Firebird (21 page)

She nodded with a smile. “Yes, Sir.”

“And we don’t play until your weight improves. You don’t come sleep in my bed again until you’re strong enough to survive what I want to do to you right now.”

Her eyes opened wide, pleading.

“I mean it. You’re to gain weight and get stronger first. If you want me, that’s what you have to do. Now eat some of these crackers. The milk too.”

She sighed, but she took the plate and glass from his hands. “Yes, Sir.”

* * *

Jackson stuck to his word, although it was painful. He wanted nothing more on earth than to touch her, take her. Beat her, lick her, sink between her legs. But he didn’t do any of that. He let her recuperate, and two days later, when they returned to the Townsend, she held her head high.

As he suspected, most of the dancers were sympathetic, their jealousy replaced by outrage at what Kristen had done. Whispers about Kristen’s sudden parting from the company were replaced by relief that she was gone. The void left by the departure of her negative energy was filled with excitement for the spring season to come. Kristen was replaced by Lynette, a talented soloist who was overjoyed to be promoted to the Tsarina role.

So going full steam into
Firebird
rehearsals, the company felt a sense of optimistic solidarity. The dancers worked together like a well-oiled machine. Blake and Prosper seemed to find a new closeness, a greater connection. And Jackson, secure in his feelings for her, felt no jealousy at all.

But Prosper still worried. To Jackson’s chagrin, she still fell victim to fits of panic and insecurity. The difficult lift, where Blake sent her airborne, still didn’t meet Jackson’s approval because she was too fearful to do it right.

“You’re turning in! Try again.”

Blake nodded. “You’re turning in, Prosper. I’m more likely to drop you that way. Just trust me.”

“I do trust you,” Prosper said, stalking back across the floor to get back in position.

“You’re a Firebird!” said Jackson. “You’re supposed to be on fucking fire! No fear!”

She spun on him. “No fear? What is that? I don’t understand that as it pertains to this lift!”

“No fear! Come on, Prosper. You can do this! Just stop stressing so much and fucking do it! It’s your self-doubt, it’s your own mind that stops you.”

“I know that! God!” She ran from the room. Blake glared at him.

“Smooth. Nice pep talk.”

“I don’t see you trying to shore up her confidence.”

“Shore up her confidence? I told you, she doesn’t have any. Everything she does comes from a place of fear.” Blake snorted and turned to stretch against the barre, but Jackson froze still. “
Everything she does comes from a place of fear
.”

It was true. Why hadn’t he ever pieced it together before? Fear of failure, fear of displeasing him. Fear of not being good enough. Blake, with the strange connection dance partners developed, had understood it. Somehow Jackson had not.

“That’s it for today,” he said to Blake. He went in search of Prosper and found her in the back of the costume closet, hiding behind a mountain of tulle.

“Prosper, honey.”

The tulle shifted, sniffled. Revealed a shock of tousled orange waves. She’d pulled down her bun so she could hide her tearful face behind the curtain of her hair.

“Come here.” He got down on the floor beside her and pushed away the pile of costumes. “I want to talk to you.”

“I don’t want to talk. I just want to be alone.”

“Maybe so, but we’re going to talk. I want you to tell me.”

She drew a hand across her cheek, smeared tears across tiny freckles. “Tell you what?”

“Tell me what you’re hiding. Tell me why you’re so afraid.”

“I’m just… That lift…”

“No.” He took her hand, made her focus. “This isn’t about the lift. This is about why Prosper is so afraid. Why Prosper has to be perfect. Why Prosper can never be happy with herself.”

He tried to make her look at him, but she pulled away with a fresh torrent of tears, burying her face in the pile of skirts beside her.

“Prosper. Talk to me.”

“I can’t!”

“I need to know.” He pulled her away from the skirts and encircled her in a tight grasp. “Talk to me. Let me help you. Please! I love you. And I’m warning you, we’re not leaving this pile of tulle until you open up to me.”

Her sobs were broken by a soft giggle.

“That’s right. This tulle is itchy, and it probably hasn’t been washed since
Nutcracker
ended. It smells weird too. Now talk.”

She buried her face in his side. She was quiet a long moment, but then she finally spoke in a quavery voice.

“I killed someone.”

Jackson froze. Not what he’d expected. “You what?”

She started to cry again. “I killed my baby sister.”

Jackson rubbed her back, slow and steady, considering what to say. “Tell me what happened.”

“My mother was upstairs. She was sleeping. She’d been up late with my stepfather fighting. I was playing with my dolls, and I didn’t see my sister open the door. She had just turned two. I didn’t see her leave!”

She was shivering. Jackson pulled her closer and stroked her hair. “I’m sure you didn’t.”

“If I had seen her, I would have told my mother, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was playing wedding with my dolls. Barbie and Ken were getting married.” She sniffled. “My sister crossed the street and wandered into a retention pond. She drowned. They looked for her everywhere, and they finally found her there in the water. And my mother…”

Something inside Jackson shuddered. “She said it was your fault.”

“If I had been paying attention, if I had been watching her… If I had only seen her—I was so caught up in myself!”

Jackson frowned against her hair, aghast at the horrible implication that she had been at fault. “How old were you, Prosper?”

“I was four. I was old enough—”

“Old enough to parent a two-year-old?”

“I was almost five!”

“Your mother blamed you because she couldn’t blame herself.” Jackson’s heart clenched as he thought of Prosper as an innocent four-year-old, blamed for her mother’s awful mistake. “Prosper, your mother was responsible for your sister, not you. You were only a child yourself. She only blamed you because she couldn’t deal with her own guilt.”

“But the truth is, I…” Her face crumpled into more guilty tears as she looked up at him. She looked like a child herself, the terrified four-year-old she must have been. “I was jealous of my sister. I dreamed about her getting lost so it could be just me and my mother again. I wanted my mom all to myself. I didn’t want her to be married to my stepdad. I didn’t want her to have his child and love her more than me. I hated my baby sister. So when she drowned, when my mother said it was my fault, I really did believe it was my fault. That somehow I had wanted her to drown.” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

“Oh, Prosper.” He stared at the bowed head before him, the bright red hair that had marked her as an error in judgment from birth. Not her error, but her mother and father’s. He thought of her as a four-year-old, the weight of guilt she’d shouldered over an innocuous mistake, and the penance of perfection she’d carried for twenty years since then. He took her in his arms and rocked her, wishing he could take it all away. Wishing he could beat her mother senseless for what she’d done. “Prosper,” he said in her ear, “you can’t take the blame for what happened to your sister. It was a terrible mistake, but it wasn’t your mistake. Your mother should have been watching her.”

“But what if I make another big mistake?” she sobbed. “What if something terrible happens?”

“So to prevent that, you spend every waking moment trying to be perfect? Don’t you see, Prosper, how silly that is? Life happens. Accidents happen no matter how hard you try. But you don’t have to be perfect for me to love you. Mistakes are part of life. Nobody’s perfect. Nobody should try to be. It can’t be that important to you. It shouldn’t be—”

“I want to be perfect for you!”

“Movements, steps can be perfect. People can’t.”

“I can be. If I try. I want to be perfect for you. I want you to love me! If you ever stopped loving me—”

He put a finger to her lips. “I love you as you are, Prosper. My love is not conditional.”

He watched her. Her hands were in little fists against his chest. Her lips trembled, and her eyes were shimmery with tears. He wiped at her damp cheeks.

“Do you think I’ll stop loving you? Really, Prosper? If you make an innocent mistake?”

He felt her body shake against his. All those tears. How many tears had she stored up inside?

“You know what?” he said. “You can slaughter my ballet at the premiere. You can fall off pointe and miss every turn. You can kick Blake in the nuts during every single fucking
passé
, and I’ll still love you. I will. You could never make enough mistakes to make me love you less. Never.”

She was quiet a moment, then whispered into the hollow of his shoulder, “What if I turn in on that lift?”

“Well then, I’ll fucking kill you, Prosper. I swear to God I will.” Her soft giggle made some hard knot of worry inside him thaw. She would be all right. Now that he knew what haunted her, knew why she drove herself so hard, he could start to reverse the damage her mother had done.

“Beautiful girl,” he said against her ear, “you’re more to me than some fucking ballet. Don’t you know that?”

She made a soft noise of assent against his chest.

“No. Say it to me. Out loud. I’m more to you than some fucking ballet.”

“I’m more to you than some fucking ballet.”

“Like you mean it.”

“I’m more to you than some fucking ballet!” she repeated, giggling.

“Damn skippy. Now let’s crawl out of this tulle hole. You hit the showers, and we’ll go home. I think it’s high time you moved back into my room.”

* * *

The walk home seemed interminable to Prosper. It had been weeks since he’d made love to her. He hadn’t even spanked her, although she’d done everything in her power to provoke him before giving up.

“
I’ll spank you when I’m damn ready to, Prosper
,” he’d told her. “
And I’ll do a whole lot more than that too. Now eat your dinner
.” He’d checked her weight to make sure it was going up and forced her back to healthy habits. She slept better. She felt healthier now, stronger.

And now that she’d told him her terrible guilty secret, she felt healthier mentally as well. She couldn’t live in fear of accidents. She had to appreciate what she had. She had to live her life and not be afraid of not being perfect.

As they neared the house, Jackson squeezed her hand and looked down at her.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked with a smile. “Naughty thoughts?”

“Yes. And about how much I love you. How lucky I am.”

“How lucky
we
are.”

He led her inside and straight up to the bedroom. He was silent as he stripped off her clothes. He touched her all over, his big hands stroking, holding, pinching, brushing over her skin. She shivered, cold and hot at once. He twisted his hands in her hair and kissed her forehead.

“Undress me.”

Prosper pulled off his shirt. She had to touch, desperately wanted to touch. She moved forward, ran her fingers up and down the smooth ridges that defined his midsection. She traced his shoulders and went up on her toes to kiss the birthmark just below his neck. He drew in his breath, his fingers skimming the sides of her hips, then pushed her back. “Focus. What did I tell you to do?”

Prosper sighed and reached for his belt. Her fingers shook as she worked the metal buckle. His faded jeans revealed the outline of his erection underneath. She bit her lip to keep herself from moaning and embarrassing herself as she knelt to undo his button and draw down his zipper. She pulled the jeans down over his hips until he stood in only his boxer briefs. Her breath left in a rush.

“While you’re down there, girl…”

She peeled down the boxers and pressed her lips to his warm, rigid cock. Her eyes closed, and she thought again how much she loved him as she dropped kisses along the length of his thick shaft. Her tongue flicked out and probed the hole at the tip of his cock, savoring the drop of precum there. He pushed her back with an indrawn breath.

“A condom. Hurry.”

She went for the rubber and then dropped to her knees before him, rolling it on. She caressed his hard length over the latex for just a moment before he pushed her hands away and thrust between her lips. His hard length filled her mouth and throat. She clutched at his thighs, pulled him closer. She could feel his legs trembling as she sucked and worshipped his cock. When he pulled away, she couldn’t stifle her cry of disappointment.

He pulled her up and half walked, half carried her to the bed. He bent her over, twisting her hair hard in his hands until she cried out from the pain. She arched back for him, wanting him closer. He parted her thighs roughly with his knees.

“Open wide. Wider!”

She spread her legs as wide as she could. His dick nudged her opening, and she jumped, the contact burning her with arousal like fire. Her legs shook from the effort of control, from the effort of not pushing herself backward and impaling herself on his cock.

“Wait, girl.” The low warning made her whimper.

“Please. Oh, Sir, please…” Then she gasped as he pressed to her and eased inside, inch by inch.
Oh God
. She wanted him to possess her, to fuck her. She clutched at the comforter, overcome with lust and desire. His hands kneaded her hips as he paused, seated to the hilt inside her.

He groaned and withdrew, then plunged forward again. He began fucking her hard and fast. Her breasts bounced against the bed, and she felt wild, lost. She reached back for him, and he drew her arms behind her, holding them hard in his strong fingers. He slowed, moved in and out of her in a teasing rhythm, hard, fast, slow, deep. Her clit pulsed, and her hips bucked for contact whenever he withdrew from her. He drove her mad, drove her arousal higher and higher until her body was no longer hers but his. She belonged to him, and he controlled everything she felt, every erotic ache and throb. They fit together perfectly. Her shoulders tensed; her back arched further. She ground her clit against the bed, reveling in the delicious build of arousal, the inexorable approach to climax, a climax controlled not by her but by him.