Her stomach contracted in a spasm of sheer nervous excitement. It was awful, reacting like this to the madness in her mind. It was even more awful when he whirled her onto the dance-floor, releasing her to start a face-to-face sequence of rock steps and she stumbled. Having frantically caught her balance and fiercely willed her legs to behave themselves, she tried to focus on the beat of the music, wanting to match his movements.
But it was so distracting watching him, the glide and stamp of his powerful legs, the sway of his snaky-lean hips, the bump and grind that seemed so overtly suggestive. She got hopelessly out of time, her own movements stiff and jerky, not in tune at all with what she should be doing.
‘Now you just quit that right now, Lucy,’ James growled at her, his expression thunderous.
‘Quit what?’ she babbled, utterly helpless to correct the havoc he stirred.
‘This perverse resistance you’re going on with.’ He literally glowered with ferocity. ‘I saw you dancing with Josh. Pretending you’re some awkward amateur is a really petty insult.’
‘I’m used to dancing with Josh,’ she protested, hunting for some inoffensive excuse for being out of kilter. ‘I’m comfortable with him. He’s not my boss.’
‘This is not the office,’ he argued.
‘You’re still my boss,’ she insisted.
His eyes flashed blue lightning. ‘Time you stopped putting your life into neat little pockets. Forget playing safe. Take a risk.’
He caught her totally off-guard, grabbing her and hauling her in to him with a thump that left her breathless. Or maybe it was the impact of feeling a vital wall of muscle connected to her wobbly frame that stole her ability to breathe. His arms wound around her back, holding her intimately pinned to him. Her arms had nowhere to go except up on his shoulders and they just slid naturally around his neck.
‘Now melt,’ he commanded gruffly.
And Lucy melted.
Her breasts seemed glued to the heat of his chest. Her stomach quivered mushily with the awareness of what it was pressed against. Her thighs clung to the strength of his. And her feet…her feet followed his as though it was what they were born to do. The only thing that didn’t melt was her heart. It was going nineteen to the dozen, super-energised by the volatile energy flowing from him.
‘That’s better,’ he muttered, satisfaction coating his voice.
Lucy kept her mouth shut. It wasn’t actually a conscious decision not to answer him. She was speechless as well as breathless at what was happening. James Hancock had her clamped in the kind of embrace she had dreamed about and there was nothing the least bit platonic about the way he was dancing with her. She was in seventh heaven.
She had no idea if this was some exhibition of macho manhood that demanded he get the better of her. Right at this moment, she didn’t care. She was revelling in the sense of having him where she wanted him. Well, not exactly where, but it was close. It was certainly an exhilarating taste of the sexual power he exerted.
And he was not unmoved by her, either. She could definitely feel his arousal. Amazingly he didn’t seem at all concerned about removing himself to a discreet distance. Was he revelling in feeling her pliant softness, imagining what it might be like to move what was currently outside her, inside?
That thought melted her even further, reducing her to a state of feverish mindlessness. Breathless, speechless, mindless, her treacherous body just kept on responding to wherever he led, circling the dance-floor as one, moving with a continually pressing sensuality, the physical friction becoming so acute, Lucy felt herself on the verge of climax.
The music stopped. It took Lucy a few moments to understand why James was no longer moving her around. Her ears finally registered that the band had finished playing. It struck her that, despite their mutual arousal, he had been more aware of external things than she had, which instantly cooled her brain.
Had he been on some sexual ego-trip, flagrantly demonstrating how much of a pistol he was…better than Josh? Lucy’s excitement died on the spot. She started shrivelling away from the intimate contact, deeply relieved that he couldn’t know how much he had affected her. Having unlocked her hands from the nape of his neck and got them as far as his shoulders, she found her attempt to extract herself from her boss thwarted by the tightening clamp of his arms.
‘The band will start another number soon,’ was his excuse.
Lucy took a deep breath, needing a full blast of mind-clearing oxygen. She was not going to get carried away on a fantasy again. It was too shaming when she knew perfectly well it was Buffy Tanner he’d be going to bed with tonight.
‘This dance is over,’ she stated with frosty finality, pushing at his shoulders to make her intent clear.
He marginally loosened his embrace, enough for her to lean back and look him straight in the eyes. Which was a big mistake because the eyes that looked straight back into hers were smouldering with desire, confusing her sensible train of thought.
‘Don’t say you didn’t enjoy it, Lucy,’ he challenged.
She took another deep breath. ‘You’re a very good dancer, James,’ she answered, wary of committing herself to anything more than that.
‘We flowed together,’ he insisted.
‘Well, the music finally got to me,’ she parried, proudly determined on not admitting anything else had got to her. Buffy was still in the wings. ‘Now if you don’t mind, the music has stopped and I would like my own space back.’
His eyes glittered. ‘Because I’m your boss?’
Her chin tilted defiantly. ‘That’s one reason.’
‘Are labels more important to you than people?’
‘It was you who labelled me your punctilious secretary,’ she flashed back at him.
‘Which was very wrong of me and I apologise for it,’ he said, sweeping that mat out from under her feet.
She struggled to keep it there, not knowing where this was leading and feeling intensely vulnerable. ‘I’m not your partner here tonight,’ she blurted out.
‘And if I said I wish you were…?’
Her mind went into another spin of doubt and desire. ‘I think you must have drunk a lot of champagne.’
‘Is it so impossible to think you could be the wine in my blood, Lucy?’
The eight months of non-interest blasted his contention. ‘Since when, James?’ she demanded sceptically. ‘Since I turned up with Josh tonight? Did that titillate your fancy? Not so boring after all?’