by L. P. Rose
“Are you okay?” Nikoli asked. I raised my head again and he tilted the rearview mirror to see me. All I could see was his piercing yet questionable eyes glaring back at me.
“I will be,” I muttered. I lowered my gaze and chewed the inside of my cheek. My head snapped towards Jared and I watched him drum his fingers on his knees, he seemed agitated. “Why are you here?” I asked again, this time more sternly.
“I dragged him along,” came Nikoli’s voice from the front seat. “After last night’s events at Latin and then when you didn’t turn up for Ballroom tonight, I became concerned. I knew I couldn’t come here by myself and Petra had to take the class in my absence, so I asked Jared to come,” he answered without giving Jared the chance to speak.
“Under what illusions did he drag you here?” I asked turning back to Jared again.
Jared shook his head and smiled, “No illusions and no questions were asked, Raine. I’m here because I was concerned, too. You and I are bound together, I saved your life, remember?” He chuckled and my lips pulled up into a big smile. I could feel it in my gut, he would be a good friend to have, that we would be good friends. Tonight, his actions had proven that. I needed a friend. With a grateful nod of my head, my hand covered his and I gave a silent but thankful squeeze. He smiled back and nodded his head.
“So, we still on for tomorrow night?” Jared asked as he leant forward in his seat to speak to Nikoli.
My eyes automatically glanced towards the rearview mirror to find his already there waiting to meet with mine. “Yeah, should be,” Nikoli replied casually as he continued to speed towards the studio. I broke away and stared out of the window into the vacuum of darkness.
“You’d better be man, we are all looking forward to birthday drinks,” laughed Jared.
I shifted in my seat and my attention was reverted to their conversation. “Birthday?” I asked.
Jared’s head swung in my direction with his boyish smile present, “Yeah, it’s Niki’s birthday, tomorrow he will be the big 3.0,” he replied bouncing up and down in a child-like manner.
“Really?” I drawled. Inside I felt annoyance seep into my core at not knowing this, but I brushed it away. What did I expect? I’d only known him a week.
“The class is meeting up tomorrow night at Brannigan’s to celebrate before he goes off and does his own thing, no doubt that’s code for pulling some fine female,” smirked Jared as he nodded his head and raised his eyebrows.
“You don’t half talk shit, Jared!” Nikoli snapped. I noticed his hands tense tighter on the steering wheel and I could feel his eyes on me again, silently penetrating through me, enticing me to look up at him.
“Between you and I,” Jared whispered, leaning towards me, “Mona said he’s taken, quite smitten with her apparently.”
“He is?” I whispered, leaning closer. A small giggle caught in the back of my throat at the fact we were whispering like two conniving children in the back, afraid of being overheard.
Nikoli slammed on the brakes causing our heads to jolt towards each other, we couldn’t avoid the inevitable collision that left us both holding our foreheads and grumbling. “Out,” I heard Nikoli demand. I turned to grab the door lever when he spoke again, “Not you, Raine. Just Jared, you’re coming with me.”
My open mouth slammed shut as I turned to look at a perturbed-looking Jared. “Uhm, where is Raine going?”
“It doesn’t matter where she is going. Just tell Petra I’ll be back before the lesson ends, and I appreciate you coming with me. Cheers, man.”
Jared let out a deep sigh and ran his hand over the top of his head, clearly showing his confusion over Nikoli’s reason for kicking him out of the car at the studio. “Alright, I’ll see you later,” he said quietly. As Jared shut the door, Nikoli tore away from the sidewalk, forcing my body to slam back into the seat. My breath left my mouth in a grunt as I tried to straighten myself up and discretely tie up the scarf that was still draped over my shoulders.
I chewed on my bottom lip nervously, Nikoli’s whole demeanor and attitude seemed off. He’d barely spoken two words to me other than to ask if I was okay and as I sat trying to rack my brain, trying hard to think of something to say, something to break the heavy atmosphere that was sucking the air from the car, he pulled to a stop and killed the engine.
I narrowed my eyes and pushed my face up against the cold, glass sheet of the window and tried to work out where we were. Mentally, I knew we were not far from the studio, but I had paid no attention to my actual surroundings. Something Max always berated me for. My door swung open and Nikoli’s hand was there waiting for mine, grabbing my bag with one hand, I placed my other in his and allowed him to help me out from the back seat.
I smiled when my face drew level with his, but his features didn’t flinch from its impassive and unreadable expression. “Nikoli?” I whispered, trying to break the invisible barrier he seemed to have erected between us, but he didn’t respond. Instead, he silently pulled me away from his car, down a narrow alleyway and through a glass door. My eyes adjusted to the harsh bright white light shining like a beacon above us, there was a set of concrete steps to my right that curled upwards into a spiral, it seemed never-ending as my eyes slowly followed it upwards. We came to a standstill and Nikoli pressed for the button to call the elevator.
“Where are we?” I asked quietly, my eyes darted from left to right, intrigued. Still he didn’t respond, he didn’t even look at me and his continued silence was beginning to grind on me. The elevator door slid open and Nikoli stepped aside to let out a couple, he smiled and said hello and they responded by his first name, so I had to surmise that wherever we were, the people here knew him. It went a small way to taking the edge off my fraught nerves.
He pulled me into the elevator and pressed number 6. When the doors had slid shut, he rounded on me. His hands grasped either side of my face, his lips molded against mine dominantly, his tongue poked and teased around the inside of my mouth until my mind abandoned me entirely. I could feel his hand move from my cheek and slide effortlessly to the back of my scarfed neck where it then took a stroll down to the small of my back and he pushed me against him, hard.
I became vaguely aware of voices when the elevator doors retracted. I broke the kiss with a large gasp and my head turned to take in the four sets of eyes staring our way. My lips were left tingling and burning and I tried to express a smile of apology.
“Come on,” laughed Nikoli, grabbing my hand. With my head bowed to the floor in embarrassment at such an outward display of affection in a public elevator, I shuffled past them.
“Where are we?” I asked again, hoping this time I would get an answer.
“We are at my place, Myshka,” he replied, as he pulled out a set of keys and opened the door.
“Your place? But…but why?” I stuttered foolishly as I followed in behind him and shut the door.
“Don’t panic, I’ve not brought you here to make moves on you. You are going to sit down with a stiff drink and you’re going to talk and open up to me,” he replied.
I looked around at my surroundings and let out a loud whistle of appreciation. I was impressed to say the least. It was big and spacious, a typical bachelor pad but it was clean, tidy, warm and welcoming.
“You like it?” He called over his shoulder. I watched him move around his kitchen taking what looked like a bottle of vodka from the fridge and two glasses from a cupboard then motioned me with a nod of his head towards the couch. Slowly, I made my way over to it and sat down, placing my dance bag at my feet. He poured out a large neat vodka and held it out to me, “Knock it straight back,” he ordered.
Grasping the glass, I indeed knocked it straight back. The crisp, clean, cold liquid slid down my throat easily causing the warm feeling inside to erupt almost instantly. “Can’t beat a good vodka,” I whispered, passing him back my empty glass.
“Well I’m Russian after all, only the best,” he smirked. “Why are you wearing a scarf?”
I fingered the silk material adorning my neck and I shrugged, “It’s the fashion,” I replied, knowing he was going to ask me to remove it, knowing that he has weird fascination with my neck. But to my surprise he never said a word, he just stood stoic, eyeing me suspiciously.
“What happened tonight, Raine?” I shrunk down further into the couch. He continued to loom over me and pierce his interrogating stare my way.
“Nothing. Time just seemed to run on legs and before I knew it, I’d missed three quarters of the class,” I replied as I tried to keep my tone casual like we were just discussing the weather or tomorrow’s dinner.
He bent towards the floor and lifted my feet, dropping them onto his lap as he took a seat next to me. “You can try and shrug this off, Raine and act like everything tonight was nothing, or you can start by telling me the truth.”
I watched him pull my trainers and socks from my feet and then he began to dig the pads of his thumbs in to the soles, massaging them. I’d always been turned off by feet and couldn’t stand mine being touched, but as I watched his hands glide across them, his thumbs pushing across the skin, kneading them with expertise, I found it strangely erotic. But then when it came to Nikoli, everything he said, everything he did, the way he looked at me, the way he made me feel, the way he touched me, it was all erotic to me.
I sighed and rested myself back into the arm of the couch and closed my eyes, enjoying the sensual way his fingers danced across my feet. “How long has it been going on?” He asked quietly.
“Has what been going on?”
“Do you want me to spell it out? How long has he been hurting you, physically?” He spat angrily.
My eyes snapped open and I glared at him. “He hit me once,” I replied. I swallowed hard and shook my head as I took in the look of disbelief he was showing me.
“Bullshit! He’s had his hands on you more than once. The day you enrolled, you were trying to hide a bruise on your cheek, the first dance class you had faint bruises from fingers on your wrist. You have panic attacks, you’re nervous all the damn time, you have no self-confidence and I’ve seen it all, Raine with my own eyes. So, I’ll ask you again, how long has it been going on?”
I pulled my feet from his hands and stood up. “It’s nothing to do with you,” I snapped as I bent down to retrieve my bag from the floor and headed towards the front door, giving no regard to the fact I was currently barefoot.
“You’re running out on me, again?” He shouted from behind me.
“No, not running. This is me walking!” I replied haughtily.
As I reached the front door and pulled it open, I was unaware of Nikoli’s presence until he pulled the door from my hands and stood himself in front of it. “You’re not walking out on me, not again. Every time I try and talk to you, you close up and run.”
“Nikoli, please!” I begged, I wasn’t sure what I was begging for, for him to drop this conversation, to move away from the door, to kiss me again. “This isn’t your problem, Nikoli.”
His eyes went wide, his jaw dropped and a scoff flew from his mouth. “You know what, you’re right! This isn’t my problem, but I’m in too deep for me to ignore what’s going on!”
“What do you mean, in too deep?” I snapped, confused at his comment.
“Forget it! Look, I’m not Max so I’m not going to keep you here against your will. I’m giving you a choice, and I pray you make the right one.”
I stayed silent waiting for him to spit out whatever it was he wanted to say.
“I want you stay and talk to me, open up and let me in. I won’t judge and I won’t push, but I want it all, Raine. Everything that’s going on at home, I want to know, no holding back.”
“And if I don’t want to open up and talk?” I whispered with a deep-seated feeling of apprehension at what he would say next.
“If you walk out of here, right now? Then whatever the fuck this is that’s going on between us? Ends here tonight and I’ll have Petra teach you to dance.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
“What do you want to know?” I asked through gritted teeth. He had me over a barrel and I felt defeated by his ultimatum. I couldn’t envision learning to dance from Petra, having to face Nikoli in the studio and know that everything between us would only be from a professional stand point, knowing I’d never have the chance again to taste or feel his lips against mine, he knew that and used it against me.
His face softened and a sigh passed his parted lips. He moved from the door and headed back towards the couch, “I just want to know why,” he said quietly, “why you are with him, why you are still with him?”
“I don’t know anything different,” I replied dropping my bag to the floor and heading in his direction.
Silence descended between us again and he watched me pour myself another vodka, this time, one small shot. Drinking it back, I chose to sit opposite him rather than right next to him. Having learnt over time how to read and gauge Max’s possible reactions from the smallest twitch of his lips, the slight incline of his eyebrows, the pulse in his neck that would swell, to the way his nostrils would flare, I was hoping to try and read Nikoli’s facial expressions as I spoke.
“Explain. The beginning is always a good place to start,” he stated, moving his hand in a sweeping motion, as if to say the floor is yours.
I brought my legs up onto the couch and took a deep breath in preparation. “I was handed over to the authorities when I was born, I never knew my birth parents, and for years I was passed from one foster family to another. When I was thirteen I finally found, what I believed to be my forever home. They were a lovely couple in their fifties and I was their first foster child. Margaret could never have children and it caused the breakdown of her first marriage. Then she met Kelvin and after several years of trying to foster, finally, I made it into their lives.”
“And?” He gently encouraged as I began to twist my fingers together nervously.
“From the age of thirteen to eighteen I lived a life I’d always dreamed of. I found love and warmth, stability and a self-worth with Margaret and Kelvin, I did well academically but socially I was always the outcast, the one no one wanted to mix with due to my background. I struggled to make real friends, I had a few but they were more acquaintances than the actual friends I craved. I was never appealing to the opposite sex, I was never asked out on dates, and I had no one to take me to prom…”
I stopped talking when I heard Nikoli snort, “You have to be kidding me, right? Do you know how fucking attractive you are?”
I felt my cheeks grow hot at his compliment and I could tell by his lopsided grin and the ferocity of the heat settling across my face that they now resembled the color of deep crimson. I moved my eyes towards my legs trying to find a distraction, and I found it in the form of a loose thread hanging from my leggings. I wound it around my fingers as I explained to him about the day I met Max, the day my life changed again.
“So, Max was really the first male to pay an interest in you?” Nikoli asked once I’d stopped talking.
“Yes. He was forever complimenting me, buying me new things, taking me to new places, introducing me to his world. I shared many of my first experiences with Max.” I mumbled the last four words quietly. “He swept me off my feet and I was carried along with the wave in complete awe. We had a whirlwind romance and when he proposed I eagerly accepted.”
“Was that because you thought no one else would be interested in you again if you didn’t accept?”
“No,” I snapped as I vehemently shook my head, “it was because I loved him and everything he stood for!”
“So, it was all hearts and flowers in the beginning, until he had you right where he wanted you then?” He retorted.
I closed my eyes and threw my head back into the couch. Nikoli was right, it was all hearts and flowers until the night he slipped that ring onto my finger. “Yes,” I whispered.
“Within a day, the little suggestions started. First, it was my
hair color, my makeup, my choice of clothes. He expected me to stay in on the nights we didn’t see each other and dutifully I would, because I loved him.”
“You are aware that when you dated him he was preying on your vulnerability, molding you with manipulation and control into the person he wanted?”
“Not at first, no. I thought it was because he loved me and wanted me to be a better person. You have to remember, Nikoli, Max is twenty years older than me, I wanted to change myself for the better, for him so he could have a girlfriend, fiancé, wife to be proud of.”
Nikoli stood up and took a swig from the vodka bottle. “When did things change?”
“Our wedding day was the first time I saw the ugly side to Max. He had hidden his temper from me well up until then. I’d failed to tell him I couldn’t dance and needless to say, I’d embarrassed the hell out of him with our first dance and he dragged me from the room and tore strips out of me, screaming and shouting at me at his embarrassment.”
“That right there, should have rung alarm bells, Myshka!” Nikoli ground out as he pointed his finger at me.
“I thought you said you wouldn’t judge!” I growled, sitting upright.
“I’m not judging, I’m merely stating a fact that that public display of anger should have triggered alarm bells in your head. Let me guess, he ignored you for several hours, let you wallow in the blame he had laid at your feet until you felt so bad that eventually you made up in the bedroom?”
My narrowed eyes widened as I watched him pace back and forth, muttering in a language I couldn’t comprehend but I would guess it was Russian. “I know the pattern of men like him, fucking bullies, that’s what they are. Bullies,” he snapped.
My eyes followed him around the room and concern suddenly swam through me as he raked a hand through his mop of dark hair in an angry manner. “I watched the way you changed when Max turned up at Latin, Raine. You became a different person. Your smile faded, the spark in your eyes extinguished, your whole-body demeanor wilted and sagged. Does he have that much control over you?” He asked coming to a standstill, swiftly, he turned to face my direction.