Page 36 of Power Games

"Izzy—"

"Can do without me for another dance, I'm sure."

In truth, she was going to be pissed. He chose to indulge in this one moment regardless.

She looked like she might find another reason to protest.

"Unless you don't want to dance with me?"

She sighed. "I kind of want to dance with you. I guess. Depends. Do you murder toes?"

He laughed, pulling her closer and wrapping his arm around her waist. His hand rested on her back. Charles took a moment to hold her against him, smell her, and appreciate the way having her that close made him feel. Complete. At peace. He should be conflicted and at war with himself; most of the time he was, but not when he was holding Vanessa.

"You're sure you know how this dancing thing is supposed to work?" she asked.

He hadn't moved for a while. He laughed and started to dance.

The band had adapted her most popular hit, another "men suck" song called “Staking Hearts.”

For a time, they danced the room in silence, fluidly. She let him lead a tango walk and a few box steps without the slightest misstep, without trying to take control.

"You can tango," she noted, surprised.

Charles rolled her eyes. "Yes, we plebeians can dance, too. My mother took lessons. She made me partner with her. I think the better observation is, why does your song sound so close to ‘La Cumparsita’?"

"Because I have good taste. And women everywhere thank mothers like yours for raising guys with a basic understanding of box steps."

"Basic?" he challenged, starting a rock step. She followed with grace.

"Oh, Charles," she said with a chuckle. "Try not to trip yourself up."

"Are you pushing me? I hope you can take what follows, Ms. McNamara."

She broke into a monkey grin.

"You have no idea what I can take, Charles."

They'd stopped again, and he looked inside the depths of her whiskey eyes. He found too much fire.

Well, they certainly were done taking it easy now. Charles started with the cross, switched to a traspie as the music quickened, before returning to a walk, cut with onchos.

The music ended too soon. The prospect of letting her go was painful, intolerable. So he didn't.

She laughed.

"Well, Andrei would be very smug right about now."

"Andrei," he repeated. The name rang a bell, from back when they used to speak all the time.

"My dance instructor."

"Ah, yes. Weren't you doing ballroom last year?"

“For three months. Kaia needed to learn a few steps but he didn't let us move on to something else until we could both hold our own. “You'll need it someday,” he said with an absolute certitude, as if everyone needs to tango at some point in their life.”

"And here you are. Although I'm sure you would have survived the night with a rudimentary understanding of how it's all supposed to work."

"I might," she admitted. "But then I wouldn't have gotten to see you dance like that. Not bad. You know, for an old man."

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