Chapter 30
ROOFTOP: RATED R FOR ‘RUIN’
Nate
“Do you know what it’s like to almost come in your jeans thanks to good choreography?”
Nate had been staring at his phone for ten minutes, thumbs hovering, brain fried. He wasn’t great at texting to begin with, but texting Holly? When she was in this mood? It felt like juggling knives over a landmine.
She’d been dodging him since the promo shoot.
Not overtly, she still showed up to rehearsals.
But the eye contact was limited, and the vibe was pure ice queen freshly dipped in fuck-you sauce.
And he was over it. So he cracked his knuckles, muttered a prayer to the technology gods and the patron saint of men who make poor life choices, and fired off a message.
Nate
Hey. What time are we running rehearsal tomorrow?
Holly
Unclear.
Nate
Unclear like… you’re checking your schedule?
Or unclear like… you’re hoping I get hit by a rogue Roomba and die?
Holly
Can it be both?
Nate
That’s cold, Martinez. Even for you.
Holly
Is it?
Because I’ve been thinking about the promo shoot.
And how real you made it look while acting the opposite.
Nate
…Right. That’s the problem.
Not the part where I was supposed to pretend I don’t want to crawl out of my skin every time you so much as blink in my direction?
Holly
You’re an asshole.
Nate
You started it.
Holly
You escalated it. With your eyes. And your face. And your stupid big hands that do things.
Also the suspenders. I’m still mad about the suspenders.
Nate
They were production-approved.
But my hands are naturally talented, thanks for noticing.
He waited. Three dots flickered. Disappeared. Came back.
Holly
FINE.
Rehearsal at 7 tonight.
Studio rooftop.
Come alone.
The second Nate pushed open the stairwell door, he felt a pull, electric and unmistakable.
The rooftop was already thick with her, heat clinging to the air like perfume even though the night itself was sharp.
The filthiest fucking song imaginable crackled from a cheap Bluetooth speaker.
The dry shuffle of dance shoes skimmed the concrete.
And over it all, the unmistakable gravity of Holly in motion.
The roof was hers, because no one else had the audacity to claim it.
She was lit by the skyline like a stage light made just for her, back arched in a way that sucker-punched every blood vessel south of his belt.
Every damn inch of her was a final boss battle in the fever dream that was his subconscious.
She was fluid but strong with whip-sharp precision, all sweeps and pure weaponized intent.
This wasn’t a dance routine, it was a threat.
Holly didn’t see him. She had no idea he was there, drinking her in like a man crawling across a desert toward the only goddamn oasis.
She spun, twisted, planted a foot and paused, then rewound her own choreography as if it had offended her.
Holly did it all again, cleaner, sharper, more dangerous.
Nate didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. She wasn’t just dancing, she was building something. And it had his fucking name on it.
He didn’t know a lot about dance but he knew a Paso Doble when he saw one, and this…
this hit different. It was violence disguised as grace.
A beautiful, blistering threat carved in sweat and shadow, every movement from her wielded a hidden edge.
She danced like the perfect misdirection.
The flash of red that caught the eye just long enough to distract.
A fucking prop, but make it ruinous. And never had he been harder in his fucking life.
She stopped, panting, hands braced on her hips, chest rising as if she was still mid-battle.
That glow in her eyes was something wild, and when she turned and finally noticed him it felt like a collision.
For a beat, they just stared, heat meeting heat across the rooftop, his skin flushed from the sight of her and her body already molten from movement.
“About time you got here.”
He huffed a low laugh, took his phone, wallet and keys out of his pocket and left them on the ground like an offering to the gods.
“Traffic was shit,” he said, stepping into her orbit, pulled under like a goddamn riptide.
His gaze flickered over her face. “Didn’t wanna interrupt you trying to burn the city down. ”
Her eyes raked over him, slow and dangerous, tracking him like prey. “Choreo’s not ready.”
He moved closer anyway. Close enough to catch the tension rolling off her skin. Close enough to smell the salt, the fight, the need.
“Neither was I,” he murmured, his voice a graveled promise. “But you made something out of me anyway, didn’t you?”
Her throat bobbed, the smallest tell in an otherwise bulletproof woman. “Don’t be dramatic.”
“Never,” Nate murmured, gaze dragging back to the stretch of rooftop she’d just razed with nothing but muscle, sweat, and intent.
“But that?” He nodded toward the still-humming echo of her choreography, his voice rough with something close to awe.
“That was the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. ”
She avoided his gaze and grabbed her water bottle, taking a long sip before she tossed it over her shoulder on top of her gear bag like a grenade. “That’s your half of the routine.”
His mouth went dry. Bone dry. “You choreographed that for me?” He stared. Laughed, dark and a little shaken. “I’m the cape.”
“Obviously,” she said, like it wasn’t a fucking revelation. And he exhaled like he’d been hit. Because that’s what it felt like to be chosen.
“The most dangerous cape anyone’s ever seen,” she added, walking back to him slow and deliberate, a queen in sweat-slicked shorts and tank top, descending like she was here to claim a kingdom. “Velour, at least.” Her eyes gleamed before she slipped her dagger between his ribs.
“Why didn’t you kiss me?”
Nate didn’t answer right away. The city hummed beneath them, traffic and neon and a thousand lives moving on like his hadn’t just stalled out completely.
He held her gaze, felt the weight of the question settle somewhere behind his ribs, heavy and unavoidable.
“I wanted to,” he said finally, voice low and scraped raw. “Was going to.”
Her expression didn’t change, but something flickered behind her eyes, sharp and searching.
He stepped closer, close enough to feel the heat rolling off her skin, the echo of the dance still vibrating in her body.
“But if I’d kissed you then on that floor, with the cameras and the audience and everyone waiting for it.
. it would’ve meant less.” His jaw tightened.
“I didn’t want to take something real and let them turn it into content. ”
Her smile was tight. “They did that anyway.”
His voice dropped, rougher now, honest in a way that scared the hell out of him. “I’m sorry.”
Her gaze held his, too steady to be casual. She didn’t soften, just letting the apology hang in the air between them. Then she exhaled, softly.
“You’re lucky you’re hot,” she said finally, voice threaded with just enough warmth to say I forgive you without letting him off the hook entirely.
Nate grinned, relief cracking through him like sunlight through a bruise. “So you do think I’m hot?”
She rolled her eyes, hard. “Don’t push it.”
He bit back a groan, because that’s all he could do with her standing this close, her skin radiant with heat, her breath still catching from the dance.
She stopped inches from him, and he didn’t dare move.
Her chest rose and fell in a soft, fierce rhythm.
And then she looked at him with this calculating intensity that stripped him bare.
She reached out, slow as sin, hooked two fingers into the belt loop of his jeans, and pulled hard enough to tug him into her. Suddenly, they were chest to chest, her sweat cooling against his heat, his breath stalling in his throat like it had nowhere else to go.
“Still think I need protecting?” she whispered, her voice a blade she dragged across his skin.
He shook his head, dazed, already hers. “Not for a second.”
Her mouth was on his in an instant.
There was no fake fucking dating arc to hide behind now.
Just sweat and skin and stars and the collision of two bodies that had waited too long to come undone.
He walked her back against the glass railing around the rooftop, kissing her like she’d punished him long enough with her absence.
He nudged his knee between her thighs, opening her up so she could feel the thick, aching proof of just how far gone he fucking was for her.
Holly echoed him, grinding herself down onto his thigh with a devastating roll of her hips.
Nate made a sound that should've had a police report attached to it. He gripped her waist and hauled her to him like he could fuse them together through sheer force of need. Her hands shoved under his shirt like she owned him, palms hot, nails dragging down his abs.
“Jesus,” he gasped, hips grinding into her like his body was begging.
“Slutty Jesus,” she muttered against his mouth, smug and dark and feral. She rolled her hips again, slow and cruel, and he bucked into her helplessly.
“Tell me you want this,” she demanded, her voice molten as she bit his lower lip hard enough to make him gasp with shock. Nate, half-gone and trembling, gave her the only truth left in his body.
“I want this,” he groaned shamelessly. “Fuck, I want you. Holly—” Her name cracked out of him like a prayer he didn’t believe he deserved, teetering on the edge of ruin.
Her fingers curled into his hair, yanked his head back like she’d done it a hundred times before, and fuck if he didn’t offer his throat, like a good boy begging to be marked.