Graham shrugged. “Unplumbed depths, man.”
Chapter 28
It wasn’t just that Wrench didn’t like casual touches, Lydia was realizing. He bordered on actually being touch averse.
“We will stay with open position,” she suggested, taking both of his hands firmly and demonstrating. “Elbows up just a little, good. You want to keep energy in your arms, don’t let them just droop.”
Ally, beside them, held her own arms up in a passing imitation. “Like this, Uncle Wrench,” she said cheerfully.
“You’re leading,” Lydia reminded him after a brief smile for Ally. “You step forward first, claim your space, then draw me back in. Count it out: step, shift, back, pause, step, shift, forward, pause. One, two, three, pause, five, six, seven, pause.”
Wrench staggered through the steps as she patiently led him.
“You’re not good at this,” Ally said critically.
Lydia’s swan hissed defensively and Lydia was swift to gently say, “You’ve had two whole lessons more than he has, remember? You’ll have to help him get better like you have, Ally!”
She paired them up, standing beside Wrench while he stepped backwards and forwards to the count she kept. “One, two, three, pause, five, six, seven, pause.”
“Good job, Uncle Wrench,” Ally said in lackluster encouragement, as Lydia caught her eye.
Lydia continued counting as Wrench got more comfortable with the stepping pattern. “It’s just muscle memory, pause,” she said to the rhythm. “Train your feet to fall back to this pattern, good, pause.” The music ended then, and Lydia demonstrated an ending flourish that Ally mimicked in delight.
“You don’t have to do anything more complicated than this step, if you don’t want,” Lydia said comfortingly. “Perfectly competent dancers just do this around the dance floor for whole songs. Just guide your partner around using your hands and you don’t need to do anything more complex.”
Wrench looked relieved behind his poker face.
“Show him the side-to-side one!” Ally said with enthusiasm.
Lydia traded spots with the little girl, automatically stepping into the closed position. The muscles in Wrench’s neck turned to stone as he froze, his hand where Lydia had placed it on her waist.
He swallowed.
Lydia, far from unaffected by his hot closeness, stepped back. “We’ll continue in open position,” she said lightly, going back to arm’s length. For a moment, dizzy from his closeness, she forgot what she was planning to teach him.
“Side-to-side,” Ally reminded her.
Lydia cleared her throat. “Right. Now, this follows the same pattern of pausing on the fourth beat and eighth, but instead of back and forth, we’ll simply be going side to side.”
Trying
as hard as she could, she could not stop thinking about how the dancing rhythm would translate to sex.
Chapter 29
If it weren’t for Ally’s presence, Wrench was not sure how far into the dance class they would have gotten.
It was hard enough to keep track of his feet and keep count and figure out where the beat was in the music, but with the addition of the impossible grace and beauty of Lydia’s gorgeous body as she wiggled through the steps, his brain immediately went off in very different directions.
With luck, this meant that what he was stubbornly learning would stick in his head, despite future distractions.
He paraded side to side with her, doing his weak best to follow directions like, “let your hips loosen” and “relax your shoulders.”
Paired with Ally again, Lydia drilled them through the steps until the girl began to complain, “My arms hurt and I’m hot!”
Lydia chuckled. “You’re making your muscles strong,” and let the little girl retreat to the cool sanctuary of her room.
Alone in the courtyard, Wrench wasn’t sure what to do with himself. Most of him wanted to sweep Lydia into his arms and see what other actions could be done to the seductive rhythmic pattern of salsa.