Sasha: Book Two

by Tonya Plank

  She shook her head. “No, Sasha. You know about those horrid men. You know. You have to tell me. I have to know what just happened to me.” Her voice was shaky but she wasn’t crying. She was shaking with anger and fear.

  I closed my eyes and swallowed. “I promise I will tell you. I can’t now. I can’t. For now, please just trust me, Rory. Please.”

  “I do trust you. But that doesn’t mean I don’t need to know what happened. I could have been raped. I could have been killed! Who were those men, Sasha? Are you in some kind of trouble? You are, aren’t you? Those men were pure evil!”

  “No.” I shook my head firmly. She thought I had dealings with the mafia. “They never would have killed you. Nor rape you. They never would have hurt you at all. They would never hurt anyone. That was not their intent.”

  “Sasha!” She backed away from me, squirming to the far side of the bed. “How do you know that? How do you know those horrible men? What are you involved in?”

  “Nothing. They are not mafia, Rory. They aren’t. I am involved in nothing. I just…know them. I just…do.” I shook my head and looked away, unable to face her. “I cannot tell you right now,” I said, looking out the window through the parted curtain, where I could glimpse the rose garden, mostly shorn of petals. “I promise you, I will tell you as soon as I can. When I know it’s safe. But right now they will not hurt you again. They will not hurt anyone. At least not anyone who does not deserve…” My voice trailed off and I closed my eyes and pinched my temples.

  If she knew about Tatiana, if she knew how much she looked like her, if she knew that she might be in trouble because of that—something I didn’t even know for sure—it would take over her entire day-to-day consciousness. She’d constantly be panicked, scared. I wouldn’t let anyone touch her again. I wouldn’t. And for some reason, I trusted Oleg to honor our bargain. But I didn’t know if she’d trust me enough not to be frightened all the time.

  “Anyone who does not deserve what? Sasha!” Fear radiated outward from her eyes, encompassing her entire face.

  I turned to her again, looked her straight in the eye. “Please, Rory. I need you to trust me. I promise you they will never, ever harm you again in any way. But you have to trust me. I can’t talk about this now. I need your trust.” Again my words were fast but I pronounced every syllable with razor-sharp precision and immense weight.

  “Sasha, are they mafia? They’re mafia, aren’t they?”

  “No. Absolutely not.” I shook my head for emphasis. “Don’t even…please don’t even… I promise you they are not mafia. They are not related to mafia. I know this for a fact. Rory, this is not about me and it’s not about you. It’s…I can’t…please. I’m not making light of this by not telling you right now. It’s totally the opposite. I need your trust.” I scooted to her and placed my hands on her arms, running my palms up and down them from her shoulders to her wrists. Then I wrapped my arms around her body and rocked her back and forth.

  The friction from my hands and the heat from my body and its proximity to hers created warmth. I tried to envelop her, let her disappear into me. She was an innocent, middle-class girl. She knew nothing of the bad things that happened to certain people, innocent though they were. I had to protect her from it all. Not just the reality of it, but the thought of it all. I had to banish this whole thing from her mind. How?

  “Sasha, I’m a lawyer. I do criminal law, for crying out loud. At least I did. A crime was committed. A kidnapping. Do you realize how this goes against every fiber of my being not to report—”

  “Yes,” I said, whispering in her ear, now even closer, as close as I could get, my arms engulfing her even more. “I do. I do,” I continued whispering. I wrapped one arm around her back and one around her knees, now cradling her, my body cocooning hers. “I do,” I said once again. I held her like that for several moments before continuing. “You are so brilliant. My brilliant lawyer. I love you so much. I love your good soul. You are everything to me. Everything.”

  It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her not to report my uncle and cousin until they found Tatiana. I knew she loved me and would do what I wanted. But I also knew it would create such a contradiction in character for her that it would harm her soul not to report a crime. I didn’t want to do that to her. And I feared if she knew anything, at this point anyway, it just wouldn’t lead to anything good. It would make her a target for my uncle, or perhaps for the people who actually had Tatiana. It would at least make Oleg want to keep her quiet. Who knew what he’d do to that end?

  I needed to keep her innocent. I needed to keep her ignorant. For now. After I’d had a chance to see Tatiana, after this was all over, everything would be different. I prayed.

  She took several deep breaths. I could feel her heart pumping, and her brain working. Slowly, she lifted her chin toward me. Her lips, her face, were so moist. I placed my lips on hers, my tongue coaxing them apart, filling her mouth. Soon we were both lying down, my body covering hers protectively, our limbs entwined.

  “You are mine. If anyone ever tries to touch you again, they will answer to me. And they will be very sorry,” I whispered into her ear, kissing her earlobe, neck and face.

  She said nothing, but nodded. I soon felt her muscles relax and heard the steady rhythm of her breathing as she slept.

  She was agreeing to trust me, allowing herself to forget about those horrible men, at least for now.

  Chapter Eight

  I knew Rory couldn’t truly forget, though. I’d never be able to either. I’d promised her I would tell her, eventually. And I would. She deserved to know. It was the most frightening thing that had ever happened to her. I knew that.

  For now, we threw ourselves into practicing for Blackpool—our singular challenge at this point. Probably the only challenge we could actually control. Somehow, after what had happened, we were dancing better than ever. She was eating better than ever. The first thing she’d do when she got to my place was down one of my juices. I prepared snacks for her when I went to work and she stayed in to work with Greta. I enjoyed preparing food. Maybe when I retired from competitive dance, I’d open a restaurant. Daily I filled little containers with baby carrots, peppers of all colors, radishes, artichoke hearts, sliced avocado, beets, bananas and apples, a variety of nuts and cheeses, and slices of smoked salmon, and most of them would often be near gone when I got home.

  One evening, after we’d ended practice and were enjoying a bottle of champagne in the hot tub, she said something that momentarily made me go cold. “I’m so glad you’re so healthy,” I said to her, wrapping my arms around her from behind and lightly sucking the delicate skin of her neck.

  “I guess that’s one not-horrid thing that came out of the ordeal. I realized how much I loved my life. How I’d miss it if it was taken from me. Eating is an affirmation of that, I guess.” Her voice was so soft and sweet. She said this with no anger whatsoever.

  “I love your life too,” I whispered, and continued tasting her, taking in her beautiful scent, her deliciously soft, creamy skin.

  Despite the fact that this ordeal would hang over our heads at least until Tatiana was found and I could tell her, Rory worked harder than ever on her dancing. She put everything she had into winning Blackpool. Maybe it was also that I was likewise overwhelmed, and that finding Tatiana was more in the forefront of my mind than it had been, but there was simply nothing now to criticize about our partnership, not a single thing to harp on. A first for me. We were simply at our best. We were, I hoped and actually thought, the best.

  “We’re getting there,” I said at one point during practice.

  Rory cracked up. It always warmed my soul now whenever she laughed.

  I shot her a bemused frown.

  “That’s your way of saying we’re actually looking good. We’re actually ready. Or, like, semi-ready. I mean, you can never be one hundred percent ready. Good lord—I’m starting to think like you! I’m developing your perfectionist ways! You’re becoming o
ptimistic like me and I’m becoming a perfectionist like you!”

  “No, no, you’ll never be as bad as me,” I said with a smile and a peck to her cheek.

  Then she sobered. “Yeah, I’ve never worked so hard on anything, Sasha. Not college, not law school. Even the bar exam. I don’t think I worked this hard even for that. I don’t know, it’s like I have a new lease on life, and there isn’t a single aspect of it I’m not going to live to the fullest.” She shrugged, and I wanted nothing more than to take those shoulders and pull them into me closely, wrap my body around hers, never let her go.

  ***

  We returned to Daiyu’s two weeks before the competition. Rory had gained enough weight that her dresses fit her perfectly. I was so proud of her. She was proud of herself. The costumes looked absolutely breathtaking on her. Daiyu had embroidered all the rhinestones on and they glimmered in the bright Los Angeles sunlight gleaming through the opened window.

  “I can’t believe how…glamorous I look!” Rory squealed. “Like never before. Certainly not in any of my ballet costumes. I look like a real ballroom dancer.” She blushed.

  I hugged her. I was quite unable to keep my hands off her these days. “I’m so happy you think so.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Rory, are you kidding? I have never not thought you were absolutely gorgeous.”

  She giggled.

  ***

  We recorded ourselves practicing in the costumes.

  “I love them so much, Sasha,” Rory squealed, watching the video and running her fingertips over her costume yet again. She was truly happy with Daiyu’s work. I’d feared she’d be too fixated on her weight to see how beautiful she was. But I’d been wrong. Of course, a lot had happened since we went to see Daiyu. “She’s put in all these little hidden skin-toned straps, so there’s virtually no chance of a costume malfunction! Oh, but what am I saying. I’m totally going to jinx myself!”

  “No you’re not.” I laughed. “Daiyu is a pro. You can trust her to know what she’s doing.”

  “I do.” Rory’s eyes were aglow. “They’re all so elegant and sleek. Sexy without looking gauche or trashy. And, we just…well, I’m just in awe by how much we look like real partners, just like all the dancers on the videos I’ve watched ad nauseam.”

  “Of course we look like real dancers. That’s because we are real dancers.” Again, I had to remind myself how new this all was to her. It was endearing how excited she was. And relieving to see how focused she was on this, something beautiful, and not on the ugly thing that had happened.

  “You were wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong,” she teased me, pressing her index finger into my chest after we’d finished practicing our final dance.

  I frowned, although I knew exactly what she meant. “What are you talking about?”

  “On our first day at Daiyu’s, you thought I wouldn’t be happy with my costume. With whatever costume she made for me. That I’d never be happy with my body.” She put her arms behind her back, clasped her hands, and swung her body back and forth, smiling up at me sweetly like a happy schoolgirl.

  I smiled and nodded. “That’s true. I do remember saying that.”

  “And you were wrong. This costume is hot, hot, hot!” She swung about more fully, now swirling her arms about too. “I actually look…good.” She blushed, looking suddenly embarrassed at her new, improved self-esteem.

  I shook my head and laughed. “No.”

  “No? Did you just say—”

  “I mean to say that the costume looks very, very good on you. But it is not the costume that is hot. It’s the wearer.” I grabbed both of her hands to stop her from swinging. I tightened my lips, made a faux serious expression.

  I stepped slowly toward her and, still holding her hands, pressed my lips to hers, where they remained for a good many minutes. Then I began brushing my lips against her sweet, creamy cheek, then down to her chin, to her neck, and to her clavicle before running my tongue along the top of her right breast, out toward her right shoulder—the one left bare by the toga top.

  I stopped and looked at her with my best puppy dog eyes. I ran my finger along the top line of the costume. “I would like to see more hotness, please. Less costume, more wearer.”

  She emitted an embarrassed laugh. “Yeah, probably not a good idea to do anything in these anyway. We don’t want to, you know, soil anything.” That was true. Of course I knew Daiyu could fix anything, but it was a good excuse to get out of our clothes.

  I unfastened the hook atop her zipper, which was located directly under her armpit. I trailed my fingers down her side and she giggled.

  “Oh wait,” she cried out as I finally got the zipper down. “My shoes.” She looked down at her feet. “I don’t want to snag any stones or anything on the way off.”

  I mock-harrumphed and bent down. “What I won’t do to get you naked,” I muttered as I slowly unbuckled her shoes, then delicately removed each foot from its high heel.

  She giggled again. “I feel a bit like Cinderella, except my prince is freeing my foot rather than fitting it into the glass slipper.”

  Every time she said something cute like that I had to kiss the nearest body part, which now happened to be her right ankle.

  After her shoes were off, I gingerly pulled the top of the toga down, over her left shoulder, down past her breasts to her waist, then on down her thighs. I went deliciously slowly, ostensibly to avoid snagging any part of the costume, but really so that I could run my nose and lips over every inch of her breathtaking body, every pore of her skin as the material revealed it. At points, I ran my tongue over her bareness, but more often, I just breathed in deeply, stopping every few inches, taking in every bit of her beautiful body, so happy she finally agreed with my assessment of it.

  When I finally had the damn thing off, I sauntered to the chair near the window and draped it over the back. Then I turned to her, looking her up and down with hooded lids.

  “Let me see your rrrumba walks,” I commanded with my r’s.

  “Oh stop it! No way!” she shouted. “Take off your costume, put your pants and top on the other chair, and get over here.”

  I tapped my foot and widened my eyes, making it clear I was waiting for her to do what I said, that I wasn’t taking no for an answer. She took a deep breath, shifted her weight to her left foot, pointed her right toe to make her trademark gorgeous leg line, and, tracing her toe along the floor, began doing those breathtaking walks toward me.

  My plan was to watch her all the way, but when she was about halfway to me, I couldn’t help it. I began walking toward her. At first slowly, seductively, then faster and faster until I practically rushed her. When I reached her, I pulled her to me.

  “Perfect,” I whispered before kissing her deeply, wrapping my arms around her, one on her back shoulder blade, one around her waist, pulling her closer.

  “Sasha,” she said, after catching her breath. I looked at her with my same heavily lidded eyes. I could tell she wanted me to take her. “No. Come on. We don’t want to mess up anything,” she said, emphasis on the last word. She rolled her eyes in a downward direction and crossed one leg slightly over the other, indicating that she didn’t want the wetness between her legs to meet the material of my pants.

  I took a breath and stepped back, releasing her. Then I got another idea. I pivoted around and darted toward the chair, grabbed the iPod remote from the side stand and set the speakers to play Tom Jones’s “You Can Leave Your Hat On,” then pivoted sharply back toward her. By the time I was facing her, the music came on. We’d used it to practice a slow cha-cha and she’d said she thought it was so sexy.

  As Jones crooned the first line, telling his baby to take off her coat, I began to run my fingers down the deep v-neck of my shirt. The shirt had no buttons, so I had to mime undoing them, which made her giggle. Then I fingered the solid black lining of my top, slowly, before moving my fingers to the top of my pants to finger the thick waistline. She gasped. I’d never done
a striptease before. It was fun! At least doing it for Rory was.

  And when I slowly undid my zipper then lowered my pants, I could tell from the way she was breathing that she was pretty much on fire. I kicked off my shoes, tossed off my socks, and whipped off the shirt all in one fell swoop, leaving my black dance briefs the only particle of clothing covering any part of my body.

  I began doing these very slow, pelvic-swaying cucarachas, but then threw in some lightning-fast steps to the side, dancing about four steps to every beat of music. I just couldn’t do all slow and seductive. I had to fly at some point. I had too much energy. And fly I could with the dance briefs, you know, holding everything in. But then I suddenly stopped, right when Jones tells his paramour she’s the reason he lives, and I drilled my penetrating gaze right into hers.

  Her breath caught again. Then, as suddenly as I’d stopped, I started again, this time cha-cha-ing toward her, moving like a flame. She gasped as I reached her, whipped her into a close hold, and cha-cha’d with her around in a circle. I pulled her in closer and closer with each step. She wasn’t spotting, her eyes remaining on me the entire time we whirled around, so those steps had to be dizzying. We were going faster and faster and her glorious breasts were bouncing straight into my pecs, nipple brushing nipple.

  “Stop!” she cried out.

  I did as she asked and she pushed me back, into the barre, and closed her eyes for a second, likely to regain her balance. She opened her mouth to take in a deep breath. I couldn’t resist—I immediately covered her mouth with mine. While I kissed her deeply, she reached around my backside, grabbed my ass, bunched the only material remaining on my body in her hand and pulled down. Then she moved back toward me, my hardening cock pressing against her silky skin. She pulled her mouth away from mine and backed up, so as to look at me. She eyed me up and down, focusing on my cock, now beyond hard, and pushed me down farther onto the barre, pulling herself up as high as she could, standing on her tiptoes, ballerina-like, spread her beautiful creamy thighs, and slid me into her delicious body. Damn. Glorious.