“Is that a problem?”
“Not at all.” His smile widens. “I do love a challenge.”
The music begins. I take position, and after a beat, he joins me.
What follows is chaos. Beautiful, frustrating, exhilarating chaos. He doesn’t know the steps, but he follows my lead with an intuition that borders on supernatural, anticipating my movements half a second before I make them. We clash, we stumble, we find each other again. His hand on my hip burns through the fabric of my practice dress. My fingers dig into his shoulder as we execute a turn that’s more instinct than technique.
It’s wrong. It’s messy. It’s nothing like the precision I’ve spent years perfecting.
It’s also the most alive I’ve felt in months.
The music builds to its climax—a dramatic pause followed by a final flourish. I lean back into what should be a simple corté, expecting him to fumble it, bracing for the inevitable awkwardness.
He doesn’t fumble.
His arm tightens around my waist, supporting my weight as I arch backward. The world tilts. The ceiling spins overhead, fluorescent lights blurring into streaks of white. And then he’s pulling me up, closer than the choreography calls for, close enough that our chests press together and I can feel his heart pounding as fast as mine.
The music stops.
We don’t move.
His eyes are fixed on my lips. Mine are fixed on his. There’s barely an inch between us, and his breath is warm against my face, and somewhere in the back of my mind a very sensible voice is screaming about professional boundaries and student-teacher relationships and all the reasons why this is a terrible idea.
The very sensible voice sounds very far away.
“Izzie—”
“Don’t.” I don’t know if I’m telling him not to speak or not to move or not to do the thing we’re both clearly thinking about. “We can’t?—”
“Can’t we?”
His hand shifts on my back, fingers spreading, and I become acutely aware of every point of contact between us. His palm.His hip. The brush of his thigh against mine. The heat radiating from his skin like he’s running a fever, like there’s something burning under the surface.
Then I notice his bracelet in my peripheral vision. The one with the seven black stones. Except one of them isn’t black anymore. It’s red. Deep, glowing ruby red, like someone trapped a drop of blood inside and set it on fire.
I blink. The stone is still red.
“Your bracelet?—”
The spell breaks. He steps back so fast I stumble, catching myself on the barre. When I look again, the bracelet is half-hidden by his sleeve, and his expression has gone carefully blank.
“Sorry.” His voice is strange, like he’s swallowed something sharp. “Got carried away. Heat of the moment.”
“The stone?—”
“Trick of the light.” He’s already moving toward the door, collecting his shoes without putting them on, his movements jerky in a way that’s completely unlike his usual fluid grace. “Same time tomorrow?”
“Mal—”
“I should go.” He pauses at the door, and when he turns back, his smile is firmly in place, that charming mask that I’m starting to realize hides more than it reveals. “Wonderful lesson, as always. I look forward to making you want to strangle me again very soon.”
The door swings shut behind him.
I stand in the middle of my studio, heart pounding, lips tingling with the memory of a kiss that didn’t happen, and stare at the empty space where he stood.
What the hell was that?
Through the window, I see him striding down Main Street at a pace that’s almost a run. The afternoon sun catches his bracelet as he goes.
