An Internal Affair

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There was something in his eyes, Andrea thought, that she didn’t quite trust. After accosting her in the elevator, Chad had returned to treating her as he had before their first date… she thought it might be because he was the one in control of their next outing, but every time she tried to get close enough to tempt him into her arms, he remained slightly distant though his flirtatious nature seemed fully operational.

Friday arrived and though Chad had told her what time to expect him, he hadn’t told her what to wear. So now she was in the car with him, dressed casually, while he was wearing a suit and looking as immaculately groomed as ever. “So, where are we going?” she asked finally, not expecting him to answer.

Chad glanced over. “We’re going dancing.”

Andrea sat up straight at this. “Dancing? You? With…me?” Why hadn’t he told her before now? She wasn’t dressed for it. “You should have told me that we were going to a club,” she reproved him.

“Who said anything about a club?” he asked, turning into the parking lot of the restaurant he had chosen. “Hope you don’t mind Greek food, though it might not be a bad idea to avoid the Feta cheese,” he teased her as he offered her his arm.

"Well, I don’t know – if I have some of that Feta cheese it’d be the perfect thing to breathe up into your face later on…” She was in such a good mood all throughout a very pleasant dinner that she forgot she was supposed to be worried about their next destination. Well, until he drove her to a large building with a flashing neon sign that read, Annie’s School of Dance. “Wait a minute,” she said slowly, glaring over at him and getting a wide smile of glee in return. “Dancing lessons?”

Chad gave her an innocent look and got out of the car. “I thought all women wanted ballroom dancing lessons.”

“I’m not all women,” she snapped back, ignoring the fact that she had indeed wanted to learn.

“Of course you’re not, how silly of me,” he said in a mock-serious tone. ‘C’mon, it’ll be fun.”

Andrea stubbornly dug her heels in, unwilling to simply let him get away with this. “But don’t you already know how to dance? I mean, you must’ve taken lessons with Rita before your wedding,” she said, then cursed herself for mentioning it as his face fell.

“Well, no. We eloped, actually – all that running off probably was the perfect practice for when she left me,” he said sarcastically.

She felt like kicking herself. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said softly as she reached for his hands. “We’re supposed to be having fun tonight and I had no right to bring that up. I’m sorry.”

He looked past her left ear and rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess I should stop being so sensitive about it, huh?”

“No, it’s okay… I understand.” She paused. “Do…do you want to talk about it?”

Chad gave her a sad smile. “I’m not sure I’m ready to, just yet.”

“Well, I’m here whenever you decide you want to talk,” Andrea said softly – she’d never thought to see this side of him, and hadn’t even been sure it had even existed. She was so used to seeing him being his cocky, arrogant self and his current sadness tugged at her heart, making her want to cuddle the frown right off his face.

He studied his shoes, looking like an oversized little boy. “Okay.” He cleared his throat. “So, um, do you want to…?” he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the building, visibly struggling to regain his poise and she smiled up at him, squeezing his hands lightly.

“Okay.” Standing on tip toe, she kissed him softly and was relieved to feel his arms coming around her in an embrace. “Don’t think this means you’ll be able to persuade me to let you in my house after the date is over, though,” she teased, and was rewarded by his familiar cocky grin.

“What if I turn out to be really good at the tango and you just can’t help yourself?” he teased back.

“In your dreams, Sarge!” she hooted.

He frowned. “Sarge? Nobody calls me Sarge.”

“Someone does now,” she pointed out. “Let’s go – we mustn’t keep Annie waiting…”

“Sure thing, Crackhead.”

“Okay…what? ”

Chad arched an eyebrow at her as he slid his arm around her shoulders and guided her to the door. “Oh, you’re the only one allowed to make up ridiculous nicknames? You’re a narcotics detective, so that makes you ‘Crackhead.’” He pushed open the door and she bit back another nasty comment as soon as she saw that they weren’t the only couple attending lessons; the place was filled with a mixed bag of senior citizens, a few nervous-looking teens, and some middle-aged women who looked Chad up and down in such a suggestive way that it made Andrea grind her teeth. Well, look at me getting territorial. Calm down, Battle.

A small woman whom she assumed to be Annie came up to them with a big smile. “Well, if it isn’t Sergeant Shelten! And you would be Andrea,” she said warmly, holding out a hand for Andrea to shake. “I have some things ready for you – we can go on through the back and pick whatever you like that fits.”

Whatever fits? She looked up at Chad hesitantly, but he simply nodded encouragingly so she turned to follow the diminutive Annie through the curtains, stopping dead in shock when she was faced with racks of sequined dresses. “Wait a minute, I don’t think-”

Annie cut her off by plucking a fancy white number off the rack and holding it up to her. “This would look just lovely on you, why don’t you go try it on?” She pestered Andrea’s size out of her and picked several more ball gowns out to have her try.

“Will everyone else be wearing these?” Andrea asked desperately, trying to postpone the inevitable.

“Let me know if you need anything else,” Annie said hurriedly, scooting back through the curtains without answering the question.

Shit.


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Chad folded his hands together impassively and waited for Andrea to emerge, ignoring the lustful glances aimed at him from the divorcees who were plainly out looking to score. One of the senior citizens came over to him. “So, bringing your sweetheart for dance lessons? She didn’t look too happy,” the woman rambled. “See my Arnie over there?” she pointed to a rather grumpy looking man with his pants pulled up almost to his armpits. “He hated the idea when we first started, but now he absolutely loves it,” she cooed. “Why, the regular exercise has improved his health so much that we just threw away the rest of his Viagra!”

Oh, god. He didn’t want to hear this. She blathered on until Arnie stalked over and put his arm around Rose (for that was her name) possessively, glaring at Chad as if he had something to worry about before he hauled Rose off to the other side of the room. Unfortunately, this seemed to be the signal for the divorcees to home in on him and one of them was moving in to try to cop a feel when the curtains he’d been staring at desperately started to move. “Excuse me, I think my girlfriend needs some help over there,” he said, bolting from his seat – it was a bit too soon to call Andrea his anything, but if those vultures thought he was attached…

He was, unfortunately, too slow to escape a pinch on the ass but his annoyance ceased to matter as soon as Andrea stalked through the curtains wearing a form-fitting white ball gown that had a deep vee in front and an even deeper one in the back. He stopped to stare as she stomped up to him so angrily that he wouldn’t have been surprised to see cartoonish black clouds hanging over her head. She was beautiful. “I can’t believe you,” she hissed as the others in the room stopped to stare at her. “Everyone else here is in jeans and you make me wear this!”

“I didn’t make you do anything,” he pointed out. “You didn’t have to put that on….” He slid his arms around her and dropped his voice. “But I’m glad you did – you look wonderful.”

“Just wonderful?” Oh, he knew what that kind of question meant and he wasn’t falling for it.

“Better than, I just don’t know the right word to describe it,” he said honestly, knowing that she’d just think he was being facetious. She smiled up at him, though, like she knew he was telling her the truth.

Annie came back in, slipping a CD in the player that sat in a corner of the room and clapping her hands to gain the attention of her students. “Okay, everyone pair off; we’ll be starting off with a simple waltz…”

Chad guided Andrea through the steps, trying not to seem too good at it though Andrea narrowed her eyes at him a few times. Annie walked through the room and offered each couple advice, winking at him over Andrea’s shoulder. It wouldn’t do for her to know that he did indeed know how to dance, and was actually quite good at it; for now it was enough that she’d stopped feeling so self-conscious about wearing that dress – Chad thought he might well tip Annie even more than he had planned on doing, just for having that in her back room. The feel of her bare skin under his palm was growing more and more distracting; he had to step back from her several times as she inadvertently came too close. Her stomach pressed against his lower half as she moved made his body respond in ways that were unsuitable in public, and he hoped no one else noticed.

Their instructor started them on the first steps of a tango and Andrea pressed right back up against him again, making him harden instantly. Again. Jesus, this was embarrassing. He quickly put his hands on her hips and pushed her away slightly. “Sorry,” he said when she glanced up at him with a look that meant she’d noticed each and every time. Shit! “Sorry,” he muttered again stupidly, his face feeling hot. Why did his body have to pick now to revert back to adolescence? A quick glance at the clock showed that the lesson was almost over, thank God, and he suffered through only five more minutes of torture before Annie Announced the end of their session.

Andrea had just drifted off for a drink of water when Annie came up to him, turning her back so that the detective wouldn’t see her face as she talked to Chad. “Were you actually getting wood for her? You’re so disgusting,” she laughed.

“Oh, shut up!” he snarled back, annoyed that she’d seen. “It’s your own damn fault, Ann. Why’d you have to let her wear that dress?”

His sister batted her eyes innocently up at him. “Because you asked me to help her pick one out. So, is it serious?” She glanced over at Andrea who was coming back, and broke it off quickly. “Don’t fuck it up this time, moron….and it was such a pleasure to have an actual sergeant with us tonight! You two have a lovely night,” she said loudly, with a covert throat-slashing motion aimed at him. He shook his fist at her behind Andrea’s back and she responded with that annoying “tsk, tsk” finger waggle of hers.

“So, are you ready to go?” he asked Andrea, still avoiding her eyes. It wasn’t as if he had never gotten aroused by her before; their previous date had ended with her on his lap and involved in some pretty hot and heavy kissing, but this was different. It wasn’t supposed to happen when he didn’t mean for it to, he thought grumpily.

“I just need to change back into my clothes, and then…”

He grinned suddenly, an idea coming to him on how to reclaim control of the date. “Don’t worry about it – I had to sign a contract that says I have to drop that dress off at the dry cleaners so just get your street clothes and we’ll go now.” Chad walked her back to the changing room so she couldn’t get out of it – he seriously doubted that she would insist on stripping down in front of him, since it was apparent that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Oh, shit. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it…damn it. I just thought about it. He snatched up her clothes hurriedly, holding them in front of himself as he willed his erection to subside. Fuck. Go away.

They made it to the car with her still looking askance at him, and despite himself he had to smile at her next outburst of shock when he drove them straight to a local sports bar instead of back to her house. “Chaaaad,” she said warningly. “Give me my clothes.”

He tossed them in the back before she could lunge for them. “Let’s go have a beer.”

“I’m so going to get you for this,” she sighed as she climbed out of the car.


tbc…
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