Chapter Thirty-Two

Anita closed the door and sank along the wood frame. She put her head in her hands and indulged in a good, solid cry. He loved her? How could he tell her something like that?

He didn’t mean it. That had to be it.

She ripped the crystal headband from her hair, tearing at the braids held taut with hairspray.

She stood up abruptly, her hair now long and wild around her shoulders. She needed to move on. She had to compete tomorrow. She had students who needed her in the morning, pro/am competitors who would be waiting. Anita had to do her job.

He loved her.

She could feel the makeup running down her face in little rivulets. Routine. She could manage that at least. Pulling in her abs and straightening her back, she moved to the bathroom and turned on the faucet.

Her face in the mirror looked like a Salvador Dali painting, colors melting in different areas. “Cute, Anita, real cute.”

Patrick loved her, little Anita Goodman. Anita, who never could go to the party because she had dance practice. Anita, who disappointed her parents by following her own foolish dreams. Anita, who had terrible taste in men.

Anita, who was tired of being alone.

In every single one of her past relationships, even when she was intimate with her partner, she had never really felt that sense of simpatico, that belonging. Except with Patrick.

She shook her head to stem the tide of tears and applied cold cream before wiping it off in large swaths with a washcloth. After each swipe, she could see her own pink skin underneath, and it made her oddly, unbearably sad. Underneath the mask of foundation, bronzer, and cosmetics, her face was blotchy and raw.

Fighting back tears again, her face now stripped of its adornments, she was suddenly desperate to be in her cozy sweatpants, wrapped under the covers where she could wallow. Moving out of the bathroom, she reached around to the back of the costume to tug at the small hidden zipper on the bustier. It wouldn’t budge. Anita pulled on it, again and again, the tears now falling freely. “Seriously?!!?”

Shit. Shit. She was a bitch and an idiot, and Patrick loved her.

She collapsed in front of the partition to Patrick’s room, her arms around her fishnet-stockinged legs and her forehead resting on her knees.

This night honestly could not get worse. Stuttgart be damned. Mikhail breaking up with her via text three weeks before Keystone be damned.

Patrick loved her.

A timid knock came at the partition, and Anita looked up. “Anita?” She heard his voice, muffled through the door. “Are you okay?”

For a moment, she considered lying, considered telling him she was fine. She could keep up this whole charade and likely drive him away forever. What else could she say? Could she tell him she was confused and tired and frustrated and her goddamn zipper was stuck on this ridiculously cut, borrowed dress? Could she tell him how even now she longed for him, really yearned with something deep and primal that she had not known existed inside of her?

Patrick loved her.

“Anita?” He knocked softly again.

She raised her hands to the doorknob, and before she was fully aware of it, she was standing before the partition, her hand on the lock. Tears still cascading down her face, she flipped the lock and pulled the door open a few inches.

Patrick looked unbelievably handsome, all scruffy and disheveled, an undeniably masculine scent about him. And his face, his wonderful face, was set in a look of concern. “What’s wrong?” He brushed his hand across her cheek, wiping away a tear.

She inhaled sharply at his touch, and he dropped his hand as if burned.

She was doing everything all wrong.

“I’m so sorry, Patrick. This is ridiculous.” She breathed deeply for a few moments, summoning whatever courage she had left. “But my—my—” Her voice hitched as she choked on a sob, a cry of humiliation. “—my zipper is stuck.”

The excuse hung between them for a moment, its feeble wings flapping ineffectually.

“Okay,” he replied at length, his voice stilted, his eyes darkening. “Turn around. I can get it.”

She inhaled and turned so her back faced him. She lifted her hair off her shoulders so he could access the zipper.

She shuddered as he warmed her back with his breath. His fingers traced the backs of her arms, then clutched the zipper. A tug and realignment, and the zipper slid slowly, sensually down her back, exposing her flesh. She clutched the front of the costume to herself, thought to turn to thank him, but stilled as he slid his hands across the tender skin of her spine.

“Patrick?” She didn’t dare look at him. Not now. A long moment passed.

“Please.” His voice was ragged, his breath hot and lush. He flattened his palm against her lower back, leaned down, and kissed the base of her spine. The sensation of lips against skin rocketed through her, igniting along her nerves. “Is this okay?”

Anita arched reflexively into his touch, biting her lip, closing her eyes. Stop this. Stop this, you can’t do this, Anita. But she wanted it. She had denied herself for so long, denied this for so long. She couldn’t hold back anymore.

“Yes. God, yes.”

It was like she had unleashed a tiger.

Patrick breathed out hard against her skin, moving his lips up her back, kissing her shoulder blades. Now he was licking the base of her neck, and she loosed a deep moan. Emboldened by her response, he slid his hands from her spine to the front of her stomach, beneath the thin fabric of the costume. She arched into his touch, the delicious heat of him filling her, and her head fell backward. His mouth moved slyly from her neck toward her ear as one hand moved just below her navel. The other started tracing tiny circles just underneath her breasts, firing her nerve endings, making her yearn and moan.

“Patrick,” she gasped. His mouth had moved to the side of her neck, where he kissed, licked, nibbled the soft spaces. “Oh my God, Patrick.”

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say that?”

She felt him smile against the base of her jaw, and she reached a hand up behind her to run her fingers through his hair. She just wanted to tangle herself in the soft, curly plush.

He turned his head to kiss her palm and then took the proffered hand, spun her, and pressed her backward into a deep and luxurious kiss.

The kiss was hot, dark, full of need. She felt blown backward by the force of it, but two could play this game. She would not yield. His tongue darted into her mouth, slid against hers, and she matched him stroke for stroke. She would take what she wanted, if only for tonight. She did not want to exist outside of that kiss that tasted of coffee and chocolate and something spicy and exotic and so utterly him. At least no existence that she wanted.

Anita leaned into the feelings, leaned into Patrick. She wrapped her arms around his neck, releasing her costume to the floor. He scooped her up and carried her over to the bed. She was light, light as an ember floating in the air, but his breath made her catch fire anew.

And then she completely lost the ability to think as he covered her mouth and her body with his.