by Nora Roberts
And as he ran his hands up her sides to linger there, the kiss grew deeper, beyond what she knew and into the uncharted.
Her head fell back in submission as she tangled her fingers in his hair. She pulled him closer, demanding that he take all she offered. It was a dark, pungent world she had never tasted, and she yearned. Her body quivered with hot need as his hands ran over her. She had felt them on her countless times in the past, steadying her, lifting her, coaching her. But there was no music to bring them together here, no planned choreography, only instinct and desire.
When she felt herself being drawn away from him, Ruth protested, straining closer. But his hands came firmly to her shoulders, and they were separated.
Ruth stood naked before him, making no attempt to cover herself. She knew he had already seen her soul; there was no need to conceal her body. Nick took his eyes down her, slowly, carefully, as if he would memorize every inch. Then his eyes were back on hers, darkened, penetrating. There was fury in them. Without a word, he turned and left the room.
Ruth heard the front door slam, and she knew he had gone.
Chapter Three
And one, and two, and three, and four. Ruth made the moves to the time Nick called. After hours of dancing, her body was beyond pain. She was numb. The scant four hours sleep had not given her time to recharge. It had been her own anger and a need to defy which had kept her at the noisy, smoke-choked party until the early hours of the morning. She knew that, just as she knew her dancing was well below par that day.
There was no scathing comment from Nick, no bout of temper. He simply called out the combinations again and again. He didn’t shout when she missed her timing or swear when her pirouettes were shaky. When he partnered her, there were no teases, no taunts in her ear.
It would be easier, Ruth thought as she stretched to a slow arabesque, if he’d shouted or scolded her for doing what he had warned her against. But Nick had simply lowered her into a fish dive without saying a word.
If he had shouted, she could have shouted back and released some of her self-disgust. But he gave her no excuse through the classes and hours of rehearsals to lose her temper. Each time their eyes met, he seemed to look through her. She was only a body, an object moving to his music.
When Nick called a break, Ruth went to the back of the room and, sitting on the floor, brought her knees to her chest and rested her forehead on them. Her feet were cramping, but she lacked the energy to massage them. When someone draped a towel around her neck, she glanced up.
“Francie.” Ruth managed a grateful smile.
“You look bushed.”
“I am,” Ruth returned. She used the towel to wipe perspiration from her face.
Francie Myers was a soloist, a talented, dedicated dancer and one of the first friends Ruth had made in the company. She was small and lean with soft, fawn-colored hair and sharp, black eyes. She was constantly acquiring and losing lovers with perpetual cheerfulness. Ruth admired her unabashed honesty and optimism.
“Are you sick?” Francie asked, slipping a piece of gum into her mouth.
Ruth rested her head against the wall. Someone was idling at the piano. The room was abuzz with conversation and music. “I was at a miserably crowded party until three o’clock this morning.”
“Sounds like fun.” Francie stretched her leg up to touch the wall behind her, then back. She glanced at Ruth’s shadowed eyes. “But I don’t think your timing was too terrific.”
Ruth shook her head on a sigh. “And I didn’t even want to be there.”
“Then what were you doing there?”
“Being perverse,” Ruth muttered, shooting a quick glance at Nick.
“That takes the fun out of it.” Francie’s eyes darted across the room and landed on an elegant blond in a pale blue leotard. “Leah’s had a few comments about your style today.”
Ruth followed Francie’s gaze. Leah’s golden hair was pulled back from a beautifully sculptured ivory-skinned face. She was talking to Nick now, gesturing with her long, graceful hands.
“I’m sure she did.”
“You know how badly she wanted the lead in this ballet,” Francie went on. “Even dancing Aurora hasn’t pacified her. Nick isn’t dancing in Sleeping Beauty.”
“Competition keeps the company alive,” Ruth said absently, watching Nick smile and shake his head at Leah.
“And jealousy,” Francie added.
Ruth turned her head again, meeting the dark, sharp eyes. “Yes,” she agreed after a moment. “And jealousy.”
The piano switched to a romantic ballad, and someone began to sing.
“Nothing’s wrong with a little jealousy.” Francie rhythmically circled her ankles one at a time. “It’s healthy. But Leah . . .” Her small, piquant face was abruptly serious. “She’s poison. If she wasn’t such a beautiful dancer, I’d wish her in another company. Watch her,” she added as she rose. “She’ll do anything to get what she wants. She wants to be the prima ballerina of this company, and you’re in her way.”
Thoughtfully, Ruth stood as Francie moved away. The attractive dancer rarely spoke ill of anyone. Perhaps she was overreacting to something Leah had said. Ruth had felt Leah’s jealousy. There was always jealousy in the company, as there was in any family. It was a fact of life. Ruth also knew how badly Leah had wanted the part of Carlotta in Nick’s new ballet.
They had competed for a great number of roles since their days in the corps. Each had won, and each had lost. Their styles were diverse, so that the roles each created were uniquely individual. Ruth was an athletic, passionate dancer. Leah was an elegant dancer—classic, refined, cool. She had a polished grace that Ruth admired but never tried to emulate. Her dancing was from the heart; Leah’s was from the head. In technical skills they were as equal as two dancers could be. Ruth danced in Don Quixote, while Leah performed in Giselle. Ruth was the Firebird, while Leah was Princess Aurora. Nick used them both to the best advantage. And Ruth would be his Carlotta.
Now, watching her across the room, Ruth wondered if the jealousy was more deeply centered than she had sensed. Though they had never been friends, they had maintained a certain professional respect. But Ruth had detected an increase of hostility over the past weeks. She shrugged, then pulled the towel from her shoulders. It couldn’t be helped. They were all there to dance.
“Ruth.”
She jolted and spun around at the sound of Nick’s voice. His eyes were cool on her face, without expression. A wave of anxiety washed over her. He was cruelest when he controlled his temper. She had been in the wrong and was now prepared to admit it. “Nick,” Ruth began, ready to humble herself with an apology.
“Go home.”
She blinked at him, confused. “What?”
“Go home,” he repeated in the same frigid tone.
Her eyes were suddenly round and eloquent. “Oh, no, Nick, I—”
“I said go.” His words fell like an axe. “I don’t want you here.
Even as she stared at him, she paled from the hurt. There was nothing, nothing he could have done to wound her more deeply than to send her away. She felt both a rush of angry words and a rush of tears back up in her throat. Refusing to give way to either, she turned and crossed the room. Picking up her bag, Ruth walked to the door.
“Second dancers, please,” she heard Nick call out before she shut it behind her.
***
Ruth slept for three hours with Nijinsky curled into the small of her back. She had closed the blinds in her bedroom, and fresh from a shower, lay across the spread. The room was dim, and the only sound was the cat’s gentle snoring. When she woke, she woke instantly and rolled from her stomach to her back. Nijinsky was disturbed enough to pad down to the foot of the bed. Huffily, he began to clean himself.
Nick’s words had been the last thing she had thought of before slumber and the first to pla
y in her mind when she awoke. She had been wrong. She had been punished. No one she knew could be more casually cruel than Nikolai Davidov. She rose briskly to open the blinds, determined to put the afternoon’s events behind her.
“We can’t lie around in the dark all day,” she informed Nijinsky, then flopped back on the bed to ruffle his fur. He pretended to be indignant but allowed her to fondle and stroke. At last, deciding to forgive her, he nudged his forehead against hers. The gesture brought Nick hurtling back into Ruth’s mind.
“Why do you like him so much?” she demanded of Nijinsky, tilting his head until the unblinking amber eyes were on hers. “What is it about him that attracts you?” Her brows lowered, and she began to scratch under the cat’s chin absently as she stared into the distance. “Is it his voice, that musical, appealingly accented voice? Or is it the way he moves, with such fluidly controlled grace? Or how he smiles, throwing his whole self into it? Is it how he touches you, with his hands so sure, so knowing?”
Ruth’s mind drifted back to the evening before, when Nick had stood holding her naked in his arms. For the first time since the impulsive, arousing kiss, Ruth allowed herself to think of it. The night before, she had dressed in a frenzy and had rushed off to the party with Donald, not giving herself a chance to think. She had come home exhausted and had fought with fatigue all day. Now rested, her mind clear, she dwelled on the matter of Nick Davidov. There was no question: She had seen desire in his eyes. Ruth curled on the spread again, resting her cheek on her hand. He had wanted her.
Desire. Ruth rolled the word around in her mind. Is that what I saw in his eyes? The thought had warmth creeping under her skin. Then, like a splash of ice water, she remembered his eyes that afternoon. No desire, no anger, not even disapproval. Simply nothing.
For a moment Ruth buried her face in the spread. It still hurt to remember his dismissal of her. She felt as though she had been cast adrift. But her common sense told her that one botched rehearsal wasn’t the end of the world, and one kiss, she reminded herself, wasn’t the beginning of anything.
The poster on the far wall caught her eye. Her uncle had given it to her a decade before. Lindsay and Nick were reproduced in their roles as Romeo and Juliet. Without a second thought, Ruth reached over, picked up the phone and dialed.
“Hello.” The voice was warm and clear.
“Lindsay.”
“Ruth!” There was surprise in the voice, followed by a quick rush of affection. “I didn’t expect to hear from you before the weekend. Did you get Justin’s picture?”
“Yes.” Ruth smiled, thinking of the boldly colored abstract her four-year-old cousin had sent to her. “It’s beautiful.”
“Naturally. It’s a self-portrait.” Lindsay laughed her warm, infectious laugh. “You’ve missed Seth, I’m afraid. He’s just run into town.”
“That’s all right.” Ruth’s eyes were drawn back to the poster. “I really called just to talk to you.”
There was only the briefest of pauses, but Ruth sensed Lindsay’s quick understanding. “Trouble at rehearsal today?”
Ruth laughed. She tucked her legs under her. “Right. How did you know?”
“Nothing makes a dancer more miserable.”
“Now I feel silly.” Ruth gathered her hair in her hand and tossed it behind her back.
“Don’t. Everyone has a bad day. Did Nick shout at you?” There was a trace of humor rather than sympathy; that in itself was a balm.
“No.” Ruth glanced down at the small pattern of flowers in the bedspread. Thoughtfully, she traced one with her thumbnail. “It’d be so much easier if he had. He told me to go home.”
“And you felt as though someone had knocked you down with a battering ram.”
“And then ran over me with a truck.” Ruth smiled into the phone. “I knew you’d understand. What made it worse, he was right.”
“He usually is,” Lindsay said dryly. “It’s one of his less endearing traits.”
“Lindsay . . .” Ruth hesitated, then plunged before she could change her mind. “When you were with the company, were you ever—attracted to Nick?”
Lindsay paused again, a bit longer than she had the first time. “Yes, of course. It’s impossible not to be, really. He’s the sort of man who draws people.”
“Yes, but . . .” Ruth hesitated again, searching for the right words. “What I meant was—”
“I know what you meant,” Lindsay said, sparing her. “And yes, I was once very attracted.”
Ruth glanced back up at the poster again, studying the star-crossed lovers. She dropped her eyes. “You’re closer to him, I think, than anyone else.”
“Perhaps,” Lindsay considered a moment, weighing Ruth’s tone and her own choice of words. “Nick’s a very private person.”
Ruth nodded. The statement was accurate. Nick could give of himself to the company, at parties, to the press and to his audience. He could flatter the individual with personal attention, but he was amazingly reticent about his personal life. Yes, he was careful about who he let inside. Suddenly Ruth felt alone.
“Lindsay, please, will you and Uncle Seth come to the opening? I know it’s difficult, with the children and the school and Uncle Seth’s work, but . . . I need you.”
“Of course,” Lindsay agreed without hesitation, without questions. “We’ll be there.”
Hanging up a few moments later, Ruth sat in silence. I feel better, she decided, just talking to her, making contact. She’s more than family, she’s a dancer, too. And she knows Nick.
Lindsay had been a romantically lovely Juliet to Nick’s Romeo. It was a ballet Ruth had never danced with him. Keil Lowell had been her Romeo; a dark whip of a dancer who loved practical jokes. Ruth had danced with Nick in Don Quixote, in The Firebird and in his ballet Ariel, but in her mind, Juliet had remained Lindsay’s role. Ruth had searched for one of her own. She believed she had found it in Carlotta of The Red Rose.
It was hers, she thought suddenly. And she had better not forget it. Jumping from the bed, she pulled tights from her dresser drawer and began to tug them on.
***
When Ruth entered the old, six-story building that housed the company, it was past seven, but there were still some members of the troupe milling about. Some hailed her, and she waved in return but didn’t stop. Newer members of the corps watched her pass. Someday, they thought. Ruth might have felt their dreams rushing past her if she hadn’t been so impatient to begin.
She took the elevator up, her mind already forming the moves she would demand of her body. She wanted to work.
She heard the music before she pushed open the door of the studio. It always seemed larger without the dancers. She stood silently by the door and watched.
Nikolai Davidov’s leaps were like no one else’s. He would spring as if propelled, then pause and hang impossibly suspended before descending. His body was as fluid as a waterfall, as taut as a bow string. He had only to command it. And there was more, Ruth knew, just as mesmerized by him as she had been the first time she’d seen him perform; there was his precision timing, his strength and endurance. And he could act—an essential part of ballet. His face was as expressive as his body.
Davidov was fiercely concentrating. His eyes were fixed on the mirrored wall as he searched for faults. He was perfecting, refining. Sweat trickled down his face despite the sweatband he wore. There was virility as well as poetry in his moves. Ruth could see the rippling, the tightening of muscles in his legs and arms as he threw himself into the air, twisting and turning his body, then landing with perfect control and precision.
Oh God, she thought, forgetting everything but sheer admiration. He is magnificent.
Nick stopped and swore. For a moment he scowled at himself in the glass, his mind on his own world. When he walked back to the CD player to replay the selection, he spotted Ruth. His eyes drifted over her
, touching on the bag she had slung over her shoulder.
“So, you’ve rested.” It was a simple statement, without rancor.
“Yes.” She took a deep breath as they continued to watch each other. “I’m sorry I wasn’t any good this morning.” When he didn’t speak, she walked to a bench to change her shoes.
“So, now you come back to make up?” There was a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“Is that what I do?” The smile lingered at the corners of his mouth.
Her eyes were wide and vulnerable. She dropped them to the satin ribbons she crossed at her ankles. “Sometimes,” she murmured.
He moved softly. Ruth wasn’t aware he had come to her until he crouched down, resting his hands on her knees. “Ruth.” His eyes were just below hers now, his tone gentle. “I don’t make fun of you.”
She sighed. “It’s so difficult when you’re so often right.” She made a face at him. “I wasn’t going to that silly party until you made me so mad.”
“Ah.” Nick grinned, squeezing her knee companionably. “So, it’s my fault, then.”
“I like it better when it’s your fault.” She pulled the towel from her bag and used it to dry his damp face. “You work too hard, Davidov,” she said. Nick lifted his hands lightly to her wrists.
“Do you worry about me, milaya?”
His eyes were thoughtful on hers. They’re so blue, Ruth thought, like the sea from a distance or the sky in summer. “I never have before,” she mused aloud. “Wouldn’t it be strange if I started now? I don’t suppose you need anyone to worry about you.”
He continued to look at her, then the smile slid into his eyes. “Still, it’s a comfortable feeling, yes?”
“Nick.” He had started to rise, but Ruth put a hand to his shoulder. She found herself speaking quickly while the courage was with her. “Last night—why did you kiss me?”