Challenging the Center (Santa Fe Bobcats #6)

“You… just wanted a different song?” she asked as he spun her around quickly. Her hair wrapped around his upper arm in a sweet caress.

“Maybe.” He took his shirt off and tossed it aside, wanting to feel skin on skin. When she wrapped her arms around him, front to front, he bent her back for a kiss, old-school Hollywood style.

“My, my.”

“Welcome to my house,” he mouthed along with the words, laughing when she snickered and rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, you and Flo Rida. Such badasses together.”

“Flo and I could hang.” He caught her as she spun so her back was to his front. Hooking his thumbs in the waistband of her shorts, he pulled, but they didn’t budge. She wriggled her ass a little, then hopped away and did a dancing jig by herself, moving in some sort of rhythm to the music. Then she caught the look on his face and laughed.

God, she was amazing. Dancing topless like a loon, to rap music, and laughing.

“You’ve got no fear.”

She bumped back toward him, undoing the buckle on his belt while still swaying around. “According to Gary—”

“Gary?”

“My tennis coach here, keep up. According to Gary,” she repeated, tugging the leather from the loops of his jeans, “I’m afraid of something.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m afraid of being forgotten.”

“That’s stupid,” he said automatically, though he sort of got it.

“Maybe. Gary’s a little…” She twirled her fingers in the air by her head. “He’s got the woo-woo going on. But the man knows his tennis. Already I feel like my forehand is doing something different. Better.”

“If he’s good for your game, then put up with the woo-woo,” he suggested, then cupped her face as the song shifted once more, this time to Skrillex. “No more shoptalk.”

“Just dancing.” She moved to behind him. Her breasts pressed into his skin while she kept moving. Hard nipples dragged over his back, and he shivered. Jesus, she was driving him insane. “Dancing is a release. When I’m injured, my physical therapists always have me dance to get my muscles moving again, in a less stressful way.”

“So this is a long-term love affair, this whole dancing thing?”

“I’m terrible at it.” Kat’s fingers began unbuttoning his jeans. She was working on touch alone, so there was some fumbling. But it might have qualified in his top five most erotic sights in his life to look down at his own crotch and watch a woman’s hands unbutton his pants from the same angle.

“Terrible dancer, never had a lesson in my life. But there’s something so freeing about knowing you suck at a thing and then going out and doing it anyway. No pressure, you know?”

“Hmm. Yeah.” His pants pooled down by his feet, and he kicked them away.

“Our jobs are so pressurized. So intense. Everything’s life or death, at least to the spectators who have money on the games.”

He gurgled a little when she squeezed his balls through his boxers.

“Being able to let my body just… move organically, in a way that’s not going to break me, in a way that lets my mind shut off from the panic or the fear… yeah. I love dancing. Even if it gets me into trouble.”

Her soft hands pushed at his boxers until they, too, fell to the floor. He spun, lightning-fast, and caught her by the hips. He tore at her own panties until she was as naked as he was, then hooked a foot behind her knee and did a controlled takedown so they lay stretched on the floor of her living room.

“This… was not what I planned.” Eyes laughing, she watched him from below. “But nice moves, dance partner.”



He hadn’t laughed at her.

It was the only thing she could think of in that moment. Everything else bled away until all that remained were his piercing eyes and the thought that he hadn’t laughed at her for her dance theory.

“You drive me crazy,” he rasped before kissing her senseless.

Right back at ya. She curled her hands around his head, feeling the short hairs, scratching a little before running her palms down his back. He shivered as his kisses moved to her neck.

“Crazy can be good, right?” She gasped when his cock nudged at her entrance, colliding with her clit in an electrifying pulse.

“Crazy is crazy. I guess what you take from it is up to you.”

“That was deep,” she said in a mock-serious tone, laughing when he pinched her side in retaliation. “Well, hey. We’re naked on the floor, and you’re spouting off philosophy. I had to poke a little fun.”

“You and your fun.” He shook his head as if annoyed, but he smiled and reached for his shorts. She almost made a sound of regret—he was giving up? No sexy times?—but he reached in and pulled out his wallet and a condom before shoving them back out of the way.

Right. Protection. It paid to be with a responsible man.

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