Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 149338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
“Do you have any idea what I can do to you, Lexi? How I could make you feel? How much I could make you come,” he groaned into my ear, his raspy voice letting me know I was having an effect on him.
As much as he was on me.
I sucked in air as his fingers caressed the sides of my torso, and again along my back.
“Tell me,” he urged, never stopping the torment of his fingers. “Have you ever been touched?”
I moaned in response, my cheeks turning a bright shade of red. I felt him move in front of me, he never stopped caressing my skin. His thumb skimmed across my lips, wiping off my lipstick as if he’d wanted to do it since I walked in.
“Where, Lexi? Where do you want me to touch you?” He slid his fingers up my stomach, slipping them into the edge of my bra. I just about came undone, and he had barely touched me, yet. Not the way I wanted him to touch me. This is agonizing, pure torture. Another moan escaped my lips just from the anticipation of what he was going to do next.
“Here?” he taunted, grazing my cleavage with the tips of his fingers.
I didn’t say a word. I could barely breathe. He pulled down the straps of my bra, and in one quick but sudden movement, it was off. My nipples hardened from the cold air, but my body was burning for him. I could feel his stare all over me. Yearning to touch me as much as I desired him to feel every last inch of my body.
My soul.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed out.
I immediately opened my eyes. Never imagining the man glaring back at me would look so torn. So conflicted, so sad. I was more blown away by the fact I got to witness some sort of emotion, and sentiment from him.
“Alej—”
“You’re so fucking beautiful, cariño.” He froze, his eyes widened, completely caught off guard with what he just called me.
Cariño.
He didn’t even try to hide the shock. It was plain as day, consuming his face. His body betrayed him. The pain and shame swallowed him alive in front of my very own eyes.
“What does that mean? What did you—”
He scowled, his demeanor rapidly changing into the man he’d always been. “Get the fuck out of my office,” he roared out of nowhere. “Now!” Grabbing my clothes off the floor and throwing them at me.
I shuddered. “Wait… what? Why?” I asked, confused by the turn of events. “What just happened?”
“Get fucking dressed! You look like a goddamn whore!”
I couldn’t put my clothes on fast enough for him, barely having my tank over my head before he was over to me in two strides, grabbing my acceptance letter and taking ahold of my arm. Pulling me toward the door.
“Let go! You’re hurting me. What the fuck, Martinez?”
“If I wanted lip from you, I would unzip my fucking slacks,” he gritted through a clenched jaw, shoving me out of his office. Throwing my letter at my feet.
“Why? We weren’t done talking. Please! What just happened? I don’t understand. I thought… I thought there was something here. You felt that, right? I know you felt that!”
“I don’t hire little girls pretending to be women. I don’t fuck them either. Don’t waste my fucking time again. Do you understand me?”
I jerked back, the blow of his words almost as effective as his fist would have been. I could feel the tears pooling in my eyes. Threatening to surface. I bent over grabbing my papers. They were the most valuable thing I owned and he was shitting all over them.
“I need your help! Why are you being such a dick to me? Why are you being so cruel? What happened to you?”
He took one last look at me with his once again dark, cold, soulless eyes, and rasped, “The Devil happened.”
And with that, he slammed the door in my face.
I stepped out onto the dark stage, taking a deep breath like I did before every performance. This show was different, it was personal, it was me.
The Dance of the Dying Swan is a high point for any ballerina’s career but to me it held a different sentiment. Six years ago, I was supposed to be the white swan, but I never got my chance. This time around, I was both. The black and the white. I was finally in a place in my life where I was dancing…
For me.
This moment, I wasn’t yearning to dance for my mother, wanting to make her proud. Make her see there was more light in her life than darkness. None of it mattered anymore.
This was my closure.
I was the prima ballerina in Swan Lake at The American Ballet Theatre in New York. People from all over the world paid money to come see me perform. I was twenty-four years old and living my dream.