‘You didn’t make love to me,’ she flared, getting it straight in her head. ‘You had sex with me.’
‘I think I know what happened.’
‘Then know this: I’m not a victim, and I won’t be pushed around. Nor am I one of those sophisticated women who knows the score.’
‘No,’ Chico agreed calmly. ‘You’re my childhood friend.’
‘I used to think I was your friend—’
‘And now you’re a complex woman I’m getting to know all over again.’
‘Maybe that’s true,’ Lizzie agreed as she shook Chico’s hand from her arm. ‘But you’ve changed so much I don’t know you. You’re closed off. You show your feelings to no one, not even to me.’
‘That’s hardly surprising as it’s twelve years since we last met.’
‘Yes. Twelve long years,’ she agreed. ‘I was a child then, and I’m a woman now—who isn’t so easily impressed. I’ve let go of the past, Chico, but can you?’
‘You’ve let go of the past?’ Chico demanded with a harsh laugh as he brought her close. ‘Do you remember how your parents made you feel? How they neglected you—ignored you, put you last? Have you really forgotten that, Lizzie?’
As he spoke the music segued into a sizzling Argentine tango in honour of Nero Caracas, one of Chico’s closest friends, and before she knew it their heated discussion had somehow moved seamlessly into the fiery dance.
He already knew Lizzie could dance like a dream when she wanted to, and moving to music was in his blood, but this second time around, after hot sex and hotter tempers, was electric. Their dancing was more heated, tense and fierce. If he’d been aware of her before sex, he was hyper-aware of her now. Lizzie’s fire insisted she respond to the music, and though she made as if she could resist him she anticipated his every move, just as she had in his bed. Her version of the heated Latin American dance might not be strictly authentic, but she brought something distinctly Lizzie to the dance that reminded him of what that lush body could do. She brought more sex per step to all the required precision and intensity to the dance than was safe and decent, forcing him to tell himself sternly that he couldn’t have her at his own party in the shadows in full sight of the dance floor. Thankfully, the tune came to an end, and so did Lizzie’s performance. It was almost a relief when she reverted to being safely buttoned up.