She bites her lip, nods. “I promise,” she says. “No more running.”
“Good girl.” I pull her closer, burying my face in her hair, kissing the top of her head. “I love you, swan. So fucking much it scares me sometimes.”
“Good boy.” I feel her smile against my chest. “I love you too. Even when you make me wait downstairs with Ginger while you’re out doing dark things.”
“Especially then,” I correct. “That’s when you prove you’re really in this.”
She lifts her head to look at me. “I am in this. For as long as you’ll have me.”
“Forever, then.” I cup her face. “That work for you?”
“Forever works for me.” She leans in and kisses me—soft at first, then deeper. I can taste the promise in it, the commitment.
When she pulls back, her eyes are dark again, that heat returning. “So about that five minutes . . .”
“Already?” I raise an eyebrow.
“You said I could go all night if I asked.” She shifts on top of me. “So I’m asking.”
I grip her hips, feeling myself already responding. “Your ankle?—”
“Is fine in this position.” She rolls her hips, making me groan. “See? Ballerinas are super flexible. No pressure on it at all.”
“Fuck, Emma.”
“That’s the idea.”
The growl that comes out of me isn’t even human.
I flip her onto her back, and she laughs—breathless and beautiful. Her laughter turns into a gasp as I settle between her thighs, my hands pinning her wrists above her head again because I love the way she arches when she’s restrained, all that dancer’s grace turned liquid and desperate under me. I kiss her hard, tongue sweeping in to claim every inch, and she meets me with equal fire, her hips bucking up to grind against my hardening cock. “Greedy little swan,” I murmur, nipping her bottom lip. “You sure you can take more?”
“Try me,” she challenges, and I capture her mouth with mine, moving with her as I lose myself in her again—the taste of her, the feel of her, the knowledge that she’s mine and I’m hers and nothing will change that.
Not Summit. Not Vernick. And certainly not Carlos . . .
27
EMMA
Three weeks after Carlosdisappeared, I’m standing in front of twenty-three kids trying to explain the difference between a plié and a grand plié when my ankle decides to remind me it’s still healing.
“Miss Emma, are you OK?” One of the older girls is looking at me with concern.
I adjust my weight, leaning slightly on the barre. “I’m fine. Just a reminder that even teachers need to listen to their bodies—even if they are fast healers.” Before my surgery, I was petrified I’d have to give up everything related to ballet. But one thing being in a boot has taught me is that I can achieve a heck of a lot on only one leg combined with a whole lot of stubbornness. “Besides, dance is about learning to work with what you have, every single day,” I say, injecting some practiced optimism in my voice. I wobbled through a year of ballet with a stress fracture at seventeen, finished a Nutcracker run with a torn hip flexor at nineteen. Standing here with a brace on my ankle is minor by comparison—I don’t know why I was so worried.
“Now, everyone in first position . . .”
The kids move through the exercise and I watch, correcting form, offering encouragement. It’s been three weeks since I ditched the crutches for a walking boot. Three weeks since Bones came home smelling like gunpowder. Three weeks since a man died because he touched what wasn’t his.
I don’t ask questions. That’s what Ginger taught me—hold the light, don’t look into the dark. But sometimes I still touch the tracker in my shoulder, just to feel it there. Just to remind myself that I can always be found.
Is that comfort or paranoia? Maybe both. Maybe that’s just what loving an outlaw looks like.
Anxieties aside, my ankle is healing better than expected. I can stand for longer periods now, though my physical therapist—who doesn’t take any of my shit—says I’m pushing it. But I need this. Need to be here, teaching, being useful. Being part of something.
The community center is packed these days. We got a bunch of new enrollments after the kids’ performance at the town hall. I get asked daily by parents if Duck is planning to run for mayor, and I keep on telling them I don’t know. Although I think the idea of it is growing on him.
“Beautiful. Remember to keep your core engaged.” I demonstrate, weight on my good leg, and the students mirror the movement. “Wonderful.”
