Now she slips the front of the dress down.

  I catch just a short glimpse of the black and pink lacy bra before she turns. Leans back against me. Her hair in my face. The scent of peaches and fresh-cut hay.

  Flushed, her face glistening wet, her bubbly hair sticking in coils and strands to frame her face. She looks at me. Breathless. She leans forward, pulling her skirt up. Showing me the insides of her soft thighs.

  I take a step toward her. Crouching low, she makes a step back.

  The dance of the hunter and the hunted. I crouch a little lower. Letting the rhythm guide my movements as I prowl to approach her.

  I’m not a dancer, I have only instinct. But her eyes, her open mouth, her tongue as it flicks across her lips, all those keys and cues tell me that her instinct and mine are in sync together. I take another step toward. She jumps back again. The skirt of her dress is high.

  Then she jumps toward me. Turning. Crouches close in front of me. Shakes her hips. Looks back at me over her shoulder, smoldering before she jumps away. Dancing. Twirling. Making waves with her arms and legs. She lures me out into the middle of the room.

  As she dances around me, my pulse rises. She’s waiting for something from me.

  “Shake it,” I tell her.

  She turns, crouched low. She rises up. She’s close, so close that I feel the heat of her body.

  She squeezes her arms together, pushing her tits forward. Her soft, milky flesh shimmers as she shakes. I want to get myself between them. She grabs her tits herself. Squeezes them. Pushes them forward. Bends down to lick toward her nipples. Popping them out of her bra.

  I tell her, “Take off the bra.” Her eyes sparkle as she turns. Looking back over her shoulder at me, she pokes her ass up.

  “You want a slap?” She licks her lips. “I’ll give you a slap.” She shakes her ass again. I’m definitely going to like this game.

  I clap my hand on her ass, enough to sting my palm. I keep my hand there and squeeze. And she moans.

  She turns back with a livid, wild grin as she reaches back to unhook the bra. And she slips it off. Dropping it to the floor.

  Then she dances. Holding her arms together, cradling and hiding her big, beautiful breasts. She shimmies backward. I want to follow. But I sense that what she wants is to show herself.

  That if I move, that if I take part, it will break the spell and she’ll run and hide.

  So I watch. I watch as she squeezes her breasts, one at a time. As she stands, twisting, turning her shoulders, rolling her hips. Throwing shapes. She looks down at her nipples. Then up at me. She pushes her breast up. Pulling at her nipple with her lips.

  She makes a ‘pop’ as she lets go. Her bud has hardened and lengthened.

  She wriggles as she looks at me and does the same with her other breast.

  “Shake off the dress.”

  She shimmies backward to me, waits for me to lift her skirt. I give her ass a good slap in the same place. She waits for another and she squeals before she dances away and slowly turns with her arms up as she lets the dress fall and flutter to the floor.

  The beats are harder now.

  In her sheer and lace panties, she’s rolling and grinding her hips. I want to bury myself in her so very badly. My balls ache. I want to give it to her so much I feel like I’m going to explode. But I won’t do it. Not yet.

  I know this really means something to her. I feel it.

  I feel that I’m privileged to be the person she’s dancing for. And then, instinctively, I know. I see it. She wants to dance. She loves to dance. But she doesn’t dance for anybody else. Only for herself. It all makes sense.

  And now she’s dancing for me. Because I told her to.

  She moves from side to side as she strokes her thighs. Pulls her hands up over her breasts. Strokes across her stomach.

  “Between your legs,” I tell her, “Stroke between your thighs.” Her eyes flash. She slips her fingers up along the insides of her thighs.

  “Up,” My voice is firm, “all the way up.”

  Quickly, she dances over to me. Turns. Looking back over her shoulder. Wriggles her ass against my thigh. She watches me and waits. Waits for me to slap her ass.

  I make her wait. Not too long. Just long enough to see her bottom lip tighten. I give her a sharp thwack, in exactly the same spot. Then another. For good measure.

  “Stroke yourself,” my voice is low and thick. “Between your thighs. Inside your panties.”

  She turns.

  Her legs are wide apart, and her hands are up between her legs. Pressing. Rubbing. Moving backward and forward. Her eyebrows lift and stretch as her mouth opens. She collapses forward. She pushes her thighs wider apart. Her fingers fly. Pulling her panties aside, stroking along her wet, glistening channel, in between her lips. Drops of pure honey drip and run, trickling down her thighs.

  I can’t hold back. “I’m going to lick that up for you.”

  She drops to her knees. Her thighs wide apart. Fingers still flying over her mound, around her clit.

  I lean down, down on my knees, bend my head forward. Lick the inside of her thigh. “God,” I tell her, groaning, “you taste divine.” I lap up the insides of her thighs, coming nearer, nearer as her fingers buzz and trill.

  Spreading her lips with the fingers of one hand she pushes inside with the second and third fingers of the other. I seize her mound, her clit, with my mouth. My lips. I lick and suck her.

  She cries out. And she gushes. I try with my tongue to catch every drop.

  Gently, tenderly, barely touching her skin, I run my hands over her breasts as I suck on her clit and drill the tip of my tongue into the front of her opening.

  Her pelvis bucks into my face, and she cries out as her head thrashes from side to side.

  Then I suck as she comes, hard. Trembling. Quaking. She moans and sighs as I tweak her nipples with my fingers and thumb, then gently squeeze the soft flesh of her breasts.

  I do that until she’s almost still. Just twitching.

  Then I stroke her, all over. From her feet to her head to head. I kiss and suck her breasts. Kiss her neck and her throat. Kiss and nibble her ear. Stroke her hair from her face and look into her dreamy eyes.

  And as she springs up to kiss me, I wrap my arms around her. I can feel there’s almost no strength left in her arms at all.

  She plucks kisses from me, and she moves in my arms. I feel her satisfaction and exhaustion. I’m thrilled and washed over with waves of warm, protective, and possessive feeling.

  My need swells and aches, but I know that she’s too washed out and spent for anything but sleep now.

  “I’ll take you to the master bedroom suite. You’ll wake up to a fantastic view.”

  Like a rag doll, her head shakes, and she murmurs, “No, I have to go home.”

  “You’re tired. Go home after breakfast. You’ll have the master suite to yourself.” I kiss her forehead, feeling a mix of protective affection and a painful regret.

  “I have a beautiful room you can stay in here. I’ll put you to bed, see that you’re sleeping comfortably. There’s no need for you to make your way back. You’ll be safe.” I look into her sleepy eyes. “You know that you can trust me.”

  “Are you a man to be trusted, Valentin?”

  I take her hand as I tell her, “You can believe everything I tell you, Eva. My Eva.”

  I keep the lights low as I carry her into the lush, pale blue master bedroom. She will have the big, brass bed with the thick, soft mattress and the Egyptian cotton sheets, and the billowing French duvet to sleep under. She’ll awake to the morning light and the fantastic view.

  I slip her under the soft cover and stroke her forehead as I watch over her. She is so perfect.

  With a kiss on her forehead, I tell her, “I know my feelings for you. They may be unfamiliar to me, but I recognize them. I know what they are, and I don’t have any doubts about them. They’re clear, and I know that they won’t ever change.”

  I thought that she was asleep, but her eyes flicker open. She smiles, so I take her hand and I go on. “You are the woman for me, Eva. I want you, I need you. I have to have you, to make you mine completely and in every way.” She squeezes my hand back. “But I know that I need to give you time. I don’t want to wait a second, believe me, it’s agony for me, but I need you to be ready to be feeing the same things, the same way.”

  “Are you so sure that I will feel the same way?” Her voice is a whisper.

  “I know that if my feelings are so very strong, they must be right.” She smiles as she snuggles down. I keep talking, with my voice low and gentle. Like a lullaby. “Even though you’re so much younger, even though we hardly know each other, your soul and mine have an ancient destiny to complete. I know that you will feel it, too. And I can wait. It’s hard, but I will endure it.” I kiss her forehead and whisper, “All I ask is that you let yourself be open to it. Don’t make me wait too long.” Gently I stroke her face. “My dearest, darling Eva. My love.”

  I want her so much now, but it has to be perfect. For her, as well as for me. And that means waiting. I’ve waited all my life. I can wait until tomorrow.

  When I fetch her clothes and fold them onto the chair in the master bedroom, I check that she is asleep. She has such a contented smile that I cannot leave her.

  I sleep, sitting beside her outside the covers. As her sentinel.

  Chapter 11

  Her

  IN THE MORNING, FRESH in the bright New York sunshine, I wake up and rise, determined to make him breakfast.

  He thoughtfully put out some big tee shirts and a robe. The robe is masculine and pretty heavy, but I like the way that it smells of him. So. First I need to find that sound system. I can’t start the day without music.

  When I find it, behind a couch in the big glass room, I see that his sound system runs the same music app that I use. I wonder if it can find my playlists in the cloud or on the internet or wherever it is. It finds them! The day is blessed.

  I have a morning wake-up playlist, and I fire it up immediately. It sets me spinning through the glass box. When I look down to see the sun sloping in slats through the Manhattan streets, I feel like I’m dancing on top of the world.

  I spin and twirl through all three hundred and sixty degrees around the room, then dance my way down to the kitchen.

  I’m disappointed and glad at the same time, seeing him up, cooking already. In a beautiful, loose white shirt and pair of charcoal pants, damn, that man is a sight for any morning. That ass. Those gleaming eyes. I’m stirred remembering him on the floor last night, breathing fire and life into me, looking up at me from between my thighs.

  “I was going to make breakfast for you.” I run to him. Throw my arms around him. Hug him and give him a morning kiss. I feel like I should have this strong, bear of a man to hug every morning. I wouldn’t mind waking up to this view every morning, too.

  He kisses me tenderly. Looks in my eyes as he holds my face in his hands. “Did you sleep well, my princess?”

  “Wonderfully, thank you.”

  “I’m poaching you an egg, to go with smoked salmon on sourdough toast. Does that sound okay?”

  “Mmmm… Lovely.”

  “There’s some dill mustard sauce, and some soured cream if you would like it. The steam espresso machine is on, how would you like your coffee?”

  “Will it make hot, frothy milk?”

  “It will. Would you like an Americano with hot milk on the side?”

  “Wonderful. Thank you.”

  He serves at the breakfast bar, with a jug of chilled orange juice.

  He tells me, “You dance so wonderfully. Have you trained?”

  “I’ve learned from videos. Otherwise, I’m only self-taught.”

  “But you are a natural. Dancing is what you were born to do. You must dance.”

  “Really, Valentin, it’s what I’ve always wanted to do. But I can’t.” I laugh. “Look at me. This is not the body of a dancer.”

  “It is the body of the most beautiful dancer in the world. But you must dance only for me.”

  “If I was going to dance, I would need to train. I’d need a teacher.” I shake my head, sipping at my coffee. “But I would love to dance in videos. On stage. Dancing is to be seen and shared.”

  “You can be seen by me. You can share with me.”

  I’m shaking my head again. “Valentin, how can I make you understand?”

  His eyes meet mine, but I know that our thoughts are in different places. Dancing for him last night, it made me feel different. It opened a door.

  He says, “You make me feel the way that I did back in Russia, before I ever even came here. As a teenager. I was impatient. Hungry. Raging to have everything. I had to have it all. Right now. Immediately. I was ready to use all of my strength, all the power that I had to get whatever I wanted. Never stopping to think at all. You make me feel that way all over again. You bring back that urgency. That impatience. Only now, I have the experience to know that, however hard it is to wait, it will be worth it.” His eyes sparkle. “And I never had anything to wait for, nothing that was as wonderful as you are. You are worth a wait.”

  He looks at the clock on the wall and tells me, “It’s possible that Armand will call by for coffee. He often does. I can tell him not to come if you prefer, though.” He sees me frown. “Sorry. Armand is my musical director and choreographer.”

  “For the club we were in last night?”

  “For all of my clubs, in fact.”

  “How many clubs is that, Valentin?”

  He’s looking at me and halfway to sitting down when the bell sounds. He lifts his phone, but before he answers, he asks me, “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “Honestly, not at all.” And I tell him, “This egg is perfect. It’s delicious. Thank you.” I’m thinking about how relaxed he is about me being seen here, at breakfast, in his robe and his tee shirt and his robe. He’s a man who doesn’t have to worry what people think or say about him.

  He comes around the breakfast bar and gives me a kiss. A soft, light and lovely kiss.

  “Mmm,” I say, “I think I may have died and gone to heaven.”

  “If it were heaven, I wouldn’t be there.” His eye sparkles as he answers the phone. “Armand?” His eyes sparkle at me as he returns to the coffee machine to fill another cup. “Sure, come right up. There’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”

  When the elevator door slides open, it reveals, a slim, lithe man with the look of a dancer. He has a crisp white shirt, shorts, short, thick blue-black hair, and a beard and mustache cut so perfectly, they could be tattooed on.

  Immediately, he says, “Valentin. Your choice of music has gone up several thousand percent. Did aliens come and kidnap my boss?”

  “Armand, this is Eva. We’re listening to her impeccable taste. Not mine, obviously.”

  “Eva. Enchanted.” He takes my hand and bows, graciously. “I saw you at the club last night. It’s a pleasure to meet you properly.”

  Armand wants to talk with Valentin about business. He’s hiring new dancers. “There is an audition session this afternoon. You’re welcome to come along if you’d like, Valentin.” Then he turns to me. “You would be welcome, too. Of course.”