The Dance Off (12 page)

“Like a football player,” she explained, turning to face him, the cold of the car now seeping into her skin. “No sex before a big match. I’m going to need all the reserves of stamina I can muster. You understand, right?”

It shouldn’t have been so hard. They both knew that with the audition looming, and Sam’s wedding right on its heels, their places in one another’s lives would lose traction and wind up. That time apart would all too soon be a final goodbye. And yet Nadia held her breath as she waited for his response.

“Yeah,” he said, running his hand through his hair, before piercing her with a dark glance. “I understand.”

Then casual as you please he ambled back to his side of the car, leaving Nadia to feel horribly bereft. Even though he’d given her exactly what she wanted. What she
needed
. Heck, he was the one who’d relit the fire under her with all that “you don’t need your mother’s permission” nonsense!

Desire, and exhaustion, and a goodly head of inner steam giving her a second wind, Nadia jogged across the cracked pavement leading to the heavily barred door below her apartment, and jabbed the key in the rusty lock.

“Nadia.”

She turned to find him watching her over the car. His face in near darkness.

“Break a leg,” he said, his words carrying a level of intensity that made her skin tighten all over at the thought he might not be wishing it in the spirit in which it ought to have been meant.

Nevertheless she said, “Thanks, Ryder.”

Then without looking back she jogged up the skinny steps leading to her first-floor apartment, and went straight into her bedroom, and to the drawer where she kept her choreography notes.

She spent the next few hours staring at them, poring over them, tweaking them. Imagining herself going through the motions until she was sure the routine was the best thing she’d ever created. Because despite her exhaustion, her head was clear. Clear of the muddy conflicts and doubts and strangled hopes that had suffocated her efforts for as long as she could remember. And in the clarity she knew. She was ready. More ready than she’d ever been. To dance. For her. Just her.

* * *

Nadia ducked out of the train at Richmond Station.

Turning the collar of her light jacket against the shimmer of summer rain, she made her way along the platform, down the ramp and out onto the street leading to her apartment, where the malodorous scents of Laundromats, and student accommodation, and a million different kinds of international cuisine fought one another on the hot hazy air.

Adrenalin sent wings to her feet and she found herself doing her best
Singing in the Rain
all along the edge of the footpath, her feet feeling as if they barely touched the ground as the audition she’d just left played over and over in her head.

Not so much the moves; truth was she could barely remember a moment of the actual routine. It was the conversation afterwards that was still blowing her mind. Not only that the producers had been so lovely, so welcoming, so honestly thrilled to see her, but how they’d raved at her transformation.

Her technical perfection, they’d gushed, had been supercharged by some new raw emotion. A new-found vulnerability had added layers to her performance. A breakthrough, they’d said. Goose bumps had been mentioned. One woman claimed that with that final tool in her arsenal she was unstoppable. With that ringing in her head, who the hell cared that her stupid ex had barely looked her in the eye?

Seeing him had been
less
than she’d expected. Less hurtful. Less embarrassing. Maybe because she understood his part in the debacle, maybe because she’d recently begun to understand her own. Could she work with him if she got the gig? Hell, yeah. Could he work with her? That was his problem.

Needing to share this feeling before she burst, she pulled out her phone, opened her contacts list and there her thumb hovered. She wanted her friends in Vegas to know—they’d be cheering for her. Her reasons for wanting her mother to know were thorny and complicated. And yet there was only one person she truly wanted to tell, one person who would understand the layers of pride and relief and fear and excitement it had taken to dance on her own terms...

“Hey, Ginger Rogers,” a deep voice called out.

Stopping short with one foot wavering in the air, she grabbed a lamppost to steady herself and held on tight. For there was Ryder, outside her apartment, leaning against his beautiful car in a pose that was as familiar to her as the man himself.

“Gene Kelly, actually,” she said, her voice breathless, pocketing the phone with his number still on the screen.

It had been days since she’d seen him—since the driving lesson with the life lesson thrown in. It felt like weeks.

Pushing away from the shiny black hull of his car, he came to her. A tall, dark presence who somehow still made her feel so light. “What’s up?”

“You tell me. How did the audition go?”

“Seriously?” she blurted, fatally rapt that he’d remembered the time, the date, everything. She couldn’t remember another time in her life when anyone cared enough to ask, at least not someone not competing against her for a part.

Then Ryder was there, his hands sliding around her waist, and she let go of the slippery post to hold his elbows. Tight. The familiar scent of him mingled with the rain in the air and she breathed it in deep. The heat of him coursed through her and her pulse thrummed right down deep.

“So?” he asked.

“Hmm?”

“The audition?”

“Right. Of course. It was...fabulous. I didn’t want it to end. And they liked it. And me. And...well, that about covers it!”

His eyes roved over her face as she spoke, such intensity, such desire she near lost her train of thought. Then, eyes on hers, he slid a hand over her hair, coming up with a damp tendril. He wrapped it around a finger and tugged. “And the ex?”

Her skin, already feeling a size too small, zinged from his touch. “Still a douche.”

He laughed, the deep sound rumbling through her, coiling the tension inside her tighter still. “And to think I’d been worried the guy’d take one look at you and fall to his knees and beg to have you back.”

He’d been worried? Nadia felt so light-headed at the thought she figured she was way too low on electrolytes. But first she slid her hands up Ryder’s big arms, over his strong shoulders, and she said, “He could beg all he likes. He’s never getting me back.”

He lifted his chin in acquiescence. “Good... For you,” he added as an afterthought. “So how’s your stamina, now the big match is over?”

That brought a grin to Nadia’s face as she lifted onto her toes and pressed her mouth to his. The touch of their lips was gentle, tender even, as if they were relearning one another after their time apart. So tender her heart felt as if it was beating in her belly, emotion tightened the back of her throat, and she was pretty sure she’d begun to tremble.

Feelings tumbling through her like a waterfall over a craggy rock wall, Nadia tipped so high onto her toes she was practically
en pointe
. Then, though she wouldn’t have thought it possible, when he held a soft hand at the back of her head the kiss grew deeper, more connected, and infinitely more precious.

Was it raining harder? Who knew? Who cared?

Wanting more, craving all, needing relief from the knots of pleasure twisting in her belly, she opened her mouth and Ryder took complete advantage. His tongue slid against hers, slowly, gently, but with absolute intent. When his tongue slid cruelly away, her teeth sank into his bottom lip in retribution, hard enough he hissed in a sharp breath.

Nadia stilled, while the heat continued to pour through her. Then with a groan Ryder swept his mouth over hers, enveloped her in his strong arms and kissed her till she saw stars.

Relearning done. This they knew how to do.

Her hands were beneath his jacket, sliding up the long flat muscles of his back, which twitched beautifully at her touch. Then with something akin to a roar he lifted her into his arms. She let out a loud
whoop
of surprise and held on tight—her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist.

“Keys?” he demanded.

“Back pocket.”

His hand slid over her butt cheek until he found the necessary. Then, while she held on tight, laughing raggedly, breathlessly, by that stage, Ryder made his way to the door that led to her apartment and struggled manfully to unlock the thing, practically tearing the bars from their hinges as he let them inside.

And then Nadia’s laughter disappeared as—compared to the bright shimmery light outside—they hit relative darkness. The naked globe at the top of the skinny stairs swept shadows across their faces, and the sounds of their intermingled breaths echoed off the old wallpapered walls.

Yet, even then there was no denying the hunger in Ryder’s gaze.

Or the sudden dazzling wish in her heart that somehow it didn’t have to end.

Nadia closed her eyes tight against the daze and kissed him. Out of sight of the rain and sky, away from prying eyes, just the two of them in the private contained space, the intensity of the kiss heightened. Deepened. Bringing with it an ache from where the wish had been born.

Nadia wriggled from Ryder’s arms, and proceeded to tear her clothes from her body. Her frustration only built when it turned out the rain had stuck the cotton to her like glue.

“Oh, come on!” she cried out when her bra strap got caught on the strap of her top and held her like a straightjacket.

Ryder lifted her bodily till she was a stair above. Then, face level with hers, he placed his big hands on her bare waist. Her muscles leapt at the skin-on-skin contact. His thumbs circled the edge of her ribs, his dark eyes following. She couldn’t have been more glad that his eyes were anywhere but on hers, as there was no way she could hide the foolish feelings rushing about inside her, and no way she wanted him to see.

Fingers spanning her ribs, he rolled the layers of wet cotton up her body, over her breasts, and away. Her relieved sigh swept up the stairs, but was soon cut short as Ryder found her bare breast and took it in his mouth. His hot tongue swirled about the cool peak and her vision turned black.

With a groan that rocked the walls he arched her back as he took her other breast in his mouth. She trembled so much with the pleasure of it all she was very much afraid she might cry. She emptied her lungs on a long juddering breath and gave herself over to it. To him. To the absorption of his touch. The sexy shadowy darkness of the stairwell intensifying every shift, every sound, every slide of skin on skin.

When he lowered her to the stairs, she braced herself on her elbows. He tore her jeans down her thighs, taking her ballet flats with them, leaving her butt naked, while he was still fully clothed.

Before she even had a chance to rectify that, Ryder fell to his knees, pressed hers apart and took her in his mouth, his tongue, his hot lips, his not so steady breath driving her to an absolute craze until everything inside her spun out of control, and all she was, all she felt, was wave after wave of hot pleasure as it swept into a great aching that scooped her hollow. And just when she was sure she couldn’t take it any more, the world stilled, lifted, swelled and splintered into a million points of light.

Body like rubber, mind complete pulp, her name came to her, the sound rolling over her skin like a caress, drawing her back to the present to find Ryder poised over her, his dark eyes burning into hers.

“Nadia,” he said. That one word making her feel so much. Too much.

Closing her eyes against all it meant, she slid a hand behind his neck and pulled him to her. Vanishing into his kiss, his touch, his latent heat. This man who’d thought of her, waited for her, worried about her, and hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her long enough to make it up one tiny flight of stairs...

She slid a leg along his to find his pants were gone. And with a smile she arched away from the stairs, wrapped her legs about the man and took him. Deep, hard. Her turn to cry out his name as he once again swept away every effort to keep him at emotional arm’s length and once again sent her world crashing about her.

As they came back to earth Nadia held Ryder’s head in the crook of her arm, breathing in when he breathed in, and staring at the paint peeling off the ceiling a half a floor above. As only now lying in the quiet with the big man’s breaths easing over her skin, making her feel as if she were pure energy, barely bound, she knew where the “new raw emotion” the producers had raved about had come from. How she’d been able to “leave herself vulnerable” for the first time in her professional career.

But bar a malevolent miracle, or her ex having more influence than he deserved, she was going to Vegas. And soon. Her initial contract would be for six months, with an option to extend it out to two years if the show was a success. And it would be a success. Sky High was a phenomenon that showed no signs of waning.

And yet for a second, she let herself wonder...what if? What if she didn’t get the job? What if they actually had a chance to take this thing for a spin and see where it might lead?

But a second was all it lasted. After Sam’s wedding there would be no more dance lessons to keep them together. And the decision to remain so after that had been made before they’d even met. Because Ryder had been nothing but honest about his limitations as he saw them. About how his father’s indiscriminate behaviour had burned him to the thought of for ever. And even while Sam claimed he held on tight to the things that mattered to him, despite the spark, despite the reverence in his touch and unquenched hunger in his eyes, despite the way he saw into the deep dark heart of her like nobody else she’d ever met, he’d never asked anything of her.

Not because she didn’t matter; she just didn’t matter
enough
.

And she’d been there, taken whatever scraps she was fed in the hopes of being loved. But something had shifted inside her these past few weeks. And she’d never
choose
to let herself not matter again.

Ryder lifted himself with a groan, his voice drugged, slow, deep. “Can you walk?”