Page 5 of Wicked Temptations
“You know exactly what about.” He was moving closer. “You pressed down. Way harder than the choreography calls for.” Was that really his excuse for letting out that needy little sound?
“Maybe you imagined it.”
“I didn’t imagine shit.” The edge in his voice was sharp now. Anger, maybe. Or something else.
“Yeah? Well, I sure as hell didn’t imagine you grabbing my ass.”
I finally turned, leaning back against my locker with my arms crossed. He was still fully costumed, makeup streaked but not removed, looking like he’d walked straight off the scare zone without bothering to decompress. He looked furious, and I felt an answering heat rise in my chest.
“Fine,” he said. “I grabbed your ass. You want an apology?”
“I want you to admit you’re doing it on purpose.”
“Doing what?”
“This.” I gestured between us, aggressive and sharp. “Whatever the fuck this is. The touching, the improvising, the way you look at me like you want to either fight me or—” I cut himself off, jaw clenching.
He stared at me for a long moment, and I could see him weighing options, deciding how honest he wanted to be. Then he shook his head and turned away.
“Forget it. Just stay on script tomorrow.”
What the fuck? He was the one going off script. He was the one being unprofessional. So he had no right to speak to me like that.
“You started it.” I pushed off my locker, stepping after him. Anger was building inside of me, welling in the back of my throat and turning my voice high. “I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re playing at, but you only have yourself to blame, and it needs to stop. This isn’t how you prove yourself worthy of being here.”
“I’m not trying to prove anything.” He turned back, and his face was unreadable under the smeared makeup. “I’m just doing my job.”
“Bullshit. You’re competing with me.”
“So what if I am?” He stepped closer, and there was something dangerous in the way he moved, something that made my breath catch. “You’ve been the star of this show for three years. Maybe it’s time someone pushed back.”
We were too close now, close enough that I could see the uneven edges where his makeup was flaking off, could count the creases around his eyes when he glared at me. The changing room was dead silent except for our breathing and the distant hum of industrial ventilation.
I should step back. I should shut this down before it became something neither of us could walk away from. Instead, I held my ground and met his stare head-on.
“You think you can take my spot?” I asked, and my voice came out lower than I intended and punctuated by a snide laugh. “You think you’re good enough?”
His jaw tightened. “I know I am.”
“Then prove it.” I smiled, sharp and mean. “Tomorrow night. Let’s see who the crowd really favors.”
It was a stupid challenge, the kind of thing that would make our already intense performances even more chaotic, and there was no way to properly track the audience’s reaction. But I needed to lie down a challenge, needed to turn this intosomething I understood. Competition that was defined by rules and had a clear winner and loser.
Not whatever else this was threatening to become.
His eyes lit up like I’d just offered him exactly what he wanted, and I realized with a sinking feeling that I’d just made everything infinitely worse.
Or better.
I really couldn’t tell anymore.
“Deal,” he said, and his smile matched mine for sharpness. “Hope you’re ready to lose, old man.”
He said it as if two years meant something. Fucking kids these days.
Then he left, the door swinging shut behind him, and I was alone in the changing room with my racing heart and the certainty that I’d just started something I didn’t know how to finish.
When I looked down at my hands, I found they were still shaking.
