“More what, swan?”
“More time. More . . .“ I gesture between us, frustrated. “Not just you showing up when I’m in trouble. Not just emergency calls and rescue missions. Maybe you could come to New York more often. Maybe I could come back to Stoneheart for regular visits. We could try long-distance, or?—”
“That’s not what you’re asking.”
His voice cuts through my rambling and I stop, heart hammering. “What?”
“That’s not the question.” He sits forward, the sheet pooling around his waist. “You’re talking about logistics. Schedules. Geography.”
“Because those things matter?—”
“They don’t.” He says it so calmly, so certainly, that it steals my breath. “Not for what you’re really asking.”
My chest tightens. “Then what am I asking?”
His eyes hold mine. “Whether you’re ready to stop fighting.”
“Fighting what?” But my voice comes out strained because some part of me already knows.
“Who you are. Where you belong.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yeah, I do. You’re part of the club, swan. MC princess. You belong in Stoneheart.” He reaches out, his hand cupping my face. “With me.”
My throat closes up at his words. He has to be wrong.
“That’s not—” I shake my head. “You don’t know what I want.”
“Yeah, swan. I do.”
The words make me want to scream. Or cry. Or both.
“You think you know me so well? You think because you’ve been watching me like a damned stalker for thirteen years you understand what I need? I’ve built a life in New York, Bones. A career. I’m a principal dancer. I have an apartment, friends, a routine. I’ve worked for ten years to?—”
“Build a cage.”
I freeze. “What?”
“That’s what you’re doing. What you’ve been doing.” His voice is gentle but implacable. “Building a cage strong enough to hold whatever it is in you that won’t stay tame.”
“That’s not—” But my voice breaks because somewhere deep in my chest, something resonates like a bell being struck.
No.
No, ballet is my dream. My passion. It’s the thing I chose at thirteen when I left Stoneheart to board at the National Dance Academy. The career I chose when I graduated. And now it’s the life I built that’s mine, that I earned, that no one can take away from me.
Except . . .
Except after years of pushing my body past its limits, my injuries are becoming serious. And instead of feeling devastated, some traitorous part of me feels relief.
Except riding on the back of his bike, wearing his jacket while pressed up against him feels more right than any high-profile performance ever has.
Except I’m sitting here in a motel room in the middle of nowhere with a man that makes the very center of my heart ache with longing. A man who feels more like home than New York ever has.
“You’re wrong,” I whisper, but it sounds hollow even to me.
Bones just watches me, patient as stone. “Am I?”
