Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
“Five, six, seven—no, your left foot.”
“This is my left foot.”
“That’s your right foot.”
“Isadora.” Mal stops mid-step, looking down at his feet with theatrical confusion. “I’ve had these appendages for over three centuries. I think I know which one is left.”
“Apparently not—” I catch myself, and replay his words. Three centuries. “Centuries?”
“Thirty years.” His smile doesn’t waver, but something flickers behind his eyes. “I said thirty years. Are you feeling all right? You seem distracted.”
I am distracted. I’ve been distracted since the moment he walked into the studio twenty minutes ago, looking annoyingly well-rested and entirely too pleased with himself.
His hair is still slightly damp from a shower.
His shirt clings to shoulders I now know the exact feel of under my hands. And his mouth—
Stop looking at his mouth.
“I’m fine.” I step back into frame, assuming first position with exaggerated precision. “Again. From the promenade.”
“You’ve already corrected the promenade six times.”
“Then we’ll correct it a seventh.”
“Or we could talk about—”
“The syncopation in measure twelve.” I reach for the remote, rewinding the music. “Your timing drifts. We should drill that section until it’s automatic.”
“That’s not what I was going to suggest talking about.”
“I know.”
The music starts, and we move. For approximately eleven seconds, everything is professional. Then his hand settles against my lower back, and my entire body short-circuits.
It’s just a dance hold. I’ve done this a thousand times. With him, with other partners, with students who had sweaty palms and questionable rhythm. This is nothing.
Except his thumb is tracing that same small circle it always traces, and now I know he does it deliberately. Now I know exactly how that thumb feels against bare skin. Against the curve of my hip. Against the hollow of my throat as he tilted my head back and—
I miss the turn.
“Interesting.” Mal catches me before I stumble, his arm tightening around my waist. “Usually it’s my technique you’re critiquing.”
“I didn’t miss anything.”
“You turned left instead of right.”
“The choreography is—”
“Something we’ve drilled approximately forty-seven times.” His face is very close to mine. Close enough that I can see those odd little crimson sparks in his eyes, the slight curve of his lips. “But please, continue insisting you’re not distracted.”
“I’m not distracted.”
“Then why are you blushing?”
“I’m not—” My hand flies to my cheek. Warm. Damn it. “The studio is hot.”
“It’s sixty-two degrees. I checked the thermostat when I arrived.”
“You checked the... Why would you check the thermostat?”
“Because I wanted to know exactly how long it would take before you blamed your physiological responses on the temperature.” His smile widens. “Seventeen minutes. I won the bet with myself.”
“You are insufferable.”
“Mm.” He doesn’t release me. We’re still frozen in a bastardized version of the corté, my weight supported entirely by his arms. “I’ve been called worse. Usually by people less interesting than you.”
I should step back and put space between us, pretend that yesterday didn’t happen.
Yesterday definitely happened.
“The showcase is in three weeks.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “We don’t have time for... whatever this is.”
“Whatever this is,” he repeats. “Would you like me to define it? I could use small words, if that would help.”
“I know what it is.”
“Do you? Because you’ve been avoiding eye contact since I walked in, and every time I touch you, you flinch like I’ve burned you.”
“I don’t flinch.”
“You definitely flinch.” He releases me slowly, letting his hand drag across my lower back before falling away entirely. “It’s adorable.”
“Stop calling me adorable.”
“Stop being adorable.”
“I am a professional—”
“Dance instructor, yes, you’ve mentioned.” He walks to the barre, leaning against it with infuriating casualness. “You’re also a woman who kissed me like she was trying to consume my soul last night, and I find the cognitive dissonance fascinating.”
My face flames.
I kissed him. I grabbed his collar and let him show me exactly how much trouble he could be, and then I spent an hour learning the answer, and now I have to look at him and pretend I’m thinking about choreography instead of—
“That was a mistake.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.” He doesn’t sound convinced.
He doesn’t sound anything other than amused, which is somehow worse.
“Because from my perspective, it was one of the few things we’ve done together that wasn’t a mistake.
No miscounted steps. No dropped frames. No arguing about hip angles.
Just two people doing what they clearly wanted to do since the moment I walked into your beginner class. ”
“I did not want—”
“Isadora.”
The way he says my name stops me cold. Low and warm and intimate, like we’re not standing in a mirrored studio at ten in the morning with fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.
“We kissed,” he says. “We more than kissed. And unless I’ve drastically misread the situation, you enjoyed it.”
“That’s not—”
“You made sounds.”
“I did not—”
“Very specific sounds. Shall I describe them?”
“No.”
“They were flattering. To my ego, I mean. I’m told I have a fragile ego.”
“Your ego could survive a nuclear blast.”
“Perhaps.” He pushes off the barre, moving toward me with that predatory grace I’ve noticed in his dancing. “But my ego also noticed that you kissed me back. Multiple times. With enthusiasm.”
Enthusiasm is putting it mildly. I’d been ravenous. Desperate. Some feral creature I barely recognized, scraping her nails down his back and biting his lip and making those sounds he’s threatening to describe.
“We need to focus on the showcase.”
“We can do both.”
“We absolutely cannot do both.”
“Why not?” He’s too close again. Always too close, taking up space, making the studio feel smaller than it is. “I’m perfectly capable of compartmentalizing. Are you saying you’re not?”
“I’m saying that complication serves no one.”
“Ah.” His head tilts, studying me like I’m a puzzle he’s trying to solve. “So it’s about control. Of course it is. Everything with you is about control.”
“That’s not—”
“You’ve built your entire life around it. Controlled practice schedules. Controlled emotional responses. Controlled everything, especially anything that might make you feel vulnerable.”
“You don’t know—”
“I know that you kiss like a woman who’s been starving for years and finally found a meal.” His voice drops. “I know that the sounds you made weren’t controlled. I know that somewhere underneath all that discipline, there’s someone who wants more than trophies and perfect technique.”
My throat tightens.
“We should practice.”
“We are practicing.”
“Dancing. We should practice dancing.”
“If you insist.” But he doesn’t move. He doesn’t step back or assume position or do any of the professional things I’m desperately hoping for. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“I don’t want your deals.”
“Hear me out.” His hand catches mine lightly, just his fingertips against my palm. “We’ll practice professionally. No distractions, no commentary, no references to last night. You can pretend nothing happened, and I’ll follow your lead.”
I wait for the catch. With Mal, there’s always a catch.
“In exchange,” he continues, “you admit—just once, just to me—that you wanted it. That you still want it. That this thing between us isn’t a mistake, no matter how much easier it would be to pretend otherwise.”
“That’s—”
“The truth. Nothing more.” His thumb traces a line across my palm. “Unless the truth is too much to ask from someone who builds their life around discipline.”
It’s a manipulation. I can see it for what it is—a verbal chess move designed to corner me into an admission I’m not ready to make. He’s good at this. Too good. Probably centuries of practice at getting people to reveal themselves.
Thirty years, my memory corrects. He said thirty years.
But I could have sworn...
“Fine.” The word escapes before wisdom can intervene. “Yes. I wanted it. I still—” I swallow. “I still think about it. About you. About what happened. It’s distracting and inconvenient and absolutely the last thing I need with the showcase approaching.”
His face softens. “Was that so hard?”
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
“Stop reading me.”
“Stop being so readable.” He releases my hand, and I feel the loss more acutely than I want to admit. “Now. Shall we practice? I believe you were correcting my promenade.”
I stare at him. “You’re just... going back to practice? No gloating? No further psychological warfare?”
“I made a deal. Unlike some demons of my acquaintance, I honor my bargains.”
Demons of my acquaintance. Another strange phrase. Another slip that doesn’t quite fit.
But he’s already moving to the center of the floor, arms extended in invitation, and I don’t have the bandwidth to analyze word choices when I’m still reeling from my own admission.
“From the top,” I say, because falling back into instruction is easier than feeling.
“From the top.”
We practice.
For almost two hours, we practice—properly this time, with minimal arguing and surprisingly competent footwork. Mal seems to have finally internalized the choreography, his body moving through the sequences with a natural grace that makes my job significantly easier.
It would be perfect, if not for the touching.
Every point of contact burns. His hand at my waist. His palm against mine. The brush of his thigh during the close passes, the weight of his arm across my shoulders during the shadow position. Nothing inappropriate, nothing beyond what the dance requires, but it burns.
I step back and force myself to breathe normally. Then I reach for the remote with a hand that definitely isn’t shaking.
“We should work on the lift sequence.”
“The one you’ve been avoiding?”
“I haven’t been avoiding it.”
“You’ve scheduled it for ‘later’ three times this week.”