Chapter 3 #3
So beautiful that I don’t know where else to look.
I also don’t know how to stop myself from asking, “W-what do you want?”
This is what he wanted, isn’t it?
Yeah, because his features grow warm with satisfaction before he drawls, “You.”
“What?”
Slowly, those eyes of his travel all the way down to my white ballet flats. “I hear you’re a ballerina.”
My right foot tries to climb on to my left under his scrutiny. “Yes.”
He lifts his eyes. “Then I want you to spin like one.”
“I-I’m sorry?”
He shifts on his feet, making himself bigger somehow, pushing at the very fabric of the air, as he explains, “You like to dance, don’t you? So I want you to dance. For me.”
I blink at him.
I think I heard him wrong. He cannot possibly be asking what I think he’s asking.
Just to be sure, I question, “You want me to dance for you?”
“Yeah.”
“In exchange for you keeping this between us?”
“That’s the idea.”
My mouth falls open. “You’re insane.”
“I’d like to think of myself as someone who sees an opportunity and seizes it.”
“What opportunity?”
“I was bored and then a ballerina fell into my lap. A good one too, from what I’ve heard.” Again, he gives me a once-over. “So I want you to entertain me.”
I ignore the flush of pleasure at his off-handed compliment. Mostly because it’s off-handed and followed by a very presumptuous demand.
And also because, as I said, he’s insane.
“What do you think this is?” I ask, exasperated. “A movie from the fifties or something? Where you’re a cigar-smoking villain and you’re blackmailing me into dancing for you.”
“A cigar-smoking villain.” He’s amused. “I’m known to smoke a cigarette here and there and I usually prefer the term asshole but I like that. It has a certain flair to it.”
“I’m not going to dance for you.”
“Well then, I’m going to enjoy watching Ledger lose his shit in the next game when I tell him how pretty his sister looked, standing before me, begging me to keep her secret.”
I clench my teeth in anger.
Have I said that I hate him?
I really, really do.
“Fine. Fine,” I snap at him. “I’ll dance for you. But just for making me do that, you also have to apologize to my brother.”
“Apologize.”
“Yes. You provoked him on the field today. I don’t know what you said but you’re going to apologize to him when you see him next.”
A flash of irritation tightens his mouth. “Just so you know, I don’t do well with orders.”
I go up on my tiptoes then.
Because he’s so tall and I want to get up in his face, which of course he notices, my feet arched up and my calves strained.
And something in my struggle to appear all strong in front of him turns his gaze even more molten.
“Well, you’re gonna have to start,” I tell him, “because I’m not dancing until you promise me.”
He watches me silently for a few moments before stepping back.
And I think it’s over.
I’ve called his bluff.
But then, he fishes something out of his back pocket, his cell phone, and presses a few buttons on the screen.
Suddenly, the music that was a dull sound in the background flares to life. The air fills with heavy bass and people back at the party cheer.
He commands in a husky voice, “Make it good.”
Just like that, he’s called my bluff and I’m supposed to dance for him.
How did this happen? How is this my life?
When I woke up this morning all I wanted to do was get through my classes, go to the game, and go back home to the scarf that I’m knitting for Conrad.
But somehow, I’m here, about to dance for my brother’s rival.
That’s not the worst part.
The worst part is that I want to.
I want to dance for him.
I’ve been wanting to dance for him ever since I saw him play for the first time three years ago. When both he and Ledger made the team.
God.
I’m so embarrassed to admit that. So ashamed.
But the thing is that the way he plays soccer, the way he moves across the field, with grace and beauty and a certain recklessness, fills me with music.
Not to mention, the music that he’s put on… is gorgeous.
It’s a mix of hip hop and rock and when the word ballerina flutters in the air, I let go of the tree that I’ve been clinging to and step forward.
When the guy in the song calls me his – his ballerina – it feels like he’s calling me that.
The Wild Mustang who’s asked me to dance for him.
And when the guy follows it up with how his ballerina drops her body like a stripper, I have to lick my dried lips and wipe my sweaty hands on my dress.
I should be offended – this song reeks of dirty, filthy sex – but I’m not.
I’m not even nervous.
There isn’t the slightest bit of hesitation in me.
My body is buzzing with excitement, with shooting stars, and when I close my eyes for a second, I see light behind my eyelids.
I can’t see anything on his face though.
It’s expressionless, tight.
But when I take a deep breath and raise my arms, his features change.
They become somehow sharper and more chiseled but also fluid.
I think it’s his lips that part slightly when I take my first spin and his eyes that shine like diamonds when I begin to sway my hips to the beat.
And after that my eagerness to dance for him knows no bounds.
I’m dying, actually dying, to spin for him, to sway and move.
To rock my hips and bite my lips.
To look him in his wolf eyes that grow alert with my every leap and jump. More on edge.
In fact, his whole body seems on edge, excited even.
His whole body moves to keep me in sight as I circle around him.
His feet spin when I do.
His fists clench when I throw my arms in the air.
His mouth parts when mine does to take in a shaky breath.
God.
Reed Roman Jackson is just as eager as me.
Just as tightly wound and I’ve never seen him this way.
I’ve never seen him excited for anything.
The knowledge of that, the knowledge that his heart might be racing just as fast as my heart and that the beads of sweat on his forehead match the beads of sweat on mine, makes me dizzy.
It makes me drunk and drugged and so high on his attention that when the song crescendos and I do my last spin, I stumble.
The world tips and I lose my balance. The ground seems to have vanished from under my feet and I have no choice but to fall.
He catches me at the last second though.
His arm goes around my waist and instead of crashing down to the ground, I go crashing into his body. My hands land on his ribs and my fingers clutch onto his hoodie.
A thousand thoughts, a thousand sensations, explode in my mind, but the very first that jumps out is that it’s soft.
His hoodie.
It’s the softest, coziest, plushest thing I’ve ever touched. Even more than the sweaters that I knit for my brothers.
The thought that immediately follows is that no wonder he loves it, his hoodie.
No wonder he wears it all the time, because everything else about him is hard and harsh and sharp.
His strong arm that’s wrapped around my waist. The power in his thighs that are pressed against my stomach.
Panting and looking up into his animal eyes, I whisper, “I know that it might not matter, coming from me, but…” I swallow, gripping his hoodie tighter, my brain foggy and my tongue spewing words I don’t understand.
“But I think you’re amazing. O-on the field, I mean.
You’re just so gorgeous and reckless and feral, the way you…
play. It’s no wonder that they call you the Wild Mustang. It’s no wonder…”
I trail off, embarrassed.
What the heck am I saying?
Why am I telling him this?
I shouldn’t. These are my private thoughts. Traitor thoughts that I shouldn’t even entertain.
“No wonder what?” he rasps, his strong, muscled arm squeezing my waist.
I can’t stop the words from tumbling out of my mouth then. “No wonder why girls can’t stop watching you.”
No wonder why I can’t stop watching you.
A blush fans over my cheeks as soon as I say it and I lower my eyes.
“It does,” he says.
I look up. “What?”
He squeezes my waist again. “It matters. Coming from you.”
“Oh.”
“And you’re not a princess.”
“I’m not?”
He shakes his head slowly, his eyes all intense and piercing. “You’re a fairy.”
I lick my lips then and his wolf eyes flare and I open my tingling mouth to say something — not sure what — when there’s a shout.
“Jackson!”
My eyes pop wide at that voice and my fingers in his hoodie tighten even more.
Because I know it. I know that voice too.
It belongs to someone I know and someone I love and someone I’m completely betraying by being here.
My brother, Ledger.