Wehadrather mastered that, hadn’t we?
I cleared my throat, pretending a professionalism I didn’t feel, and gave myself a push to spin around without breaking our stride. Now I was skating backward, staring up at him.
“Now we try something a little more difficult.” I lifted my left hand toward his. “We’ll do a few laps with you leading.”
His brows drew in as he wrapped his large hand around mine—There’s that zing again!—and his gaze flicked from my face to the ice behind me. “Lead?”
“By the time we’re done with rehearsals, you won’t need to lead, because we’ll each know where the other—and the wall—is at any given moment. But for now, with me skating backwards and us holding hands…” I gave his a little encouraging squeeze. “You’re in charge of steering us. Like the coxswain of a crew team.”
The noise he made might have been a snort of laughter, but more likely was a dismissal. “I don’t know how to do that either, Princess.”
Still, Ifelthim turn us both as we approached the far end of the rink, and I—despite knowing the ice like the back of my hand—relaxed into his hold, allowing him to guide me. As we came out of the turn, I grinned up at him.
“Good! Pairs skating is about trusting your partner, and it’s clear I can trust you not to run me into the wall.”
He was staring at my mouth, which made me self-conscious.
Tomato time again.
We didn’t speak through the remainder of the lap, or the next one. It was, again, Kardok who broke the silence. “So we can skate side by side, or me leading. Want me to flip around and take the backward shift now?”
I shrugged, trying for nonchalance and professionalism. “Sure. You’re doing great so far. Let’s try switching positions.”
As I spoke, I slowed and gently spun myself back into forward position, to keep us skating in the same direction. At the same time, Kardok smoothly flipped around, likely a move he’d done a million times in practice…
And promptly stumbled.
Rage flickered across his features for a moment as his grip on me tightened, and I felt myself wincing in sympathy. Here was a male who expected himself not to fail, and he’d failed too many times in recent memory.
Now, he did not fall. I want to be clear about that. Kardok was too skilled a skater to simplyfall, and his balance was extraordinary.
What he did instead was produce, over the next thirty seconds, what I could only describe as acontrolled argumentwith the ice. Every correction was half a beat too late. Every edge was chosen with a grim determination that had nothing to do with flow and everything to do with stubbornness.
He waswillinghimself backward through sheer force of personality.
It was almost funny to watch.
“Relax your knees,” I said.
He relaxed nothing.
“Kardok.”
“I’m fine.”
He was not fine. He was a large, powerful, deeply competitive orc who had discovered something he couldn’t immediately dominate, and he was handling itthe way I suspected he handled most adversity—by applying more force to the problem.
“You’re fighting it,” I said. “You don’t need to—the blade does the work. Trust the edge.”
A muscle in his jaw flickered. “I know how to skate backward.”
“Of course you do.” I kept my tone light and squeezed his hands. “But not while holding someone else, right?”
His dark gaze flicked down to me, and I saw the rage, the determination, flicker once, so I smiled gently.
“Kardok, you have to let me lead. Just relax and trust the edge. And me.”
He was studying me now, and I saw the corners of his eyes soften, as well as the lines around the edge of his mouth. I offered another smile and nudged him into a turn.
