He leaned in and down, and for one split second, I thought that those firm lips were going to crush mine in the kind of kiss that no one survives. But he reached past me, then straightened. “Here,” he said, handing me the headphones I’d left on the desk.
My fingers closed over them, but his didn’t let go. We stood that way for another long beat. Looking at the headphones. At our fingers that were almost brushing.
He still wasn’t touching me. But it felt like he’d stripped me down and spread me out to be admired.
Devoured.
Ruined.
Was he feeling this, too? Or was I just the awkward woman who couldn’t get out of her cubicle without making a mess?
I chanced a look up at him.
Those blue eyes bore into mine. He looked frustrated. Angry. Hungry.
“Did you have lunch today?” I asked.
He blinked like he was coming out of a trance. “Did I what?”
“Have lunch,” I repeated. “You look hungry.”
“You should go, Ally,” he said, taking a deliberate step back.
And just like that, he took his heat with him.
I grabbed my coat off the back of the chair and swirled it around me like a protective cloak before leaving without a word.
I got off the subway one stop early just so I could suck in the cold air and calm my racing mind. I hadn’t just had a moment with Dominic. Definitely not. He didn’t have moments. And he’d made it abundantly clear that not only was I not his type, but he could barely stand to be civil to me.
I was tired. Distracted. I’d completely misread all the signs. He wasn’t helplessly attracted to me. He was just being polite. Or annoying.
He hadn’t touched me. Not even when he handed over my headphones, I reminded myself.
I was not about to enter a mooning downward spiral about the hot boy in school. I cranked up Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” and refused to let my brain replay the non-moment.
The studio was on the first floor of a well-kept building with fanciful arched windows in the Cast Iron Historic District. The windows were fogged from the last class. Students overlapped in the hall. Those leaving were sweaty and loose and smiling. Those arriving were tight, cold. Ready to be guided out of their heads and into their bodies.
Gola and Ruth showed up in designer athletic apparel, and I ushered them to their spots on the glossy wood floor. We had a packed class, and I could already feel the energy rising as everyone began to shed their day.
This was what I loved most. The transformation from employee to person. From parent to dancer. From titles and responsibilities to a body that was ready to be used.
The small crowd squealed when I turned down the lights, cranked the music.
“Okay, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s move!”
20
Dominic
“Greta, I need some recommendations on dog walkers,” I said, leaning against her desk and just so happening to find a direct line of sight to Ally at her new work station. She’d been bumped upstairs temporarily to help keep Linus from losing his production managing mind for the week. And I was… distracted by her presence.
Today, she was wearing a pair of high-wasted designer pants in fire engine red and some kind of black lacy blouse that looked Victorian except for the fact that I could see her bra straps. It was a conservative outfit compared to what usually strutted the halls of Label. But it was still enough to have me imagining everything else underneath it.
She’d added bracelets in turquoise and silver to one wrist and classic hoop earrings.
It bothered me that I felt compelled to take an inventory of every item she wore.
I felt compelled to do a lot of things where Ally was concerned.
Avoid her.
Ignore her.
Make up reasons to talk to her.
Pick a fight with her.
Touch her.
I’d been close enough to touch her Monday when I’d found her at her desk after work. It was much harder than it should have been to not reach out and trace a finger over her lower lip, over the strip of skin just below the hem of her tank.
It made no sense. I felt out of control around her. A feeling I loathed.
Every time I talked to her, passed her in the hall, sat across the table from her in a meeting, I wanted more.
I wanted more to blame her. But part of me was starting to wonder if this was in my blood. If my father had been a normal man until one day he’d snapped.
“Dog walkers?” Greta repeated. This was the third time I’d wandered out to her desk rather than calling, emailing, or just yelling through the open door like I usually did. Before the woman I couldn’t stop thinking about had moved upstairs.
My admin not-so-subtly swiveled in her chair to see exactly what I was staring at. She spun back around and arched an eyebrow. I knew I wasn’t fooling her.
I wasn’t even fooling myself.
“Dog walkers. The sooner, the better,” I told her briskly.
“I’ll take care of it after lunch,” she assured me. “Is there anything else you want?” She tilted her blonde head not so subtly in Ally’s direction.
Greta had managed my calendar for years. She knew the type of women I usually dated. I’d grown up around models and photographers and designers. It had been only natural to spend more… intimate time with the like.
But I’d taken a sabbatical from women since taking this job.
No dating.
No sex.
I’d needed to prove to myself that I wasn’t anything like him. And yet here I was, lusting after a woman I didn’t even like. Maybe it wasn’t Ally that was getting under my skin. Maybe it was just a biological need to fuck.
That thought brightened my mood. I’d gone a year without sex. A year without feeling a woman under me. A year without touching soft, lovely skin.
It was too fucking long.
I wasn’t a monk. Just a man intent on not committing his father’s sins.
“Just the recommendations,” I told her, pointedly ignoring the way Ally’s shoulders slid side to side as she danced to music in her headphones. I wondered what was playing in those ears right now. “Thanks.”
I returned to the refuge of my office. I hadn’t bothered redecorating when I’d taken over the position. It hadn’t been a priority. I’d come in on a Sunday and taken every framed photo, every memento, every shiny award, and thrown them all in the trash. The next morning, my new desk and chair—furniture that my father hadn’t touched—had been delivered.
It hadn’t been a fresh start so much as a hostile takeover.
I sat down behind my desk and pulled up the page layouts I was supposed to be approving. But Ally popped into my mind again.
Since my blindingly stupid moment with her Monday night—when I’d been so enamored with that peek of bare skin that I’d almost touched her—I’d thought of little else. I could imagine her. Moving to a hard-driving beat in those tights. Sweat glistening on her bare stomach.
And now I was hard again.
Fucking great.
I shifted in my seat, refusing to give in this time.
Yesterday, I’d run into her in the stairwell. I’d asked her politely to get the hell out of my way. She’d offered—less politely—to help me down the stairs, head first. All I could picture was bending her over the railing and dragging that flirty little skirt up to her waist. I’d made it back to my office, locked myself in the washroom, and masturbated violently while thinking about her.