Major Attraction Page 11

  Her hand squeezed his. “Is it at all possible for you to relax?”

  Better trained men swept by them with their partners. Ethan raised his head and looked into her upturned eyes. “I warned you.”

  J.C. was the one to stop this time. “Wait a minute. You know how to march, don’t you?”

  He raised a duh eyebrow. “You know a Marine who doesn’t?”

  “But you can keep right and left straight, can’t you?”

  “Of course. We did precision drilling at the Academy.”

  “Well, this isn’t exactly precision. But think of dancing in the same way. If you learned those steps, you can learn these.” She slipped her hands down to his hips and nudged him back and forth. “Left, right, left. You’re just changing the rhythm.”

  “But my movements have to coordinate with yours, and if I watch my feet, I look like a dope.”

  She veed her fingers and pointed to her eyes. “Look right here, Major.”

  The clip of a command in her voice earned his instant cooperation. Possible mistake. That challenge still taunted him from her eyes, daring him to look away, daring him to surrender. Strength flowed in to replace self-conscious doubt. Adrenaline buzzed through his system. Surrender wasn’t part of his vocabulary. He held his hands out to either side and awaited further instruction. “Then what?”

  “I’ll do the hard part, like Ginger Rogers. I’ll do everything Fred Astaire does, only backward. You just follow my lead, Fred.” She arched one eyebrow, silently telling him that she was more than up to handling the task. She slid her hands beneath his jacket and latched on to his waist, guiding his body from side to side. “Left, right, left. Right, left, right.

  “No.” She turned her palm and splayed her fingers down over the point of his hip. “Do you feel the down-beat of the music? Like this.” J.C. squeezed, startling him out of step. He grasped her shoulders to right himself and save her feet from his. She patted his hip. Twice. Then squeezed him again.

  “What are you reaching for back there, Ginger?”

  “Listen.” Her fingers squeezed. Pat, pat. Squeeze, pat, pat. The soft, mellow thump of a bass filtered into his senses, resonating with the beat of his pulse, matching the teasing rhythm of her hands. “Do you hear it?”

  The deafening cadence of that last dance with Bethany faded into a distant echo. This music soothed, seduced. Or maybe it was the teacher who made the cool, melodic strains and low, vibrant beat feel so intimate. His feet began to move in sync with J.C.’s.

  “This is dancing?” It sure wasn’t drill marching.

  J.C. grinned and his gaze drifted down to the tempting sight. Oh, yeah, he’d never had any rewards like that to motivate him through basic training. Her husky words were as encouraging as that smile. “If you can feel the beat, you can do this.”

  His hands were moving up and down her arms now, in time with the guiding rhythm of each squeeze and pat.

  Left, right, left.

  One, two, three.

  Grab, my, ass.

  Ethan’s groin lurched in response to the coaxing combination of her touch and his success. “Um, J.C.?”

  He forced his gaze back to hers, forced it over the top of her head to glimpse the other dancers—all holding each other in a different, more conservative way. The next lieutenant colonel of the Corps had better follow suit.

  Ethan plucked her right hand from the warm spot at his hip and cradled it in his palm. He moved her left hand back to the neutral position on his shoulder and offered a rueful smile. “We are out in public.”

  But the instant he lost contact with her guiding hands, he lost the beat and stumbled across her foot. Ethan huffed his frustration between gritted teeth and swore. “I can field strip an AK-147 blindfolded, but I can’t master a damn two-step.”

  “Three-step,” J.C. corrected. Before he could straighten her out on the lousy timing of that amused sparkle in her eyes, she wrapped her arm behind his shoulders and moved in to butt her thighs right up against his. Knee to hip, silk to wool. Left, right, left. Touch, touch, touch. Glued to him like another, suppler layer of his uniform, she moved their bodies as one. “Does this help?”

  Oh, yeah. The dancing was better, too.

  His little major drifted to attention as his senses absorbed every detail about the woman he held. Beneath the orchestra’s melody, he heard the rustle of her dress, a whisper of sound caressing his ear with every graceful step. The friction of her skirt brushing against his pant legs created little tugs of pressure in counterpoint to the thrust of her thighs and hips. The heady scent of her gardenia corsage cocooned them in a tropical, decadent heat that spurred the fire simmering through his veins and pooling behind his zipper.

  And that didn’t even begin to take in his fascination with the long earrings dangling against her creamy neck, or the silky wisps of chestnut hair that clung to her face and framed those luscious lips. Who wanted to watch his feet now? This view was infinitely more enticing.

  That need to kiss her, which was never far from his mind, shouted for action.

  Winding his arm behind J.C.’s waist, Ethan pulled her torso flush against his. Her startled breath was a warm caress against his neck. Their whole bodies moved as one now, with the slow, drugging music playing as a pulse beat in the background. “How am I doing?” he asked.

  She tipped her head back, putting her lips right there, in reach of his mouth. “Drill instruction paid off.”

  He saw her lips move, heard the clever compliment. But all he really knew was the firm give of her breasts, pillowing against his chest, and the warm cup of her womanhood, cradling the jutting arousal in his pants. He’d never wanted a woman as badly as he wanted this one. He’d never needed to claim her so quickly.

  Dipping his head, he brushed his lips against hers.

  She shuddered at the contact, triggering a ripple effect that cascaded throughout his body.

  Hitting his stride now, Ethan tongued the arc of her lower lip, then caught the tasty morsel between his own. The kiss assuaged his need like a tiny pinhole in a dam eased the pressure of the water trying to break through behind it.

  It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

  He heard J.C.’s throaty moan, felt her fingers tickling his nape, her palm abrading the back of his head. General Craddock and future plans and bad memories all faded beneath a man’s driving need to possess the woman who aroused him so completely. She was strong. Intelligent. Drop-dead sexy.

  Judging by this lesson, Ethan needed to rethink his aversion to this dancing thing. It seemed a lot like making love to a woman. Hold her in your arms. Look into her eyes. Let the music create a mood. Then you start to feel the rhythm.

  “Left, right, left. Right, left, right.” He whispered the mantra like an invitation beside her ear. The answering moan in her throat vibrated against his lips.

  One year, four months, two weeks and a handful of days was a whole lot of need to store up inside a man. And this woman was a whole lot of sexy. It was a combustible combination that could provide an embarrassing, unwelcome end to the evening if he couldn’t retake control of his body. And, damn, but he didn’t want anything to spoil his taste for dancing a second time.

  He slid his hand down to her hip, keeping them together as he turned with her. He was smoother than he knew. Instead of tripping over his feet and breaking the spell, the move felt just like rolling over in bed together.

  For her, too, apparently.

  “Ethan, um…” She licked her lips. He wanted her to lick his. “I think we made our point. Maybe we should—”

  “May I cut in?”

  Ethan felt the tap on his shoulder like a jolt of gunfire. Captain Black, indispensable aide with a knack for rotten timing, smiled his Tom Cruise smile and expected a shot at J.C.

  “No.” Ethan said roughly, clutching her tight and trying to recapture the rhythm of the music. Where the hell had Black come from? What was he thinking? “Find your own woman. This one’s taken.”


  It was an outrageously possessive thing to say about someone he’d known for barely twenty-four hours. But he felt the rightness of the claim in every oversensitized cell of his body.

  “Nicely played, sir.”

  This time Ethan did stop. He frowned at the comment and the fact that J.C. was pulling away. “What does that mean?”

  But Black was already retreating. “I’ll see you in the office tomorrow at 0-900, sir. Enjoy the rest of your night.” He nodded to J.C. “Ma’am.”

  “What the hell—?” He should have made that request an order.

  J.C. tugged on Ethan’s arm and pulled him out of the circle of dancers. “I told you he was suspicious of us. Maybe that was his idea of a test. But don’t worry. I think you passed.”

  “I don’t like it.” Black was up to something.

  “Maybe he was just hitting on me.”

  Yeah, like that explanation was any better. The instinct to pursue the problem and settle it had him stalking around the perimeter of the dance floor with J.C. in tow. “If he’s got something to say, he needs to say it straight out, or else keep his yap shut. I’m not playing these games with him.”

  “Ethan.” J.C. put on the brakes and he spun around to face her. That utterly expressive, blue-eyed gaze dropped to the tented bulge at the front of his pants. “Not right now.”

  Her arched eyebrow was reminder enough that he wasn’t in any shape to accuse Black of trying to pull something. The term fake fiancée rang an uncomfortable warning against his conscience. Of course, there was nothing fake about what he’d almost done to J.C. on the dance floor. About what he still wanted to do.

  And he was worried about Kyle Black playing games?

  Seething with a mix of suspicion and raging sexual frustration, Ethan jumped in his skin when J.C. touched his chin and tilted his face down to hers. “Is there any reason why we have to stay any later tonight?”

  “No.” They’d said their goodbyes, and he’d gotten the details for their next joint appearance in front of Craddock and the committee. “Tired?”

  “Not really. But I do think it’s time you took me home.” She stroked her fingers down the column of his neck, adjusted the hook of his collar, then splayed her fingers with suggestive familiarity across his chest. All that crazy hunger came rushing back. She wasn’t tired at all. “I’d like to finish that dance.”

  Despite Bethany Mead and Kyle Black and his own noble intentions, after one year, four months and however the hell many days it had been, it just wasn’t in him to resist.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “THANK YOU.” Ethan’s low voice enveloped J.C. with the same sense of intimacy that the limousine’s smoke-tinted windows and privacy screen did. Washington, D.C.’s bright lights were but a blur from the world outside as the driver on the other side of that screen took them back to her apartment.

  J.C. bent down and unbuckled the straps of her high-heeled sandals. “For what?”

  Surely Ethan didn’t mean that erotic dance lesson. She was the one who’d learned some brand-new steps in the seduction process. Her skin itched beneath the smooth material of her dress and lingerie, as every raw nerve still craved the heat of his body and the imprint of his hard thighs and unmistakable erection. Whatever hang-ups he had about talking and dancing, there was absolutely nothing to complain about when it came to sex.

  Unless it was the fact she couldn’t get enough of it. She couldn’t get enough of him.

  Ethan placed his gloves inside his white hat and set them on the black leather seat facing them on the opposite side of the bar console. “You’re a hit.”

  “You think?”

  “The candidates are invited to the Craddocks’ home near Mount Vernon day after tomorrow. The general warned me not to show up unless I bring you with me.” Ethan shifted, searching for a comfortable position on the plush seat. His legs veed open as he adjusted his cummerbund and plucked a crease from his black wool pants. “You must have said something to impress him.”

  “Walter was easy to talk to.”

  “Walter?”

  She pushed her shoes off her swollen feet and let the painful flood of restored circulation clear her mind so she could concentrate on the conversation instead of the bulge of lingering desire still visible between Ethan’s legs.

  J.C. quickly glanced away and rubbed the arches of her feet. Ouch. She hated wearing high heels as much as she loved dancing. Too bad tennis shoes weren’t better suited for embassy balls.

  “He asked me a lot of questions. I think he went with first names to put me at ease. By the way, you and my mom have only spoken on the phone, but she was impressed when you sent her flowers for her birthday last month.” She slid Ethan a sideways glance to check his reaction to that whopper. “I made up the story when he asked how we get along with our prospective in-laws, so it would sound as if we’d known each other longer.”

  “Did you tell him you’ve met my dad, then?”

  “No.” J.C. flinched at the cramp forming beneath the toes of her right foot, then explained. “I said your dad invited me to go fishing on his boat this summer, and that I was looking forward to it. I know you don’t like lying. But they were plausible little white lies. It’s what I came up with off the top of my head. Is that okay?”

  Instead of answering, Ethan reached down and grabbed her ankles. He lifted them, turned her, and pulled her across the seat until her feet rested in his lap. “Let me.”

  “Is that a yes or—? Oh, God….”

  Her whole body convulsed at his touch, and J.C. grabbed the armrest behind her for balance. But just as quickly, she calmed to the permeating scents of buffed leather and fading gardenia. Pain gave way to pleasure, and she rested her cheek against the back of the seat and let him have his way with her feet. Ethan’s big hands were warm and rough against her skin, like the rasp of a cat’s tongue, yet just as gentle.

  As he kneaded away the soreness, the strokes reminded her of the intimate way he’d massaged her last night on the edge of her car. Her kegel muscles clenched in vivid response at the memory, and a warm, moist honey lubricated the slit between her legs.

  “Is that better?” he asked, pulling her farther across the smooth leather seat and pushing the layers of her dress up to her knees to rub the tension from her ankles and calves.

  “Are you kidding?” Any time he touched her she felt better.

  In this position, the backs of her thighs and the slick, swelling heat of her womanhood pressed into his trunk-hard leg. Instinctively J.C. squirmed against the resistance of muscle and bone, seeking relief from the building pressure but finding little satisfaction through all the clothing that separated them.

  When she moaned in frustration, he misinterpreted the cause. “Did I hurt you?”

  J.C. reached out and fingered the gold braid on his sleeve, not wanting him to stop the tactile favor. “Your hands should be registered as lethal weapons, Major. That feels amazing.”

  He shrugged off the compliment, missing the suggestive undertones altogether and resumed his handiwork. “I don’t know about that. At least they’re a little more coordinated than my feet.”

  J.C. smiled. That was a joke. His control was slipping.

  About damn time.

  Seizing the moment she’d been waiting for all day long, J.C. slipped her fingers inside the cuff of his jacket to tease the crisp, golden hair on his wrist and knead her fingertips into the warm expanses of skin and sinew underneath. “Now that we’re alone, there’s something I want to discuss with you.”

  Ethan’s hand stilled on her knee beneath the folds of her bunched-up skirt. He looked up and snared her in the endless, knowing depths of his eyes. “Opportunities?”

  Taking a steadying breath, J.C. boldly toed his crotch.

  “J.C.!” Ethan barked her name like an order, jerking at the purposeful squeeze, expecting her to release him. But she was too fascinated by the uniquely female contrast of pink-painted toes clasping his black wool pants and cur
ling around the masculine bulge inside.

  He grabbed her naughty foot and tugged it down on the other side him, unwittingly splitting her legs apart and pulling her halfway across his lap. “I thought you wanted to talk.”

  Curling the other leg beneath her, J.C. braced a hand on Ethan’s shoulder and pushed herself into an eye-level position facing him. He was a solid force beneath her hand—strong, fit, primed with chained-up energy. There was friction at her fingertips, from the starched texture of gabardine and the pervading heat of the man inside the proud, proper uniform.

  J.C. touched her finger to the point of his chin and traced a tremor of tightly coiled tension along his jaw. “Actually I want you to do the talking.”

  “About what?” His jaw never flexed, his eyes never blinked. He fought her efforts to soothe his discomfort by pressing his mouth into an unyielding line.

  J.C. moved her attentions there, stroking the flat, smooth surfaces, coaxing them apart. “Tell me about that last dance tonight, Major. And whether or not you intend to finish what you started.”

  He snatched her hand from his mouth, but had to release her foot to do it. “Dammit, J.C. It’s no secret that I’m attracted to you. That dance lesson just got…” He let go just long enough to scrape his palm over the crown of his head. “Hell. It got way out of hand.”

  A self-damning curse and ragged sigh rippled down the length of his body and he looked away. J.C. rode the movement of his body, then settled back atop his thigh. Either the big guy couldn’t find the right words, or he didn’t want to say them.

  “You wanted it to go further, didn’t you?” She said the words quietly, succinctly.

  When his head snapped back to face her, she flinched at the raw desperation that marbled his eyes into a kaleidoscope of silvers and grays. She’d been playing with a live grenade, she now realized, and Ethan was making a heroic effort to keep it from blowing up in her face. “I’m trying to do the right thing here, Dr. Gardner. You’re doing me a huge favor already. I’m not going to take advantage of you.”

  He waited expectantly for her to understand.

  She wasted no time in helping him understand.