“Making a fool of myself, twisting an ankle, splitting these ridiculously tight pants, giving you material to mock me for the next century . . . should I keep going?”

I shake my head, unable to contain my wide smile.

She sucks in a deep breath and starts in again. “Falling on my face, disgracing dancers everywhere, failing to impress you—”

I cut her off, getting right in her face.

“Hey.” I take hold of her chin for extra emphasis. “You don’t ever have to worry about impressing me.”

“Just because you tell me not to worry about something doesn’t mean I can stop. It’s not a switch I can turn on and off.”

“Then teach me something. I’ll do it with you, and I promise I’ll be the only one disgracing dancers everywhere.”

She hesitates, and I can see her weighing her own dislike for the situation against the desire to watch me make a fool of myself.

Finally, she huffs, “Okay. I’ll show you the basics. But I’m not dancing for real for you in your apartment. That’s just weird.”

She squares her shoulders and shakes her hair out of her face and begins. “So, there are basic positions for your feet and arms and then basic orientations, and everything else in ballet sort of works off of those.”

“And that’s what you do? Ballet?”

She sighs. “Yes and no. I do ballet. I love it. But I don’t really have the training to be as good as I would need to be to do it professionally, and I’m not going to get it here. So mostly I do lyrical or contemporary, which is a little less rigid and more about the movement as a whole rather than body positioning and technique. But most people learn the basics of ballet first. And that’s what I teach, too.”

“You teach? You didn’t tell me that.”

“It’s just something I do to help out my old dance teacher. I teach a couple classes of little kids with five-minute attention spans. It’s . . . interesting.”

“Okay then, teach. Show me what to do.”

“This is first position.”

She stands with her heels touching and her feet spread so wide they’re practically in a straight line.

I try to copy her, but lose my balance when I try to push my toes that wide and my body protests. She catches one of my flailing arms and smirks at me as I get my feet into the widest V I can manage.

“Close, but now you need to straighten your legs.”

I do as she says, and the muscles of my calves and my ass pull uncomfortably tight. She’s still holding on to my arm, and she releases it to place both hands on my midsection, one on my stomach and one on my back. I’m hunched over slightly, and she pushes against me. “Stand up straight.”

I do, but I have to hold on to her to manage it, which leaves her tucked under my arm, still touching my waist.

“Maybe we should have done this by a wall,” she says.

“I’m a slow learner. The hands-on approach works best.”

“Could you be any more obvious?”

“Sure.”

I let go of the crazy foot position and use the arm around her shoulders to wrench her toward me. Then, just to make sure she doesn’t wiggle away, I drop my arm down until it circles her waist and draw her closer. Both her hands have migrated to my lower back, so I don’t feel too guilty.

“Do you ever dance with a partner?”

She doesn’t meet my eyes, staring straight ahead at my neck instead. Then slowly, she bends her head until her forehead rests on my chest just below my collarbone. Beneath my hands, I feel her body curve on an inhale. She turns her head, shifts a little closer, and lays her cheek against my shoulder as she answers.

“No.”

Chapter 17

Dallas

One of Carson’s hands slips up my spine and curls around my shoulder, holding me the way he did the night we met. But now his hand is only under my jacket, not my shirt. His hold now is softer, sweeter, and surprisingly sexier.

“Someday I’m going to see you dance, Cole.”

I close my eyes, humming my acceptance, and just let him hold me, his thumb smudging up and down the back of my neck in a way that’s both comforting and incendiary.

We’ve passed the point where this is acceptable for a hug, but I just don’t feel like letting go. And I’m scared to push it any further because if I don’t feel like letting go of a hug, how much harder will it be to stop something more?

“I hate to break it to you,” I begin, and his head tips down to hear me better. His lips graze my forehead lightly, then rest there for good, pushing my heartbeat into a breakneck pace. “But I don’t think you have a future as a dancer.”

He laughs. “No, probably not.”

It makes me laugh too, and I take the opportunity to slide out of his grasp, to gain some distance. His hand trails down my back as I step away, and that slow glide makes me shiver.

“Can we just watch another movie or something?”

“Sure.”

He picks up the blanket from the recliner and hands it to me before heading to the TV.

“Any special requests?”

“Something that doesn’t suck.”

The smile he sends me makes me collapse on the couch a little harder than necessary.

“Comedy? Action? Drama? I don’t have much in the way of chick flicks.”

“Whatever you like.”

I don’t think I’ll be able to pay attention enough for it to matter anyway.

In the end, he picks a television show on Netflix instead of a movie . . . something British about time travel. He doesn’t start it at the beginning, but instead starts me on an episode from one of the later seasons that he says can stand alone.

It’s a little cheesy, with some kind of techno sci-fi introduction music, but he seems excited about it.

While the beginning of the episode starts, he walks past the couch and back toward his bedroom. I take the opportunity to slip off my jacket and shoes, leaving me in a short-sleeve shirt. He returns a few seconds later with a pillow in hand and flips off the light.

He drops the pillow against the armrest and then leans back against it.

“Come here, Cole.” He opens his arms to me, his voice deep and soft.

I only hesitate for a second before I get up, shake out the blanket, and lie down in front of him, my back to his chest. He shifts the pillow diagonally so that both of our heads can lie on it, his a few inches above mine. I can feel his breath ruffling my hair, and I feel a little light-headed. He situates the blanket over both of us, his hand brushing up against my legs a few times and making me jump. When we’re both comfortable, he drapes an arm over my waist and pulls me in until our bodies are curved together from head to toe.