even blink, I’ve swept her into my arms and we’re moving across the dance floor. Emily melts in my arms. I hear her sigh. I tense because her shape is wrong. Her voice is too high. She smells of roses, soft, pretty. Made for manicured gardens. Not for vengeful thieves birthed from bitter streets and cut from broken dreams.
I grasp the very second that Alena sees that I’m dancing with Emily. Her eyes widen over her husband’s shoulder, her head following us as she turns. I have her attention now. Good. Let the show begin.
I pull Emily even closer. She stops her nervous prattling and lets out a gasp. We are almost flush, separated by the thickness of her gown. I lean into her hair, peeking through the chestnut strands to make sure that Alena is watching.
“I don’t like to talk while I’m dancing,” I whisper against Emily’s earlobe, my eyes burning on Alena’s.
Alena’s eyes narrow. She leans in to say something to her husband. Edgar laughs easily and smiles at her.
My gut stabs with anger. Those are supposed to be my words she carelessly spilled into his ear.
I run my lips along Emily’s neck from her earlobe to her shoulder. I realise then that her gown comes off both shoulders. Emily lets out a low moan and shivers. It should be Alena shivering against me.
Alena’s lip pulls up. She begins to stroke the back of her husband’s neck, her fingers curling through his hair, like they used to play on me. I can almost feel them on me.
Something in me snaps. I can’t fucking stand it any longer.
“Excuse me, Emily.” I tear my hands off her and am pushing my way through the crowd before she can protest.
I reach Edgar and Alena, swaying uncomfortably off-beat to the music. I want to slap whoever taught him to dance. He’s butchering the beat. I tap his shoulder and they break apart. If only it were that easy in real life.
I smile broadly at him, keeping my voice light. “May I cut in?”
“Sure,” Edgar says, at the same time as Alena cries, “No!”
She flushes red and looks away.
Her husband laughs, an uncomfortable sound. “She’s only joking.” He’s watching me closely to make sure I’ve not taken offense.
I broaden my smile. “I imagine it’s difficult for your wife to be parted from you for even a second.”
Edgar’s shoulders relax and he steps aside. I shove myself in front of Alena and everything in my periphery fades away. She’s not looking at me, but I hear her breath hitch as I close the gap between us. She stiffens as my arm slides around her waist. My body is coursing with electricity, my vision sharp on her.
“Relax.” We’re not going to dance very well if she doesn’t loosen up.
She snorts. “You try relaxing when you’ve got a boa constrictor wrapped around you.”
I respond by yanking her right against me a little too roughly, my arm tightening around her. I haven’t been this close to her in five fucking years, her breasts pressing against my chest, her hips against mine, sending a strange unravelling feeling through my belly. I have the gravest sense that this closeness might not be her undoing, but mine.
“What are you doing?” she hisses.
“Dancing.” I direct us around the floor, swaying to the music. She fights me. I’m too strong. She’s tucked in way too close to me to do anything other than to move with me.
“Of course you can dance,” she mutters.
She won’t look at me. My gaze is hungry—searching each crease in her bottom lip, that single freckle on her smooth neck, each gold leaf in her green eyes.
In the background the large, golden, ornate grandfather clock chimes midnight.
“If you dance well enough at midnight,” I say, without thinking.
“…the fairies will grant you a wish,” she finishes for me.
Our eyes lock.
I wish…
Memories of how we used to dance in our tiny apartment in St Petersburg fill me with heat, damned confusing heat. I remember the way she used to fit against me, just like she does now. I remember my lips on hers, my hands scraping across the underside of her breasts. Most of all, I remember the way my heart felt like it swelled to fit her inside it whenever she was near. She feels like the first call of light far ahead in a dark tunnel.
She feels like…salvation.
Something in me cracks, like the frozen surface of a lake under the probing fingers of the sun. The flame I