Dima chuckled as he stretched his quads. “What a way with words you have.”
“Don’t deflect. You know you’re wrong. You’ve been a champion your whole life, and this is how you act when it really means something? Shit, Dima. Screw trophies and applause. This is Lizzie we’re talking about. All you have to do is decide what you want.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do?” The words burst from him in a flurry of released emotion. “Throw it all out there in front of her? Tell her what she might not want to hear? I’ve never been able to promise her anything other than trying my best. After all that’s happened, you think she’ll accept that? Forever?”
Paul looked so calm. Steady. Like he knew the way. “Ask her those questions. At least you’ll know for sure.”
Dima was shaking, but the possibilities blazed in his mind and in his heart. To know for sure. To know if he could trust her with all of him. What a relief that would be.
He caressed the back of Paul’s neck. “You’ve been a very good friend. Both to me and to Lizzie.”
“Damn right,” the other man drawled. “You get all this worked out, ya hear? I expect at least a round of drinks out of it.”
Dima couldn’t help but grin. “I must say the idea of you slightly drunk has definite draw.”
“You trying to butter me up and get in my pants? Because I’m telling you, there’s actually a better chance of that if I’m sober.”
His smile dried up. “I don’t think… That is, until we get all this sorted completely…”
Paul reached up to catch Dima’s shoulder in one work-roughened hand. “It was a thing and it’s done. I had a great time. I won’t ever forget you two.”
“Like I said. A great friend.”
Dima leaned down, claiming Paul’s mouth. They exchanged so much from the simple meeting of lips. He framed Paul’s head. Bristly buzz-cut hair brushed his palms in a slow-gathering tingle. Possibilities in one direction cut short, but at the same time he couldn’t help the building excitement. Their kiss charged, with Dima’s tongue sweeping into Paul’s mouth. A happy end for a happy run.
They pulled away at the same time. “Yeah,” Paul said on a smile. “Good stuff.”
“Now out you go. I have a show to ready for.”
Paul pushed up out of the chair and snugged his cowboy hat low across his brow. “You better kill ’em dead for your last show.”
“I don’t know. It might not be the last.”
“Yeah?” Something hopeful lit Paul’s bright eyes.
Dima still kept it simple. It was Lizzie he needed to open up to. No one else. “Yeah.”
They agreed to meet after the performance. Dima paused after he’d shut the door.
An eddying swirl of thoughts occupied his head. “Maybe…I have a life to ready for,” he said to the empty room.
Because if Lizzie wasn’t worth fighting for, he literally had nothing left.
He quickly ran through the rest of his prep. The stretches, his costume. When the time ticked down, he was right on his mark, at stage right of a dark theater. Fabian preceded him, microphone in hand.
“Ladies and gentlemen, rogues and bitches, here is our fabulous Dima Turgenev,” Fabian cooed. The MC gave his customary spiel, but this time with a change. He’d not mentioned Jeanne.
Dima had only a half second to notice that before the music swelled. The dark on stage grew thicker. He latched down his emotions. He threw his shoulders back and posed his hands to the sides. The dance. There was nothing but the dance.
Then he’d be free to find Lizzie.
When an isolating spotlight snapped white, the blonde beneath it was decidedly not Jeanne. Seeing her had never made his blood charge or his stomach flip up toward his lungs.
This woman, however… Her arms writhed overhead, wrists together. Her face tucked to one side as she looked at him sidelong. Bouncy golden hair. Curves he’d worship for the rest of his life. A lushly pouting mouth with a tiny smirk at the edges.
His Lizzie.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lizzie smiled. She smiled as if every other expression had been practice. She would dance as if every other competition had been a warm up for the rest of her life.
The lights were too intense to see Dima’s eyes. God, she needed something there. In her heart of hearts, she wanted it to be happiness, relief, surprise. Anything to say that her small little plan—such an insignificant thing in the scheme of days they’d shared—would mean a future together.
The samba. Her favorite dance. Nothing outside of receiving really talented oral sex made her feel more like a woman. Just like that, she was back to thoughts of him. Back to the magnetism he could wield over her, strong as a tide, timeless as rhythm. Feeling pent-up and edgy, she teased the audience with a flirtatious ass wiggle. The opening permitted a few bars of improv, which had not been her thing about two weeks previous.