Spiral (Off the Ice, #2) (41)

“Eli,” my uncle acknowledges.

“Marcus,” Elias returns.

“Text me when you’re home, Sage,” my uncle says before he walks out the doors.

Elias watches my uncle’s descent with a grimace. “You two need to figure something out,” I say, turning to him fully. “So, what did you think?”

“About?”

I knock a playful hand to his chest. “Everything. Rate me.”

Elias finally looks at me, and his slow perusal makes me regret asking.

“The outfit, a solid ten. The makeup, another ten. But the performance ...” He trails off.

When I’m going to smack his arm, he captures my wrist and pulls me right to him.

Elias removes a paper from his pocket. It’s the notes from my dressing room with my dance sequence. “An eleven. You were amazing. I googled all the moves, and you hit every single point.”

I’m unsure what to make of this. “Why would you do that?”

He must understand what I mean, because his brown eyes hold mine. “Because you second-guess yourself and think you’re doing terribly onstage when you’re not. Just in case you forgot, I wanted to be the one to remind you.”

His words cause physical reactions in my body. But he mistakes my shiver from his compliment for being cold and slips off his jacket to slide it over my shoulders.

I pinch the jacket tighter around me, and when I reach into the pockets there’s a familiar pack of shiny gems. “What’s this?”

“Your extra glue and crystals.”

It’s the pack I left at home. “Why did you bring them?”

“You told me that one time they came off before you even got onstage and how upset you were. I didn’t want that happening again.”

A foreign feeling grips my heart, and to escape it, I engulf him in a tight hug. My hands barely make it around his shoulders, but Elias easily lifts me off my toes, and I melt into his arms.

Back on my feet, I keep smiling. “A hug like that and I might forget this is fak—”

He cuts off my words when he seals his lips to mine.

The kiss is gentle and tentative, like he’s surprised to feel my mouth on his, ready and reciprocating without even a hint of delay. My fists tighten in his shirt, wanting him closer despite the sweltering summer breeze. He tilts my head to deepen the kiss, and my nerves jumble into a tangle of colorful Christmas lights. He fists the back of my hair, and the sting accompanies the hot lust igniting my core. My mind works overtime to make sense of the possessive touch, the action like a dusty puzzle piece you find on the floor to finally complete the picture.

Elias Westbrook likes to be in control.

If my own wasn’t so erratic, I’d be shocked to find his heartbeat hammering under my palm. The sigh that leaves me is of pure pleasure and satisfaction, but his answering moan is tortured. The quick, teasing sweep of his tongue leaves a tingle in my mouth that begs for more.

When he pulls back, I’m disoriented. Like I’ve gotten off a roller coaster and have to lean against something to get my bearings straight. But if I leaned against Elias, I’m sure I’d rip my clothes off and ask him to take me in the school bathroom or something equally as stupid.

There’s a flash of white that brings me back to earth. A teenager stands in the crowd of families and shamelessly points his phone at us.

My gaze slips back to Elias’s blank expression, and for a second, I think I imagined the kiss. But the smudge of shiny lip gloss on his mouth tells me it was real. I want to cover him with glossy lip-shaped marks and claim him like an animal.

“You must be the boyfriend.”

Amy Laurent’s voice makes me stiffen, and I push away from Elias. He shakes my former teacher’s hand, and nods proudly. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ve been teaching Sage forever, and I’ve never seen her this free when she dances. It’s nice to see, and I’m hoping it’s partly thanks to you.”

“It’s all her. She’s a whole new person on that stage.” Elias pulls me into his side, and she watches us with a wide smile that has to hurt her cheeks.

“Come on, we need a group picture,” Madame Laurent says.

The dancers bring in their partners, and parents, as they crowd around us.

When the dancers are shuffling to take a picture, I can’t hold back. I clutch the fabric of his shirt and yank. “What happened to no PDA?” I whisper when he leans down.

I can see his Adam’s apple bob before he answers. “It felt necessary at that moment.”

“So, it wasn’t fake?” My heart thumps wildly.

“No.”

“No?”

“You were a second away from blurting that this is fake, with people all around us. Filming us with their phones. I’ve seen articles about this being a PR stunt and didn’t want to add fuel to that fire.”

I deflate. He was trying to shut me up, but even as my hope withers, my mind latches on to the last part of his sentence. “You’re still reading those?”

He shrugs.

Even with my lips still tingling from that kiss, I’m irritated that Elias still lets headlines get to him. He doesn’t deserve it, and I want to be the one to show him that.

Elias takes a seat on the bench beside Madame Laurent, then he loops an arm around my midsection to pull me into his lap. I stiffen.