Falling Awake

orchids,” she whispered. “I remember Dr. B. taking a snapshot. He told me it was for his files.” She broke off, her euphoric mood dropping like a stone when she got a sudden, bad flashback to all the failed hairstyles she had tried out in the past year. “I can’t recall what phase I was in that day. What did my hair look like? Did it involve a lot of curls? Please don’t tell me there were curls.”
    He smiled slowly. “No curls. Sounds interesting, though.”
    “I hope it wasn’t my blond era, either. That was not a success.”
    He shook his head. “Your hair looked a lot like it does now. You had it pulled back into a knot at the back of your head.”
    “Oh, that’s right, I was between experiments that week.” She put her hand to her hair and winced. “This is my default mode. I call it the Desperately Professional Look.”

    “You don’t look desperately professional when you wear your hair like this. You look like a sexy, sultry tango dancer.”
    “Really?” No one had ever described her as sexy, let alone as a sultry tango dancer. “I’ve never even taken tango lessons.”
    “Neither have I. But something tells me we could learn together.”
    “Oh, Ellis.”
    He used one hand to tilt her head back, baring her throat. She could have sworn that she could hear the first dramatic, mysterious chords of the bandoneón, the instrument forever associated with the most passionate dance in the world.
    When Ellis kissed her shoulder she thought she would burst into flames. She shuddered and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself into him.
    His mouth found the delicate place just below her ear. He used his tongue and the edge of his teeth until she could not stop the delicious shivers that pulsed through her.
    She drew the inside of her thigh upward alongside his leg, thrilling to the shudder that went through him and the powerful contours of muscle and bone beneath his skin.
    By the time his mouth closed over hers, she was shaking with the intensity of the emotions pouring through her. Every nerve ending in her body was alive. The part of her that had been dreaming for so long was fully awake. No matter what happened, no matter where this moment led, she had to discover what awaited her in this bright, new dawn.

    “Isabel.” Ellis tightened his arms around her and crushed her against the length of his body. “I want you so much, I’m hurting tonight. I knew it would be like this.”
    She was stunningly aware of his fierce arousal. There was nothing halfhearted or lukewarm about his passion. He had told her his dreams for nearly a year, but unlike the other men she had dated, he did not see her as a sympathetic friend or a big sister tonight. He saw her as a tango dancer, and in his arms she felt like one: daring, alluring, smoldering, gloriously, powerfully feminine.
    At least once in a lifetime, everyone deserved the chance to make at least one dream come true.
    She kissed him the way she had wanted to kiss him in her private midnight fantasies, deliberately trying to provoke and incite; experimenting, sampling, savoring.
    Somehow her shirt had come undone. She didn’t realize he had slipped the buttons until he was peeling the garment off her.
    The emerald green fabric fell into a tropical pool at her feet.
    Ellis traced the line of her shoulder with the edge of his thumb, as though mesmerized by the curves and angles there. Then he bent his head and kissed her just above her collarbone.
    “You have the most beautiful shoulders,” he whispered.
    “I took out a gym membership last year,” she said before stopping to think. She blushed furiously. Great. That was a real sexy thing to say, she thought.
    “It was worth every cent,” he assured her gravely, and then he kissed her throat.

    She wished she had known what was coming. She would have liked to have put on one of the sensual nightgowns she always wore when she dreamed about him. That was the problem with waking life. You couldn’t predict it.
    “Maybe Lawson’s right.” Ellis’s voice was low and heavy with desire. “Maybe I am becoming obsessive. All I can think about right now is what it’s going to feel like to be inside you.”
    She unfastened the buttons of his shirt and slid her hands under the edges so she could feel the sleek muscles of his chest. “That’s okay, because that’s all I can think about right now, too.”
    He removed her bra and cupped her breasts in the palms of his hand. When he