He’d never been happier to be wrong. He could never have imagined the thrill of her fingernails brushing against his scalp just before he came, or the head-spinning pleasure of feeling her entire body surrounding him, inside and out, when she wrapped her smooth, strong thighs around his waist, her milky coffee birthmark pressed against his ribs.
And now, she cracked jokes while he was still inside her, and he laughed as he reached down to secure the condom before he pulled out. Marcus wanted to kick his past self for ever imagining sex with Heather could be anything other than mind-numbingly, bone-meltingly good. What a ridiculous idea. The fantasy, it turned out, had fallen far short of the reality.
Once he’d disposed of the condom, Marcus pulled on his boxers and joined her on the bed. They had fallen onto it without even pulling the doona back, and he scooted up to slip his legs under it.
Heather had sat up, and for a moment he watched her, noticing the slight sway at the bottom of her long, sinewy back and the shimmering white ribbons of stretch marks on the sides of her breasts. She lifted her hair off her neck and tried to run her fingers through it, but strands of it stuck to her damp skin. The rest was a tangled disaster. When she raised her arms, her breasts lifted and swayed, and Marcus felt his cock stir again despite his exhaustion.
She turned and caught him watching her. “Do you want a glass of water or something?” she asked.
“Not if you have to get out of bed to get it,” he replied, pulling her toward him. She lay on her side and rested against his chest.
“I think getting out of bed would be unavoidable,” she said as he traced loose circles on her upper arm.
“Then I guess I’m never drinking water again, like a koala,” he murmured, “and you’ll get to stay here forever.”
Heather lifted her head to look at him, her pointed chin pressing gently into his chest. She smiled contentedly; her warm brown eyes seemed to glow in her still-flushed face. Marcus’s heart gave an unfamiliar little squeeze.
“Oh no,” she whispered, “not that. Anything but that.”
They lay there a while, Heather’s long tangle of hair tickling his skin pleasantly, and every few seconds he was tempted to look at her, or sit up and check she was real. That he was really post-sex cuddling with The Heather Hays. A series of words that would instantly lose him his job if anyone overheard them. He knew that. She knew that. But in this moment, with her fingers idly brushing up and down his forearm, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Marcus felt the cool rush of air on his skin when she inhaled to speak, and he looked down at her curiously.
“I’m sorry,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes.
“What for?”
“I overreacted this morning, when I heard you and Davo. I know you were just trying to keep us out of an awkward situation. I just ...”
She trailed off, biting her lip and frowning, as if she were looking for the right words. Marcus waited until she found them.
“I spent so long not speaking for myself. Letting people believe things about me, say things about me, that weren’t really true, because it made it easier to be with...with him. But it made everything else harder. It made it harder to be a good friend to Carly, and it put distance between me and my mom. It even made it harder to dance, I think, because I wasn’t really dancing as myself. And I want to be myself now.”
Marcus watched her face as she spoke, wondering if Jack Andersen had any idea how much damage he’d done—and if he’d care.
“I don’t think you overreacted, but it helps to know why you were upset. I’m sorry, again.”
“I know.” Heather held his gaze, and there was no blame in her face, no anger. There was so much more he wanted to ask her, so much more he wanted to know.
“Were you yourself the day we met?”
“Yes,” she smiled, tentatively.
“And when you called me to save you from a spider that couldn’t kill you even if it tried?”
“Definitely.”
“And just now?”
Her smile widened, and she propped herself on an elbow, taking in his mostly naked body with obvious appreciation. “Oh, yes.”
“Then I think you should keep practicing being yourself. It’s not that late. You can probably practice two, three more times tonight. And some more practice in the morning, just to be safe.”
Heather opened her mouth to speak—to call him a shit stirrer, he suspected—but then she kissed him, and for a while, there were no words spoken at all.
Chapter 13
The following Wednesday, Sharon gave Marcus permission to stay for all of company class. She prohibited jumping, of course, and he still had to keep his pliés and fondus shallow, but Marcus didn’t have to pack up and leave once barre was over. He wished he could take his first classes back in private, or at least away from his colleagues, so they wouldn’t see him wincing and wobbling his way through his first adagio in over a year. Certainly, he wished Heather couldn’t see it—but he wished his dad could. He would have been proud Marcus was trying, and that trying had gotten him this far, after spending the last year wondering if he’d ever dance again.
