Dancing With the Stars Backstage Scoop: Derek and Maria Spill on Their Latin Night Lip-Lock!

Latin night on Dancing With The Stars was hot, hot, hot!

While Derek Hough and Maria Menounos have denied over and over that their relationship is anything more than professional, their undeniable mini-make out on the dance floor Monday night said a whole lot more was going on!

So what did the lovebirds have to say for themselves after the show and how did Chelsie Hightower explain away her wardrobe malfunction? Plus, how are Mark Ballas' nether regions holding up after a week of kicks to the groin?

There's no doubt Maria and Derek have been the couple to watch this season with the most potential to turn their dance floor chemistry into something more. Their connection cannot be ignored, along with their major skin baring, plus an on-camera kiss tonight seems like damning evidence that they are crazy about each other!

Well, not exactly, according to Derek and Maria. When we caught up with them after the show, they insisted the kiss was just for show and in the spirit of a sexy themed night of fancy footwork.

"It was part of the fun," Derek tells us. "It was tongue and cheek it was fun. It was like, 'We need to do something fun here,' and a dip doesn't suffice and the shirt thing, everyone does that, so it was like, 'What can we do?' It was Latin week! We gotta go for it!"

"We needed the shirt and the kiss," Maria added with a laugh.

Moving on to other racy events of the night, Chelsie Hightower's wardrobe malfunction was more than just a little noticeable, but she told us, in a weird twist of coincidence, that that style of her costume is fated to falter during an intense routine. 

"It happens," she says. "You know what's funny, the last time I did the salsa I had the same sleeve and the same thing happened when I was shimmying, shimmying my little heart out."

Top scorers of the night Mark Ballas and Katherine Jenkins stepped up their game after finding themelves in the bottom three last week. However, as we all saw in their video package (no pun intended), their achievement didn't come without a lot of accidental kicks to Mark...below the belt! When we asked how the naughty bits were doing, Mark kept it short. 

"They're holding up, thank you!" Mark laughed.