Chapter One

Sometimes dancing can be like magic.

Maggie always loved dancing, even by herself in her apartment, but tonight had to be the ultimate. She and her friends had wormed their way through the velvet ropes for opening night at Aquamarine, the hottest new club in town. Half an hour later, she’d been boosted up by two of the bartenders to dance on a pillar in the center of the dance floor. All around, the floor seethed with motion as lights flashed and the beat of the music thundered through the room. The crowd was an enormous, pulsating organism made up of a hundred individual cells.

Maggie moved with them, arms above her head, hips shimmying with the music. She flung her head back, closing her eyes, completely confident in her ability to keep her balance on the narrow platform. She had become one with the music, transcending everything but the dance.

Now the rhythm flowed through her as naturally as the blood in her veins.

The song changed and her eyes flickered open and upward. She found herself staring at a man in the VIP balcony overlooking the floor. The sights and sounds of the club faded as their gazes met, the people around them ceasing to exist. He stood out like a pale flame in the darkness, his spiky, white-blond hair topping a tall, lean body. He wore a black shirt laid casually open halfway down his chest and the smooth white skin of his body all but glowed at her through the darkness.

His eyes glowed too. They shone bright blue, aquamarine blue, luminescent with life in the darkness. His features were so handsome as to be almost pretty and he didn’t smile at her. If anything, he seemed almost puzzled. Then a gleam came into his expression that couldn’t be mistaken. He wanted her. A mysterious man in the VIP section wanted her and Maggie shivered in the light of his gaze.

She wanted him too.

Lust, pure and simple, washed through her with the music. Feeling impulsive, she let her hands slide down her body suggestively, caressing the lines of her neck, lingering at her breasts, brushing the tops of her thighs. The music slowed, and she swayed toward him. His jaw clenched then he raised his hand, calling her to him with one crooked finger.
It didn’t even occur to her to resist.