“I shouldn’t have walked out. I didn’t think. I shouldn’t have asked you about . . .” She trailed off, slowly sinking down as she came off her toes.
“Like I told you, it’s fine. I’m fine.” And he was. Why couldn’t she see that?
She looked away and a silence fell.
He should probably stand back and give her some room, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to do it. The scent of her—rain-soaked roses and clean sweat—made him want to bury his face in her neck and taste her, but he’d told himself now wasn’t the time and so he’d wait.
“I lost my parents really quickly,” she said at last and quietly. “One minute my mother was trying to stop me from running into traffic, the next she was on the ground, unconscious. She was too busy making sure I was okay and just . . . slipped on the pavement, a freak accident. She never woke up. And then my dad was so worried about me and how I was coping after she died, so busy staying strong for me, that he ignored symptoms he should have paid attention to.” She swallowed. “He died quickly too, within a month of Mom’s death. Afterward I got so . . . afraid. Just terrified all the time. That something would happen to Aurora or that something would happen to me. That I’d lose her or that she’d lose me. And the thought hurt so much that I found it difficult to do anything. To go anywhere.” Those lovely gray eyes met his in the mirror again. “I don’t know how you did it, Rafe. I don’t know how you went through all of that pain and came out the other side.” A tear gleamed in the corner of one eye, glittering in the light. “The pain of losing my folks was terrible, and then the fear afterward. I barely survived it. But what you went through . . .”
She didn’t know. How could she not know? Then again, she hadn’t been the one sitting in a darkened theater watching herself dance for four years, had she?
He’d been very clear with himself that he wasn’t to touch her, but the need was too strong and he couldn’t fight it anymore. Taking his hands out of his pockets, he let his fingers rest gently on her hips, feeling the warmth of her soak into his skin, at the same time as he held her gaze in the mirror. “You’re a dancer, Ella. You know what pain is.”
“Yes, but physical pain is—”
“Different? No. It’s not. Pain is pain. It’s your mind that changes it, makes it either unbearable or worth suffering. Pain itself is just pain. But you’re the one who gets to choose what type of pain it is.” He tugged her back slightly, so her warmth was up against his, the scent of her all around him. “My pain made me stronger, that’s how I survived. I was the one who decided that I would use it, that it would not use me. I was the master and I was the one who controlled it.” He lifted her, pulling her up so she rose en pointe again. “And you do the same. Every time you step out onto that stage. It hurts to dance, I know it does. But you control it, you’re the master of it. You don’t let it stop you, just like you don’t let your fear get the better of you.”
She blinked, that tear sliding down her cheek reminding him that the heavy thing in his chest was still there and it was still just as heavy as it had been in the restaurant. “But it does get the better of me,” she said. “I’m not as strong as you. I had to leave tonight because I just couldn’t bear hearing about what happened to you. I couldn’t even listen, yet you lived through it.”
“But you are as strong as me. Don’t you understand?” He slid one arm around her waist, holding her more firmly, keeping his gaze locked with hers so she could see the certainty in his eyes. “The reason I’ve been watching you all these years, Ella Hart, is because of your strength. I saw it every time you went out on that stage. Every single time you danced. I wanted to know how you did it. How you got to be so strong, how you got to be so passionate and yet so in control of it. Because every time I watched you, I felt like it was possible for me to do the same.”
She stared at him, the look in her eyes a strange combination of emotions he couldn’t untangle. He didn’t know if what he was trying to tell her made any difference at all, but suddenly he wanted it to.
“Why would you think you’re not strong?” he demanded, watching another tear fall. “Who told you that?”
“No one. I’m an only child, so Mom and Dad were very protective of me. And I remember finding their restrictions annoying. So the day Mom died, I was doing my usual thing of not listening to her and rushing on ahead, because I didn’t want to hear her telling me to be careful, and I . . .” She stopped, swallowing again. “It was my fault. She was too busy watching me to take care herself, and so she slipped. And then Dad ignored his cancer symptoms so he wouldn’t worry me.” Her chest heaved. “That was my fault too. If I’d been stronger, maybe they wouldn’t have worried so much about me. Maybe they wouldn’t have tried so hard to protect me.”
He stared at her, the heavy boulder in his chest shifting around, hurting, and he couldn’t stand it. With his free hand, he gripped her chin, turning her head to the side and tilting it back, so she was looking directly into his eyes. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said fiercely. “You were thirteen, for fuck’s sake. And they were your parents. It doesn’t matter how strong you were. They were supposed to worry about you. They were supposed to protect you.” Something rang oddly in his head as he said the words, but he ignored it, because this—her—was too important. “Perhaps your mother calling out and then slipping actually saved you from being hit by a car. And perhaps your father ignoring his cancer symptoms gave you a couple of weeks of grieving your mother without having to worry about him. Did you ever think of that?”
She shook her head, more tears slipping down her cheeks.
“Their job was to protect you, Ella. And they did. Why do you think they kept you away from me, for God’s sake? You can’t blame yourself for their deaths, because I’m pretty fucking certain that’s the last thing they would have wanted.”
She took a breath at that, staring at him, her eyes red and her cheeks shiny. “Maybe they did protect me. But they also left me, Rafe. And I’m scared. I’m scared of being alone.”
“You’re not alone.” He stared deep into her eyes. “You have me.”
Another long moment passed where she simply looked at him.
Then she moved, turning around in his arms so she was facing him, coming up onto her toes, lifting her hands. And she was pulling his mouth down on hers, kissing him hungrily, desperately.
Pushing her away would have been the gentlemanly thing to do, because she was very upset and the evening had been full of shocks. Not to mention the fact that he’d made her give him a blow job underneath the table at the restaurant. But her leotard was damp from exertion, he could feel it beneath his fingers, and she wasn’t wearing anything but her panties underneath it. And her nipples were pressing against his shirt and they were hard. And he would have done anything to stop her tears, anything to make her feel better.
Anything to make her see that she was strong, that she wasn’t alone.
He lifted his hands to the fabric of her leotard and jerked, pulling the stretchy fabric off her shoulders and down her arms, getting them free before tugging it down her torso.
She gasped, shivering, her mouth open and hungry on his, her hands going to the buttons on his shirt and fumbling with them. Then she gave a cry of frustration and simply jerked the fabric open. The buttons tore, bouncing onto the floor, and then her hands were on his skin, touching him, stroking him.
A shudder went through him. He only had her leotard half off and already he could hardly breathe for the intensity of the desire that gripped him, suffocating him. Then she tore her mouth from his and began to kiss her way down his neck, her teeth against his skin, her hands moving over his bare chest and down, stroking the scars on his side from his grandfather’s belt, and then the ones on his stomach, the shiny ones from the burns.
It was too much. She was too much.
He tore her leotard off, just ripped that fucking thing out of his way, her panties too, leaving her naked but for her ballet shoes, then he put firm ha
nds on her hips and turned her forcefully around.
“No,” she panted, trying to turn back to him. “I want to touch you.”
“Look,” he said, ignoring her. “Look at yourself in the mirror. Do you see how strong you are? Do you see it?”
She didn’t want to look, he could tell. But after a moment she turned her head, because she was fucking brave and he’d always known that.
“Look at you,” he murmured, lifting one hand to cup her breast, moving the other slowly down to the nest of soft golden curls between her thighs. “Look at how beautiful. Stay en pointe, Little Red, just like that. And don’t move. Show me how strong you really are.”
Chapter 12
The woman in the mirror was a stranger. Her eyes were red from tears and her cheeks were shiny—and her nose was pink too. She was also naked.
The woman in the mirror should have looked vulnerable, especially with the man standing behind her so tall and powerful. He had one hand on her breast and the other covering her sex, and those strong, possessive hands, tanned and scarred against her pale flesh, should have made her look weak and fragile.
But she didn’t look weak or fragile.
Her body was gleaming with sweat, her muscles tense from the posture she was holding. And she had her chin lifted, as if daring the world to take her on. No, not the world. She was daring him.
Ella met Rafe’s gaze in the mirror, the hunger inside her beginning to change, to become something different. She’d kissed him out of grief, because telling him about her parents and her own guilt and fear had hurt, and she’d wanted his mouth on hers to make her forget. To make herself feel better.
But now . . .
Now she wanted to see. She wanted him to show her what he saw when she danced. She wanted to see her own strength. Because she was tired of the grief and the guilt. She was tired of the fear.
There was strength inside her. She knew this because she felt it when she danced. But she’d never actually seen it herself and now she wanted to.
His hand on her breast moved, his thumb rubbing over her nipple, back and forth, sending sharp jolts of pleasure through her, making her take a ragged, gasping breath.
She stared at the woman in the mirror, at the way she was standing up on her toes, her pose steady and solid as the man behind her touched her, stroked her. As his hand moved between her thighs, one long scarred finger sliding through her curls to her clit and circling slowly, adding another thread to the intense pleasure already building inside her.
She wanted to lean back against his heat, but she didn’t. She kept her gaze on what was happening right in front of her, on his hands on her, pinching her nipple now as the finger between her thighs dipped lower, to the entrance of her body, then sliding inside.
Her thighs trembled with the effort of keeping herself up en pointe, as pleasure wound around her, pulling tight. She kept looking at herself in the mirror, at her flushed face and her strangely darkened eyes. At the sheen of sweat that gathered at her throat and the way the muscles of her stomach contracted as his fingers moved slowly and steadily, stroking her, pinching her, playing with her.
Rafe turned his head into her neck and she shivered again as his breath chased over her bare skin and then his mouth. His lips brushed her shoulder, his teeth grazing her, nipping at her skin before soothing the slight hurt with his tongue.
She began to pant, the quick tempo of her breathing echoing. And she might have felt self-conscious about her own desire if she hadn’t seen the slight shake of his hands in the mirror. Satisfaction rolled through her, making her want to smile, because it wasn’t only her who was finding this hard to take. He was too.
His hands fell from her body and he stepped back quickly. She remained still, watching in the mirror as he took out his wallet and extracted a condom, undid his pants, and took himself out. Rolled down the latex.
Then he was behind her again, pushing her forward, making her have to take a few tiny little steps until they were standing right in front of the mirror.
“Hold onto the barre,” he ordered, his dark-honey voice as ragged as hers. “And stay en pointe. Don’t you fucking come out of it, understand?”
She merely leaned forward, placing her hands on the barre, and looked at him in the mirror, daring him to do his worst.
His eyes were very blue and she expected one of his fierce, feral smiles, but he didn’t give her one. Instead he stepped up behind her, and she felt his fingers against her sex, spreading her open. The sensation made her breath catch and then catch even harder as his cock began to push inside in a long, slick, slow glide.
God . . . The pleasure of it was almost too much, her hands tightening on the barre as her sex tightened around him.
“Not yet,” he hissed in her ear as his arm slid round her waist, hauling her back against him, angling her so he could push even deeper. “Don’t you fucking come yet.”
So she fought it, holding his gaze, letting him see just how fucking strong she really was.
He didn’t smile then either. He simply thrust and thrust hard, shoving her forward, making her have to clutch at that barre so she could keep her balance. A groan tore from her throat, because it was good, so good.
And then he was sliding back, before pushing in again, deep and hard. Making her thighs tremble, making her moan. Making her hold onto the wood for dear life because he wasn’t taking this slow or easy.
She didn’t look away as he began to fuck her faster, harder, and she was the one who gave his own feral, fierce smile back to him. Daring him. Challenging him. Because he was right, she was strong. It hurt to stay on her toes. It just hurt. Yet the pleasure he gave her was worth it. It made the pain something more, something deeper. Something good.
The look in his eyes lit as he saw her smile, and he began to move even faster, the sounds of their panting breaths filling the studio, the heat from their bodies fogging the mirror. And she took it and she took it and she took it. Holding back the annihilating pleasure of the climax with the sheer force of her will, ignoring the pain in her feet and the way her legs were trembling.
Until he slipped a hand between her thighs and stroked her clit, pressing down firmly. “Come, Little Red,” he murmured. “Watch yourself come. Now.”
And she did, staring at the woman in the mirror as the orgasm detonated inside her, as her mouth opened and she cried out. Watching the ecstasy unfurl over her own face, a part of her wondering, before she lost herself in the intensity of it, how amazing it was that pleasure could look almost exactly like pain.
She was hardly aware of anything after that, only of her name shouted hoarsely and echoing off the walls around them. And then, some time after, Rafe’s arms coming around her and lifting her up off her aching feet. He was taking her somewhere, though she didn’t much care where that was, feeling very content to simply lie in his arms, against his warm chest.
He wrapped her in a blanket at some point and she simply closed her eyes. She felt exhausted, but in a good way. It had been a hell of day, what with Aurora and then that dinner, and then the scars. . . .
Oh God. Rafe’s scars.
She kept her eyes closed, her face turned into his chest. They were in the limo, she could tell by the movement, and she was still naked, though her feet were no longer in her ballet shoes. The blanket felt good around her and she was very warm, but inside her chest, her heart ached.
He’d shown her something in the mirror that night. He’d shown her something about herself. And even though she was still trying to process it, she knew it had been something good.
But what had she given to him? She’d gotten caught up in her own grief, her own particular weaknesses, and in the midst of all of that, his own confession had somehow gotten lost. And now he was the one taking care of her . . .
He was always taking care of her. But who took care of him? Did he have anyone? Anyone at all?
She turned her head, opening her eyes and looking up. The light from the streets washed t
hrough the limo, illuminating the strong, sculpted lines of his face. A beautiful face. One capable of looking charming and unthreatening one moment, fierce and feral and frightening the next.
He was a chameleon, who showed people only what they wanted to see or what he wanted them to see, all the while keeping his real self hidden.
Who was the real Rafael de Santis? Did he himself even know?
She wished, suddenly and passionately, that she could remember what he’d been like as a kid. Why she was the only one who hadn’t been afraid of him? Had he really been broken? Or was it something else? Maybe he’d simply been a child crying out for the attention he’d never gotten.
The thought didn’t make the ache in her heart any easier, so she closed her eyes again and tried not to think about it. But she was very conscious all of a sudden of the careful way he handled her as he got her out of the car and headed inside. Holding her as if she was breakable as he carried her up the stairs to the white-tiled bathroom. And when they got in there, and he’d unwrapped her from the blanket, how he lowered her very carefully into a bath already full of hot water.
Then he quickly undressed and got in with her, running a thick, soft washcloth all over her before massaging the aching muscles of her legs. Taking care of her once again.
He didn’t talk as his hands moved over her, content with the silence—and she was too, because her chest ached and her head was too full. And she had a horrible feeling that there was one person in the world even lonelier than she was and it was the man at her back, tenderly washing the sweat from her skin.
She at least had Aurora, but Rafe, she suspected, had no one. Oh, he had a family, but it wasn’t the kind of family that looked after one another, not in the way her parents had looked after her. No. They’d sent Rafe away, hadn’t they? He’d said they hadn’t been able to manage him and so they’d sent him away to his grandfather’s place.
The Big, Bad Billionaire Page 18