Page 95 of Dance for Me

“Stand up,” he ordered, giving her his hands for support, easing her onto her feet. As she swayed, he dropped to his knees and steadied her with his hands on her hips. “I’d fuck you in a heartbeat, Bodie. But I won’t risk setting back weeks of progress because my dick is an impatient bastard.” Always eager to join in the conversation, said dick thickened in his pants as he drew the baggy sweats she wore over her hips and wrestled them over her cast.

He’d sliced the right leg of the sweatpants from thigh to floor in order to make getting them over the cast easier; most of his sweats had suffered the same fate as Bodie had a penchant for wearing his clothes most of the time.

He’d found one of his well-worn shirts shoved under her pillow, stolen from the laundry basket. When he’d asked her why she was stowing away dirty laundry, her response had been sweet, hitting him in the heart.

“I smell it if you’re not here and I’m anxious. It calms me down.”

There’d been no argument for that. He just kept swapping the shirt under her pillow every few days, and Bodie appeared happy with their silent arrangement.

“We could do it standing up, if I hold onto something,” Bodie said thoughtfully, holding onto his shoulders as he bundled her into a clean pair of pants. “Oh! Or we could use a spanking bench. That would work.”

God, was she trying to kill him? Images of her rounded backside bent over a spanking bench filled his head and blood pounded through his cock. A man only had so much control, and his was waning. “You’ll be bent over a fucking bench for all the wrong reasons if you don’t shush, little one.”

“Promise?”

She squealed when he growled and dug his fingers into her ribs, finding all her ticklish spots. He didn’t stop until she was breathless and crying with laughter. Tickling was her downfall; she had no defense against the sensitivity of her own skin, and he loved it.

“Where are your crutches?” he asked, rising to his feet. It took him a moment to decipher her reply from the breathless wheeze of giggling, but gathered they were buried under the mountain of clothes on the bed. “Catch your breath before you pass out, Bodie.”

While she calmed herself down and slotted her arms into the crutches he unearthed from Mount Material, Braun pulled his phone from his back pocket and sent off a one-word text to the Masters and Mistress.

Tonight.

It buzzed with replies as he shoved it back where it belonged, then snatched up a shirt for himself and shrugged it on. It took him another couple of minutes to find a left foot sneaker and laced it on Bodie’s foot as she continued to giggle. “There. Got everything you need, little one?”

She nodded, using her arm to wipe her face clean of tickle tears, and almost knocking him out with her crutch. “Ooops, sorry! I’m so clumsy with these things.”

“Hmmm.” He rubbed his shoulder. “Lethal in the wrong hands, aren’t you?”

“Good job I’m in yours, isn’t it, Sir?” she quipped, and set off on her crutches toward the door. She was far from elegant using them—for all her skill as a dancer, she hadn’t quite grasped the concept of working with them, finding the rhythm necessary for a smooth journey. “Last one to the stairs gets a spanking!”

Braun chuckled, following behind her as she hobbled out of the door into the hallway. He was pleased her mood had taken such a positive upswing. Too many nights had already passed with Bodie being angry at her leg, at the situation, at the world.

He slipped past her easily in the hall, striding to the stairs and waiting for her with a smile. Tilting her chin in the air like haughty royalty, she passed him the crutches and gripped the banister in her right hand. “I’ll take my spanking at the club, Jeeves. Be a good manservant and inform them of my arrival, won’t you?”

Braun snorted and tucked the crutches under his left arm, then slid his right around her waist as they descended the stairs together, one painful step at a time. He heard her sharp intakes of breath when she set her cast down too hard, too fast, but she was getting used to the bulkiness of it. “You okay, darlin’?”

She grimaced. “Mmm-hmmm.”

They both breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the bottom. His biggest fear was that she tripped and fell despite her death grip on the banister and his unrelenting hold on her waist. It didn’t bear thinking about.

By the time his hand was on the front door, Bodie was sweating profusely. Concerned, Braun cupped her face in his hands. “You’re sure you want to do this tonight? You’re exhausted already and we haven’t even left the house.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted and shook a crutch at him. “Don’t argue with the wisdom of the magic stick, Braun. I can make it to the club.”

“I fear the magic stick,” he said dryly, opening the door for her, then locking it behind them. “Its power leaves me quaking in my boots.”

“So it should. You know, we’d get there a lot faster if someone were to give me a piggyback ride over.” She smiled winningly at his arch look. “What? We would.” She gestured to the cars already parked up beyond the garden fence. “And I wouldn’t arrive all sweaty and disheveled. Win-win, right?”

“Topping from the bottom, brat.”

“Buuuuut...”

“But I love you for it,” he told her, shaking his head. He took her crutches and placed them beside the door. Turning his back to her, he crouched low enough for her arms to wrap around his neck, her chest plastered against his back. Her left leg hooked around his waist, and when he rose with her like a monkey on his back, her cast stuck out in front of them. “Grab your magic sticks, little one. Can’t leave them behind.”

Almost strangling him with an arm, Bodie leaned back and scooped them up, curling her arm around them tightly. “Giddy up?”

“Nope. No way in hell.” His hands held onto her thighs, fingers digging into the muscles. If he dropped her now, there would be hell to pay. “Hold on tight and no funny business.”

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