by Ally Blake
Ryder. This current craziness was about Ryder.
She pressed her eyes shut tight and swallowed hard. But there was no stopping the feelings, the knowledge, now they’d been set free. She cared what he thought, he mattered to her, and she didn’t want him to see her fail.
Because at some point in the past few weeks, she’d dropped her guard. Maybe because the auditions were so close. Maybe it was the fact that it was hard to be impervious when completely blissed out by afterglow and you felt as if you’d been melted from the inside out. Whatever the reason, even with her eyes closed, when she breathed in and caught Ryder’s masculine scent her heart skittered against her ribs, heat slithered below her skin, and she felt jittery and feverish, and yet somehow at ease. Things she’d never felt before. Not with the same purity, the same effortlessness. Because she’d been taught very early on in life to press all her feelings deep down inside. The bad and the good.
Give a damn and they’ll eat you alive.
And the second she stopped pushing it all back down, it bubbled up until she felt it all—the breakdown of the first, real, long-term relationship of her adult life, her mother’s cruel reaction, the senseless flight from the career she adored. She’d honestly thought she’d taken it all on the chin, but she’d only pressed it down, the whole big hot mess that had led her to that point, spilling into her nerves, her heart, until she couldn’t breathe.
“Nadia.”
Ryder’s voice hummed through her like a tuning fork. She shook her head, no. No. No! Formidable and focused and fabulous, she was invulnerable. But she felt so raw her skin might as well have been flayed from her chest.
Unfortunately he was made of as stern a stuff as she. He grabbed her by the chin, turning her head to face him. She looked at the neckline of his T-shirt instead.
At her obstinacy he laughed—laughed!—before saying, “You asked me to let you lead on the dance floor, and I deferred to you once I grudgingly admitted you had the wisdom of experience over me. I’ve been driving for well over a decade. Not a single traffic violation to my name. Defer to me, Nadia. Trust me.”
She let out a roar of frustration and shook the steering wheel some, but this time didn’t let it go. Trapped, panic-stricken, she lifted her eyes to his, all set to tell him to bite her. But the moment her eyes found his, she jammed up. Those eyes. So deep, so beautiful, so patient. And so damn smart.
As if he knew. As if he’d known for some time that she’d been in denial about how quickly she’d gotten over the multiple layers of embarrassment and pain of the events of months past. All she could hang onto was the hope that that was all he’d deduced she was in denial about.
At least she’d learnt one thing from events past—the only way out of any mess was through. Nadia breathed in deep and breathed out shaky, happy right then to be breathing at all. “Okay,” she said. “Tell me what I have to do?”
“Foot on the clutch,” he said. “Gear into First. Key’s in the ignition. Turn it right, wait till the engine hums and let go.”
Sweat prickling down her back, Nadia followed Ryder’s instructions as best she could. And the car bunny-hopped a few feet before wobbling to an ignominious stop. Heat landed in her cheeks with a humiliating thud. “I totally suck.”
“Nobody gets the waltz right first go.”
“I did.”
“And I’ve never stalled. Duck to water.”
At that she laughed; shocked blissful laughter that shaved the sharpest edges off her agitation. With a slow breath out, she resettled herself, went to that quiet place she went before a routine: darkness, silence. Not discounting the natural fear, harnessing it.
In the quiet she heard Ryder’s litany of instructions, and, after a few more false starts, the directions began to blend from one move to the next, until it all seemed to click and she was easing out onto the road proper, rural scenery sliding past the window.
“I’m driving!”
“Yes, you are.”
“It’s easy!”
“Look at the road. Not me.”
She swung back to face the road to find herself veering. She nudged the car straight, her eyes on the horizon as he’d taught her. She pressed a little harder on the accelerator, adrenalin spiking as she was pressed back in the seat. “How far can I go?”
“Do you have a learner’s permit?”
“What?” Nadia said, her hands flinging off the wheel and feet off the pedals in panic. “Of course not.”
The engine stalled and with an oath, Ryder grabbed the wheel and shifted it a fraction so they could ease off the side of the road, where he yanked the parking brake. “Then we’d better stay away from town. And schools, and police, and people in general.”
His voice was rough, but when she looked at him he was smiling.
While Nadia let out a “Woop!” of pure delight and laughed till her sides hurt. Relief and joy spilling through her unstoppered. And like a street after a rainstorm, all the muck that had flooded to the surface before had been washed away leaving her feeling shiny and new. “That was awesome. And even better for being illicit, right? What next?”
“Next we lunch. I’m driving.” Ryder got out of the car and motioned she do the same.
Lunch? He wanted to eat? She was so wired she could fly! Nadia gripped the wheel a moment longer and wondered how far she might get if she just took off. When he opened her door she squinted up at him. “Bonnie and Clyde had to start somewhere.”
He merely held out a hand. She let him help her out of the car when she realised she was trembling all over, adrenalin knocking about her insides till her nerves sang. He must have felt it as he cupped her elbows in an effort to steady her, which was kind of sweet. Then his eyes turned dark and he pressed her back against the sloping side of the car which was anything but sweet. “Tell me how that felt?”
Shaking hands running over his chest, she said, “You were the one putting your life in my hands. How did that feel?”
His eyes narrowed. “Not in the least bit unusual.”
“Oh,” Nadia said in barely a whisper. While in the cocoon of the car she’d managed to just hold herself together while being cracked apart. Now, out in the open air, the country breeze tickling at her hair, sunshine pouring down over her bare shoulders, Ryder’s challenging hazel eyes looking deep into her own, she felt...too much.
Heat rising, everywhere, she looked up at him. “I know I was a bit of a beast to start with, but thank you for today.”
“It just seemed like a nice day for a drive.”
Said the man who worked so hard that he never had time to change out of his suit for a ten p.m. appointment, who’d taken a day off because he’d seen she was about to crack and chose to be there to hold her together when she did. “Come on, Ryder,” she said with an unsteady laugh. “I doubt you’ve done a thing in your life that wasn’t entirely deliberate.”
Something slid behind his eyes like quicksilver, something deep and onerous. “So I might have had an ulterior motive.”
His gaze slipped to her neck, the hot spot below her ear, before landing on her lips, and any breath she’d managed to gather in her lungs poured out of her in a shaky sigh. Then his eyes slid back to hers. “You, Nadia Kent, have reserves of strength inside of you you’ve not yet tapped. Add drive, talent, panache, and you can do anything you set your mind on. You don’t need your mother’s permission to soar.”
Mention of her mother was quite enough for the adrenalin still sliding hot and molten through her veins to solidify like cooling candle wax. “Ryder—”
“Tell me you know it.”
His eyes were no longer smiling. They were intense. Serious. Unrelenting. As if he believed in her. Not just her ability to dance. To do well despite her ex watching on. But her. And he wouldn’t give up until she believed the same.
“I know it.” And like a flash of white-hot light bursting inside her, illuminating the shiny new places inside her she’d only just begun to feel, she did. In fact in that moment she felt pretty much invincible.
Pure and unadulterated instinct taking her over, Nadia lifted up onto her toes, slid her hands over his big shoulders and kissed him. Soft at the start. Appreciating every lick of heat building in its wake. And when his hand moved to her breast, kneading, running a thumb over the centre, it ached. She ached. Every last bit of her inside and out, filled with such sweet pain she could barely stand it—
A car zoomed past, flushing them with a burst of hot air, and a beeping horn that echoed off into the distance. Still, they were slow to pull apart, and when Nadia leant her forehead against Ryder’s shoulder the erratic beat of his heart more than matched her own.
“Lunch?” Ryder asked, his voice coarse.
“Sounds like a plan.”
* * *
When Ryder dropped Nadia home late that evening, he helped her from the car once more. And once again made a meal of her self-control, the cold metal of the car at her back doing nothing to dampen the heat of the man kissing her senseless.
But after the events of the day—the news, revelations, and realisations—she was exhausted, emotionally and mentally wrung out. The thought of putting one foot in front of the other to get to her door was enough to make her whimper. So she pressed a hand to his chest. “Ryder, wait.”
When he growled in frustration, she bit her lip so hard it bruised. She swiped her tongue over the spot, then said, “I’ve been thinking, and I need to cool things between now and the audition.”
Hard, and hot, and breathing heavy, Ryder didn’t move for a long while. When he did it was to curl away from her and lean back against the car, where he crossed his arms and looked out into the night.
“Like a football player,” she explained, turning to face him, the cold of the car now seeping into her skin. “No sex before a big match. I’m going to need all the reserves of stamina I can muster. You understand, right?”
It shouldn’t have been so hard. They both knew that with the audition looming, and Sam’s wedding right on its heels, their places in one another’s lives would lose traction and wind up. That time apart would all too soon be a final goodbye. And yet Nadia held her breath as she waited for his response.
“Yeah,” he said, running his hand through his hair, before piercing her with a dark glance. “I understand.”
Then casual as you please he ambled back to his side of the car, leaving Nadia to feel horribly bereft. Even though he’d given her exactly what she wanted. What she needed. Heck, he was the one who’d relit the fire under her with all that “you don’t need your mother’s permission” nonsense!
Desire, and exhaustion, and a goodly head of inner steam giving her a second wind, Nadia jogged across the cracked pavement leading to the heavily barred door below her apartment, and jabbed the key in the rusty lock.
“Nadia.”
She turned to find him watching her over the car. His face in near darkness.
“Break a leg,” he said, his words carrying a level of intensity that made her skin tighten all over at the thought he might not be wishing it in the spirit in which it ought to have been meant.
Nevertheless she said, “Thanks, Ryder.”
Then without looking back she jogged up the skinny steps leading to her first-floor apartment, and went straight into her bedroom, and to the drawer where she kept her choreography notes.
She spent the next few hours staring at them, poring over them, tweaking them. Imagining herself going through the motions until she was sure the routine was the best thing she’d ever created. Because despite her exhaustion, her head was clear. Clear of the muddy conflicts and doubts and strangled hopes that had suffocated her efforts for as long as she could remember. And in the clarity she knew. She was ready. More ready than she’d ever been. To dance. For her. Just her.
* * *
Nadia ducked out of the train at Richmond Station.
Turning the collar of her light jacket against the shimmer of summer rain, she made her way along the platform, down the ramp and out onto the street leading to her apartment, where the malodorous scents of Laundromats, and student accommodation, and a million different kinds of international cuisine fought one another on the hot hazy air.
Adrenalin sent wings to her feet and she found herself doing her best Singing in the Rain all along the edge of the footpath, her feet feeling as if they barely touched the ground as the audition she’d just left played over and over in her head.
Not so much the moves; truth was she could barely remember a moment of the actual routine. It was the conversation afterwards that was still blowing her mind. Not only that the producers had been so lovely, so welcoming, so honestly thrilled to see her, but how they’d raved at her transformation.
Her technical perfection, they’d gushed, had been supercharged by some new raw emotion. A new-found vulnerability had added layers to her performance. A breakthrough, they’d said. Goose bumps had been mentioned. One woman claimed that with that final tool in her arsenal she was unstoppable. With that ringing in her head, who the hell cared that her stupid ex had barely looked her in the eye?
Seeing him had been less than she’d expected. Less hurtful. Less embarrassing. Maybe because she understood his part in the debacle, maybe because she’d recently begun to understand her own. Could she work with him if she got the gig? Hell, yeah. Could he work with her? That was his problem.
Needing to share this feeling before she burst, she pulled out her phone, opened her contacts list and there her thumb hovered. She wanted her friends in Vegas to know—they’d be cheering for her. Her reasons for wanting her mother to know were thorny and complicated. And yet there was only one person she truly wanted to tell, one person who would understand the layers of pride and relief and fear and excitement it had taken to dance on her own terms...
“Hey, Ginger Rogers,” a deep voice called out.
Stopping short with one foot wavering in the air, she grabbed a lamppost to steady herself and held on tight. For there was Ryder, outside her apartment, leaning against his beautiful car in a pose that was as familiar to her as the man himself.
“Gene Kelly, actually,” she said, her voice breathless, pocketing the phone with his number still on the screen.
It had been days since she’d seen him—since the driving lesson with the life lesson thrown in. It felt like weeks.
Pushing away from the shiny black hull of his car, he came to her. A tall, dark presence who somehow still made her feel so light. “What’s up?”
“You tell me. How did the audition go?”
“Seriously?” she blurted, fatally rapt that he’d remembered the time, the date, everything. She couldn’t remember another time in her life when anyone cared enough to ask, at least not someone not competing against her for a part.
Then Ryder was there, his hands sliding around her waist, and she let go of the slippery post to hold his elbows. Tight. The familiar scent of him mingled with the rain in the air and she breathed it in deep. The heat of him coursed through her and her pulse thrummed right down deep.
“So?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
“The audition?”
“Right. Of course. It was...fabulous. I didn’t want it to end. And they liked it. And me. And...well, that about covers it!”
His eyes roved over her face as she spoke, such intensity, such desire she near lost her train of thought. Then, eyes on hers, he slid a hand over her hair, coming up with a damp tendril. He wrapped it around a finger and tugged. “And the ex?”
Her skin, already feeling a size too small, zinged from his touch. “Still a douche.”
He laughed, the deep sound rumbling through her, coiling
the tension inside her tighter still. “And to think I’d been worried the guy’d take one look at you and fall to his knees and beg to have you back.”
He’d been worried? Nadia felt so light-headed at the thought she figured she was way too low on electrolytes. But first she slid her hands up Ryder’s big arms, over his strong shoulders, and she said, “He could beg all he likes. He’s never getting me back.”
He lifted his chin in acquiescence. “Good... For you,” he added as an afterthought. “So how’s your stamina, now the big match is over?”
That brought a grin to Nadia’s face as she lifted onto her toes and pressed her mouth to his. The touch of their lips was gentle, tender even, as if they were relearning one another after their time apart. So tender her heart felt as if it was beating in her belly, emotion tightened the back of her throat, and she was pretty sure she’d begun to tremble.
Feelings tumbling through her like a waterfall over a craggy rock wall, Nadia tipped so high onto her toes she was practically en pointe. Then, though she wouldn’t have thought it possible, when he held a soft hand at the back of her head the kiss grew deeper, more connected, and infinitely more precious.
Was it raining harder? Who knew? Who cared?
Wanting more, craving all, needing relief from the knots of pleasure twisting in her belly, she opened her mouth and Ryder took complete advantage. His tongue slid against hers, slowly, gently, but with absolute intent. When his tongue slid cruelly away, her teeth sank into his bottom lip in retribution, hard enough he hissed in a sharp breath.
Nadia stilled, while the heat continued to pour through her. Then with a groan Ryder swept his mouth over hers, enveloped her in his strong arms and kissed her till she saw stars.
Relearning done. This they knew how to do.
Her hands were beneath his jacket, sliding up the long flat muscles of his back, which twitched beautifully at her touch. Then with something akin to a roar he lifted her into his arms. She let out a loud whoop of surprise and held on tight—her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist.
