Fever

by Tonya Plank

  ***

  One night as we were rehearsing with Greta, the director ordered the camera operators to stop filming. We all stopped what we were doing and looked at her. She seemed truly distressed.

  “It seems like you guys are on your best behavior whenever we’re around?” she asked, though her statement wasn’t a question.

  “We can’t be. You’re always around,” I said, unintentionally sounding ungrateful.

  “That’s true,” she said with a laugh. “But I mean, how can you guys get along so well? You never argue. You never have any disagreements over anything. I’ve filmed dancers before. I know what it can be like, especially before a big competition. This is the Worlds, you know!” She threw her hands up in exasperation.

  We three stood there dumbfounded. Then we all burst into laughter at once. Okay, Greta and I burst into laughter. Sasha rolled his eyes.

  “Sasha used to be a huge problem,” I said, pointing at him.

  He widened his eyes at me.

  “He used to be a horrible perfectionist. We had to teach him how to calm down and see dance as an art form and not make it into an Olympic competition all the time, and actually have fun with it. And to stop trying to make me into a replica of himself and allow me to do more of my own thing that allowed me to shine.”

  He looked at me, mortified, as if I’d just made him look evil.

  “Because obviously,” I continued, “I will never ever be as fast and strong and razor sharp as him.” I finished with a cutely playful pout directed at him. I was blabbering, but I couldn’t give her our real techniques for developing a partnership. They included, after all, him blindfolding me so I’d learn to follow him and then doing…other things while blindfolded to get me to use my other senses. And then me demanding we dance in the nude so he’d be gentler with my body. Yeah, no, she wasn’t getting all that.

  “Um, seriously,” Greta began. “I remember we decided I would act as go-between. So they weren’t allowed to say anything negative to each other. They had to go through me and I had to mediate.”

  The director now looked back and forth between Sasha and me like we were children.

  “Oh also, it was more that we also worked with Rory’s body and her ballet strengths to create dances that showcased them, and deleted things from the routines that made her look weak.” Greta seemed to have realized that she made us look bad with her mediation comment so now she was blabbering as badly as I had.

  Not that what she said wasn’t true; I just didn’t know if we wanted to put it that way to the filmmakers.

  “I-I was a perfectionist,” Sasha said. “I fought with all of my partners. Badly. And we did choreograph to Rory’s strengths. Choreographers always do that, regardless of dance form. And Greta did act as mediator when we got out of control. But…” He walked toward me. “I just, I don’t know how to explain. Rory and I were the right partners for each other. I fell in love. Really, truly fell in love.”

  He reached me, wrapped his arms around my back and kissed my forehead. “And with that naturally came respect,” he went on. “Respecting each others’ boundaries and limitations and strengths and weaknesses, both physical and mental. It’s only if you respect each other that you can listen to each other. You can’t work together without respect.” He continued to hold me, rocking me from side to side.

  “Respect and dancing naked together,” I whispered in his ear.

  “What? Stop,” he said, trying hard, I could tell, to remain nonchalant.

  “Seriously. When are they going to leave so we can do our naked rumba? We’re never alone anymore,” I play-groaned, under my breath.

  “Rory.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t talk about that.”

  “Why?”

  “Are you guys having some sort of conversation?” the director asked. “Because I should have the sound on if you are.”

  “No, no conversation,” I said. We’re just…cuddling.

  “Because I’m thinking about it now and…it’s just not good,” he said to me under his breath.

  Right then, I felt his partial erection in my lower abdomen area. I nearly started laughing, but restrained myself.

  “With all these crazy cameras? What are you, a porn star?” I whispered.

  The director looked quizzically at us.

  “I’m actually not feeling well,” I said. “I’m really not. I think I need to finish for the night. Please.”

  The crew took what seemed like an eternity to pack up and go.

  The filming was generally fun, don’t get me wrong, and I couldn’t complain about how exciting our lives were now with all that was going on, but I was beginning to see how actors could get annoyed with the lack of privacy.

  “Thank you!” Sasha exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air the second the door shut behind them, echoing my thoughts.

  “I know,” I said. “Not that I’m complaining about being a kind of celebrity or anything, at all. But I mean…”

  “I need time alone with the woman I love.” He was suddenly very serious. His eyes widened, his pupils piercing mine, just as they had the first time our gazes had connected. Every muscle in the lower half of my body clenched.

  He stood in the corner, near the doorway, holding a remote control. With one click, the lights grew dim and music sounded over the surround speakers. It was the music to which we’d first danced naked together, “Bésame Mucho.” Damn, he was fast. I’d just brought that up minutes earlier, while the filmmakers were still here. How’d he have time to set the iPod, I wondered? Unless we’d once again simply shared the same thought earlier.

  He held out his hand. I skipped toward him. I would have done sexy rumba walks but it would have taken far too much time. He took my hand then whisked me around so we were facing the floor-to-ceiling window. He stood behind me in shadow position, his arms wrapped around me, his breath hot on my neck. We gazed out over the canyon. With the room so dim, you could see the lights from the houses below. It was simply breathtaking.

  “Let’s see what you have really learned,” he whispered in my ear, sucking gently on my earlobe.

  “I beg your pardon?” I said with a giggle.

  He placed his hand before my eyes and softly closed my eyelids. “Keep them shut,” he said commandingly. Then, with lightning speed, he whisked me around again, to face him.

  It was dizzying. But in a good way. In a way that flooded my belly with warm liquid, and made me want to fall into him on purpose.

  “Good,” he said. I felt his soft, wet lips on my still-closed left eyelid. “I was expecting to have to get the blindfold.”

  The warm liquid was making its way down to my nether regions, fast. My whole body was becoming tingly, wondering what he was going to do. “Sasha—” I started, without really knowing what I was going to say. I just needed to say his name.

  “Shhh, no words. Just follow. Just feel me.”

  He led me into a series of underarm turns. They were slow, and, in and of themselves, not very dizzying. But then he pulled me toward him. I felt his lips briefly, too briefly on mine, before he whisked me back out again, into a step called a natural opening-out.

  “Quit being a tease,” I said, giggling, my eyes still closed.

  Now he pulled me in and turned me in the other direction, a bit more quickly. I was getting a little dizzy. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. He turned me faster and faster, whipping me around him. I was about to beg him to stop—teasingly, of course—when he took me down quickly into a deep dip, where I could relax for several beats and get my bearings. I still managed not to open my eyes.

  He pulled me up and brushed me toward him. I let myself fall into him, leaning all the way, letting him support my weight as he’d begged me to do in our first dance in his private ballroom. I remembered that early lesson very well. He’d felt so strongly about me then, already. He already knew I was the one, though he acted like he didn’t. Tease!

&nbs
p; He wrapped his arms around me. We stood in a still embrace for a few beats before he placed me solidly on my feet, making sure I was upright before letting go.

  I expected him to return to me. I waited. And waited. What was going on? The music ended. I didn’t dare open my eyes. I couldn’t believe my self-control. Then I heard his voice. It was inches in front of me.

  And it came from below. As if he was kneeling.

  “I have a prrrroposition for you.”

  This time he most definitely was doing the rolling r thing on purpose. My eyes bolted open. He was kneeling before me, on one knee, the gorgeous view of the canyon behind him, its lights producing a glow around his entire body.

  “Rory, you’ve completely changed my world. Life since I met you, life with you is just…filled with…crazy. But in a good way. In wonderful way.”

  My eyes were beginning to tear. I could tell he was getting caught up in emotion by his grammar. It was so sweetly endearing to me. It always would be.

  “You are the only constant in this ever-changing landscape.”

  As was his vocabulary!

  “You make me so happy. You make me sane,” he continued, his voice beginning to shake. “Who knows what the future will bring us. All these…TV shows and movies.” He shook his head and held out his hands. “I just know that whatever comes next, I want to share it with you. I want you always to be in my life.”

  He pulled a small midnight blue velvet box from behind his bent knee and held it up to me.

  “Oh my God, yes!” I cried out before even taking it. My entire body now filled with the liquid heat and I felt like I might fall over.

  “Ahhh…” The words I think you are supposed to open the box and I am supposed to ask first were written all over his beautiful face. But as his smile went from bemused to charming with those boyish dimples that sent tingles shooting all throughout my body, he said instead, “Okay!”

  I grabbed the box and giggled as he scooped me up and twirled me around in the air. When he finally brought me down, I opened the box. The ring was absolutely stunning. The diamond in the middle was cut into the shape of a star, and it was flanked on the sides by two sapphires the color of Sasha’s eyes. Above and below the diamond were two brilliantly green stones. I didn’t know if they were emeralds or not. I hadn’t seen such beautiful gems. I hadn’t even told him his eyes reminded me of sapphires. It was the absolute most perfect ring. Every time I looked at it, I’d see him.

  “If you don’t like it, we can definitely exchange—”

  “Shut up!” I screamed. “It couldn’t be more perfect and you know it!”

  “You told me you like sapphires. And the beautiful green, it is called Russian jade. It reminded me of your eyes.”

  I couldn’t help tearing up as I slid it on my finger. Where it fit perfectly, of course.

  I held the ring up. It positively glowed in the light of the canyon.

  “Well, I am glad you like it,” he said, hoisting me up.

  I wrapped my legs around his waist. He circled around for a few beats, then stopped, and in one motion, swung me back and flipped me sideways, so that I was now in a cradle position in his arms. He nudged my chin toward his and kissed me softly but deeply. Holding me in that position, he carried me up the winding staircase, down the hall, and over the threshold into our paradise in the sky.

  ***

  The End

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank Julia Ganis, my brilliant editor, Robena Grant, my wonderfully gracious mentor from the Los Angeles chapter of Romance Writers of America, and my amazing friend and reader, Elizabeth Donatelli, who all were so generous with their time and whose advice and critiques were absolutely invaluable in making this a better book. For words of wisdom on early drafts and overall much needed emotional support, I would like to thank writers Laurie Ellen Horowitz, Katrin McNevin, Margeaux Klein, Kathy Fielding, Maxine Nunes, and Tara Tyson. Thank you as well to Kristine Marsh for help translating the Russian into English. This book began in Laurie Horowitz’s Monday night fiction group at Beyond Baroque in Venice Beach, and I am extremely grateful to everyone in that class for their support, inspiration, and encouragement.

  About the Author

  After working for many years as a criminal appeals attorney in New York, Tonya Plank now lives and writes in Southern California. A former amateur ballroom dancer, she wrote the dance blog, Swan Lake Samba Girl. Her first novel, Swallow, won several awards, including gold medals in the Independent Publisher and the Living Now Book Awards, and was a finalist in ForeWord’s Book of the Year and the National Indie Excellence Awards.

  When not writing, she enjoys taking road trips with her rescue dog, Sofia, devouring Mexican food and Cadillac margaritas, sweating to dance-based workouts, cuddling up with her cats and a good book, and of course seeing dance performances of any kind. Her favorite places in the world are Lincoln Center in New York City, the Pacific Coast Highway from Laguna Beach to San Francisco, and the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah.

  To connect with her, please find her at www.tonyaplank.com where she tries to blog regularly. For information on her upcoming releases, sign up for her newsletter.