Chapter 15 You In Danger, Boy
YOU IN DANGER, BOY
Nate
“If she tells me to behave, I’m going to disappoint her on principle.”
Backstage was humming with a different electricity now pulsing through the air; half adrenaline, half sex, and all of it clinging to his skin like sweat.
The lights were dimmer but the space was louder, thick with the buzz of crew members whispering, ‘Jesus, that was hot,’ and production assistants giving them side-eyes like they'd just witnessed a live softcore porn broadcast.
Nate could still feel the floor vibrating under his feet.
Or maybe that was just his heart, still hammering against his ribs like it wanted to abandon him completely and run off into the sunset with a certain smoke-show dancer.
He trailed behind Holly through the crowd, his jaw tight, his body tighter.
His dick had been rock hard since the moment she grabbed his tie mid-routine and dragged him back like he belonged to her.
He watched her pull pins from her hair one by one as they walked, blue feathers swaying around her bare legs and puffing out like a dream cloud in the breeze from the industrial-strength AC.
She'd kicked off her shoes already, like she couldn’t bear to give them another second of her day and was wandering backstage barefoot.
It made her look even more unguarded, more natural.
Too damn tempting. Her cheeks were still flushed from the number, her skin glowing, and she had this soft little half-smile playing at the corner of her mouth that made him ache.
He let her lead until they were past the worst of the chaos, away from cameras and crew, tucked into the quiet hallway that led to the cast dressing rooms. Then he couldn’t help himself any longer.
He stepped in closer, just enough to brush shoulders and let her feel the heat rolling off him like a second spotlight. Needing to be near her.
“You killed that,” he murmured, low and rough and meant only for her.
She huffed out a breath that was half laugh, half exhale. “You think I’d let you fuck it up now?”
There was no bite in it. Not really. Nate felt the chirp right down to his bones, and threw back that crooked grin of his that had incited too many on-ice brawls and earned him a bit of a rep with the Broken Hearts Club.
Holly rounded a corner with him beside her.
The hallway stretched out like a yawn ahead of them, quiet and empty.
No bright lights, glitter balls, or excessive noise.
Just the buzz of the show humming through the building, fading as they left it behind.
Just sweat, adrenaline, and that filthy, unresolved fucking thing that had been smoldering between them since day one.
“I wasn’t acting, you know,” Nate said, his voice still low, but serious now. “Out there. When I said you’re the reason I got through tonight.”
That stopped her. She turned, full-body, barefoot and backlit and so fucking real it hit him like a punch. Her eyes narrowed, skeptical but searching.
“You always say the right thing when there’s a mic in your hand,” she said carefully, watching his every move just like she had since the second they’d met.
His throat suddenly felt tight. “I’m not holding a mic now.”
Silence stretched like elastic, heavy and tense, like it could snap any second and go either way.
Holly stepped a little closer, and Nate felt the sheer pull of her, like gravity wouldn’t let him pretend she wasn’t everything he wanted and then some.
Like he couldn’t deny that magnetic something she had that made him breathe like he’d just skated a three minute shift.
Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him, dark chocolate brown hair in the dimmed, intimate lighting of a corridor that smelled like shoe oil and stale Cheetos. And right there, right there in her fucking gaze, he saw it. Finally.
Desire.
“Then say it again,” she whispered.
Nate had fucked up so many things in his life. Made so many mistakes and bad decisions. But when she asked for him, he didn’t even blink.
“You’re the reason I’m still here, Holly.”
Still standing. Still fighting. Only now I’m fighting for something worth it.
Holly’s gaze dipped down to his mouth, and Nate felt his breath catch.
Her lips parted. She licked them once, quick and nervous.
Jesusfuck, she didn’t even know what she did to him.
How intensely she affected him without even trying when she looked up at him through her lashes with a soft, coy smile curled up on her mouth.
“I’d better be.”
“You two better hurry the hell up, before TMZ lose their ever-loving minds,” a stagehand barked at them from the end of the hallway. And just like that, the spell they’d been weaving together was shattered, together with Nate’s boxers.
He could still feel the ghost of her on him as they stepped into the press area.
Ring lights blared, logos were stacked floor to ceiling, and handlers fluttered around them like caffeinated bees in headsets.
The whole damn space pulsed with backstage adrenaline, the faint scent of hairspray, and that sharp tang of sweat and nerves.
Cameras clicked like a firing squad. Holly walked just ahead of him, spine tall, steps loose, but there was tension in her shoulders.
Post-performance buzz, maybe, or something else.
Something to do with the way she’d just looked at him, like he could be something she’d let herself want.
Her hand brushed low across his back like she didn’t mean to. Just a graze, light, harmless.
Only it sent a jolt of electricity straight to his cock that was anything but fucking harmless.
Not when it lit up his spine like a fuse and made him want to drag her into the nearest storage closet and undo her dress with his teeth.
She didn’t even know. That’s what killed him.
Her hips moved like she was teasing the camera crew on purpose, still lethal.
Like she could slit his throat and choreograph the aftermath.
Nate clenched his jaw, reminded himself to breathe, and sat next to her on the chairs set out for cast members at the first press booth.
The reporter, a woman in her mid-50s in a tailored pantsuit, shook her head in awe at them. “Well! You two lit up that stage. Like, exploded it. Are you like that in rehearsals, too?”
Holly didn’t miss a beat. She had her signature on-camera smile already in place. Bright, confident, untouchable. “Oh, absolutely not,” she said sweetly. “He’s a menace. Can’t count time to save his life.”
Nate felt a chuckle break out of his chest, and in that moment it was his only saving grace. Because if he didn’t laugh, he was going to fucking groan. Or do something so deeply inappropriate it’d earn him a primetime fine and a seat in the reality TV equivalent of a penalty box.
“She only says that because she’s terrified someone else might steal me,” he teased.
Holly gave a very unladylike snort and arched a brow, but her mouth twitched. A smile almost broke through. Almost.
Over at the next booth a few minutes later, the guy from Ballroom Daily was grinning at them. “People are already calling your Quickstep the best dance of the night. What’s the secret?”
Nate didn’t even have to think. “Easy,” he said, with a nonchalant shrug that masked the turmoil swirling inside him like the inside of an emotionally repressed washing machine. “It’s Holly. She’s the secret. She’s the coach, the choreographer, the miracle worker.”
And damn if the look she shot him didn’t feel like a bullet. Sharp. Pierced with something hot and complicated. Her head whipped around like she hadn’t expected him to go there. Not on record. Not like that. There was a flicker behind her eyes. Surprise? Irritation?
He didn’t dare let him hope it was founded on anything else.
“Alright, calm down,” she said dryly, mouth flattening into a line that couldn’t hide the color rising in her cheeks. “You still dropped your shoulder on the lock step.”
He shrugged, smirking. “Gotta keep you on your toes.”
They laughed. The reporters laughed. It all played perfectly. But underneath the noise? That simmering thing between them was rising like heat off asphalt. And they both knew it.
The final question came casually, almost lazily tossed in, except Nate knew better. It was the question they’d both been waiting for.
“Okay,” the reporter said, leaning in. “Last one, promise. Everyone’s wondering: is there something going on between you two?”
Just like that, everything slowed. He looked at her.
She looked at him. And something passed between them under the surface, like the molecules of his body sending the molecules of hers a warning in fucking Morse Code.
The moment lingered long enough to not be nothing, in a way that was too damn real for reality TV.
And then they smirked at each other before they looked in unison back at the reporter.
“There’s absolutely something going on,” Holly purred.
Nate leaned in with that familiar hungry-defenseman look in his eyes, close enough to make it count.
“It’s called winning.”
And then the press line exploded. Shutters.
Lights. Reporters called their names, begging for another shot.
They posed together for a few more photos, bantering under their breath as they curated the fake fantasy that production was so determined to wring out of them like the dregs of their dignity.
His hand slid naturally to her waist at one point.
Holly’s gaze cut toward him, a spark of curiosity in her eyes as he waited for her to extract herself or push him away…
but she didn’t. The touch felt earned. Dangerous.
Because deep down, they both knew this wasn’t just a performance.
They weren’t just selling a dance, they were selling themselves.
And neither of them wanted to stop.