Chapter 15
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
IGGY
There was nothing better than that first stretch when you’d just opened your eyes. When my back popped a few times, I groaned in pleasure. My limbs ached in the most delicious way, and there was a tenderness in my ass that, for once, I didn’t mind.
Waking up next to Bodhi in his hotel room felt strange. Not because it was the first time we’d shared a bed—we had, after his panic attack a few days ago. But this was different. This was the first time we’d woken up together after sex.
The first time I’d woken up with anyone after sex.
It was strange. But it was also . . . nice.
His face was smushed into the pillow, making these soft, snuffling sounds that weren’t quite snores.
His hair was a mess, and he’d drooled sometime in the night.
And still, he looked beautiful. In sleep, Bodhi looked peaceful in a way he rarely did while awake.
Even onstage, he was all adrenaline and sharp edges, energy wound tight.
Now he was calm, loose, like the world hadn’t yet asked anything of him.
I hoped he was dreaming about something lovely.
I leaned in and pressed my lips to his, not caring that we hadn’t brushed our teeth yet. I just needed to know he was real. Needed to be sure last night hadn’t been a dream, that the tattooed, naked body beside me wasn’t a trick of my imagination.
When his lips parted and his tongue brushed mine, I knew he was awake. Bodhi’s fingers curled into my unbrushed hair, pulling me closer. I moaned when his semi-hard cock nudged against mine.
“Good morning,” I panted when I finally pulled back.
He grinned, eyes still heavy with sleep. “A good morning, indeed.”
“Sleep okay?”
He nodded, rubbing at his eyes. “Did you?”
“You fucked all my energy out of me,” I replied, smirking.
He huffed a laugh and kissed the tip of my nose. “It’s my honour to serve.”
Bodhi stretched, arms lifting over his head, then sank back into the mattress. He kicked the duvet off the bed, baring both of us to the room.
“What are you doing?” I asked, raising a brow.
Morning light spilled through the thin curtains, warm and soft, painting his pale skin gold beneath the dark tapestry of ink that covered almost every inch of him.
He rolled onto his side and reached for me, fingers trailing over my ribs before settling at the dip of my waist. His hand slid to my hip, thumb brushing over the scars that lay half hidden beneath the tattoos along my thigh and hip bone. I watched his brow furrow.
“Are these from your injury?” he asked quietly.
I nodded, my voice suddenly lodging somewhere behind my ribs.
The scars were ugly. I’d covered them with ink as soon as they’d healed enough.
Bright pink roses and a pale snake, bold and busy, disguising the thick lines of scar tissue beneath.
At first glance, you couldn’t see them. Only if you knew where to look.
Only at certain angles, or up close, where the scars cut through petals and scales like fault lines.
When they were fresh, angry red and raw, I couldn’t stand to look at them.
They were a reminder of everything I’d lost. My career.
My dream. All gone in a single, stupid moment.
I avoided mirrors that showed anything below the waist. Closed my eyes when I pulled on trousers or leggings.
Even touching the skin made my stomach turn, fingers catching on uneven ridges until I felt like crying or throwing up.
Once the doctor declared them fully healed, fading from red to pale pink and silver, I visited a friend who was also a tattoo artist. Though “friend” was a generous term.
He was also one of my many dealers. But he was talented.
So, in exchange for covering the scars, I let him fuck me after each session.
I’m pretty sure it took more sessions than strictly necessary. But the result was worth it. I could look at my body again. Touch it. Wear short skirts and tiny shorts without bracing myself for questions. Without wanting to carve the skin away just to stop seeing what it reminded me of.
For the first time in a long time, my body felt like mine again.
“Will you tell me about it?”
Of course Bodhi would notice. After all the effort I’d gone through to cover the scars, to disguise them with ink and colour, he’d still found them.
And now he was asking for my origin story.
Asking, without knowing it, for the moment everything fell apart.
The start of my downfall, and the beginning of the spiral.
I’d told him about the injury, vaguely. He knew I had a dodgy hip, that I couldn’t dance anymore, not like before. But that was all.
And just like every other time this subject surfaced, my instinct was to shut down. To throw my walls up as high as I could and hide behind them. To dodge the question entirely. Maybe distract him with sex. That had always worked before.
But with Bodhi, even the thought of that felt wrong.
He wasn’t asking out of morbid curiosity. He wasn’t being nosy. He just wanted to know me. To see what was under the mask I wore every day. He’d done it in rehab, gently and patiently, and here he was again.
His hand slid from my hip to my cheek, brushing away tears I hadn’t realised were there.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he whispered.
I reached up and gripped his wrist, grounding myself in the steady beat of his pulse. A reminder that I wasn’t back in the past. I wasn’t falling. I was here in the present. With him.
“We were doing a production of Giselle,” I began, my throat dry. “Rehearsals had moved onto the stage, and the choreographers decided to make some last-minute changes to use the space better.”
His fingers threaded through my hair, stroking my scalp in slow, soothing passes. He didn’t interrupt. Didn’t rush me. He just stayed there, touching me, listening.
“It was a number in the first act. There were a lot of us onstage, and with the changes, everyone’s positions were different from what we were used to in the studio.” I swallowed. “I don’t know if I misjudged the space, or if I just got too caught up in the dance, but . . .”
I closed my eyes.
“I did a grand jeté. This big leap with my legs split in the air. But I landed too close to the edge.”
The memory rushed back, vivid and merciless. The way the floor seemed to vanish beneath me. That sick drop in my stomach as I fell. The sound of a horrifying crack.
God, the sound.
“I fell,” I whispered. “I fell off the stage and into the orchestra pit. Landed straight on my hip.”
Bodhi pulled me in immediately, wrapping me up so that my head was tucked beneath his chin. I kissed his neck softly, needing the reassurance of his warmth, enjoying the way he held me back.
“I don’t remember much after that,” I continued. “I blacked out from the pain. When I woke up, I had pins in my hip, and a tube in my cock because I couldn’t even get up to pee.”
He shuddered, and despite myself, a weak smile tugged at my mouth.
“The official diagnosis was a displaced acetabular fracture with a labral tear. Basically, I shattered the socket and tore the cartilage that keeps the joint stable.”
“Jesus,” Bodhi muttered.
“Yeah. It hurt like a motherfucker.” I let out a humourless laugh. “Metal in my hip. Surgical scars. A nice little warning about early arthritis if I was lucky.”
He tightened his hold. “That’s . . . a lot.”
“They said I would still be able to walk, after months of physio. That I’d be able to exercise gently. But the kind of strain ballet puts on your body? The jumps, the rotations, the landings?” I shook my head. “My hip would never survive it.”
Bodhi’s arm tightened around me.
“So that was it,” I continued. “Years of training, everything I’d built my life around, gone in one conversation with a doctor who didn’t even look me in the eye when he said it.”
Bodhi scoffed softly. “That’s brutal.”
“My friends from the company came to visit while I was still in hospital,” I said. “They brought flowers. Chocolates. Told me how strong I was.” I exhaled through my nose. “But all I could see on their faces was relief. Not for me. For themselves.”
I’m glad it wasn’t me.
“I lost my place in the company as soon as the diagnosis was confirmed,” I went on. “Officially, it was framed as medical leave. But we all knew what it meant.”
Bodhi muttered, “Assholes.”
I shrugged. “A dancer who can’t dance doesn’t belong in a ballet company. That’s just how it works. There’s always someone younger, lighter, uninjured, ready to take your spot.”
His hand slid up my arm, thumb tracing slow, grounding circles.
“I think I knew from the moment I woke up with a hip full of metal that it was over,” I admitted quietly. “Even before anyone said it out loud.” I hesitated. “But losing ballet wasn’t actually the worst part.”
Bodhi shifted slightly. “No?”
“The pain,” I said. “That was the worst of it.”
The memories pressed in whether I wanted them to or not. The nights I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t get comfortable. The way my body felt foreign, hostile. Like it was punishing me.
“I cried to the doctors,” I said. “Begged for stronger meds. Tried heat packs, ice packs, physio, acupuncture—literally anything they suggested—but nothing touched it.”
I laughed, hollow. “Except the morphine in hospital. That worked.”
Bodhi went still.
“But you don’t get to stay on morphine unless you’re dying,” I added. “So they sent me home with prescriptions that might as well have been sugar pills.”
My skin started to itch, that familiar restless discomfort crawling under it. I forced myself to keep going.
“About a year later, I met up with someone from the Royal,” I said. “She was American and had a bottle of oxycodone she wasn’t using anymore.” My heart thudded hard against my ribs. “They don’t really prescribe it here. But she said it helped her after a past surgery. Said I deserved some relief.”
Bodhi’s hand moved slowly up and down my spine.
“Iggy,” he murmured. “You don’t—”