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Susan whirled and laughed, and an unfamiliar pang echoed in Andrew. He couldn’t pull his gaze from her. She stopped, facing him, grin wide and eyes sparkling. “That was so much fun. I can’t believe... Anyway. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“The idea. Bringing me along. I don’t know. Tonight.” She threw her arms around his neck in a big hug and pressed her warm body to his, chasing away the chill and drawing heat to the surface.
Her tits against his chest. Her breath on his neck. The scent of vanilla and sugar that drilled into his senses.
The hammer of her heart against his ribs—how could he feel that?
Her laughter faded, and she pulled back to meet his gaze. Jesus, she had gorgeous eyes.
He felt her skin against his palm before he realized he was cupping her cheek. When he dipped his head toward hers, her eyes grew wide, and then the lids fluttered closed. He kissed her, and a jolt sped through him, singeing his skin, burning his veins, and making him crave more.
He needed to break away, but she parted her lips in a silent gasp, and he took the invitation, diving his tongue into her mouth to dance and explore.
The way she molded to him chased away sensibility. He drew his hand to the back of her head, to grasp the short hair and hold her captive. She tasted like he expected—innocence and trouble, wrapped together. He didn’t want to fuck her; he wanted to strip her down a piece of clothing at a time, and take hours exploring her body and finding out what made her moan, scream, and whimper.
Time to stop. He fumbled to find scant threads of reason and put more than a foot between him and her. He gave Susan a too-bright smile. “Oops.”
Her cheerful expression faded into disappointment, before returning half-force. “Don’t worry. I won’t hold it against you.” Her voice was flat.
“Appreciate it, Suzie-Q.” It took restraint to grin and act as if he didn’t care. It took more, to not tug her back and continue kissing her. What the fuck was wrong with him? He was acting like a horny teenager. It was a kiss. Tempting. Delicious. Soft—
“So... Yeah.” She fiddled with the button on her coat sleeve. “It never happened.”
“We should go.”
She stood in his path, unmoving. “Do you have someplace you need to be?”
He did. He needed to get back to his hotel, jerk off until he was raw, and put this moment behind him. “No. My night is open.”
“Can we stay here a little longer? No-expectations-I-promise. I don’t want to go home yet. Or you can drop me at Mercy’s if that’s better for you. I have a key.”
The name and plea helped him hang on to reason. When he and Mercy were bumming around the world, she both loathed the idea of going home again, and missed it so much that it kept her up at night, sobbing with homesickness. He nodded toward the sidewalk. “Do you want to walk?”
“Walking sounds good.” Susan fell into step beside him, hands jammed in her pockets and gaze cast at her feet.
He mimicked her posture, not trusting his hands to be anywhere else. “What you did inside? Falling into the role and playing that part? That’s all you need to do on stage.” There. He brought the topic back to the only reason they were spending so much time together. Good job, me.
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why not?”
She jerked her head back toward the restaurant. “Those people don’t know me.”
“Neither do the people watching you on stage.”
“Not all of them, but some do. Family will come to watch. If I’m good at it, eventually people will show up to see me dance.”
“You’re not hearing me.” As someone walked past them from the opposite direction, Andrew drifted closer to her. He didn’t move away again when the sidewalk was clear. “They know your name. They don’t know you. They can’t say why you use the R&T photography room for practice. They don’t know how you take your coffee.”
Her arm brushed his, and she stayed close. “That’s semantics.”
“But it’s not.” This was the conversation he should have had with her on Sunday, instead of tucking his tail between his legs and running because he couldn’t get his libido under control. “Why didn’t you want to dance at The Gateway? I’m not judging. No accusation. I want to know.”
“Because it was embarrassing.” She tucked in her shoulders and moved farther from him.
“But the party wasn’t?”
“It’s different.”
He leaned into her and nudged her toward a coffee shop they were drawing up on. When they stepped inside, warm air bit into the half of his face he could feel, stinging until his skin adjusted to the temperature.
Susan didn’t unfold, but she did follow him to the counter.
The girl behind the register—Meg, according to her nametag—glanced at him with a frown, then turned her attention to the register and refused to make eye contact. “What can I get you?” she asked.
On a different night, he’d ask if the scars turned her off or if she was simply less than friendly. His mood would determine if he kept the question to himself or shared it with her. Tonight, Susan’s company was too compelling to let him be distracted. “A large coffee, and a small non-fat latte, double shot of sugar-free vanilla.”
“How—” Susan snapped her mouth shut when he looked at her.
The cashier took his money and handed over their drinks a moment later, and they found a table near the front window. He slid the latte to Susan. “Lucky guess,” he said.
“Thank you.” She seemed content to hide behind the cup or her hand or whatever was convenient.
He waited until she put her drink down, then reached over to pin her wrists to the table. He was grateful for the layers of clothing that kept him from touching bare skin. He was also definitely losing his shit if naked wrists were a temptation. “People are always going to have an opinion about you. Pumpkin Spice, over there?” He nodded at Meg. “Odds are as good that my face puts her on edge as they are that she’ll forget about us the moment we walk out the door.”
“I don’t—”
“Hang on.” He gave one of Susan’s arms a gentle squeeze. “What she thinks? It’s not your responsibility. What a random stranger at The Gateway wants to believe? That’s not up to you. You said you want to teach dance more than anything. That’s up to you.”
She pulled one hand from his grasp, to take a drink, but didn’t extract the other. “Which is all all pretty and simple in theory. It doesn’t work that way in practice. Not all of us can shut off caring what other people think about us. We can’t all be you.”
Her words hurt more than he wanted. Ironic, given the conversation. “Is that what you see in me? Someone who doesn’t care?”
“No. Maybe. It’s like sometimes I think you do, but others... Don’t listen to me. I don’t know you.”
Let’s change that. He stashed the errant thought. “I care about what people think. And not only Mercy. Or you.” Shut up. “But I learned a long time ago that, if I don’t think my opinion matters, no one else will.”
She drummed her fingers on the table. Great. Now he’d irritated her. “I hear it, but I don’t know how to do that.” She didn’t sound annoyed. She bobbed her head back and forth. It was subtle, but it matched the beat spilling from the speakers.
He stood and offered his hand. “May I have this dance?”
She stared at him, bottom lip caught between her teeth. The silence dragged out between them. He didn’t know why he was doing this again, after her reaction last time. A tiny voice whispered this was about more than pushing her boundaries; it was personal.
He refused to listen. “No one else is in here but us and Pumpkin Spice.” He kept his voice low, so only Susan would hear him.
The corners of her mouth twitched up, but she didn’t show any other sign of movement.
*
SUSAN WASN’T GOING to make the same mistake she did last time. Swallowing the apprehension sprinting through her, she took Andrew’s hand and let him pull her to her feet. When he twirled her, she gave an embarrassed laugh. When he pulled her close, her breath caught. She kick-started her heart and forced herself to stay calm, despite the memory of his kiss lingering on her lips. This would be easier if she focused on the fact that he couldn’t keep a beat.
She looked at the counter, then ducked her head at the cashier’s expression. “She’s scowling.”
“Who? Pumpkin Spice?” Andrew kept going in what Susan thought might be a weak waltz. Or a two-step. Or a slow-version of a dance-club spaz-out.
If Susan kept her attention on the way his hands felt, one gripping hers and the other at her waist, it was easier to block the urge to hide. “Why are you calling her that?”
“I assume Meg is short for Nutmeg. Makes sense, doesn’t it? She works in a coffee shop. She looks like Bratty Spice. One plus one equals Pumpkin.”
Susan buried her face in his shoulder. “You’re sure it’s not because you’ve got a food fetish?” She should be hesitating to ask the question, but it felt natural.
“I’ve fetishized a lot of things in my life, but food’s not one of them.” He whirled them, then pulled her close again.
She wanted to ask if she could be one of them.
“Excuse me. You can’t do that in here.” Meg’s irritation cut through the conversation.
Susan paused, but a nudge from Andrew moved her again. He turned to face the register. “Do what?”
“That.”
“Not very clear, but let’s say I know what you’re talking about. Why not?”
The warmth scorching Susan’s cheeks was no longer affection, but she didn’t have a desire to ask Andrew to stop.
“You’re bothering the other customers.” Meg’s words faded off when Andrew cast his attention around the room.
“There’s no one else in here,” he said.
“You need to leave.”
Andrew turned back to the table but never took his arm from Susan’s waist. “Yes, ma’am.” He grabbed Susan’s drink and handed it to her, before taking his own. They left the shop. As the door swung shut behind them, he whispered in Susan’s ear, “Notice how that didn’t kill us?”
“Jury’s out on that.” Despite the gnawing in her gut and the adrenaline pumping through her at the confrontation, she had to admit she was right. He didn’t push Meg once she asked them to leave. No one got hurt. It wasn’t so bad. Once Susan convinced all of herself of that, not only her brain, she’d be doing better.
He steered her down the street, holding her close. “Let me know when they reach a verdict.”
“I had fun. If she hadn’t stopped us, I could have danced all night.” She peeked up at him through her lashes, trying to gauge his reaction to her play on their earlier conversation.
He smiled. “And still have begged for more?”
“Depends on the partner. And you are a fan of the classic movies, beyond retro porn.”
He glanced at her, smile in place. “You googled The Green Door? I hope you liked what you found. And no, not so much a fan, as a four-year drama student in high school. A lot of those musicals are burned into my mind.”
“You were in drama? I’m so surprised.” She laced teasing with her sarcasm.
“I’m wounded.” He sounded anything but. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She hesitated. What if she’d read him wrong? Worse—what if he didn’t know he was doing it, and she offended him? Instinct said she’d be okay. “You molded yourself into a community where you got to play a part—or a lot of them—and draw all the attention you could ever possibly want, as someone else.”
He slowed his pace but didn’t drop his arm from around her waist. He tossed his coffee in a nearby bin. It landed with a heavy thud. “Do you think I’m playing a part with you?” His tone was more serious than before. Which meant he didn’t shut her out like every other time she tried to chip away at his exterior.
She pushed forward. “Are you going to argue you’re not? You said earlier my audience doesn’t know me. You don’t either, the same way I don’t know you. Despite your stories.”
“What do you want to know?” He sat on a bench and tugged her down next to him. Sincerity shone in his eyes when he looked at her.
She hadn’t expected a chance to actually ask. “Are you still in love with Mercy?” The question rolled out before she could consider it.
“No.” He didn’t flinch.
“If you’re not going to be honest with me, there’s no point.”
“Correction—if you’re not going to take me at my word when I am being honest, there’s no point.”
She didn’t want to argue. This was her chance to uncover the enigma that was Andrew. If that meant saving the question about her sister for another time, she could do that. “All right. Give me another question?”
“As many as you want.”
“When did you decide to stop performing and start watching?”
He gave a shaky laugh and stared at the bench. “You do ask the tough questions, don’t you?”
“Should I let you do the asking?” So much for stripping away the mask.
“Hmm... I’m going to take your very generous offer to let me change the subject. What do I want to know?”
She expected him to make her blush, and braced herself to hide the reaction.
“Why blue?” He trailed his fingers through her hair.
The tender gesture caught her off guard and snatched away her thoughts. Lean in. Kiss him again. She ignored the impulse. “I wanted hot pink, but the girl who does my hair didn’t have any in stock.”
“Lucky for me, I like the blue.” He rubbed a lock between his fingers. “What does your dad think you’re majoring in? In his mind, what are his college dollars buying?”
“Teaching. Like I told you before.”
“You hesitate every time you talk about it. In the car. At Kandace’s. What aren’t you saying?”
She didn’t want to get into this, because he’d take it wrong. On the other hand, skipping the question would make it seem like a big deal, and it wasn’t. “He jokes about kicking me out if I pursue dancing as part of the teaching.” She made sure to put some laughter in her response.
His scowl was worse than she expected. “Jokes about it?”
“He’s not serious. He was so hurt over Mercy leaving when she was eighteen, he’d never throw one of us out.”
Andrew worked his jaw up and down, and then his frown vanished. “No. I’m sure he wouldn’t.”
The flat, neutral tone was the same she heard every time he held back. She’d love to know how to unlock the things he hid. The glimpses she got intrigued her. She could see why he and Mercy were such good friends. When he wasn’t wearing the mask, he was sweet and fun. Too bad she didn’t know how to get him to leave the mask off.