Lead and Follow(67)

He sure as hell didn’t feel like celebrating anymore.

“Yes, the exhibition. Which we agreed to last year. Before your injury.”

Some bright flash sparked in her eyes. “Injury. I can’t. It’ll suck that we didn’t give them much notice, but you know how these things work. They’ll have three other options lined up.”

“No.”

She clutched more tightly at the knot of towel between her breasts. Her knuckles were white, but she still couldn’t totally cover those pretty mounds. “Goddamn it, Dima. You don’t get to no me. We’re partners.”

“Are we?”

He didn’t need an answer. That was their problem. They were partners. Maybe less if she didn’t even want to dance with him.

“Of course we are.” Her chin lifted. “Which is why you don’t get to lay down autocratic bullshit. I can’t dance yet. Besides, we haven’t practiced.”

He boiled inside. Seethed and roiled. There were so many things he wanted. To shake her, to be able to live without her. To pull her down over his hips and toss that towel away. He’d fuck her until she was sweaty again and her head spun and she wouldn’t be able to deny him anymore.

“We know this routine inside out. I bet you’d know how to dance it five years from now without a speck of practice. I don’t know if your problem is with me or your confidence, but I’m not putting up with it.”

“I don’t have any problems,” she blustered, but her gaze escaped to find the pile of laundry overflowing her basket.

“I know you’re dancing every day.” He stood. Troubles weighed on him so heavily, dragging his tendons into slow, jittering messes. Maybe it was the Russian thing to allow problems to depress him, but damned and the saints if a bottle of vodka wasn’t a temptation. “I didn’t understand that we were at a place where we had need of lying.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She shoved damp hair out of her face and gave him the wide-eyed look she seemed to think could convince him the sky was green.

He walked toward her, assuming she’d slip sideways and give up control of the doorway, but she held her ground. He ought to have known better. She might be his little one, but she’d always had a spine of titanium.

“After more than a decade, you think I don’t know what you look like when you’ve been danced out? What your breathing sounds like?” He dipped his head low, until he was a mere lick away from her delicate neck. A single lock of her hair brushed over his cheek. He scooped it away, tucked it behind her ear. “As a matter of fact, it’s almost identical to what you look like when you’ve been fucked to the point of exhaustion.”

Her head jerked back so she could look him in the eyes, but she didn’t go any farther. Red washed over the tops of her breasts, up over her pale throat. The barest purple smear there still lingered from his fingers.

She didn’t seem to mind the idea of another round. She licked her lips and her eyes turned blurry, hazy green. If he wanted, he could probably kiss her, fuck her against the wall of her bedroom with her strong legs wrapped around his hips.

They would be exactly where they’d been before.

So he shut that part of him down. Again. Like he had for years, before he realized what he truly needed from her. His spine solidified, drawing him away from her sweetly scented aura.

“Get dressed. They’re expecting us.”

She stared at him blankly, as if she couldn’t believe he’d backed down. Her mouth pulled into a pout. “I don’t want to go all the way across the city wearing that.”

“There’s a car service coming for us in two hours. Think you can be ready in that time?”

“Of course.”

“Fine.” He managed not to throw open the door. Quite the accomplishment considering the tight set of his joints. He’d need to stretch for an entire goddamn hour before he could dance. “Let’s see if you can follow through with anything without step-by-step directions.”

With that, he snapped the door shut firmly behind him. His shoulders finally slumped under the weight of his tension and his fears. He let his head hang. He should have cancelled this demonstration, but giving it up would be tantamount to giving them up completely.

As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t take that step—even if Svetlana’s texts that morning had started to make sense. Back away from the pain. Make his own way. He could. As time dragged, waiting, he thought he might.

How could he, though, when one hour and fifty-eight minutes later, Lizzie emerged into the living room? He’d been passing the time on the couch, with one leg kicked up to stretch down the length. His smartphone was in his hand, open to an email from Svetlana—another entreaty to renew their relationship, in every sense of the word.