Having known the Moondrop Ballroom was one of the places where she would take Harrison, Gracie had packed the dress and accessories she’d bought for the Dewitts’ party and instructed Harrison to bring a suit. So it was a surprise when she answered his knock on her hotel room door to find him on the other side wearing a tuxedo. He even had a white silk scarf draped around his neck. She battled the wave of heat that wound through her at the sight of him, so dashing and Hollywood handsome, and the feeling was not unlike the one she’d experienced in the storage unit that afternoon.
And what the hell had that been about? One minute, she’d been about to drop a box on her toe, and the next, Harrison had been staring at her neck as if he wanted to devour her. His damp T-shirt had been clinging to him like a second skin, delineating every bump of muscle on his torso. His dark hair had been falling rakishly over his forehead, his blue eyes had been hot with wanting, and...and... And, well, suddenly, she’d kind of wanted to devour him, too.
“You look...nice,” she finally said.
He smiled. “You look beautiful.”
“Thanks,” she replied, the heat in her belly nearly swamping her.
“So what time does this thing start?”
When Harry was alive, he and Gracie had been regulars at the Moondrop for Fox-trot Fridays, with an occasional appearance for Samba Saturdays and Waltz Wednesdays. Her favorite nights, however, had been Tango Tuesdays, which, as luck would have it, was tonight.
“There’s a beginner’s hour at seven,” she said, “which is where the instructors give some basic lessons for people who’ve never been dancing before. The main event is at eight. If you want to go early for the first hour, though, we can,” she added, thinking Harrison might not be comfortable jumping in with both feet, especially with the tango, since that was probably the hardest dance to know where to put both feet.
“You know what you’re doing, right?” he asked. “I mean you said you and my father did this sort of thing on a regular basis.”
“Yeah, but Tango Tuesdays tend to be tricky.”
He smiled at her unintended alliteration. “But aren’t you trained in tango? A tip-top tango teacher I can trust?”
Gracie smiled back. “Totally top-notch.”
His eyes twinkled. “Terrific.”
Another moment passed where they did nothing but smile and twinkle at each other. Then Harrison, at least, seemed to recall that they had something to do.
“So...do we have time for dinner?”
“Sure.”
She gathered her purse and exited, pulling the door closed behind them. When Harrison proffered his arm with all the elegance of Cary Grant, it somehow felt totally natural to tuck her hand into the crook of his elbow. The warmth in her midsection sparked hotter, simmering parts of her that had no business simmering this early in the evening.
Or ever, she hastened to correct herself. At least where Harrison was concerned. That way lay madness.
Maybe this part of his Harry tour hadn’t been such a good idea. If this was the way her body reacted when it was just hand-to-elbow contact, what was going to happen when they got into dance mode? Sure, ballroom dancing in its purest form allowed for space between the bodies, but there were still a lot of parts touching. Not just hands and elbows, but shoulders and backs. Waists. Hips.
Yikes.
Then she remembered this was tango Tuesday. Uh-oh. That meant leg contact. Torso contact. Damn. Why hadn’t they been in town for open dance night instead, where she could have insisted they do the bunny hop or something? And now she’d gone and told him she would be his top-notch tango teacher. Tsk, tsk.
Note to self, Gracie, she thought as they waited for the elevator—and her stomach did a little cha cha cha. It’s a treacherous tactic, teaching tango to a tempting, um, guy.
* * *
Stepping into the Moondrop Ballroom was like stepping back in time. Not just because it had been beautifully preserved in all its postwar elegance since opening in the 1940s, but because the people who came here did their best to dress as if they’d been preserved from that period, too. Most of the regulars were elderly, people who remembered coming here or to ballrooms like it when they were young. That was why Harry had liked the Moondrop so much. But many were Gracie’s age or younger, newcomers to ballroom dancing who loved the period and wanted to experience the manners and styles of the time, if for just one evening. Even the orchestra dressed the part. The ceiling was painted the colors of twilight with twinkling white lights that looked like stars. Each wall had a silhouette of the 1940s Cincinnati skyline, topped with more stars. Between the décor and the music—the band never played anything written after 1955—it was easy to forget there was another world beyond the front doors.
“Wow, this place is like something out of a movie,” Harrison said when they entered, clearly having fallen under the spell of the ballroom as quickly as Gracie had the first time she was here.
“Isn’t it wonderful? It’s exactly like I remember.”
“How long has it been since you were in town?”
She stiffened at his question, even though it was one she’d fielded in one way or another ever since her arrival. “I left six months after Harry’s funeral,” she told him. “I haven’t been back since.”
“But you have so many friends here,” he said. “I mean, all those people yesterday obviously knew you pretty well. But it sounded like you haven’t stayed in touch with any of them.”
“That’s because I haven’t.”
“Why not?”
He didn’t seem to be asking out of idle curiosity. But she told herself she was imagining things. She was just hypersensitive because of all the questions she’d fielded about Devon since she’d come back.
All she said was “It’s complicated, Harrison.”
He looked as if he might let it go, but then said, “Because of Devon.”
For some reason, hearing that name spoken in Harrison’s voice was far worse than hearing it in anyone else’s.
“Yes,” she said. “Because of him.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She shook her head. And she told Harrison what she’d told everyone else, what she told herself whenever Devon invaded her thoughts. “That’s all in the past.”
Harrison looked like he was going to say more, but the band saved her, striking up the first notes of “La cumparsita.”
“Well, aren’t you lucky?” she said. “You’re going to wet your tango feet with the mother of all tango tunes.”
He listened for a moment. “I recognize this song. This is in Some Like It Hot when Jack Lemmon is tangoing with Joe E. Brown.”
And when Tony Curtis was making out with Marilyn Monroe, she thought, but hopefully neither of them would mention that part. Judging by Harrison’s expression, though, he was definitely thinking about it. And also judging by his expression, he knew she was thinking about it, too. Damn.
“Shall we?” he asked, tilting his head toward the dance floor, where a number of people were already in full tango mode.
She smiled in a way she hoped was flirtatious. Not that she was flirting with him or anything. She was just keeping in the spirit of the Moondrop Ballroom, that was all. “If you think you’re ready for it.”
He smiled back in a way that went way beyond flirtatious and zoomed right into bewitching. “I’m ready for anything.”
As if to prove it, he extended his left hand, palm up. The moment she placed her right hand against it, he closed his fingers over hers, drew her close and lifted their hands to chin height—his chin, not hers—so her arm was higher. Then he pressed his other hand to the small of her back and drew her body, very firmly, against his. There was nothing tentative in his hold. His confidence was absolute. Her own body’s response was just as fierce. In every single place they touched, little explosions detonated under her skin, rushing heat to every other part of her body.
The moment she was in his arms, he assumed a flawless tango stance, placing his right leg between hers and his left alongside her right. Then he began to guide her forward. Well, for her it was backward, since—obviously—he intended to lead. His first step was with his left foot, all fine and good—except for how Gracie’s insides were turning to steaming lava—and his next was with his right, which would have also been fine if Gracie had reacted the way she was supposed to and stepped backward.
But thanks to the little-explosions-of-heat thing, not to mention the steaming-lava thing, she wasn’t exactly on her game. So his step forward pressed his thigh into the juncture of her legs, and wow, talk about an explosion of heat and steaming lava. Her entire torso seemed to catch fire and melt into his. Even though she was pretty good at the tango, she stumbled those first few steps, something that made Harrison splay his fingers wide on her back and pull her closer still, and— Oh. My. God. She was going to spontaneously combust! After that, it was all Gracie could do to just try and keep up with him.
He led her deeper into the crowd of other dancers with a few perfectly executed barridas, sweeping his feet along the floor in a way that made hers move that way, too. Then he spun them in a perfect boleo, punctuating the move with a beautiful gancho, wrapping his leg briefly around hers before turning her again. Then he threw in a lápiz, tracing a circle on the floor with his free foot—he was just showing off now—and followed with a parada, where he suddenly stopped, literally toe-to-toe with her, to perform a really delicious caricia. He drew his leg slowly up along hers, then pushed it slowly back down again, generating a luscious friction. She wished he would do it again, and he did. Then he did it again. And again. And—holy mother of mackerel—again.
By now Gracie’s heart was hammering hard inside her chest, even though they’d only been dancing a matter of minutes, and he’d been doing most of the work. Harrison had to feel the pounding of her pulse, too—their bodies were so close, in so many places—but he didn’t say a word. He only held her gaze tight with his and began to dance again, with all the grace and style of a vaquero. As the final notes of the song came to a close, he pulled her close one last time, and then—of course—he tilted her back until her head was nearly touching the floor, in a dip that was nothing short of spectacular.
At that point, they were both breathing heavily, a combination of both the dance and their heightened awareness of each other. They’d also earned an audience, Gracie realized, when she heard applause. Or maybe that was just in her own brain, acknowledging his skill at...oh, so many things, because she honestly wasn’t even conscious of anyone in that moment but him.
Still poised in the dip, her free arm looped around his neck, she said breathlessly, “You’ve been holding out on me.”
He grinned. But he didn’t let her up. Instead he only roped his arm more possessively around her waist and pulled her closer to him. He, too, was out of breath, his voice quiet when he spoke. “My mother made me take cotillion classes when I was in middle school. I hated it until I realized how many points knowing how to dance earned me with girls. Knowing the tango multiplied those points by about a thousand.”
“I can see how that would work in a guy’s favor.”
Still, he didn’t let her up, and still, Gracie didn’t care. For one interminable moment, it almost seemed as if he were bending his head closer to hers, as if his mouth were hovering over hers, as if he actually intended to—
She closed her eyes, and for the merest, faintest, most exquisite millisecond, she thought she felt the brush of his lips over hers. But when she opened her eyes, he was levering her to a standing position, so she told herself she’d only imagined it.
The crowd had dispersed, caught up in another song, another dance, another moment. But Gracie couldn’t quite let this moment go. Their fingers were still curled together, her other hand still curved around his nape while his was still pressing into the small of her back. Although they’d stopped moving, she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. And in spite of the music that still swirled around them, she couldn’t seem to make herself move.
But neither, did it seem, could he. His breathing was as erratic as hers, and he wasn’t any more inclined to move than she was. And that maybe-imaginary, maybe-not kiss still had her brain so muddled, she wasn’t sure what to do. Even when he began to lower his head toward hers—there was no mistaking his intention this time—she didn’t know how to react. Not until his mouth covered hers completely. After that, she knew exactly what to do.
She kissed him back.
The feel of his mouth on hers was extraordinary, at once entreating and demanding, tender and rough, soft and firm. He kissed her as if he had done it a million times and never before, confident of his effect on her and tentative in his reception. Gracie kept her hand cupped over his nape, and with the other, threaded her fingers into his hair. It had been so long since she had been this close to a man, so long since she had allowed herself to get lost in the sensation of two bodies struggling to become one. She didn’t want it to stop. She wanted to stay here in this spot, with this man, forever.
By the time he pulled back, her brain was so rattled, her body so incited, her senses so aroused, all she could do was say the first thing that popped into her head. “I thought you didn’t like me.”
He nuzzled the curve where her neck joined her shoulder. “Oh, I like you very much.”
“You think I took advantage of your father.”
He nipped her earlobe. Gracie tried not to swoon. “I don’t think that at all.”
“Since when?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
Instead of answering, he skimmed his lips lightly along her throat, her jaw, her temple. But just when she thought she would melt into a puddle of ruined womanhood at his feet, he straightened. And then he began to lead her in the tango again, as if nothing had happened.
Well, nothing except a major tilt of the earth’s axis that had just changed everything for Gracie.
* * *
It was that damned dress.
That was what Harrison told himself as he and Gracie sat on opposite sides of a cab as it sped down Hamilton Avenue, back toward their hotel. Someone somewhere had put a spell on that dress that made men’s brains turn to pudding whenever they got within fifteen feet of it. And when it was on someone like Gracie, with creamy skin and silky hair and eyes dark enough for a man to lose himself in for days, well... It was amazing all he’d done on that dance floor was kiss her.
But he had kissed her. And he’d told her he liked her. Very much. But he hadn’t been able to answer her question about “since when.” Probably because he didn’t know “since when.”
When had that happened? Today at the storage unit? Yesterday at the baseball game? That morning at the stock exchange? He honestly didn’t know. He only knew he had been wrong about her. She really had been his father’s friend and nothing more. She really was a decent person. She really was a girl next door.
Now he just had to figure out what to do. Almost since the moment they met, he’d been suspicious of her. But he’d also been attracted to her. He’d wanted to expose her as a fraud, but he’d also wanted to have sex with her. He’d been sure every word she said about his father was untrue, but he’d learned things about his father from her that he’d never known before.
Hell, no wonder he didn’t know what to do.
Bottom line, he told himself. That was what everything came down to in life. What was the bottom line?
The bottom line was he liked Gracie. The bottom line was he wanted her. The bottom line was she’d kissed him back on that dance floor. The bottom line was she wanted him, too.
So why not do what he always did when he was attracted to a woman, and she was attracted to him? Once they got back to the hotel, they could have a nightcap and then hop into bed and enjoy themselves. No harm, no foul, a good time had by all. There was nothing in this encounter that was any different from any other encounter he’d had with a woman. Maybe the circumstances of their meeting were a little weirder, but the essentials were the same. Man, woman. Hormones, pheromones. Foreplay, play, replay. He’d done it a million times, a million ways, with a million women. So what was the problem?
He looked at Gracie again. She was staring out the window, the passing streetlights throwing her beautiful face into light, then dark, then light, then dark. Maybe that was the problem. All this time, he’d been trying to focus on her dark side. Now he was seeing the light. And he... Hell, there were times when he wondered if he even had a light side.
What would happen if his dark side mingled with Gracie’s light side? Would it leave them both more balanced? Or would it just turn everything gray?
As if he’d uttered the question out loud, she turned to look at him. She really was beautiful, whether in light or dark. And he really did want her. He just wished he knew what the fallout of having her would be. And that thought was strange, because he’d never worried about fallout before.
Clearly, girls next door were a lot more dangerous than con artists.
* * *
When they arrived back at Gracie’s hotel room and she turned to tell Harrison good-night, she could see he was no more ready to say the words than she was. In fact, the way he was looking at her now was a lot like the way he’d looked just before he’d kissed her at the Moondrop Ballroom. So it really didn’t come as a surprise when he took a step closer and dipped his head to hers. Nor was it surprising when she took a step forward and tilted her head back to meet him.
The kiss was even better this time. Maybe because Gracie played an equal part in it from the beginning, or maybe because she had time to enjoy it from the very start. Something about the feel of Harrison’s mouth on hers felt like coming home. But to a home where she didn’t have to live all by herself.
Reluctantly, she ended the kiss. “Do you... Um, do you want to come inside?”
He met her gaze intently. “Yeah. Are you sure you want me to?”
She nodded.
“Because if I come inside, Gracie, I won’t leave until morning.”
Actually, she was kind of hoping he wouldn’t want to leave at all. But morning was good for a start. “That’s okay,” she told him. “I don’t want you to leave.” There. Let him make of that what he would.
He dipped his head forward in silent acknowledgment. Then he followed her into the room and closed the door behind them, taking care to tuck the Do Not Disturb notice into the key slot as he did.
She started to ask him if he wanted to order something from room service, a snack or a bottle of wine or a game of Jenga or anything that might slow this thing down. But he obviously didn’t want to slow down, because he pulled her close, looped his arms around her waist and kissed her again. He brushed his lips lightly over hers, and then skimmed them along her jaw, her cheek, her temple. With each new caress, her pulse leaped higher. When she splayed her fingers open on his chest, she felt his heart thumping against her palm, every bit as ragged and rapid as her own. When his lips found hers again, he deepened the kiss, and she opened her mouth to invite him in.
As he kissed her, he scooted one hand from her waist to the top of her dress. He pulled the zipper down down down, until it stopped at the base of her fanny, and the dress fell completely open. Then she felt his warm hand on her naked skin, his fingers pressing into her, pushing her more closely against him. He traced the outline of her mouth with the tip of his tongue, and then darted it inside to explore more thoroughly. His fingers went exploring, too, down to the waistband of her panties, dipping lower until his palms were pressing into the tender flesh beneath.
Gracie tore her mouth from his at the contact, gasping for breath, wondering again if this was such a good idea. But when her gaze met his, when she saw how dark his eyes were with wanting, how ruddy his cheeks were with his desire, how damp his mouth was from her own, she moved her fingers to his shirt, carefully slipping the buttons from their fastenings, one by one.
Harrison watched, his own breath shallow and warm against her temple, his hands still where he’d left them, curving over her bare bottom. Her fingers began to tremble after the third button, but she managed to undo them all. He released her long enough to shrug out of his shirt and jacket at once, leaving him bare above the waist, an absolute feast for her eyes.
His torso was long and lean, his shoulders wide and rugged, all of him corded with muscle. Her hands were on him before she even made the decision to touch him, her palms flattening against his smooth flesh, her fingertips raking gentle lines along each salient ridge until she reached his shoulders. Then she ran her hands down over the bumps of biceps, triceps and everything that came after.
When she reached his wrists, he turned his hands so they were grasping hers, and then urged her arms down to her sides. With one deft move, he hooked his fingers in the sleeves of her dress and nudged them over her shoulders, tugging on the garment until it pooled in a heap of frothy mint at her feet. Beneath it, she wore only white lace panties and a strapless bra. His gaze flew to the latter, followed by his hands. Without hesitation, he cupped one over each breast, making his claim to her absolute. Gracie fairly purred at the contact, and then lifted her hands to his torso again, touching him just as intimately. After squeezing her breasts gently, he moved his hands to her back, unhooking her bra to let it fall to the floor before pulling her body flush against his.
The sensation of finally touching him, flesh to flesh, heat to heat, was breathtaking...literally. Gracie’s breath caught in her throat at the contact. He lowered his head and kissed her again, driving a hand between their bodies to grasp her breast once more. He moved his thumb over her nipple several times, before cradling her fully in his hand. She felt him swell to life against her, getting harder with each touch, until he was straining against his zipper. When she lowered her hand to his fly, he began backing her toward the bed. The action moved her hand more intimately against him, making him harder still.
By the time they reached the bed, his pants were open, and she was stroking him over the silk of his boxers. He growled something unintelligible against her mouth, and then sat down on the edge of the mattress, bringing her down on his lap to face him, her legs straddling his. For a moment, he only held her there with a hand on each hip, kissing her and kissing her and kissing her. Then he moved his mouth to her breast and kissed her there, too. First one, then the other, licking her, sucking her, driving her mad. Gracie twined her fingers in his hair and held him there, relishing each new touch of his tongue. Then she felt his hand between her legs, pressing into her over her panties, gently rubbing her with one finger, then two, creating a delicious friction that nearly drove her mad.
And then he was pulling the fabric aside, pushing his fingers into the damp folds of her flesh, slipping one finger easily, deeply into her. Gracie cried out at the contact and instinctively tried to close her legs. But Harrison pushed his own wider, opening her more, making her even more accessible to him. For a long time, he fingered her, until she thought she would explode with wanting him. Only when her entire body shuddered with her orgasm did he slow his movements. And only when her body relaxed in her release did he let her rest.
For all of a minute.
Then he was rolling her onto her back on the bed and pulling down her panties, until she lay blissfully and wantonly naked. She sighed with much contentment and threw her arms above her head, dissolving into a pool of something sweet and hot. The sensation doubled when she opened her eyes and saw Harrison shedding his trousers, his cock fully erect and ready for...oh, anything.
When he lay down beside her, she closed her hand over him, dragging her fingers slowly down his heavy length and up again, palming the damp head before repeating her actions. He closed his eyes as she caressed him for long moments, his breathing deep and ragged, his body hard and tense. When she sensed he was close to coming, he grabbed her hand and stilled her motions, and then opened his eyes.
“Not yet,” he murmured.
She started to object—she certainly hadn’t stopped him—but he sat up and rolled on a condom. Then he pulled her up beside him, grabbed her by the waist and set her astride him again. As she draped her arms over his shoulders, he rubbed his cock against the wet flesh between her legs until he was as damp as she. Then he pushed himself inside her—deep, deep inside her. So deep, she wasn’t sure where his body ended and hers began. Still gripping her hips, he pushed her up until he almost withdrew, and then urged her back downward. Over and over he entered her, seeming to go deeper with each stroke. Then he withdrew and levered both their bodies onto the mattress until Gracie was on her knees with her shoulders pressed to the mattress, and he was entering her again from behind.
She clutched the sheet in both hands, hanging on for dear life, knowing they were both close to coming now. Harrison rose up on his knees and held her hips, pulling her back toward him as he thrust forward, until finally, finally, both of them came.
For one long, lingering moment, it seemed as if neither of them would ever move again. Then he rolled onto his back beside her, and she straightened until her belly and breasts were flat against the bed. She felt his hand on her bottom, gently stroking her sensitive skin, and she somehow managed to move her own hand to his chest. The skin she encountered was hot and wet, his chest rising and falling with his patchy respiration. She turned her head to look at him, only to find him staring intently at her.
Neither of them said a word. For Gracie, that was because she had no idea what to say. Never, ever had it been like this with a man. No one had made her feel so desirable and so desired. She’d never felt the things Harrison made her feel and would never feel them with anyone else. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. There was something between them, right here, right now, that was different from anything she’d ever known before. Anything she would ever know again. And she just wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
Until he smiled. And she knew he felt it, too.
Only then could Gracie close her eyes and let sleep take her. For a little while, anyway. Because she knew she hadn’t had nearly enough of Harrison. Not tonight. Not forever. She only hoped he felt that part, too.