Ch 6: Dancing with Danger

Recap:

"...After your father's speech and the banquet, you're still having the dance, aren't you?"

"Yes," Cess frowned, unsure where Tom was going with this.

"Then, may I have the pleasure of being the first one to dance with you tonight?"

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This was agony!

"Huh? Did you say something Cess?" Tom stopped swaying to look down at her in concern.

Cecilia lowered her eyes to his bow tie, unable to meet his, as she mumbled a negative. And to be perfectly honest, she wasn't technically lying, since she hadn't said anything; merely thought it. But the guilt she was feeling wasn't for lying: it was for what she'd been thinking in the first place.

But the truth was she was in complete misery. And she couldn't even blame Tomas as the cause. He had been the perfect companion, solicitous and polite; even, she would go so far as to say, chivalrous. And yet, she hated every minute of the inane conversation she was being forced into, when every single fiber of her being wanted to be directly across the room, in the place of the curvaceous ebony-haired beauty being held so intimately in the circle of those strong arms.

She couldn't understand it herself! She had spent the entire evening just wresting for a chance to give him a piece of her mind, she had fumed for hours at her brother for speaking to him so cordially, and now she wanted to dance with him! She wanted to smack herself. And she would have done so already, had she not known that it wouldn't make the slightest difference. Had she not known it wouldn't take away this burning desire to have him ask her to dance, to have him hold her tight to him and sway with the music as they stared into each other's eyes.

She hadn't even known she felt that way until Tom had asked her dance with him. All she'd felt, as she stared at his out-stretched hand, was a crushing disappointment that her first dance wasn't going to be with Nicolas - taking herself by surprise. And this was now the reason for her guilt. Tom had been the most sweet, gracious partner, but her complete attention was focused on a man who deserved not even one percent of it! And yet, she just couldn't seem to help it. It seemed her entire body was so highly attuned to his, he had only to shift, and she would detect it.

But, that was enough! She was being completely unfair to the man stood directly in front of her, staring down at her with such concern. Why couldn't she devote her attention to someone like him? He met with several points on the male-attractiveness scale, and Cecilia was certain she would like him the more she knew him: she just had to exert herself a little.

Mind made up, she smiled up at him, shifting slightly as she moved infinitesimally closer to him. His widening eyes told her he'd noticed, and she felt distinctly gratified: at least somebody noticed her around here! She tightened her hands around his neck, and shifted with the music, forcing him to sway along.

"Why did you stop, Tom? Let's dance."

"I thought you weren't enjoying the dance," Tom admitted, relief flowing through his veins at her words, as he placed his arms around her delicate waist again.

"Why would you think that?" Cess chuckled nervously. "Did I say that?"

"No... But, you looked..."

Cess sighed, and shook her head in mock sorrow. "See, this is the way men view us women. If we don't laugh or talk constantly, men think we don't enjoy their company." She let out another sigh. "Or maybe it's just me – maybe men think that it's just true for me. Do I really have a reputation as a constantly shallow – "

"No! No, of course not."

Cess smiled slightly, answering seriously this time. "I was really enjoying your company Tom, but I was just feeling a little tired from all the preparations over the past few days. That's all." Cess smiled at him again, watching in guilt as his face relaxed, and wondered just when she had become such a good liar. Probably, she mused, as a child, after all the times she'd been caught playing pranks on her brother...

"So, Tom, tell me something about yourself. Something very few people, or even better, something no-one else knows about you." Cess winked at him mischievously, surprised to find she genuinely did want to know more about this person who had been a distant fixture in her life for the last 15 months.

Ecstatic at her curiosity, but taken by surprise, Tom found himself at a loss at what to tell her. "Well, Cess, I wasn't a particularly naughty child - unlike you, I imagine," he smirked down at her. "But, I suppose that may have had something to do with Miss Penny."

"Miss Penny?" Cess' ears perked up, sensing she was about to receive some juicy information.

"She was my art teacher in year 10." He sighed, in remembered pain-pleasure. "She was the most beautiful, kind, amazing person I had ever met – up until then, of course," he hastened to assure Cecilia.

"Of course." She suppressed her grin.

"I just used to watch the blond tendrils of her hair floating across her face as she walked around the classroom... And then when she would bend to examine my work and compliment me with a smile..." he sighed, lost in 15-year old boy land.

Cess giggled at his besotted expression, unable to restrain herself.

Tom's sharp look told her he'd noticed, but he let it go. "And, well, all good things come to an end. I decided to propose my feelings to her, and she..." he sighed laboriously, "she just laughed at me, and told me I was sweet. The pain," he continued in mock sorrow, aware of Cess' roaring laughter, "of unrequited love." He wiped a fake tear, milking the performance for all it was worth.

"Aaaww! Poor baby!" Cess giggled. "Would you like me to kiss away your tears?" Then she stopped laughing abruptly as she just realized what she said.

Tom was in a similar state of shock. "I think I would like that very much," he muttered huskily, blue eyes darkening, as he stared at her lips.

Cess shifted uncomfortably, suddenly becoming aware that this was Tomas Connelly, a man who had never made secret of the fact that he liked her. She sought desperately for a way to diffuse the tension.

"If only you should be so lucky," she teased. "Until then, you'll just have to make do with your dreams!"

Tom groaned. "Oh, the endless tortures of whimsical females. Cruel, you are cruel to tease me thus!"

Cess laughed, about to reprimand him for his melodrama, when she heard the one, single voice in the world that had the power to send shivers down her spine.

"Yes, she is."

Tom startled, and spun around at the interruption, letting go of Cess in the process. The sudden loss of support and the involuntary stiffening of her muscles in reaction to that voice caused Cecilia to lose her balance, hurtling her face first into the arms of the waiting gentleman. Although, gentleman was probably too kind a word for him, Cecilia thought, as she was unceremoniously dragged away, to a different corner of the dance floor without even a courtesy by-your-leave. She craned her neck to see Tom, and saw him still standing there looking shell-shocked - as if he couldn't quite comprehend what had just happened - before she was engulfed between the crowd of guests and she couldn't even see an inch of Tom.

Finally, she found herself at a stop. Before she could understand what was happening, she was roughly tugged into strong arms and then released as she twirled around... and around... and then brought back in, and then released... and then dipped low... bent over so far back, her hair almost grazing the ground as she stared into fathomless blue depths... and then brought back up, and spun... lifted high, high, higher.... And back down...And spun again, and again, and again... until she collapsed in a panting heap in the intimate circle of strong arms.

Breathless, heart pounding – for more reasons than one – Cecilia somehow drew up the reserves of her courage as she pushed herself away from his muscular chest. Unfortunately, she didn't manage to get very far as she found her course of path blocked by an unyielding obstacle at her lower back. Or rather, she thought, realization dawning, a pair of obstacles. Good Lord, were they his arms, or pillars of concrete?! Regardless of what they were, at this moment in time, they were squeezing her so tightly she was being forced back into the place she'd just vacated: the circle of Mr. Nicolas Freire's arms.

"What do you think you are doing?" she demanded, temper reaching boiling point. "Let go of me!"

Nicolas only raised a brow in a superior manner. "I should think you ought to be thanking me." He observed coldly. "I saved you from making a spectacle of yourself."

"Excuse me!" Cecilia seethed, already full to overflowing from their earlier encounters. "You have absolutely no say in what I do, where I do it or whom I do it with! If my Father or any of my family has any problems with me, they can tell me that themselves, but it has absolutely nothing to do with you."

"Your family is busy entertaining the guests," Nicolas ground out. "Little do they know, their darling is engaging the guests in her own personal brand of entertainment."

Cecilia let out a shocked gasp, before her hand flew to smack him in the face. However, before the hand could connect, it was grasped in a bruising grip.

"Do not ever try that again. Ever." The grip on her wrist tightened. "Do you understand me?" Nicolas asked, voice frighteningly low.

It was all she could do to stop the cry of pain growing at the back of her throat. Biting her lip hard, she nodded her assent, just wanting to get away from this man's presence. 'Be careful what you wish for', she reflected in self-recrimination. Earlier, she had been wishing to be dancing in his arms, and now look at her. Humiliated and battered on the inside, bruised on the outside. How could she have forgotten that this man's presence only brought her pain? Why did she keep getting drawn towards him despite knowing he would only hurt her again? Was she seriously that masochistic?

No, enough was enough. Cecilia decided that she would put this man out of her mind for good after tonight. Feeling him ease up on her wrist, she felt relief sweep through her, as she plotted her swift escape.

But the blessed freedom didn't come. Although Nicolas eased up, he still kept a firm grip on her wrist, and proceeded to drag her out of the ballroom, into the dark recesses of the unlit corridor, ignoring the screaming protests of the girl behind him.

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AN: Hey! Please vote, comment and share if you like this story! Thanks! xoxo

P.s. This song by Zayn Malik is one of my absolute favourites! Love, love, love him!!!