Authors: Helena Newbury
“Ballet
company,”
she said. “No, we’re—Wait, how did you come to the ballet and you don’t even know which company you’re seeing?”
I ran my hand up the back of my still-soaking hair. “I kinda stumbled in.”
She gave me a doubtful look. “Yeah. I can tell. We’re students from Fenbrook Academy.”
I’d vaguely heard of it. Some upscale performing arts place. That TV star, Jasmine Kane, went there. “So I can find her there? What’s her last name?”
The dancer gave me a
what the fuck
look and stepped back, and I realized how stalkerish I sounded. It probably didn’t help that I loomed over her, my shoulders almost brushing the sides of the narrow hallway.
You moron!
But I was out of my element, here. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone after a woman: usually, I just showed up at a party and they’d start sidling up to me, all big-eyed and breathy, hot for the whole criminal thing. I’d take them to my apartment, ride them hard and then have trouble remembering their names the next morning.
This was different.
I took a deep breath and put out my hands in a show of peace. “I’d just really like to run into her again.”
For a second, the dancer’s face seemed to soften and I thought she was going to help me. Then she quickly shook her head.
Shit!
I’d blown it. The dancer shifted from foot to foot: I was standing between her and the exit, blocking her. I thought about staying there,
making
her tell me...but I wasn’t going to start scaring women just to get my way. With a sigh, I stepped out of her way and leaned back against the wall, rainwater trickling down my neck as it was squeezed out of my hair. What the fuck was wrong with me? I didn’t even know this
Irina
, hadn’t so much as spoken to her, but my heart was
pounding.
The dancer walked past me. A few seconds later, I heard the door at the end of the hallway open and night air flood in. I waited for the door to close, but it didn’t. Then, “Hey!”
I looked round at her.
“If you really want to meet her, she’ll be dancing in Central Park tomorrow. Noon.”
It felt like my whole chest lifted. “Thank you!” I wanted to shower the girl with flowers, or chocolate, or fucking Rolexes.
“Yeah, well...I’ll be there too. So don’t turn out to be an asshole,” And she was gone, the door banging shut behind her.
In the sudden silence, reality started to set in.
What the hell am I doing?
I felt like I’d been temporarily possessed: why was I down in the basement of a theater, chasing after a ballet dancer? I didn’t have time for this. I had territory to protect, deals to make.
So why did the thought of seeing her again make a grin tug at the corners of my mouth: the first time I remembered smiling in a long time?
Irina,
I thought.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
I
t was so
cold that our breath hung in the air: a trail of tiny white clouds that marked where we’d danced before another dancer’s outstretched arm or leg whipped them away. We were dancing to a section of
La Sylphide
that was fast and energetic - because
energetic
is what you need when you’re in a leotard and the temperature’s close to freezing.
Rachel, my roommate, was shivering. She gave me a
what the hell did you talk me into
look as she leapt past me and I gave her a sympathetic smile. But the truth was, the cold didn’t bother me all that much. Maybe it’s because even New York in February is nothing compared to Moscow.
Or maybe it’s because I’ve started to welcome the cold. Instead of fighting and shivering and trying to keep it out, I want it to soak through my clothes and my skin and into my bones.
If I was entirely numb, I couldn’t feel anything at all. The past—the bad stuff—disappeared. And dancing took so much concentration that it stopped me thinking about the horror of my future. Between the two, I could almost imagine I was free.
I leapt up onto a park bench, my shoes crunching in the frost. Then I stepped up onto the arm, balanced on one foot and began to tip forward towards fourth arabesque, my other leg rising into the air behind me. I was making the most of it because I knew we wouldn’t be able to dance for long: I was going to lose feeling in my feet pretty soon. Plus, the string quartet who provided the music were freezing, too.
I extended my arms and let my upper body sink a little further into the freezing air. It almost hurt to breathe it in, the air was so icy. I reveled in it.
Dancing’s always been my escape. When I was a kid, ballet classes let me pretend I was just like any of the other little girls, right up until the time I had to get back into the armor-plated limo. When things started to get dangerous, around the time I was twelve or thirteen, and I was first sent to stay with my uncle’s house for a few days, I danced around the big, echoey hallways and kidded myself I was really in some famous dance school. And when the violence ripped my parents away from me and I had to go to live with my uncle permanently, dancing became my last-ditch plan to get to America.
I’d thought, that day I stepped off the plane, that I’d finally escaped. I was that naive.
I arched my back, pointed my toe...and that’s when I saw him.
The crowd was big despite the cold, maybe a hundred people. The charity music and ballet performances had been running for a few years, now, and they’d become a
thing—
we were even in the tourist guides. But it wouldn’t have mattered if there’d been a thousand people in the crowd. I would have noticed him immediately.
It wasn’t just the immaculate black suit, which looked as though it cost six months’ of my rent, or the equally classy overcoat or gleaming shoes. It wasn’t his size, even though he was
big:
at least a head taller than me, his chest broad and solid. It was his sense of purpose. I’ve never, ever, seen anyone with such absolute focus: he looked like a sprinter coming off the blocks, eyes locked on the finish line.
Except...his eyes were on
me.
And he was dangerously, sinfully gorgeous. Some Russian guys can be handsome in a rough-hewn, brutish way. They were tanks; this man was a Ferrari, sculpted by the devil himself to bring about a woman’s downfall. High, elegant cheekbones were matched with dark brows, just the right blend of beauty and raw male power. Soft, sensuous lips were balanced by a solid jaw dusted with black stubble. But what hit me were his eyes: rich, dark brown with tiny flecks of amber and burning with that
purpose
...he wanted to—
I flushed and wobbled. I
never
wobble.
I came up out of the arabesque and jumped down off the bench, heart thumping in my chest. I flowed into a pirouette and then started a series of jetés that would take me all the way across the path because I needed the thinking time. I needed to process what I’d just seen in his eyes. It had leapt like a spark across the gap between us and now it was spreading through me, roaring and blazing like wildfire.
He wanted to kiss me. Fuck me. Possess me. All of those things and all at once. It wasn’t the clumsy, ugly lust guys throw at you in the street. It was like a force of nature. I’d never felt anything like it in my life.
And as the crackling fire turned to throbbing heat, I felt something tugging, answering, from inside me.
I liked being cold. I
needed
to be cold. But right then, just for a second, I wanted to be warm again. I wanted that special sort of warmth you only get when you’re pressed tight up against someone, their arms wrapped around you to warm your back. I wanted to be warmed by him and I wanted the hotter, darker heat I saw in his eyes. I wanted to let that melt through all the ice, burn me up and freakin’
destroy
me, vaporize my atoms until I was just a moan carried on a scorching wind.
I risked a glance at him as I turned. His eyes were still locked on me: Rachel and the quartet might as well not have existed. His gaze followed me as I bent my knees and sank down into a plié. The air didn’t feel cold against my skin, anymore. His stare was wrapping me in heat, caressing every millimeter of my body from my extended foot to where my leotard stretched tight between my thighs. I’d never felt so
watched
in my entire life.
I rose and spun into a pirouette, glimpsing him in pieces as my head whipped past him—
Thickly-muscled legs under tailored pants—
A tight, toned waist above the shining leather belt—
Big hands, olive skin next to white shirt cuffs, hands that could easily pin you to the bed—
White shirt smooth over hard abs, broadening to a powerful chest—
God those shoulders, the guy was built like a bull, all intimidating power—
I broke out of the pirouette and danced on, trying to get an image out of my head. An image of me pressed against him, my white leotard soft against his dark suit, my arms over his shoulders, wrapping myself to him as he leaned down and owned my mouth.
I stumbled and cursed:
chyort!
What the hell was wrong with me?
And then I passed Rachel, coming the other way, and saw her give a quick glance towards the guy and then at me. My chest tightened. Did she know him? Had she invited him, or set this up?
At that moment, the music came to a close. As the crowd applauded, I saw the leader of the quartet, a tiny cellist named Karen, rise to her feet and hug her hands to her chest. “OK, enough
,”
she said. “I need hot coffee
now.
I think my fingers are frozen to the bow.”
I’d finished on one leg, arms upraised to the sky. I slowly lowered them and gave a quick glance towards the guy in the crowd. He was applauding along with the rest, but his eyes still hadn’t left me. Just for a split-second, my gaze met his and I felt it again. This time, the feeling was even clearer: his burning need, rolling towards me in waves...and my matching response, a sudden, urgent
ache
that came from deep down inside. It was as if he’d awakened me, as if he’d struck exactly the right note to make me resonate.
I swallowed and looked away, then marched over to Rachel. Yep: she was glancing at him again and smirking. “Do you know him?” I whispered angrily. “Is this
you?”
Rachel walked over to her bag and started pulling on a hooded top. “I might have mentioned you’d be here,” she said innocently. She gave me a filthy smile. “He came looking for you after the show.
Quite
the smitten kitten. I would have told him where to go except...”—she glanced at him—”
cheekbones.”
I thumped her in the arm. “
Vy idiotskaya—
”
“You’re welcome.” She smirked. “Have some fun for once. Drop the ice maiden routine.” And she started to back away.
Too late, I looked up and saw the guy marching towards us. The crowd was parting ahead of him: people took one look at him and just stepped aside. “Wait!” I whispered to Rachel. “You’re
not
an idiot!” I grabbed for her arm. “Don’t leave me with him!”
But she was already out of reach. And then the man was just a few feet away and I had to turn to face him.
I could feel every defense slamming up. What Rachel calls my
ice maiden routine,
except it’s not that at all. It’s not an act: it’s a survival mechanism.
In Russia, plenty of men wanted me...but not for
me.
They wanted me for who I was, for a way into our family. They were rich and powerful and, because they were all in the same business as my uncle, violence came easily to them. Violent, often drunk men who were used to being obeyed. The idea of marrying one of them made my stomach knot...but that’s what I was expected to do. I was supposed to smile and date and choose one, marry him and start producing the next generation of the dynasty.
The only way to avoid it was to keep pushing them away until I could get to America. I learned a thousand different ways to say
no.
I was polite when I could be, savage when I couldn’t. And all the time I was cold, cold, cold. It went on for years and it was hellishly, heartbreakingly lonely, but it was better than the alternative. If I gave in even once, if I let myself be drawn into their world, I knew I’d be trapped in it forever. And I was determined not to let that happen.
Except now here I was in America and I hadn’t escaped my fate at all. And the coldness?
I didn’t know how to turn that off, anymore.
The man reached me and
God,
I hadn’t realized how tall he was. Up close, the top of my head only came up to the top of his chest. It didn’t help that I was still in ballet slippers. I felt myself tensing up, eyes going everywhere except his face, partially because I was trying not to encourage him and partially….
Partially because, if I looked into his eyes again, I was scared I’d feel
that
again, that lick of pure fire that seared through all the ice I could possibly throw out and scorched me from the inside out.
“
What?”
I finally mumbled, my eyes on his shoes.
“Irina.” He said it as if he was testing it out, matching the name to the person...and I realized he was still gazing at me, drinking in every little detail of me, even though I wasn’t dancing anymore. I could feel his eyes on the loose strands of hair that had escaped my bun, on the little patch of skin revealed by the neck of my leotard, on my bare, freezing arms.
I’d known he wouldn’t be Russian, of course. But his accent was still a surprise: it was everything I’d dreamed of, back in Moscow, the throaty rasp of every US movie hero. Plenty of times, I’d thrashed under the sheets, hand between my thighs, to a fantasy of an American guy who’d say my name just like that as he fucked me. But this was even better. That low rumble, like a V8 engine that throbbed through my whole body, had been tuned and given a musical note: it sang like a sports car instead of just bellowing like a truck. I couldn’t place it but I wanted to hear more of it.
Now.
And immediately, I clamped down on that feeling. So what if he had a sexy accent? It didn’t change anything. I looked around for my bag. Found it. Started to walk over to it.
He followed. “You dance…. Shit, I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s amazing.”
That made me frown. He didn’t sound like the guys who normally come to ballet shows, or stop to watch it in the park. They’d wax lyrical about
graceful jetés
or how my pas de chat
was magnificent.
This guy sounded blue collar, not white collar, yet his clothes were expensive.
Literally
white collar clothes: a snow-white shirt that looked tailored, a black suit cut to fit his muscled body perfectly. And yet I could see something beneath the crisp whiteness, now that he was closer: big, black shadows on his pecs that could only be tattoos. What sort of man dressed in a thousand dollar suit but had a tattooed chest? I was momentarily fascinated.
No, you idiot! Get out of there!
“Thank you,” I muttered, as gruffly as I could. I picked up my bag.
“I’m Angelo.”
I sneaked a glance at him and finally figured it out: the name, the olive skin and jet-black hair, the subtle, musical note in the New York accent.
Italian-American
. And then the glance slid and changed into a gaze and then I couldn’t stop it: we were staring at each other. The air was so cold and he was so close that I could feel the warmth radiating from his body and his breath toying with the loose strands of hair which fell against my cheek. I needed to look away but I just...
couldn’t.
And the thing that really shocked me was that he had the exact same expression on his face. This big, gorgeous man looked as out of control as I was.
And then a freezing gust of wind cut between us, numbing my bare arms and stinging my cheeks. And I remembered who I was...
what
I was. I had to end this now, before it ever began.
“The collection bucket’s behind you,” I said, nodding to it. “If you want to make a donation.”
I waited until he turned away from me and pulled out a roll of bills.
And then I ran.