Chapter 17
LUCY
Oh.
Heat rolls through me like a tidal wave, and my mind immediately goes somewhere wildly extreme, even in a place like this. My eyes dart to his hands and I lick my lips at the thought of them on my hips, and—
Nope. Nope. Absolutely not.
I shove the thought away and lift my chin.
“Okay.” Then I repeat what he said before with a smile, “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
For a second, he just watches me. Then he slowly spreads his legs wider and juts his chin down once toward the space between them.
“Come here, bunny.”
My pulse stutters hard enough I feel it in my throat.
This is fine. Totally fine.
I can do this and totally be professional.
I step between his knees, trying not to think about how encompassing he feels this close. How the chair suddenly seems too small for him. How his thighs bracket mine without even touching me.
“Good,” he says quietly, and slides his hands from the arms of the chair to fold into his lap. “Hands on the chair. Wherever feels comfortable at first.”
I obey before I can think too hard, bracing one hand on one side of the chair, then the other on the curved rim that outlines his shoulder.
The chair is so large, I barely have to lean down, but my boobs are right in his face.
Music—I don’t even know what song anymore, my set is long gone—throbs softly through the room while my heartbeat completely abandons rhythm.
“Now close your eyes. Forget whatever you were taught and just feel the beat. I want to see what the music does to you.”
My eyes fall closed, and I let my body just feel. I haven’t been free like this in so long. Without choreography, without real expectation. I listen to the beat and allow my muscles to flow, using my grip on the chair to roll over him, almost touching him, but not quite.
His breathing changes, a slight hitch, and the tiny shift shoots confidence through me before nerves immediately swallow it again.
“There you go,” he murmurs. “See? You already know how to move with me. We’re naturals together.”
My pulse races in my core, and I draw in a heady breath, allowing the beat to drag me with it instead of trying force it to me.
I can feel his gaze everywhere, along my thighs, my waist, the bare skin above my stockings. When my chest nearly brushes his, he groans slightly.
“Good girl.”
My eyes fly open, and the praise sends shivers through me, and my knees nearly buckle. His jaw tenses at the edge of his mask.
Did he regret saying—
“Now straddle me,” he eases deeper into the seat.
Nope. Nope. Guess he didn’t.
“O-okay.” I suck in a breath and try not to overthink it as I climb over him, fitting like a puzzle piece inside the throne around his legs.
My skirt spills around us while my thighs hug the outsides of his hips.
I still haven’t really touched him, my hands rest on either side of his head on the throne for purchase, but I can feel the hard shape of him beneath me anyway.
Heat radiates off him in waves as I begin to lower myself onto him—
“Don’t.”
My brow raises and I stop mid-air. He clears his throat and shifts underneath me. “I mean. Don’t sit on my lap. Not yet. You don’t want it to end too quick, ya know?”
I bite my lip, and his gaze flicks from mine down my body, fluttering a flurry of butterflies in my lower belly.
“Roll your hips for now.”
I nod, then slowly roll my pelvis in a soft circle above him. Then another.
The movement feels awkward at first, way too intimate, but then his focused gaze intensifies with need. There’s no other word to describe it, and suddenly… I don’t feel awkward at all. I feel powerful.
“There,” he says roughly. “That’s it. You’re taking direction so well.”
I shift again, slower this time, lowering just slightly, and feel the unmistakable way his body tenses. He’s just as affected as I am.
“Still nervous?” he asks, his voice deep and thick. “Because you sure as fuck don’t move like you’re nervous anymore.”
My cheeks heat, and I chuckle at him while trying to keep dancing. “Don’t you know bringing that up will just make me think about it again? For someone who’s supposedly helping me feel confident about this, you’re doing a terrible job.”
“I don’t know.” His gaze drifts slowly over me. “Seems like you’re doing just fine on your own.”
The air in the room suddenly feels too warm and thick, like a fresh humid breeze of heat just filtered in through the vents. We both inhale and his intoxicating pepper and bonfire scent mixed with cotton candy and berries is enough to clear my mind completely.
I shift faster without meaning to, and the movement presses me more firmly against the hard line of his thigh.
His hands immediately fist against the chair arms, still not touching me, just watching. Something about the restraint makes my chest ache. It’s so different than before.
“Dance for me, Lucy girl.”
The memory slams into me so hard my body falters, and my eyes squeeze shut automatically.
No. No no no—
“Alice.”
The low command cuts clean through the panic, and warm, gentle hands cup my hip and cheek.
“Eyes on me.”
I blink back into the Flower Room in pieces, taking in the red lantern light, the velvet curtains, the bass vibrating through the room. Him.
Just him.
“You with me?” he asks quietly, his thumb brushing over my cheek.
I nod. “Yeah. I’m with you.”
If he heard the accidental inflection I put into that last word held, he doesn’t draw attention to it, letting me hide behind the words. But when his hands start to pull away, that panic comes back, and I grab his wrists without thinking.
“No.”
He freezes like I slapped him. “No?”
My cheeks burn, and I tighten my grip on his hand on my hip and slowly drag the other down to mirror the other side. Then I squeeze his hands. “I just…” I squeeze his hands. “I think I need you to keep them here.”
His eyes narrow slightly behind the mask. “Alice—”
“Strangers are gonna touch me eventually,” I say quickly, trying to sound casual even though my pulse is losing its mind. “Might as well get used to it.”
Something dark flashes across his face.
“If anybody touches you in a way you don’t want, you come get me. Alright?”
I snort. “You’re not exactly gonna be around all the time, Hatter.”
He seems to regard me carefully before shrugging one shoulder. “Would you like it if I was?”
The question drizzles over me like a warm summer shower before a storm. A warning I want to dance in.
I haven’t had someone constant I could count on in months.
Someone I could trust to take care of me?
I’ve never had that, not even as a Troisgarde daughter.
My parents tried everything to make me feel comfortable and safe, but after being stolen under their noses once, my mind and body never allowed myself to trust again.
It’s a screwed up fact that my version of PTSD can’t get around, and I hadn’t realized it before, but it’s made me even lonelier all this time.
Imagining being free of that sick pit in my stomach once and for all sounds…
No, I can’t risk even entertaining it. He’s a job, and my job is to protect myself while getting on his good side, not the other way around.
Just flirt, Alice. Make him think he can trust you.
It’s not my fault something that’s almost the truth might actually be the best play right now.
“I…” I take a deep breath and nod. “… I might.”
The words barely leave my mouth before his grip tightens almost imperceptibly against my hips. It’s nowhere near enough to hurt but is the perfect amount of pressure to make me feel the shift between us.
And God, I feel him everywhere now.
The room has gone hazy around the edges, and all I see are shadows and him. My thighs tighten instinctively around his lap while his thumbs slowly draw circles over the sliver of skin between my corset and skirt.
“Don’t say things you don’t mean, Alice,” he murmurs. “I might start believing you.”
I might start believing them too.
He leans up and whispers against the sensitive skin beneath my ear, pooling desire like warm bourbon in my lower belly.
“Keep going, Alice, before I do something you might regret.”
“I might regret? What about you?” The words come out in a breathy moan, and his lips brush my neck as he chuckles.
“Oh, Alice. I’ll never regret a goddamn thing I do for you.”
My heartbeat skyrockets and all alarm bells blare in my mind, calling me toward him. So naturally, I mentally run away and latch onto what’s safe. Slowly, I roll my hips over him once more, very carefully not lowering my weight.
His jaw flexes and an emotion I’m terrified of shutters behind his gaze.
“There you go,” he finally says roughly. “Slow down. Don’t rush through it.”
I listen, my body moving easier now, my nerves loosening their stranglehold over my muscles one synapse at a time beneath his hands. Every slow grind drags friction between my thighs that’s becoming harder and harder to ignore.
Especially because he still isn’t really touching me. Not the way he could. The way I crave.
My breath grows shallow, sucking in the cotton candy berry scent filling the room, and I find myself settling a little more of my weight into his lap.
The hard steel outline of him presses thick and hot underneath my thigh, and heat flashes through my body so suddenly I nearly lose the rhythm entirely.
His fingers flex hard against my hips.
“Easy,” he says, though he sounds strained now too. “Just ignore it.”
Ignore it? How on earth am I supposed to ignore that?
“Goddammit, Alice, I’m trying to be a gentleman,” he chuckles and I know if we had proper lighting I’d be red as a strawberry right now.
“Did I actually say that out loud?” I whisper-hiss, and he outright laughs this time, a deliciously carefree sound that draws a smile from me too.
“You did. Now finish this dance, woman. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it much longer.”