Chapter 12
KIR
From the shadowy upper balcony, I watch as she glides across the stage. Magda barks a command from the middle of the fourth row—her usual spot from which she directs her dancers—and the whole company stops and gets ready to run the scene again from the top.
As involved as I am with the Zakharova, it’s rare for me to sit in on rehearsals. Those are Magda’s domain. Which is partly why I’m sitting up here , cloaked in the shadows, watching the dancers.
Well, not dancers, plural.
One dancer, singular.
I understand that I’ve already crossed a major line with her, and that being here is only fueling a fire within me that should not be stoked.
But I’m here because of a lie I keep telling myself, which is that my interest in Brooklyn Ellis is professional. That I see a tremendously talented dancer who just needs a small nudge to go from very good to great.
To be honest, I am interested in helping her achieve greatness. She’s phenomenal, but there’s so much potential being wasted. She doesn’t follow through. She hangs back when she should keep going, figuratively speaking. There’s a fear in her that prevents her from taking that final leap.
But helping her push past that is not my lone focus. Not when the taste of her lips still lingers in my brain, keeping me up at night.
…In more ways than one.
I feel my cock swell as my mind replays her lips searing to mine. Remembers the softness of them, her tongue swirling against mine.
With a flinch, I try for the millionth time since it happened to shove those thoughts away.
No. She’s too young. She’s too pure .
And I’m a fucking plague.
I take a slow, deep breath.
I’ll keep coaching Brooklyn. Even if that spot in Moscow she covets so much is off the table, I’ll continue what we started. Talent that rare deserves to be nurtured, and supported, and stoked like a fire.
But everything else?
I blow out a breath as I watch her spin across the stage.
It has to stop.
I wait for her to leave so that I can talk to her without any of the other dancers around. They’re an insanely gossipy bunch.
Eventually, even Magda has gone home for the night, but I still haven’t seen Brooklyn leave.
I make a quick tour of the theater. The rehearsal studios are empty. So is the gym downstairs where Evelina Nikitin, unfortunately, saw me lifting weights without a shirt on earlier. Poor girl ran out red as a beet.
Finally, there’s only one place I haven’t checked.
Brooklyn shrieks, whirling and yanking the towel around her wet body as I step into the women’s changing room. Her eyes bulge, staring at me as I stand impassively by the door, staring right back at her.
“You—!” She sucks in a gasping breath. “You can’t be in here!”
“I own the building, Ms. Ellis.” I pause, then clear my throat. “I’d like to address what happened yesterday.”
She starts to open her mouth, but I shake my head. “Let me finish. I’d like to continue to…coach you. I cannot and will not promise you the Imperiya Korona apprenticeship . But I can promise to remove whatever obstacle it is that’s stopping you from?—”
One second, I’m trotting out the little speech I’ve rehearsed seven times. The next, she’s turning slightly, and the overhead lights catch what I thought was a shadow around her eye.
It’s…not a shadow.
Brooklyn gasps sharply as I surge across the room, right into her personal space. She whimpers when I grab her jaw, twisting her head to the side and angling her face better into the light.
Pure rage ignites like napalm inside me, venom spreading through my soul.
“Who the fuck hit you.”
The words erupt more viciously than I meant. But there’s no reeling them back in. No taming my rage. No tamping down my fury.
Brooklyn shakes under my grip, her lip trembling as her eyes slide to mine.
“It’s...nothing. Really.”
I shake my head. “Extinguish your ideas of the Imperiya Korona giving a fuck about pedigree for one goddamn second.”
She swallows heavily, her breath coming in short, quick bursts as I keep her jaw between my fingers.
“I’m not asking again, Ms. Ellis.”
She pulls back slightly, my hand sliding from her skin when she tugs the towel a little tighter around her body.
“I fell. It’s nothing.” She forces a tight laugh. “It’s funny, really. I was?—”
“ Stop ,” I growl. “I’ve been boxing for longer than you’ve been alive.” I nod my chin at her eye. “ That is not from a fall. That’s a punch. And you’re going to tell me who the fuck threw it.”
She pales, wetting her lips nervously.
I soften my tone as best I can. “Was it someone at work? Your other work, I mean.” She stiffens. “Brooklyn?—”
“I need that job, okay?” she says hoarsely. “It was just an accident.”
“Tell me the accident’s fucking name,” I growl.
“ Please .”
I don’t enjoy it, but I force myself to ignore the pleading tone in her voice and not see the desperation in her eyes. I understand that Brooklyn’s financial situation is bad right now, I really do. But there’s no way in hell I’m letting this go.
“ Please , just?—”
“Where else do you work, Brooklyn.”
Her face scrunches up, her lip retreating between her teeth.
“ Tell me .”
Her eyes drop to the floor between us.
“I…I cocktail waitress at a club,” she says quietly.
“Which. One.”
Her brow caves, her eyes still glued to the floor. “ Please ...”
“Just tell me where?—”
“Look,” she snaps, looking up at me. “I know you never have to worry about where your next custom-tailored suit comes from, or how you're going to pay for it. But I have that worry before every fucking meal .” Her chin thrusts out defiantly and proudly. “I can handle myself.”
“And you can give me the name of the club, or I can follow you for as long as it takes, until I figure it out.”
Her face falls. Again, I soften my voice.
“I won’t get you in trouble with your employer. That’s not my goal. But you’re going to tell me the name of this place, Brooklyn.”
She looks down at her hands.
“The Mirage, in Greenpoint.”
My brows knit. “That’s…”
Fucking hell .
Viciousness growls inside me when the penny drops.
“I just waitress there,” she blurts. “ Please . I really, really need?—”
“I won’t do a thing to jeopardize your job.”
I lift her chin with the back of my knuckles, bringing her eyes to mine. She looks so alone right now. So at the mercy of the world. It brings out this compulsion in me to shield her from anything and everything.
…Starting with whoever the fuck laid hands on her at that fucking place.
“I wasn’t lying before, Brooklyn,” I say quietly. “I do understand what it means to be desperate. To go hungry. More than you know.” I take a deep breath. “Go home. We’ll begin again tomorrow after your rehearsal day is done.”
Her brow furrows. “I have work?—”
“You’ll skip it.”
Her lips twist unhappily. “I… really can’t.”
“ Can’t is no longer in your vocabulary.” My eyes harden. “Do you want this? Perfection, I mean.”
“Will perfection get me the Imperiya Korona ?”
I flinch inwardly at the sharp sensation stabbing into my chest.
“It can’t hurt.”
She smiles weakly and nods. “Then I want it.”
“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I’m suddenly very aware just how much I’m looming over her, right in her personal space.
My gaze drags over her, lingering on the little droplets of water from the shower slowly trickling down her blonde locks.
The dewy softness of her cheeks. The strong lines of her neck and shoulders, above the towel wrapped around her body.
The swell of her pert breasts under that towel.
The scent of her shampoo.
The fullness of her lips and the sweetness?—
I whirl away from her.
“That will be all for now,” I growl sternly. “Don’t be late tomorrow, and don’t waste my time.”
I only get two steps away before her voice stops me.
“Are you being a dick because of what happened the other night? Or?—”
She startles when I abruptly turn back to her.
“What happened the other night won’t be happening again,” I admonish her. “Is that clear?”
Her face goes from slightly embarrassed to outright insulted.
“ Excuse me ?”
“What you pulled the other night?—”
“Oh, fuck you !” she spits.
“ Language , Ms. Ellis.”
She just glares at me.
“Are we clear on the terms of the arrangement?”
Her lips curl into a sneer. “ Crystal ,” she snaps. “Trust me, that will not be a problem.”
My eyes narrow. “I don’t know what sort of arrangement you typically have with a man you need something from?—”
“ Fuck you ?—”
She shudders as I storm right back into her, grabbing her jaw in my hand.
That fucking mouth.
Brooklyn shivers, a breathy little sound tumbling from her lips. Her pulse throbs erratically under my fingers brushing against her throat, and when her eyes lock with mine…
God help me.
All I want to do is pin her to the locker, rip the fucking towel away, and bury my swollen cock in her cunt until all she knows is the feel of my claim on her.
But I can’t do that.
I won’t .
My hand drops from her jaw. Slowly, with the concentration and focus of a fucking Zen monk, I back away, trying not to focus on her chest heaving under the towel, her flushed cheeks, or the tempting way her full lips are parted.
“To answer your question,” I growl, “I’m not being a dick because of the other night.” I look at her coldly. “I’m just kind of an asshole in general.”
I turn and leave. Because if she says another goddamn word or looks at me for one more second with those sinfully innocent eyes, there’s no power on Earth that will keep me from her.