Fair Play (51 page)

“Do I look like I care?”

“Okay, see you later then.” I stand on my toes and press a quick, soft kiss to his lips before turning to leave.

“Oh, wait, can you toss my phone on the makeup table over there? She doesn’t allow phones backstage.”

“Of course she doesn’t,” he says, rolling his eyes.

I thrust my phone into his hands.

“Thanks.”

“No problem, Pretty Dancer.” Something isn’t right in the world when a talent like that is suppressed.

I came to class this afternoon, and Angel had been replaced with a sixteen-year-old as our instructor. The poor thing had no idea how to handle a room full of brutes, and I felt sorry for her.

Not sorry enough to hang around and help, though. I wanted to find Angel and make sure she was all right. After reading the article that accompanied the front page of the sports section, I figured she would be having a bitch of a day, and I blame myself.

I crept into the balcony of the auditorium in the middle of an unusually harsh critique by Angel’s Miss Valentina. I wanted to jump over the railing, storm up the aisle and choke her out when I heard the things she was saying to her in her crappy English.

I made it past those first critical moments of anger, though, and watched as she handled it like a true professional.

Angel stood concentrating on Valentina’s words, nodding her head and asking questions when the slaughtering of her last move was finally over. And then the music started again, and she did as she was instructed over and over and over until her mentor was satisfied.

She looked gorgeous and perfect before and after she was so harshly critiqued. I couldn’t tell the difference between the performances, but Valentina must have, because she let her go to lunch and take a break.

I followed the signs to the dressing room, and when I didn’t see anyone else entering or exiting, I slid in quietly to talk to her.

I was too late. She was passed out on an old couch in the corner of the room. Half of a sandwich sat abandoned on the little table next to the couch, along with an empty bottle of water and an apple with two bites taken out of it.

She looked the epitome of her name, resting there with a white robe stuffed under her head and her hands in prayer form around her phone.

If I hadn’t just met her two days ago, I’d think I was falling for her. People can’t fall in love that fast, can they?

Mom always said she fell in love with Dad at first sight, but everybody knows mom is a hopeless romantic. Dad is a damn good-looking man with a witty sense of humor, though, so hey, maybe it’s true.

“Excuse me, sir?” a girl says from behind me, interrupting my mental insta-love debate.

I turn around. Sasha, the tiny blonde sixteen-year-old substitute for our dance class today, is standing before me with her hands on her hips and her mouth set in a frown. She was so frustrated when she was trying to get the guys to haul their beefy legs onto the bar to stretch. I should have stayed to help her. Hell, I should have stayed to get a video of it. That was some hilarious shit. I’d be a YouTube star if I posted videos like that every day.

Angel would think the videos were funny, but Sasha, not so much.

“You have to get Angel to take her classes back. I can’t handle another minute with those male chauvinist pigs.”

Wow, for a sixteen-year-old, she sure is sassy.

“I’ll try to get the guys to ease up. Sorry. They aren’t so bad when you get to know them a little.”

“I don’t want to get to know them. You’re Angel’s boyfriend, right? You have to get her to teach the class. I don’t know why Miss Valentina is punishing me, but I can’t do it.”

“Wait, what makes you think I’m Angel’s boyfriend?”

Not that I mind her thinking that. Hell, the whole world can think that if they want.

“You guys were in the paper today, duh. And why else would she be teaching that horrible class?”

Wow, the news of our date spread fast. I didn’t think teenagers even read the paper anymore.

“I believe she was teaching the class because Miss Valentina asked her to. I just met her a couple of days ago, and last night was our first date. I can speak to her about it, but I can’t make any promises.”

“Fine,” she says with a huff and turns to storm off down the hall, presumably to teach the next class of guys from my team.

So I am Angel Williams’s boyfriend. I kinda like the sound of that. My first official act as a boyfriend is going to be helping Angel get a manager and a product endorsement. People need to know who this woman is, and they need to see her dance. If she can get into the public eye, I know her career will take off like a rocket.

While standing just outside the doors to the auditorium, I land a meeting with one of the world's best representatives of professional dancers and a photo shoot with the Sparks for an article on her work teaching dance to the team that will be in the San Francisco Times.

Damn good day’s work, if you ask me. I enter the auditorium and settle into a seat far in the back where no one will see me, but I’m not sitting for long.

Angel is pacing the stage with her hands covering her face, crying. Miss Valentina is standing stage left with her arms crossed over her flat chest and a sour expression.

The eyeball-vibrating and whiteout in my brain is unavoidable when I see her crumbling there, defenseless and exhausted. Even Coach knows when to back off and give us a breather. He uses positive reinforcement instead of severe criticism to encourage us to work harder.

I stomp up the center aisle. Valentina sees me first and narrows her eyes. I place my hands on the edge of the stage and gracefully hoist myself up.

Angel stops pacing and looks up to see what the noise is, and her eyes grow wide with fear.

“River, no, stop, it’s okay. I’m just having a bad day. I can’t do anything right, and Miss Valentina was helping me . . .”

She’s muted by my anger, and I silently walk across the stage and scoop her up into my arms. When I glance at her mentor, she opens her mouth to protest until I take a step toward her, and she takes one back.

I carry my Pretty Dancer off the stage and down the hall to her dressing room. She surprises me when stays still and quiet in my arms. I expected her to beat me on the chest or curse at me for fucking up her rehearsal, but she doesn’t.

In the dressing room, I grab her little purse and her clothes that are hanging on the back of her makeup chair and make for the studio’s entrance.

People stare all the way through the building. A few even try to stop us and ask Angel if she’s okay, but I am not stopping until I get her to my house and in my bed, tucked under my arm and asleep.

Chapter Eighteen

Angel

I am so physically and emotionally exhausted, I don’t bother trying to fight what River is doing. I know he’s misinterpreting Miss Valentina’s teaching style. Usually, I can handle the criticism and demanding workouts, but she was unusually harsh today in response to my supposed disobedience.

In the car, he buckled me in the passenger seat and laid it back a few inches so I could rest. I watched him as he cared for me, and something shifted.

This isn’t the way a man treats a woman he just met and has only taken on one date. The possessiveness and the fierce yet tender way he protected me from Miss Valentina was nothing short of heroic.

I wasn’t in any real danger, but he felt I was. I could have struggled through my breakdown and gone on to finish the day, but he couldn’t watch me suffer.

He stood up for me.

I dozed off on the quiet ride to wherever he was taking me. He never told me, and I never asked. The truth is, I didn’t care. Wherever he wanted to go was fine with me.

When he pulled up to his house, I was still asleep in the seat, curled up on my side like a cat. He woke me by plucking me from the seat and carrying me inside a house that would put his sister’s to shame.

We are strolling down a long hall, my arms are around his neck, my face snuggled against his chest. When we arrive at the end of the hall, he pushes open a set of double doors to his bedroom. Without stopping, he carries me to an enormous bed, toes off his shoes, tosses back the duvet, and places me in the center.

I feel like a rag doll as he unlaces my pointe shoes and slips them from my feet. I make no effort to help him by holding up my leg or foot. I just watch him remove the other one and crawl into bed next to me.

He draws a deep breath and sighs before finally speaking.

“Sleep, Pretty Dancer.”

And I do.

I wake up for the second time in two days in an unfamiliar bed, but this time, it’s dark, and the brick wall of muscle I rolled into yesterday is wrapped around me.

Legs tangled and caged in by powerful arms, I lie, spooning with River between his sheets that smell like springtime and fabric softener.

I look around and try to make out the furnishings and décor of his room, but it’s too dark. The moon is high in the sky—so high, I can only see its glow through the floor to ceiling window in the distance.

I feel more alert now, enough that the events from this afternoon are becoming clearer in my mind, and a jolt of panic stabs me in the gut.

Miss Valentina is going to ditch me. She is going to leave me behind and find a new protégé to groom, and I’m never going to get into the San Francisco Dance Company.

Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe I need to start standing—or dancing, rather—on my own two feet. I’ve depended on her belief in me for so long that she’s become a crutch. That’s a thought I’ve never entertained and would never have if not for this man wrapped around me.

“Did you sleep well?”

“I don’t remember, so yeah, I think I did. What time is it?”

I feel the cold air rush against my back when he arches away to look at the time.

“Three twenty. You’ve been asleep since six.”

“I feel like I could sleep ten more hours.”

“Then, by all means, be my guest,” he says, pulling me closer.

“Thank you.”

“I should be thanking you. I haven’t slept this good in years.”

“No, I mean thank you for getting me out of there.”

His leg slides out from between mine, and he pushes up on his shoulder to move over me onto my other side so that we are face to face. He snuggles in close and places his hands on either side of my face.

“Don’t be mad at me for saying this, but you are so much better than that woman gives you credit for. I know I don’t have the trained eye of a prima ballerina, but your talent is uniquely beautiful.”

I raise my hands to cover his and smile.

“I’m not mad. I think you may be right—about Miss Valentina, I mean.”

“Not the uniquely beautiful part?”

“That’s subjective, I guess. I think I’m pretty average.”

“You are far from average in a lot of ways. I’ll make you see that someday.”

I squint with one eye and tilt my head to the side.

“Someday, huh? How long are you planning on holding me hostage?”

“Oh, for at least a year. I’ll need that long to brainwash you properly into not running away from me in public.”

I giggle and move his hands from my face so I can press my cheek against his chest.

“You’ve already completely brainwashed me. I won’t run.”

“I hope not. I kind of like you, Pretty Dancer.”

“I kind of like you too, Football Man.”

“Now that we have that all cleared up, how about you let me feed you?”

I smile against his skin, and he swats at my ass.

“Food, you little vixen. I meant food, as in sustenance or nourishment. I’ll feed your other needs later. I need you healthy and fueled up. After last night, you’re dehydrated and worn out, and I feel partially responsible for that.”

“You should. I would be sleeping in my bed after an ordinary day of practice and classes, resting up to do it all over again, if I hadn’t accepted your invitation to dinner.”

“I can’t tell if you’re complaining or not.”

I turn my head and press a kiss to the center of his chest, followed by another a little higher, and one more on the side of his neck, near his ear.

“I’m not complaining,” I whisper into his ear.

He moans, and the sound vibrates through my body, turning up the voltage between my legs.

“Food later. You now,” I say and cover his mouth with mine.

Our tongues dance and slide against each another, and my core heats to red hot lava degrees Fahrenheit. He slides his hand up my leg, pulling it around his waist for easier access to my ass. His hand covers one entire cheek, and he squeezes it hard, pressing his thick cock against my belly.

“Just once, then I feed you.”

“Ah, yes.” I drop my head back, and he goes to work making a wet trail of kisses down my neck and chest, ending on my nipple. He teases me through the thin material of my tank top until I wiggle away enough to strip it off over my head.

“Yeah, that’s better, Baby. Get rid of these too.” He has his hand inside my shorts, pushing them down over my hip. I lift up and wiggle out of the other side and kick them down into the bottom of the sheets.

“Now you,” I say breathlessly against his lips. He must have left me alone long enough to change, because he’s no longer wearing his date clothes from last night. I make quick work of his t-shirt and basketball shorts, leaving us bare but for the duvet and sheet.

“I’m hot,” he says, tossing off the duvet.

I second that, tossing off the sheet as well. His house is much warmer than his sister’s where we huddled under the covers last night.

He rolls me on top of him, and I straddle his hips, feeling his length slide against my wet apex. It would only take a fraction of an adjustment to have him inside me.

“I don’t have condoms in here. They’re in a box in the bathroom,” he says, panting between kisses.

I groan and flop onto my back on the mattress next to him, and he’s off the bed in a shot. I can hear him open a drawer and rummage through it before he pads back and stops at the edge of the bed.

I’m laying sprawled out like a star in the center of his bed with my head turned in his direction. He tears the wrapper off a condom with his teeth and rolls it on, his eyes never leaving mine.

“Come here,” he says, offering his hand to help me scoot to the edge of the bed.

I wrap my legs around his waist, and he bends down to kiss me so deeply he takes my breath away.

I am nowhere to be found, lost in his kiss, floating somewhere in another galaxy when he slides into me so deep, I see stars on the insides of my closed eyelids. I grip his shoulders and dig my nails into his skin, thrusting my hips upward until there is no space separating us.

I am deliriously on the edge of losing control. My orgasm is being held in check only by his stillness.

“If you move . . .”

“You will come?”

I playfully slap him on the side of the head for the movie quote crack. He smiles a mischievous grin and slowly slides his wet cock from my folds until only the tip is hovering at my entrance.

He holds it there for precisely the time it takes my body to release the coil of my orgasm, and as if on cue, he slams back in and takes what he wants, what he needs, what we both crave until he collapses against me and rolls us onto our sides.

We lie holding each other in the dark, breathing heavily while we come down from the most phenomenal high imaginable.

“Wow,” he says.

“Yeah, wow.”

He watches his hand as he trails the tips of his fingers along my arm. A shiver runs up my spine, and for whatever reason, I giggle.

“What’s so funny?” he asks, and I laugh harder.

This is something I’ve done as long as I can remember. Whenever somebody startles me or surprises me, I laugh hard.

My laughter is so contagious, River begins to chuckle until he’s laughing as hard as I am. And then he presses his fingers between my ribs, and it’s on.

“Tickle torture!” he yells. We roll around on the bed, tickling one another until I surrender.

“Uncle, Uncle, I call Uncle!” I say with a squeal, and mercifully, he stops.

“You’re evil.” I’m panting and holding my arms around my torso to protect myself from any further attacks.

“You’re silly. What were you laughing about anyway?”

“Nothing, in particular. It’s just how I blow off steam.”

The moment the words have left my lips, I know there will be a sexual innuendo coming. A shit-eating grin spreads across his face. He looks like a boy folding out the centerfold of a Playboy magazine for the first time.

“I’ve got something you can blow off,” he says and immediately raises his arms to protect his head from the onslaught of my pretend slaps.

“Sorry, couldn’t help it.”

“I regretted the words as I was speaking them.”

“Aw, not too much, I hope.”

“Got your hopes up for later, huh?”

“A guy can dream, can’t he?”

I tap him on the nose with the end of my finger.

“I might have to make that dream come true.”

“Not until I feed you. Seriously, Angel, I think you’ve eaten half a sandwich and two bites of an apple since noon yesterday.”

“Just the apple. The sandwich was gross. I threw the other half away.”

It’s no big deal. I miss meals all the time with my busy schedule.

He scrunches up the corners of his mouth, and a deep groove forms between his eyes when I shrug my shoulders.

“I don’t like that,” he says in a more serious tone.

“Like what?”

“You don’t take care of yourself. You run yourself into the ground trying to please other people and put your needs dead last.”

“I do not,” I say defensively, although I feel a trace of truth to his accusation deep down inside.

“Okay, well, you live and breathe dance to prove to your parents that what you love to do is valid. You allow an old washed-up ballerina to boss you around and make you feel like shit in the name of apprenticeship. Angel, you don’t need her instruction any more than I need Joe Montana coaching me.”

“You think you’ve got me all figured out, huh?”

“I call ‘em as I see ‘em, that’s all.”

“Well, as much as I hate to admit it, you’re right. Until today, I thought I needed Miss Valentina’s validation to succeed, but now, I think I’ll practice for my audition alone.”

“I wanted to talk to you about that audition.”

He reaches down and pulls the duvet over us and rolls over so we are face to face.

“I think you’re bigger than the San Francisco Ballet Company.”

His ocean blue eyes sparkle in the stream of moonlight that is cutting a slice across the bed. I’m so distracted by their beauty that I don’t respond to his ridiculous remark.”

“Angel? You’re staring.”

“Oh, sorry, it’s just . . . never mind. You were saying something about my audition?”

“I don’t think you should do it.”

I tuck my chin against my chest and look up at him through my lashes with a frown.

“Um, that’s my dream you’re talking about there. It’s what I’ve worked my whole life for.”

“What if you were dreaming too small?”

“What? Dancing with a company isn’t small. They only have a few prime spots to fill.”

“I called a friend today who knows Cammie Onyx. Have you ever heard of her?”

“Um, yeah, she’s only the best representative for professional dancers on the planet. You know somebody who knows her?”