Silent Surrender. Barbara Hancock J.

piano. While she’d been busy falling in lust over a bubbly cocktail, several tables had been moved, revealing a simple wooden dance floor. It gleamed invitingly, a small, maple oasis lit only by indirect light.

      Rivera nodded at the waiter and placed his glass on the tray in the man’s hand. Then he reached a hand out toward Alexia. She might have refused if a slight half smile hadn’t tilted one corner of his well-shaped lips. The dimple the smile caused on his otherwise chiseled face disarmed her even more than the interest in his eyes.

      She could do nothing less than take his warm, strong fingers in hers. She couldn’t risk losing that dimple or that smile.

      When he led her onto the dance floor, it was as if the voice mail messages piling up on her phone belonged to another woman.

      Here, now, the woman she became as he took her into his arms might never return another phone call again.

      * * *

      In the corner of the shadowy lounge, the music seemed to eddy and swirl like warm bath water in an elegant tub. Alexia stepped onto the wood and into Rivera’s arms, but it was also as if she dove into the soft notes floating on the air around them.

      Unbroken by casual conversation, the music was buoyant, compelling and charged. Electricity flowed along with the song, creating a tangible symphony against her skin.

      He pulled her closer and she went.

      His hand splayed on the small of her back and its heat was more intimate without words to dilute his touch. Each finger seemed to flex in order to feel the bare skin above the low cut back of her dress, and as each warm digit moved, she could focus on the friction of its tickling slide.

      But when he tightened his arms and her breasts came against his chest, she forgot his hands. He didn’t squeeze. Her breasts weren’t flattened. Gracefully, with a sensual rhythm that matched the music, he swayed their bodies around the dance floor, causing his chest to brush and tease and rub against her nipples.

      She had thought the bodice of her dress cupped the globes of her bare breasts as well as a bra. She’d forgone the extra support and now the thin cotton was no barrier at all to his friction and warmth.

      Alexia began to gasp each time he pressed close and sigh each time he pulled away. Her gaze was drawn down to see the response she could feel. Her nipples had peaked, tenting the yellow fabric of her dress with two obvious, aching points. He worshiped those tight, throbbing little nubs again and again with the firm muscles of his pecs. Twisting, brushing and pulling back only to twist and brush and stimulate her nipples again and again.

      Heat flared between Alexia’s legs and her cheeks flamed as his dark gaze focused on the signs of her obvious pleasure. Not because she didn’t want him to notice her hard nipples but because she wanted to bare them to his perusal and his chest and the music. She longed to see the sparkling lights dancing on her naked skin. She wanted…

      Just then her seductive partner leaned down to bring his face close to the skin of her neck. She thought he would speak. She expected him to. But, instead, he pressed a teasing kiss against the throb of her pulse. Slow—once, twice—then away, but not before Alexia had gasped out.

      “Please.”

      She didn’t recognize her voice.