“Why, Darcy.” His hand moved against my cheek. “I had no idea someone who moves the way you do could be so cynical.”
“It’s not cynicism, it’s reality. No one can work in fantasy without a serious grounding in reality. Not if they want to survive. Much less succeed.”
I surprised myself, because I was talking about ballet. And what it took to live the life I did. The kind of life that strangers assumed they could imagine when all they saw was pancake makeup and costumes floating across the stage, never the years of work that went into looking that effortless—
But he thought I was talking about sex.
“And here I thought it was your emotions that made this work.”
“Emotions are fuel,” I said lightly. “Let them take control, and they’ll eat you alive. Use them as fuel, and they’ll help you burn brighter.” His thumb moved along my jawline, hypnotically. “But then again, I am not drunk.”
“Indeed, you are not.” His mouth flattened. “I cannot imagine a woman like you ever allowing a man to break her the way my father broke my mother. Over and over again.”
“I break things all the time.” That happened to be true. “What are a few broken bones among friends?”
It occurred to me after I said it that possibly that was the sort of joke better confined to the ballet rehearsal halls.
“Bones heal. Marriages? Not so much.” Again, that smile without any mirth. “I promised myself I would never make myself so vulnerable to another. I would never allow anyone close enough to break me. And I never have.”
“Forgive me,” I murmured then. “You do not strike me as particularly...unbroken.”
He let out a sound at that, though I would not call it a laugh. “Tell me, little dancer, why do I have the impression that you will be the wound I cannot heal?”
“I can give you what you paid for,” I whispered, my heart pounding in ways I refused to analyze. “Nothing more.”
“I want another night. The whole bloody weekend.”
“No,” I whispered. “That will only make it worse.”
“I don’t think it will. I don’t think it could.” He lifted me up and settled me on his lap, and for a moment there was nothing but the electricity between us. The crackle of that connection. Heat and longing. “But this will. I’m sure of it.”
I held my breath, not sure what he was about to do. And not prepared when what he did was wrap his hand around the nape of my neck.
Then slowly, inexorably, he drew my mouth to his.
“You can’t...” I began.
“Did I buy all of you? Or only a small part of you?”
It was a silken challenge. Dark and hot.
“I don’t even know—”
But I cut myself off. Horrified that I’d nearly given myself away.
And something far more complicated than merely horrified that the very thought of his kiss...panicked me. All the sex we’d had must have gotten to me. But not like this.
His blue eyes flashed a warning, but I didn’t pull away. And not because he’d paid for me. But because I wanted him to kiss me more than I’d ever wanted anything. More than breath.
And when he took my mouth, it wasn’t as if he owned it. Or me. It was as if kissing me was the answer to a question neither one of us wanted to ask. An answer that thudded in me like stone.
But I didn’t pull away.
His kiss was sweet and hot at once. It was searing. And yet it filled me up like a sob.
He pulled back, his mouth close to mine, and I knew.
That nothing would be the same. Least of all me.