Joy Ride

As the couples in the room execute spins, I follow suit. Her skirt twirls up as she turns, and I yank her back to me in time to the music. “Did I say I was luring you back?”

She gives me a pout. “Fine. I don’t want to see your soaps. I don’t want to smell them. I don’t want to get in the shower with you and run my hands down your naked, wet chest,” she says, punctuating those last few words so sexily that my dick has no choice but to betray me.

She knows it, too, because she presses her body against me, so my erection presses against her hip. I suck in a breath as she grins at me like the cat that has eaten the canary’s whole damn family then finished them off with a dish of cream.

The instructor says something about a wave, and out of the corner of my eye, I see a woman near us sort of undulate her backside against her partner. Henley does the same, but with her front pressed to me.

“Good,’’ I grit out, loving our game, loving that it doesn’t seem to stop. “I don’t want you under the hot shower, where these big, brutish, bearish hands would wash your gorgeous hair. Want to know why I don’t want you there?”

She raises her chin, that defiant little gesture that is so her, and such a turn-on. “Why?”

“Because I’d lift you up, wrap your legs around my hips, and make you feel so fucking good you’d cry out my name again.”

The smallest little hiss of breath escapes her ruby-red lips. I want to catch that sound in my cupped hands. Catch it, record it, play it back. It’s the same sound she made the night I first kissed her. I want to kiss her so badly right now.

But the game continues. Her eyes turn to slits again, and she digs her fingers into my shoulders as we follow the music once more. “It’s a good thing you won’t do that, because then I won’t get into your bed after, and let you wrap your big, brutish, bearish body around me.”

“I’d hate that,” I say with a sneer. I squeeze her fingers tighter. She squeezes back.

“I could tell.” She moves her body even closer to me. “You’d detest every second of it.”

“Every single second.” I stare into her eyes as flames lick up my chest. I’m not sure if it’s the heat from the room or the blaze between us. Maybe both. Maybe everything. “I don’t want you back there tonight. Under the covers in my king-size bed.”

She shakes her head as she licks her lips. “I’d hate feeling you against me all night long in that big comfy bed.”

I try to stifle a groan. I want her so much. I want her in my shower. I want her in my bed. I want her to spend the night with me. And as she shimmies her hips, and we try mightily to salsa dance, it’s so patently clear to me that I don’t just want her with me so I can sleep with her. I want her with me so I can be with her.

I press my forehead to hers and say her name. “Henley.”

It’s a relief to say it like this. No teasing. No agenda.

She raises her hand and brushes her fingers through my hair. I sigh because it feels so good. It feels even better when she brings her mouth to my ear and whispers my name. It sounds different now. This isn’t how she says it when she’s mad, when she teases, when she flirts, or when she comes.

It’s new, and it’s warm, and it feels like a shot of liquid gold in my heart. I need her to spend the night with me again. She has to know the “I don’t want you in my bed” routine means “the only thing I want is for you to stay the night.”

But I freeze when the instructor drops his hand on her shoulder.

“Very nice work,” he says, and it’s like he appeared out of nowhere. I pull back so I’m not so obscenely close to her.

“Thank you, Marco.”

Marco is tall, trim, and toned. His hair is dark, and Henley was right—he has that Latin lover look about him. I clench my fists.

“You have a good partner,” he says to her, then he turns to me. “Good work for a first class. It is not easy when a man has to both lead and show off a woman’s skills. You did well.”

“Thank you,” I say, deciding I don’t hate him.

“Will we see you again?”

I meet Henley’s eyes, searching for the answer in them. She offers a small shrug then the most perfect answer when she says, “I hope so.”

I hope so, too.

But as he walks away, something about what Marco said sticks with me for the rest of the class. Show off a woman’s skills.

That’s what I tried to do with Creswell and David earlier today. That’s what I tried to do tonight. But it’s something I failed at five years ago.

I failed because of what’s happening here now. Because of what’s been happening ever since I met this woman. I’m so attracted to her it’s clouded my mind. It’s messed with my judgment. I’d like to think I did the right thing by never saying a word, by choking down all these feelings when she worked for me.

But I might have done her a disservice.

When class ends, I take her hand and ask her to get a drink with me at the hotel bar. After we order, she tilts her head inquisitively. “Hey, you okay? You look serious.”

I rub a hand across the back of my neck. “I was thinking about the Mustang Fastback.”

She sighs. “The Mustang. The stupid Mustang. Can we move on? I messed up the color. You got pissed that I didn’t listen. I got upset. You didn’t promote me. I got mad and assumed it was because I was a woman. We fought. I lost my temper and called you names. You fired me. Here we are.”

I nod, agreeing with the basic facts. “Yes, that’s all true. But I don’t think I was fair to you.”

She blinks, as if I’ve just said I want to snowshoe naked in Central Park tonight. Maybe my comment is that unusual. “What do you mean?”

I swallow. My throat is dry. I grab the water glass the bartender brought to me. “This thing,” I say, pointing from her to me.

“Yeah?” she asks cautiously.

“I felt it long before the Challenger. Long before the car show. I felt it the second I met you.”

The look in her eyes tells me it is stranger than snowshoeing in the park. I’ve just said I want to cartwheel down Fifth Avenue.

“You did?” she asks, as if she’s testing out speech for the first time.

“I was attracted to you literally in an instant. It never stopped. It never went away.”

“You never let on when we worked together.”

“Good,” I say, somewhat relieved. “I wanted to do the right thing and be your mentor. I wanted to teach you everything I knew and help you become the best.”

“You did teach me. You were incredible.”

“And so were you. But what I’m trying to say is it became difficult near the end, and that’s not fair to you. I wanted you so much, and I didn’t realize this at the time, but when I gave you the assignment on the Mustang, I should have made sure I helped you more. I should have made sure it was done properly. I should have checked in with you and double-checked that you’d taken the codes down properly and that we were on the same page. Instead, I fucking left because it was so hard being near you. I didn’t even call while I was out of town to check on the work.”

“Max,” she says softly, her hand wrapping around my arm, “I made a mistake. I thought you said one thing when you said another. Besides, I think lime gold is ugly. I couldn’t imagine he wanted lime gold, so in my mind I figured it was champagne gold, and that’s what I painted the car. And that’s a big mistake because it takes a ton of work to strip it down and do it over.”