Page 67 of Dance of Devils

I feel dizzy, like my head isn’t screwed on right. My legs don’t want to work. I want to be back where I was ten seconds ago, in Kir's arms, looking up into his eyes, breathing him in and feeling the throb of his desire for me against my body.

Kir turns, his brow furrowed, his eyes black as they stab across the room.

“I saidagain, Ms. Ellis,” he growls.

Swallowing quickly, I nod. “Y-yeah,” I mumble. “Okay.”

The music starts again, and I do too.

But it’s not the same.

I’m not sure it ever will be.

15

BROOKLYN

For one brief moment,it felt like I was dancing in the stratosphere.

The rest of the world stopped mattering, the Earth stopped turning, and time itself seemed to stand still when Kir’s hands were on my waist and those dark devil eyes were piercing into my very soul.

But ever since that moment shattered, the universe has been speeding to catch up—even though it’s pretty clear that moment isnevercoming back.

It was obvious enough when he abruptly walked away and acted like nothing had happened. But Kir has spent the last two weeks of our private sessions being an absolute fuckingdickheadto me, just in case I needed it to be even clearer.

Spoiler: I didn’t.

The one good thing about the last two weeks has been Lou pretty much sealing himself in his office and barely coming out. Lou might manage The Mirage and be the owner on paper, but itactually belongs to a Russian mobster who—according to Maya—uses it to launder money since it’s such a cash-heavy business.

Anyway, Zak getting the shit kicked out of him in the men’s room has resulted in the police coming by to sniff around a few times, and Lou’s boss isn't so happy about it. Plus, Lou himself does business with a bunch of super shady guys, and his head bouncer getting half beaten to death has him extra paranoid.

So, work might be a little easier…relatively speaking. But my after-hours sessions with Kir have become much, much harder, between the grueling repetition and Kir’s razor-sharp critiques.

He’s a monster of a coach: brutal, unencumbered by niceties, and uncaring of things like physical human limits. He just keepspushing.

But loath as I am to admit it…Iamgetting better. Noticeably so. Even Madame Kuzmina made a comment about it earlier today, which feels damn good.

Doesn’t mean Kir isn’t still a giant dick.

“Uh… What are those?”

Clad in form-fitting black gym pants and a black t-shirt that clings to every single muscled groove on his torso and arms, Kir stands in the studio doorway.

He’s holding two pairs of boxing gloves.

I swallow, feeling the now-familiar twist of excitement and caged wariness that slides through me whenever we’re in the same room. Kir walks over to where I’ve been stretching on the barre. I fidget, tugging at my dance shorts and readjusting the straps of my tank top.

“Put them on.”

I stare at the gloves, then at him.

“I’m sorry?”

“We’re doing something different tonight. Put them on.”

He pushes them into my hands, then starts pulling on his own. I watch him use his teeth to tighten the Velcro on the second glove, my pulse quickening with nerves and anxiety as I mimic his technique.

Milena and I took a self-defense course a year or so ago on a whim. But that’s the extent of my combat experience. So when Kir ushers me to the center of the studio and raises his fists in averypracticed way, my insides knot.