door. “I know you hide in your house because you don’t like people.”

“I may not like people, but that doesn’t mean I’m shy, you doof. I just don’t like people,” Tessa retorted as she looked around. There were two other cars parked in the long driveway. “I guess we’re not the only ones here for the lesson.” Parker took her hand and swung their arms together as they walked up the sidewalk to the door. Tessa felt a ridiculous spark of affection at his antics.

“No, Jared told me that there were usually at least five or ten other couples at the lessons.” He tried the door, and it swung open easily. He waved her through, and Tessa walked into an anteroom with chairs set around the walls. There was a table with advertisements and a stack of schedules on it. Three other couples turned to look at them, their smiles friendly. On Tessa’s left was the dance studio, a large, open room with windows along one wall and mirrors along the other. The soft, afternoon light made the hardwood floor glow.

“Hi,” Tessa said, feeling suddenly nervous, despite her assurances to Parker. She didn’t expect the other couples to inspect her so closely as soon as they walked in. Parker shut the door, startling her as he crowded her farther into the room.
Should I sit down? Keep standing?
Before she could decide, an older woman walked over.

“Hi! Is this your first time here?” The woman smiled kindly, and Tessa nodded, relieved that someone broke the awkward silence.

“Yes, it is. My friend Parker convinced me it would be fun.” Tessa gestured to Parker who stood behind her, unmoving and silent, like a big idiot.

“This is my fourth lesson. Tom and I started last month with Jared’s weekend special and really loved it.” She motioned to a thin older man sitting along the wall, changing his shoes. Tessa assumed that was her husband. “Jared’s a great teacher.”

The other couple nodded agreement, and Tessa wondered if they’d felt as awkward and out of place at their first lesson. She forced herself to relax. Nothing weird was going to happen at a dance studio. “Hi, I’m Tessa.” She held out her hand to the woman in front of her.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I should’ve introduced myself. I’m Ann. Nice to meet you.” She shook Tessa’s hand. “That’s my husband Tom.” The older man smiled and waved then went back to fussing with his shoelaces.

“This is my friend Parker,” Tessa said, pulling the predictably mute Parker forward. He teased her about being shy, but he was the one who clammed up in mixed company.

“Nice to meet you, Parker,” Ann said. “The other couple by the wall is Debbie and Ryan. They started at the same time we did.” The couple waved, and Tessa was relieved to see that they looked younger, maybe in their forties. Parker was definitely the youngest man here, at twenty-six. Tessa felt young in comparison to everyone else, and she was thirty-two.

“Will more people come?” she asked.

“Oh, probably we’ll get maybe two, three more couples. Are Sean and Julie coming today, Tom?” Ann twisted around to ask her husband.

He shrugged. “I think so. They didn’t call and cancel or anything.”

“Sean and Julie are the other couple that started with us,” Ann explained.

“Oh, that sounds nice,” Tessa said, trying to be polite. Truthfully, she was feeling more and more uncomfortable. Her head still ached, and her arms were itching more, despite the allergy medicine she’d taken before they left her house. She smiled at Ann as she walked over to one of the chairs and sat down. “I hope my shoes are okay for dancing.” Tessa tried to make conversation. Parker joined her, sitting down and rubbing at his arms. His bruises seemed darker than before. Tessa tried not to frown.

Ann glanced at Tessa’s feet. “Oh, those should be fine. If you decide you want to keep dancing, Jared recommends we get dance shoes that won’t stick to the floor, but for now, you should be okay.” Ann sat down and showed Tessa the bottoms of her dance shoes. The soles were a nubby suede.

Tessa smiled, looking down at her strappy heels. “Well, these have leather bottoms.”

“Oh, you’ll be fine, dear.” Ann patted her hand. Tessa wanted to snatch it away. The woman’s touch burned her skin. What the hell? She glanced at Parker, but he didn’t notice. He was watching the door, nose wrinkled. A moment later it opened, and a young man and woman came in. Tessa gasped as the wall of scent hit her nose. Between the man’s cologne and the woman’s perfume, she thought she might pass out. She felt herself sway in her seat, and then Parker’s hand closed over her arm. Immediately the scent assault lessened. Tessa felt her head throb as she tried to figure out what had just happened. Before she could ask Parker if he felt it, too, the door opened again, and two more couples entered. They didn’t smell as strongly as the young couple, but Tessa abruptly realized she could pick out every person in the room based on scent alone. She shuddered, trying to cope with the information.

“Tessa? You okay?” Parker leaned closer, and she inhaled deeply, using the calm, warm scent of him to steady herself. She ignored the way Parker nosed into her hair as if he were doing the same thing, using her scent to ground himself.

“Yeah, I think so. Did you smell all that?”

He nodded. “Is it just me or are people wearing a helluva lot more perfume these days?”

Tessa shook her head, gripping his arm hard. She hoped she wasn’t hurting him. “I don’t know. I never had a problem before.”

“I’ve been noticing people smelling a lot more the past couple weeks,” Parker muttered. He shifted in his seat. “Weird.”

Tessa frowned. She hadn’t gone out much lately, which wasn’t unusual for her. She worked from home, and since Parker tended to stop by with food now and then, sometimes she didn’t even have to make a grocery store run. Two weeks? The dreams about the train started two weeks ago. Tessa tried not to think of the implications of that. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the news reports about bonding niggled at her, but she squashed them down. Nah. No way. The phenomenon of bonding between couples and their strange mental connection and empathetic tendencies was still very rare, and she didn’t remember hearing any reports about overwhelming smells.