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  Tomorrow, she’d get to the bottom of that shocking video. She wasn’t giving up on years of hard work and her dreams of being a champion without a fight.

  “I believe this dance is mine.”

  Shanna followed the deep voice and looked up into an incredibly handsome face. Strong features, burning hazel eyes, heavy five-o’clock shadow, perfectly tailored gray suit with a vavoom red tie. Her heart lurched; this one had sin written all over him.

  He also looked familiar. She stared, hesitating, but the more she thought about it, the more certain she became. Somewhere, somehow, they’d crossed paths before.

  “Have we met?”

  He smiled, all dazzling charm, oozing Latin charisma and hot sex. “Yes. Three months ago. The Bartolino Foundation thing.”

  That night rushed back to her with overwhelming clarity. This sexy man with his killer smile, flirting outrageously and whispering shocking, hot suggestions as he tangoed her around the dance floor. At the end of the night, he’d asked her out…while trying to kiss her. She’d refused every would-be swain for the past two years without a single regret. But he sorely tempted her. The man might as well have the word Distraction tattooed on his forehead. Dating him was impossible. That night, she’d refused him and disappeared into the crowd. She assumed she’d seen the last of him.

  Now she suspected she’d underestimated his resolve.

  “Ah, I think you recall that night.” A smile lifted the edges of his lips.

  “Alejandro, isn’t it?”

  “Alejandro Diaz, yes.”

  Shanna drew in a deep breath. Just like their first meeting, he caused an unwelcome dizzying effect, complete with revving heartbeat. Warning! When she had to bring a date to a social occasion—the only time she went out—she chose safe men who were too busy with their own work to be demanding and too dull to keep her interest for more than an evening. She just didn’t have time for a relationship when she had a dance career that needed all her attention.

  This one might as well shout that he’d be both fascinating and determined. He meant to get his way—and have his way with her.

  Not if she could help it.

  Steeling herself against the impact of his touch, Shanna put her hand in his. No matter how prepared she thought she’d been for the skin-on-skin contact, she’d been wrong. A wild gong of want beat through her the second her palm brushed his. She braced for the rush of heat as she stood.

  “The music is starting. Shall we?” He gestured to the dance floor, then eased her forward with a hand at the small of her back.

  “Sure.” What else could she say? This was his three minutes; he’d paid for them, so she owed him that. But no more.

  God, not a second more.

  A soft Latin rhythm began to wash the room from the overhead speakers. Sensual, hypnotic, the music spoke of a humid summer night shared by lovers. Shanna nearly groaned. Great, a rumba, the dance of love. The one that most emulated passion and sex. Why now?

  On a strong beat, Alejandro grabbed her wrist and pulled her against him. Shanna tried to stop herself from crashing into him by planting a hand on his chest. But her fingers only encountered hard muscle. He was like a rock under that shirt, and given his mile-wide shoulders, she was suddenly sure that seeing him naked would be ten times better than a slice of her favorite sinful chocolate cake.

  He hooked a finger under her chin. Reluctantly, she lifted her gaze to his. The heat in those hazel eyes could melt steel. Look away. Get away! But she couldn’t. Once her gaze connected with his, she was locked in, fused to him in a way she didn’t understand.

  That stare sizzled all through her…and settled right between her legs. She felt unable to break his gaze.

  Sex had always been something she could take or leave. At the moment, she wanted to take anything he was willing to dish out.

  How could he do that to her with just a glance?

  As she drew in a deep breath and tried to find her wits, he curled a thick arm around her waist, drawing her even closer. His whole body was hard…every inch of it. From the feel of him, many inches. Shanna trembled to realize he was every bit as interested as she was. Thank god these dances were short.

  Then he held out his left hand, palm up. Slowly, she placed her hand in his.

  They began to dance. He was incredibly smooth, never dancing on his heels, never losing the beat of the music. Wow, could he move his hips. Perfect figure eights with them. No doubt, he’d learned how to dance very well somewhere along the way.

  Basic boxes quickly gave way to an open position, then a cross, which he used as an opportunity to brush his body against hers and caress her hip. An underarm turn led her right back to a basic.

  He was good for an amateur. She had an inkling that he might be good at other things, too.

  “So, what brings you here tonight?” she asked, grasping at conversational straws. Maybe if she was talking, she wouldn’t be thinking about how much this guy turned her on.

  “Helping orphans is not a worthwhile cause?”

  “It is. Most men would rather simply write a check than ballroom dance.”

  “I brought my mother. She enjoys these things, and it is a very small thing to do in order to see her smile.”

  Sexy, a good dancer, family-oriented, crazy handsome—Alejandro seemed like every woman’s fantasy and way too good to be true. He must have some terrible flaw she just couldn’t see at the moment. If not…she was in a heap of trouble.

  Her body temperature was rising with every suggestive look, every sweep of his hand over her waist and low dive on her hip, each brush of his palm that inched toward her ass.

  Damn! Why hadn’t she found some man to scratch her itch in the last two years? Or even invested in a good vibrator? Maybe if she had, she wouldn’t feel wound so tightly right now, so ready to jump on Alejandro and every protruding part of his body.

  “That’s nice of you,” she managed to say.

  “Not really. I knew you would be here.”

  “M-me?”

  “Hmm.” He led her into another open position, then curled her against his body, hips crushed against hips. She felt way more than his pelvis.

  “Certainly you can feel my…enthusiasm to see you again.” He laughed, seemingly at himself.

  Yeah. His enthusiasm was sizeable and very hard to miss.

  Then he leaned her back over his arm in an exaggerated dip and followed her down. Until his face was an inch from her breasts. Shanna felt him exhale, his warm breath caressed her cleavage. Her nipples beaded instantly.

  Slowly, he lifted her upright again, then spun her around until her back rested against his chest. He nestled his erection in the small of her back. The flat of his palm covered her abdomen, and he took her other hand in his. The gesture probably looked possessive. It certainly felt that way.

  Straight ahead, she saw Kristoff dancing with a thin, middle-aged woman with hair a dubious shade of red. He peered at her with a questioning brow raised.

  Alejandro led her to swivel her hips against his, in time with the music. Kristoff didn’t miss a second of it. In fact, as Shanna looked around, she realized they’d gathered quite a bit of attention.

  A blast of moisture flooded her sex.

  “Everyone is watching,” he whispered.

  “I see that.” Her voice shook.

  He bent and lifted her leg, wrapping her calf around his thigh and urging her head to fall back to his shoulder. Their eyes met, their mouths inches apart.

  Shanna felt stripped down, as if she was naked under Alejandro’s knowing gaze. God, if he didn’t stop that, she’d melt against him right here, right now.

  “Men are watching you, wanting you.”

  He grabbed her thigh, spun her around to face him, then placed that thigh over his hip. They rested nearly hip to hip again. As he leaned back slightly, he forced her chest against his. Still, she couldn’t break his stare.

  “And you like it,” he whispered.

  She opened
her mouth to deny it, but Alejandro’s gaze stopped her, warning her before she could do anything foolish, like lie.

  “I can tell you do.”

  The intensity of his stare, the way in which he’d dug past her icy defenses, seemed to see the real her, and guessed her dirty secret… He was a walking wet dream. He was her worst nightmare.

  How had he known she loved being watched?

  Alejandro swayed with the music in the opposite direction, bringing her body with him. With a gentle caress of her cheek, he directed her gaze back to his—all while making it look like a part of the dance.

  “You know you do,” he murmured. “You love that most every man in the room would kill to have your body against his and an up-close view of that smoldering sensuality melting the ice you wrap yourself in.”

  His words made her shake because they were so true. “Stop.”

  He performed an open step, then brought her back for a box. “Their stares cling to you as you lure them in with the sway of your hips to the beat of the music. They are drawn to your femininity. Their gazes caress your breasts as your chest lifts with every move and breath. They watch the movements of your sleek thighs and wish they could lie between them.”

  A glance around proved he was totally right. Easily a dozen men were openly watching she and Alejandro dance, their gazes ranging from more than mildly interested to sizzling with heat. Desire vibrated deep inside her, pulsing under her clit. How wet could she get before she stained the front of her thin costume?

  And how had Alejandro known exactly what turned her on?

  Most people had only seen the driven dancer who yearned to win and find some way to make her family proud. No one else had seen the woman inside who used dance to express the sexuality she otherwise repressed. No one.

  This man had known her secret in the blink of an eye. He’d all but mocked her chilly reserve. He looked at her as if he could see beyond her façade, to the fear and emptiness that fed her ambition.

  Thankfully, the music ended.

  “Thank you for an interesting evening, Mr. Diaz. Perhaps our paths will cross again.” But not if she could help it.

  Still, he didn’t let go. Instead, he continued to stare with that sultry hint of a smile. “The evening is not over. I bought all of your dances tonight. Every last one.”

  Shanna stared at him, wide eyed and stunned. Panicked. 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 tolerate.

  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 don’t know what other men are thinking,” she protested.

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

  Oh, god. “This conversation is inappropriate.”

  “Honesty disturbs you?”

  “I’m not…I—I don’t get aroused by 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, cradling her swaying hips, his mouth hovering just over her sensitive nape in a darkened corner of the ballroom.

  Shanna shivered as he exhaled on her sensitive flesh and 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. “Such pretty, edible, want-to-suck-them-in-my-mouth buds.”

  She opened her mouth to stop him with a hiss, 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 very wet sex. He lingered. Shame and arousal crashed inside her. She closed her eyes.

  “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 read her that well after a few minutes with her, Shanna knew he’d quickly dig deeper 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.

  “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. “I want it in my hands, my mouth, all around my cock when I fuck you. Will you wonder then 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 murmured that sort of sin, he didn’t just turn her on; he turned her inside out.

  He was dangerous. She could see getting lost in such a man and his smoldering promise of spectacular sex—the kind she’d never experienced.

  “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 brush my palms over your hard nipples before I roll them between my fingers. I fantasize about feeling my way lower, down to that soft, wet pussy, then grazing your hard clit. And stroking you until you come. I obsess about bending you over and filling you with my cock—all while you suspect the hot stares of strangers rake you. Want 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 that gets you off. Sneak Peek was made for women like you.”

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

  “I know what goes on there.”

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

  Shanna wanted to lie, but she didn’t trust him not to waltz her in a corner and test his theory.

  “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. Yes, Alejandro had paid his money. He’d gotten his dance and his cheap feel, too. 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. 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 whirled her around. Suddenly off balance, she collided against his chest. Her head snapped back…her mouth right under his.

  “Come to Sneak Peek. There, I will fulfill your every fantasy.”

  Of that, she had
no doubt. But no way could she give him that chance.

  3

  “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.”

  She regarded her former dance partner with a frosty stare. “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 recent turmoil. Belatedly, Shanna had realized he needed more emotional support from a partner than she’d given. Their fights had become hellacious. They’d said terrible things, and he’d 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 deeds.