Full Circle (55 page)

Nice.

When she turned the corner and entered the
kitchen, his back was to her. He was carefully spooning a tomato
mixture onto toasted slices of baguette. From the way he wiggled
his fingers every time he set a piece down on the plate beside him,
she could tell it was hot, fresh out of the oven.

But the bruschetta wasn’t what made her stop
in her tracks and breathe in a long, appreciative inhale as her
gaze drank him up and down.

Mark was dancing. Not
dancing
-dancing.
More like dancing in place. His shoulders gently rocked and swayed
side to side. His torso lightly twisted as he rolled his hips. And
my, oh my, could he ever roll his hips.

She’d once heard that a man who was a good
dancer was a man who was good in bed.

Mark was very good in bed. And the way he was
moving his hips in a slow, rolling, side-to-side motion proved the
adage was spot on.

For several seconds, she remained rooted in
place. She’d never seen him dance like that and was getting a kick
out of him kapowing her heart with his Latin lover moves, even if
he wasn’t Latin. But Italians were notorious lovers, too, so
whatever.

Then her smile eased as the weight of what
she was witnessing hit her full-on.

I want to dance again.

The last item on his list. He was finally
living it. Finally seeing it through.

The significance of the moment warmed
something inside her. A piece of her soul that dwelled deep within
her belly bloomed, expanded, and made the backs of her eyes sting
ever-so-slightly.

Until now, Mark had forgone his love of
Latin-style dance. The only dancing she’d seen him do was generic
slow dancing where all they did was sway side to side and maybe
turn in a circle. And, yet, he was capable of so much more, as he
was proving this very moment.

He’d been raised within competitive ballroom
dancing. He’d studied it. He’d competed at the junior level. And
from what he’d said, he’d even instructed other dancers.

Pushing away from the wall, she quietly
approached as he sidestepped to the left, rolling his hips as he
did, and grabbed a bottle of wine.

“Hey,” she said, lightly touching his arm as
she stepped up beside him.

He turned his head toward her and smiled the
kind of smile only someone joyously happy could wear. It stretched
all the way into the depths of his eyes.

“Hey.” His gaze dropped for a quick scan of
her outfit before meeting hers again as his eyes narrowed
suspiciously but playfully. “Nice outfit.”

“Thanks. I wore it for you.” She took the
glass of White Zinfandel he held toward her.

“How thoughtful.” He raised his own
glass.

“I try.” She tapped his glass with hers. “So,
I’ve never seen you move like that.” She sipped her wine.

“Like what?” He appeared completely oblivious
as he placed his hand on her hip.

She lowered her glass and cocked her head to
the side. “Mark, you were dancing just now.”

“I was?”

“Yeah. You were. It was kind of sexy.” She
took another sip of wine, watching him over the rim of her
glass.

He paused and blinked several times as his
strong brow scrunched downward. “I didn’t even
realize . . .” He let out a staccato exhale through
his nose. “But, yeah, I guess I was.” His face relaxed again as he
grinned and met her gaze in a way that reminded her of a horny high
school boy taking advantage of the fact his parents were out of
town. “You thought it was sexy?”

Was he joking? Panting here. Heavily. Even if
only on the inside.

“Uh, yeah. What dance was that anyway?”

“The rumba.”

“Rumba.” She rolled the word over her tongue.
“You mentioned that before. When you returned from Chicago. You
said you wanted to teach me the rumba.” She dipped her chin and
lifted her gaze expectantly to his.

“Yes, I did.”

She set her glass down and stepped closer
until the front of her body brushed against his. “Well, no better
time than the present.”

His hands settled on her hips. “What?
Now?”

“Sure. Why not?” She ran her palms up his
arms to his shoulders.

He stared at her for a long moment. Then he
took a slow, measured step back as he raised his arms.

“Okay, Miss Mason. The rumba. First, the
frame. Raise your arms like this.” He briefly tensed his own arms
to demonstrate.

She did as he said, and then he took hold of
her right hand with his left and tucked his right hand under her
left arm. His fingertips pressed into her back, just beneath her
shoulder blade.

“This is closed position,” he said.

She nodded, and a flash of excitement shot
down her back and legs. He was teaching her how to dance. How to
rumba. He was welcoming her into the last secret place within his
soul, and she couldn’t stop smiling.

“Listen to the music,” he said. “Close your
eyes and listen.” She did. “Now, feel it. Anticipate the next beat.
Become part of the music.” He began swaying her side to side. Tiny
movements, in a slow-quick-quick-slow pattern. “When we dance, we
become the physical representation of the music. We give an image
to something that can only otherwise be heard.”

God, he made it sound so poetic. So ethereal.
So . . . sensual.

After thirty seconds or so, he said, “Now,
open your eyes and watch my feet.”

She did and looked down as he took one slow
step to the side, then drew the other foot in for two quicker steps
side-by-side. Then he took another slow step in the opposite
direction, followed by two more quick steps.

He did that a couple more times then said,
“See, I step out with my left foot for two counts then close my
right foot in for one then shift my weight back to my left for one.
Then I’ll repeat to the right. See?” He flicked his eyes downward
and performed the footwork as she continued swaying in front of him
and watched. “Slow . . . quick, quick,
slow . . . quick, quick, slow . . . ”
He followed the tempo of his feet. “Now, join me.”

She did, falling into the sequence with him,
stuttering at first but quickly adjusting until their movements
synced up with one another.

“This is the rumba’s basic side-to-side
step.” He smoothly flowed with her, turning her as they continued
repeating the series a few times.

“This is pretty easy.” She smiled up at
him.

“Wanna try the box step?”

She beamed and nodded. “Sure.”

“It’s the same slow, quick, quick step but
instead of stepping to the side first, you step to the front as I
step backward, then follow with two quick steps like this.” He
showed her then led her through the steps. The only tricky part was
making sure when she made her first quick step, she didn’t move
straight forward but more at a diagonal. After a few times through,
though, she’d mastered it.

Mark applied pressure against her back,
securing his hand farther around her so they inched closer to one
another.

“And this is what I meant by wanting to dance
again,” he whispered, pulling her even closer until they were
almost cheek-to-cheek. He sighed. “God, I’ve missed this. This
closeness. This incredible feeling of intimacy and trust. Not that
we don’t have that off the dance floor, but
this . . . this love in motion . . .
it just feels like I’m whole again. Like there’d still been one
tiny piece of me missing until this very moment, because you and I
had never danced together . . . like this.” He
turned his face into the side of hers and kissed just below her
ear. “God, I’ve wanted to hold you like this for so long.”

She knew what he meant, because sometime
during the last five minutes, the last pebbles of the wall he’d
kept erected around his heart for so long finally disintegrated.
She’d actually felt the energy shift around them.

As close as they’d come in the last few
months, she felt even closer to him now. Probably because she’d
never seen this side of him. And now, she wasn’t just seeing it,
she was experiencing it
with
him. Bearing witness as a
participant rather than just an observer in his reawakening.

She smiled and kissed his cheek before
whispering, “You can hold me like this any time you want for the
rest of our lives, Mark. I’m marrying you. That entitles you to
covet my body any time you want to, any way you wish.”

He pulled her closer as the music changed to
a song just as slow, just as sultry, but with a different beat. He
stopped leading her through the rumba and instead fell into more of
a dirty dancing style. Lots of hips. Lots of slow thrusting. And
lots of his arms holding on tight and the front of his body making
love to the front of hers.

If she’d thought the rumba was hot, this was
even hotter, and smoldering cinders kindled into flames between her
legs as the top of his thigh rubbed her right where it
mattered.

She was wearing barely anything, and it was
forty degrees outside, yet the temperature inside had just spiked
to balmy. Mark pressed her backside against the island in the
center of the kitchen, did some Magic Mike Chippendales Channing
Tatum hip roll thing between her legs that sent a bolt of fuck-me
through her thighs, and then he tugged her kaftan down her shoulder
and laved the tender stretch of skin at the base of her neck.

She closed her eyes and let her head fall
back. God, he was giving her her own private all-male review in
their kitchen. She made a mental note to add strip shows to her
list of fantasies she wanted Mark to act out.

“I want to dance the rumba with you at our
reception.” He spoke against the side of her neck and sounded as
sidetracked as she was.

She nodded. She could rumba. She could soooo
rumba at their wedding. Absolutely.

No, wait. Huh? Rumba what? When?

Her eyes snapped open, and she brought her
head back up.

“I don’t . . . I’m
not . . . at our reception?” Shit. She couldn’t even
talk right now.

“I’ll teach you.”
Kiss.
“Every night.”
Lick.
“Lessons.” He lifted her then set her on the counter
before easing her knees apart and filling the empty space with his
body. “You’ll be fine.” He peppered tiny kisses all around her
mouth before claiming her lips in a fiery blaze.

He could be very persuasive when he got like
this.

So, okay. Lessons. Rumba at the reception.
Got it.

Right now, there was only one thing she
wanted to think about, and as he dragged his tongue down her body,
sank to a crouch between her thighs, and pulled her panties to the
side, she knew she was going to get it.

And, later, when he put those dancing Italian
hips to work while she was still in the throes of the orgasm he’d
given her with his mouth, she knew sex would never be the same
again.

Praise the dance.

Chapter 40

The best times in life are usually random,
unplanned, and completely spontaneous.

-Author Unknown

Three weeks before the wedding, Karma returned to
Chicago for her final fitting, leaving Mark alone for the
weekend.

Two stacks of pale-pink RSVPs lay on the
dining room table, alongside cartons of tiny Belgian chocolates
wrapped in blush-colored foil. A stack of decorative, coral boxes
with dark-brown trim were stacked beside them. That had been last
night’s job. He and Karma had spent three hours folding those boxes
from the flat sheets they’d arrived as. And now it was his job to
fill each with the prewrapped chocolates to set on the tables at
the reception as party favors.

Karma had settled on blush with chocolate
accents as the colors for the wedding, which was fitting, given how
chocolate had figured into their relationship from day one. The two
colors created a stunning palette.

Rolling up his sleeves, he sat down at the
table and had just begun to fill the first box when his phone
rang.

“Hello?”

“Uh, Mark.” Karma’s dad cleared his throat.
He sounded much stronger than he had a few weeks ago. “This is John
Mason. Karma’s dad. Uh . . .”

He was surprised that her dad had called him,
but he smiled at John’s hesitant formality. “Yes, I know.”

“Of course you do,” John muttered. “Well,
yes, I was wondering if you had dinner plans. I know Karma is in
Chicago this weekend with her mother, and you and I haven’t had
much opportunity to talk, so, uh . . .”

“No, I don’t have any plans, Mr. Mason.”

Mark had hoped to speak to John before the
wedding, but he’d wanted to give him a chance to recover from his
heart attack first. Dinner was a great opportunity for them to
spend some time together.

“Well, what say you come on over for some
baked chicken and steamed vegetables. They say I need to eat
healthier, so I can’t promise you much in the way of taste, but
this’ll give us a chance to get to know one another, being that
you’re about to become my son-in-law.”

Mark pushed away from the table and headed
for the stairs. “I’d be happy to join you for dinner. But how about
you leave the cooking to me. You should be resting, anyway.”

“Uh, well, there’s really nothing to it.” He
sounded surprised at the offer. “Just throw the chicken in the
oven, and steam the broccoli.”

“All the same, I’d be honored if you let me
cook for you.” A little schmoozing could go a long way toward
smoothing things over, but, more importantly, John needed to take
it easy for a few more weeks. “I’ll pick you up and bring you over
to our house. Give you the tour and let you relax.”

John still wasn’t allowed to drive, so he had
to be going stir crazy being cooped up in the house.

“That’s not—”

“I insist.” Mark entered the walk-in closet
and flipped on the light. “Please, Mr. Mason, let me do this for
you.”

Silence stretched across the connection for
several seconds.