“This way,” she threw over her shoulder at Lawson, hurrying across the floor toward them.
“You in trouble, Mauboy?” someone called, laughing.
“No idea,” Lawson laughed back. “Wish me luck.”
“Lis.” She quickened her pace—and by default, Lawson’s—until she was but a foot away from Elisa. “Give me your hand.”
Elisa did without question. Relief rushed through Zeta, and she let out a wobbly sigh as she settled into the circle with Elisa on her left, Lawson on her right.
Wait, relief? Are you sure that’s what you’re feeling?
“This is how we’re tarantellaing,” she muttered, throwing Elisa a wide smile. “’Kay?”
Angus raised his eyebrows at her and then slid a look to Lawson. “Shouldn’t you be on the mic explaining what La Tarantella is for the guests who don’t know?”
“Ah shit.” Lawson snorted out a wry laugh. “Yeah, I should be.”
Zeta swung her stare to him. No. No, no.
He disengaged his wrist from her grip, grin apologetic. “Sorry, Zeta. Next dance?”
She opened her mouth and snapped it shut as he partly turned and slapped his hand on the shoulder of the person beside him in the forming dance circle.
“Mick’ll look after you,” he said, giving her a smile.
Mick’s lips twitched.
Bastard!
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Lawson warned, eyes twinkling with mirth, and before she knew what he was doing he’d somehow managed to place her hand into Mick’s.
Delicious jolts of sensations shot up her arm, into her breasts, down into the pit of her stomach, and she had to stop herself letting out a low, hitching whimper.
“That leaves us pretty much wide open to do anything and everything,” Mick shot back, giving Lawson a smirk.
“True.” Lawson grinned again. “Gotta go be awesome. I’ll catch up with you crazy kids later.”
And with that, the towering, broad-shouldered MC hurried back to the mic stand.
Mick studied her. Silent. For a wild heartbeat. He leaned a little towards her. “I’m not going to bite.”
She leant a little toward him in return and, holding his stare, snapped her teeth together.
He laughed, and the junction of her thighs grew warm. Tingley.
God help her.
A distant part of her was aware Elisa held her other hand. If her sister was watching her and Mick, Elisa would no doubt be forming all sorts of erroneous conclusions. Conclusions like her and Mick were flirting, or that they had chemistry, or that maybe there might be a reason for Zeta to move to Australia after all.
Like that was ever going to happen.
She wasn’t going to abandon her life, her team, her cheetahs back in San Diego. It didn’t matter how hot Mick was, or how sexually attracted to him she was, or how much she wanted to peel his clothes from his body and ride him like a bronco, and— OhGod, what was shethinking? Ride him like a bronco?
She jerked away from him, snapping her stare to the center of the dance floor where Bria and Owen stood, fingers entwined, making goo-goo eyes at each other while their guests finished making the tarantella ring around them.
On her right, Mick let out a low chuckle.
Bastard. He probably assumed she was flustered because ofhim. No, she was just worried about Kagiso and Mandla. Maybe she should go call Dani after La Tarantella and find out how they were doing. Yeah, that’s what she’d do. She’d find somewhere quiet after the raucous dance, maybe out on the beach where Bria and Owen had gotten married, and touch base with the other cheetah carer and her team back in San Diego.