Chapter 5 Emma #2
Bones goes very still beside me. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” I wrap my arms tight around my drawn-up legs. “I just—what if I want more?”
The words hover between us like smoke.
“More what, swan?”
“More time. More . . .“ I gesture between us, frustrated. “Not just you showing up when I’m in trouble. Not just emergency calls and rescue missions. Maybe you could come to New York more often. Maybe I could come back to Stoneheart for regular visits. We could try long-distance, or—”
“That’s not what you’re asking.”
His voice cuts through my rambling and I stop, heart hammering. “What?”
“That’s not the question.” He sits forward, the sheet pooling around his waist. “You’re talking about logistics. Schedules. Geography.”
“Because those things matter—”
“They don’t.” He says it so calmly, so certainly, that it steals my breath. “Not for what you’re really asking.”
My chest tightens. “Then what am I asking?”
His eyes hold mine. “Whether you’re ready to stop fighting.”
“Fighting what?” But my voice comes out strained because some part of me already knows.
“Who you are. Where you belong.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yeah, I do. You’re part of the club, swan. MC princess. You belong in Stoneheart.” He reaches out, his hand cupping my face. “With me.”
My throat closes up at his words. He has to be wrong.
“That’s not—” I shake my head. “You don’t know what I want.”
“Yeah, swan. I do.”
The words make me want to scream. Or cry. Or both.
“You think you know me so well? You think because you’ve been watching me like a damned stalker for thirteen years you understand what I need? I’ve built a life in New York, Bones. A career. I’m a principal dancer. I have an apartment, friends, a routine. I’ve worked for ten years to—”
“Build a cage.”
I freeze. “What?”
“That’s what you’re doing. What you’ve been doing.” His voice is gentle but implacable. “Building a cage strong enough to hold whatever it is in you that won’t stay tame.”
“That’s not—” But my voice breaks because somewhere deep in my chest, something resonates like a bell being struck.
No.
No, ballet is my dream. My passion. It’s the thing I chose at thirteen when I left Stoneheart to board at the National Dance Academy. The career I chose when I graduated. And now it’s the life I built that’s mine, that I earned, that no one can take away from me.
Except . . .
Except after years of pushing my body past its limits, my injuries are becoming serious. And instead of feeling devastated, some traitorous part of me feels relief.
Except riding on the back of his bike, wearing his jacket while pressed up against him feels more right than any high-profile performance ever has.
Except I’m sitting here in a motel room in the middle of nowhere with a man that makes the very center of my heart ache with longing. A man who feels more like home than New York ever has.
“You’re wrong,” I whisper, but it sounds hollow even to me.
Bones just watches me, patient as stone. “Am I?”
“Yes.” I need him to be wrong. Need this to be about trauma and adrenaline and not about me running from or to something I can’t name. “You’re talking like I’m some wild thing that needs to run free, but that’s not who I am. I like structure. Rules. Knowing what comes next.”
“You like feeling safe,” he corrects quietly.
“What’s wrong with wanting to feel safe?”
“Nothing.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, the gesture so familiar it hurts. “Except you’re not running toward safe, swan. You’re running from yourself. And we both know it.”
His words lodge like stones in my chest and I struggle to breathe around them.
“I don’t—” Air catches in my throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, his thumb tracing my cheekbone.
“Yeah, you do.”
I swallow hard, my words refusing to work their way up my throat because somewhere underneath the panic and denial, there’s a whisper that sounds suspiciously like truth.
“So what?” I finally manage, shifting back because I can’t think when he’s this close.
“Say you’re right. Say I am running. What am I supposed to do about it?
Throw away a ten-year career that’s the envy of every dancer out there?
Give up everything I’ve built? Come back to Stoneheart and do what exactly?
Be the club princess forever? Take up residence at the clubhouse? Become your—”
I cut myself off, but the word hangs there anyway.
Old lady.
Bones’s expression doesn’t change. “Is that what you want?”
“I asked you first.”
“No, you didn’t. You asked me what you’re supposed to do. That’s different.” He sits back against the headboard, utterly calm. “I’m not going to tell you what to do, Emma. I stopped trying to control you the minute I realized you’d just do the opposite out of spite.”
Despite everything, I almost smile. “Smart man.”
“Sometimes.” His mouth quirks. “Point is, this isn’t about what I want or what you’re supposed to do. It’s about what you’re gonna figure out when you stop running long enough to look at what’s chasing you.”
My throat tightens. “And what if I don’t want to look?”
“Then everything stays exactly the same.” He says it so simply, like it’s that easy. “I’ll take you back to New York, back to your ballet career. I’ll go back to Stoneheart, take my punishment from Stone. We go on like this never happened.”
“But?”
“No but.” His eyes meet mine, dark and certain. “You know where to find me when you’re ready.”
His certainty makes my chest ache.
“What if I’m never ready?” I whisper.
For the first time, something flickers in his expression—not doubt, but something gentler. “Then I wait anyway.”
“That’s—” I shake my head. “That’s not fair to you.”
“Swans mate for life, Emma.” His voice is quiet. “I picked you thirteen years ago. That’s not changing.”
The force of his honesty steals my breath, wiping every coherent thought clean. I can’t do anything but stare at this man who’s been circling me for almost half my life.
“You can’t just—” I stop, searching for words that won’t come. “You can’t just say things like that and expect me to—”
“I’m not expecting anything.” He leans forward, his hand cupping my face again. “I’m just telling you the truth. What you do with it is up to you.”
His thumb traces my bottom lip and I’m drowning in his eyes, in the certainty of him, in the terrifying recognition that he sees me in ways I’ve spent most of my life trying not to see myself.
“Bones—”
“We’ve got tonight,” he says, his voice dropping. “Before you have to decide anything. Before the real world comes crashing back in. Right now, it’s just us. Here. This.”
It’s not a solution. It’s not even really an answer. But it’s a reprieve, and maybe that’s all either of us can offer right now.
“OK,” I whisper. “Tonight.”
He kisses me, slow and deep, and I let myself fall into it. Let myself stop thinking about the morning, about the questions I’m not ready to answer, about all the ways this could hurt.
His hands slide down my body, pushing the sheet away, and I arch into his touch.
“Swan,” he murmurs against my mouth. “My beautiful swan.”
He kisses down my neck, across my collarbone, lower. His hands spread my thighs apart as he settles between them, and when he looks up at me, his eyes are dark with intent.
“Let me worship you,” he says, his breath hot against my skin.
And I—
I let him.