“I’ll move my chair back to give you more room,” he offered. She gritted her teeth.
Roxie remembered she’d once taken a line-dance lesson just to get some socialization. Line dancing didn’t take a lot of rhythm for those beginning songs, if she remembered correctly. Some of the damn people there looked amazing, their hips and shoulders moving in sync to their feet, but there had been others like her who could barely manage to move their feet, let alone clap hands and swing hips.
“I don’t think it would be proper to play music in the hospital,” Roxie said.
“I’m the doctor in charge this afternoon. I’ll okay it,” Kian said. He was now leaning back as if he planned on getting real comfortable.
“Don’t you have patients who need you? I can do the dance for Millie. You don’t need to stay,” she said, almost begging him.
“Nope. I always make sure Millie is my last patient so I don’t have to rush away. She always tells me the best stories,” he said before looking down at Millie and winking. “I don’t know, Millie. Maybe she can’t dance, and she fibbed to us,” he said in a loud, conspiratorial voice. “What do you think?”
“Oh no, she definitely has the hips to dance. I think she’s just being shy,” Millie said.
Self-consciously, Roxie moved her hands across her hips as she thought about the conversation she’d had with Eden the other day. She wanted a mirror right now.
“Yes, she definitely has the hips,” Kian said. The hunger Roxie witnessed in Kian’s eyes as he said those words while his gaze moved steadily up and down her body sent any thoughts of being fat right out of her mind and made heat pool in her core. That wasn’t a good idea. She couldn’t even begin to have thoughts like that when it came to Kian.
And now, as Kian’s gaze took its time appraising her, she felt hunger that she’d managed to push down for years spring to life in a roaring manner that had no business consuming her.
Clenching her thighs together in fear that any movement might make things happen she really didn’t want happening in public, Roxie focused on Millie instead of Kian as she tried to calm her now-erratic breathing and rapidly beating heart.
“I haven’t danced in a while,” she said, pleading with the woman to let her off the hook.
“That’s okay; once a dancer, always a dancer,” Millie assured her. She pushed a button on her bed and sat up.
Again, Roxie wondered why she hadn’t run away when she’d had the chance. She either had to admit defeat or she had to dance. Roxie never had been one to give up, even if she knew she was going to be humiliated.
“Play ‘Watermelon Crawl,’” Roxie said through clenched teeth. She was flashing through her thankfully near-photographic memory as she tried to remember the dance. She could do this. It was just a few steps, a little side to side and front and back. She could do this, she assured herself. It had been two years, but she could do this. And she would do this without hurting the nice old woman.
Kian didn’t say a word as he pulled up the music and hit “Play.” His lips were turned up in a smug smile, and Roxie wasn’t going to allow that look to stay plastered on his face. So, she was about to humiliate herself. Wouldn’t it just be better to walk away? Nope, it wouldn’t, she assured herself.
She lined up as centered as she could in the room, then counted to eight and began the dance. Her eyes were closed as she tried to focus on the images in her head, and she felt as if she were actually doing it. She followed along with the images that felt like a television screen and danced away, and “Watermelon Crawl” played softly on Kian’s phone. She turned, did it again, turned, and did it once more.
Millie was clapping, calling out that Roxie was doing beautifully, and that gave Roxie the confidence to finish off with a little turn as the song drew to a close. Maybe she should have opened her eyes, because she did her turn and tripped on Kian’s foot, tumbling down straight into his lap.
Her eyes shot open, and her gaze was captured by his, his lips only inches from her own, her butt cushioned on his lap. Her breath caught in her throat as her eyes got trapped by his, and if she wasn’t mistaken, which she very well could be, there was a throbbing thickness beneath her butt that was making her core pulse with need, and making heat flood her body. Her nipples peaked, painfully rubbing against her bra, and for a moment, just a single moment, Roxie forgot she was in a hospital room with a patient watching them, forgot she’d left Kian with nothing more than an aloof note, forgot he wanted to take her niece away from her, forgot they’d been apart for four years.
Roxie began reaching for his lips, desperately hungry to close the small gap between them. She felt his fingers tighten on her hips where he held her and watched fire leap into his eyes. She thought of nothing but his touch . . .
That was until Millie clapped and called out, “Bravo.” Both she and Kian froze at the reminder that they weren’t alone. Roxie ripped her gaze away from Kian and gazed at Millie with a shocked expression.
“That was wonderful, darling. Please come back and do it again,” Millie said.
The old woman had to be blind, because Roxie knew she might have gotten the steps right, but even with getting them right, she had no rhythm and certainly had slaughtered the dance.
“Wonderful, just wonderful,” Millie repeated again.
“You need to take her to a proper place where she can really dance,” Millie told Kian.
“And you’ve had too much excitement for one afternoon. It’s time for rest,” Kian told her.
Roxie knew this was her only chance to escape. If she and Kian left that room together, she wasn’t sure what would happen. And right now, she was hormonal, and her head was fuzzy. She might make a wrong decision.
She didn’t even say goodbye to Millie, deciding she’d slip back in there later when she knew Kian wouldn’t be around. She liked the old woman and didn’t want to hurt her feelings. But more than that, at the moment she was fighting for her own survival, and that meant she had to get away from Kian, and she had to do it right now.
So, she rushed from the room, then speed-walked down the hallway. She was just passing the on-call rooms when a hand snagged her around the waist, and she was pulled inside the darkness.
Kian’s lips smashed against hers before she could even think of objecting. And protesting went out the window at the first touch of his familiar mouth.
Chapter Fifteen
Kian’s mind went blank as he pushed Roxie against the wall in the private on-call room. It was dark as midnight, and the only sounds were the rapid breaths escaping them. He was so hard and thick, he feared he’d explode from just the feeling of his clothed erection against her backside.
“Are you playing games, Roxie?” he asked, his voice low and guttural. “I know how to play, too,” he insisted. He had the front of her body pressed against the wall, his own body acting as a cage behind her. Reaching up, he stroked a finger along the curve of her jaw and felt her tense beneath his touch.
She wasn’t in any way repulsed by him. She was just as turned on as he was, and she was running. It was exactly what he should do. He had no business dragging her into this room. There was too much between them, too much lost. And their one night together already hadn’t fixed things.