Page 23 of Blossom in Shadows

“If he thought you weren’t happy, if he thought he was hurting you by being with you, then he would let you go, even if he hated it,” she whispered. “But would you be able to live without him?”

“No,” the word was tortured as it left my lips, displaying all my feelings for the man who came out of nowhere and made me feel passion I had forgotten even existed in the world. “I can’t live without him.”

“Then, you have your answer,” she tutted.

“What if it goes wrong and I get hurt? I can’t bear it.”

“It could happen, but in my experience men like Elio or Jericho,” there was a fondness in her tone, “would burn the world down before they would allow us to be hurt. It just takes a bit of trust and a leap into their darkness. You might find that you have some of your own,” there was a cheeky quality to her voice which made me wonder what kind of darkness my best friend found with her man.

I wasn’t going to ask, but a girl can still wonder.

“Thanks, Briar,” I whispered.

Her voice took on a different tone, one which made her sound like prey being hunted, “Anytime. If you need to talk, call me. We’ll get together soon, but I really have to go right now. I have my own dangerous man eyeing me like I’m steak.”

Before I could say goodbye, the call ended, and I could only giggle. I knew that kind of look and remembering Elio giving it to me made my pussy clench around fucking nothing and flood with my arousal as my nipples pebbled.

I replayed the conversation in my head and realized Briar was right. I didn’t want to live without Elio in my life. I was finally feeling like I was back to my old self, before dance lost its luster, before pain was a constant companion. It was because of Elio, and I knew it deep in my bones.

With my decision made, I found I had a new spring in my step and my knee didn’t give me as many problems as it did before. I know there was no real cause for it, medically speaking. Elio might be a lot of things, but he wasn’t some tonic for the very real injury I endured. But knowing he had my back and wanted me, helped to make it manageable.

I breezed through the ballet classes I taught and even though I knew Constantino would be back at Sala tonight, I was hoping Elio would show. I wanted him to watch me dancing. I wanted to feel his eyes on me as I moved, the same way I had felt him watch me every other night I was in one of the cages.

As I sway my hips, my hands running up my body and rising above my head, I know only one man’s gaze can bore into me the way I’m feeling right now. He’s here. He’s watching me.

I let my head fall back onto my shoulders as my hips sway. I gyrate, the music flowing through me and making me feel electric from head to toe. I swear I can feel Elio’s hands on my hips, moving me against him and rotating his body to meet the rhythm of my own.

I know it’s impossible, I’m high above the dancing throng and I’m all alone in my cage, but the ghost of him is up here with me. It’s almost as if I can feel the soft hair at the nape of his neck while my arms wrap around him and hold him close.

The music changes, becoming something smokey and sensual. My body moves with it, a conduit of sex and sin. A feeling unfurls inside my belly. It’s hot and wanton.

I’ve never felt this way dancing ballet and I desperately want to hold onto it. I want to wrap myself up in it and only exist within this moment, between these beats, with Elio pressed up against me and never letting me go.

Can you exist within a moment? Can it hold you close? Can you wrap it up in memories so it never becomes tarnished or cruel in the retrospect of your mind?

I hope so because this is the one.

The lights flash around me, changing colors and washing the entire world in a glow which can’t be denied. It’s a light you gravitate toward and want to be part of. It’s something that fuels your soul.

My arms unwrap around the ghost of Elio behind me, my hands running down the opposite arm as if it were his hand touching me and sending goosebumps flying across my flesh. It feels as if his hands tighten on my hips, reminding me, punishing me.

The thought only has me dancing slower, moving like graceful mercury. I feel every bead of sweat as it rolls down my body, to get trapped between my breasts, to glide all the way down my spine, to slide over my collarbone.

He watches each one as if they are moving in slow motion just so he can appreciate them. It must be his eyes which have hypnotized me because it is only when his eyes are on me when I feel truly seen.

My eyes are closed as my body moves to the music, not because I can even hear it, but because I can feel it. It pulses around me. It demands. It devours.

Suddenly, the hands I could have sworn were grabbing my hips really are and I’m hoisted up. My eyes snap open as I’m hauled over a muscular chest. The scent of wood and amber wrap around me and instead of fighting, which my body instantly went on alert to do, I relax.

I didn’t even feel the cage being lowered, but it was. I was so lost to the dance and showing him how my body moves with him because he was right there with me. I was floating somewhere else, between space and time.

As Elio’s hand smooths over my ass, a promise in his touch, I know this reality is going to be so much better than the alternative one I was just existing within. Because now his touch is real. Because now I won’t be moving with him, but he’ll be bending me to his will.

I’ve danced with seduction in mind and now he’s got me in his clutches. I hope he never lets me go.

CHAPTER 11

ELIO

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