Close Embrace

One dance with a stranger above a San Francisco bakery, and a woman who keeps her life in neat rows forgets how to stand still.

I find lost money for a living. I wear grey cardigans, and for nine years I've lived with a man who pats my hip goodnight like a dog he's fond of.

Then I take a tango class. Six weeks later, the nine years are over.

Tomás is a structural engineer from Santiago who builds things that don't fall down when the earth moves. He asks before he takes my hand. He waits for me at the end of every phrase. One slow walk around the floor in his embrace and I'm trembling all the way down my spine.

What starts on a dance floor turns into the most sensual winter of my life, one slow, steamy yes at a time. But there's a hospital in Santiago that only he can make safe before the next earthquake, and I have a whole careful life in California, and the six thousand miles between us don't care how well we dance.

Some love stories are a single night. Ours is a flight on Thursdays, a lemon from a kitchen tree, and a question I'm finally brave enough to answer.

How far would you go for the man who taught you to lead your own life?

A Kenzie Lexington Romance. 18+. All characters are consenting adults. No blood relatives. This is fiction.