Lead and Follow(28)

Paul’s hands rested lightly on her shoulders, while Dima’s hugged beneath her breasts. God, that was intimate. Her heart was racing, pounding so hard. Either one of them would be able to guess how much she wanted this—if they weren’t too lost in their own swirling lust.

Leaning nearer, Paul whispered against her ear, “Doesn’t dinner smell wonderful?”

She swallowed. “It does.”

“Then let’s eat.”

Dima nodded and backed away, returning to the stove. The sliver of disappointment that wedged between her ribs was nearly painful. She managed, however, just how she managed to step away from Paul and get dishes from a cabinet.

He hopped down from the counter, although it wasn’t much of a hop for his long legs. Her skin prickled as he came up behind her again. “Don’t look so crestfallen. I’m hungry.” His breath was hot against the side of her neck. He slid a hand down her back and cupped one ass cheek. “And I’m going to need a lot of fuel to keep up with you two.”

Lizzie glanced at the stove, where Dima ladled his fabulous rosemary tomato sauce into a soup tureen. He smiled, as if to a private joke. She wanted to tell both of them to quit pissing around, but Jesus, if that wasn’t part of the fun.

“Go sit,” she said. “I’ll get us a drink. Your choice: tea, soda, champagne or vodka.”

“He brought wine too,” Dima added.

“Forget the wine.” Paul licked his lower lip in the way that had tipped her well past gone at the club. “Champagne instead. To celebrate.”

“What are we celebrating?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

He strolled back to the dining room as if nothing had happened. As if nothing would happen.

“Lizzie?”

She frowned slightly. Funny how she never realized how rarely Dima used her name. She was always his “little one”. She turned to find him regarding her with something akin to…sympathy. “What?”

“Relax.”

“Oh, right. Sure.”

She went to the fridge and grabbed their only remaining bottle of Sovetskoye Shampanskoye. The most recent they’d opened was after their first and, to date, only television appearance, as guest professionals on a reality dance show. Dima had been so thrilled that night, as if it were the culmination of one of his grand goddamn schemes. It probably had been. Christ if she could tell—really tell—what he was thinking. Hard to know when he kept so much locked away. From her. Still. After so many years. Sometimes the frustration was unbearable.

So, yeah. Unspoken television goal accomplished.

Lizzie had blown her knee the following week.

Bottle grasped by the neck, she met Dima where he arranged potatoes and chicken breasts on a serving platter. “Relax,” she said tightly. “Because you’re not tied up in knots.”

“I am.”

“I knew it. This calm thing is an act.”

“You’d rather I push? Scare him off?”

He faced her head-on. He’d ditched his usual Russian stoicism for a surprisingly telling expression. A frown creased between brows a shade darker than his honey-brown hair. The full beauty of his lower lip was compressed into a tight line. He was a man working hard to rein in his impulses, all for the sake of the bigger picture. She often resented his control, just as she wondered how successful she would’ve been without it.

“Here’s the truth of it, little one,” he said, his voice private and filled with a new, unexpected depth of emotion. “You will be with Paul tonight, one way or the other. With or without me. Tell me, which of us has more to lose if he can’t go through with this?”

That was the other thing she resented about his control. He wound up making her feel like an impetuous kid.

“You do.”

“So you can help me take it slow, yes? He’ll want to play with me or not.” He shrugged. “So let’s eat. And see what happens.”

She sighed. “You never just ‘see what happens’.”

“I did at rehearsal,” he said quietly.

He kissed her forehead, as if nothing at all had changed between them. As if they hadn’t exploded in a rush of passion so intense that her dreams had been filled with images, sounds and a restless desire for more. She still felt his body pressed against hers. Sex or dancing—it didn’t matter. Moving with him was her definition of rhythm.

He hefted the serving platter. “Just be the undeniable tease you always are.”

“And you?”

“You’re the one who said I can be persuasive.”

She stood in the kitchen holding the champagne, wondering how fucked up it might look from the outside. She and her long-time dance partner were sharing responsibility for seducing a hot Texas bartender. Paul may as well be another of their many shared goals. In more ways than she wanted to admit, they needed an experience like this. They needed him. A genial, laid-back man they could share—the shared purpose of seduction, of all things, when all they’d managed since her injury was worrying and sniping and skirting so many new issues.