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“Being a good dancer proves nothing,” she shoots back, stiffening in my hands. “I danced for you at the club. You’ve seen that already. Anyone with a lick of talent can be a ballerina. Being able to dance doesn’t make meher.”
I can’t resist touching her. The taut, smooth fabric over her skin makes her all the more irresistible, and I spread my fingers, sliding my palms over her flat belly, up the ridges of her ribs, to the small swells of the undersides of her breasts. “Perhaps that’s true,” I murmur, feeling her start to tremble underneath my touch. “But dancing at that club isn’t the same as what you used to do,krasotka. And there might be many ballerinas in this world, but there is only one Natalia Obelensky. I’ll see, when you dance, that you are her. You can’t pretend otherwise.”
My hands slide higher, fingers pressing against her stiff nipples, and I feel her tiny indrawn breath, the way she fights her body’s natural response to my touch. “You see,” I murmur, cupping her breasts in my palms, “I know everything about you. I’ve read every article ever published about the great Natalia Obelensky, the talent who rose so quickly to prominence, who has danced for diplomats and billionaires and princes and sheiks and even the president himself. I’ve seen every photo taken of you, on stage and off.”
One hand slides higher still, over the firmness of her upper chest, grazing her collarbones, my fingers wrapping delicately around her throat. “I know how perfect you were,” I whisper into her ear.
I feel the shudder that goes through her, the way she trembles as I hold her there for a moment, her pulse beating beneath my fingertips, giving away her fear.
And then I spin her around to face me, my hands on her waist again, holding her in place as I look at her wide blue eyes, the way she looks at me as if she’s ready to fight me still, despite her fear.
It makes me wish that she were a different woman. That I didn’t have to destroy her for the things that she and her family have done. That her bravery and courage and defiance weren’t all a front for the evil lurking inside of her.
What a fucking waste.
“I wish I could have seen you on stage,” I murmur. “But this will have to do.”
I step back, and I see her face harden as I do, her eyes holding a hint of flinty steel as her jaw clenches slightly.
“So you were stalking me, back then.” Her voice is sharp as the edge of a knife, accusing. “I was right about that after all.”
I shrug, smiling at her as I back further up, giving her the space she needs to dance. “Does it matter now? Now,krasotka,you are mine. You obey me, or I will convince you otherwise. Dance for me, Natalia. Show me what it is that I’ve caught. And then, when I’m quite satisfied, we can decide what comes next.”
For one brief moment, I think that she’s going to continue to defy me. That she’s going to fight. The idea should please me, the possibility of hurting her further, of dragging the truth out of her in the most painful of ways–but it doesn’t.
I want to see her dance. I want to see her do it forme.
I see the moment she relents. Her face softens, ever so slightly, and she steps back, poised in the middle of the room.
“I need music,” she says simply.
And then, her gaze fixed on mine, she waits on my pleasure.
Natalia
Every part of me rebels against doing this. Not because I have any real belief that he might still think there’s a possibility that I’m not Natalia, that there’s any chance of convincing him otherwise. Not because I truly believe that dancing badly would earn me a ticket out of here, that it would give me even the slightest chance of making him believe that he’s made a mistake.
I hate myself as much as I hate him, sometimes, for the ways in which I want him. The way my body reacts to him, rouses to him,craveshim, makes me furious with myself. I should shrink away from his touch, be disgusted by him, but time and time again, he makes me respond. Even now, I know if he slipped his fingers beneath my tights, he’d feel that his hands sliding over my body made me wet.
I don’t want to give him something more. I don’t want to share something so intimate with him, something so entirely a part of what makes meme. It feels as if by dancing for him, he’ll see me naked to my very core–as if it will show him parts of me that nothing else could invade, not even what we’ve already done together.
But I also know I truly have no choice. I don’t want to endure the pain he’ll wreak on me if I refuse, especially when there’s no point to it any longer. He already knows who I am. All that’s left is my own stubbornness, the fact that I don’t want to admit it with my own mouth, and that’s not worth letting him take me apart piece by piece.
Dancing for him is the right choice. It gives him something he wants, something he craves. It gives me a chance to draw him deeper into his obsession with me. It gives me a chance to make him want to keep me that much longer, to stay alive a little bit longer.
I am, quite literally, dancing for my life.
If I’m found out, if I’m going to have to do this, then I’ll do it well.If he wants to see the great Natalia Obelensky, if he wants to see the performance that had drawn eyes from all over to the Moscow ballet, more than ever before, then I’ll do nothing less.
I won’t give him a reason to mock me for something that I can use to bring him to his knees.
As the music fills the room, I can feel it down to my bones, theneed. I could never have been anything else but a ballerina. It’s been a part of me since I was small, the thing I was meant to do, that I fought for as I’ve never fought for anything else. Just as I’d gravitated to the things I needed in the store as naturally as breathing, it’s not even really a decision to begin dancing. The music flows through me, lifting me onto my toes, arching my back, drawing my hands over my head, the threads of it tugging at me and flinging me into the steps, the movements, that are as much a part of me as my breath and blood, my flesh and bone.
Mikhail wanted me, and here I am. I have never been able to be anything else.
The room isn’t as big as the stage I’m accustomed to, but without anyone else to maneuver around, it’s more than enough space. The music is fromSwan Lake, a ballet that I know like the back of my hand, and I move through the steps without thinking. With the first few chords, I’m lost in it.
The world around me blurs, just as it always has. Mikhail, my audience of one, disappears into the imaginary glow of lights, and there is nothing but the air around me, the music filling it, the hard wood beneath the stiff toes of my shoes. I feel no fear, no pain, no worry, nothing except the way my body bends and lifts to my command, once again mine, under my own power, and I feel an exultation that I’d wondered if I’d ever feel again.
