She was eager for it. For him. For the kiss he craved to give her.
But he couldn’t risk more. Not now when he was so on edge. This woman deserved his care. With how much he wanted her, he wasn’t going to risk what could happen.
Not when everything inside him was still shattered glass and hollow space.
She deserved the truth. She deserved access. It wasn’t that he was afraid of sharing it. He just didn’t want to rush something that had the power to level him.
He admitted that she had that capacity, and he was helpless to deny her.
He pulled back.
To his quiet, wrecked relief… she let him with grace. He didn’t know what to do with that, either.
“Something’s happening between us, Blair,” he said, voice rough. “But I don’t know how to handle it.”
His chest ached. His hands itched to reach for her again. To pull her close and tell her every broken piece of truth he was still trying to make sense of.
But instead, he asked the one thing that could buy them both a little air.
“Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here?”
Her eyes lingered on his mouth. God, lingered. Then she sighed and tore her gaze away.
“I’m dancing,” she murmured. “It’s my workout.”
“You call that a workout?”
His voice went wry, giving her a skeptical look. Prodding. The edge softened by the war still raging inside him.
The real problem wasn’t her. It never had been.
It was him.
She crossed her arms, still flushed from the workout, eyes hard as cut glass.
Her chin lifted. “You think ballet is easy?”
He arched a brow, the corner of his mouth twitching. She already knew that look. The one that said he was amused and skeptical and probably thinking something inappropriate.
He shrugged, cocking his hip, loving that snapping defiance in her eyes. “Looks like it’s suitable for a princess. But let’s be real. I’ve been through the most brutal training on the planet. A few pliés aren’t going to kill me.” He had to get some respite here before he found himself doing something he would regret. Not being with her but taking this…thing with her to a level he wasn’t comfortable with. He sighed. Who the fuck was he kidding? He was so damn comfortable with her, in such a heightened way, it would be easy to fall into her. But then where would he be? He didn’t understand himself or his feelings. He was a novice when it came to dealing with his emotions, and he’d never been in a healthy relationship with a woman in his life. Not even his mom.
She crooked her finger. “Come over here.”
He stepped in close, giving her a slow and wary look, like she might throw a punch or a proposition, but he moved anyway. That was the thing about Blair. He moved for her. No fight in it.
“Boots off. Socks too,” she said, already moving toward the speaker in the corner. She bent down, fiddling with the Bluetooth connection and scrolling through tracks on her phone.
He stripped the boots, peeled off the socks. The laces stuck. He gritted through it. His body was still wrecked from the gym, and his muscles hated him. But he complied, peeling off damp socks and flexing his bare feet against the cool floor.
“Less clothes, the better,” she added over her shoulder, tone breezy, like it meant nothing.
But he caught the flick of her gaze as she said it.
Challenge accepted since he preferred to be unencumbered. He gripped the hem of his shirt and dragged it over his head, the sweat making the fabric stick. Next came the sweatpants. He kicked them aside without fanfare, leaving only his black compression shorts, slick, tight, second skin.
Cool air hit his damp skin, but he barely felt it. He felt her. When she turned around, she stopped short. Just stood there. Staring.
Her eyes swept down and up, slow, deliberate, reverent, and when she finally met his gaze, something in her had changed. Her pupils were blown wide. Her lips parted, shoulders, once braced with command, now loosened with something else entirely.
