He moved toward it. The moment he looked in, the rest of the world dropped out.
Blair was dancing.
She didn’t see him. Her back was to the door, arms extended, her body in perfect control as she turned through a slow pirouette and let it flow into something even more graceful. Her ballet shoes whispered against the hardwood. Her pink almost transparent leggings hugged the powerful lines of her legs, and her white lace bodysuit shifted with each breath, clinging to the muscles beneath. She moved like the music lived inside her, like she was pulling it out of the air and making it visible, something he felt in his chest.
Breakneck froze.
Not just physically, but down to the marrow. Something inside him locked up and surged all at once. He had no goddamn idea she could move like that. No idea she had that in her. He’d seen her command a room, lead a team, keep up with warriors who carried scars and kill counts. But this…this was something else.
This was softness without weakness. Beauty without performance.
What was she, a ballerina in another life?
His heart thudded low in his chest, a slow, stunned rhythm. He stepped closer, barely breathing, the edge of the doorway biting into his shoulder. He didn’t want to break it. Didn’t want to ruin whatever spell she had woven in here.
Her arms curved above her head. She leaped, just enough to catch the light. Her shadow followed, rippling on the floor like it was trying to catch her. She landed with control so sharp it made something in his throat close.
She wrecked him.
She moved across the floor like she had always belonged to motion. Like stillness was her enemy and dance was how she stayed alive. He had never seen anything so intimate that didn’t involve skin. Never felt something this close to arousal that came from watching someone simply be.
She was light and strength. Balance and fire.
He realized in that moment that he wanted more than her body. More than her voice. More than the smart mouth and the sharp eyes and the way she could steady a room just by walking into it.
He wanted her whole.
To understand.
Fuck, he had no idea how to do that.
His breath backed up in his chest again, that same tight coil from the shower surging back, but this time it was laced with wonder. She turned again, one final spin, and the music trailed off like it knew the moment had reached its edge.
Her chest rose and fell, lips parted in breath, sweat at her temples catching the overhead lights.
He just watched her come back to stillness, not knowing if he was ready for whatever came next.
One second, she was loose and fluid. The next, she turned and caught his gaze, her breath still high from movement, her expression suddenly sharp.
Her green eyes locked on him, hard and unblinking. “You done killing yourself?” she asked, her voice calm but clipped.
That tone. He recognized it from the field. The way she got when someone was bleeding and pretending not to be. Cool, contained, but edged like a blade.
Was she pissed at him?
He wasn’t sure how to handle an angry Blair. Near as he could tell, no one else in this facility had cracked that code either.
“I was training,” he said, slow and steady.
“Is that what it’s called?” she shot back. “Looked like torture.”
He stepped into the room and jerked the door shut behind him, the echo sharp. “You saw me?”
“Everyone on this compound has seen you.”
He frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
She crossed her arms, sweat still glinting at her collarbone. He wanted to lower his head and lick her, taste her effort, drink in her heat. “I don’t know, Mr. Body-hugging Black Shorts. Maybe that my people have been taking pictures of you while you’ve been…training, and they had plenty to say about it.”
