A Dance, an Interview, and a Kiss

here's where what i first wrote comes in. see if you can tell where madi changed ronaldos words around a little.

His impenetrable gaze caught me like fly in a spider web. He would be leaving soon to go back to Manchester, and I knew I had to make his every last minute here in Seattle memorable. I didn’t want him getting the wrong ideas about the people who live here."W-why-" This was bad. I couldn’t even talk. What kind of guy wants a girl who can’t even speak her own language? "Why don’t we…" I could hardly think, his gaze was so powerful. My body was lost just in his dark eyes, like I was sinking into a peat bog, and would soon be stuck there forever, encased in mud and slime, unable to escape, to move. Just sinking deeper and deeper…"Maddy," his accent made every bone in my body melt, and my spine gave out, causing me to fall back against my chair to keep me from falling against the table and slamming my face into my plate of spaghetti. But I can’t do that. I am a professional sports journalist, interviewing a visiting professional star athlete after his big win. What kind of retard would slam her face into her food during an interview dinner? We are two professionals, therefore, we must keep things professional between us."Why don’t I put some music on?" he asked, smiling lightly. I couldn’t help giggling a little and nodding my head. Oh, yes, very professional. If only I could speak fluent Spanish. No. This was wrong. What kind of interview would make suggestions toward possible romanticism? Professional, I kept telling myself, but it was so hard to keep things professional with the sound of acoustic guitars and the soft touch violins swimming around together in perfect harmony inside my ears."So," I said sitting up feeling the table for my notebook and pen. His hand moved and I watched it surround something underneath the side of my plate that faced him. The black notebook was very small and fit in his large hand perfectly. He handed it to me and I took it from him, smiling, noticing how small my hands were compared to his."Thank you," I said, opening up the notebook and unhooking the pen from the spiral binding. I needed to speed into this interview before I lost my head. "So," I said again, a little uneasy."Dance, would you like to?" he asked me as he stood up."Uh…" I wasn’t sure how to respond. Of course I wanted to dance with him, but I NEEDED to…screw professionalism! I scooted my chair back as I rose to my feet."Sure," I said, smiling and looking up at him from beneath my eyelashes. "One problem. I have no idea how to dance." This was a total lie. I took ballroom dancing lessons all through high school, and I knew very well how to tango."Fix that I can." My smile broadened as I made a connection to Yoda. The way he spoke reminded me so much of Yoda I almost started laughing. "I take American dance slow lessons." Oh, great. "Give me your hands."I laid them out in front of me, probably looking like a total idiot. Those big hands took mine in their grasp, swallowing them whole. He threw them over his broad shoulders and I hooked my fingers together. Something brushed both sides of my waist and I looked down. His hands were resting around my waist, sending pulses of heat through my whole body. Our bodies swayed to the beat of the music. I couldn’t believe it. I was slow dancing with Cristiano Ronaldo, Manchester’s best football player. Then I remembered his girlfriend. My stomach lurched and my mouth went dry. She is so beautiful and so nice, I met her once-at one of the shows she modeled on-when I was touring Europe with my friend, Bonnie.I looked up and was captured in his gaze again."What is wrong?" he asked, noticing the panic on my face. It isn’t cheating if you don’t kiss, right? Besides, why would he want to cheat on his super model girlfriend with some sub-par Yankee sports journalist?"Nothing," I said, banishing all thoughts of his girlfriend and putting on a fake smile."You lie to me," he said, looking down at me, straightening his expression. "Something is very wrong with you."Something IS wrong with me. I was dancing, not interviewing, and only had the rest of the night to interview him before he left tomorrow morning to go home, back to…Manchester…so far away."I’ll make the pretty girl feel better." He said, winking and smiling softly as he did. A chuckle sneaked past my lips. He stopped moving, so I did, too. Why did he stop? The sound of the ocean lapping the shore beneath the balcony drowned out the sound of the music and beyond him I could see the moon, surrounded by a vast universe of stars; the very sight of the starry background against his face made my knees give out. I started to fall and grabbed his shoulders tightly to keep from falling on my butt but my harms gave out, too. My waist was slipping through his grasp, and I squeezed my eyes shut, preparing for the worst.I felt a hand on my back and an arm around my shoulders, supporting my neck. I wasn’t on the ground. My eyelids fluttered open to see his face, just centimeters from mine. The arm under my neck pulled me in, our faces getting dangerously closer when all of a sudden his lips were on mine and a sensation like none I have ever felt before rushed through my body, sending chills up my spine. All my senses were awakened, his touch, his warmth, his scent-musty cologne that tingled inside my nose-the way his muscles rippled around my body. It was then the butler walked out onto the balcony.
And walked right back into the house through the sliding glass door.Cristiano stopped kissing me and pulled me back up onto feet."I’m sorry quarida," he said, obviously noticing the faint expression on my face. WAIT. Quarida? Doesn’t that mean dearest one? I may not speak fluent Spanish, but Bonnie’s husband who happens to be Mexican, calls her "quarida". Why was he calling ME dearest one? I’d only known him since before the game today! Maybe he just calls everybody "dearest one".He took two steps back to the table and sat down in his chair. I joined him at the table. My lips still tingled from our kiss. My brain still tingled from trying to comprehend why he kissed me. I’ll make the pretty girl feel better. Was he just playing with me? Does he kiss all of his friends back in Manchester? Except that…our kiss lasted at LEAST 20 seconds…Oh WHY couldn’t I just accept that he found me attractive and forget about it? I mean, a lot of guys find me attractive. And I’ve had more than my fair share of one-night-stands. Oh. That’s right. I couldn’t forget about it because normally every time I kiss a guy it LEADS to a one-night-stand. So why did I expect he would want to…?JESUS HE WAS RIGHT! There is DEFINITELY something wrong with me! Alright. PROFESSIONAL. Time to engage in professional sequence. "He tell them I kiss you," he said."What?" What did he say?"The pretty-clothing-man will tell them I kissed you." He said, nodding toward the door where the butler was watching us from the other side."Who, Chives?" I asked. Chives. What a typical name for a butler. But seriously. Who names their kid after a vegetable?"Fine." He said, folding his arms and smiling. "The onion man. He’ll them.""Oh, no." I said with a worried laugh. "He wouldn’t tell a soul.""I am sorry, quarida, I must go," he said, standing up."Oh, no," I whispered under my breath. "Please don’t go!" I shouted as I stood up. "You could get me fired!"He whipped his head around to look at me. Slowly he walked back toward me. His arm came up and he put a hand on my arm."you lose your job?" he asked.He looked genuinely worried like he had hurt me, which caused me to start worrying too. I knew that if he kept turning me on like this I would take advantage of him and all would be lost. Not only would I get fired tomorrow, I would be heartbroken when he left. Which is odd, considering how many men have left me in my time. Just another one-night-stand.Besides, his girlfriend would be missing him. And she’s a hell of a lot prettier than I am. She also has a lot more to offer him, with her career in modeling, so he’s probably going to be sticking with her for along time. Not that he needs more money. I mean, he’s a freaking star athlete, he gets paid all the money in the world."Uh," I said, searching for the right words. "No. I’m sorry." I stepped forward. "I just-" my foot got caught behind the leg of the chair and I started to fall forward. It was too late for him to catch me, I knew. As I was falling it was like was like my brain grew wings and flew out of my skull and floated in mid air, watching me fall on my face. In the back of my mind I could see Cristiano standing there not moving a muscle going "Oh, look. Another retarded American girl falling and busting up her face. Sigh. Nothing new, I see those all the time."But he didn’t. I hit the ground and rolled over onto my back in time to see his foot get stuck behind a bump in the wood planks of the deck floor as he was dashing to my rescue. His massive muscular body hurtled down on top of mine before I had time to even THINK of rolling out of the way. I did however have time to snap my eyes shut quicker than you could shoot a gun. I could hardly breathe. I opened my eyes and tried to look around for Chives. I tried calling his name, but I couldn’t even scream. It sounded more like a wheezy whiney dog than a human being crying for help. I started seeing stars, then realized I was looking at the sky. Then I heard a sniffing sound next to my ear. Was he crying? No. He was smelling me. My hair, to be exact. But…why? Like a boa constrictor he squeezed me into him, rapping his arms around me. WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON?!It was just like my 21 birthday when we all got drunk and jumped on each other. Actually we tried making a cheer pyramid and Zander climbed up on the fence and tried jumping on the top but like the drunken idiot he is half the time he fell on us and I happened to be on the next to bottom row of the pyramid. Jimmy was right below me so I fell on top of him and broke one of his ribs. Unfortunately we had the weight of about fifteen people on top of us so it just got worse. He came out with a broken rib and leg, and I broke my arm in two places. Apparently we started making out but I don’t remember doing that very well. Everyone else did, though. How we could even move under all those bodies is beyond my knowledge.After about a minute of gasping and wheezing I could feel Cristiano’s body lift off mine. Thank God! I was about ready to pass out there! He knelt beside me."Are you hurt?" he asked, looking panicked.I tried moving but couldn’t. I was still gasping for breath. I had the wind knocked out of me and it was taking THIS LONG to gain it back?"Can I move you?" he asked, noticing me struggle. Hell yeah you can move me! Baby, rock me like a hurricane! Please! Just cause I’m paralyzed doesn’t mean I’m not capable of feeling pleasure! You may have almost killed me, but you’re still the sexiest thing alive! I felt his arms around me again, lifting my body up off the ground. I still couldn’t breathe. My eyelids were getting heavy, and I gazed at the stars again. My head was getting light like I was in outer space floating around in those stars I was looking at. Wait. Everywhere I looked, all I could see was stars! Then blue. Then black.Then I was two years back at the bottom of a huge pile of people looking down at my best friend, Jimmy. All of a sudden I was kissing him, like it was nobody’s business, and for the first time I saw the kiss that I missed, the kiss that people were talking about on campus the next day. The kiss I thought never happened.