“Merci,” Kam muttered.
“Je t’en prie,” he heard Richard croak amusedly behind him as Kam stalked to the glass door.
When he entered the community center a few minutes later, the entry hall was empty. He found Lin by following the music he heard in the distance—a methodical composition of plucked string instruments, flutes, and gongs. He opened a door and let it shut quietly behind him when he saw the movement on the stage, pausing just inside the threshold.
Lin was the center spoke in a wheel of five other dancers. He knew her immediately, not just from appearance. He recognized her harmony: that smooth, supple, exquisitely controlled movement of her body. All of the dancers typified control, but none more elegantly, nor with such apparent ease, than Lin. That ease was an illusion, Kam realized as he slowly walked down a flight of steps, mesmerized by the dance. The amount of muscular control and balance required for the movements and postures would fell a trained athlete.
All of the dancers, including Lin, wore everyday workout attire for the practice—body-hugging cotton pants, shorts, and T-shirts. Their only concession to a costume was a sort of jacket of purple silk that included sleeves that extended several feet past the dancers’ hands. Every time they moved in unison, they did so in perfect synchrony. Not only their limbs were identical in movement, but also the twirling and twitching of the long sleeves. The overall effect was hypnotic.
He came to a halt fifteen or so feet before the stage. The houselights in the auditorium weren’t on, so he was cast in shadow. Still, he knew the moment when Lin became aware of him. Her dark eyes fixed on him as she continued the dance without pause, her gestures and movements incredibly precise, so graceful . . .
. . . so fucking sexy, it blew him away, but not in any way he’d ever before experienced.
As the center of the moving wheel, Lin was the only one who occasionally danced separately from the others, then blended seamlessly with their movements as the dance progressed. She wore only a pair of form-fitting black shorts and a cropped white T-shirt along with the long costume sleeves. Her feet were naked, a living poetry of graceful movement and strength. He couldn’t take his eyes off her pale belly and gliding, shifting hips. It called to mind the strength and precision of her counterthrusts to his when he was inside her.
A pleasant tingling sensation started in his lower spine and transferred to his cock, swelling the flesh. He couldn’t unglue his gaze from her.
Her hair was pulled back from her face in the front, but the rest was unrestrained. With her back to him, she slowly arched her spine until her long hair hung like a drape less than a foot from the stage, her arms weaving a spell. She made eye contact in the impossible position.
His flesh tingled like an electrical charge had gone through it.
She was like a carefully controlled conduit of pure sexuality. Just being in her vicinity made the hair on his arms stand on end and his blood race.
The last plucked note sounded, and Lin gracefully lowered a long leg and her extended arms. The women all relaxed their poses and began chatting to one another, some of them walking over to gym bags, the spell of the dance dissipating.
But not vanishing, Kam thought as he watched Lin walk toward him. She shucked off the long-sleeve jacket and agilely leapt off the stage.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi,” he returned. He suddenly felt very hulking and clumsy next to her sleek, contained beauty. For a few charged seconds, they just looked at one another, but then she glanced away. The hint of shyness in her manner fascinated him.
“How . . . how did you find me?”
“I went to your condominium looking for you, and someone pointed me in this direction.”
“Who?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Someone who thought I should find you, I guess.”
“I didn’t realize such a person existed.”
“Besides me, you mean?”
Her small smile fell at that. He noticed her pulse fluttering at her throat. Acting purely on instinct, he reached out and placed his hand on her neck. He closed his eyes briefly, focusing on the vibrant pulse of her strong heart.
She was so beautiful. Inside and out. Only true beauty could dance to the heartbeat of the universe so effortlessly. He opened his eyes. She looked up at him slowly, and again, he felt himself stir.
“I’m sorry. About last night. It seems I’m doomed to keep screwing up and then apologizing to you for behaving like an animal,” he muttered.
He felt her throat constrict as she swallowed.
“You’re not alone in this, Kam.”
He studied her still features searchingly. “Why can’t I stop wanting you?” he muttered. Her pulse leapt beneath his fingers like a tiny, trapped creature.
“Why can’t I stop wanting you as well?” she whispered, her desperation and longing an echo of his tone.
He found himself staring at her mouth, his nostrils flaring to catch her scent.
“Let me get my things and we’ll walk back to my place,” she said.
He just stood there. His anticipation was just beginning to build, and yet it had already cut him to the quick.
• • •
They entered her condominium, and Lin led him to her living room. “Why don’t you make yourself comfortable. I’m just going to take a quick shower. Can I get you anything to drink?”
He just shook his head, feeling awkward yet again in the midst of her luxurious living room with her formal manner. He wanted to tell her not to shower—he’d rather taste the efforts of her dance on her smooth skin—but maybe she hadn’t even asked him back to her place for sex.