Page 25 of Once Upon a Dream
He turned to look down into Tamsin’s exquisite face. It was like every feeling he’d ever had in thirty-nine years rushed through his blood and heated him up when he looked at her.
“Can we talk?” she asked in that floating, faraway voice, and Cal nodded mutely, all his words incinerated in the reality of her here, now, in front of him.
“I got a room,” she said, taking his hand to lead him, and the shyness that colored her voice was almost too much to take. He wanted to cup her neck and kiss her until she whimpered, he wanted to cradle her in his arms and take her someplace far, far away from every care except taking the pleasure he wanted to give her.
All of this before his mind really registered her words and anticipation flipped in his belly.
He allowed her to lead him, her slender fingers wrapped in his large ones, through the crowd and down the hallway of private rooms. She let go of his hand to reach for the key, giving him a smile. “Mistress Hell let us have her room for the night.”
Well then. Mistress Hell had been very busy today.
And us?
His suspicions were confirmed as the door swung up to reveal eleven ballerinas, all completely naked except for those maddening shoes. He felt their physical presence like a clench low in his groin, a heat of blood and tightness all along his dick.
“Girls, this is Cal,” Tamsin said, like they were at a cocktail party. “Cal, this is Mary Grace, Louisa, Isabella, Lael, Yasmine, Ling, Ellie, Daneice, Nina, Devorah, and Nanami.”
Each girl smiled or fluttered fingers or did a curtsey as they were introduced. It took every fiber of Cal’s considerable self-control to keep his eyes on their faces. Not only because it felt polite, but because a fledgling sense of duty to Tamsin compelled him to make it clear he wasn’t interested.
Even if that wasn’t entirely true.
But Tamsin smiled. “Cal. It’s okay. We’re all here to say thank you.”
He turned to Tamsin, since she was clothed and nominally his and therefore safe to look at. “You got my note?”
“Yes. And we are so thankful to you and Mistress Hell for fixing this.”
He nodded. “Glad to hear it.”
He was more than glad, but he didn’t have the right words for his relief and his happiness and his fervent wish that…that something. He didn’t even know what. He hadn’t known when he called Hell this morning to ask her for help. He hadn’t known when he stood in Purkiss’s office and told the man that the girls were sneaking off to an influential ballet donor’s house to use her private studio at night. And he hadn’t known when he left Tamsin a short note in her tote bag explaining the lie— that Purkiss had bought it and that Hell was there to back up every part.
If he had to call it anything, he might call it a willful daydream. There was nothing more between him and Tamsin now, and yet he could not let go of this idea—this sweet illusion—that there might be. That she might look at his older, scarred body and see something she wanted more of.
“Cal,” Tamsin said. “We want to thank you now.”
“Okay,” he said, trying to look at the rest of them without actually looking at them. “You’re welcome.”
One of the ballerinas—Ellie, maybe—giggled.
Tamsin came up to him and slid her hands up his chest, lacing her fingers around his neck. She went up easily on the toes of her shoes to do it, and the small act was so erotic that he had to close his eyes. The brush of her belly against the semi-hardness of his erection was undoing him, turning his cock to full stone.
“Tamsin,” he said, opening his eyes. It was maybe a plea or an admission, but it wasn’t a command. She had all the power tonight and she knew it.
“I want to play another game,” she whispered.
“I don’t want to play any kind of game that might—” he paused, not wanting to reveal too much of his own feelings. He couldn’t say, that might ruin anything between us. There wasn’t anything real between them. She was young and unattached and had her whole life ahead of her. She didn’t need a washed-up soldier like him pestering her with unwanted advances.
She pressed her soft lips to his jaw, and he fought the urge to close his eyes again. “I want you to be with all of us. Please.”
He kept his voice low, gazing down into her silver eyes. “It’s not nothing, watching someone you’ve fucked fuck other people. There’s no coming back from something like this.”
“Good,” she replied, kissing his jaw again. “I don’t want there to be.”
I’m afraid there won’t be a future for us if I let it happen, was what he wanted to tell her. But he couldn’t, couldn’t bring the weight of his daydreams to bear against her, and yet he also couldn’t consent to this. It was a stalemate.
Until, that is, Tamsin reached down and pressed a slender hand to his cock. Even through the thick denim of his jeans, there was no mistaking how hard he was. He pushed his hips into her touch with a low grunt, and she smiled.
“Come on, Cal,” she coaxed. “You can say stop when you need to stop.”
