The Ballerina's Secret Read online

  She’d been wrong, though. She hadn’t lost ballet. It meant more to her now than ever before.

  She was tired of trying not to fall again, both literally and metaphorically. The constant effort it took to keep herself protected at all times was exhausting. She couldn’t do it anymore. Maybe tomorrow she’d feel differently. Maybe Julian would change his mind once more and walk away, leaving her feeling humiliated two times over.

  Tessa couldn’t think about that now. Just once, she wanted to fling herself toward what she wanted with wild abandon.

  Right now, what she wanted was him.

  Fingers entwined with his, she held her head high and strode out of the ballroom. Zander, deep in conversation with a group of people at one of tables closest to the dance floor, didn’t seem to notice. Good. No doubt he’d pepper her with questions later, but right now he was one less thing standing in her way. If they stopped to chat with her brother, Julian might rethink things. If he did, she’d never have the courage to proposition him again.

  Since Owen, there hadn’t been anyone else. Tessa hadn’t been on a single date in over a year, much less in a man’s bed. She’d believed the hurtful things Owen had said to her. They’d cut her to the quick, probably because as harsh as he’d seemed, there was an undeniable truth to the fact that she felt isolated sometimes.

  She couldn’t keep up with conversations. Being around people was stressful. She was always struggling to understand what was being said. It was easier not to try.

  She’d plunged deeper and deeper into silence. Even when Owen had been sitting right beside her, she’d felt so lonely sometimes that she couldn’t breathe.

  Once he’d broken things off, Tessa no longer believed it was possible for a man—or anyone—to really know her. Maybe it wasn’t...but for the first time, she wanted to believe. She’d wanted to believe since the moment Julian first looked at her. She’d felt that midnight-sapphire gaze down to her core, as real as a caress. That phantom touch had been her undoing.

  Now she stepped out of the noisy ballroom and into the hush of the gleaming marble lobby, with Julian alongside her. Silence wrapped itself around them. Tessa felt many things in that moment, but loneliness wasn’t one of them. She was hyperaware of her pulse pounding in her ears and the tiny rays of silver light the overhead chandelier cast on the smooth tile floor. It almost looked like stars were falling all around them.

  She turned toward Julian, half expecting him to order her to go back to the ballroom without him. Not that. Please, not that.

  “Shall we ring for your car?” she asked. There was a waver in her voice, a slight tremor of breathless anticipation.

  Julian tightened his grip on her hand. “No need. I have a room.”

  Then he was suddenly the one leading her, instead of the other way around. He strode purposefully across the lobby, and she walked alongside him, with the sweeping hem of her yellow gown trailing behind her.

  She felt like a princess. She felt beautiful. Wanted. And when they stepped into the elevator and the doors slid shut, closing them inside, she felt wanted even more.

  Julian’s mouth was on hers before they lifted an inch off the ground. Maybe she was dreaming, or maybe she was just fooling herself into believing something that wasn’t real, but this kiss felt different than the others. It felt like more than a kiss, somehow. It felt like an aching, overdue apology.

  And yet the moment his fingers wound through her hair, tipping her head back so he could deepen the kiss, Tessa was instantly reminded of how good he could make her feel. Warm. Delicious. Liquid. Like she had honey flowing through her veins.

  She sighed against his lips, and he groaned, pressing into her so her back was pinned against the mirrored elevator wall. The shock of cold on her bare back caused her to arch into him even more, and he dipped his head to kiss the hollow of her throat.

  Her knees buckled. If she hadn’t been braced against the wall, she would have dissolved into a puddle at his feet. She could feel Julian’s erection pressed against her center, just as she had earlier on the dance floor. Only he seemed even harder now. Impossibly hard.

  And big. Far bigger than she’d anticipated.

  Maybe he’d been right...maybe she didn’t know what she was asking for. Tessa could handle the scars. Julian had seen her at her most vulnerable. She was ready to see the real him, flaws and all. His scars were a part of him, a part he’d kept hidden for far too long. Tessa wanted to be the one who unraveled his mystery. She wanted to touch him and kiss him—everywhere—and make him feel as beautiful as she felt when he looked at her.

  But she was beginning to realize that she wasn’t at all prepared for the intensity of sex with Julian. They hadn’t even made it out of the elevator, and she was already flooded with want and need. So much so that it scared her a little.

  Julian didn’t touch her the way that Owen had. Owen had barely touched her at all. He’d seen her as a fragile waif, too easily broken to be properly kissed.

  Not Julian.

  She should have known it would feel this way, so tortuously overwhelming. It had been this way before, back in the ballet studio. She still couldn’t think about that encounter without her face going hot and flushed. She marveled at the way she’d behaved that night. It had been so unexpected that sometimes Tessa thought it had been nothing but a sublime dream, a wishful fantasy. But then she’d remember the way the night had ended and the pained regret in Julian’s gaze after she’d come apart, and she’d known it had been real. That kind of humiliation couldn’t be imagined.

  This time will be different.

  It would. There would be no regret this time. No unfulfilled needs. She wouldn’t lie in bed alone afterward, with tears running down her face, wondering how he could have left her spent and breathless and then just walked away.

  This time, they would finish what they’d started.

  Julian planted his palms against the mirrored wall on either side of her head, hemming her in. He was much taller than she was, and as a result, her gaze was dead even with the solid wall of his chest. She stared at his tie—at that bright red heart—and for some reason, her throat grew thick.

  Because this means something. He means something.

  Julian’s mouth dropped to her breast, and his teeth caught her nipple through the fabric of her gown. Tessa released a shuddering gasp, and her eyes drifted shut.

  Too fast. Too stimulating. Too much.

  What was happening? Were they even going to make it to the bedroom?

  The elevator bell chimed, and her eyes flew open.

  She found Julian regarding her with fire in his gaze. He looked as though he was on the verge of picking her up, carrying her to his suite and tossing her onto the bed. The idea that he might do that very thing sent a wave of divine heat straight to her core.

  “Are you sure about this, Tessa?” His jaw clenched.

  Wordlessly, she reached between them and stroked his hard length through the barrier of his trousers.

  She was sure.

  * * *

  Julian let out a sound somewhere between a moan and a growl. It was a primitive, animalistic noise, and he was certain he’d never heard anything like it come out of his mouth before.

  What had come over him? He was on the verge of taking her, right there...in the elevator of her brother’s hotel.

  “Not here,” he whispered through clenched teeth, catching her wrist with his hand. He needed her to stop. Now, before he let the elevator doors close again so he could bury himself inside her as quickly as possible.

  She nodded, wide-eyed, and licked her lips. It took every ounce of restraint he could muster to prop the elevator open and wait for her to glide past him into the hallway. He said a silent prayer of gratitude when he saw a nameplate with elegant black script on the door closest to them.

  The Duke Ellington Suite.

/>   “Here we are,” he murmured.

  Either he didn’t say it loud enough or he’d forgotten which ear Tessa could hear out of, because she didn’t react. She kept walking, and for a second or two, Julian let her so he could watch her beautiful, bare back in motion without worrying about being reprimanded for ogling.

  He never tired of watching her move. Whether she was dancing or simply walking from one end of a room to another, she moved with a feline grace that left him reeling.

  Julian had loved music since he’d been old enough to know what it was. He didn’t just listen to a song...he experienced it. When he heard Miles Davis, he could feel a slow burn deep in his marrow. Clifford Brown accompanying Sarah Vaughan on the album they recorded together just a year before Brown’s death, at just twenty-five, was so full of devastating promise that it made Julian weep. For as long as he could remember, music had made him feel. It still did...even after all this time.

  Watching Tessa just then, he realized something. Seeing her move drew something out in him. Every time. When she danced, he felt it deep in his chest. It moved him. Whether it was a stunning arabesque or something as simple as a slow turn of her wrist during an adagio piece, Julian felt her movements as if she were a song.

  His song.

  He swallowed. She wasn’t his. She never would be. He wasn’t altogether certain he’d be able to go through with making love to her tonight, much less anything beyond that.

  She’ll change her mind soon enough.

  Julian was convinced she would. But he didn’t want to think about that right now. He couldn’t. He’d moved beyond the ability to be rational about whatever was going on between them.

  “We’re here, babe,” he said, louder this time. He caught up with her and slid his fingertips down the inside of her forearm, capturing her hand in his.

  When she stopped, he kissed the back of her hand, and she flashed him a coy smile.

  He placed his hand on the small of her back and led her back to the suite. Their eyes met and held as he slipped the key card into the lock. The moment the door opened, they crashed into one another and tumbled into the room midkiss.

  More.

  His blood roared in his ears. He needed more of her. So much more. He needed everything.

  He scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed, sidestepping the grand piano in the center of the room. The lights of the city shimmered all around them through the suite’s floor-to-ceiling windows. They were on top of the world. Alone. Just as Tessa had wanted.

  She reached for the top button of his shirt, and Julian’s hands clenched into fists. The urge to take her hand and stop her was so strong, it made his head ache. He had to fight it with every cell in his body.

  You want this.

  He did. He wanted her. He wanted to lose himself inside her beautiful body. He wanted to make her come apart again. For just a night, he wanted to forget the ugliness of the past and present, to forget the man he saw every day in the mirror and remember what it felt like to be part of something bigger than himself. To connect with someone.

  He needed her.

  He needed her as surely as he needed to take his next breath.

  Desire, longing and need were all woven together in a tightly bound knot in Julian’s gut. He’d been doing his best to ignore the knot, to keep it tied firmly in place, but he couldn’t do it anymore. It had been unraveling for days now. When Tessa stroked him in the elevator, the knot had come loose. All the feelings he’d been denying were unfurling, coursing through him, refusing to be ignored for a moment longer.

  He groaned.

  Tessa moved from the top button to the second one and then quickly to the third. Her hands shook, but she never broke her gaze. Not once. Julian needed her to be certain, and she was. Her eyes glittered with it, telling him without a doubt that the tremble in her fingertips was a product of anticipation, rather than nerves.

  She paused after the third button, spread the collar of his shirt open wide and kissed his exposed skin. It was a gentle kiss at first. Tender. Reverent. But just as Julian’s fists began to unclench, Tessa’s lips parted, and the kiss turned into something far more sensual.

  Her tongue explored his small patch of exposed chest as she moved to straddle him on the bed. The folds of her yellow gown billowed around him, and suddenly his erection was aimed right at her center with nothing but the thin layer of his trousers between them. She was light and heat, and Julian was drowning in her warmth, more aroused than he thought possible. He groaned and reached for her hips through the sea of yellow satin. With his hands clasped just below her waist, he ground his erection more firmly against her, while her mouth moved lower—nuzzling, licking, exploring.

  It was like being kissed by sunshine. He was half out of his mind, on the verge of coming, before he realized that Tessa’s fingers had started moving again, deftly unbuttoning the rest of his shirt.

  Somewhere in the back of his head, alarm bells were going off. He ordered his hands to release their hold on her, to stop her before she ran her fingertips over the scar tissue that covered the left side of his rib cage and extended all the way down his hip. But his hands flagrantly disobeyed and instead reached around, splayed on her bare back, and then dipped lower to slip inside the waistband of her gown and cup her bottom.

  He’d lost control—of the situation, of his body, of his mind—and he didn’t give a damn. It felt good to let down his guard. Dangerously good. He barely flinched when Tessa peeled his shirt away. Her mouth was on his, and she’d begun to grind against him, and he was so turned on, so eager to dispense with their clothing and make love to her that he nearly forgot he hadn’t allowed anyone to touch him in two years.

  “Is this okay?” Tessa whispered, her breath hot against his ear as she placed a hand on his scarred flesh.

  At first, he felt almost nothing, which was to be expected. His nerve endings had nearly been burned away. On the surface, he was damaged beyond repair. But beneath the outer layer, he still had sensation. She began to caress him, and he could suddenly feel her touch deep down. It was a shock to his system.

  A shudder racked his frame.

  But was it okay? Yes.

  Julian nodded. He attributed his refusal to speak to concerns about whether or not she’d hear him, but on some level, he knew the truth was far more complicated. He didn’t quite trust himself to answer her question aloud.

  He wasn’t sure if the acute sensitivity he was experiencing was an actual physical response, or whether it was all in his head. He just knew that if he tried to speak, his voice might break because something profound was happening to him. Being touched again was unleashing a torrent of emotion. He was feeling everything at once, from pain to pleasure, lust to love.

  No, he thought. Not love.

  He wasn’t in love with Tessa. They barely knew one another. He was just reacting to being touched after months of self-imposed isolation. His body was being flooded with hormones signaling attachment and intimacy. It wasn’t love. It was biology.

  “Lie back,” Tessa whispered, and then she pushed on his chest until he was reclining against the pillows.

  Julian exhaled a ragged breath. His head was spinning. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t seem to do anything but feel. Tessa sat astride him, gazing down at his chest, and he felt it as keenly as he would a caress.

  She was seeing the worst of him. Raised, red flesh that resembled candlewax more than skin. Uneven ridges that he knew felt unnaturally smooth and slick beneath her fingertips. The first time Julian had seen his torso after the bandages were removed, he’d retched. Granted, he’d healed since then. He’d also grown accustomed to the sight of his scars now, but he knew they looked bad. Bad enough that the only women who’d seen his bare body in the past two years had been medical professionals, who’d taken in the sight of him with either clinical indifference or, worse, symp
athy.

  He saw neither of those things in Tessa’s eyes as she lowered her head and kissed his damaged flesh. He saw only want and need and desire...the same things he was feeling, mirrored back at him in the emerald depths of her gaze.

  “Don’t the scars bother you?” he asked before he could stop himself.

  “Honestly?”

  “Yes, tell me the truth.” His throat tightened.

  He didn’t want the truth. Not tonight. Not if it would hurt.

  “They don’t bother me at all. They’re a part of you, just like your eyes, your feet, your hands.” She wove her fingers through his. “Have I ever told you how much I love your hands? I love the music you make with them. I love the way you use them to speak to me. I love the way they feel on my body.”

  He cupped her breasts and ran the pads of his thumbs over her nipples, through the wisp-thin fabric of her gown. “Tell me what else you love.”

  Love.

  That word again.

  Julian swallowed with great difficulty.

  “I love your body, Julian. All of it.” She bent to kiss him. First on the mouth, and then lower—his neck, his shoulder, his chest. Her mouth traveled over every inch of burned skin—slowly, worshipfully—while her hands went to work on his belt buckle.

  Julian released a tortured hiss.

  He wasn’t sure he believed her. He didn’t know if what he felt right now was real, or if she was telling him a beautiful lie. It didn’t matter. If she was lying, so be it. He’d hold on to the illusion until morning. While moonlight spilled through the windows and Manhattan’s glittering skyline glowed and twinkled all around them, he’d let himself believe. He’d believe she still wanted him as much as he wanted her. He’d believe he was the kind of man she deserved.

  He’d believe it enough to make her scream his name while he was buried deep inside her.

  Tessa unzipped his fly, freeing him, as she continued kissing her way down his body. Then, before he could brace himself, she took him inside her mouth, and he had to close his eyes because the sight of her, bathed in starlight and pleasuring him, was just too much to take.