She turned off the engine and turned to him, tentative. Soft.Hopeful.
“You coming up?”
He didn’t flinch. Wouldn’t meet her gaze. “I think it’s better if I meet you at the studio tomorrow.”
The words were gentle. Polite. Said with that careful calm he used when he was trying not to bleed. But it was his faint and distant smile that cut her, as if was already stepping away. Likethis had already become a memory he was trying not to hold too tightly. Then he opened the door.
“Goodnight, Holly.”
He stepped out and started up the block but didn’t look back. Holly just sat there in the driver’s seat, hands numb on the wheel, breath caught somewhere behind her ribs. Her heart thudded once. Hard. Like she’d taken a fall, and this time… no one was there to catch her.
39
TENSION BUT MAKE IT TRAGEDY
Holly
“He didn’t have to say he was hurt. He just stopped dancing like he wanted me.”
Everything felt wrong the second Holly walked in the next morning.
The room was unnervingly quiet, like it had swallowed her whole. The air felt thinner, colder, like someone had sucked all the oxygen and joy out and left her to suffocate in the aftermath. Holly swallowed hard, heart already sprinting ahead to the worst-case scenario.He didn’t even look up when the door opened, just continued his warm-up drills alone in the center of the studio, focused, but closed.
He didn’t clock her presence like he always did. Just gave her a curt little nod, all business, like she was a coworker he’d cc’d out of an email on purpose. No music, no snark, no calling herMartinezormenaceor whatever nickname he was using to emotionally compromise her with that week.
God,this was going tosuck.
They were working on the Tango this week. A dance built on tension, desire, dominance. A dance that lived and breathed in the space between lips not touching, in hands held just tightly enough. It was supposed to be intimate. Combustible. Right now she felt like she was in the middle of a hostage negotiation.
She cleared her throat. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Flat.Civil.Like they were strangers in line at LAX security, not two people who’d fucked rough against a glass panel on a rooftop five days ago.
“You okay?” she asked, toeing the line between casual and desperate.
“Yep. Tango?”
Fuck.There it was. The tonal shift of a man who’d walked face-first into a brick wall labeleddon’t get attachedand was now quietly bleeding behind his polite little nod. He didn’t ask how she was. Didn’t give her anything except three syllables and the broadest cold shoulder she’d ever seen in her whole damn life. But that was okay. If this was what he wanted, she’d default to her factory settings.
“Okay,” she said, pretending she didn’t feel the chasm yawning between them. “Let’s start with the hold.”
No smirk. No playful chirp about hand placement, or conspiratorial wink. Nate just gave her a professional nod and the deadpan energy of a man who’d switched his heart to airplane mode. Holly stepped in, lifting her arms like muscle memory might save her.
“The hold for the tango is a little different to our other standard ballroom holds. Your right hand goes here.” She reachedbehind her back to edge his hand lower, so his wrist was cradling the bottom of her shoulder blade, hand angling downwards on a slope towards her ass. He moved like a man defusing a bomb until his hand hovered near her waist, barely touching.
“My left hand goes just under your armpit like this.” She demonstrated, fitting her elbow over and around his to lock them into place. “We apply pressure to our elbows like they’re glued together. That’s how we get sharp control. Move your elbow.”
Nate complied without a word, gently swaying. Their connection made it impossible for Holly not to follow, and she let him feel the weight of it before continuing.
“Good. Your leading side will be the same as it is for the other ballroom dances.”
He nodded and lifted his left hand. Holly took it, but there was an immediate lack of presence there which confused her. She knew his hold by now.She had fucking crafted it.So why couldn’t she feel his hand on her back, and why was he holding her right hand like he thought she was gonna give him cooties?
She tried to make a joke. Tried to throw him a lifeline wrapped in banter. “Youcantouch me, you know.”
He hesitated long enough for her tofeelthe war he was fighting behind his ribs.
“I am.”
