“Show hips!”
Background noise. She’s pressed to me, heat syncing to the beat.
“Not bad.” Breathless, grinning. It hits me low. “You’ve got potential.”
I swallow. Potential isn’t the problem. Containment is.
She kicks it up—spin, pivot—skirt flashing toned legs I can’t stop tracking. She returns to me, chest to chest, eyes daring me to lose it.
I swell hard against her thigh; ballroom hold offers zero camouflage. I lock my frame and breathe. On the ice, I own my edges. Here, I’m riding hers.
“Let’s go,” she murmurs.
Oh, I’ll go anywhere with you.
We launch. Chorus pounding. Her hips roll; her laugh spills over the beat. I’m dizzy with it—her waist under my hand, the curve of her body against me, the way she looks up through her lashes. She drags me through spins and a quick dip that nearly wrecks me when her hair brushes my jaw. I hold on for dear life.
By the last beat, I’m drenched, heaving, one heartbeat away from hauling her against the wall.
The team erupts. Finn whistles. Nate’s choking on his laugh. Dmitri roars, “Kane goes viral!”
Joy’s grinning, cheeks flushed, hair disheveled in the best way. She shrugs back into her hoodie like she didn’t just torch me in front of the boys.
“You clean up nice, Kane. Gonna make someone very happy one day.” Smiling—sweet, harmless, lethal—she steps out of the heels and into sneakers. “O’Reilly, you’re up.”
Finn rises, flicks off his jacket, cocky dialed to eleven. “Hit me.”
We fold onto the sofa again, lined up like good pupils while the next show starts. Music up. Joy’s focused on Finn and the screen, not us.
Tanner leans in, voice low. “Oof. Textbook friend zone, bud.”
Dmitri’s laugh is a quiet cut. “Our Alaska bear—tamed before Christmas.”
Nate, mild as milk, not helping at all, “You’ll bounce back.”
“Shut it,” I mutter, not looking away.
They snicker into their fists, keeping it contained. Joy doesn’t hear a thing. She’s cueing Finn, all business.
I still can’t move. My hands are burning where I touched her. Every part of me aches with what I didn’t do.
One thing’s brutally clear.
I’m fucked.
When I get home,sleep’s a rumor. I end up doom-scrolling and stumble onto a channel I shouldn’t know about—short dance cuts, Joy in a studio, hips loose, staring down the camera.
She’s not the hoodie girl we see around the Defenders complex. She’s the other one. The one who counts under her breath—slow, slow, quick-quick—then laughs when she nails the spin.
I watch three, then five, then all of them.
An hour later, I put the phone away and stare at the ceiling.
Dmitri’s voice echoes in my head:You need a big dream. Big girl. Big life.
I think about Joy. The way she moved tonight. The way she looked at me like I was more than decoration, even when she called me exactly that.
Maybe he’s right.
