The Return Of Antonides. Anne McAllister
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one she had seen him turn on other girls but which until that moment he had, thank God, never turned on her.
“It looks good on you,” he said. It was a spray of tiny deep red roses. Delicate and aromatic. She drew a breath, trying to draw in the scent of roses to blot out the pine of his aftershave, to blot out Lukas.
But Lukas wouldn’t be blotted.
Worse, he unnerved her by being a perfect gentleman the whole time. He didn’t tease, he didn’t mock. He didn’t mention Matt or their engagement at all. He took her to dinner before the dance. It was expected. And Holly had thought they would go to one of the trendy upscale local places where most of her classmates went to see and be seen. But Lukas took her to a quiet romantic Italian place where he seemed to know everyone.
Holly couldn’t help looking surprised.
“We don’t have to go here,” Lukas said. “But I like it. It’s a little lower-key.”
Since when was Lukas lower-key? But Holly had nodded, glad they weren’t in the midst of a crowd. There might have been safety in numbers, but there would also have been lots of questions about what she was doing with Lukas, why she wasn’t with Matt.
They’d get asked at the dance, of course, but they wouldn’t become a conversation piece there. Holly didn’t want to be a conversation piece. “It’s fine,” she said. “I like it.” She managed her first real smile of the evening then, one that didn’t feel as if it had been welded to her lips.
Lukas smiled, too. Electricity arced between them—sharp and frighteningly genuine. “I’m glad,” Lukas said.
Holly wasn’t sure if she was glad or not. Tonight Lukas was everything Matt had assured her he would be: polite, charming, an easy conversationalist. When the waitress brought their menus, he didn’t tell her what she ought to order. He asked what she’d like to eat.
It was a sort of dream date—an intoxicating, heady experience. Unreal, almost. Holly kept waiting for him to revert to the Lukas she was accustomed to, but he never did.
At the dance, when she expected he would do his duty, dance once or twice with her, then disappear with the more interesting, flashier girls, he stayed by her side all evening. She wondered aloud whether he wouldn’t rather dance with other girls, but Lukas simply shook his head.
“I’m happy,” he said as the music started again. Without another word, he swept her into a dance while Holly’s mind spun and her body responded instinctively to Lukas’s powerful lead. One of her hands was gripped in his hard, warm fingers, more callused than Matt’s, rougher to the touch, giving her another tiny stab of awareness. Her other hand, resting on his shoulder beneath the smooth, dark wool of his suit coat, felt the shift and flex of strong muscles.
When she danced with Lukas, her eyes were on a level with his lips. Instinctively she licked hers and stumbled, red-faced, at where her thoughts were going.
“What’s wrong?” Lukas pulled her up and held her closer.
“N-nothing.” She tried to put space between them, averted her gaze from his lips. “What’re you doing?” she demanded as Lukas only drew her closer.
“It’s called leading.” The soft, almost teasing murmur in her ear sent a shiver to the base of her spine.
He led. She followed. Their bodies touched. The experience was nothing like the warm, slightly zingy buzz she experienced when she and Matt danced. No, each touch with Lukas felt electric, a shock to the system, a different sort of awareness altogether.
“Relax.” He breathed the word in her ear on a warm breath that did anything but relax her. She felt alert, aware, awake as she’d never been awake before. Expectant—though what she was expecting, she would not have dared to think.
Lukas didn’t say anything else, just moved with the music, drawing her with him, easing her closer. His hand slid to her hip, but went no farther. And gradually, unable to remain alert and wary every moment, Holly realized that she was relaxing. She found joy in the movement, in the rhythm, in the warm nearness of Lukas’s body. He made her feel oddly protected.
They danced almost every dance, far more than she ever would have with Matt, who much preferred to stand on the sidelines and watch while he talked sports with the guys. But Lukas danced. And eventually he began to talk, too, recounting what they had been accomplishing on the boat, then telling her what they had seen mountain climbing in Maine.
“So you don’t think breaking his leg is all we did.” His smile was wry.
Holly gave him a doubtful look, but she couldn’t help smiling and sharing a moment of rapport with Lukas. He asked her about her classes, and he surprised her by talking about his own courses.
“I don’t know what I want,” he said. “I just try things. See what I like. I’ve got geology this semester that is kind of cool. And—don’t laugh—but I like Latin. But what the hell do you do with Latin?” He shrugged. “What about you? What are you going to do?”
Holly, disarmed by Lukas liking Latin, found herself telling him about her own plans and dreams. “Nothing grandiose. I want to get married, have a family. I’ve always wanted kids.”
“Me, too,” Lukas said. Another surprise. “Not anytime soon, though,” he added quickly. “Not ready to settle down yet.”
She wasn’t at all surprised by that. “Before I have kids, though,” she went on, “I think I’ll teach.”
“You’ll be good at it,” Lukas said. And when she raised a questioning brow, he shrugged. “You should be able to handle a classroom. You always kept me in my place.” His wicked grin flashed, inviting her smile in return, and Holly did.
The whole evening was like that—Lukas attentive and fun to be with—a Lukas that once upon a time she had dared to imagine might lurk beneath his teasing, baiting, infuriating exterior. But if that Lukas ever even existed, he’d seemed far out of reach.
She shouldn’t even be thinking about him that way. She was engaged! She was going to marry Matt!
So she deliberately closed her eyes and tried to pretend that he was Matt. But the aftershave was wrong, the way he moved on the dance floor was smoother, easier. His height was wrong, too. She opened her eyes again at the feel of something feathery touching her forehead and saw Lukas’s lips so close they could kiss her brow. Holly sucked in a careful breath and shoved the thought away.
Why were there so many slow dances tonight?
Holly longed for something fast and furious to burn off her awareness, to give her some space. But when the next one was fast, it was no better. Seeing Lukas’s body shimmy and thrust to the music while she did the same, created something elemental, primeval, between them.
Holly tried to deny it. It was only dancing, she told herself. But their bodies were in sync, moving, shifting apart, coming together. And at the end Lukas grabbed her hand, then spun her out and reeled her back into his chest so that his body spooned against hers as he wrapped her in his arms.
“Oh!” Holly’s body was trembling, her heart hammering. His hands cradled her breasts. One of his legs had slid between her own. Holly tried to get her balance, to pull away. But her overheated body wanted nothing to do with that. She turned to stare breathlessly up at him.
Lukas was breathing hard, too. His cheeks were flushed, his forehead damp, his hair tousled across his forehead. Her fingers itched to brush it back, to feel its silkiness between her fingers. Deliberately, she knotted those fingers into fists.
“Hot work,” he muttered. “Let’s get something to drink.”
“Yes.” Before she went up in flames.
He got them each a soft drink, and they stood watching as the next dance began. It was a slow one again. Romantic. If they danced now, Lukas would pull her into his arms. Holly felt her body trembling.
“Let’s