Page 17 of I Wanna Dance

For what?

I took his hand, my fingers sliding into his. “Do I have a choice?”

“There’s always a choice.”

“You definitely made yours.” I raised an eyebrow in challenge. “And I’m making mine. Let’s dance.”

The hell with it. No man was ever going to make me feel like I was less. I barely knew Marco Cabrera. What he thought of me didn’t matter. In that aspect, Marco had been right when he said I needed to stop caring about what people thought about me.

I thought he’d turn sour, which was what Kevin did when I was bitchy but instead, he chuckled, low and soft as he guided me into position. His right hand rested lightly on my back, just above my waist, and I placed my left hand on his shoulder. Our right hands joined, his grip firm but not controlling.

“Thank you for choosing to dance with me,” he whispered.

It was his sincerity that made me feel like a moron.Relax, Leah, you’re overthinking this, and no good comes of that.

“Five, six, seven, eight,” he counted, leading us through the first steps of the routine even as Viviana cried out instructions.

As we moved, the tension in my shoulders slowly eased. The cross-body leads we’d learned last time felt smoother now, less awkward, and when Marco spun me out and pulled me back in, I didn’t trip over his feet even once.

His breath was warm against my temple as we drew closer. “You’re a natural.”

“Right,” I scoffed in reply.

“I’m sorry about last time.” He kept me close. “I was an asshole.”

I swallowed. “Why?”Please don’t say, “I got to know you better, and you’re just so pathetic.”

“I was judging you for your insecurities because I was feeling insecure myself for being with a woman I liked for the first time since my wife passed. I was scared.”

I pulled back, and he held me before I stumbled due to the sudden movement. “Iscaredyou?”

His eyes were filled with genuine kindness. “I’ve never felt this kind of explosive…whatever it is with any woman, Leah.”

I licked my lips. The fire engine red ones.

“I want you,” he continued, his eyes holding mine.

He moved us into a spin-in beat with the music. As he moved his hips forward and I moved mine back, he dipped his head, nuzzling my cheek. “Please forgive me for being an unbearablependejo.”

I laughed then. Even I, who didn’t speak a lot of Spanish, knew that he’d just called himself an asshole.

We barely knew each other, stumbling over one another’s feelings like mismatched dancers. Maybe, given the chance, we’d find our rhythm. If we ever got that chance.

“You’re forgiven.”

This time, he pulled back. “Just like that?”

“Being annoyed with you doesn’t get me anywhere. And”—I gave him a cheeky smile—“we have another five classes, excluding this one, left.”

“You are…remarkable and”—he returned my smile—“an excellent dancer.”

“I am, aren’t I?” I replied, laughing softly, letting the bad go.

After that, we fell into an easy rhythm, our movements syncing with the beat of the music. It was strange how something that had felt so foreign just a few weeks ago now felt comfortingandexhilarating.

CHAPTER 8

Marco

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