Page 4 of Sweet (Chicago Underground 7)
Drew shrugged, strolling back to the chairs. “Met me at my condo, actually. They’re desperate, and this proves it.”
Philip frowned for a minute, looking unwilling to let it go. He liked to be in control—he needed to be. Someone else poaching on his territory was a big offense.
“Well,” I said, trying to put him at ease, “these guys are about to get their asses handed to them either way, right? Don’t worry about it.”
“Bastards. I ought to…” He sighed. With visible effort, he relaxed his muscles and unclenched his fists. The lopsided smile he gave me was too reminiscent of a softer, more helpless fifteen-year-old Philip. “Okay, distract me. How was practice?”
“Good. You know, it’s getting harder for me to keep up.”
I’d never told him about the chronic tendonitis or the recommended surgery. He’d insist I quit dancing, even in a teaching capacity. He was so binary. Dance professionally or not at all. People were either with him or against him.
Philip lifted his whiskey glass in dry salute. “Ah yes. You’re getting old, I remember.”
“Almost as old as you.”
“Never that,” he quipped, and my heart warmed to see a smile flicker on his tired face.
He didn’t understand the allure of ballet, why I would rip up my body just to perform for a bunch of old guys in penguin suits—his words, of course. But he appreciated the purity of it, the sanctity of art. Pale pink leotards and white tights. They were a costume as much as those damn suits were, designed to keep people out. This was art. This was business. Don’t touch.
I turned to Drew, unsurprised to find his gaze trained on me. The heat was carefully banked while we put on a show for my brother, he in a suit and me in my sweats. I couldn’t see it; I felt it—more like knowledge, like recognition. I want you. I burn for you. I come alive when you’re in the same room.
“How are you?” I asked, schooling my tone to bored politeness.
“Also old,” he said wryly. He cocked his head. “But good. Thanks for asking.”
Philip’s phone rang, and he excused himself to leave the room. My throat went dry.
There were so few times I got to be alone with Drew. I angled for them, I hoped for them, and now here it was. Just him and me.
Chapter Two
The room was quiet as we regarded each other. I searched his face for some other clue that he wanted more, a breadcrumb to lead me to him. Instead of invitation, I saw sternness, intensity. The arousal might have been my own wishful thinking. He was a cipher—a handsome, finely clad cipher. Even with his shirt rumpled and sleeves rolled up, he looked dignified. And delicious.
How long until the next time I’d get him alone? Too long.
A certain amount of caution was a good thing, and considering certain events of my past, inevitable for me. But like opening my studio, like moving out, I had waited too long, so long that my knees were shattered and my heart was aching and my body was pulsing with need unfulfilled.
A ballerina learned early how to live under glass, but I hadn’t known it was ice, distorting the world outside to be scary and grotesque, thickening with every season until I feared it would never thaw.
Gathering up my courage, I approached him. Not climbing the wall, blasting through it. Every slow, even step sent needles into my strained knees. The ache only amplified the arousal he inspired in me. My whole body was a raw nerve, pulled a little tighter with every year of celibacy, stretched a little farther with every painful pirouette until I thought I would snap.
His fair skin was lightly freckled and sprinkled with golden hairs a little darker than the tamed mop of blond on his head. I didn’t know how that would translate in the darker, more private places, but I longed to find out. This close I could see the bronze of his five o’clock shadow. The little lines around his mouth creased in a frown.
“Is this all we’re going to do?” I asked. “Look but don’t touch?”
One eyebrow lifted. “You tell me. Was there something more you wanted?”
His reticence sank in my gut, a brick of disappointment in a swirling sea of indecision. It was one thing to feign disinterest in front of my brother, another to play dumb in private.
“Right,” I said flatly. “It’s okay if your job is worth more than a few nights with me.”
“So it’s a few nights now, not just one.”
I frowned. “Don’t play games.”
“I’m always serious when I’m negotiating. How many nights are you going to give me, Rose?”
He was mocking me, or at the very least, playing hard to get. As if I was going to bust out my day planner and pencil him in for Tuesday through Thursday. “Look, if you don’t want anything to happen, it won’t. You don’t have to pretend.”
