“If this is a lead-and-follow question, you know I don’t know you well enough.”
He smoothed his hands up her body and cupped her face in that intimate way she loved. Craved. “Nope. Not my job. Hell, I don’t know if I’d want that responsibility. Just… Well, it’s worth a shot.”
Without waiting for an answer, he took her hand and tugged her back down the hall to her bedroom. God, she must look a wreck after their night, and she envied Dima’s shower. The expression on Paul’s face said he didn’t give a shit. He’d lit up in that delicious, priceless way.
He looked her up and down. “Clothes off, hot pants. Time to get nasty.”
Lizzie restrained her amusement to a smirk. She stripped for him. Being naked had never been a problem for her, although she knew a hell of a lot of dancers with body images so bad they could barely look in a mirror. In that respect, she’d always been lucky. She was a Latin dancer. Shape was her friend.
Paul pushed her onto the bed and covered her body with his. The rough scrape of his jeans against her inner thighs made her shiver out a long moan. He kissed and petted her breasts, and shook his head when he gazed at her stomach. “So fucking sexy, Lizzie.”
She smiled, hands in his hair, nearly losing the morning’s tension on the press of his lips to her navel.
The shower turned off. Lizzie froze. She squeezed her eyes shut, because Paul had left the door open.
She was naked under him, and no way in hell would Dima miss that when he emerged from the bathroom.
Her instinct was to push against Paul’s shoulders. Bolt. Get dressed quick. Only, he held her in place, with that nasty smile back in force. Such a contrast on sweet, optimistic Paul did crazy things to her guts.
The bathroom door opened. Lizzie couldn’t breathe.
Maybe she should’ve trusted Paul after all. He angled a look back to where Dima stood in the doorway, wearing only a towel.
“Join us, Dima?”
Chapter Fourteen
The shower had done little to ease Dima, either his muscles or his head. He’d known Lizzie’s accusation would come sooner or later. The truth could not be hidden forever. Ignoring it for so long had done them few favors. No matter what the judges or their coach had said about timing and balance, she’d fallen from his arms—the exact place where she should have been safest.
Seeing his Lizzie, naked and beautifully lush, under Paul… That was surprisingly okay to accept. They were golden perfection wound together. Paul wore jeans dipped low over his hips, showing off the twin dimples above his ass.
Dima forced a smile out of pure will. “Are you certain I’m welcome? You two are quite cozy.” The words came out entirely more revealing than he’d intended. A wry joke would have been enough.
Yet he needed to make sure Lizzie wanted him there as well.
His stomach churned with the ugly fact that he had all but withered under Lizzie’s approbation. The sharp crack of her angered words had hurt. More than that, they had flayed him open to the bone. Something raw and wounded had spilled out. He and Lizzie had always been a partnership.
He’d never told her about the opportunity he passed up just after her injury. Maybe he should have, but what would that have accomplished? Lizzie didn’t owe him, not for that. Instead, he needed to know that she didn’t still harbor such painful resentment. He mistrusted himself enough for both of them.
All he’d ever wanted to do was dance. To make his parents proud of him when they couldn’t continue their own careers. It had only seemed right after everything they’d done to get them out of Russia and settle in a strange new place. Hell, in a strange way, they had given him Lizzie. Yet nearing thirty, he was a constant half step away from blowing it all. Even if he could forget about six months ago, he couldn’t shake the certainty he would bring about disappointment again.
He needed off the circuit. For good. He needed Lizzie safe with him at Club Devant. Somehow. Before all of his limitations were revealed.
However, his high-and-mighty feelings didn’t have any sway over his cock. Beneath the towel, his body was waking and readying. How could it not, with the luscious hints of Lizzie’s skin peeking out from under Paul?
She swallowed, her slender throat working. Her hand slipped off Paul’s ribs and reached for him. “Come to me, Dima.” A tiny tremor took her fingers.
That easily, his feet were moving. If Lizzie asked, he’d always do his damnedest. That’s the way his mind had been trained—the way she’d trained him.
He slipped his hand into hers. He’d directed last night, and had been glad to, but this morning he needed something more. A sign of acceptance. So he let her tug him down. She slid her hand up his arm and grasped the back of his neck.