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Ciara’s eyes widened as her chin tilted up, her lashes fluttering as we stared each other down.
I wanted to kiss her.
Gods, I wanted to kiss her.
“Leith?” her whisper was as quiet as a breath, bringing me back down to Earth again.
“I’m sorry.” I pressed my forehead into hers.
I wasn’t sure what exactly I was sorry for, but I couldn’t restart anything with her again until I was sure where my pack stood… and where she did too.
She may have been offering to work with Artie, but that didn’t mean her outlook on dating had changed, let alone her outlook on permanent commitment.
Ciara searched my face, her mouth opening slightly as if she were about to say something. Then she sighed and reached behind her in order to open the door to her apartment.
“Good night, Leith,” she said and then stepped inside, leaving me in the hallway with the scent of cinnamon still dancing on my tongue.
Chapter sixteen
“Try it again, but this time move in closer. It’s a romance not a fucking business meeting,” Eli called from the sidelines as Artie and I slid hand-in-hand across the ice.
After realizing that ice dancing would be a better fit to help Artie continue to skate we’d gone back to Eli with our tails between our legs and asked him to coach the both of us.
Pulling Artie a little closer, I tucked his hand more firmly around my waist.
“Ice dancing is all about synchronicity, if you can’t match steps you may as well not even bother!”
Two weeks, it had been two weeks and we still struggled to skate on the same wavelength despite being nearly the same height.
Artie’s strides were always just a hair quicker than my own, at times causing our legs to tangle and nearly fall.
The music of the practice piece filled my ears as I worked on staying on the beat, almost playing chicken with Artie’s feet as we zipped across the ice.
Eli wasn’t done yet because as we turned to face each other his voice filled our ears again. “You two look like you’re about to go in for a tandem colonoscopy. Artem, haven’t you ever wooed a woman before?”
“No, actually,” Artie muttered under his breath as we moved clumsily through the choreography that we’d only learned earlier this week. “I haven’t.”
I blinked, surprised at that little snippet of information. The omega was definitely flirty, so I figured that it would come easy to him regardless of gender.
“It’s easy,” I told him as he spun me around. “All you’ve got to do is tell her she’s pretty and then figure out her deepest darkest secret.”
Artie’s smile was slow, his finger squeezing mine. “That’s all?”
“That’s all,” I confirmed as we pushed away from each other and began the step routine that Eli had laid out for us, circling each other around the center of the ice.
“There we go!” Eli hooted. “That’s what I meant when I said romance!”
Apparently, our little exchange had helped us sync up.
“Don’t overthink it, I guess is the lesson here,” I called to Artie before flipping around so that I was skating backward. Artie did the same, just a split second too late.
“Stop! Come to the wall!”
The music cut off, leaving my ears ringing from the loss of it.
Once we made it back to where Eli was standing, I could tell he was about to chew us out about something.
“I thought you two were crazy when you brought this ice dancing idea to me and now I know it. How are you supposed to be in sync if you don’t trust that the other person is going to be on time?” Eli asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
