“What did you have in mind?”
She moved to the barre, one hand resting lightly, and without fanfare, she reached down, grabbed her arch, then lifted her leg in a controlled arc, high, toes pointed. Her heel stacked slowly over her hip, her thigh pressed close to her ribs, body straight as a damn arrow.
Breakneck stared, heat blooming low in his gut. Damn. It wasn’t just flexibility. It was the way she did it, with no apology, no drama. Just pure command over her body.
“I’m guessing this isn’t part of your usual training,” she said, not looking at him.
He walked up behind her, slow. Close enough to make her aware. “I can do that,” he murmured.
Her head turned slightly, mouth twitching. “Yeah? You sure about that?”
He grinned. Challenge accepted.
She stepped aside, making room, but he could feel the smirk radiating off her. She thought he was full of shit.
He set his hand on the barre, braced his stance, and exhaled through the tightness in his hamstrings. Then, with steady control, he grabbed his arch, then pushed, lifting his leg. Up. Higher. Then higher still. Her quiet breath caught behind him. He pushed through the resistance, realigning his core, and extended the leg until it was a clean, vertical line. Foot flexed. Then pointed. Balanced. He held it, the faint sound of her breathing and the weight of her eyes moving over his body.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
He didn’t look back. “I stretch,” he said casually, voice like warm gravel.
“You’re showing off.”
He smiled. “Only for you.” A long pause. He lowered the leg slowly, kept it clean, controlled descent. When he finally turned, she was still watching him, something unreadable in her eyes. Part awe. Part heat. Maybe something more dangerous.
One brow arched, clearly assessing his lines. He expected a smartass remark, but what she said next threw him. “I’ve danced with some of the top male dancers in the country.” Her voice was low. Honest. “Men who’ve been stretching and training their whole lives. That was impressive.”
His breath caught. That was respect. He turned his head toward her, a slow smile spreading. Then it hit.
A muscle spasm clamped down on his thigh like a vice.
“Fuck—” he bit out, stumbling as the cramp seized through his thigh and up into his hip. He went down hard, catching himself on one hand, leg outstretched and spasming beneath him.
In an instant, Blair was there.
She dropped to her knees beside him, all sharp movement and bare concern.
“Hey—hey. I’ve got you.” She eased him onto his back, her hands were already on his thigh, fingers digging into the knot, her voice shifting into that calm, take-command tone she used in the field. “Just breathe through it. Let me work it out.”
He gritted his teeth, sweat slicking his skin again, this time from pain. “Son of a—Christ, that’s deep?—”
“I know,” she said, eyes focused, breath steady. “You locked your hip. Probably from trying to impress the ballerina.”
He huffed a breath that could’ve been a laugh but mostly wasn’t. “Worth it.”
She pressed deeper, her thumb finding the exact spot that made him jolt. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Almost there.”
He groaned, head tipped back, chest heaving. The pain was a white-hot spike, a vise clamping down on the muscle. Another spasm tore through his thigh, harder this time, a violent, uncontrolled contraction that sent his opposite leg kicking upward. It caught Blair square in the side, a solid, unthinking blow.
She yelped, a sharp sound of surprise, and her balance was shot. For a split second, she was a tangle of flailing limbs, and then she was on him. Not a gentle landing, but a full-body crash. Chest to chest. Groin to groin. Her thighs instinctively straddled his to steady herself, her hands splayed flat across his sweat-slick chest to break her fall.
Her face hovered inches from his, wide-eyed and…aroused. Fuck, he wasn’t sure what hurt worse, the screaming, locked-up muscle in his leg or his sudden, throbbing erection pressed directly between them, separated from her heat by only two thin layers of fabric.
She froze. He froze. The world narrowed to the points of contact between their bodies. She was plastered to him, nose to nose, her breath ghosting across his mouth in quick, warm puffs. He could feel the frantic beat of her heart against his ribs, a rhythm that mirrored the desperate throb in his cock. Her lips parted, and he swore he could feel the heat of her pulse in the charged space between them, a silent, frantic scream.
His hands, which had been gripping his leg, now lay useless at his sides. He wanted to push her away, to end this exquisite torture, but his body betrayed him. All he could do was lie there, trapped and aching, as her weight settled more firmly against him. The slightest shift of her hips was agony and ecstasy, a friction that sent a jolt straight up his spine. His gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth, to the full, glistening curve of her lower lip. He was starving for a taste of her, a man dying of thirst in the desert.
He saw the exact moment her shock morphed into something else. Her eyes darkened, the panic receding, replaced by a dawning, liquid awareness. Her gaze flickered down, then back up to his, and the unspoken question hung between them, heavier than her body, hotter than his pain. The air crackled with it. He was painfully, utterly hard, and there was no hiding it, no way to pretend it wasn't happening.
