“Do you remember the season of La Sylphide we did right before I left the company? There was that series of fouetté rond de jambe tournants toward the end of the last act.”
She tried to recall the choreography he was referring to. It had been a long time ago and there had been many, many sequences since.
Max stood and took up position, rising up onto his toes in his bare feet. Despite the fact that it must have been years since he danced professionally, his form was perfect as he began to spin on his left foot, his right leg raised and bent at the knee as he demonstrated a fouetté. His right leg whipped around his body again and again as he spun, powering his turns, while his arms were held extended at shoulder height.
“Yes! I remember now,” she said. The sequence spilled into her mind in an unbroken chain. The grand jeté, followed by the increasingly frantic fouettés, then the despairing collapse and surrender at the end.
Max stopped, barely breathing hard from the exertion.
“Still got the old moves, Max,” she said admiringly.
He’d been such a wonderful dancer. Watching him was like seeing a ghost from the past.
A shadow passed over his face. Yearning, regret, disappointment—she saw it all in his eyes for a few unguarded seconds before he picked up his sketch pad.
“A few more rotations and I probably would have spun into a wall or torn a muscle,” he said dismissively.
She took a step toward him.
“Do you think you can hold the end position for me?” he asked without looking up.
She stilled. He didn’t want to talk about it or acknowledge his reaction. For a long beat she considered how she would feel if their positions were reversed. Then she pivoted on her heel and walked to the farthest corner of his work space.
Some things were too painful and private to talk about.
When she turned to face him, he was once more armed with his charcoals.
I don’t ever want to know what it feels like to not have dance in my life.
The thought came from her gut. Rationally, she knew she had to retire someday. No dancer could perform forever. But she wasn’t ready to hang up her slippers yet. Not even close. The thought of losing the most important, fulfilling thing in her life was unthinkable. Unbearable.
“Do you have enough space?”
“Yes.”
She pulled her focus into her body. She reviewed the choreography in her mind, then found her starting point. With an explosion of power she sprang into a grand jeté. Her muscles stretched and her body soared as she leaped across the space. Everything receded into the background. She landed and rotated fluidly into the first fouetté. Her support leg en pointe, she spun, her working leg whipping the turn to greater speed with each rotation.
As her speed increased, her moves become more desperate, more frantic. She allowed her spin to waver, let her arms drag her off balance. Finally, she fell out of the spin, collapsing onto the ground in an abandoned-yet-controlled sprawl, one leg bent beneath her, the other stretched forward, her body draped over it in a posture of absolute despair and defeat.
There was a moment of silence. She could hear her own breathing, feel her chest heaving against her extended leg.
“Beautiful, Maddy. Beautiful.”
She heard him begin to draw. She kept her body alert despite the temptation to relax into the stretch. She knew without asking that Max wanted the dynamic tension of the position and the emotion of the dance, not simple anatomy.
After five minutes, her body began to stiffen. She concentrated on each protesting muscle in turn, tensing and releasing them without changing posture. After ten minutes, she heard the scrape of Max’s stool on the floor.
“That was great. Absolutely what I was looking for,” he said as he approached.
She allowed herself to sit upright at last. He extended a hand to help her to her feet. She started to rise, but the leg that had been bent beneath her buckled, refusing to hold her weight. She stumbled, but his arms were around her before she could fall, one big hand splaying beneath her rib cage, his fingers grazing the lower curve of her right breast, the other grabbing her hip. Instinctively she reached for him, too, one hand finding his shoulder, the other his back.
For a shocking moment she was pressed against him, breast to chest, hip to groin.
She froze.
The soft fabric of his T-shirt brushed against her breasts. She inhaled pure Max—soap and sandalwood. She could see each individual hair of his morning stubble, the whiskers black against his olive skin, and feel his warm breath on her cheek.
Her heart began to pound against her rib cage. If he moved his hand, he would be cupping her breast in his palm.
The thought made her tremble with sudden, hungry need. Her nipples tightened in anticipation.
“You okay now?”
She could feel his deep voice vibrating through her body.
“Yes,” she said, even though it was a big fat lie.
His grip slackened and he stepped away from her.
The loss of his heat and hardness was a shock. She blinked and tried to pull herself together. She was afraid to look at him, afraid he would see only too readily the thoughts that had been racing through her mind. She ducked to collect her robe, painfully aware of her aroused nipples. Only when she’d tied the sash did she dare look at him again.
He was studying the drawing he’d completed, an expression of concentration on his face. He seemed utterly unaware of the fact that he’d just held her naked body pressed against him and that she was vibrating with the aftershock of the contact.
“I think we’re done for the day,” he said. “That last pose was great, Maddy. Thanks.” He looked up, his face unreadable. “Sometimes I forget what it’s like when you dance.”
She stared at him for a long moment. How was it possible that she’d felt so much when he held her while he was completely unaffected?
You don’t want him to be affected. He’s your friend. Sex is the best way to destroy that. Remember how every relationship you’ve ever had has ended?
She tightened the sash on the robe again. For the second time in as many days, Max had reduced her to incoherent jelly. It confused the hell out of her, as well as being damned embarrassing. She could only imagine how he’d respond if he knew what was going on in her head. Since when did old friends suddenly want to jump each other?
She crossed to the camp bed and scooped up her clothes. In the bathroom, she dressed quickly, ignoring the sensitivity of her skin and the telltale heat between her thighs. She stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
“What are you doing?” she asked herself, her voice low and serious.
She’d come to Max seeking sanctuary, not sex. She was on the verge of making a mistake she knew she would regret for the rest of her life.
He was at the kitchen table working on one of his sketches when she emerged.
“I’m going out,” she said, hovering awkwardly at a distance. “I need to buy some things. A coat, another pair of shoes.” And get away from you for a few hours.
“Sure. I should be around but take the spare key. I want to do some more work on these sketches.”
“I’ll bring something back for dinner. Maybe some chicken fillets,” she said vaguely.
He surprised her by laughing.
“What’s so funny about chicken fillets?”
“Have