Page 16 of On the Brink of Passion

Putting a hand on my hip, I give him my best raised-eyebrow look. “And how do you propose to do that? I mean, score the fact that I’m having fun. It’s not like the ISU wrote a guide on that.”

No, just the extremely detailed Code of Points that will be determining where on the podium we’ll stand in a little over a week, or if in fact we stand there at all. It’s better in some ways then the old school perfect six-point-oh which was notoriously easy to tamper with, but is also still imperfect, and tends to reward people who go for big-point components and don’t quite nail them over competitors who stick to lower point value elements but nail them.

A big grin breaks out on Beckett’s face, making his cheeks round and his mouth open so I can see his perfect teeth. “Was that a joke? You made a joke. I like it.”

I should punch him for making me sound so humorless and terrible, especially in front of all these people. The truth is that the smile on his face makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and I’d forgotten we were in a crowded bar surrounded by people who are fawning all over him.

“Well, I’m glad to have entertained you, but seriously, Beck . . .” I trail off, and look longingly toward the door.

“Okay, okay, don’t want you to turn into a pumpkin or anything, but . . .” Beckett looks around, as though he’s trying to find something in this godforsaken place to tempt me. He won’t be able to. His gaze lands somewhere beyond my shoulder though and he gets that look on his face again, the one that’s as good as a lightbulb over his head. “Give me one dance. That’s all I ask.”

Well, fuck.

Beckett

She’s thinking about it, I can tell. The way she presses her lips together between her teeth and looks up and to the side. She wants to say yes, but if she lets herself think about it too much, she won’t. I know she won’t. But she deserves to have a few minutes of fun. She works so goddamn hard. I do, too, but at least I know how to blow off some steam every now and then. Jubilee is like a water heater that has its outlet blocked. It’s amazing she hasn’t blown.

I’ve tried to figure out what it is that keeps her from enjoying . . . anything. She doesn’t seem at all religious, so it’s not like laughing is the work of the devil. I don’t know if she’s punishing herself over what happened to Stephen—which was in no way her fault—or maybe she’s got a case of survivor’s guilt, but whatever it is, the woman lives as though having fun is a crime punishable by death.

Before she can talk herself out of it, I take her stuff and leave it on the bar stool I just vacated, and then grab her hand, the way I have a million times before. Off the ice, it feels different. I don’t let it bother me, or the disappointed looks and death glares some of the people I’d been chatting with shoot me as I drag Jubilee toward the dance floor. Yeah, it had been fun, but they’re people in a bar, and Jubilee is my partner. Not like I could go home at the end of the night with one of them anyhow. I promised, and I’ll keep my word.

So onto the dance floor we go, and I can’t ignore the people who clearly know who we are. By ourselves, Jubilee especially, we don’t usually get noticed. Me and that speed skater Blaze Bellamy could probably vie for most recognizable hair, so we get recognized more often, though still not always. But given the context and that Jubilee and I are together? Yeah, people know who we are, and they make space around us, as if they’re expecting us to launch into a choreographed routine.

We don’t have one.

What I do have is Jubilee pressing her face into my chest as if she’s trying to hide, and maybe she is. She mumbles something and I have to lean down to ask her to repeat herself.

“I’m . . . not actually a good dancer. You know that, right?”

How is that possible? “What do you mean? You’re one of the most elegant, flexible, athletic people I know. How can you not dance?”

“Being able to pull a Ginger Rogers with knives on my feet and get tossed around like a Frisbee doesn’t mean I can jam out to the Top 40,” she hisses.

“Okay, fair.” Now that I’ve put her in this position how can I get her out of it? Or maybe more importantly, through? I can’t help with the skates, but I can help with something else. “How about you just do what you always do and let me lead?”

She looks up at me with that sweet little scowl on her face. “I have so muchfuck youin my heart right now.”

I bet she does, but in mine, I’ve got some kind of toxic goo made out of affection, protectiveness, amusement, and I don’t even want to know what that green thing floating over there is. It feels a little like I really, really like this woman, which would be great if it were literally anyone except Jubilee, and if it had waited until I was done skating competitively. It’s her and now, though, so I slam a lid on it, wrench the lock tight, and start to move my body. Bodies are easy, we do that just fine. It’s the whole swamp of feels that I shouldn’t go wading into.

Despite her furious protests, she aligns her body with mine in a way that’s going to help her take cues.

I won’t let you down, Jubilee.

We might look kind of crazy, positioned like we’re about to start a waltz but with our bodies pressed together, but I’ll start her off someplace she’s comfortable. Finding the beat isn’t hard, so I set us to moving from foot to foot, side to side, and with that small latch onto a thing she feels comfortable with, I can feel the confidence returning to her body.

After a few intro beats, the song moves into something slightly more chaotic, the vocals starting. With it, I put a hand to her back and swivel our hips together. While her eyes pop wide at the motion, she lets me do it, tightens her grip on my hand, and follows. After a couple of full circles, I press her out and use our extended arms to pull her back with a twirl. She ends up against me with my arm around her, her free hand pressed against my chest, a tiny smile on her face.

“See, this isn’t so bad, is it?” My taunting is met by a roll of her eyes, but also a shake of her head. Got her.

The beat isn’t quite right to be a cha-cha, but when we’d first started pairing together, we’d practiced a program with some cha-cha elements, and it’s as close as I’ve got to something to work with. Spinning her out before pulling her back in, I put my hands on her hips and guide her into the rolling, rocking hip motion. She picks it up easily, and then starts to add things on, improvise, and it’s then I realize she’s not bad at dancing. She’s just maybe never connected it with the skating she’s done before.

Spins, steps, and a dip or two into the song, she actually looks happy, and it makes that whole cocktail in my chest feel like it’s going to erode the cap I’d sealed it with, just let everything gurgle out and spill all over everything, which is not a good idea at all. No leakage. Leakage is bad. Jubilee doesn’t take kindly to . . . kindness.

So I make this more about athleticism, upping the difficulty of the moves, but making them mirror things we’ve done on the ice before, and I get her moving pretty good, even laughing. Toward the end of the song, there’s a few seconds where the percussion takes a break and lets the melody slow down and shine. I take the opportunity to pull her in close until we’re pressed together practically from shoulder to knee, off a bit given the height difference between us. And then she’s bending backward, sweeping her laid-back form from one side to another, which happens to make her pelvis grind against me, and I have to grit my teeth against the intimacy of it.

This isn’t on the ice, so it’s not our job, but I still shouldn’t be having pants feelings. I mean, for god’s sake, I’ve seen her naked, touched every inch of her body, been inside her, and yet this feels like the closest we’ve ever been.

As she sweeps up to standing, she’s got a smile—a big one—on her face, and it cracks something inside me. I reach a hand up to cup her face and am so frigging close to bending down to kiss her. But that road only leads to heartbreak, to my partner feeling she has an unreasonable amount of control over me, and a shanked performance we can’t afford. Luckily for me, the beat is back, and launches into the hectic last thirty seconds of the song, and I take the opportunity to move my grip like quicksilver down her body, grasping at her waist and tossing her into the air.

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