by Lynn Turner
“I wish you wouldn’t.” She cast a wary look to the side without moving her head, then her gaze fell to his lips, and her breaths came shorter. “Dieu, but I wish you would.”
Shielding her profile with her voluminous hair, he dipped his head. “How’s this?”
She sighed.
“Is that a yes?”
Her eyes drifted shut, and she closed the distance between their lips. “Oui.”
Pleasure moved through his body in soft, undulating folds, the kind that spoke of profound contentment, rather than desire. Everything he wanted—everything he needed—was right here in his arms, yielding to him with every soft, elated breath.
Yes…yes, yes.
Sliding his fingers deeper into her hair, he cupped her head in his hand, fitting her to his mouth, stroking her tongue with his. He enjoyed how soft and pliant her lips felt under his, the playful way she nipped his bottom lip every so often, tugging gently with her teeth.
Subconsciously, he’d wanted this since the first time he’d met her. To get close to so much beauty and passion. To harness and mold it, channel it into something he’d created, and unleash it to the world. He hadn’t anticipated she’d be the one to get under his skin, spiking his bloodstream, flooding his veins.
She was fast becoming vital to him, like his next heartbeat, his next breath. Kissing her felt just as vital, so he melded his lips to hers until night fell completely. Until stars dotted the sky, the delighted screams of children quieted, and the older crowd dwindled to lovers seeking a romantic place to cuddle. Her hand slipped under his T-shirt and over his chest, kneading softly over his heartbeat. Then, pulling away slowly, she looked up at him with wonder.
“Wow,” she whispered.
“Swooning is satisfactory.” His voice was raspy. “More kisses are also acceptable.”
She gave a soft laugh (God, he loved the sound of it), then tucked herself into his side, leaning back to look at the sky. “So many stars.”
“Said like someone seeing stars for the first time.”
“En fait, it feels like I am.”
“The sunset in Paris must be such a disappointment compared to this.”
Laughing again, she pinched his waist. “I love the sunset in Paris. The closest thing to this in Paris is in Champ de Mars, on the grass, where you can feel the tour d’Eiffel beside you. Drinking red wine, of course.”
“Of course.” He was enchanted by her voice, her accent made stronger by nostalgia for her home.
“But my favorite place to watch is on the Seine. You can see the tour d’Eiffel, and the Île de la Cité…and the towers of Notre Dame. The water turns orange, and then red, and when it gets dark, you see how the city gets its name.”
“The City of Light.”
“Oui. The lights come on all over the city. It’s beautiful, but it’s so bright, you can’t see the stars.”
“So, what you’re saying is, despite being—arguably—the most romantic city in the world, the sunset doesn’t compare to the one you just watched with me?”
“I—”
“That’s very sweet, petite.” He nuzzled her neck, chuckling at her exasperated little growl. “Mmmm…When you don’t smell like sweat, you smell like flowers.” Unable to resist, he licked the pulse in her throat.
“Your flattery needs work.”
He would have had a ready response, if he hadn’t buried his face in the sweet spot between her neck and shoulder, now breathing her intoxicating scent into his lungs. It drove him crazy, a mix of piney shrubs and spicy herbs and sweet flowers.
“God, what is that?” he murmured. “It smells like you, but stronger. Every time you let me close enough, I want to bite you, then lay my head here and fall asleep.” To demonstrate, he gave her clavicle a little nip that made her body jolt.
“My scent makes you behave like a sleepy lion? Allez, your compliments are getting worse and worse.”
Damn, but he loved when she called him a lion. “Petite…”
She shook with more of that sweet, soft laughter, tucking her legs in so she sat cross-legged. “I smell like Le Midi. The same way my maman and mémé smell. Perfumers like to bottle it up and call it ‘lavender,’ but my grand-mère calls it ‘garrigue.’ It’s just…the smell of the South of France. It’s all of it together—the flowers, the wine, the earth, the air. Mémé found the only perfume that even comes close to it. She gave it to me when I joined Les Étoiles.”
“And the name of this magical potion?” He pulled back to look at her.
She acted demure. “Sometimes a woman likes an air of mystery.”
“Fair enough.” Laying on his back, he rested his head in her lap. “Tell me something that isn’t a mystery—Don’t bother with scars or identifying marks. I know all about those.”
Swatting him, her dark eyes smoldered. “You know of them, not about them.”
“Touché.” He moaned contentedly as her fingers played in his hair.
“Oh, you great big cat.” Biting her lip, she thought for a moment. “When I was nine—only a year after I started at the ballet school—I had terrible pain in my left ankle whenever I pointed my toe. The doctors said an extra piece of cartilage between my Achilles tendon and my heel had hardened to bone.”
“So…surgery?”
“Oui, to remove it. But not until I was ten. I danced on it for a year, and by the time they removed it, it had fractured. Merde, it was excruciating—so swollen and irritated. But, with physical therapy, I recovered in a few months, and I was able to catch up.”
“That’s not too bad.” He’d been absently caressing one of her ankles as she spoke. His hand curled around it now, his thumb stroking the smooth, indented skin of her tiny scar.
“Non, but a year later, the same thing happened to my right foot.”
“Jesus.”
“I was devastated. During my recovery from the second surgery, I had to watch my peers move up to the next section, while I stayed behind. ‘Just take notes,’ Madame told me. But I screamed at her, ‘Non! I can dance in my boot!’”
“Good to know you were always so difficult. I’d hate to think you’ve been giving me special treatment.”
“Allez.” She laughed, but her cheeks flushed, like she wasn’t particularly proud of anyone thinking her difficult. “Anyway, I caught up—I made the top four that year. I’ve had injuries since then, but no more surgeries. What about you?”
“Mostly maintenance work…couple surgeries on my knees and ankles over the years. I was lucky not to have the Achilles curse, or problems with my back giving out—ballerinas might look like waifs but lifting solid muscle over your head every day makes a male dancer’s shelf life pretty short.”
That made her incline her head a little, looking at him intently. “So, musical theater was your retirement plan?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. So much of career success in theater is about luck—getting the right opportunity at the right time. I’ve always wanted to do it, but I had no delusions I’d get more than the supporting roles I’ve done over the years. I dreamed about putting on my own productions, but the reality of it still hasn’t completely sunk in yet. Honestly, I hope it never does. I don’t want to lose this feeling.”
“What feeling?”
“It’s a little like being out of your mind. Or high. It’s so exhilarating, sometimes I can’t sleep. It’s…overwhelming. Like I don’t have a choice. For better or worse—whatever the quirks and challenges—this is what I want.”
Mina let go a dreamy sigh. “Sounds like falling in love.”
A thunderstorm roiled in his chest, his hand tightening around her ankle. She didn’t seem to notice, lost somewhere in her own head. Then he remembered what she said in the documentary he watched weeks ago, when the interviewer suggested that love was what compelled Mina to dance:
People grow out of people and things they claim to love all the time. I don’t understand how something so profound can be so fickle. I’ll never grow out
of dance. It’s just a part of me. It’s…consuming. It overpowers love.
Consuming.
That’s exactly what he felt pursuing his dreams, the euphoria of chasing something that gave him great pleasure, that made him feel, and feel important. And it’s exactly what he felt right now, falling in love. Gazing up at her now, at the wistfulness coloring her features in the soft light of the park’s lamps, the storm in his chest continued.
What would it take to have her look at him that way? To feel for him that way? To get her to see that what she described in that interview years ago was precisely what it meant to be in love? Or, maybe she already knew. Maybe, in the years since she’d given that interview, life had taught her differently…
“Have you ever been in love, Mina?”
At first, he thought she hadn’t heard the question. Then, he felt the tension in her body, and she looked at him like she’d been caught putting Play-Doh in gum wrappers.
“It’s just a question, petite.” So why did he sound like a guy who’d spent his last dime on a lottery ticket, holding his breath and waiting for the winning number to be read? “I want to know you.”
That made her smile, her body relaxing again—as much as a ballerina with near-militant training could relax. “I came close, once. I was twenty-one. We met at a café—a cliché I adored almost as much as I adored him. It was romantic, and awkward. He dropped his coffee when he saw me, and it made me feel so beautiful. I loved how he made me feel.”
“Can’t say I blame the poor bastard. So, what happened?”
Taking a deep breath, she turned away from him, toward the night skyline. She was quiet so long, he almost let her off the hook. But he needed her to share some of her secrets. To let him see some of the cramped, dark spaces she didn’t show many people. To let him see that, maybe, she was becoming invested, too.
“So many things…” She kept her eyes from him, which was fine with him, so long as she talked. “He wasn’t a dancer, so he was jealous a lot…of my partners. There’s a lot of caressing, and pained expressions, and tight, prolonged holds. In a company, you’re surrounded by beautiful people all the time. It made him insecure. Then, he’d see me injured a lot, and he’d ask me, ‘Enfin, why don’t you just stop?’—Can you imagine?”
There was fire in her eyes.
“Or, I’d want to talk about things, just to vent. Like how, sometimes, even my hair made it harder for me than other girls—trying to stuff it into a bun without snapping all my hair ties—and he’d use that to try to convince me to quit. Eventually, he stopped asking. When we broke up, he accused me of choosing dance over him, and I wanted to scream, ‘You gave me an ultimatum! You backed me into a corner!’ But I just said, ‘Oui, I am. Because if you loved me, you wouldn’t make me choose.’”
“Wow.” Taking her hand from his hair, he held it to his chest. “It’s hard, trying to explain to someone who doesn’t dance, why you love something that hurts you. I get that.”
“You do?”
“Mmhmm. I’ve fallen in love a few times. Falling is easy. It takes hardly any effort. Maintaining it is hard. Maintaining it with someone who doesn’t understand you is just…impossible.”
“So…” She traced circles on his chest with her fingers, pinning him to the grass with her stare. “When was the last time you were in love?”
Bonus points for remembering to breathe. “A few years ago. We worked together.”
“Was she your partner?”
“No, but we were in the same company. It was convenient, and fun, and we never fought about not having enough time together. Strangely, it was during that time that I stopped having my sexuality constantly called into question. I never understood how ballet could be perceived as gay when every single classical piece features hetero leads. Male dancers who are anything but cis and straight are the greatest actors in the business.”
“Oh, I know. A dancer who isn’t heteronormative playing a classical lead role has to be a fantastique actor. I used to joke about it all the time with—” Her hand flew to her mouth, and her body locked up again.
“Étienne,” he guessed. “It’s okay, petite. You’ve told me already you two never dated—not that I’d have a problem if you had—Fuck…Not that it would matter if I had a problem with it.” He blew a harsh breath, massaging his closed eyes with the heels of his palms. “Jesus Christ.”
Her soft laughter pulled him from his pathetic, clusterfuck of a verbal hamster wheel. “It’s okay.”
Wondering something, he opened his eyes. “Have you ever dated a partner?”
“Non.” She looked grateful for the redirect. “Have you?”
“Not until you. Have you ever dated someone in your company?”
“Of course. It’s convenient, like you said. After getting out of a performance late at night, I’m exhausted. The last thing I want to do, is go to a bar and try to look cute to pick up a date.”
More bonus points for not saying she didn’t need to try. (It was true, though.)
“Alors,” she said. “It’s difficult to find someone outside of the dance world who understands how…weird and wonderful the lifestyle is. But if things don’t work out with someone in the company, it can be…complicated.” She frowned. “Wait…why didn’t it work out?”
He laughed—not because it was funny, but because she sounded like she’d find his ex and kick her ass. Stupid as it was, his heart wagged its tail. “It’s complicated, petite. People are complicated. We gave each other what we needed at the time—companionship, loyalty, sex, laughter. It was enough, until it wasn’t, and we mutually decided it was over.”
“What do you mean, ‘until it wasn’t?”
“She had an opportunity somewhere else, and I knew I could live without her.”
She gasped. “That’s a terrible thing to say!”
“Maybe, but it’s true.”
“You’re so much like Carmen. So direct. Almost abrasive.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Sometimes.” She gnawed her lower lip for a few seconds, tracing his eyebrows with her index finger. “But it’s comforting, too.”
“Oh?” His brow arched beneath her touch.
“Enfin, it’s part of who you are. It tells me you’re not a flatterer. So…when you pay a compliment, I know you mean it.” She drew her index finger down the bridge of his nose, stopping at the bow of his lips. “When we left your parents’ house earlier, as…angry as you were, you still kissed your father’s cheek.”
“Wow, that was some segue, petite.”
“Merci, I learned it from you.”
Groaning, he sat up and faced her. “So, we’re really doing this, huh?”
She took his hand and held it in her lap. “Only if you want to. I don’t want you to feel obligated…”
“I don’t.” He looked around. Only a few people remained in the park, and he didn’t want to tempt fate by making themselves easy targets. “But let’s take this conversation to the car, okay?”
“Okay.”
They walked briskly to Zack’s Audi, and the console read ten thirty-seven by the time they got on the highway. He held her hand as he drove, a U2 song playing faintly on the radio. It felt so natural with her. Talking to her, listening to her, making her laugh…kissing her, touching her, making her come…pushing her buttons, and getting pushed right back. She challenged him, but she also made him feel important.
Vital.
“Back there, with my father,” he said. “I’m sure it sounded intense, but I don’t want you to think I have anything less than the utmost respect for him.”
“I know. I can tell.”
“We just…don’t see eye-to-eye sometimes. Manny—he’s old-school. Working class, son of immigrants. He worked his ass off to give me a good life—and not just me. Everyone in the neighborhood knows if they ever need anything, Manny is the guy. Even if he’s struggling himself, he finds a way to help others. Shirt from his own back, etcetera.”
&nb
sp; “Like he helped you.”
“Precisely. But he’s a Bootstrap Believer—You know, you can do anything if you just, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. That’s part of it, but a huge part of success for kids like me is opportunity. I mean, I was a white kid growing up in Brooklyn. If someone tried to tell me I had some advantage over anyone else when I was a kid, I would have fought them, literally started a fist fight. Because what part of getting my ass kicked by some punks, being abused by foster parents, or being stuck in the foster system at all after my own parents tossed me away like lawn clippings, is privilege?”
She sniffed, and he turned to see her wiping away tears. “I understand. It’s so complicated. Like when I try to explain my challenges as a black ballerina, but my parents were well off—I went to boarding school.”
“Exactly. People like Manny just don’t see that kind of nuance. Everything is cut and dry, black or white. They can’t see gray, and if you told them there was an entire gray spectrum? I think their heads would explode.”
“Oh mon Dieu, that sounds exactly like maman. She did her best raising me, and I love her so much, but I still find it difficult to relate to her.”
“Oh, trust me, I know. I had to negotiate your contract with her. Remind me never to get on her bad side.” He grinned. “I see some of her in you, you know. When you’re handing me my balls, for example.”
She laughed a little, then sobered. “I think it’s incredible what you’re trying to do. For me, dance was so much more than learning a pretty art. It taught me discipline, and self-confidence, how to work with all kinds of people…I get to travel the world, and I can’t imagine a better way to connect with who I am, the world around me, and in a strange way…the universe.”
He couldn’t resist glancing at her again, to see the passion play out on her face. “I know what you mean. For these kids, a dance school could be a springboard out of poverty. As a white guy, my story makes me interesting, like street cred is sexy. But for these kids, it’s a stumbling block—the world counts it against them. Manny wants them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I’m just trying to supply the boots—slippers, if you will.”
