Page 7 of Sweet (Chicago Underground 7)
I let my hand fall away and opened my eyes.
He stood exactly as I’d left him, bristling with an almost palpable tension. After a moment, he detached from the car, moving slowly, like a man in pain, as if he’d been injured.
He turned away and rested his palms on the top of the car. With an unreadable glance back at me, he gingerly got inside and drove away.
I watched him go, sated but far from satisfied. Always wanting, always needing something above my reach. Dreaming of ballerinas when I came from the slums. Lusting after the smart, successful man in a well-tailored suit. One of these days, I’d reach too far. I’d fly too close to the sun, but even knowing so, I couldn’t stop myself from spreading my wings.
Chapter Four
The next evening, I stumbled into an empty house and collapsed at the kitchen table. Practice seemed to be getting harder—then again, the newest additions to the group kept up just fine. My body wasn’t suited for the grueling excess any longer, and if I continued to push, I would injure myself. Well, worse than I already did on a daily basis.
I whimpered as I forced my leg to straighten. I wanted to keep dancing for fun, to teach, which meant I had to quit while I still had the ability to walk.
I let myself drop onto the hard kitchen floor and flopped onto my back. Then I pushed my knee over in front of my body, stretching the tense, aching band on the outside of my thigh. I groaned as the stretch shot pain through my knee—but this would keep it from locking up all night.
A scuffing sound at the entrance to the kitchen snapped my eyes open.
Drew stood in the doorway to the kitchen, watching me with a bemused expression. I must have looked like an idiot, tangled up on the kitchen floor and moaning.
I attempted to stand, but the muscles spasmed, sending me into a graceless sprawl. Mortified, I shut my eyes. So much for looking sexy and mature.
He was there in a second, rubbing away the ache in my thigh, soothing me before I’d even thought about his hands on my body. He gently pressed my leg back down.
Ohhh, yes. He knew exactly how to handle me.
I sighed. “Harder.”
“Are you sure? Sounded like it hurt.”
“I need it like that.”
He raised his eyebrow, his face two feet from mine. Then I realized how I sounded. He was basically on top of me, holding me down while I made sex noises and talked about wanting it hard. Wicked, that was how I sounded.
Even though I hadn’t meant it in a sexual way, it became sexual as the weight of his body bore down on mine. A flush heated me from the inside out.
“My knees have been acting up. The pressure helps. How did you know, anyway?”
His expression looked wry. “I have been to the gym once or twice. Have to work off the calories in those billed lunches somehow.”
Something about the way he mocked himself, dismissed himself when everyone else saw his value, made my heart squeeze. I felt breathless, on the verge of something important. Or maybe it was just the stretch.
“Is that how you think I see you, a stuffy old lawyer?”
“That’s what I am, Rose.”
I studied him. Our position, with him pushing down on me, was definitely a new perspective. It allowed me to see him with fresh eyes. The creases at the corners of his eyes, remnants of his genial demeanor and stressful profession. The sandy-brown hair flecked with silver. His curious brown eyes, like stained glass with light behind. A stuffy old lawyer? He was that—as well as uncommonly smart and subtly funny and quietly handsome.
“Well, this is interesting.”
We both turned to see Philip standing in the doorway. Immediately, Drew backed up, easing me out of the stretch. My knee gave a weak throb, and I stifled a moan.
Philip was at my side, ready to help me up.
I waved
him away, forcing myself into the kitchen chair. “I’m fine. Just a little cramp.”
His face was dark. “Maybe you need to cut back with the company.”
