It was a dance of lust, pure and simple.

The woman stalked her partner – her lucky, lucky partner – with a predatory sexuality. Every move was eloquent, hot and demanding, every glance one of seduction.

Brady stared at Thea’s face as the dancers whirled past. Her eyes, wide and lovely, were deep as sin. They were the kind of eyes that could hold a man spellbound. Then she closed them, her lashes black fans on her cheeks as she gave herself over to the pounding, driving music.

The dancers came before them, their steps now slow, now quick, circling one another in a choreographed seduction that had Brady’s body tightening with need. The dancers teased, tormented, stepping ever closer to the edge of the crowd.

Then Thea’s eyes flicked open and she stared directly at Brady, her gaze filled with desire.

“Would you like to dance with me?”

Dear Reader,

Writing is a journey of discovery. In the case of a group like the Supper Club, there are a lot of characters to know and follow. Most were speaking with their own voices in my head from the beginning (trust me, it gets loud in there sometimes). Thea was so self-contained, so internalised it was hard to really figure out who she was and what she needed. I knew where she’d come from, I knew what had happened to her in New York, but I didn’t really know her. Discovering her personality and sense of humour, watching her learn about how to live life from a free spirit like Brady McMillan (and a silly pug named Darlene) has been a delight. Meanwhile, the stories of the other characters, particularly Kelly’s, continue. Stay tuned for more.

I hope you’ll drop me a line at Kristin@ kristinhardy.com and let me know what you think. Look for the series to wind up with a bang with Delaney’s story in August 2008. To keep track, sign up for my newsletter at www. kristinhardy. com, where you can also find contests, recipes and updates on my recent and upcoming releases.

Have fun,

Kristin Hardy

HOT MOVES

BY

KRISTIN HARDY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To Brian, the check is in the mail

To Kathryn and Teresa, more than usual

And to Stephen, more than you can ever know

CAST OF CHARACTERS FOR SEX & THE SUPPER CLUB

Book 1 – Turn Me On Sabrina Pantolini and Stef Costas

Book 2 – Cutting Loose Trish Dawson and Ty Ramsay

Book 3 – Nothing But the Best Cilla Danforth and Rand Mitchell

Book 4 – Bad Influence Paige Favreau and Zach Reed

Book 5 – Hot Moves Thea Mitchell and Brady McMillan

Book 6 – Bad Behaviour Delaney Phillips and? Coming August 2008

Prologue

Los Angeles, 1996

“I KNEW YOU GUYS WERE up to something.” Eyes alight with fun, Thea Mitchell glanced at her friends clustered around the restaurant table. They’d met the year before on the drama department’s production of Henry VI. The friendships formed had stuck.

“It’s your birthday,” said Cilla Danforth, wardrobe mistress, leaning out of the way to allow the waiter to take her plate. “Anyway, the costumes are almost done and the dress rehearsal isn’t until next week, so no reason we shouldn’t sneak out of the workshop early to celebrate.”

“The backdrops and props are ready to go,” added set designer Paige Favreau, who’d rather predictably gotten her work finished weeks before.

Trish Dawson stirred. “Everyone’s got their copies of the final script.” And as script doctor, it was her business to know. “If the choreography’s set, then we’re ready.”

“Done last week.” Thea stroked her fingers along the magenta feather boa Cilla had given her to wear along with a rhinestone tiara that crowned her thick tumble of dark hair. “I’m on top of my moves.”

“So’s the guy over at the bar. He’s been watching you all night,” said the play’s publicity manager Delaney Phillips. The man in question was dark-haired and intense, handsome if you liked the GQ type.

Thea didn’t, much. “I’ll pass. Now him,” she added, glancing over at a tousled blonde drinking a beer. “He’s definitely my kind of guy.” He glanced over and caught her looking and she blushed a little but held his gaze.

“So what’s your birthday resolution?” Trish asked, invoking what had become a group ritual.

“Hmm? Oh, I don’t know. To have fun.”

Delaney imitated a buzzer on a game show. “Too vague, Mitchell. Try again.”

Thea grinned. “Okay, how about this? To take more chances.” Then her attention was drawn by candles flickering on a cake being carried to her by the waiter. “Like on this chocolate cake for example. I’ll take a chance on it any day.”

Sabrina Pantolini, from the film department, got up with her camera. Whether she was armed with her camcorder or her Nikon, if Sabrina didn’t capture it in pictures, she never quite felt like it had happened. “Okay, everybody lean in and say ‘sex,” ’ she ordered.

“Can’t we just have sex, instead?” Thea pouted.

“You can do that, too, birthday girl,” Kelly, the group’s journalist told her. “Just make a wish and blow out the candles.”

Thea winked. “Make a wish? How about me and Blondie?”

“Better blow hard,” Delaney suggested.

“I blow just right,” Thea told her. She took a breath and turned to the cake.

“Excuse me.”

And the breath whooshed out of her lungs as she looked up, snuffing out only part of the candles.

The man from the bar stood over her. He was taller than she’d estimated when he was sitting. Up close, he was clearly older, forties, maybe, with a look of command in his pale eyes. Eyes that focused solely on Thea.

“I see congratulations are in order.” His gaze zeroed in on her lips, skimmed the neckline of her low-cut red T-shirt. “What’s your name?”

“Thea,” she replied.

“Happy birthday, Thea. My name’s Derek.” Cilla’s eyes widened. He didn’t notice, nor did Thea. “You’ve got ten candles on the cake. Is that how old you are, ten?”

“Nineteen,” she responded without thinking.

“It could still work,” he murmured, almost to himself. “That skin’s perfect.” He cleared his throat. “Listen, sorry to interrupt your party but I’ve got something to talk with you about. Alone,” he added, glancing over the group clustered around the table, avidly watching them. “Come over to the bar with me.”

“Much as I’d like to talk about my perfect skin, I’ll pass, thanks.” Thea gestured to the cake. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

“Trust me, you’re not too busy for this. I think you’ll be interested in what I have to say.”

She eyed him. “If you want to hit on me, here’s as good a place as any.”

“I’m not hitting on you,” he said with a trace of impatience. “This is business, and I don’t have all night. Now, you can keep sucking down Shirley Temples with your girlfriends or you can come talk to me about what just might be your future.” He tossed a business card down on the table. “I’ll be over at the bar.”

Turning on his heel, he strode away.

Thea stared at him, watching as he slid onto a stool and gestured for a drink. On the cake before her, a lone candle still sputtered.

“What was that all about?” Trish asked, mystified.

“Ignore him,” Paige advised. “He’s selling something.”

Delaney lifted her club soda. “Nope. Pickup line, no matter what he says.”

“No,” Cilla and Kelly said simultaneously. “That’s Derek Edes,” Cilla added.

Sabrina frowned. “I know that name.”

“You should. He’s only one of the biggest fashion photographers in the business, outside of maybe Richard Avedon.”

“Avedon?” Now Thea looked as mystified as Trish. “What does he want with me?”

“Your perfect skin?” Cilla shrugged. “Don’t ask me, ask him. He’s staring at you again, by the way.”

Thea shifted.

“Don’t look,” Paige ordered. “If he wanted to talk to you badly enough to come over here, he can wait. It’s your birthday.”

Cilla reached out for the business card, tapping it thoughtfully on the tabletop. “I say wait and call him Monday.”

“Or call his room,” Kelly added. “I think I read somewhere that he always stays at the Chateau Marmont when he comes to L. A.”

Thea rose. “No. I’m going to go find out what he wants.”

Delaney snorted. “That’s not hard, sweetie. You’re gorgeous and he’s male.”

Thea shook her head. “This isn’t sex. It’s something else,” she said. “I just don’t know what.”

And so they watched as she crossed the room with a feline grace that was partly the result of fifteen years of dance training, partly innate. They watched as she sat next to him, as he rested a casual, proprietary hand on the back of her stool. They stared as her mouth dropped open in shock, as the five minutes stretched into twenty.

And they watched as she crossed the room, finally, walking as though her feet weren’t touching the ground.

“So? What’s it all about?” Delaney demanded.

“A job,” Thea said, bemused. “He wants me to come to New York and model for a new cosmetics campaign he’s shooting.”

“What did you say?”

“Remember my birthday resolution?”

“To take more chances?”

She nodded, her eyes on Derek Edes, the blonde completely forgotten. “I said yes. I leave Monday.”

1

Portland, Oregon, 2007

“YOU’RE GOING TO SEATTLE for the weekend to drink beer?”

Brady McMillan looked up from the steel keg he was washing out in the pub’s microbrewery and grinned at his older brother. “Pour beer, Michael” he corrected, resting a hand against one of the gleaming copper tanks lined up behind him. “It’s a brewers’ festival. I’ll be bonding with the masses, making a good impression for McMillans’, comparing notes with my fellow brewmasters—”

“—and drinking beer,” Michael finished.

Brady’s lips twitched as he lifted the keg to drain onto the concrete floor. Water streamed down to the grates below the funnel-shaped bottoms of the tanks. “It’s a difficult job but someone’s got to do it. I’m willing to suffer to give McMillans’ the best beer possible.” Five feet away, on the other side of the low wooden barrier, lay the warm golden oak and leather of their flagship brewpub. Here behind the barrier was Brady’s territory of malts and worts, hops and hoses.

Michael folded his arms over his barrel chest. “Some people just use message boards.”

“There’s no substitute for face-to-face contact.”

“Or mouth to glass.”

“The taste, the aroma, the mouth feel—”

“The buzz.”

“What? I can’t hear you over the noise of all the people out in the pub drinking my beer.” Brady blinked guilelessly and set the keg upright. “Good thing I go to these festivals to stay on top of the trends.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it’s the beer that brings them back, but it’s the atmosphere in the pubs that gets ’em here in the first place.”

“No doubt. Lucky we’re both good at our jobs, isn’t it?” Michael was burly where Brady was lanky, darkhaired where Brady was blond, and Michael thrived on the business side of things whereas for Brady it was all about the beer and the people, in roughly that order.

“I think you could start offloading some of your brewing work and pitch in on the pubs some more. Like the Odeon Theater property. We need to go over some of the numbers. The deal’s supposed to close week after next and we’ve got to talk about the closing costs and go over some construction figures—”

“Oh, hey, look, the beer needs me,” Brady said quickly, lips twitching. “Wow. Bad timing. Wish I could help.”

Michael’s brows lowered. “You’re not making beer, you’re washing kegs.”

“Sterilizing,” Brady corrected.

“Whatever. This whole theater thing was your idea. You can at least pretend to be interested in the remodel.”

“I’m the beer guy and the idea man, remember? You’re the pub guy.”

“I’m willing to share the pub guy part.”

“Hah.” Brady held out his hand, pointing to a thin white scar on the side of his forefinger. “See that?”

“What?”

“That’s from the time you attacked me with your letter opener when I tried to open up QuickBooks.”

Michael took a closer look and snorted. “You got that playing mumblety-peg with Elliot Bingenheimer in third grade.”

“Oh, you can tell yourself that if it makes you feel better.” Brady flexed his hand meditatively. “They tell me I’ll be able to play Parcheesi again someday.”

“Yeah, that’s why you went rock climbing last week.”

“It’s physical therapy. Face it, Michael, you’re a control freak. You say you want to share your pub guy thing but you know you don’t.”

“Unlike you, say, who’s happy to delegate…oh, gee, that’s right, nothing,” he said lightly. “You know, you might be able to keep up brewing at four pubs, but when we add the new place, even you’re going to have to let go of some things. At least if you want to keep up with your kayaking and mountain biking schedule. We should hire a brewmaster for each place.”

“My name’s on it,” Brady said stubbornly. “I want to be sure it’s my beer.”

“Now who’s the control freak?”

Humor glimmered in Brady’s eyes. “All right.” He set the keg aside. “Even though I am just the beer and idea guy, let’s talk about your theater.”

“My theater? My theater, Mr. ‘This Is A One Of A Kind Property And We Have To Buy It Now’? Our theater,” Michael corrected. “Or it will be.”

Brady wiped off his hands and settled his ball cap more firmly on his head. “Yep. That it will.”

Some birthdays were rites of passage, Thea thought as she washed her hands in the blue glass basin in the bathroom of the L.A. restaurant. She discarded the drying napkin then stopped, staring at herself in the mirror. She wasn’t given to primping—she habitually skinned her hair back in a ponytail or braid, rarely bothered with cosmetics. With clever makeup and the right hairstyle, her full mouth and wideset eyes could take on a singular beauty—or so said the fashion editors and designers who’d paid a thousand dollars an hour for her time during the three years she’d modeled. Without the hair and makeup, Thea thought her features just looked overstated to the point of caricature on her angular face.

The bee-stung lips and soft gray-blue eyes came from her mother. The angular facial structure and sharp jaw came from her father, though his was always tight with bitterness or poised to deliver some cutting comment. She’d have preferred to look at herself and see nothing of either of them, but they were part of her physical makeup. Ingrained in her emotional makeup, too, no matter how hard she might battle to erase them.

No, she wasn’t given to primping anymore. So why was she standing here now, looking at herself, searching for a remnant of the excited young girl she’d been all those birthdays before? At twelve, bursting with anticipation in the days before the birthday that would make her a teenager. At seventeen, sitting on the cusp of adulthood, desperate to move out and escape her overbearing father.

The next significant milestone, twenty-one, didn’t bear thinking about, lost at a time she’d lost herself. And she couldn’t really say she’d ever found herself again in the fog of time that had passed since.

With an impatient noise, she turned for the door.

There was a cake on the table when she got back to it, glimmering with candles. Nine more of them than at the last milestone. Nine years… And where had they left her now?

Sabrina glanced up with laughter in her dark eyes. “About time you got back. We thought you’d drowned.”

“It was a near thing, but I made it to shore.”

“You should have yelled if you were in trouble,” Kelly said. “We could have sent in our sexy waiter to rescue you.”

“Hey, expectant mothers and soon-to-be brides aren’t supposed to notice other guys,” Trish reminded her.

“Other guys who aren’t their intended,” Paige clarified, pushing a smooth wing of blond hair behind one ear.

“Exactly.”

“I was only being descriptive,” Kelly said with dignity, taking a drink of the mango juice she’d ordered. “We writers do that.”

“’Zat so?” Thea sat down and pulled in her chair.

“Well, you’ve got to admit, he is sexy. I suppose I could have said hot. That’s a synonym. We writers use those, too.”

“Glad you clarified that for me.” Thea glanced at the waiter across the room. She’d spent so long consciously shutting off that line of thought, not thinking about men, how they looked, how they acted, whether she might want them in her life.

Whether they might want her.

The waiter glanced over and their gazes met for a moment, the quick connection like the flash of light from the revolving lantern of a lighthouse. Such a circumscribed life she led, so few people she touched—the Supper Club and the acquaintances she’d made at tango class—so few people she even made eye contact with. She’d forgotten what it was like.

“Time for wishes and resolutions,” Trish announced.

“And cake,” Delaney added.

“Hurry up. I’m suffering a chocolate deficiency,” Kelly said. “It can’t be good for the baby.”

“Don’t rush her,” Trish scolded. “Take your time, Thea.”

“I’ll have to. I’ve got to come up with something pretty good to keep up with what all the rest of you guys have done this year.”

“You don’t have to worry about keeping up.”

Thea grinned. “I couldn’t if I wanted to.” Not with this group of friends: Trish, who’d made her dream of being a Hollywood screenwriter a reality; Cilla, now a sought-after clothing designer and retail entrepreneur; Sabrina, who’d turned her fascination with cameras into a documentary filmmaking career; Kelly, a top reporter at the biggest film industry daily. Even Paige and Delaney had done well, if less publicly, Paige with her own interior design business and Delaney moving up at her marketing firm.

Only Thea was no further along with her life than she’d been when they’d met at eighteen, save for the robust investment accounts that were her only tangible souvenirs of her time in New York.

It was definitely enough to make a person think.

“So what’s your birthday resolution?” Cilla asked. “No cake until you tell us.”

“To get my life in gear.” The words were out before Thea knew she was going to say them.

And she swore everyone at the table stilled for an instant.

“Well, how about that?” Sabrina said finally. “You don’t take on the small stuff, do you?”

“So what does getting your life in gear mean?” That was Paige—figure out your goal and set about accomplishing it.

“I don’t know,” Thea confessed. “I just want something…different.”

The table erupted in conversation. “Different is great.” Cilla stared at her with a broad grin. Had it been that obvious that she’d been going through the motions, Thea wondered.

“You could go back to school, finish your degree,” Trish suggested.

“Do you want to get into film?” Sabrina asked. “I have an opening for a production assistant.”

Paige nodded. “Or you could start your own business.”

“Why would she need the headaches?” Delaney took a sip of her Cosmopolitan. “She’s got all the money she could want socked away in the bank. You ask me, she should only do what she wants to do.”

“And what is that?” Sabrina asked.

If she only knew, Thea thought. “Right now, it’s having cake.” For the rest, she had time. She leaned in to blow out the candles.

“Don’t forget to make your wish,” Kelly reminded her.

Just to be happy, finally. It was time, Thea thought, looking around the table of glowing faces. Things had changed for her friends in more than the career department. All of them were in love. All of them, save unrepentantly single Delaney, had found their soul mates.

Not that Thea was looking for that. When it came to men, she didn’t trust her judgment a lick. She didn’t trust the whole breed, for that matter, though her Supper Club friends seemed happy with their husbands and lovers so far. She needed to take it slowly, start with getting her life rolling again.

She took a breath and blew.

THEA AND TRISH STOOD at the valet stand, the last two wait ing for their cars.

“So how are things?” Thea asked her. “You look happy.”

“I am.” A smile bloomed across her face, slow and beautiful. “I never realized I could be, not like this. I know that sounds goofy but it’s true. I keep thinking it’s all a dream and I’m going to wake up but I think it’s real.”

Thea admired her, the luminous skin that glowed against the red hair, the loveliness that Trish had hidden for so long. Until she’d met Ty. “It doesn’t sound goofy. It sounds nice.”

“I wish I could bottle it and give some to everyone I know.” Trish paused. “I wish I could give some to you.”

“I’m all right,” Thea said.

“Are you?”

“Better every day.”

Trish looked at her and nodded. “I almost believe that. You seem different tonight. I don’t know how, but different.”

“Spring fever.”

“Not spring anymore,” Trish corrected. “We’re in June. New season, new life.”

“We’ll see.” The valet drove up with Trish’s car, a sporty convertible. She traded tip for key and leaned in to hug Thea. “Happy birthday, sweetie. Here’s hoping this is your year.”

“My year for what?”

“For getting it all.”

She got in and drove away with a wave, while Thea watched. Here’s hoping this is your year.

Thea’s cell phone rang as the valet pulled up with her Prius. She flipped open the handset. “Hello?”

“I need your moves,” said the person on the other end.

Thea blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I need you, now.”

“Is this an obscene phone call?” she demanded.

“You wish,” answered a voice she recognized.

Thea handed the valet his tip. “You’re a sick woman, Waller.”

Robyn Waller, one of the few true friends Thea had made in New York. They’d met in a dance class Thea had taken to keep sharp. Since then Thea’s dance dreams had been channeled into amateur ballroom dancing and Robyn’s had been rescaled to owning a dance studio in her Portland, Oregon, hometown.

“So what’s going on? Why do you need my moves? Assuming I feel like giving any of them away, of course.” Tucking her tongue into her cheek, Thea got into her car and buckled on her seatbelt.

“Well, are you still working one of your McJobs, or do you actually have something you care about?”

When your retirement was already in the bank, earning enough for most of your income besides, a career became optional. “I’m working at a nursery.”

“Babies?”

Thea laughed. “Plants. Why, you want to come down for a visit?”

“Just the opposite. What would you say to coming up to Portland for a couple of months, teach in my studio?”

Thea snorted and pulled out into traffic. “I’d say it’s a long commute for a temp job.”

“I’m serious, Thea. I need you, if you can do it.”

There was something in Robyn’s voice, she realized. An urgency, an anxiety. “Robyn, I’m not qualified to teach,” she protested.

“Oh, come on, you know top level figures for all the Latin and smooth styles and you’re the best amateur Argentine tango dancer I know.”

“For the women’s parts, not the men’s. I’d need that to teach.”

“You can learn.”

“What happened? Why the panic?”

Robyn blew out an impatient breath. “My lead instructor’s husband got transferred to Chicago. She’s leaving in a week. I just found out today.”

“Ouch. There have got to be more qualified people up your way, though.”

“If there are, I haven’t had any luck finding them. And there’s a little thing called my vacation.”

Thea’s eyes widened. “Oh no! Australia.”

“Yeah, Australia. Everything’s already paid for. Three weeks Down Under. My cousin and I have been planning this for a year.”

“Three weeks?”

“Three and a half, actually. It costs so much to get there and it takes so long, it hardly makes sense otherwise. Plus, there’s so much to see.”

“Yeah, but wow, the timing’s bad.”

“Tell me about it.”

Thea slipped into the left turn lane. “Can’t your instructor stay a bit longer?”

“She’s got a two-year-old and a four-year-old. They’ve all got to move at the same time and that’s got to be soon.”

“I guess that’s a ‘no.” ’

“That’s a no,” Robyn agreed.

“And you can’t find anyone?”

“No one I want to leave with my business, lock, stock and barrel immediately after they start, anyway.”

Thea turned with the yellow light, zipping across just ahead of a speeding Nissan Maxima. “I guess I can kind of see your point.”

“I leave next Friday. If you can get up here in a day or two, we’d have time to get you up to speed. You can stay at my place. Darlene will keep you company while I’m gone.” Darlene, Robyn’s irrepressible pug. She and Thea had become fast friends on earlier visits.

“You’ll have my car to get around.” Robyn paused. “Thea, I really need you. I know it’s a lot to ask, but will you do it?”

To get my life in gear. A chance to get out of L.A., a chance to teach dance instead of potting plants for a living. A chance to help Robyn out at a crucial time, Robyn, who’d been there for her once, long ago. A chance for…who knew?

“I won’t need your car. I’ll drive up,” Thea said.

“You’ll drive up?” Robyn stopped. “Does that mean…”

“Give me two days so I can stop and see my sister in Sacramento. I’ll be up Thursday.”

“That gives us almost a week. That’s perfect. You’re perfect.”

“Well, I’m glad you’ve finally realized that,” Thea said.

2

“WHY DO I FEEL LIKE I should have a hall pass?” Thea asked Robyn as they walked down the broad hallway of the Lincoln School. Eighteen years had passed since she’d graduated from sixth grade, but the black-and-white-tiled floor and the glassed-in display cases on the walls brought it all back. All she needed was the beaded metal chain from her I.D. tag to use as her hopscotch marker and she’d be set.

“Just wait,” Robyn said.

“Tell me you’re not going to take me to the principal’s office.”

“Nope. Someplace better.” She stopped before a wooden door with Cafeteria emblazoned on its frosted glass insert.

“Let me guess. You’re taking me out for sloppy joes?”

“If you’re good,” Robyn promised and swung the door open.

It reminded her of her elementary school cafeteria, only homier, friendlier. Butter yellow walls, black-and-white tile and polished chrome, in a room buzzing with conversation and laughter. Straight ahead lay the counter with its row of stools. Waitresses in thirties-style diner uniforms circulated with laden trays. Behind the counter lay not only the window to the kitchen but a full bar with a dizzying array of taps; on the far wall, copper-clad brewing tanks gleamed.

Thea turned around with a broad grin. “This is the coolest place I’ve ever seen.”

Robyn laughed. “I knew you’d love it. Wait until you see the bathrooms. It’s just like you remember from being a kid, only better.”

They threaded their way to a table that overlooked a playground mostly occupied by the staked green rows of a kitchen garden, but still boasting a swing set and slide off to one side, and yes, a hopscotch grid on which a trio of animated girls hotly contested the lead.

“They grow a lot of their own vegetables right here,” Robyn explained, taking the menu the hostess handed her. “About the best salads you’ll get in town, even at the farmers’ market. Although you can also get a sloppy joe.”

Thea shook her head. “It’s brilliant.”

“It’s the McMillans. Brilliance is their specialty.”

“A chain?”

“Brothers,” Robyn explained. “They’ve got a string of places. Some of them are just brewpubs, some are pub hotels, or even spas. But they pick up these quirky themes—one of the places is a decommissioned jail, and they converted the old county work farm. Oh, and then there’s Suds n’ Celluloid. It shows old movies. You kick back on sofas and old chairs and waiters bring you beer and food.”

“Now, that’s what I call civilization,” Thea commented. “They’d clean up in L.A.”

Robyn grinned. “Sorry, they’re pretty much a Portland-only gig. When everything you touch turns to gold, you don’t have to go far. I should be so lucky,” she trailed off.

“Business tough?” Thea asked sympathetically, after they’d ordered.

Robyn moved her water glass around. “It’s going well, just not fast enough. It’s always hard the first couple of years, I knew that getting into it. I’m hanging in there.” She squared her shoulders and rearranged the cutlery.

“You know, if you needed a loan—” Thea began.

“Yeah, I know,” Robyn said and gave her hand a brief squeeze. “I don’t want to go there, though. I’m already asking enough of you by hauling you up here on zero notice. You walked away from your job.”

“My McJob,” Thea pointed out. “I’ll find a new one.”

“Even so.”

“Robyn, you were there for me, remember? There’s no way I can ever pay you back for that.”

“That’s what friends do.”

“Exactly,” Thea said. “You have to go. You’ve been talking about going to Australia someday for as long as I’ve known you. Besides, you need time to yourself, time to recharge. Just think, in a week you’ll be flying off to do just that.”

“What about you? When do you recharge?”

Thea grinned as the waitress brought their beer. “Shoot, I’ve spent the last eight years recharging. I’m powered up, now.”

“Yeah, I buy that.” Robyn raised her glass. “To being powered up.”

“To being powered up,” Thea echoed, and the ring of their toast echoed out. A moment later, Thea blinked. “Wow, that is some seriously wonderful beer,” she said. “Maybe that’s what you need to do, set up a microbrewery in your dance studio. Robyn’s Tango Ale. Just like the McMillans.”

“Honey, there’s nobody like the McMillans. They’re a force unto themselves.”

BRADY AND MICHAEL STOOD on the threadbare carpeting and looked around the Odeon Theater. The seats had been upholstered in plush red velvet some seventy-odd years before. Now the worn fabric was faded to a rusty dun color, mottled with stains. Overhead arched a trompe l’oeil ceiling, bordered by gold-leafed carvings. The stale air smelled faintly of cigarette smoke.

Michael scanned the rows. “Don’t really want to think about what’s on those seats.”

“Given that the last movie they showed here was Horny Coeds Going Wild, that’s probably smart.”

“They all come out, first thing,” Michael decided.

“Probably smart, too.”

“It’s a great space. The question is, how do we turn this into a brewpub?”

Brady began to amble down the aisle. “Same way we did with the jail and the Lincoln School. Think outside the box. The two floors above here will be the hotel. This is the common area. We add a bar at the back, take out a lot of the seats and put in tables. Leave in the box seats.”

“And what, show movies here, too?” Michael followed Brady to the stage.

“Naw. We’re already doing that at Suds n’ Celluloid. We need to do something else with this.”

“Such as what, idea man?”

Brady boosted himself up onto the chest-high wood platform. “I dunno.” He stood staring around, hands in his pockets. “We’ll figure it out.”

“It’d be nice to figure it out before we pop a couple million buying and renovating it,” Michael said dryly.

“Yep.” He could see it, Brady thought, even through the shabbiness. It had been built in the heyday of the thirties movie palaces, with the sweeping curves of gilded wood, the opulent carvings, the private boxes that rose along the walls. High overhead soared the crenellated wood arch that framed the stage. Heavy gold velvet curtains, now falling apart under their own weight, hid the wings. He could see it cleaned and painted and polished, hear the laughter and the buzz of conversation as the tables of diners held their beers and looked up at…

What?

“We’ll figure it out,” he said again.

At the sound of a throat clearing, they both looked up to see the seller’s agent standing at the top of one of the aisles. “Have you gentlemen seen everything you wanted to see?” she asked, making a show of checking her watch. She had better things to do at eight o’clock on a Friday night than show real estate, her posture clearly telegraphed.

Brady and Michael glanced at each other and nodded. “Yeah, I think so,” Michael said. They started back up the aisle.

Outside, the air was warm in the last light of a summer evening. “Where are you parked?” Brady asked.

“By the Cascade Brewery,” Michael said, naming their flagship brewpub on the other side of the downtown.

“Me too.” They ambled along to turn onto Front Street. “We’ve got a great entry area,” Brady said. “Classic old-time theater. We keep that the same. Maybe have someone in the ticket booth to take people’s names.”

“Stuck out there in the middle of that coved entry area? Is that going to be practical?”

Brady shrugged. “We find a way to make it practical. It’s like the Lincoln School, we keep as much of the vibe as we can. Make up sheets that look like movie posters advertising the specials and seasonal beers, mix ’em in with pulp movie posters, sheets pushing whatever the entertainment is.”

“Yeah, whatever the entertainment is,” Michael echoed with a sidelong glance at him.

“You can’t push creative brilliance,” Brady said mildly.

Michael laughed. “I’ll remember that. Lindsay keeps telling me we’re nuts.”

“The woman’s going to be giving birth to your kid for the third time—”

“Kids,” Michael interjected. “Twins, remember?”

“Kids. And she says we’re nuts?”

“She says the hormones make her forget what labor’s like.”

Brady snorted. “It’d take a lot more than hormones for me.”

“You’re right about the property, though, it is a great property. Not that it shouldn’t be, for that price.”

“Hell, we convert the levels above the hotel floors to lofts and offices, we can probably make most of the mortgage off the rents.”

“Possibly.”

Brady shook his head pityingly. “You’re a pessimist, Michael.”

“And you’re way too much of an optimist.”

“One of my many fine qualities.”

“It’ll cost to renovate the office space, too, you know,” Michael reminded him. “We won’t get to it right away and there’s no way we’ll rent them all.”

“That’s okay. We’ll start small, give the place a chance to get hip, generate some buzz.” Brady grinned. “We can put signs up by the bar, ‘If you lived here, you’d be home now.’ Hell, I’d live there.”

“You’d live anywhere that was close to your beer.”

“You know, that’s not a bad idea. I could read it bedtime stories before I went to sleep.”

“There’s something twisted about you,” Michael muttered.

Ahead of them, the broad swath of the Willamette River bisected the city on its way to join with the Columbia. The lights of the Hawthorne Bridge glimmered in the fading light. On the broad sweep of the waterfront park that paralleled the riverbank, a crowd of people were gathered. Music floated across on the night air.

“Oh, gee, let me guess,” Michael said, “another festival.”

“The joys of culture. Maybe we’ll be lucky and find out it’s a beer festival.” Brady hooked his hands in his back pockets.

“You really are an optimist.”

“They’ll have food, anyway. I’m starved.”

“You just ate dinner two hours ago.”

“Exactly. Time enough to get hungry again.”

It wasn’t about eating, though, he saw as they crossed the street to skirt the edge of the park. It was about the sound, the motion.

It was about the dance.

Moonlight and Tango read a banner. Curious, Brady wandered closer.

“Thinking about auditioning for ‘Dancing with the Stars’?” Michael asked.

Brady grinned. “Never know. I might need a backup if the theater doesn’t work out.”

Piano and strings, the slow, insistent thud of percussion. The exotic rhythms of the music whispered of passion, of dim, intimate cafés where couples embraced in the dance. Paper lanterns dangled from the trees. Ahead, people clustered around a spot in the open, watching. And beyond them, he glimpsed motion, color—a couple, dancing.

Something about the music intrigued him. Something about it had him wanting to see more.

“We don’t have all night,” Michael reminded him.

“Relax, will you? You can head out, I’ve got my truck. I want to see this.” He ignored Michael’s grumbling and moved closer. And when he got near enough to look past them, he saw.

She wore red, a narrow dress slit all the way up the thigh on one side to reveal a long, sleek leg jackknifed up to the hip of her partner. A matching red blossom was tucked into the dark hair gathered at the nape of her neck; her back, her arms were naked.

Brady swore that his heart stopped, or maybe it was just the music. When she moved again, with an almost catlike grace, he gulped oxygen out of self-preservation with the same rush of adrenaline he felt when shooting the rapids in his kayak.

He stared at her as the pair moved through their intricately choreographed…seduction. It wasn’t one of those artsy dances with all the feathers and floaty dresses. Dark and driven, it was a dance of lust, pure and simple. The woman prowled around her partner—her lucky, lucky partner—with a sort of predatory sexuality, every line of her body, every movement eloquent of heat and demand, every glance one of temptation.

Brady didn’t know how but he wanted—no needed—to be near her, touching her, tasting her, discovering the scent of that smooth neck, the taste of that full mouth that looked like some kind of ripe, exotic fruit. He stared at her face, her eyes as the pair whirled past. Wide and lovely, they drew him in, mesmerized him. Then she closed them as she abandoned herself to the dance.

The dancers spun, their steps now slow, now quick, circling around one another. They intertwined their legs in a stylized sequence that was the next best thing to foreplay. Unable to look away, Brady stared, his body tight with need. She was pressed to her partner, a teasing half smile on her face as they stepped ever closer to the edge of the crowd. Her eyes flicked open and she stared directly into Brady’s.

And this time, his heart really did stop.

IT WAS WHEN SHE DANCED the tango that Thea felt truly free. She’d draw the silk of one of her dresses over her skin and it would begin, the throb of arousal, the choreography of need. And when the dance began, nothing else mattered. She existed only for the rhythm, for the steps, her body flowing into the movements that became merely extensions of the music.

If the waltz was about romance, tango was about passion, the dance of lovers. For so long she’d existed without any touch but a quick hug from friends and family—and the contact of the dance. Torso to torso, thigh to thigh, the tango somehow refilled the dry well of her soul, renewing her week after week, allowing her to go on.

The night was warm, the stars just beginning to emerge. The seduction of the music eddied through her system. Eyes closed, she concentrated only on the steps and lead of her partner, the light touch of arm, the firm press of hands. She let the dance take control and in doing so be came something more than she was, a woman who could trust without fear, feel without consequences.

She felt the stir of longing. Not for her partner, Paul—a myopic shoe salesman with a wife and three kids—but for the touch of a man, the feel of a body against hers for the sake of her, not for the sake of a dance.

Paul pulled her to a stop near the crowd. Thea flicked her leg around his in a gancho, snapping her head to the side to stare at the people.

And heat punched through her. She swayed, lips parting in shock. And she stared, stunned, even when the dance whirled her away.

He stood at the fringe, part of the crowd, but separate. His gaze fixed on hers with a naked wanting that snatched the breath from her lungs. In the dim light, she couldn’t see the color of his eyes. It didn’t matter: blue or brown, gray or green, she could see, feel, sense the desire. He stood a distance away but she could have been in his arms. Suddenly all the unfocused need she felt, all the passion she’d always invested in the dance, coalesced. Paul’s touch became the feel of this unknown stranger.

Paul spun her back into the center of the circle. She obeyed his lead, swiveling left and right before him teasingly, though it was the stranger she moved for. She and Paul stalked each other in the ritualized pursuit of the dance but it was the stranger she wanted. It was the stranger whose touch she craved.

And he never stopped watching her. In the final throes of the routine, she was conscious, always conscious of his gaze and of the arousal that flared within her.

She hardly noticed the end of the song, only that she and Paul were bowing to the crowd amid the surge of applause.

Thea knew what she was to do next. This was a milonga designed to recruit more tango enthusiasts for the Portland Tango Club. The showcase was to get them excited about the possibilities; the subsequent impromptu lessons for the onlookers were meant to show them that they could do it, too.

The stranger didn’t look like the type who’d be interested in tango. Tall and rangy in jeans and a black T-shirt, he looked more like a guy who spent his time outdoors, hiking, mountain biking, skiing.

Anyway, she was being ridiculous. It was a glance across a dance floor, nothing more. It was the kind of thing people—guys—did all the time, she reminded herself. He probably hadn’t even thought twice about it. The only reason it spoke to her was that she didn’t have anything even remotely resembling a personal life.

Pathetic, she thought, glancing toward the river. Besides, it wasn’t as if she was looking to get caught up with a guy. She was only here for a short job. The strange interlude was best forgotten. She swallowed and turned to where he’d been standing.

Only to find him directly behind her.

“Nice dance.”

His eyes were green, she saw in the fading light, deepset, a little sleepy-eyed. His wasn’t a conventionally handsome face. The features were too strong: an aggressive nose, sharp cheekbones pushing out against the skin of his angular face. Humor lingered around the corners of his mouth, though, humor and promise from lips that looked way too intriguing. Her heart pumped faster in her chest.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it. You like tango?”

“I’m getting a new appreciation for it by the minute,” he said, giving her a look that had her cheeks warming. “You two were something. Have you been dancing together long?”

“Oh, about four hours.” At his surprised expression, she laughed. “I’m visiting. This was a last-minute thing we threw together.”

“Don’t even try to tell me that you just learned tango today.”

Thea nibbled her lip. “Would you buy it?”

His glance sharpened with some special attention. “Right now, I’d buy about anything you tried to sell me,” he said. “I’m Brady, by the way.”

“I’m Thea. And the answer is no. I’ve been dancing for about eight years.”

“You’ve been using the time well.”

This time, she definitely blushed—she knew it because she saw his grin.

Up front, Robyn turned on the microphone. “Thea, Paul, thanks for that showcase. We’re going to go through another figure before the free dance, so if you’re interested in learning some tango instead of watching, pair up with a partner and let’s get started.”

Brady’s eyes glimmered. “I guess now’s my chance to get you to show me some of those hot moves.”

Thea eyed him. “Why do I think you already know all the hot moves you need. Or is it the smooth moves?”

He laughed loudly. “Oh, now that was harsh. For that, you have to teach me.” He stepped toward her and raised his hands.

He worked for a living, she thought, staring at them. They were long-fingered, strong, his forearms sinewy and tanned. And she suddenly found herself wondering what it would be like to dance with him, to have those hands on her, to be pressed against his body so tightly that not even air came between them. Why not, she thought suddenly. She was supposed to draw new students. Why shouldn’t she touch him, feel him, let him touch her? See what he was made of.

Besides, it was only part of the dance.

“All right, everyone,” Robyn was saying. “Line up in pairs, ladies facing me, gentlemen with your backs to me.” She walked them through the steps, first the gentlemen, then the ladies. It gave Thea the opportunity to study her new partner.

Lean, balanced, Brady moved with a deceptively careless grace. He didn’t seem to be focused on Robyn’s direction but he caught on to the steps immediately. And when Thea began moving through the ladies’ sequence, he stood, hands on his hips, watching her. “You don’t need to stare,” she said once as the step took her past him.

“I’m paying attention. I figure I might learn a thing or two.” His tone was light, but the heat in his eyes sent something skittering around in her stomach.

“Okay,” Robyn said. “Now that we know the basic step, let’s get into dance position and try it out. Stand opposite your partners. Ladies, put your left hand on the gentleman’s shoulder.”

He stepped closer. “Now, about that paying attention,” he murmured and Thea’s pulse bumped and sped up.

He was tall, she realized. She stood nearly six foot in her bare feet and had grown accustomed to towering over men, especially in high-heeled dance shoes. With Brady, she found herself looking up.

Taking a breath, she put her hand on his shoulder. And swallowed. It didn’t matter that she was only touching the cotton of his shirt. Somehow, all she was conscious of was the feel of the hard rise of muscle beneath.

“Gentlemen, put your right hand on the lady’s shoulder blade.”

His gaze fixed on hers, Brady pressed his hand in place and it was all she could do not to gasp.

He flashed a wicked smile. “Sorry, is my hand cold?”

It wasn’t cold at all, and he damned well knew it. Heat spread out from the extravagance of the fingers spread on her bare skin. It felt startlingly intimate. They were in public, among a throng of people. So how was it that she could only think of darkened bedrooms, of how it would feel to have that hand slide over her bare body?

Snap out of it, she told herself.

“Now join your other hands and space yourselves about six to eight inches apart. As you’ve seen, Argentine tango tends to be danced in a tight, closed position, with the inner thighs of the lady and gentleman pressed together. Those of you who like, step closer.”

Eyes staring unwaveringly into hers, Brady moved against her. “I like,” he murmured, close enough that she could feel the breath of his words. His fingers tightened slightly on her back, bringing her closer. “Yeah, I like a lot.”

Her heart hammered madly in her chest. He was too close, too hot, too there. “Easy, big fella,” she said as evenly as she could muster. “It’s just a dance.”

Yet his touch overtook her focus. She needed to concentrate on something safe, Thea thought in a panic. Not those eyes, not those green, green eyes with their glint of humor, not those eyes that made her want. And if she didn’t look there, she’d find her gaze slipping down to his mouth, which was way too near. Every time she looked there she found herself wondering what it would feel like to brush her lips against his, wondering how he’d taste. Wondering what he’d do if she leaned in out of the blue and pressed her mouth to his.

Ridiculous, she thought impatiently. The man was a stranger, they were at a milonga. It was absurd.

And she couldn’t stop wanting it.

So she focused on the point of his jaw. Nice. Safe. Square and strong, darkened a little with a day’s growth of beard. If she leaned in and put her face against it, it would be rough, warm. And it would put her closer to that clean scent that didn’t seem to have a thing to do with conventional colognes. Maybe shampoo or soap? Whatever it was, if she could get a deep, deep breath of it she thought maybe she could die happy.

The music caught her by surprise when it began. She found him looking down at her in amusement. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

He leaned in. “Better focus,” he said softly in her ear. “Teachers can’t get distracted.”

With every step, she could feel his torso shift, as though beneath his clothes his body were stripped down to muscle and sinew and bone. With every step, she became only more aware of him against her. And it sent her mind vaulting along carnal pathways, speculating if this was what it would be like to have him pressed against her naked, on top of her, so that she could feel his every movement as he poised himself over her, bringing all that heat and want and tension and lust—

“Okay, ready for me?”

She stared at him. “What?”

“My hot move.”

She gave an uneven laugh. “Sure.”

Looking down a bit, he led her through the eight-count basic that Robyn had taught them. Thea watched his face. He was concentrating on his feet, his lead, working his way through each segment of the figure. His lashes were darker than she’d expected, a sheaf of his hair hanging down over his forehead. “And, done.” His eyes flicked up to meet hers.

She felt the jolt all the way to her toes.

“Good memory,” she managed, unable to look away.

“You think I’m good at the eight-count basic, just give me a try on something else.”

Thea had a pretty good idea he wasn’t talking about tango anymore. She stared up at him, watched desire replace the humor, desire overtake everything. He bent his head toward her—

And the song ended.

For a moment neither of them moved, caught in a frozen tableau of awareness, lips a hairsbreadth apart.

Thea moistened her lips. “I should…dance with someone else now.”

“Do you want to?” he asked, not looking away as a new song started.

“It’s not a question of want…”

“Then don’t. Stay with me.” And he pulled her back into his arms.

NIGHT HAD TRULY FALLEN now, the moon high overhead. They danced in the dappled shade of the trees. She was extraordinary, Brady thought, looking down at her as they moved through the steps. Shadows pooled dark in the hollow of her collarbone, her shoulder itself milk pale in the moonlight. Beneath his fingertips, her skin was bewitchingly soft. If he stretched more he could press his lips against it, inhale that subtle scent of hers, something that wrapped around his senses and evoked images of candlelit Buenos Aires cafés with slow moving fans turning up by the ceiling.

He could feel his pulse beating the slow thud of demand, like some clock measuring off the moments until they could be together, alone. He thought of the look in her eyes when the first song had ended, a heady mix of arousal, want and seductive surrender. He wanted, needed to see it again—when she was under him, taut and twisting with desire.

The music died away and a new song began. The milonga was quieting now, couples spreading out. They’d danced their way to the edge of the area, he saw. “Want to take a break?” he asked.

Thea glanced at the couples. As far as Brady could tell, they seemed to be doing fine. “Maybe for a few minutes.”

The two of them walked slowly toward the river walk. Behind them, the music continued. On the pavement, away from the lights, things were quieter, more peaceful. Across the Willamette, lights glimmered, making reflections on the dark water.

“It’s so beautiful,” Thea murmured. “Most places, they’d cram office buildings and condos and hotels along here.”

“Used to be a freeway, then they shut it down and turned it into a park.”

“Bravo. Usually it’s the other way.”

His teeth gleamed in the half-light. “That’s Portland. Hell of a town.”

“Are you from here?”

“Born and raised. I guess that makes me biased.”

“Maybe just a little.”

“So how about you? You said you’re visiting?”

“My friend Robyn is part of the tango club. She needed a hand…”

“So she brought in a pair of hired stilettos.”

He made her laugh. “I guess so. She knows I’m hooked on the dance.”

“It shows. You can’t dance the way you do without feeling something for it.”

“You do it long enough, it becomes a part of you.” Thea drifted to a stop and leaned against the railing overlooking the water. “I guess that sounds silly.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

She turned away from the river, looking back at the milonga. A breeze stirred the lanterns in the trees. Their moving patterns of light and shadow silhouetted the figures dancing. A woman’s voice, throaty with longing, floated through the evening air; and behind it, the instruments formed a mournful chorus.

“She sounds heartbroken,” Brady murmured. He stepped away from the railing, slipping one hand along to cover Thea’s, swinging around to come slowly to a stop before her.

“She is. ‘Mi Noche Triste.’ My sad night,” she translated. “It’s a very famous song in tango.”

“Do you know the story?” He leaned in to press his hands on the rails, trapping her between them, his gaze holding her transfixed.

“She weeps for a lover who has abandoned her. She sits in the dark. At night, she falls asleep with the door ajar because it lets her imagine that he is coming home. That’s tango, the dance of longing.”

“What do you long for?”

“What makes you think I long for anything?” He was close to her now, so close.

“Everybody wants something.” His lips were a fraction away from hers.

“And you? What do you want?”

“That’s easy.” He could tell she felt his breath as he said the words. “I want you.”

And then he leaned in and took.

3

IT WAS A BIG, WIDE WORLD, but somehow the entire thing reduced down to just one sensation—the press of Brady’s lips to hers. Thea stood absolutely still, not even breathing, every fiber of her attuned to it. Mesmerizing warmth, a surprising softness, a beguiling friction that tempted her lips to part.

Her breath shuddered out.

And then, oh, then, the taste of him, the slick dance of tongues that sent butterflies flitting about her stomach and a slow roll of tension forming within her.

She felt herself trembling. Everything in her clamored to dive into the kiss hard and deep, to crush him against her, but here he’d barely touched her and she was quivering. And it rocked her in some fundamental way. She wasn’t a virgin, but there was some part of her that wasn’t really touched, some part of her that would be his alone.

And so Thea kissed him.

She’d wondered as the years rolled by what it might be like. She’d wondered if she’d forgotten how, if she’d be able to relax and enjoy it any more. But with his mouth on hers, she let all that go and immersed herself in the kiss. Her hands framed his face, fingers threaded through his hair. Changing the angle of the kiss, she nipped at his lips, her tongue dancing against his. Her soft exhale was a barely audible moan.

And suddenly everything changed. She’d kissed men during her life, even once or twice in the years since New York, but it had never been like this, this overwhelming surge of sensation. She’d kissed men but it had never raked her with wanton need. She didn’t want easy exploration any more. She wanted it relentless and direct. In a flash, she turned the kiss hard, lacing it with demand.

Brady’s hands clenched the railings until his knuckles whitened.

Thea trailed kisses along his jaw, making an impatient noise down in her throat. She traced her fingers down his chest, nuzzled against him.

She could feel him getting hard.

“Don’t you want to touch me?” she breathed, her hands lingering around his belt, slipping under his untucked T-shirt to trace the lines of his abs.

He gave in and crushed her to him.

She hoped her low laugh told him she didn’t want gentle any more—she wanted it as hard and fast and urgent as he did.

He ran his fingers up the length of her thigh and into the high, high slit of her dress. And when she raised her leg up farther and wrapped it around his waist, it about snatched her breath away. So close, yet not close enough. All she wanted was to feel him naked against her.

“I think we need to get somewhere private,” Brady said raggedly.

“Now,” was all she said, urgency throbbed in her voice.

“My truck’s close. We can go to my place,” he added. “It’ll be quick.”

“I hope so,” she said.

The trip to the truck took too long, or maybe it only seemed that way because he kept stopping and pressing her body up against a lamppost or a building so that he could fuse his mouth to hers, kissing her like he was storing up oxygen enough for the next part of the journey.

She didn’t want to wait, Thea thought as Brady helped her into the Jeep. She needed him now. Needed more now. She shifted when he got in, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss on him. “How far is your house?”

“A couple of miles.”

Far enough.

She ran her hand up the inside of his thigh as he pulled away from the curb, feeling the tough denim fabric against her fingers. And then tracing the hard outline of his cock as she got higher. She reached for his belt buckle.

He gave her a quick, startled glance. “What are you doing?”

“Eyes on the road.” She pulled his zipper down. His cock, when she pulled it out, was heavy in her hand, already half hard and getting more so by the second. She let out a long, uneven breath. “Drive carefully,” she told him, and unfastened her seatbelt so that she could lean across and put her mouth on him.

She’d always loved giving blowjobs, that hard immediacy, that complete and utter connection to a man’s arousal. It had been so long, though. Nerves warred with anticipation. And then the fascination took over. Brady’s cock was long and stiff, thickest just below the head. She nuzzled it and it bobbled against her with urgency. Experimentally, she gave him a lick and was rewarded with the sound of his breath hissing in.

And she abandoned subtlety and slid it into her mouth, taking him deep and fast so that she wrenched a groan out of him.

HE WAS GOING TO LOSE IT right there, Brady thought. Thea slid his cock in and out of the liquid warmth and it was all he could do to keep from nudging his hips toward her. And he was glad it was late at night with only a handful of cars on the road because suddenly he didn’t give a damn about his lane or his signals or anything but the slick wet heat of her mouth and the way her tongue wrapped around his shaft with every bob of her head, stroking along the underside of his cock, inching him closer and closer to orgasm with every motion.

She wrapped her hand around his shaft and squeezed and he groaned again. And then she started to suck, keeping her head still, running her hand up and down.

And god, it was all he could do to hold on. He concentrated on the road and he recited batting averages in his head and the peaks of the Cascades and named every type of hop and malt he knew because there was no way, no way he was going to let himself come before he’d gotten her home, before he’d watched her face as she’d orgasmed, before she was underneath him, naked, abandoned and wrapped around him. Before he’d buried himself deep inside her.

There would be time, he thought, grinding his teeth as he drove up to his house. There would be time for everything.

Provided his molars held out.

Then he was turning off the engine and gingerly easing his aching cock back into his jeans.

The house was dark but he didn’t care. All he was looking for was to get inside as quickly as possible. It needed to happen fast.

More. The demand drummed in his temples as they went through the side door. Moonlight streaming through the windows formed silver trapezoids on the linoleum of a kitchen floor.

“Roommates?” she asked as he led her into the living room with its broad bay window.

“Not unless you count my kayak.”

“Good.” And she flowed up against him, sliding her hands up under his shirt, ravenous for the feel of his body.

“You were so hot tonight. I saw you out there dancing and I thought I was going to die,” Brady whispered against the side of her throat. “All I could do was watch you move and think about what you’d look like if you were out of this dress.”

He trailed his fingertips around her shoulders to the nape of her neck where the red silk came together. His lips licked her collarbones. “And what you would say if I just started undoing it.” He heard the growl of the zipper and felt her shiver as his fingertips traced the sliver of exposed skin. He purposely slowed his touch, made it excruciatingly slow and deliberate, as though he had all the time in the world.

She made an impatient noise.

He slipped his fingers inside the open back of her dress. “What’s your rush? We’ve got all night.”

SHE COULDN’T TELL HIM that her rush was because she was unable to believe it was real, that she wanted to experience it all before she woke up and realized it was all a dream. That was how it always went. She had girlfriends like Delaney who talked about the orgasms they had in their dreams. It never worked that way for Thea. Oh, sometimes she’d dream of arousal, maybe even of kissing or touching a man. The urgency would build, the anticipation. And then, somehow she’d find herself somewhere else and they’d be gone, no matter how hard she looked, leaving her to wake, empty and wanting.

But Brady’s hands were on her, his fingers tracing the widening triangle at the back of her dress as the fabric fell away. And finally it was completely open, loose against her. He teased them both, his fingertips tracing the groove of her spine, the point where her back flared out to the rounded curve of her ass. And then he slipped his hands up the front of her, tracing over her flat belly, over the slight rise of breasts and into the deep vee of skin revealed by the neckline of her dress.

Thea shivered. He felt goose bumps rise in the wake of his fingertips as they brushed over the sensitive skin. He bent down and traced the line of her neck with the tip of his tongue, searching out the hollow at the base of her throat.

She ran her fingers up into his hair. And with a quick shrug of her shoulders, sent the dress slipping down her arms and cascading to the floor.

“OH, HONEY.” And Brady’s mouth went bone dry. There was the pool of red fabric on the floor and there was Thea, wearing nothing else save a ridiculously small scrap of something silky at her hips and her red stilettos. She was long and lean and lovely, sleek and strong and slightly curved. And he wanted to just stare because she was so beautiful, he wanted to devour her, run his hands and tongue over every inch of her at the same time. So he stood, helpless, while she gave one of those knowing smiles, those female smiles of wisdom as old as the hills and walked forward to slide her fingers under his shirt.

“I think you’re overdressed.” She circled around behind him. “Yes, definitely overdressed,” she murmured and pulled his shirt off over his head.

And then he felt her move up to press her bare breasts against his back and he swore the top of his head was going to blow off. Thea gave a throaty laugh at the noise he made and stepped away. “Now who’s impatient?” She trailed her fingers down his lats as she moved away. “Anyway, I don’t know what you’re so upset about. You’re the one who’s behind. Maybe you ought to get out of those jeans.”

She turned around and walked over to flop down on the couch, lying flat with her arms crossed under her head and her legs kicked up over the arm, those mile-high red heels still on.

Brady watched her a minute, poleaxed.

“I’m waiting,” she said.

Galvanized into action, he stripped off the rest of his clothes and crossed to the couch. Now he was the one who was shaking, out of eagerness. He didn’t know where to start. He wanted every bit of her at once.

THEN SHE LOOKED UP at him, dark-eyed and tempting, and bit her lip. “Are you going to touch me or do I need to do it myself?” she asked, sliding her fingertips down her throat.

Brady dropped to his knees beside the couch and put his hand over hers to stop it. “I think I can take it from there.”

And he did know how to take it, she thought, closing her eyes to better savor the sensations as he licked his way down her chest and over the slight curve of her breasts. The strands of his hair trailed over her skin, making her shiver, making her nipples ache to be touched. He took his time, though, kissing his way inward in a spiral, making her wait, lingering over it while he traced circles over her other breast with his fingertips.

Now it was she who made the inarticulate noise of need. But he wouldn’t be hurried. Instead, he circled his way slowly up the peaks and she watched as her nipples transformed to hard red beads, watched her breasts swell.

Then she closed her eyes and lay her head back to feel as he drew first one nipple, then the other into the wet heat of his mouth, rubbing with his tongue, biting lightly with his teeth to send the sharp twinge through her, followed by slick caresses that had her arching and gasping.

And he moved lower then, tracing his tongue across her belly, kissing, roving at will.

And lower still.

He shifted to press his mouth between her legs, moving them apart with his hands. Her heart hammered like it was trying to work its way out of her chest. Open to him, touch, sight, taste, scent. The skin of her inner thighs was hypersensitive. She felt the brush of his beard, the heat of his breath.

And then his mouth was on her.

Shocking in its heat. Overwhelming in its suddenness. No matter how she’d imagined, how she’d expected, she was nowhere close to the vivid immediacy. His mouth was on her, against her, searching out the most intimate part of her.

Making her gasp.

He didn’t tease, he didn’t make her wait now. He found her with his tongue. Just one touch was enough to have her crying out. But there was more, oh, more as he leaned in, tracing maddening patterns over her clit, stroking it again and again, sending her jolting against him, her hips moving helplessly, her head thrashing back and forth.

Insistent, unrelenting, he took her up until she was wound tight with tension, until every slick caress sent heat washing through her, until she didn’t think she could stand any more. She was poised on the edge, where sensations and senses merged until it seemed as though she could see vivid rainbows of color at his touch, the shades growing darker and more intense until suddenly she was flung over the edge in a wash of blinding white and an intensity of sensation that had her crying out and shuddering and shaking.

It seemed long moments later that it ended. Brady straightened. “Come on,” he whispered and took her hand to pick her up off the couch.

His arms were warm around her. She barely noticed the hallway, the bedroom they entered. All she could see was the bed. When he laid her down on it and stripped off her thong, she shivered. He ran a possessive hand down her hip, over her thigh and calf and down to her stiletto. “Nice shoes,” he murmured, kissing her. Thea reached for the straps at her ankles.

“Uh-uh.” He put a hand over hers. “Leave them on.” And then slipped onto the bed beside her.

The feel of his naked body was blissful, extravagant, a warm luxury. For a moment, she didn’t move, still absorbing the sensation in a sort of giddy disbelief. There was something glorious about closing her eyes to savor his weight against her as she sank back onto the mattress.

He leaned over to his bedside bureau. There was a crackle of foil as he sheathed himself. Then he poised himself over her, his face taut now with the need for control. She felt the startling slip of his cock against her still sensitive clit as he rubbed himself through the slickness. She looked up into his face. Anticipation threaded through her.

The time for finesse was gone. His eyes were hot, dark, driven.

Desperate.

“I want to be in you,” he whispered.

And with a sudden thrust of his hips, he was.

Thea cried out blindly. There was nothing like this, no sex toy, no vibrator, nothing that could make her feel this completeness, this connection, this reality. Hot and hard and silky soft and insistent, he was all the way inside her, filling her completely. His body surged against her, as much force as flesh, making her feel every least fraction of motion. And he went deep, so deep it wrenched a cry from her every time he sank himself home.

The sensation overwhelmed her. She’d thought about it over the years, tried to remember what it was like. Nothing had prepared her for the reality. She wrapped her arms around him, her fingers slipping on the muscles that bunched and tightened with the motion.

And he watched her, his eyes narrowed with pleasure.

She’d wrapped her legs around his waist but it wasn’t enough. She wanted to feel him deeper. She worked them up higher, around his sides. And finally, higher still, over his arms to rest her ankles on his shoulders. Turning his head, he kissed her instep, then he looked down and his eyes darkened.

She could see. If she glanced down where they came together, she could see it all, the thick shaft of his cock, sliding in and out of her. And it was incredible, suddenly so real. “Oh, Brady,” she said softly. “Look at it.”

AND HE DID—at her face, her breasts, the long sweep of torso down to where they were intimately joined. But it wasn’t that that overwhelmed Brady. It was the excitement and arousal in Thea’s voice, the fascination in her eyes. “I want you to come,” she whispered. “I want to feel it, I want to see it.”

“Not yet,” Brady ground out. “Not until you do.”

“I already did,” she purred. And when she brought one of her hands down to caress her own breast, squeezing it with obvious pleasure, that was it. Too much. More than he could take, the sight, the sound, the scent, the sensation. He pumped into her again and he could feel it starting, could feel himself go past the point of inevitability, his curse turning into a groan as he felt the rumble and gather and tightening and he poured himself into her.

It took a moment before he could do anything more than breathe and hold himself feebly on his elbows. Thea slipped her legs down so that he could roll onto his back beside her.

“What’s wrong?” She frowned at him in concern. “The condom didn’t break, did it?”

“No. I just came.”

“I noticed.” She kissed him. “I liked it. Didn’t you?”

He felt the bliss spread over his face. “Oh yeah. But it seems to me like you missed out on the deal.” He traced his fingers over her torso.

“You were in the room too, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I wasn’t speaking in tongues to stroke your ego.”

“But you didn’t come.”

“I already did earlier, when you were going down on me.”

“But not when I was in you.”

She moved her shoulders. “I don’t, at least not that way. Female anatomy, honeybunch. The right parts aren’t in the right place for some of us. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel amazing, though,” she added, thinking about the exquisite sensation of being filled, being stroked so completely. “Of course, if you really feel bad about it, I have a few ideas for ways you could make it up to me.”

“I’ll get right on it, as soon as I can move. Keep those shoes on.” He winked. “We’ll see what we can do.”

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