CALISTA
“Harder!” I scream.
“Oh, fuuuck. I—I can’t…”
“Don’t be a wimp. HARDER!”
“You seriously want me to go harder?”
“YES!”
Gage is currently on the floor of my dance studio, on his back like a turtle, grunting in pain as I stretch out his hip. His leg is folded at a ninety-degree angle, with me pushing it back as gently as I can to apply pressure to his hip flexor. He’s cussed at me about twenty different times—yes, I’m keeping track—and he’s screamed about five. Whatever he did to sustain such an injury is seriously taking a toll on him. I don’t know if I’ll get him limbered up in three months.
After everything went down, or should I say, after he went down, the dynamic of our relationship has changed more than I expected. Like, yeah, I’m still mean to him, but I also don’t mean everything I say anymore. For example, when he kept whining, I told him to swing a bat into his nut sack, but I didn’t mean it.
I think he’s making me soft, and I don’t like it. I just don’t like being vulnerable with anyone. Throughout my life, I only gave myself a small amount of time to be vulnerable. The rest of that time was dedicated to the responsibility I had to my family. It always felt like everyone else had it worse than I did—my mother, my brother. It made it that much easier to sweep my emotions underneath the rug.
And now Gage is the first person in forever to have truly seen me so…unguarded…and I’m scared. I don’t like trusting people with my soul because it’s already so fragile.
Though I will admit, the oral sex was great. It was the first time I didn’t want to rip Gage’s tongue out through his teeth.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he mutters breathlessly.
“I really am,” I say, situating my hands on his thigh to get a better grip.
Screw Gage for wearing a plain T-shirt during our session. It’s distracting. So distracting. Especially being so close to him. I can see every ab muscle of his stomach contract through the material, and his corded biceps flex while he holds his leg in place, outlining every protruding vein and bundle of brawn. Sweaty strands of hair fall into his eyes, giving him this permanent bedhead look that shouldn’t be as sexy as it is. It also doesn’t help that he smells amazing.
With a labored breath, Gage extends his leg, making me withdraw my hands from the very intimate position they were in.
“I need a break,” he wheezes.
I plop into a kneeling pose. “We’ve only been at this for twenty minutes.”
“Yeah, and it hurts like a bitch.”
“You’re a hockey player. Isn’t your pain tolerance supposed to be high?”
“I’m a goalie with about fifty pounds of padding on. Do you think I get hit that much?”
I shrug. “I’ve never seen you play. Maybe you’re a terrible goalie.”
He splays out all his limbs like a starfish, panting heavily and staring up at the sheetrock ceiling. “I’ll have you know that I’m a fantastic goalie,” he boasts.
“Oh, really? Then care to explain the injury I’m trying to help you stretch out right now?”
He lifts his head up only so he can narrow his eyes at me. “Touché.”
I almost laugh at that. See! See what he’s doing to me! I can’t control my body’s reaction to everything he does or says, and I’ve definitely tried to kill every mushy-gushy feeling fluttering around in my heart.
I clamber to a stance and help Gage up with an extended arm, our palms sweaty for two completely different reasons. He throws me one of his effortless, panty-dropping grins, and even with the shot lighting overhead, it’s probably obvious I’m blushing. I don’t blush. Ever. Especially not because of a man. I thought all these nerves would fizzle out by now, but I’m the same mess of hormones I was when we first made our deal.
Then, to rub salt in the wound, Gage lifts up the hem of his shirt and dabs the sweat caking his forehead, giving me an unobstructed view of his glistening, tanned abs. All six of them, each as defined as slates of stone, rippling with so much muscle that it physically shouldn’t be possible to carry that much ammo around. Not to mention that he has the most delicious trail of semi-dark hair traveling from his navel to the unexplored depths below his waistband.
He catches me ogling him, and I only know that because our eyes make fucking contact while he’s having his Zac Efron moment. All that’s missing is a sprinkler soaking him in water.
He doles out one of his look-at-me-I’m-so-hot smirks. “Like what you see?”
I almost don’t dignify his comment with a response. Almost. “I’ve seen better.”
Ugh, I can’t believe he has the gall to be this cocky. There’s nothing worse in this world than an attractive man who knows just how attractive he is.
“Really? Because you’ve been staring at me for an awfully long time.”
“Not my fault you don’t know how to wear a shirt properly.”
Stupid photoshopped-looking abs. Stupid smug smirk. This arrangement would’ve been so much easier if Gage was hideously unattractive. Yes, I’m staring at you, idiot. How can I not stare at you when you look like you’re the lovechild of Rolling Stone and GQ?
“Cali, are you flirting with me?” he teases, and the lower half of me gives a shameful throb. “If you wanted me to take my shirt off, you could’ve just asked.”
I sputter like an idiot because I can’t put into words how much I hated every second of that, and then I resort to the one trusty response that always gets my message across—two middle fingers. But Gage must’ve grown some kind of impenetrable armor over the past few days because he isn’t fazed by it. In fact, he blows me an air kiss.
I’ll take that air kiss and jam it down his throat.
And then he has the audacity to ask me such a preposterous question that it dismantles my entire floating chunk of universe.
“Can I watch you dance?”
I choke on a spit glob in my mouth. “What?”
“I want to watch you dance, Cali,” he elaborates.
He…wants to watch me dance? Nobody’s ever watched me dance before. Well, except for my students and Hadley. In college, I was majoring in dance, and I became really close to one of my contemporary professors during a stressful semester. Contemporary was the first dance style I ever took, and it was then when I realized that contemporary in particular had a way of allowing me to be vulnerable without talking through my feelings. Dance was a way for me to escape from the stress of my other classes in college—from the state of the family I left behind, which continued to haunt me while I was hundreds of miles away from them.
After my semester with Ms. Katharine, she asked me if I’d ever be interested in being a teacher for a college-level contemporary class. Of course I said yes, so for the next semester, I was a dance teacher on the side. Teaching others to embrace dance and work through their emotions wasn’t only rewarding, but it helped me understand my own emotions better.
So when my mother got sick my sophomore year of college, the first thing I allowed myself to feel was loss. Not just on account of my mother, but on account of the one outlet I’d grown to lean on—dance. I didn’t want to return to my old life. When I went to college, I thought my mother would get better. I thought I’d be able to have a normal college experience and step into an actual career. But all of that was taken away in the blink of an eye.
My mother’s condition had deteriorated so badly that she was no longer able to care for Teague, which necessitated my return home. And even if my father had stayed, there isn’t a bone in my body that would trust him to adequately care for my mother. He always did things half-assed, even when it came to the well-being of this family—which makes sense as to why he never bothered looking for a steady job to help keep us afloat.
When I told Ms. Katharine that she’d have to find another teacher to take over, she said she ran a dance studio in Riverside that was looking for a new instructor.
She saw how important dance was to me, and she didn’t want me to be without it. It was plain luck that a deal as good as that one fell into my lap—that I’d be able to help others, help myself (to some degree), and help my mother with expenses. The only catch was that the dance class they needed an instructor for wasn’t a typical style of dance.
That’s when I found heel dancing. It was sexy, different, and combined all the foundations of other genres of dance into one. The thing that appealed most to me, however, was running a class where women, no matter their backgrounds or personal lives, could come together and share in the strength of what it meant to be a woman. That safe space isn’t always available in society, nor is it handed out to those who want it. Safety shouldn’t be a privilege; it should be a right. And I guess it felt like it was my duty to cultivate a safe space for others because Ms. Katharine’s contemporary class had been a safe space for me.
If there’s anything I want in life, it’s to be someone else’s Ms. Katharine.
And while heel dancing isn’t something I’m ashamed of, I’m afraid to share it with other people. When I dance, all my emotions float to the surface, and everything’s so easy to read from an outside perspective. Dancing lowers the façade I keep so firmly in place to hide my vulnerability. That’s why I’m afraid to let people look under the surface—for them to see how broken I really am. And Gage wants under all my fucking surfaces.
“Yeah, not happening,” I rebuke, folding my arms over my chest.
“Why not?”
Why not? Why not? Oh, maybe because I’m an absolute mess of a human being who channels all her emotional baggage into her dancing, and you’ll be able to see just how messed up I am from a mile away. Then, upon seeing said mess, you’ll bolt for the hills and think to yourself, Phew, that was a close one.
“I know you may be used to girls bending over backwards for your attention, but I’m not one of those girls.”
Gage laughs heartily—which isn’t the reaction I was expecting—and my stomach somersaults with a nauseating flutter. “Pretty sure I had you bent over backwards the last time we were together.”
Oh my God. I can’t believe he just said that!
“Plus, you don’t need to vie for my attention when you already have it, Spitfire.”
Curse Gage and his surprising wittiness that does make him more likable but is overall infuriating. I’m not ready to dance for Gage. I’m not sure if I ever will be.
So I rack my brain for a solution to stop the unstoppable—the unstoppable being Gage—and I take a second sifting through excuses and ideas before one presents itself to me. “How about we dance together?” I propose, adjusting the hem of my polyester tank top.
Gage’s composure suffers a quick crack right down the middle, and his eyes enlarge to the size of discs, an unmissable blush scattering over his cheeks. “Dance? Together? Dance together?” he spews out.
“Yes, Gage. I mean, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you can kind of dance.”
“I…it’s just…” He’s scrambling for an excuse just like I was until his darting eyes make a connection with the culprit of this entire lesson. “My hip! Yeah, my hip. I can’t dance because of my hip, but you already know that.” The strangest bird-squawk of a laugh ejects from his mouth.
Damn. He really doesn’t like this idea. So I immediately love this idea.
Before he can feed me more pathetically unbelievable excuses, I divest myself of my tank top, throwing it to the side with a flirtatious wink in Gage’s direction.
Gage’s gone mannequin-still, his gaze now transfixed on my tits like there’s some kind of magnetic pull. A black mini romper gives my boobs a generous push, and the trim of it flares out in ruffled frills just below my butt.
I’m getting back at him for teasing me with all his stupid muscles this session.
How do you like the taste of your own medicine, Gage?
“Fuck,” he croaks weakly, eyes skating over my body with such razor-edge intensity that it makes me shudder.
With a sensual strut, I trail a single finger up his stomach, over his pecs, and across his collarbone. I stalk around him, making sure to keep continuous contact. “Come on, Gage. Dance with me.”
“I…”
I have no idea why he’s so nervous. Gage doesn’t strike me as the type to get nervous. He strikes me as the type of person to fight any nerve-type feelings like one of those hypermasculine guys who claim they can fight a grizzly bear.
“You’re telling me you don’t like the feel of dancing intimately with another person?”
His chest rises in an erratic rhythm, and if I had to make an educated guess, I bet his heartbeat would break a heart monitor.
When he doesn’t answer me, I come up from behind and nudge my lips against his ear, whispering, “The feel of their hands all over you? The feel of sweat rolling down both your bodies?”
Gage groans so loudly that the noise resounds in the studio, all efforts to resist me slowly dwindling when I lick the small patch of neck just below his earlobe. He’s shivering just from a single touch, so wired with anticipation that I could do next to nothing and still have him begging on his knees—which, if we’re talking about Gage, he’d probably do in a heartbeat.
Since my heels give me some much-needed leverage, I’m tall enough to press my front up against his ass, smooth my hands down his washboard abs, and halt just above the crotch of his pants, which is currently straining with his erection. “The feel of their breath on your skin? How about their body pressed up against yours, where the most erogenous zones rub against each other?”
“Cali…” he growls.
“Are you really going to stand here and tell me you don’t want to dance with me?” I purr, my voice warmer than whiskey.
I can feel his stomach twitch underneath my fingers, and sadistic satisfaction funnels through my entire body in miniature, earth-shattering explosions. Wetness gathers in the gusset of my panties, triggering a needy pulse in my pussy which desperately craves some one-on-one attention with Gage’s engorged cock. I grind the slightest bit into his ass to relieve some of the pressure, and the tiniest noise barges out of him while his ass cheeks clench in tandem.
He grabs my hands to keep them from moving, exerting levels of restraint that I didn’t even know he was physically capable of. The guttural rumble in his throat nearly derails my whole seduction scheme. “If I get my hands on you, we won’t be doing any dancing,” he says lowly.
Promise?
“Show me. Show me where you’d touch me. Show me how I turn you on,” I demand.
Gage turns around abruptly, his dick jutting against my belly, just inches from my slick cunt—just inches from ruining me right here in the middle of the studio. “Fuck, Spitfire. You can’t ask me to do that.”
I’ll give him some credit. He actually looks torn.
“Why? Because you’re a gentleman?” I scoff.
He pins me with an intimidating stare, running his eyes over the sinfully low dip of my cleavage, and his throat clicks with an audible gulp. “Because I’m not.”
Welcome back, sexual tension. I’ve missed you.
The beginning notes of Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance” comes blaring through the speakers, and I start to swish my hips from side to side in time with the beat, simultaneously running my fingers through my hair and letting the volume of it billow behind me.
Gage pulls me into him so there’s no space between us at all, and I hang one arm over his shoulder as I roll my body against his, snagging his boner with my cunt. He pitches forward slightly as he throws his head back, growls of frustration slipping past clenched teeth and puttering out into hushed grunts. I’d turn around and grind on him if I didn’t think he’d come in less than three seconds.
But where’s the fun in playing it safe, right?
Before I get the chance to palm the bulge in his pants, Gage cups my pussy, grabbing the fabric of my romper and rucking it up in his fingers. I gasp loudly, the arm that was once slung lazily over his shoulder now steeling me in my moment of weakness. He pushes the offending material aside so that his fingers can inch their way over the seam of my panties, and my pussy reciprocates with an embarrassing leakage of arousal.
Gage leans into my neck, whispering, “You thought you could just torture me this entire session and get away with it?”
“Not hard when the man I’m dancing with has no self-restraint,” I retort.
“Any man in his right mind would have zero self-restraint when it comes to you.” He nips at my throat, teasing a bite that I know he’s not going to give me, and any resolve I’d planned to weaponize against him dissipates into nothingness. “Now are you going to be a good girl, or are you going to be a cock tease all night?”
It’s taking every muscle in my body not to moan right now. Gage is getting closer to his desired target, and all I want to do is feel his fingers inside me again, stuffing me full, making me gush down his knuckles and scream his name.
All my thoughts are frequent flyers on Arousal Airlines, and I fail to realize the weight of my next response before it materializes in the real world. “That depends. Are you going to man up and actually dance with me? Or should I find someone who will?”
I don’t have time to contemplate the consequences of what I just said before Gage grabs my hips possessively and moves my waist in a figure eight, his freakishly hard dick still fighting to escape the flimsy containment of his pants. He then squats down halfway, his hands migrating from the curves of my sides to the dough of my ass. He smacks my left cheek before settling for a grab, and I emit a gasp at the force of it, nearly losing my balance and tripping over my own heels. I run my hands roughly through his hair to try and regain some control, but I should’ve known it wouldn’t last long as he slowly begins to stand, dragging his nose all the way up my stomach and over the swell of my overspilling tits.
He’s standing over me a second later, our foreheads pressed together, our mouths inching closer at a slow-moving pace, prolonging the tension that’s snowballed within the last ten minutes.
Fuck, do I want to kiss him. So badly. And I don’t want to stop.
But the second our lips brush each other’s, the music cuts out in a staticky wail, and the ringing of my phone fills our ears instead. We’re both huffing and panting, and I’m mopping as much sweat from my face as I can. That’s when I notice Gage staring at me in a way I’ve never seen before. Not due to frustration or annoyance…it seems to be something stronger than all of that. Something that scares me as much as it tantalizes me.
“I’m sorry, I should get that.” I break away from our intimate position with a guilty heart, unplug my phone, and answer the unknown caller.
“Are you Calista Cadwell, Ingrid Cadwell’s daughter?” the speaker asks.
I freeze as my fingers grip the device tighter—as if squeezing it will somehow pacify the panic throwing me for a terrifying loop—and an oily sickness brews in my gut. “Yes, this is she.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Cadwell. Your mother has had a terrible accident.”
