Page 32 of Slow Burn

I was shocked. Although, was I, when not one member of my own family had made the effort to see me dance in London either, or had even shown remorse that they couldn’t find the time to come?

And, in a way, I’d normalized situations like this, because my family were the people I spent the most time with and I didn’t have a vast well of experience of other people’s families to pull from.

I’d told myself that lots of people had the exact same issues I did and that many people, of course, had it much, much worse.

‘What about your mother?’ I asked, as we turned into a particularly narrow side street.

I looked up as we walked under an ornate archway, taking in the beautiful, enclosed walkway above our heads, which seemed to lead from a building on one side of the road to one on the other.

I wondered what its history was and made a mental note to look it up in my guidebook when I got back to my room.

‘She supports me,’ he said softly. ‘But at the same time, she is worried about my father. I do not know how she would cope if something happened to him. He is her whole life.’

‘She has you,’ I said. ‘You are her life, too.’

And then Gabriele reached out and put his hands on my shoulders, running his smooth hands along the lengths of my arms.

‘It feels good to talk to someone about this,’ he said softly. ‘Thank you for listening. I have a tendency to keep things inside, but with you… I don’t know. You make it easy to speak the truth about how I feel.’

His stare seemed to penetrate deep inside me.

Slowly, my hands went to his waist, almost of their own accord, as though they had a mind of their own.

I slipped my arms around him, pulling him closer to me.

I knew what it felt like to face sacrificing everything you’d ever dreamed of to please your family.

And it was worse for Gabriele; he was an only child – at least I could convince myself that my sisters would be there to help out if I wasn’t, even if that wasn’t quite the reality of how our family functioned.

I wanted to hold him, to let him know that everything would be all right, that he wasn’t the terrible person he probably sometimes thought he was.

As we backed into the shadows, Gabriele gripped me tighter and tighter, pressing his forehead against mine, guiding me into a doorway, hiding us from any fellow tourists who might decide to wander past. He moved his hands to my face, cupping my jaw, looking into my eyes as though he was wrestling with a decision.

I knew what it was, because I felt it, too.

Only this morning I’d promised my mum that there was nothing happening between Gabriele and I, but I’d been lying to her, and lying to myself.

‘Here we are again…’ I whispered.

He ran the tip of his tongue across my lips, parting them.

I let him do what he wanted, closing my eyes, letting my body react, acutely aware of every single delicious sensation as he kissed me harder, deeper, losing myself in the warmth of his mouth.

My body shuddered as he ran his palms under the hem of my dress, stroking my inner thighs with his thumbs.

He made me feel so beautiful, so desired, and it had always been that way between us.

Under his gaze, his touch, I felt like the best version of myself, completely uninhibited, free to express anything that came into my mind in that moment.

‘Not here,’ I said, knowing that kissing him wasn’t going to be enough, not tonight.

He hesitated, kissed me once more and then he nodded and took my hand.

Back at the hotel, we stumbled out of the lift.

‘Come to my room,’ he said. ‘It is closer.’

He had the key to his room ready, tapping it hard against the pad as I wrapped my arms around him from behind, burying my face in his back.

‘Hurry,’ I said.

He slammed the key onto the pad again. ‘Why do hotel keys refuse to work for me?!’ he growled in frustration.

I prised it out of his hand and tried it myself; the handle turned first time.

‘You have the magic touch,’ he said, falling inside the room and pulling me with him.

Before I could think or even speak, he took a step towards me, his lips crashing into mine.

All that mattered was being here with him and surrendering myself to the sensations that were coursing through my veins now that we were finally alone, our tongues slipping effortlessly and deliciously in and out of each other’s mouths.

He lifted me up again, like he had that night in his dressing room, cupping me underneath as I wrapped my legs around his waist, carrying me the few steps to the bed.

I grabbed a fistful of his hair, tugging it gently as he lowered me onto the mattress, easing himself on top of me.

‘What are you doing to me, Lira?’ he asked, running his finger from my chin, down the centre of me, until it was between my legs again, where I wanted it most. I moaned with pleasure, grappling with the zip of his trousers, desperate to push them off his hips, making him help me when they weren’t coming off fast enough.

Once he’d removed them, he kneeled half-naked in front of me and peeled off my own underwear, flinging it across the room.

‘How are you so beautiful?’ he asked, sliding back up onto the bed and lowering himself on top of me, our lips almost touching.

I gasped with pleasure as his groin made contact with mine.

‘Yes…’ I moaned softly.

I could feel how hard he was and it thrilled me to know how much I turned him on, just as he did me. There was no doubt that he wanted me as much as I wanted him, and it gave me the sort of power I’d never felt in bed before – the power to let go, to do whatever came naturally.

‘Take off my dress,’ I commanded him,

He did as he was told, sliding the crepe silk fabric over my head. I was wearing only my bra now, and within seconds he’d pushed it aside, revealing my breasts, his mouth dipping to take first one then the other nipple in his mouth.

‘This feels so good,’ I said, reaching behind me and unclipping my bra myself so that I was completely and utterly exposed to him, so that he could see every inch of my body. I shivered at the thought of what he might do with it.

Palming my breasts, he raised his head, his eyes burning into me as we looked at each other, deeply connected.

In his hand he held a condom. I had no idea where it had come from and I didn’t care.

My bones felt like they were turning to liquid as he tore it open.

The second it was on, he was between my legs, hard, insistent, guiding himself inside me.

Closing my eyes, I let my knees fall open, crying out instinctively, feeling as though I could scream and it wouldn’t be enough of a release.

‘Jesus,’ he said, as my body began to move to his rhythm, his breath coming in ragged bursts. ‘Jesus, Lira.’

Afterwards, we lay in bed, wrapped up in each other’s arms. For the first time since seeing Gabriele again, I felt relaxed enough to let myself drift off to sleep, enjoying the rise and fall of his smooth chest underneath my cheek.

The room felt warm and heady, the sounds of Barcelona floating through the open window, delicious smells from the restaurant across the street lingering in the air.

Somewhere there was music, too – flamenco – and I couldn’t help thinking that there was nowhere else I’d rather be at this precise moment in time, and nobody I would rather be with.

My relaxed state was soon interrupted by the trill of my phone.

I groaned.

‘Ignore it,’ said Gabriele, his fingertips making circular patterns on my back in a deliciously comforting rhythm.

‘It might be my parents,’ I said.

‘So what? Call them back.’

‘Or the studio,’ I said.

He was right, of course, there was nothing to stop me ignoring either.

But this was me we were talking about, and learning how not to be at everyone’s beck and call was going to take some more work.

Plus, I was completely paranoid that the whole place was going to be burned to the ground while I was away, and every time the phone rang I assumed it was one of the teachers telling me the fire brigade were on their way.

I inched my hand across to the bedside table and to my phone.

‘Sorry,’ I said to Gabriele, rolling off him and onto my back. ‘I know I’m pathetic.’

‘I never said that,’ he said, watching me with a smile.

I glanced at the screen. Shit. It was Julie, one of the teachers from the studio. What was happening?

I answered the call, feeling as though my heart was stuck in my throat, and hoping this was a total overreaction to what could be a call about many different things, none of which involved flash flooding or armed robbery.

‘Hello?’ I said, trying not to sound as though I was in the grip of panic. ‘What’s up?’

I knew to at least try to play it cool.

I slipped my legs inside the duvet, feeling weird about taking a work call completely naked.

‘It’s Julie. Sorry to call so late, but I wasn’t sure what time you’d be back from the theatre.’

Julie had been working at the studio off and on almost as long as I had. She was one of our most trusted employees and my mother had been vaguely appeased when I told her I’d put Julie in charge in my absence. We all knew she’d do a good job, and the clients loved her.

‘Everything okay?’ I asked.

I glanced across at Gabriele, who was scrolling through his phone now, too.

As if sensing me watching him, he turned to face me, propping himself up on one elbow and grinning at me in a way that would have been extremely sexy if I wasn’t about to have an anxiety attack about the studio.

I looked away again – I couldn’t focus with him looking at me, and this was important.

‘Yes, don’t panic, it’s nothing urgent,’ said Julie. ‘Is this a good time?’

‘Sure,’ I said. Julie wasn’t to know.

I took a few deep breaths. It was okay. Something was happening, but it didn’t sound as though there was a threat to life.

‘I thought you’d want to know that a few of your clients are talking about leaving and going elsewhere for lessons. They miss you, and some of them aren’t convinced you’ll come back. They said they’d signed up because they wanted you to teach them, not one of us,’ said Julie.

‘Right,’ I said. God. Really? ‘Can you ping their names over and I’ll send them a personal email. Reassure them that I’ll be back in a few weeks’ time and that normal service will resume?’

Julie was silent for a few seconds. ‘Will it, though? Only, I thought you might have caught the performing bug. Everyone’s raving about you in the press – I bet if you got an agent now, they’d be getting you seen for anything you wanted.’

My heart began to thump in my chest again, but with a different type of adrenaline this time.

It wasn’t about whether the studio had suffered some sort of catastrophic incident, but about whether Julie was right.

I hadn’t allowed myself to seriously consider whether I wanted to go straight back to the studio.

And sure, I’d told my sisters that I wanted to keep dancing, but I had no idea how that would look, or if it would even be possible.

And although I knew the show was going brilliantly, I’d always assumed that had far more to do with Carlos and Gabriele than me.

‘I assumed I’d come back and pick up right where I left off in some capacity,’ I said to Julie, deciding honesty was the best policy, with her at least. It’s not like she would mind either way.

‘But maybe you’re right. Maybe this is a sign I need to change things up completely, do something different with my life. ’

But how was I going to stop our clients leaving in droves?

My parents would kill me if the membership rate started to drop.

We relied on those monthly direct debits to keep the money rolling in – rent in Castlebury might not be at London levels, but it was still extortionate, and the electricity bill was through the roof.

Dad had tried to blame it on the revolving glitter ball.

‘Let me have a think about how to stay involved with the studio while I’m touring,’ I said.

‘There must be a way that I can connect more with our members. Let them know that I’m thinking about them all, that I care about the studio, and that I haven’t just abandoned them to go off and dance my way around Europe. ’

‘Good idea. But do it fast,’ advised Julie. ‘And keep me posted!’

When I ended the call, Gabriele was still watching me with that intense stare of his.

‘What are you looking at?’ I said, laughing lightly.

‘Can I not look at you?’ he asked innocently.

‘No, you can’t,’ I said, scooting down the bed so that my whole body was covered with the duvet, feeling self-conscious suddenly.

‘I overheard your conversation.’

‘Hardly surprising when you’re lying right next to me,’ I said, jokingly tutting at him.

‘You need to connect more with your studio clients? Your members?’ he said, running his hand under the covers.

‘Mmmm,’ I said, suddenly completely unable to concentrate on what was happening with the studio because Gabriele’s hand had wormed its way into a position that felt achingly, devastatingly good. I pressed my hand on top of his, not wanting him to go anywhere.

‘Then I have an idea,’ he said mysteriously, rolling on top of me.