God, she could almost eat. She looked down at the plate and forked up a bite of butterfly pasta with smoked salmon and cream. It felt good in her mouth. She chewed and swallowed, heedless of carbs, saturated fat, calories. What the hell. It was a party, after all. She had some more and washed it down with more wine.
Heat was branded into her cheeks. An alcohol flush, she supposed. She should skip the wine. But she felt so soft, so relaxed. She took a last, farewell swallow. Then another.
“Dance with me?” Janos asked softly.
The reasons why she should not get close to this man scrolled automatically in her head, but she ignored them. She was enjoying this strange, soft glow so intensely. Knowing it couldn’t possibly last made it all the more precious.
She hadn’t felt like this in…well, ever. She’d been too young and innocent before. Back behind that blood-spattered, concrete wall in her mind, crowned with barbed wire, broken glass.
The wall that separated Then from Now.
Tension rose up, clutching at her. Leave it. Don’t go there, even for a second, or you’ll kill this feeling and never get it back.
She took another gulp of wine and pushed her chair back.
Just a dance. He couldn’t do anything nasty to her on a public dance floor. She wanted to move to the music with a big, pretty man to hold onto. None of the other men in this room had the courage to touch her.
Janos wasn’t afraid of her. That was as dangerous as it was irresistible. She gazed at him, weighing the danger, the temptation.
“Let me check Rachel,” she said.
She wafted through the room, Janos padding quietly behind her like some sinuous jungle predator. His enormous presence made her body prickle and tingle, asking a wordless question and waiting breathlessly for his answer—though she knew what it would be.
Men were predictable that way. But for some reason, that fact didn’t annoy the hell out of her tonight.
She found Rachel in a high chair, swathed in multiple brocade napkins, face smeared with red sauce, mouth full of pasta. Sveti was coaxing bites into her, while darting intermittent gazes heavy with longing out onto the dance floor.
Tam leaned down to kiss the little girl. “She ate?”
“Pasta with tomato sauce and cheese, french fries, vegetables, and chicken strips,” Sveti said triumphantly. “And fresh fruit!”
Good. Rachel lifted goopy hands to grab her, and Tam leaned down, heedless of pasta sauce to accept the hug. The fierce, almost angry rush of love she felt for the little girl was no different from the love she always felt—except that tonight, there was no painful cramp of fear and caution inhibiting her. It felt so good to be grabbed by those little arms. She loved the kid so much it hurt. Like a knife going in and twisting. But tonight, the pain was all right. In fact, the pain felt almost good. It was hardly pain at all. It was something else altogether.
But she was too gone to bother analyzing it. She was no expert on tender emotions. They were too new to her.
She caught another longing glance from Sveti as she straightened up, aimed at Josh Cattrell, dancing with the girlfriend du jour. Laughing as he grabbed the girl’s ass. Moron.
She leaned over Sveti, murmured in Ukrainian into the girl’s ear. “He’s not worthy,” she said forcefully. “He’ll be no good to any woman for years yet. You’re ten times more intelligent, beautiful and strong than that heifer he’s groping, and in a few years, you’ll be more. If he’s grown up enough by then to be worth your time, fine. If not, men will be lined up, panting. On their knees. You’ll take your pick of them.”
Sveti tried to smile. On impulse, Tam kissed her cheek and smoothed the girl’s hair off her forehead. Then she backed away, startled by her own emotions.
Janos pulled her gently but insistently onto the dance floor. She relaxed into his arms, letting her head drop back to look up at the garish chandelier in the center of the ceiling. It seemed to spin like a galaxy, a vortex of light. It was delicious to let go, lie back, rely entirely on his strength. She reveled in the sensation, though she knew it was just a passing fantasy. But ah, what a fantasy. Sweet surrender—and way too much wine, no doubt.
It was criminally irresponsible of her to have gotten this tipsy with Rachel to protect after what had happened this morning, but the scolding thought had no sting. She was blissing out on the woodsy, cedary sweetness mixed with salt, rain, moss and summer sunshine that was Val Janos’s intoxicating scent. His shoulders were so broad, his arms so solid and thick. Those hard, sinewy muscles beneath her fingers made her want to explore every cut and dip and curve, every marvelous masculine detail. She wanted to drape herself across him. To stretch and preen, like a lioness on a sun-warmed rock.
She felt so relaxed. The closest she’d ever come to this feeling was after a grueling physical workout and a hot shower. But this was different, better. Magic. She floated in his arms, flushed with heat and color. Like a sunset-tinted cloud.
She wanted more than just a dance. Her body yearned, a sharp hunger she was usually too taut and compressed to let herself feel.
Remember who he is. What he wants. Remember Novak and Georg.
She thought about them deliberately, like pressing on a bruise. A desperate ploy to bring her back to her senses, but it didn’t take. She was in another place, far from that toxic wasteland. Tempted to give in to his silent invitation. To just use him like a big, beautiful sex toy. Why not? What difference would it make?
No. She wanted it too much. Anytime she wanted something this much, she set herself up for a catastrophe. Sex with Janos would be worse than stupid. It would be nothing less than suicidal.
And speaking of suicidal, look at this. They had swayed right out the ballroom door and into the hall outside. She hadn’t even noticed being piloted through the room. She twisted in his arms as he hustled her through the lobby, past the curious stares of other guests.
“Hey!” she whispered fiercely. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Someplace private,” he said. “To finish this.”
She felt inhibited from trying flashy kung fu moves in public, hoping as she was to keep this thing under the radar. “Finish what?”
He shot her a look that made her feel both foolish for playing dumb and angry at his presumption.
“I agreed to dance with you, Janos. Not fuck you,” she said tartly.
“Then we will dance. In private.” He swung her around and into a deserted corridor.
She grabbed his wrist, wrenched it down to torque his tendons into screaming agony and drop him to the ground. He flowed like water through her hands, anticipating her every move, and flipped her effortlessly around. She fetched up hard against the wall.
He held her there with his big body. Her feet dangled off the ground. His lips were close to hers; they almost touched. Every molecule in her body vibrated at the contact, generating a wild energy that lit her up like a torch. And she liked it. Goddamn him.
She wrenched her mind into line. “What is it with you, Janos? Was getting tased not enough for you?”
He grinned. “By no means. I find challenge…electrifying.”
She groaned. “Spare me your razor wit. You’re a slow learner.”
“No.” He nuzzled her ear, his hot breath tickling her. “But I am a good listener. I hear all of the things that you are afraid to say.”
“Nothing is more pathetic than a man who projects his gutter fantasies onto women that he lusts after,” she snapped.
He laughed. “Gutter fantasies? Is that all sex is to you?”
She writhed in his hard grip. Friction