Shadow Fall

No, he wasn’t mad. Not at her. He was looking for another opportunity.

It was a crime to cover that body with a dingy leotard, black tights, and faded sweats. She grasped some new shiny satin toe shoes and first-aid tape and took off down the hall to a studio. Inside, dancers gripped ballet barres at the walls and freestanding barres lined up in the center of the room. A woman was clapping a perfect, even rhythm to keep time for the dancers.

Custo tapped his earplug as Annabella took her position and joined in the deep squats, what the woman called plies.

“Jens here.”

“I’m on the fifth floor. She’s doing some sort of dance class.” As an afterthought, he added, “Adam here yet?”

“No.”

Custo hoped Talia wasn’t in labor. Those babies needed a little more time before they could handle this world.

“Everyone else checked in?”

“All except for Tommy,” Jens said.

Custo cursed. “Find him. Now.”

“Shhhhhh!”

Custo brought his attention back the dancers, who were staring at him. Annabella managed to roll her eyes from a very interesting upside-down stretch. He’s gonna get kicked out, she thought.

“Custo out,” he mumbled to Jens.

The class resumed.

The next fifty-five minutes were a revelation. Whatever fragility he might have attributed to Annabella shattered with the acute precision with which she “warmed” her body. The teacher, a fellow dancer, led the group through a series of rigorous exercises that outmatched any martial training he’d mastered, and then some. No show of tension betrayed the difficulty of the steps, though their feet were angled into tidy, unnatural positions. Their flexibility was nothing short of gymnastic, but the transitions between their movements had an ethereal fluidity that elevated mere training to art.

Annabella might not know the first thing about defending herself, but she was far from weak. She was flexible steel, personified. Her slight body, so trim and smooth, was primed for power. Not one ounce of ease remained on her frame, yet somehow she was still soft. Vulnerable.

“Annabella!” a pretty boy called to her. He had some muscle to him and moved with a cocky swagger. “You want to run through a few things?” His junk was straining his tights, but he seemed to revel in the effect, yeah, look all you want, which made Custo want to knock his mocking smile right off his face.

Annabella, breathless, walked over to him, wiping her forehead with her wrist. “Yeah. Sure, Jasper. Let’s hit the lifts first.”

The pretty boy, Jasper, had the nerve to put his hand on her inner thigh, an inch from paradise, and lift her above his head. Annabella soared upward while Custo bit back a snarl. Too high, too intimate, too…much the wrong man touching her there.

Custo probed Jasper’s thoughts, but they were all focused on the movement.

Jasper suddenly shifted, near dropping Annabella into a sweeping spin against his body, her arms embracing with a love-longing that made Custo’s throat tight. He’d have looked away, but he was rooted, hands clenching, ready to tear them apart.

Jasper glanced over to gauge Custo’s reaction, his stance cocky, his mind and body asking, What do you think of that?

“Leave him alone, Jasper,” Annabella murmured. But Custo caught her own darted gaze, eyes bright with interest.

As soon as possible, as soon as Custo got her alone, he’d show her his version of the very same movements. Perhaps not as graceful, but infinitely more gratifying.

“Let’s do the sissonne crosses.” Annabella peeled off her shabby excuse for a sweatshirt and threw it to the side of the room. On her leotard, perspiration winged beneath her breasts, accenting her curves, while tiny droplets trailed down her chest, combining at the cleft of her cleavage.

Custo swallowed to wet his dry throat.

Annabella and the pretty boy moved to a corner. Jasper said, “Two, three, and,” and she leaped, his hands high at her waist. The resulting movement was antigravity, the perfect union of strength and grace, male and female. They moved like their bodies knew each other, knew the rhythms of breath and blood without any reference to thought. Annabella didn’t even have to look, and that pretty-boy bastard was there, holding her. Hands all over her body.

Custo was shaking, silent, by the time they finished their practice.

The curve of Annabella’s lips told him she was pleased with herself. Her mind was full of possibilities for the night, with him, should the performance go as planned. Custo was in complete agreement.

“What now?” Custo said, his hands itching to touch her. He had so much to do, but all he wanted to do was shut himself in the studio with Annabella.

“Now I get ready,” Annabella answered, sweatshirt flung over her shoulder. She sashayed out of the room, hips ever so slightly swinging. He wanted to turn her to face him, fill his palms with her backside, do his own lift, and demonstrate his own flawless technique.

She strutted to her dressing room. Custo followed, biding his time.

As soon as the dressing room door closed, he had her up against the wall. His body pressed into hers, her heart pounding furiously against him as she held her breath. She was hot, sweaty, and musky with it. But her eyes sparkled up at him, waiting for what he would do next. He was close enough for her breath to brush his chin. Her upper teeth scraped her lower lip, plumping it. She wanted to be kissed.

She’d been showing off for an hour, powerful and loving every minute. She obviously wanted to revel in her high a little longer.

He didn’t kiss her. That was too easy, too expected, and they didn’t have time to finish anything the kiss would start, which she had to know. This was a tease, a flirty taunt to both tantalize him and see if she could trust him to pull back. She could, but since he wanted her so bad, there was no reason she shouldn’t want him back just as badly, just as acutely as he desired her.

Custo turned her to face the wall, trapping her in the confines of his arms. He held her tightly against him, her body just beginning to tremble, but he didn’t so much as flick the thin strap of leotard from her shoulder.

He lowered his mouth to the slightly damp column of her neck, to the spot that had set her off before and spoke against her skin. “I don’t know what the wolf did to scare you—you don’t seem nearly as scared now as you were a few hours ago.”

Her hips shifted in a feeble attempt to get away from him. Feeble for her; he knew her strength. If she really wanted to break away, he’d have let her.

“I’ll answer your questions, though,” he said.

“I didn’t ask—”

Custo tightened his hold to shut her up. “Yes, I want you. And, yes, it drives me crazy to see another man touching you and holding you.”

“He’s gay.”

“I don’t care. I want that privilege.” Custo exhaled a harsh breath, noting how her skin pimpled with goose bumps. He wrapped himself more fully around her to keep her “warm.” “But I won’t force you. I am not the wolf.”

She was utterly still now, hardly breathing.

“So think hard what you want when you look at me that way, when you sway those hips like that. I will take what’s offered and damn the consequences.”

Custo touched her mind and was surprised to find a very defined series of thoughts. She was scared he’d let go of her. Scared her knees would give. Scared they wouldn’t have a chance to finish what they’d started.

He was a little shaken himself, but he forced himself on to other pressing matters.