‘Touché, Ms Fane.’ A smile touched his sensual mouth. ‘But this occasion calls for a new tradition.’ Both his voice and his expression had hardened. ‘And you owe me.’
‘A dance for saving my life?’ she suggested, recalling the almost accident on the polo field. She shrugged, conceding, ‘I am in your debt.’
‘For keeping Danny on,’ he reminded her, dismissing his heroics.
‘You’re glad you kept her on now, aren’t you?’ Lizzie remarked, smiling her triumph into his eyes.
‘Danny rides well,’ he conceded, maintaining eye contact.
‘That’s what competition does for you, senhor.’
‘Are you ever going to call me Chico again?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Surely, you mean, maybe.’
‘Do I?’ Her eyes were shadowed as she stared at him.
‘I would hope so,’ he argued, ‘but shall we address the problem after the dance?’
‘Who said I’m going to dance with you?’
‘I did.’ Seizing her wrist, he steered Lizzie towards the dance floor. There was only so much patience in his bank.
‘I suppose I owe you for making me captain of the team.’
‘Do you need to find an excuse to dance with me?’ he demanded as he swung her into his arms. ‘I hadn’t thought of exacting a payment in kind, but now you mention it— And as people seem to find the fact that we’re dancing together fascinating, may I suggest you smile?’
Lizzie’s lips pressed down as she pretended to consider this. ‘I can do pleasant.’
‘I’m so relieved,’ he mocked as he drew her closer.
As Lizzie’s tiny frame and softness yielded to his hard body the sensation was extreme. For Lizzie too, he suspected, feeling her quiver beneath his hands. ‘Still smiling, I hope?’ he murmured as the music began to play.
‘I’ve got a great big grin on my face,’ she assured him.
‘Just don’t try too hard, or no one will believe you.’
‘I’ll be sure to achieve an appropriate balance.’
‘Be sure you do.’
Their banter was born of pure, unadulterated lust on his part. Lizzie was a little harder to read. She was stiff to begin with, when everything about the sultry South American music called for fluidity, for rhythm and abandonment, and for sex—
‘If you hadn’t saved me today,’ she commented thoughtfully when the first tune ended.
‘You wouldn’t be here, and I wouldn’t have had to dance with you,’ he supplied.
‘Is my dancing that bad?’
‘It is a little prim.’
‘I can do wild.’
Just not with him, he gathered.