“Great.” She spun again, harder this time, like momentum would act like a talisman to ward him off before he caught onto the fact that she was absolutely aching between her thighs. “You can turn it off on your way out.”
But he wasn’t deterred. She could feel him behind her, justwatchingwith that bruiser’s intensity, like he could pin her in place without ever laying a hand. Her next step faltered ever so slightly.
“You okay?” he asked, voice like velvet over ablade.
“Fine.”
Fine, fine, fine. This is fine.
“Just tired,” she lied. “It’s late.”
His gaze dropped deliberately to her mouth, lingered there like it had every right to, then drifted lower. Unhurried, shameless, before he hauled it back up to meet her eyes again. Like he was taking inventory. Like he wanted her to know exactly what he was thinking without giving her the satisfaction of saying it.
“You should go home,” he said, voice rough with restraint. “Get some sleep.”
It sounded less like advice and more like a dare.
She ignored him and moved back to their starting position, setting her feet with exaggerated precision, shoulders squared as if the choreography could protect her from everything else. “Again,” she said, already counting in her head.
“You always hide here when you’re upset?” he asked, too casual, like he wasn’t standing there looking at her like he’d memorized every fracture line.
“I’m not upset.”
His expression didn’t change, but his eyes sharpened. “You’re doing quickstep drills at midnight with murder in your eyes,” he drawled. “That’s not well-adjusted behavior.”
She stopped. Only for a second, the smallest hitch in movement that betrayed her. Then she turned, chin lifted, breath tight. “I’mfine.”
“Liar.”
The word cut clean through the air between them, too blunt to argue with, too accurate to ignore. Heat rushed into her face asshe whipped toward him fully, lungs working harder than they should have been.
“Go home, Eriksson,” she hissed.
Nate
“In my defense, she told me to do something about it. I’m trying to be more coachable.”
He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. He moved closer instead with a purpose, like he knew the floorplan of her rage and exactly where to step without setting off alarms. Close enough that she could feel the heat of his body and his presence filling the space behind her like weather rolling in. Heavy, inevitable.
“This is about Lars, isn’t it?” he asked quietly.
Her spine snapped straight, dancer-perfect, the control in her posture turning razor sharp. “Excuse me?”
“Lars,” he repeated, and the name didn’t leave his mouth so much as itspat. “He looks at you like he’s waiting for a second shot, and you…” His gaze tracked her like a target. “You bristle. Every time.”
She laughed, sharp and brittle, the sound of someone refusing to bleed where anyone could see. “What? Jealous?”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t deny it. He just kept closing thedistance between them like he had all the time in the world, and she was the one running out of minutes.
“You don’t get to psycho-analyze me,” she snapped as she jabbed a finger at her watch to turn the sound system off before planting her hands on her hips. The Quickstep died mid-beat, leaving behind a silence so thick it felt like it had weight.
“I’mnot,”he said, voice low. “I’m just saying?—”
“No.”She stepped into him, furious enough to be brave. “You’re projecting. BecauseGod forbidsomeone doesn’t want you, right?”
Something in his face shifted. Not anger exactly. Worse.Recognition.Like she’d pressed his bruise dead center. For one heartbeat, he went perfectly still, his jaw tightening as if he were wrestling with the impulse to walk away. To be the man who didn’t ruin things.
He should’ve walked away. Fuck knows he wanted to.Sort of. But then she looked at him with her eyes blazing, her chest heaving. Those perfectly pouty lips were parted in defiance, and something inside him just… roared.
