Once more, damning the fates, Demetri tapped on Oliver’s shoulder. “You don’t mind if I cut in,” asked Demetri, more of an order than a request. Seniority had its privileges after all.
His teammate released Elizabeth—reluctantly. Suck it up, Oliver. “Not at all,” Oliver answered.
“Excuse me. Did anybody here think that I might mind?”
Demetri took Elizabeth in his arms, and swept her up in the lilting strains of the “Tennessee Waltz.” “No,” he said, getting used to the way her eyes lit up when she was mad. “One dance for running into my car. It’s the least you can do.”
“I absolve myself of all responsibility, because your sort of driving— Well, it’s a train wreck waiting to happen.”
When she talked, it was like warm honey, and he could all too easily imagine what that voice would sound like, whispering in bed. His arms tightened around her, his fingers sliding over the smooth skin of her shoulder, just once, just to know.
“I told myself I was going to stay away,” he admitted, willing himself to remember how to dance. “Hugh told me to stay away.”
“Are you waiting for me to tell you to stay away, too?” she asked, never missing a step.
“Would you?”
She paused. One second. One momentary hesitation, before answering, “Of course.” However, she didn’t pull away, and they danced together, Demetri expertly leading her around the other dancers. One hand memorized the curve of her hip, the warm clasp of her fingers in his other hand fitting as if it were custom-made. Something was making him dizzy, the tempo of the music, the snap of her eyes, the full pout to her lips, he wasn’t sure what. In the blur of that moment, the hundred and one reasons to stay away from her—reasons that he had carefully recited to himself all evening—faded into nothing. There was no way in hell he was walking away. Not tonight.
When the song came to a close, the crowds drifted one way, and Demetri lifted two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter. Then he guided her through the tall glass doors that led out to the sanctity of the veranda, his hand pressed firmly against the soft skin of her back, shamefully taking advantage of another chance to touch her.
Outside, the moonlight flickered through the trees, bathing the veranda in a soft glow. Demetri handed her a glass, then clinked it once, toasting to absolutely nothing.
“What are you afraid of?” he said, as if he didn’t know. The dreamy eyes narrowed to sapphire slits of death. He didn’t even mind.
“You don’t have one single move that hasn’t been tried before. Don’t think I can’t take care of myself.”
But he could do such a better job, Demetri thought to himself, studying the full upper lip, and the tiny depression there that was made to be savored. “You’re Hugh’s niece?”
“Great-niece, but not by blood. My aunt Jenna married into the Preston family, but he doesn’t mind when I call him uncle, and I protect him just like he was my own,” she answered, eyeing him over the rim of the glass. There was suspicion and disdain, but there was a flicker of other things in those eyes, too. Things that gave a man hope.
“I’ve been trying to help them,” he told her, hoping to erase some of the suspicion. “Just like you.”
“But they turned you down. Smart of them,” she answered, suspicion still the emotion du jour.
“Do you always make up your mind so fast?” he asked, as if he didn’t live and die by snap judgments as a race-car driver.
“Not normally, no, but your track record isn’t so stellar, Mr. Lucas.”
“You know?”
“Maybe,” she said, shrugging carelessly.
“Why didn’t Thomas and Hugh accept your offer?” he asked, needing to talk about her, not his past indiscretions. His past wasn’t interesting. She, on the other hand, was fascinating.
“They don’t want my help,” she answered quietly, the perpetually smiling mouth pulled into a frown. Demetri wanted the smile back in place.
“Ah…”
“And you don’t need to be ahhing here, like you understand everything, because you don’t.”
“Why don’t you tell me?” he invited, because he wanted to understand everything about her.
She studied him for a minute, and he must have passed some test, because she shook her head, resigned. “Do you really want to know why I’m mad?”
“I’m dying to know.”
Then she started to pace around the space, high heels clicking on the stones, green skirts twirling, exposing a long length of leg. His attention was torn between watching the sway of her hips and the restless way she circled the champagne flute in the air. “I have tried every which way to get my family to take money, ever since I heard about the problems with Leopold’s Legacy, but nobody will listen. A few years back I had…some financial issues, and the Prestons wanted to help. I told them all no, that I didn’t need it. I could take care of myself. I wasn’t some poor cousin looking for charity handouts. And now, well, who knew that they’d listen to my own words so well. I have money, but oh, no, I’m not in the horsey business, I’m in the ‘music’ business. Elizabeth, she’s just a simple little thing.” She downed her glass in one gulp, and he handed her his.
“They turned me down, too. That should make you feel better.” She polished off his glass, too. “And that’s the only reason I’m still dancing with you, Mr. Lucas.”
“Technically, we’re not still dancing.”
“Don’t get all particular on me. I get enough of that when I’m working, thank you very much.” She lifted herself up on the edge of one of the wooden railings, crossing one delectable leg over the other, exposing more thigh than he thought she realized. Wisely he didn’t say a word.
“Sorry,” he answered, trying to keep his gaze firmly fixed on her face.
“Apology accepted,” she said, her mind still firmly fixed on helping her family.
“Do you know your way around Louisville?” he asked, his mind firmly fixed on other things.
“Some.”
“Enough to show me around?”
She shook her head once. “I bet there’re a lot of women that would be interested in showing you around, Mr. Lucas. Fast women who aren’t a thing like me. I’m not your type.”
He crossed his arms across his chest, sensing a depressing change in the infamous Lucas luck with women. “Why does everyone keep telling me I have a type?”
“If the shoe fits….” she answered, one heel bobbing up and down.
“I’m trying to reform,” he said. It was not quite the truth, but if he thought it’d earn him a dinner, drinks and long hours in her bed, he’d be willing to try.
“Ha!” Her arms crossed her chest, plumping her breasts nicely.
“Don’t be so skeptical,” he answered, his eyes glued to her face as if his life depended on it. Currently he thought it might.
She watched him, noticed that his gaze kept dipping down. “Sorry. Skeptical is my nature.”
Reluctantly, he looked up from her cleavage. “No, that’s not even close to your nature. You don’t have a skeptical bone in that luscious body—excuse me, that slipped out, but it’s true. The nonskeptical part. Actually, the luscious part is, too.” Demetri stopped. “Sorry.”
She started to smile. “That’s all right. I liked you better, then.”
Humility seemed to work with her.