Watch Me (3 page)

Still, he didn’t let go, continued to stare at her with that sultry hint of a smile as the music began again. “The evening is not over. I bought all of your dances tonight, for the whole night.”

Shanna stared at him, wide eyed and stunned. Panicked. He’d bought
all
of her dances? She swallowed. That was bad. Very bad. Just being in his arms and hearing his words made her feel vulnerable in a way she didn’t like and would not accept.

And she was stuck with him for the next three hours? Lord, she was in so much trouble.

“Why?”

“I enjoy watching you being watched and the way it arouses you. I love knowing that so many men in the room are fantasizing about slaking their lust with you—”

“You can’t know what other men are thinking,” she protested.

“But I can. It is exactly what I’m thinking. It is even more delicious because I alone am holding you in my arms.”

Oh, God. Oh, God.
“This conversation is inappropriate.”

“Honesty disturbs you?”

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Shelley Bradley

“I’m not…I—I don’t get aroused knowing that men are watching me.”

“Really?”

He urged her into a cross again. No sooner than she turned to step into the next box, he pushed against her hand, sending her spinning to face the wall. Then he was behind her, hands on her swaying hips, his mouth hovering just over her sensitive neck in a darkened corner of the ballroom.

Shanna shivered as he exhaled, quivered as he gripped her hips. Then he reached around to place his hand flat on her stomach again…but he aimed high, flattening his palm on the upper swells of her chest and smoothing his way down.

“Hard nipples,” he commented. “Little edible, want-to-suck-them-inmy-mouth nipples.”

She hissed in a breath, and opened her mouth to stop him, tell him to get lost…but he kept tantalizing her as he caressed his way south, down her ribs, over her stomach, until his fingers brushed the front of her costume right over her sex. He lingered. Shame and arousal crashed inside her. She closed her eyes. Her thong was about to overflow.

“You’re always wet when you dance in public…like now, aren’t you?”

At his touch, his words, pleasure spiked, hitting her full force, like a blast from a raging fire. She sucked in a breath. Damn it, why did he have to be right?

If he could figure that much out after just a few minutes with her, Shanna knew he’d dig deeper, quickly, into her soul, unless she put distance between them now.

“Stop,” she demanded in her best ice-queen voice.

“Answer me,
querida
.”

“No.”

He danced her to face him again as one song segued into the next, this one a waltz.

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Sneak Peek: Watch Me

“Do not 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 whispered in her ear, making her shiver.

“I want it in my hands, my mouth, all around my cock when I fuck you and you wonder exactly who is watching us.”

His words hit her like lava, sizzling her skin, charring her resistance and sanity. No one had ever talked to her like that. Between her brothers and the bitchiness she wore like armor, no one had dared. God, even without uttering a word, Alejandro was stunning. When he talked like that, he didn’t just turn her on; he turned her inside out. Alejandro was dangerous to her career and her focus. She could see getting lost in such a man and the smoldering promise of spectacular sex—which she’d never experienced—in his hazel eyes.

“That’s enough,” she forced herself to say.

“We haven’t started. I think about undressing you under soft lights, your back to my front and letting my hand smooth your dress from your lush curves. I ache to let your perfect hard nipples brush the inside of my palms before I roll them between my fingers. I fantasize about feeling my way lower, down to that soft, wet pussy, and grazing your hard clit. And stroking it until you come. I obsess about bending you over and filling you with my cock—all while you know hot eyes, strangers’ eyes, touch you.”

Desire pulsed, flared with every mental image he created. She could
see
herself naked, flushed, writhing under his hands or as he impaled her. She could feel herself dissolving at the thought of orgasming for him—and a roomful of aroused men.

This was dangerous. Bad. Wrong.
No, no, no.

“I said that’s enough!” Her voice shook as hard as the rest of her. He kept on, as if she’d never uttered a protest. “I am part owner of a club where you could express yourself in any way you like. In every way

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Shelley Bradley

that gets you off. Sneak Peek was made for women like you.”

Sneak Peek?
That jolted her. The club where Kristoff’s video had been filmed in his soon-to-be-infamous threesome? The very one.

“I know what goes on there.”

A smile toyed with those sensual lips of his. “Good. If we weren’t waltzing, I would reach down between those sweet thighs of yours, and I bet I would find out you’re even wetter now than the last time I touched you.”

Shanna started to lie, tell him it wasn’t true. She didn’t trust him not to waltz her in a corner and test his theory, now that he knew her body didn’t care about being discreet, just about being wild—and watched.

“I need to use the ladies’ room.”

He hesitated, then released her. “By all means.”

She turned away, resisting the urge to run to the sanctuary of her dressing room. No, she would walk. Calmly.
Breathe in, breathe out.
And screw charity. Alejandro had paid his money and gotten his dance—and his cheap feel. He could pat himself on the back, knowing that he’d dug up her naughty secret and rubbed it in her face. She wasn’t coming back, and he could deal with it. If she ever saw him at one of these charity events again, she’d run in the other direction. Fast. Before she could take the first step, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. Suddenly off balance, she collided against his chest. Her head snapped back…her mouth right under his.

“At Sneak Peek, I will fulfill your every fantasy.”

Of that, she had no doubt. But she wasn’t going to give him that chance.

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Sneak Peek: Watch Me

Chapter Three

“So I’ve got two choices, both really lousy.” Shanna sighed as she stirred her hot tea at the outdoor café’s wrought iron table the next morning. “Either I stick it out and hope this threat is just a sick joke or I dump Kristoff, try to find yet another new partner, and wait a season or two before we mesh well enough to win anything.”

Jonathan winced. “Don’t you think it’s time you stop dropping partners, love? Your reputation in that area isn’t exactly sparkling.”

With a frosty glare, she reminded her former dance partner, “Ending our partnership was a mutual decision.”

The handsome Aussie reached for her hand across the table. “The handwriting was on the wall. We weren’t going to make it. I didn’t want to win as badly as you did. And sleeping together was a terrible mistake.”

Shanna wanted to deny his assertion, but couldn’t. Jonathan simply hadn’t possessed her drive to win. They’d both known it. Their one night of impulsive sex had merely brought their problems to the fore. Admittedly, sex between them had been stupid. But a late-night practice, Jonathan suffering a recent break-up with his fiancée, Shanna fearing their days of competing together were numbered, hours upon hours of nothing but sexually charged dances, with the tension between them so thick… The dam holding their restraint had burst. Afterward, their partnership had gone from strained to doomed. Her ambition on the dance floor hadn’t meshed well with his need to check out to deal with his anguish and confusion. Shanna had realized he needed more emotional support from a partner than she’d been able to give. Their fights became hellacious. They’d said terrible things, and he’d

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Shelley Bradley

walked out.

In retrospect, the end of their dance partnership had been best for both of them. Jonathan’s fiancée had returned, and he’d retired to married life and modeling. After a few months of silence between them, he’d reached out to her. Over the last eighteen months, they’d repaired their friendship. During that time, Shanna had been happily paired with Kristoff…until she’d seen his porn-inspired DVD.

“Let’s not rehash ancient history,” Jonathan said. “You came to me with a problem. Are you sleeping with Kristoff?”

Shanna recoiled. “Absolutely not! Until I saw the video, I thought he was firmly in the gay column.”

“At least that’s one less complication.”

The early morning breeze whipped through her hair. Shanna looked down into her steaming mug and nodded. “I have to decide what to do. I don’t want to lose Kristoff as a partner. Training a new one would take so much damn time. But if the judges get their hands on that DVD…”

“That would be devastating. The old crones would crucify you. The men…they’d either try to bury or debauch you.”

“Exactly. I want to strangle Kristoff every time I think about what he’s done. He’s jeopardized everything, the stupid ass.”

“In the dance department, you’re well-matched. Kristoff is a fabulous athlete who wants to win just as badly as you do. Admit that much.”

She rolled her eyes. “I suppose.”

“Stop.” He demanded. “I know you too well. Everyone else may buy that puffed-up bitch act, but we both know better. It took me years to realize you’re not half as pissed as you are afraid. You’re trembling at the thought of being vulnerable and of not holding that trophy so you can finally prove to your family that you’re a champion. Is Daddy’s opinion really more important than friendship? It’s okay to stand by your friends, even if your family will disapprove.”

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Sneak Peek: Watch Me

God, he had her number. And she hated that.

“Have you taken up psychotherapy on the side, Freud?”

“Just calling your bluff.”

“No, I came to you for help, and you’re giving me hell.” She stood and grabbed her paper mug.

“Sorry,” Jonathan murmured, looking like he wanted to say more on the subject. Mercifully, he didn’t. “Do you have any other information about the tape or its delivery that might help you track down the blackmailer? Or did Kristoff know anything about how it was made?”

“No, I don’t think Kristoff has a clue. But last night, the owner of the sex club in which the footage was filmed tried to seduce me out of my panties. If the event hadn’t been for charity—”

“You know where this tape was made?”

She nodded. “A place called Sneak Peek.”

“The club for voyeurs and exhibitionists?”

He knew about that place? “Yes.”

Jonathan sat back in his chair, a taunting smile curling up his mouth. Shanna felt her heart seize. He looked at her as if he knew being watched made her wet. Did he? Did every man who watched her dance?

She swallowed, horrified…and incredibly aroused. Thankfully, he didn’t go there. “So when you danced with this bloke, did you talk to him, see what he knows about the tape and its creation?”

“No.” She’d been too busy resisting his seduction, trying to fend off his unnerving ability to see past her defenses.

“There you go.” He shrugged. “Maybe he can help you track down who’s blackmailing Kristoff.”

Shanna gripped her tea. Jonathan was right. The answer had been staring her in the face. Alejandro could find out exactly who had filmed Kristoff.

All she had to do was put herself in his path again.

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Shelley Bradley

God help her.

“I need your help.”

Alejandro Diaz looked up at the trembling female voice. Platinum hair pulled tightly away from a pale face. Blue eyes smudged with the bruises of sleeplessness. Shanna York. Here, in his office. Well, didn’t this make his morning interesting?

“Long trip to the ladies’ room,” he drawled.

She tossed her head, lifting her chin—her silent way of telling him she would not bend her pride to apologize for having deserted him last night. Alejandro frowned…though he was silently amused.

“You came on too strong. Again. I needed to put space between us.”

“And now you do not? Today, I am supposed to forget that I enjoyed a mere two and a half dances, rather than the eight I paid for.”

“You gave that money to charity.”

“To be with you. The charity was the cherry on top.”

“You paid for the opportunity to dance with me, not seduce me.”

Why not both?
he wanted to ask, but tactically retreated from that line of questioning. Starting a fight with her wasn’t the way to entice her to stay. Putting up her defenses would not get him what he wanted—up close and very personal time with her.

“Perhaps I succeeded, since you have come to Sneak Peek saying you need me.”

“No. I’d still be avoiding you if I didn’t need your help.” She swallowed. “Which I need now. Please.”

Hmm. She’d likely choked on that word. Shanna was stubborn and tough and wore her ice like armor. No doubt it warded off most men. He was made of stronger stuff.

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Sneak Peek: Watch Me

Alejandro stood and faced her. “What can I do for you? Take you on a tour? We have great facilities.”

Her expression softened. “It’s a beautiful place. I was expecting something…”

“Dark? Sleazy? Dirty?”

She hesitated. “Glass-and-chrome seedy. This is really…warm.”

That’s what had attracted him to the house in the beginning. Alejandro thanked God every time he set foot in the place that his business partner, Del, had agreed with his choice of location. Its shimmering white plaster walls glowed Hollywood golden when the sun set over the hills of Los Angeles. The expansive gardens had a charming Spanish Revival feel, complete with decorative tile that rimmed the pool and outlined the patio steps leading to the second floor. The bars both indoors and outdoors welcomed guests. Converting the house into a club had given it the feel of an intimate party, rather than a bunch of strangers getting naked together. That instant comfort level was one of the reasons he and Del had been so successful since opening Sneak Peek. That and good business sense.