“And that’s what you do? Ballet?”
She sighs. “Yes and no. I do ballet. I love it. But I don’t really have the training to be as good as I would need to be to do it professionally, and I’m not going to get it here. So mostly I do lyrical or contemporary, which is a little less rigid and more about the movement as a whole rather than body positioning and technique. But most people learn the basics of ballet first. And that’s what I teach, too.”
“You teach? You didn’t tell me that.”
“It’s just something I do to help out my old dance teacher. I teach a couple classes of little kids with five-minute attention spans. It’s . . . interesting.”
“Okay then, teach. Show me what to do.”
“This is first position.”
She stands with her heels touching and her feet spread so wide they’re practically in a straight line.
I try to copy her, but lose my balance when I try to push my toes that wide and my body protests. She catches one of my flailing arms and smirks at me as I get my feet into the widest V I can manage.
“Close, but now you need to straighten your legs.”
I do as she says, and the muscles of my calves and my ass pull uncomfortably tight. She’s still holding on to my arm, and she releases it to place both hands on my midsection, one on my stomach and one on my back. I’m hunched over slightly, and she pushes against me. “Stand up straight.”
I do, but I have to hold on to her to manage it, which leaves her tucked under my arm, still touching my waist.
“Maybe we should have done this by a wall,” she says.
“I’m a slow learner. The hands-on approach works best.”
“Could you be any more obvious?”
“Sure.”
I let go of the crazy foot position and use the arm around her shoulders to wrench her toward me. Then, just to make sure she doesn’t wiggle away, I drop my arm down until it circles her waist and draw her closer. Both her hands have migrated to my lower back, so I don’t feel too guilty.
“Do you ever dance with a partner?”
She doesn’t meet my eyes, staring straight ahead at my neck instead. Then slowly, she bends her head until her forehead rests on my chest just below my collarbone. Beneath my hands, I feel her body curve on an inhale. She turns her head, shifts a little closer, and lays her cheek against my shoulder as she answers.
“No.”
Chapter 17
Dallas
One of Carson’s hands slips up my spine and curls around my shoulder, holding me the way he did the night we met. But now his hand is only under my jacket, not my shirt. His hold now is softer, sweeter, and surprisingly sexier.
“Someday I’m going to see you dance, Cole.”
I close my eyes, humming my acceptance, and just let him hold me, his thumb smudging up and down the back of my neck in a way that’s both comforting and incendiary.
We’ve passed the point where this is acceptable for a hug, but I just don’t feel like letting go. And I’m scared to push it any further because if I don’t feel like letting go of a hug, how much harder will it be to stop something more?
“I hate to break it to you,” I begin, and his head tips down to hear me better. His lips graze my forehead lightly, then rest there for good, pushing my heartbeat into a breakneck pace. “But I don’t think you have a future as a dancer.”
He laughs. “No, probably not.”
It makes me laugh too, and I take the opportunity to slide out of his grasp, to gain some distance. His hand trails down my back as I step away, and that slow glide makes me shiver.
“Can we just watch another movie or something?”
“Sure.”
He picks up the blanket from the recliner and hands it to me before heading to the TV.
“Any special requests?”
“Something that doesn’t suck.”
The smile he sends me makes me collapse on the couch a little harder than necessary.
“Comedy? Action? Drama? I don’t have much in the way of chick flicks.”
“Whatever you like.”
I don’t think I’ll be able to pay attention enough for it to matter anyway.
In the end, he picks a television show on Netflix instead of a movie . . . something British about time travel. He doesn’t start it at the beginning, but instead starts me on an episode from one of the later seasons that he says can stand alone.
It’s a little cheesy, with some kind of techno sci-fi introduction music, but he seems excited about it.
While the beginning of the episode starts, he walks past the couch and back toward his bedroom. I take the opportunity to slip off my jacket and shoes, leaving me in a short-sleeve shirt. He returns a few seconds later with a pillow in hand and flips off the light.
He drops the pillow against the armrest and then leans back against it.
“Come here, Cole.” He opens his arms to me, his voice deep and soft.
I only hesitate for a second before I get up, shake out the blanket, and lie down in front of him, my back to his chest. He shifts the pillow diagonally so that both of our heads can lie on it, his a few inches above mine. I can feel his breath ruffling my hair, and I feel a little light-headed. He situates the blanket over both of us, his hand brushing up against my legs a few times and making me jump. When we’re both comfortable, he drapes an arm over my waist and pulls me in until our bodies are curved together from head to toe.
I shut my eyes tight, and an irresistible smile starts pulling at my lips. I could fool myself into thinking that this is something that friends do, that it doesn’t mean anything, but I’m not so sure that I want to be fooled anymore.
I’ve spent my whole life following along with whatever Dad wanted me to do. And when he wasn’t busy constricting my life, I was doing it for him.
And now . . . I think it might be time to loosen the reins and let myself breathe.
Cautiously, I lay my arm over the top of his that’s draped over my waist. He doesn’t bother with caution. Boldly, he laces our fingers together before tucking both our hands between my side and the cushion, his arm wrapped firmly around my middle.
The show is interesting . . . with angel statues that come alive, basically ensuring that I’ll never be able to turn my back to any statue again. Ever. But I’m more concerned with the person at my back now.
Halfway through the episode I say, “Carson?”
“Hmm?” He lifts his head off the pillow, leaning down and resting his chin against my shoulder.
I don’t breathe before I ask, “Could you walk away?”
He locks up behind me and the hand still holding mine flexes. I find myself glad for the way we’re lying because I know I couldn’t have asked this with him looking at my face.
“Are you asking me to?”
There’s a hint of emotion in his voice that makes me wish I could see his face without having to return the favor.
“No. I’m just asking if you could.”
He exhales, his breath hot against the skin of my neck, but he doesn’t relax.
“I don’t know how you want me to answer this, Dallas. I’m scared I’m going to give the wrong answer, and you’re going to be the one walking away.”
“Just tell me the truth. Honesty, right? This is a safe space.”
I didn’t think there was any more space to be had between us, but he tugs me back forcefully, plastering our bodies together. I can feel his body’s answer against my behind before he whispers against my ear, “No. I can’t walk away from you.”
It should scare me, but mostly I’m just glad I’m not the only one.
His lips touch my neck, and I want him so badly that my body arches into his from that tiny connection.
“I can’t walk away from you because I don’t want to. There are a thousand things I want and need to do, but you trump all of them. You drive me to distraction, and all I want to do is get lost in you. All I want to do is make you lose it, too.”
His lips skim u
p my neck, not quite kissing, just teasing before he plants a firm kiss on the corner of my jaw.
“Is that the answer you wanted? Or have I scared you off?”
“You definitely scare me.” His head falls back against the pillow, and his hand releases mine. I grab hold, not letting his arm fall from around my waist. “But I’m not walking away either.”
His arm tears away from me anyway, but it’s to lift himself up off his side. I roll onto my back to look at him; he hovers above me, his arms braced on each side of me.
“Do you know what you’re saying? Because you’re not exactly free of mixed signals, Cole. And I don’t think I can take kissing you again if you’re just going to turn around and tell me we can’t.”
I slide myself back a little, propping myself up on the pillow he vacated. His eyes watch me, hungry and hooded, and nerves dance low in my belly. I touch his forearm, now lined up with my hips since I moved. I trace my fingers up his arm, past his elbow, following the path of his muscles up toward his shoulder. Then, remembering the massage I gave him the other night and the warning he gave me about kissing me senseless, I lean forward and place an identical kiss on his arm, just below his shoulder.
The sound that rumbles in his throat immediately takes me back to our first kiss. And when his lips slam into mine, my mouth is already open.
His tongue sweeps in, demanding and daring, pushing just hard enough that I know how very serious he is without overwhelming me. I angle my head farther to the side, kissing him deeper. He lifts himself a little higher, kneeling on the couch, and I sit up more to follow. Without warning, his hands curl around my knees, and he yanks me down off the pillow, pulling my knees apart and settling all his weight down on me.
I gasp into his mouth, and his hands encourage me to wrap my legs around his hips. I do, and I’m drowning in him. His taste. His scent. His sounds. They swarm around me, dousing me in desire, and I welcome his weight.
With his chest and hips crushed against me, it’s almost like he’s pushing out everything else but him. All those niggling little fears and doubts and what-ifs are buried beneath the ache he’s spinning in me.
His hands run down the outsides of my thighs, curling around my ass and lifting me up just a little while his hips bear down into mine, and I swear my vision goes a little fuzzy. For the first time in a long time, I think about what it would be like to be with someone again, to be with him. I imagine our clothes disappearing, skin sliding against skin, the noise he’ll make when he slides into me.
I haven’t had sex since that one time with Levi. I haven’t wanted to. But now I want it so badly that I’m shaking. I lower my hands to the hem of his T-shirt, and at my tentative tug, he lifts up just enough to help me pull it off.
I swallow and stare and swallow again, because dear, sweet Jesus riding a unicorn, he’s perfect. Hard contoured muscles slope toward the broad plane of his chest. And I have this sudden unfamiliar longing to taste the muscled ridges of his abdomen.
“I will never gripe about you working out too long ever again.”
His answering smile is toe-curlingly brilliant, and the warmth that had been building in my center erupts into a flame. He leans down to nuzzle his lips against my neck, and I grip his waist, my hands sliding perfectly along the V of muscles above his hips. One hand brushes the line of hair leading down from his navel, and he groans, nipping my neck in response.
Shuddering, I want to pull him back down onto me, wrap my arms around him, and feel the heat flowing off his skin. But he disappears from over me, sliding down until he’s hovering above my hips. He lifts up my shirt, not taking it off, but just pushing it up enough to bare my stomach. Then he settles down onto his elbows and lays his open mouth against my hip.
The warm touch of his tongue draws a moan from my mouth, and he glides his hands up, slipping beneath my shirt and curving around my ribs. His fingers are so close to my chest, and if the fiery path of his mouth along my belly didn’t have me so rigid, I might have been tempted to arch my chest toward him.
His eyes glance up to meet mine when he places a hot kiss directly above the button of my jeans. The possessive way his body is caged around mine, coupled with a greedy look in his eyes, makes my spine seem to twist in my body. It coils and tightens, spreading to my hips and creating an unfamiliar ache between my legs that terrifies me.
I’m uncomfortable, miserably so, barely resisting the urge to writhe beneath him, and I know it won’t stop. Not until he touches me. Really touches me.
But I can’t ask for that. I’m not sure I can have that.
Sex and regret have always been intertwined for me, and if I sleep with Carson and regret it tomorrow, I think it might kill me.
I know now that with him, there will be no walking away. If it comes to that, I’ll be dragging myself away in pieces.
Chapter 18
Carson
I reach for the button of her jeans, and I see it in her eyes before she says it.
“I can’t do this.”
For a second, I think she means all of it, and I want to scream. But then she smooths a hand through my hair and pulls me up toward her mouth for another kiss, and I get it.
She just can’t do this.
I pushed things too fast. I seem to do that with her a lot. But as long as she keeps being honest with me, as long as she doesn’t run away, I can fix that.
“Okay,” I say, laying a series of kisses on her forehead, cheeks, and mouth. “That’s okay.”
“You’re sure?”
She looks like she expects me to fight her on it or kick her out because of it.
“Very sure.” I kiss her again, the compulsion to taste her too strong to deny. “This is more than enough.”
At her suggestion, we watch another episode of Doctor Who, the first one this time. She smiles at me as she pulls her long hair up into a ponytail while the new episode loads.
I want to pull her to me and wrap my arms around her again, but I also need the separation to calm myself down. I don’t need anything more than she’s given me, but I would like to be able to hold her without my raging hard-on making me miserable.
“I’m going to get some water. You want something?”
She shakes her head no, and I use the spare minutes standing in front of the ice-cold refrigerator to finish talking myself down. I come back with two water bottles, just in case she changes her mind.
This time I lie on my back, and she snuggles up close to me, resting her head on my chest. I run my fingers through her ponytail, and the scent of vanilla settles over me.
I fall asleep that way—my hand in her hair, her body draped over mine—and I can’t remember a more peaceful moment in my entire life.
I WAKE WHEN Dallas shifts next to me, lying almost completely on top of me as she reaches for the phone silently lighting up on the coffee table. She rests her chin on my chest once she has it, eyes heavy with sleep. She yawns and puts the phone to her ear, laying the opposite cheek down against me.
“Hello?”
She’s silent for a few seconds, and then she jerks upright.
“Shit! What time is it?”
I squint at the red lights on the cable box. 3:17 A.M.
“You called him? Are you kidding me, Stella?”
Damn. That didn’t sound good. Not at all.
“I was asleep. I didn’t hear the phone ring. No. I know.” She sighs and looks at me briefly before closing her eyes. “I’m at Carson’s.”
Stella says something, though really it just sounds like shrieking to me, and Dallas replies emphatically, “No, of course not! We were watching a movie and fell asleep.”
She struggles to pull herself up with one hand, so I help, getting us both up into sitting positions. She perches the phone between her shoulder and her ear, and then drags her shoes on.
”Stella, can we talk about this when my dad doesn’t think I’m lying dead somewhere in a ditch?”
She shrugs on one arm of her jacket and
then the other. “I’m on my way now. Call him back and tell him . . . I don’t know. Tell him I sent you an e-mail to say I accidentally locked my key and my phone in our room and was crashing at a friend’s, but you just now saw it. And apologize like you’ve never apologized before in your life. I’ll text you when I get there. Can you come let me in through the east stairwell so the dorm monitor doesn’t see me come in? Yeah. Yes, I will. I promise.” She covers her eyes with her hand and mutters, “Bye.”
Still sitting on the couch, I perch my elbows on my knees and tell her, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”
“It’s my own fault. I lied and told Stella that I was leaving that party to go back to our dorm. When she got home and I wasn’t there, she panicked.”
“What did your dad say?”
“He’s freaking out, of course. He didn’t want me to live in the dorms in the first place, so this will be another addition to his list of reasons I’m not mature enough to handle going to school in New York.”
New York? I’m guessing that’s a dance thing, and I don’t like the way that thought leaves me feeling. I don’t like feeling like she’s about to fall through my fingers at any moment.
“Why don’t you stay? If Stella’s calling back your dad, there’s no reason for you to rush back in the middle of the night.”
She frowns, coming closer and pushing her fingers through my hair. “I can’t. Knowing Dad, he’s probably already had my RA and even the dean on the phone. I need to be there in the morning in case anyone decides to check up on our story.”
“Can’t you just tell the truth?”
“Carson.” The look she gives me is sharp.
“I don’t mean about me. Just say you were at a friend’s place and fell asleep watching a movie. It happens. You’re not a kid anymore.”
“As nice as it is to hear someone else make that argument, it won’t work. I don’t really have any friends besides Stella. And you.”
I stand and fold her into my arms. “Okay. But text me when you get there. And in the morning, after you talk to your dad.”
“I will.”
She pulls back to leave, grabbing her purse, but she doesn’t make it to the door before I stop her again. I cup her face in my hands and kiss her, slipping past her lips for one last sweet taste.