Rue hadn’t planned on becoming the center of attention, but there was no point of making a production of this request. She stood and unbuttoned the flannel shirt, pulled off the glasses and stepped out of the old corduroy pants she’d pulled on to cover her practice clothes. She held out her arms, inviting them to study her in her T-shirt and shorts, and then she sank down to the floor again. Sean’s arms crossed over her and pulled her tightly against him. This was body language anyone could understand—“Mine!” The Black Moon people almost all smiled—Phil and Mustafa being the exceptions—and nodded, both to acknowledge Rue and to say they’d noted Sean’s possessiveness.
Rue wanted to whack Sean across his narrow aristocratic face.
She also wanted to kiss him again.
But there was one thing she had to say. “We had some trouble,” she said hesitantly. She could understand David and Hallie’s silence. They hadn’t been on a professional engagement—and a man had died. But she couldn’t understand why Megan wasn’t speaking out.
Sylvia said, “With whom?” Her eyebrows were raised in astonishment.
“Guy named Charles Brody. He got mad when Megan wouldn’t take money to meet him afterward. He mentioned your name, Sylvia, but he wouldn’t...he didn’t accept it too well when we told him we didn’t work for Black Moon. He acted like it was going to be okay, that he accepted Megan’s refusal, but when he turned to leave, he shoved her down.”
“I don’t recognize the name, but he could’ve hired us before,” Sylvia said. “Thanks, I’ll put him in the watch-for file. Were you hurt?” She waited impatiently for Megan’s reply.
“No,” Megan said. “Rue caught me. I would’ve said something, but I’d pretty much forgotten it.” She shrugged. She clearly wasn’t too pleased with Rue for bringing up the incident.
“I want to speak,” Sean said, and that caught everyone’s attention.
“Sean, I don’t think you’ve spoken at one of these meetings in three years,” Sylvia said. “What’s on your mind?”
“Rue, show them your stomach,” Sean said.
She rose up on her knees and turned to look at him. “Why?” She was stunned and outraged.
“Just do it. Please. Show the Black Moon people.”
“You’d better have a good reason for this,” she said in a furious undertone.
He nodded at her, his blue eyes intent on her face.
With a visible effort, Rue faced the group and pulled down the front of her elastic-waist shorts. The Black Moon people looked, and Abilene gave a sharp nod of acknowledgment. Phil’s dark eyes went from the ugly scar to Rue’s face, and there was a sad kinship in them that she could hardly bear. Mustafa scowled while Rick, David and Hallie looked absolutely matter-of-fact. Haskell, the enforcer, averted his eyes.
“The man who did this is out of the mental hospital, and he’s probably here in the city,” Sean said, his Irish accent heavier than usual. Rue covered her scars, sank to her knees on the floor and looked down at the linoleum with utter concentration. She didn’t know if she wanted to swear and throw something at Sean or...she just didn’t know. He had massively minded her business. He’d gone behind her back.
But it felt good to have someone on her side.
“I got a human to find a picture of this man in the newspaper and copy it.” Sean began to pass around the picture. “This is Carver Hutton IV. He’s looking for Rue under her real name, Layla LeMay. He knows she dances. His family’s got a lot of money. He can get into almost any party anywhere. Even with his past, most hostesses would be glad to have him.”
“What are you doing?” Rue gasped, almost unable to get enough breath together to speak. “I’ve kept all this secret for years! And in the space of five minutes, you’ve told people everything about me. Everything!” For the first time in her life, Rue found herself on the verge of hitting someone. Her hands fisted.
“And keeping it secret worked out well for you?” Sean asked coolly.
“I’ve seen him,” a husky voice said. Hallie.
And just like that, Rue’s anger died, consumed by an overwhelming fear.
If any of the dancers had doubted Rue’s story, they saw the truth of it when they saw her face. They all knew what fear looked like.
“Where?” Sean asked.
Hallie crooked her finger at her partner. “We saw him,” she said to David. He put his white arm around her shoulders, and his dark, wavy hair swept over her neck as he bent forward.
“Where?” David asked Hallie.
“Two weeks ago. The bachelor party at that big house in Wolf Chase.”
“Oh.” David studied the picture a little longer. “Yes. He was the one who kept grabbing at you when you were on top. He said you were a bitch who needed to learn a lesson.”
Hallie nodded.
Tiny shivers shook Rue’s body. She made an awful noise.
“Jeez,” Hallie said. “That’s what he said to you, huh, when he cut you? We just thought he wanted us to do a little, you know, play spanking. We did, and he chilled. The host looked like he was upset with the guy’s outburst, so we toned it down. Please the man who’s paying the bill, right?”
David nodded. “I kept an eye on him the rest of the evening.”
Sylvia said, “You watch out for this guy. That’s all. Just let Rue know if you’ve seen him. Nothing else.”
“You’re the boss,” Mustafa said. His voice was low and rumbly, like a truck passing in the distance. “But he will not hurt Abilene.”
“Thanks, Moose,” said the vampire. She stroked his dark cheek with her white hand. “I love ya, babe.”
“Getting back on track,” Sylvia said briskly. “Rick, you and Phil didn’t turn in your costumes for a week after that Greek party. Hallie, you can’t have your mail sent here. If you keep that up, I’ll start opening it. Julie, you left the lights on in the practice room last night. I’ve talked to you about that before.”
Sylvia read down a list of minor offenses, scolding and correcting, and Rue had a chance to calm herself while the other employees responded. She was all too aware of Sean standing behind her. She could not have put a label on what she was feeling. She went to sit on the high pile of mats that they sometimes spread on the linoleum floor when they were practicing a new lift.
When the others began leaving, Rue started to pull her outer layer of clothes back on.
“Not so fast,” Sean said. “We have practice tonight.”
“I’m mad at you,” she said.
“Turn out the lights behind you, whichever one of you wins,” Sylvia called.
Sean went out into the hall and locked the front door, or at least that was the direction his footfalls took. She heard him come back, heard him over at the big CD player in the corner, by the table of white towels Sylvia kept there for sweaty dancers.
Rue began to warm up, but she still wasn’t about to look at Sean. She was aware he began stretching, too, on the other side of the room.
After fifteen minutes or so, she stood, to signal she was ready to practice. But she kept her eyes forward. Rue wasn’t sure if she was being childish, or if she was just trying to avoid attacking Sean. He started the CD player, and Rue was startled to recognize Tina Turner’s sultry voice. “Proud Mary” was not a thinking song, though, but a dancing song, and when Sean’s hands reached out for hers, she had no idea what he was going to do. The next twenty minutes were a challenge that left her no time for brooding. Avril Lavigne, the Dixie Chicks, Macy Gray and the Supremes kept her busy.
And she never once looked up at him.
The next song was her favorite. It was a warhorse, and the secret reason she’d decided to become a dancer, she’d told him in a moment of confidence: the Righteous Brothers’ “Time of My Life.” She’d worn out a tape of the movie Dirty Dancing, and that song had been the cli**x of the movie. The her**ne had finally gained enough confidence in herself and trust in her partner to attempt a leap, at the apex of which he caught her and lifted her above his head as if she were flying.
“Shame on you,” she said in a shaky voice.
“We’re going to do this,” he said.
“How could you take over my life like this?”
“I’m yours,” he said.
It was so simple, so direct. She met his eyes. He nodded, once. His declaration hit her like a fist to the heart. She was so stunned by his statement that she complied when he put his hand on her back, when he took her left hand and pressed it to his silent heart. Her right hand was spread on his back, as his was on hers. Their h*ps began to move. The syncopation broke apart in a minute as he began to sweep her along with him, and they danced. Nothing mattered to Rue but matching her steps to her partner’s. She wanted to dance with him forever. At every turn of her body, every movement of her head, she saw something new in his pale face—a glint of blue eye, the arch of his brow, the haughty line of his nose, which contrasted so startlingly with the grace of his body. When the song began to reach its cli**x, Sean raced to one end of the long room and held out his hands to her. Rue took a deep breath and began to run toward him, thinking all the way, and when she was just the right distance from Sean, she launched herself. She felt his hands on her hip bones, and then she was high in the air above his head, her arms outstretched, her legs extended in a beautiful line, flying.
As Sean let her down the line of his body very slowly, Rue couldn’t stop smiling. Then the music stopped, but Sean didn’t let her feet touch the floor. She was looking right into his eyes, and the smile faded from her face.
His arms were around her, and his mouth was right by hers. Then it was on hers, and once again he asked admission.
Rue whispered, “We shouldn’t. You’re going to get hurt. He’ll find me. He’ll try to kill me again. You’ll try to stop him, and you’ll get hurt. You know that.”
“I know this,” Sean said, and he kissed her again, with more force. She parted her lips for him, and he was in her mouth, his arms surrounding her, and she was altogether overwhelmed. It appeared that she was his, as much as he was hers.
For the second time in her life, Rue gave herself up to someone else.
“This is different,” she whispered. “This is different.”
“It ought to be.” Sean said. “It will be.” He picked her up in one smooth move. Their eyes were locked.
“Why are you getting into my life?” She shook her head, dazed. “There’s so much bad in it.”
“You fought back,” he said. “You made a new life, on your own.”
“Not much of one.”
“A life with courage and purpose. Now, let me love you this way.” His body moved against hers.
“I’m not scared.” She was.
“I know it.” He smiled at her, and her heart wrenched in her chest.
“You won’t hurt me,” she said with absolute faith.
“I would rather die.” He was so serious.
“You know I can’t have children,” she said. She meant only to let him know he didn’t need to use birth control.
“I can’t, either,” he murmured. “We can’t reproduce.”
If she’d ever known that, she’d forgotten it. She felt oddly jolted. She’d always supposed that her barrenness would be a terrible obstacle to forming another relationship, but instead it was a nonissue.
His tongue flicked in her ear. “Tell me what you like,” he suggested, his breath tickling her cheek. He walked over to the pile of exercise mats, carrying her as if her weight was nothing.
“I don’t know,” she said, partly embarrassed at her own ignorance, partly excited because she was sure he would find out what she liked.
“Light out, light on?”
“Out, please.”
In the space of a second, he was back beside her. He had a few towels with him. He spread them on the mats, and she was glad, because the vinyl surface was unpleasant to the touch.
“My clothes?” he asked. He waited for her answer.
“Oh...off.” Ambient light came through the frosted glass in the door of the studio, and she could see the gleam of his skin in the darkness. He was built smooth and sleek, as dancers usually are, and he was purely white except for the trail of red hair starting below his navel and going down. She followed that trail with her eyes and found herself gasping.
“Oh...oh. Wow.”
“I want you very much.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Her voice was tiny.
“Can I see you?” For the first time, his voice was tentative.
She sat up on the pile of mats and rose to her knees. She pulled off her white T-shirt very slowly, and her bra was gone in an instant.
“Oh,” he said. He reached out to touch her, hesitated.
“Yes,” Rue said.
His white hands with their long fingers cupped her br**sts with infinite gentleness. Then his mouth followed.
She gasped, and it was an urgent sound. His hands began tugging her shorts, gathering up her panties with them, and she lay down so he could coax them over her feet. He stayed down there for a minute or two, sucking her toes, which made her shiver all over, and then he began working his way up her legs.
She was afraid her courage would run out. She wanted him so badly she shook all over, but her only previous experience with sex had been short and brutal, its consequences painful and disastrous.
Sean seemed to understand her misgivings, and he eased his body up her length until his arms wrapped around her and his mouth found hers again.
“I can stop now,” he told her. “After this, I’m not sure. I don’t want to hurt you or frighten you.”
Rue said, “Now or never.”