Page 116 of Dance of Devils

I go back to the routine, pushing myself again to perfect the sequence that I'm having trouble with, which is also the part that makes my ankle scream.

Suddenly, I hear footsteps. I shriek when Kir surges into me, grabs me around the waist, picks me up as I flail, and tosses me over his shoulder.

“Letgoof me!!” I scream, kicking and thrashing as he marches out of the ballroom. It’s like trying to fight a brick wall. All I can do is yell and swear at him as he storms through my bedroom and into the adjoining bathroom.

He unties the pointe shoes and yanks them of my feet.

“Get thefuckoff of?—”

I gasp as he whips me off his shoulder and suddenly plunges me into the fuckingfreezingcold ice water.

I screech, almost levitating as I try to get out of the icy water. But Kir’s grip is relentless, his dark eyes locked with mine as he easily keeps my squirming, thrashing body in the water.

“Does it feel like a sprain?”

“It feels like I just fell off the fuckingTitanic,” I spit.

Kir glares. “Yourankle,Brooklyn,” he grunts. “Does it feel like a torn ligament?”

“I’mfine,” I mutter petulantly.

“You’re reckless,” he hisses back. “You’re trying to push past pain because you think it gets you a badge of honor. All it’s going to get you is a ruined career.”

“I don’t have the luxury of slowing down,” I seethe.

“Tonight, youdo,” he growls back.

I try to get out again, but his grip is unyielding, and eventually I stop fighting.

I exhale, glowering, as I slump back in the icy tub. Which, though I hate to admit it and never would to his face,ishelping my ankle a lot.

“This is what care looks like,” Kir says quietly. “Learn to recognize it.”

He makes me sit there another five minutes, until my entire body is numb from the ice water.

But goddammit, my ankle feelswaybetter.

I don’t resist when Kir lifts me out of the water and carries me back to the bedroom. Nor do I fight when he deftly undresses me before sitting me on the edge of the bed and wrapping a tensor bandage around my ankle.

When he suddenly shoves me back, sending me sprawling across the bed, my pulse thunders as I stare at him.

“What are you?—”

“Life is a series of gives and takes, Brooklyn,” he growls, shrugging off his jacket. “If you sometimes suffer the bad, you can more readily savor the good.”

He starts to roll his shirt sleeves up to the elbows.

“You suffered the bad—that would be the unpleasantness of the ice bath.”

I glare at him from the bed. “Unpleasantness?” I mutter.

“And now,” he continues, “you can savor the good.”

I bite my lip. “Which is?”

I whimper when he suddenly grabs my thighs, yanks me to the edge of the bed, and spreads my legs, taking care not to touch my injured ankle.

“Me warming your pussy up with my tongue.”