Bobby shakes his hands in frustration. “Okay,” he says. “When did your dancing lessons start?”
“I… when I was little?”
“When you were nine,” Bobby corrects. “Because Parker has a thing for ballerinas.”
“How do you…?”
“I run professional surveillance for a living. Parker made you start dancing and he’s the reason you weren’t allowed to give it up when you were in high school.”
My stomach swoops. When I was fifteen, my ballet instructor, Madame Blanchet, told me it was time to consider dance styles ‘more suited to my figure.’ I wasn’t too heartbroken. I was already a head taller and two cup sizes bigger than every girl in my class. But when I took Madame Blanchet’s letter to my mom, she threw it in the trash. “You’re staying at New York Academy. It’s important for young women to have poise.”
I shake my head like a dog trying to get rid of water. “Momwanted me to be a ballerina.”
“And what about your weight? Did your mom want you to weigh exactly one hundred and twenty-one pounds?”
Every muscle in my body goes stiff.
“Again, Parker. He wanted you that way.”
The room starts spinning. I try to find Bobby in the blur of lamplight. “Mom weighed me. She changed my food if I wasn’t at one-twenty-one.”
“And did she do that with your sister? Or just you?”
A million terrifying thoughts zap through me and then everything blows out. My mind goes blank, my body slumps onto the covers, heavy as cement.
An arm wraps around my shoulders. Bobby, engulfing me in cashmere and his sweet smoky smell. He presses his mouth to my hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. You deserved better.”
Energy surges back through me and I turn and half climb into his lap. Bobby goes stiff as a board “JJ… baby… what are you doing?”
“I just need to be closer. Is that okay?”
He twists his knees away. “Ah, maybe not right now…”
For a second, I’m stung, then I see it. The thick ridge along his hip. “You’ve got a… I gave you a…?”
Bobby’s face is scarlet. “Sorry, you’re just so beautiful and—”
I move without thinking, shifting myself fully onto his lap. Bobby makes a noise of protest but when I kiss him, he kisses me back.
It isn’t like with Doc or Eli. It isn’t like anything I’ve ever felt. It’s golden and delicate as a spring morning. A first kiss. A real first kiss. The start of something precious.
We break apart, grinning like idiots. Bobby presses his forehead to mine. “I can’t tell you how long I wanted to do that.”
“Me too. I never thought…”
“I know.”
We kiss again, slower this time, and the feel of Bobby pressed against my shorts makes heat lick between my thighs.
“JJ.” Bobby’s hands are on my hips and he grinds against me. “You’re so gorgeous.”
It’s wrong, rocking against Bobby’s erection. Even wronger than Doc sucking my nipples. Doc made me feel trapped, forced to feel things. Being with Bobby is a choice. But I don’t stop and neither does he. He’s rougher than I thought he would be and I like it. We kiss until I’m out of breath. Until everything between my legs is tight and soaking.
Bobby’s hands brush the bottom of my T-shirt. “Can I?”
I swallow. “I don’t know. I’m so confused.”
“That’s okay.” Bobby ducks his head. “You know when I knew I had feelings for you?”
