Dance for Me (Fenbrook Academy #1) - New Adult Romance Read Free Page B

the next.
    I took the elevator up to the garage, grabbed my helmet and swung my leg over my bike. It was easier when I was working, the memories pushed back by the intense concentration and blocked out by machine noise, or music, or both. When I rode, my only distractions were weaving through traffic and the sound of the engine.
    Which is why I’d bought a very powerful bike.
    I flipped my visor down and cranked the throttle on the Ducatti. I was doing fifty before I’d left the driveway.
     
    ***
     
    I begrudged every moment away from the workshop. Finding my inspiration was essential, but why did getting there have to involve so much wasted time? The thirty seconds I spent waiting at a Stop sign nearly drove me insane. Someone once told me that sharks have to keep swimming, or they die. I could relate.
    I parked the bike on the sidewalk. I knew I’d get a ticket, but the thought barely registered, the cost negligible next to the money the missile would bring in. I started jogging towards the dance studio and then broke into a run. I couldn’t help it. I could feel the call of inspiration dragging me in even as the pressure of the project pushed me forward. Inside, I could hear classical music coming from upstairs, so I sprinted up them two at a time, crashed through some double doors and—
    She was frozen there in mid-air, like the dancer on TV who’d started all this. Except that dancer hadn’t had soft, long lashes, eyes half-closed as her arms stretched gracefully above her. She hadn’t had cheekbones that led my eyes down to her lips, pursed in careful concentration. Her beauty didn’t just make me stop, it damn near floored me. I skidded to a halt and stood there like an idiot, just inside the doors.
    Everybody in the room turned to look at me, which is when it hit me that maybe I should have inched the doors open quietly.
    The dancer’s eyes flew open and she landed, her poise thrown off by my clumsiness. I felt like I’d just shot down a bird. I’d never been the most sensitive person, but right then even I realized I’d messed up. All the energy I’d felt as I’d charged through the city and up the stairs drained away, leaving a sickening, tight knot in my stomach.
    A fierce-looking woman nodded me to a chair and I slunk over to it, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the dancer as she struggled to recover. All that was going through my head was please be okay.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
    Natasha
     
    Focus, Natasha. You can do this. You’re a good dancer. You’re the best.
    Every affirmation and confidence booster I’d ever learned was spooling through my head on fast forward, and none of them were working.
    The music started and I sank into my plié, but it was mistimed and awkward. Immediately, my mind was shrieking at me. I’ve messed up, I’ve messed up!
    Concentrate . Push into the jeté. Float. Just like when I saw him.
    Distracted, I wasn’t ready for the landing and slipped a little. There was a sound from the watching dancers, that tiny, sympathetic intake of breath you never want to hear. The room was suddenly the size of a cathedral, every pair of eyes like a spotlight on me.
    Three easy turns came next, time to get my mind straight. But coming up was a fast-moving combination and I wasn’t focused. I was drunk on his eyes and his chest and that feeling he’d given me, for once in my life, of being grounded, of having something to cling onto that wasn’t cutting. I was a mess. I shouldn’t have been driving a damn car, let alone trying to dance.
    I’ve messed it up. The best chance of my life and I’ve wasted it.
    Maybe because I thought it didn’t matter anymore, I glanced across at him. He was still staring straight at me, his chest rising and falling under his shirt. He’d been running. That’s why he’d crashed through the doors—he’d run all the way up here. Why? He didn’t look like a ballet fan.
    And then I got