7. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
Pasha
I added more weights to the bar and then settled underneath it. Frustration coursed through my veins, and I needed to get rid of these excess emotions.
A hot shower and my right hand hadn’t done anything to snap me out of this foul mood. Anger and confusion had been my companions for almost twenty-four hours.
Every time I closed my eyes, her lips were pressed to my ear, her longing-filled words flooding my senses. Had I said “yes,” would I feel better or worse right now?
Last time, I went along with her seduction, and she froze me out afterward. I put a stop to it this time—how I managed to turn her down, I still wasn’t sure—and I was convinced things between us were going to be even worse.
I’d yet to lay eyes on her today, but that encounter was coming. In a haze of blood rushing to the wrong head, I’d suggested I needed another teacher. I was such an idiot.
“You need a spot?” Tyler asked from across the room.
We’d taken to working out together every day when I wasn’t on active bodyguard duty. I considered cutting out the weight lifting when I said “yes” to the dance. But I needed this time .
All my spare attention should be devoted to getting the right hip sway.
I closed my eyes and ground my teeth at the reminder of my hands on Alyssa’s waist, the sensual, rhythmic movement of her hips.
Every sway of her hips made me think about how it would feel to have her on top of me, the gentle rock as she slid up and down my shaft.
I’d gotten so hard watching her and touching her.
All my willpower was consumed already when she turned in my arms and her lips sought mine.
“No spot.” I hefted the weights over my head like they weighed nothing. When I was done these reps, I’d add more weight. Going into the next dance session, I’d be too exhausted to care whether I was doing it right, whether her body drew me to her like a moth to a flame.
I’d never experienced such intense lust. My relationship with Zoya was based on friendship and affection. There was a lot of laughter and teasing between us. The sex had been good, but it had never felt out of control.
This thing with Alyssa was overwhelming. She was in my blood, running through like oxygen. I didn’t want to tease her or laugh with her. I wanted to rip off her clothes, feast on her body. Satiate my hunger. It felt primal.
Dangerous. Our connection was dangerous. Men who felt like this did dangerous things.
“You all right? You seem a bit tense.” Tyler’s voice was filled with concern.
I didn’t want to talk about Alyssa, even if she was the only thing I could think about. “Fine. I’m fine.”
“You know, if you’re stressed about the dance, I can talk to Mia.
It was pretty flipping fast. I—there’s no way I would ever master that, let alone in three months.
” The clank of the free weights connecting bounced around the room, and then Tyler was standing beside me.
“Or if there’s anything else going on… Happy to talk, that’s all I’m saying. ”
Could I ask Tyler if these urges were normal? They were so intense they scared me. I’d slept with other women before Zoya and after. Those encounters happened without too much consideration. The women were there and interested in me, and I hadn’t objected. Easy. Sex was easy.
In some ways, the same thing happened with Alyssa too.
Except I spent months memorizing her curves, listening for the sound of her voice, reveling in her delighted laugh whenever I was lucky enough to catch it.
For me, there was a connection before we collided in that curtained room. Was that the difference?
No matter what, I wouldn’t become one of those men who let their passions overrule their common sense. With Alyssa, it would be so easy for lust to lead and consume.
While I felt stupid for asking her for another dance instructor, maybe my first instinct was right. She was gorgeous, and I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted any woman, but desire wasn’t a solid foundation for a relationship, assuming she’d even want one.
If I wanted casual, I could have had affairs hundreds of times already—a woman in every city, maybe more than one. My relationship with Zoya ruined any chance of those sorts of pursuits. Without feelings, sex was pleasurable but hollow, empty.
I didn’t know exactly what I was seeking, but it was more than random women and less than this lightning bolt with Alyssa.
Who would choose this soul-burning desire? My love for Zoya had never been painful until she died .
“I’ll take your lack of response as a ‘no.’” Tyler’s tone was wry as he headed back to his own workout. “You have to meet Mia and Alyssa in ten, right?”
I glanced at the clock on the wall and set down my weights. I didn’t know how many reps I’d completed, but I wasn’t tired enough, wasn’t sore enough to use what I did in here as an excuse for poor dancing. After heaving off the bench, I added more weights to each side of the bar.
“You know,” Tyler said from across the room, “I used to work out like that too.”
“Oh?” I eyed the numbers and calculated the weight. Another twenty-five pounds on each side might cause me to fail. Perhaps I needed Tyler to spot for this last set. Drained—I wanted to be drained.
“Yeah, I was grappling with my feelings for Mia. I figured if I made myself tired enough, my emotions would be easier to handle.”
Their situation wasn’t like mine. At the time, they were dealing with a surprise baby, their different lifestyles, Mia’s upbringing, and their age gap.
I knew early on they were well suited to each other.
Someone only needed to be in a room with them for a little while to observe their connection, the way he took care of her, the way she looked at him like a flower turning itself to the sun.
“Why do you do it now?” I settled under the bar.
“Because—” Tyler came over and stood at my shoulders, ready to spot without being asked. “She likes my muscles, and I like her happy.” He grinned. “And it’s still good stress relief. Her life—our life—has balls in the air constantly, and you can’t drop any of them.”
I grunted as I struggled to get the bar off the rack, and my arms shook when I brought it low to my chest before pressing up again. “Not me,” I said. “I do it to be strong. ”
“Well,” Tyler said with a chuckle, “that’s a shit ton of weight, so I think it’s working.”
I did five more reps before Tyler helped guide the bar back to its resting place. My arms were jelly, and the ache made me happy. Whether I picked up steps or stepped on toes in the next half an hour, I wouldn’t care at all.
I stumbled again and cursed under my breath.
Mia frowned and pursed her lips. She was clearly holding back some sort of comment.
Pushing past my limits in the gym right before coming to dance was a terrible plan.
Unsustainable. My body was wobbly from exhaustion and strained muscles.
I was looser than I’d been the other day but far from precise.
“Uh.” Alyssa turned away from us. “That was close, Pasha. Just like, a bit more of a shift in the hips.” Unlike yesterday, there was no demonstration. Her tone wasn’t even convincing.
She hadn’t met my gaze since I arrived almost thirty minutes ago. Mia, a good reader of body language, picked up on our vibes and had made more than one what the hell gesture.
Next practice would be better. Every practice, we’d get more used to being around each other.
Maybe my problem was because I wasn’t around her enough .
Could that be the solution? Spend more time with her, not less, and my desire would decrease with familiarity.
Any sexual attraction I felt toward Mia when I first started working for her was long gone.
She was my little sister now. Perhaps that was the ticket with Alyssa as well .
I missed a step, and a string of Russian curse words flew out of my mouth. I’d taught most of them to Mia, and she burst out laughing at my colorful choices.
“Okay,” Mia said, pretending to wave a flag. “We’re done for today. I’m waving the white flag for you, big guy.”
I grimaced. We were leaving North Carolina tonight, and I had to rearrange the guarding schedule for the next few legs of the tour. Some of the guys on the team had family in the next state and wanted time to see them. A reasonable request.
Normally, I didn’t mind taking on extra shifts and quite often worked more than I needed to.
But I was going to need every spare moment to master these steps in three months.
Basic footwork was still an issue after three sessions, and I wasn’t any closer to nailing anything with confidence.
Without the basics, I couldn’t progress to any of the other steps Alyssa had choreographed.
“Yes, yes,” I said. “You have to go.” Our schedules were synced on my watch, so I always knew where Tyler, Mia, and Victoria were or were supposed to be.
“I gotta go,” Mia agreed, grabbing her towel and water bottle. “But I’ll catch up with you later. You’re on duty during the concert, right?”
I gave a curt nod and began packing my things. Mia thanked Alyssa for her time on the way out the door. When the latch clicked into place, the air grew thick with tension.
Did I mention yesterday? Apologize? Tell her I couldn’t decide if I should be spending a lot more time with her or never see her again?
This was the in-between, and I didn’t like the tension, the longing, the constant awareness of her presence in a room.
I had to push us in one direction or another—never together again or all the time, like family .
Which direction was the best?
Alyssa sucked in an audible breath. “So, um, Jazz has some swing dance background. I haven’t asked her yet, but I’m sure she’ll be okay with spending some time with you.” Her words came out in a rush.
I raised my head and examined her. Of all the people she could have suggested on the tour, she picked the one person I could not stand spending any time with. I barely tolerated her now, and I made sure to hardly see her. “No one else?”
Her shoulders rose, palms splayed toward the ceiling. Her brown eyes, a sucker punch to my gut, were filled with unease. “I—I don’t know. I can ask around. But I wasn’t sure how Mia would feel about me potentially giving away details.”
Mia was in top-secret mode. Every person she talked to was given an NDA before Mia opened her mouth to utter the word wedding .
The engagement had been splashed all over social media, and her fans clamored for details about when they’d seal the deal.
She’d hired the same wedding planner as Ellie Cooper-Burgess, a famous actress.
Mia had watched a million clips of her wedding to Wyatt on YouTube.
According to Mia, they’d achieved the perfect balance between romance and spectacle.
If that was the aim, I supposed it was good to have a mentor.
I also realized Alyssa was right.
“No, no, no.” I rubbed the top of my head. Mia wouldn’t want more people knowing details of the wedding, even something as trivial as her dance routine. Not that Mia would see any detail as trivial.
Never being alone with Alyssa again wasn’t going to solve my dancing problem. So I supposed I had to suggest the alternative. “Will you still help me? Every day? For a long time, every day? ”
Her eyebrows shot up, and her lips formed an O of surprise. “Me? Every day? For a long time?”
“Yes.” More words were on the tip of my tongue, but they were being muddled with Russian ones, as though I didn’t know my own mind.
“Maybe you don’t have so much time.” Hope rose in my chest, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to say “yes” or turn me down.
I needed her to say “yes,” but I couldn’t decide if I wanted her to.
“Oh, um.” She bit her lip and twisted her ponytail around her finger. “Every day?”
I nodded. “Yes, if you will.”
A complex interplay of emotions ran across her face and settled on something that resembled annoyance. “But yesterday, you asked me to find you someone else. You acted like—like you didn’t want what happened between us, and I mean, it was pretty clear you did.”
I puffed out my cheeks and wished I could think faster in English. The words were there in Russian, and I could find the equivalent in English eventually, but when I was flustered, the search was painstaking. “I’m sorry. Not again. Won’t happen again.”
Her lips twisted. She picked up her water bottle and squirted it into her mouth.
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry too. Maybe I read that whole thing wrong.
I shouldn’t have read anything into the episode at all.
” She kept her eyes averted. “My ex-boyfriend told me he didn’t have any control over the things his dick wanted.
His brain wasn’t in control.” She grimaced and threw her bottle in her bag.
“I’ll help you whenever I can, and you know, I’ll behave professionally, okay?
I won’t jump you again without your consent.
” She laughed. “Now that’s a sentence I never thought I’d utter—heard it a few times, though.
” She held up a finger as she slung her bag over her shoulder and opened the practice-room door. “See you tomorrow.”
I watched her go with a sinking sensation.
I wanted to stop her, to call after her, to tell her I had wanted her, still wanted her, and she had no reason to be sorry.
But I shouldn’t stir the hot coals between us.
Best to let the fire be smothered with the monotony of routine, of familiarity.
Only a matter of time before the sight of her didn’t cause this sharp twist in my gut. Time was all I needed.