Her Private Dancer. Cami Dalton
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Trace. I see you’re still delusional. How sad.” She sniffed and turned away, clearly dismissing him as she presumably began to search for her missing shoe.
Trace scowled. Like hell would she blow him off that easily. “While you, it seems, have changed quite a bit. If memory serves correctly, you never used to wear underpants. Not that I’m complaining. They’re quite nice. You have excellent taste.”
She whipped her head back around to gape at him, her mouth hanging open.
Score one for the home team. He’d stunned Phoebe Devereaux silent. Now to really piss her off. “Why, Phoebe, I can think of only one other time I made you speechless. And here, I’m not even touching you….” He shook his head but couldn’t contain the wide smile that spread across his face at the direct hit.
Of course, she didn’t stay silent for long. In his experience, she never had. Not with him anyway. It had always been a source of amazement to him that the same painfully shy woman who could barely make small talk with the other students, became a screaming virago at the least of his taunts. The dichotomy of her behavior had been the biggest turn-on of his life. It had gotten to the point that by his senior year, she’d say one mean or argumentative thing and his favorite body part would pop up like one of those plastic thermometers on a turkey. For a while there, he’d been afraid that he’d never be able to get an erection without having a whopping argument first.
Phoebe narrowed her eyes. “Crude egomaniacs tend to have that effect on me. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She started to lift her cute little nose in the air, but he spoke before she could turn away again.
“You don’t have to explain, Phoebe. I know exactly how I affect you.” He purposely made his voice low and suggestive. “But, I was thinking about our night together. You remember, Phoebe, right? The night when we—”
“It was nothing.” She actually growled and he could just make out the telltale flush on her cheeks.
“Bull.” Not one of the most original comebacks but he was riding the edge here and deserved a little slack.
She waved her hand. “We had some fun. Well, at least you did, anyway. It wasn’t a big deal.”
Trace merely crossed his arms and raised his eyebrow. Why argue something so patently false? Besides, if he opened his mouth, he might do something stupid. Like tell her exactly how much that night had meant to him.
She rolled her eyes then pretended great interest in her fingernails which, in this light, he knew doggone well she could barely see. “All right,” she said grudgingly, “it was pleasant.”
His other eyebrow joined the first and they both crept higher.
Phoebe clenched her jaw and fisted her hands at her sides. “Fine, I really enjoyed myself.”
Since she was doing so good on her own, Trace still said nothing, and she bit out, “Okay. I had as much fun as you, if not more. The heavens moved, the earth shook.” She smiled sweetly. “But if you recall, I got over it.” While steam all but poured from his ears, she shrugged, no longer meeting his eyes. “I can’t believe you’re making such a big deal over this. For that matter, I’m shocked you even remember.”
He cursed. “Oh, I remember all right….” As if he could forget.
Twenty-one years old and in love for the first time in his life, Trace had held her in his arms and watched her come.
He’d slid into the hot, delicate flesh between her legs until her beautiful thighs had begun to quiver on either side of his hips and she’d exploded in release. Though she’d never told him, Trace had known that she was a virgin. Phoebe had willingly given him a gift no other would have, and at that moment, he’d felt as if it had been his first time, too. There was no way in hell he’d let her brush off that night as unimportant. On a physical level alone it had been one for the history books even if she had completely rejected him the next day.
Phoebe scoffed. “Oh, please. If you remember anything about me or that night it’s because I was just another conquest. One of many for you, I’m sure, but still true.”
Jerked back to the present, he stared at Phoebe, her protest like a blow to his solar plexus. Irrationally, anger burned through his veins, every bit as strong today as if it were only moments ago when she’d looked at him scornfully and refused to speak with him. Refused to answer his phone calls. Refused to offer even the most basic of explanations for the violent change in her attitude.
Too far gone to care what the hell he said. Trace retorted, “So I guess you shoot off like a firework for every man that buys you dinner?” He shook his head, feigning disbelief. “Huh. Somehow I had you figured differently.”
Phoebe sputtered for several seconds then finally managed to say, “We had one lousy date and things went too far. Stop acting as if we shared some great night of passion.”
“Lousy, huh? So you’re saying it was my poor taste in restaurants? You begged and moaned for more but called it quits on us because I couldn’t afford to take you someplace fancy?” He made a tsking sound. “And you call me the shallow one.”
“I can’t believe this.” She shook her head, her expression incredulous. “You’re mad. Mr. On-the-Make McGraw is pissed off because a woman actually exists who wasn’t interested in going to bed with him a second time.”
All right, now he was mad. Phoebe loved to throw the womanizer card in his face. So women liked him? Big whoop. He’d asked Phoebe out every week for four years and she’d said no. What was he supposed to do? Become a monk while he waited? As it was, when he’d finally worn her down, he’d been so damn happy and relieved she’d said yes, whatever little awareness he’d ever had of another female had literally fled his brain. Her accusations made no more sense today than they had nine years ago.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Hell yes, it was a shock. One night you were so hot I thought my skin was gonna burn to a crisp, and the next, I’m worried about frostbite.”
She pulled back her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Let’s get some facts straight here. I was not hot and I never moaned.”
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You can’t help it if you’re a moaner,” he said placatingly.
“If I moaned it was because you disgust me.”
“Phoebe…Phoebe.” He shook his head. “Really, it’s okay. You don’t need to make excuses. I thought it was cute when you made those deep, throaty sounds. Loud, but cute. Especially when you got that breathy little catch right before you were about to co—”
She broke in, “I hope you die. Slowly and painfully.” Phoebe dragged out each word. “And I’m there to watch it.”
Head up, chin thrust forward, her eyes flashed dangerously. Her chest rose and fell with each of her labored breaths. She was amazing and, in spite of everything, he’d never wanted her more.
Trace almost barked out a laugh. There had to be something wrong with a man who found pure contrariness on this massive a level arousing. A dose of Spanish fly poured down his gullet. But damn if he didn’t feel as if he’d just swallowed a whole bottle.
PHOEBE GULPED for air. Trace McGraw was the most aggravating, annoying, frustrating, handsome and sexy man she’d ever known. The bane of her college years. The object of her most erotic sexual fantasies. The man responsible for her one and only orgasm. And, after nine years, he stood before her determined she relive it. Maybe if she’d ever had another one she wouldn’t be reacting to his barbs like the poster child for PMS.
And did he have to look like something out of Greek mythology, too? A god come to life to depress the heck out of the mortals? Even with it this dark outside, she could see him well enough to know she’d be in big trouble if it weren’t this dark outside. Her palms had grown damp just from glancing at him—oh, all right, staring at him—and she wiped her hands on the skirt of her dress.
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