Page 89 of 1 Last Shot

After a moment, I slump against her, bracing my own hands on the barre in front of us. "I really hope your teacher doesn't walk back in here," I mumble into her neck.

Isabella's giggle causes a smile to slide across my face.Fuck, when was the last time I smiled with such ease? Have I ever?

The thought should be a sobering one, but instead, I just feel… comforted. Soothed by the idea that I feel safe in her company.

Before my subconscious can dig too deep into that, I straighten and right my clothes. Then I turn my focus to Isabella in the mirror, only to see her biting her lip as she studies her appearance.

I take a guess at what has her flustered. I adjust her skirt to hide any evidence of what we just did, and I reach up to tuck a stray piece of hair behind her ear. One look over her in the mirror confirms she's back to looking like a put-together ballerina.

"There," I murmur. "Back to perfect."

A blush lights her cheeks, and so does a smile. And I realize that I'm sick of looking at her through a mirror instead of in front of me, so I take her hand and spin her around.

"Let's get you home before the old lady comes back and sees how naughty her favorite dancer is," I say, pressing a kiss to the corner of her lips. Absorbing the resulting smile like it's a life-saving antidote.

Maybe it is.

27

KANE

The next time I have the night off work, I'm showing up on Isabella's doorstep with a bottle of wine.

She's smiling when she opens the door. Of course,she's smiling. And when she spots the bottle in my hand, her expression turns delighted.

"Is that for me?" she asks, her eyes twinkling.

I hand it over with a stiff nod.

"I think it's the right one, but I'm not one hundred percent," I mumble, rubbing the back of my neck.

Her brow furrows as she spins the glass to look at the label. When she reads it, her eyes widen.

"This is my favorite wine," she says, her tone one of disbelief. Looking up at me, she asks, "How did you know what my favorite wine is?"

I shove my hands in my pockets, still too uncomfortable to stand still. "I saw it was the one your mom brought you," I say gruffly.

For a moment, she only stares at me. Then she's carefully placing the bottle on the entryway table beside her door, and jumping into my arms, wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist.

"Who even are you," she sighs between kisses pressed along my jaw, my chin.

I chuckle, tightening my arms around her. And I thought I would hate this kind of affection, but instead, I'm suddenly trying to figure out how I can keep her this close all night.

She doesn't seem to be in a hurry to climb down, so I walk us into her apartment and close the door behind us. Wrapping one arm under her butt to keep her braced against my body, I grab the bottle with the other hand and make my way into her kitchen.

She tries to slide down my front once we reach the counter, but I only tighten my grip on her ass. She giggles and presses another kiss to my jaw.

When she tries a second time to unwind her legs from around my waist, I exhale a heavy sigh and let her go. But before she can step away, I stamp a hard kiss on her lips, sliding my tongue in her mouth and kissing her breathless. I don't let her go until I feel her hands come up to clutch my shirt.

The unintelligible sound she makes when I step away makes me chuckle. I have to take a seat on her couch before she can focus enough to remember what she was doing.

"So have you always worked so much?" she asks as she searches for the wine opener.

I shrug and stretch my arm over the back of her couch. "At the club, yeah. My bouncing jobs have always had me working a lot."

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah, it's cool," I answer. "You don't really have to do much, so it's pretty chill. And I'm friends with the DJ, so he plays a lot of the music I like. It's not a bad gig."

---