Willing Sacrifice (Knights of the Board Room) (19 page)

“The ones who made it were the kind of guys who knew what it was to be knocked down. They knew winning is about a refusal to fail. Until you’ve been pushed down over and over, and you still get up and dance and give it one hundred percent, don’t talk to me about being serious. I’ll bet Debbie is here every week, even knowing a lot of you don’t think she should be. She practices the steps and works hard for Madame. Which means she’s stronger under fire than someone whose natural talent has kept them untested. So if I was putting money on it, I’ll bet she’s here for graduation, whereas the first time someone sets you back on your heels, you’ll run to Daddy or Mommy to have them fix it for you.”

Wow, he hadn’t expected to go there. Tasha paled. It was actually an improvement over the little-girl-pretending-to-be-a-seasoned-slut routine, but Max cursed himself as she got up and fled. Well, if she didn’t come back next week, he’d proved his point.

“Ah fuck, Ackerman. Don’t be such an asshole.” He would have left it alone if it was fully deserved, but he knew his own shit had driven his mouth, so after a few minutes, he got up and followed her. Several other girls were in the process of heading out, but once they cleared, it left the waiting room deserted, except for Tasha. She stood at the window, staring out at the parking lot, holding her tote bag on her shoulder. It had one of those boy bands printed on it, and a Hello Kitty key chain hung from the strap. He was an idiot.

When he tugged on the strap, she pressed her lips together, crossed her arms over her chest. “Leave me alone.”

“I have a sister,” he said quietly. “And she was like Debbie. She tried really hard to do everything well. Some things she did great, and others she didn’t. You’re the best dancer in the class, Tasha. Debbie may not be a prima ballerina, but I expect she’ll succeed at something else in life, because she doesn’t quit just because it gets hard. That’s the kind of person a smart girl would want as a friend. You seem pretty smart to me.”

Her lips twisted. “You just treated me like I was stupid.”

“Well, you can be smart and still act stupid occasionally. We all do it. It’s part of growing up.”

She slanted him a glance. “You’re already grown up.”

“We never stop growing up, Tasha. If we’re smart.”

“Smart enough to know we’re dumb.”

He grinned. “Yeah. See?”

She shifted to a hip, tossed back her hair. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Working on it.” Quickly realizing his error when her gaze lit up with calculation, he nodded toward the classroom. “Madame.”

“Oh.” Her lips did a pretty pout of disappointment, but then she shrugged. “She’s a really good teacher. Strict, but fair.”

“I’ve noticed that about her.”

“She can be scary, but don’t let that put you off.”

“I’ll do my best.”

A pair of headlights turned into the parking lot, and she adjusted the bag more securely. “That’s my mom. Will you be back next lesson?”

“I’m not sure. It will depend if Janet…Madame, needs me to help out with more lifts.”

“Well, I hope you’ll be back. You’re really hot, even if you’re old.” She gave him a cheeky grin and then darted out the door, hair rippling in the draft.

Some days more than other
s, he thought. Watching her cross the parking lot, things hurt in his chest. He wanted to grab hold of her, tell her not to treat herself so cheaply, not to let the fact that Daddy wasn’t paying her enough attention drive her into looking for a surrogate. He’d also tell her not to mistake sex and acting like an adult for the love and acceptance she truly needed.

Hell.
He really wasn’t sure how Matt was going to do it. He’d be a wreck.

Turning, he discovered he wasn’t alone. The rest of the class had left, because Janet had turned off the lights behind her, only the emergency lights casting a dim light over the wood floor of the main room. She leaned in the doorway, twirling her stick idly, her other arm crossed over her breasts, fingers clasping her biceps.

“I didn’t realize I was in the running to be your girlfriend,” she noted. “I wasn’t informed.”

“I panicked,” he admitted baldly, and won a chuckle. “I was afraid she was going to leap on me like cake, then and there.”

Her expression became more serious. “You had a sister? You were talking about her in the past tense.”

“No. I still have her. She’s just…she’s different now.” He debated, not sure whether to open that door, then decided it didn’t hurt to open it a crack. It was already hurting, after all. “Something happened to her a few years ago, and she has brain damage. She’s in a private facility outside New Orleans. I visit her twice a week.”

Janet’s expression reflected simple compassion. “I’m sorry. Is she why you left the SEALs?”

That empty place in his gut, a reminder of what was no longer a part of his life, gripped him. “Yeah. She needed me. I’m her only family. The only family who can take care of her, be here for her.”

“I’d like to meet her sometime. If that would be okay.”

It surprised him, such that he didn’t say anything right away. She cocked her head. “That is, if you weren’t just using me as your beard to put Tasha off. I assume you
are
working on making me your girlfriend.”

“I think that depends a lot on whether you’re considering making me…” He hitched over “your boyfriend” because it sounded a little juvenile, but beyond that, it didn’t quite fit. She filled in the missing word though.

“Mine.” She pushed away from the doorframe, turned away. “I guess we’ll see about that. Lock the door, would you? And turn off the foyer light. We’ll take the back exit out.”

When she disappeared so abruptly back into the classroom, his brow creased. He wasn’t sure if he’d done something wrong, but as he complied with her direction and then followed her, he saw she was simply tired. She was leaning on the stick while pushing a stack of yoga mats closer to the wall. As she moved away from them, he noted she was walking stiffly.

“‘We’ll see about that’,” he repeated her words. “Should I treat it as an audition then?”

It brought her to a halt. When she turned toward him, her weariness translated to her expression, her tone of voice. It
was
more than being tired. Something he’d said or done had hit a nerve.

“No, Max. My audition days are long over. You be what you are and I’ll be what I am. It’s not likely to work in the long run, but I don’t count on things for the long run. We’ve already proven we can be very satisfying to one another in the short term, until the differences become obstacles instead of attractions.” She fixed him with a direct look, her back straightening. “When that happens, you won’t have to think about a different job or worry about any awkwardness. We’ll end it as adults, and friends, with no harm on either side. Agreed?”

“Agreeing to something beforehand and its reality are often very different.”

“True. If we have our doubts, on either side, we should probably stop right now and let this be it.”

Though she was only fifteen feet away, it was suddenly as if she was behind her desk at work, as remote in that position as she’d been up until six months ago. He could tell she meant it. If he said stop now, that would be it, and tomorrow he had no doubt she’d act as she’d always acted with him, before that day she’d sought him out on the parking deck and sat on the hood of his truck.

She flipped the switch with such calm, it told him two things. One, he’d barely scratched the surface of who she actually was, what she felt about things, and two, a woman with armor that thick had a lot going on below the surface. She’d said a dancer had to have utter confidence in her partner to do lifts properly. He wondered if she applied the same yardstick to opening up in her relationships.

“What’s the purpose of having a partner in ballet?” he asked.

“To allow the ballerina to have a greater reach on certain moves,” she said automatically. “The ability to float across the stage, rather than merely move across it. To exceed what she can do alone.” She arched a brow. “You’re a very clever man, Max. But it doesn’t answer the question I’m asking.”

“You didn’t ask a question. You made a statement. But if it is a question, maybe you’re the one who needs to answer it.” He crossed the floor, closed that distance so he was standing in front of her. “If we do this, I want it to be awkward. I want you to get so deep into me that, if it ends, I’ll feel like something has been ripped from my chest. I want to be forced to leave K&A because I couldn’t handle being this close to your scent, your heat, and not touch you, think about kissing you or making love to you.” He cupped her face, running his thumb along her jaw. “If you figure out how to put a collar and leash on me,
Mistress
, I’d rather you choke me with it than take it off.”

Her pulse was rabbiting under his touch, her eyes burning, her mouth soft in a way that made her seem vulnerable and yet untouchable at once. He didn’t give a fuck about her shields right now. Instead, he took the stick from her hand, dropping it to the floor. Thinking about it a bated moment, he dropped his grip to her hips, compelling her to turn so her back was to him. She tilted her head, keeping her gaze on his, trying to gauge his intent. There was a quivering stillness to her. Putting his mouth close to her temple, he directed her attention to the posters over the mirror. “Let’s do that one.”

It was a Latin dance setting, but he’d already figured out there was a lot of crossover in types of dance, and he saw echoes of ballet form in the lift pictured. The man was raising his partner all the way over his head, and she was arched toward the sky, one leg extended, one bent, arms in a graceful position like tree branches over her head. His part of things seemed pretty simple, but he put his hands exactly where they were in the picture. Janet was ready for him. Despite her tiredness, she bounced into the lift like a bird taking flight.

He had to adjust his stance, figure out the weight distribution. There was a harrowing moment where he nearly had to bring her back to the ground and re-try, but in the end he got it. He found the right groove and locked in, holding her up there for a good ten seconds. In the mirror, he could see her head was back, eyes closed, a look of near peace on her face, as if she was a bird in flight in truth.

When he at last lowered her to his shoulder, her body was curved back against his, her shoulder blades high against his chest, her buttocks pressed to his abdomen. As he took her down farther, her arm hooked around his neck and shoulder, the other hand catching in his shirt and the waistband of his jeans. He held her there with one arm, her feet just above the floor, him bearing all her weight. She wasn’t a “heavy old broad” at all—far from it.

He tugged the leotard off the lowered shoulder, baring the round, pale curve beneath. He cupped it, thumbing the nipple slowly, watching her reaction in the mirror. She had her gaze fixed on his hand, and when he shifted his support so he could cup her pussy fully beneath the skirt, she let out an erratic breath, dropping her head back on his shoulder. He swung her body up into the cradle of his arms.

She turned her face toward his neck. “I don’t want to leave yet.”

“I know.” He intended to snag a yoga mat from the stack in the corner, bring it back to the center of the floor, but she stopped him before he could head that way.

“I want to feel the floor beneath me.”

Nodding, he lowered her to it. She stretched out on her back, lifting her arms above her head, sliding her fingers along the cracks of the wood. “Where I first learned to dance, I knew every groove in the floor, every worn and polished place, every sanded-down knot. I can still smell the pine. After a dance class, if you laid your cheek on the floor, you could see the scuff marks our shoes had left.”

“You loved it.”

“Yes. But I was Debbie. I had the passion, the love for it, but I was only good enough to be one of the company, not the star. That was all right though. Since I was good enough to do that, I got to dance on a stage, in front of an audience.”

Since he knelt above her, he saw her come out of the past, sharpening on the present. “I want my stick.”

He retrieved it, laid it next to her. Then he eased the leotard down to her waist, exposing both breasts to his gaze. Untying the wraparound skirt, he removed it and the leotard fully. The shoes and tights followed. He took his time and she watched him closely throughout. Though her lips tightened, she didn’t stop him.

He sat back on his heels. Now, without him wearing a blindfold, without her covering her legs with hosiery, he saw them. Two circular scars on each limb. At some point in her life, they’d both been broken, compound fractures. The age of the scars seemed similar, suggesting they’d happened at the same time.

He understood her enough not to ask, not tonight. Like his sister’s story, that was territory they’d have to learn at a careful pace. But he bent, pressed his lips to one of the scars and earned a tremble. She feathered her fingers through his hair. When he lifted his head, he had the pleasure of sweeping his gaze up a lovely female form clad only in her jewelry. The pendant was a charm, a tiny ballet dancer.

He shed his T-shirt. He’d never thought too much about his body from an aesthetic viewpoint. It was a tool, a weapon to keep honed, but he found he responded strongly to how much she appreciated it. Her avid gaze said she wanted to touch, so he came down to her, closing his eyes as those demanding fingers caressed and scraped his upper torso. They lowered to the jeans, tugged on the belt. As he was unbuckling it, she dipped into his back pocket to retrieve his wallet.