Page 64 of Not Our First Rodeo
“Elsie baby,” I pant, chest rising and falling against hers. “Slow down.”
Her breath is ragged, and she shakes her head against the white sheets, her hair looking like spun gold against them. “I can’t.” She sounds desperate, pleading, and it makes my skin prickle, my entire body feel like it could combust.
It almost makes me lose whatever semblance of self-control I’m hanging on to like a lifeline, but I shake my head and I press a kiss to her neck, right below her ear. My breath fans against her skin in a way that makes her shiver beneath me, and I want to memorize the feel of it. “We have time,” I tell her. “Let me love you.”
Maybe it’s my words. Maybe it’s the way my hands move in slow, comforting circles against her bare skin, but she seems to settle, melt into the mattress, become pliant and languid.
“Okay,” she says with a nod.
My mouth finds her ear again, desperate to say the words that I’ve been holding in for a year, biting my tongue every time I almost let them slip out.
“I love you.”
I don’t wait for her to respond. I move down her body, removing clothes as I go, whispering the words over and over again into every inch of exposed skin.
But this time, she says it back. “I love you too, Beau.”
“Maya,whyareyouhere?”
She’s so wrapped up in her dance that she doesn’t even notice me until I say her name. She spins on her heel, turning toward me, a guilty expression on her face.
It’s early, hours before the studio is supposed to open, but Beau finally decided he couldn’t call out of work another day—after the two we spent in bed; he told his family he was feeling under the weather, when I can say with full authority that he was performing at his peak—and I was lonely in the house that now feels too quiet. I don’t know how I lived there for months by myself. Beau’s presence is so big, so all-encompassing, that when he’s gone, everything seems lifeless.
So I thought I’d come to the studio and get some work done. My first recital as a dance teacher is in six weeks, which means I’ll basically be living at the studio until then. What Ididn’texpect was to find Maya putting her spare key to good use.
“I like coming in this early. It’s quiet,” she says, her chest rising and falling with her heavy breaths.
My brows lift. “Are you often here this early?”
She looks even more contrite, avoiding my eyes.
“Maya,” I sigh, and lean against the barre. “You’re always the last one to leave at night. Are you telling me you’re dancing for over twelve hours every day?”
“I have to!” she protests, hands finding her hips. “Mom won’t let me homeschool, so summer is the only time I actually have to dance like I should.”
I know where she’s coming from. I’ve been there, so maybe that’s why I feel so strongly about this.
“Maya, you have to have other things outside of dance.”
“I went to that party,” she says, sounding slightly defensive.
“I’m glad,” I say, and I am.
She must be able to tell I’m sincere, because she looks up at me through her lashes. She looks so young like this, in tights that she wears over her leotard, her hair pulled back in a somewhat lopsided bun, her cheeks flushed from exertion.
“But I need more from you.”
It’s the only way I can think to get through to her—using her desire to please me. It’s the same reason I listened to Tonya when I was her age. One day she will realize this was really for her, but right now she’s too laser-focused on dance to see that there’s more to this world outside of it.
Her eyes narrow with skepticism. “What do you need from me?”
“I need you to love something besides just dance.”
Now she rolls her eyes, something that makes her look so painfully like a teenager that I have to roll my lips together to hold back my smile. “I don’t understand why this is such a big deal.”
I shrug. “No, you wouldn’t.”
She stares at me for a long moment, expression unsure. “Can I keep dancing, or are you going to make me go home?”
