Lead and Follow (22 page)

Although he’d be a lesser man without her, he was lost in this limbo between friends and lovers, between partners and goodbye.

She barely wiggled when he brushed the hair back from her temple and ears. From the side, her mouth was pillowed perfection. He loved the way she kissed, as if she invested every molecule in making him feel good.

Long, slow touches traced the arches and dips and hollows of her body. Her shoulder, where he draped his hands at turns. Her waist, which he held when lifting her over his head. Her hips—those lovely, devilish hips. Tonight every inch of her felt different under his eager hands.

They’d been transformed. The parts and whole, together and separated again. Just different enough that they didn’t fit anymore.

She woke slowly. The sheet tangled around her feet was shoved down in languorous moves. She lifted her arm, hooking behind his head where he nuzzled her neck. “Mmm. I like that.”

He chuckled against her skin. “Have I found the key to waking you in a pleasant mood?”

She uncoiled, pressing her shoulders back against his chest. “Want to give it a shot?”

He loved the hollow between her breasts, the resilient push of her stomach. She was open to him wherever he touched. So softly accommodating, even when he dipped between her thighs to the dampness of her pussy. She sighed and lifted her knee to give him better access. Each lazy dawn swirl of his fingers made her more lush, more ready for him. He spread wetness along her folds and caught her clit between two knuckles. Tender pinches earned him the quiet moan he loved so much.

Pulsing with sharp arousal, his cock was notched along the cleft of her ass. He thrust against her softness. She reached backward, her nails biting his hip with a little sting. He hissed as the sting all worked together, pulling him out of the dreamy, foggy place that was so much safer.

He couldn’t stop licking her neck, grazing his teeth over her shoulders. Contact. He craved contact with her. How had he lasted through those endless, torturous months after her injury? Quiet apartment. Hands empty. He shuddered with the memory. Fumbling in the dark, he found a lone condom in the nightstand drawer and rolled it on.

She’d thrown an arm over her head and flipped onto her back. The dark meant he couldn’t see the color of her eyes, but they glinted in a stray beam of light through the window. She extended a hand.

He laced their fingers together and held them up next to her head. The mattress gave little resistance. Their hands, wound together on the white sheet… He swallowed hard. The moment probably called for words, but he had none. No plans either. Just a hope.

Lizzie tugged him near. Her lips petted his with tiny sips. Small blessings, until he needed more. Surging, he took her mouth at the same time he took her body.

Pressed flat, his cock deep in the scalding warmth of her pussy, Dima knew. He knew how much he’d do for this woman, if she could bring herself to ask.

Because he loved her. More than anything in his life.

That didn’t mean he could have her.

This moment was sex. Lovely, perfect sex filled with soft words and kisses and hands that traced cold thrills down his skin. It was what he wanted.

It wasn’t what he needed.

His hips worked steadily, thrusting into her. He framed her face in his hands. Tried to look into her eyes. She’d drifted away, her eyes half-closed and cloudy, her lips shaped into an absent smile.

He stroked damp hair back from her cheek. “Where are you, little one?” he said, as quiet as a spring breeze.

She sighed happily. “Here with you.”

“And who am I?”

Her ankles lifted behind his ass, locking over him. Heels dug deep into his cheeks and gently parted that tender skin. Sensation rocked through his bones. Tingles gathered at the base of his balls. More and hotter and harder. He wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer, but he needed an answer.

He tangled a handful of her hair, pulled her head back. The darkness tempted him. He could let loose so much, say too much. So he held back, kept his movements steady but slow. Those beautiful eyes flashed open.

“Who am I?” he repeated.

“Dima mine,” she whispered. She stretched her hands above her head. Her breasts arched upwards, begging his mouth. She was so beautiful, and he wanted to feast on that singular beauty, but he also needed her hands on him. Her touch. Her acceptance. He didn’t know how to say that he longed to be her choice. “My partner. My best friend. My rock. My calm.” The words blurred into a dizzy chant that went straight to his head.

He could float away too. Let all the softness and all the sensation drag him away until he didn’t question, didn’t look down the road. Didn’t plan. Just accepted what he had. That ought to be enough.

The words spilling out of her mouth began to sound like taunts. He needed all of her, and he needed to be the man she loved. Not some near miss. It was more than he could take. The kiss he claimed was fierce. He pushed them up over the sleepy place where they had wandered together.

He slammed into her. Deeper. Harder.

She yanked her mouth away from his and came, voicing her pleasure to the dark in a rough groan. The tugs of her wet cunt on his dick pulled him toward orgasm. Pleasure jerked out his spine, loosened his joints. Took away the last of his senses.

He gathered her close. He tucked her head under his chin, the better to keep her from looking at him. Bad enough that his chest panted on harsh breaths. She didn’t need to see what was undoubtedly written on his face.

He needed her love too. It wasn’t ever going to be enough to love on his own.

He’d spent the last twenty years trying to earn his parents’ love. Their approbation depended on his continuing to dance when that same career had disappointed them. Doing better. Being more. Rising higher. He didn’t resent his parents, but neither could he put himself in such a lopsided position again. Dependence never led to love.

If she still harbored any doubts about his dependability as her partner, or if they looked down the road toward different professional goals, they didn’t even have dance anymore.

Her hands petted his biceps. The wet swipe of her tongue glossed over his clavicles. “Salty.” Her jaw cracked on a huge yawn. “We’re going to have to shower before yoga and after.”

Did she just assume things would go on as they always did? Holy Mother, he couldn’t cope with that.

He kept stroking her hair and shoulders and the glorious slope of her back long after she’d fallen asleep. Streetlights shifted yellowed patterns on his far wall. A cab came and went, followed by a couple of giggling girls. The downstairs neighbors slammed a door.

The whole time Dima lay awake. Thinking. No matter the avenues and byways he traveled, he couldn’t figure out how to fix it. How to keep and care for his Lizzie, without losing himself along the way.

He didn’t remember falling asleep, but at dawn his eyes snapped open and he knew what he needed to do.

Lizzie slept half on top of him, including him in her usual sprawl. Her face was buried against his ribs, her arm thrown across his waist. One of her bare legs weighed across his thighs. Smooth skin rubbed over his knee. Pale blonde hair shielded her face.

It was like waking in heaven, but knowing he would be sent back to purgatory, as soon as she opened her eyes. She would smile and everything would be strained and uncertain again, except they might get to sleep together on occasion. Best when a handsome cowboy was involved.

He couldn’t take it anymore.

She would stop following him soon. Because he was bound to fuck it all up. Hell, it was half the reason he wanted off the competition circuit. To go out on top, before the inevitable fall that had slowly claimed his parents. Before he hurt Lizzie’s other knee. Maybe next time he’d bust her ankle or something worse—keep her from dancing ever again.

Lizzie had to suspect it too, even when dangling a tempting carrot in the form of Paul. She hadn’t wanted him talking with Svetlana, so she’d enticed Paul into pulling him away. If Lizzie really wanted something more from him, she’d have made it happen. Maybe when he’d all but put his heart on that diner table. Perhaps she too saw an expiration date on their partnership.

Unwinding himself from that gorgeous pile of womanhood was almost impossible. When he unhitched her hand from his hip, he thought her yawn meant she was waking up. He froze, because he was such a fucking coward sometimes.

Her muscles eased and she melted back into the mattress, letting him slip away. He pulled the sheet up over her shoulders. That was practically a kindness to himself, not her, because he wouldn’t need to look at the perfect globes of her ass.

His instinct was to slide so easily into their old patterns. Yoga together, breakfast—all the little things that had constructed their life for so long.
No.
He’d already been living in a half-way land for too long. Putting his relationship with Lizzie above everything else made no sense when she didn’t see him in the same way.

In silence he pulled on some clothes and gathered his wallet and keys. Leaving the apartment left him at loose ends. The city bustled around him, most people headed off to work, briefcases in hand or messenger bags slung over their shoulders. They all held coffee cups.

Dima shoved empty hands in his pockets. He wasn’t needed at Club Devant until late in the afternoon. Loose ends was even an understatement. So he wandered. Against the swells of people, he headed downtown. He watched his sneakers track over the dirty, gum-spattered concrete.

He came to a stop, seemingly out of nowhere. He looked up and found the diner off the park. The place where it had all started to go wrong.

There was no halfway point on which to balance a life. Paul, for all his fun, had been a bridge—from the locked stasis of their old life, across to something new.

No one ever lived on a bridge.

And for Dima, there’d be no going back.

Chapter Twenty-One

Lizzie awoke alone in a bright triangle of sunlight. She blinked a few times, swallowed and groaned against the familiar dizzy hangover feeling of being dehydrated. Her mouth tasted like rotting mushrooms, and she really needed to pee. Too many petty demands on her attention, when all she wanted was to smile up at the ceiling and stretch her deliciously aching inner thighs.

Dima.

God, they’d been like comets. She wanted another ride. That meant getting up and doing the right thing. No more pretending that they were something they used to be. No more hiding from how much she wanted a future with him—more of a future than just dance partners.

She grabbed his bathrobe from the back of the door. Wrapped in his scent, she hurried to the bathroom to take care of those truly not-so-petty necessities. Brushing her hair before seeing him first thing in the morning had never been a priority. They’d been roommates too long for that sort of silly posturing, but she did the best she could with curls that had been mushed to hell and back. Her roots were showing. She smiled at herself, knowing how much Dima appreciated her new color. Time to make an appointment.

Make all these little changes. With and for him.

A shower would have to wait. She wanted to plaster her body along his back, snuggle up on that hard-earned frame, and kiss him on the nape until he needed to fuck her against the kitchen counter.

No thank you, sun salutation. Got an alternate workout planned this morning.

She found the living room empty. Standing there, feet bare on the hardwood floor, she stared uncomprehendingly at the pair of rolled yoga mats in the corner. The kitchen was empty too. Hell, it wasn’t that big of a place.

“Dima?”

She hustled to her bedroom. Maybe he needed somewhere to stretch out that wasn’t all over her. Maybe…

She already knew what she’d find. Her bed. Still neatly made—such a powerful contrast to his bed, which looked like it had been worked over by a tornado.

Cellphone next. No calls missed. No voicemails. No texts.

She laid her RAZR back on her nightstand and simply…sank. Down along the door of her closet, the terrycloth of his robe smoothed the way. Her knees collapsed in a slide that had no choreographed grace. Ice coated her heart. A fine tremble shook to the ends of her fingers and toes.

He was gone. He obviously didn’t want to be found.

A powerful burn started in her belly and thrust into her throat. Sometimes she’d suffered the same roiling nausea before a competition, but Dima was always there to rub her lower back. He’d never touched anything else, heeding the hours she needed to prepare hair, makeup and fake tan to the outrageous extremes required of pro dance. The reminder—that Dima should be there, helping her through a crisis—only made her stomach pinch harder. The burn intensified until she staggered to her feet, barely making it to the toilet.

Kneeling there, her hair once again in sweaty disarray, she let go of weeks of bottled-up emotion. Maybe longer. Maybe she’d been holding in those sobs since her torn ACL slaughtered the healthy, vibrant animal that had been her old life. Hot tears coated her cheeks. She wrapped his robe closer around her shoulders and let every ounce of remorse and confusion find an escape.

But most of the time, close isn’t good enough.