Amour Amour (Aerial Ethereal #1)(63)

He rubs his lips and breaks my gaze.

“What?” I frown.

His hand goes to his eyes—he’s rubbing his eyes in distress.

No. What did you do, Thora?

He says, “I want to kiss you—even more than that. It’s distracting me.” He pinches his eyes. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

My belly flips and somersaults and refuses to stay stationary. “Really…?” I pause, wondering if that sounded rude. “I mean, you really want to kiss me? I wasn’t responding to your second…” statement.

He grimaces as he shuts his eyes tightly, as though I’m making it worse.

I’m gaping, very breathy. I manage to close my mouth, but I imagine my lips on his. His body against mine. Tangled together. I try to wipe away the visuals, but they keep coming.

After Nikolai exhales a deep breath, he tries to mask his feelings. He’s more severe again. “You need to work on your presentation.” Back to business.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re performing for an audience, not for yourself. You’re not trying to master the hardest trick, you’re trying to create the illusion that you’re dancing in the air.” He clasps my hand. “Be graceful. Be lithe and elegant with every move you make. Everything about aerial silk should look seamless.”

He combines the silk with one hand and takes a short running start. His feet lift off the ground. He flies like he lives up high. Like he’s never been grounded before. My ribcage juts in and out, watching as he effortlessly circles around me, as he supports his body with one fist wrapped around the silk. He extends his arm out to me.

Grab his hand.

The next time he nears, I do. I clasp his palm, my soles leaving the safety of the blue mat. My heart has never beat this hard. Or this fast.

“Climb up,” he commands.

I scale his rock hard body, as though he’s the pole I’ve been practicing on, and when I reach his chest, I grasp his shoulders.

“Breathe,” he whispers.

I let one out, his eyes boring through me. We start to slow, the momentum depleting. He wraps the second silk around my hand. We’re going to detach. I strangely, strangely would love to stay right here. Pressed against him.

His eyes flit to my lips.

Business only, I try to read his mind. I think I guess right because he forces those gray gunmetal skies on my almost-black irises.

“Inhale,” he instructs.

I’m forgetting to breathe. How am I forgetting to breathe?

I inhale. Exhale. In. And out. Then he pushes me off his body, with so much power that I go flying. I try not to smile too much. Graceful. With this speed, I can spin. So I do. I twirl with pointed toes, using the power he’s given me to go even faster.

When I near him in my full rotation, I reach my hand out, and he seizes it, slinging my body into his chest, not too hard, but enough that a jolt of energy courses through me. Adrenaline. An intoxicating rush.

He hugs me close, one of his hands rising to my face.

Again—I’d love to do this again and again. With him. Only with him. I can’t say I’m entirely graceful and completely lithe. But I feel weightless once more.

It takes me a moment to realize that we’ve decelerated entirely. We’ve come to a stop. He unwinds my hand as though he’s gently removing lingerie, with the most sensual, slow-burning movement. He keeps me clutched to his chest as he descends, his feet hitting the mat before he sets me down.

It feels like we had aerial sex.

Aerial sex. Now I’m thinking about that—the real act of it. Dear God in heaven. Is that even a thing? Do people do that?

He tosses me my towel, waking me up from my dirty stupor. “You still need lots of work.”

“But I’m not hopeless.” I smile.

“Like you said,” he nods to me, “you’re a work in progress. But landing a contract, there’s luck involved. You need some of that too.”

“I know,” I breathe. He’s not trying to elevate my hopes too much.

“That’s it for today. Make sure you wash the resin off your hands and use lotion every night. It’ll dry out your skin if you don’t.”

I dab my sweaty hairline with my towel and just now notice how rigid he is, his shoulders unbending. I slip on my cotton pants and acro-shoes while he puts our water bottles in his gym bag, not saying another word. It spindles more tension in my joints and muscles.

“I’ll walk you out,” he suddenly adds.

He’s never walked me out of the gym before.

The nervous flutters return. I wonder when we leave the gym if business will end. And something else will begin. I’m not sure what happens after we exit the double doors. This is all really new.

Since it’s Sunday and not the morning, there are more than a few people practicing today. We pass a couple doing hand-to-hand tricks, her palm flat on his forehead as she lifts her legs vertically. A handstand. On his head.

Insane.

Nikolai lets out a growl of annoyance. Not at the acrobatic couple. He clasps my hand, tugging me in a new direction before I can even follow his gaze.

Katya lies on top of a giant rolled mat, earbuds in and reading One Last Kiss, Please. The paranormal romance I loaned her. Nikolai drops my hand and yanks out the cord to her iPod.

She gawks at him and sits up. “Hey.” When she notices me, her eyes seem to light up. “Hi, Thora. I just got to the best part—”