One
She was there again, to deafen her head with loud music, to drown in the company of men who would make her forget. It would be easy – so easy – to entice someone for her own purposes. For a moment she felt guilty. The moment passed and she pushed through the crowd to be closer to the dance floor.
She'd always had the need to move to the music. It compelled, enticed, and drove her like nothing else – with one exception. Like the rhythm of her heart, music lured her to the floor with pulsing sounds: tantalizing words of love and hope.
She watched as eyes watched. Some lingered, some searched, others darted. Behind them all, Nicole saw yearnings as different as the music. Each its own story, its own need for an ending – at least for the night.
Colored lights flashed over her face and she moved through the crowds, looking.
"Wanna dance?" Nicole Dubois didn't even look to see the face behind the voice. She just said yes. The face, the man, was inconsequential, and soon she was on the dance floor.
After she'd felt the music dive in and seize her, she looked at him. He was watching her – they always did. They would lose themselves and become hers. It was a power that she'd learned could be dangerous.
It wasn't something she did purposefully; it came from whatever had caused her first steps to be a swivel of hip, rather than one foot followed by another.
"You're an amazing dancer," the man said, leering at her.
Nicole only smiled. It was the smile she used when performing – empty yet dazzling.
"Are you professional or something?" he asked.
She continued dancing next to him. "Something."
This was paradise. Music so loud she could forget the pain. This was her world, the crowds cheering and clapping, expressing their awe and enthusiasm in shouts, and whistles of appreciation and envy. They loved her – at least for the moment. But she'd take that moment. Some wanted her; that she knew. Dancing had taught her she could go anywhere she wanted to go.
It was better than any high – except one.
Dance was the only way she had felt another's heartbeat, known another's soul, without giving the ultimate gift. She'd held on to that. There'd only been one man she wanted, only one she had ever wanted to give herself to.
The song ended.
Nicole smiled at the stranger, batted her eyes, and left him standing in glowing admiration as she moved off the dance floor. After watching her, admirers trailed her like the tail of a kite.
She continued through the pressing crowd toward the refreshment bar.
"You were something out there," the bartender said. He was eager and ready to please, and he lit up because she'd come straight to him. He patted the bar for her to sit, and she found an empty stool. Nicole saw his eyes, how they flitted behind her and she knew there were strangers eager and waiting for her.
"What can I get you?" he asked.
"A mineral water," she said, leaning toward him on her elbows.
The bartender slid her a chilled glass with a lime twisted on the rim and a smile on his face. "There you go."
Leisurely she sipped, allowing the gathering of men behind her to ripen.
Suddenly, chords rang hauntingly through the air and everybody slowed, quieted because of it. She knew the song. It was the kind of song that made you weep before the first verse had even been sung. Then the words – the melody – all of it, imprisoned your heart.
It had been their song once.
The piano rang out, the chords gained strength, the lyrics spoke the words of her soul. Someday I'll find my way back to you.
Nicole's heart was pulled down, the weight of the melody pierced deep. She wondered if she would ever be able to hear the music, let it move her, without thinking of him.
"Another mineral water?" the bartender asked. Shaking her head, she put down her glass and pushed herself up, back towards the dance floor. She'd prove to herself that she could be there, hear that song – and dance without him. Even as the impossibility of it whispered over the music, she scanned the crowd for someone, anyone she could take out there.
She approached an innocent bystander with her prettiest smile, as she'd been trained to. "Hi, I'm Nicole, would you like to dance?"
The man's eyes lit. "Sure."
On the dance floor, she pulled him close, the need to forget as great as the need to prove to herself that she could, but the song pounded in her ears, dove into her soul, as she swayed in the arms of the stranger. In her mind she felt the body and saw the face of only one man. Only one man moved like vapor and velvet.
She slid and dipped, feeling empty without him. Her body had spent years nestled next to his, his arm tucked around her back, holding her, chest to breast, face to face, sharing one breath. The need to flee from the floor rushed through her.
Closing her eyes, she willed herself to stay. She would wait until the pain in her heart passed. It wasn't getting any easier; time wasn't healing her as she hoped.
"Excuse me." She heard a voice and her eyes flashed.
For a moment she couldn't speak. She stared at his face in shock. This was the last place she would have expected to see him. He seemed to enjoy the fact that she was without words. It was in his eyes, sapphire blue flickering with pleasure.
"I need to cut in," he told the stranger and swiftly stepped between them. His gaze locked with hers as he slid one arm around her waist, taking her to a place where the light shone just for them.
He moved with such ease, Nicole glanced down at his feet only momentarily, knowing the gesture might offend him, before letting herself look into his face again.
Much had changed, though he still looked wonderfully the same. His dark hair was longer now, with teasing curls just at his collar. The blue of his eyes was so magnetic, so dark; she couldn't look away for the years her heart had missed. That smile was just as she remembered, broad and glittering. The hot spark she felt inside forced her to gaze over his shoulder, unable to forget just how his lips had once felt against hers.
She'd missed his face – the strong lines that pulled tight when he was angry or possessive, that eased into a smile and made every bone in her body liquid with the beauty of it.
"You look good, Nic," he said after a moment.
"Breck." She ignored his compliment and said his name, even with the bitterness it left on her tongue. "Your upbringing once again overrides your sense of propriety."
"Which upbringing would that be?"
It would be the cruelest thing she could do, to say it. She knew it, and wondered whether she would feel the trembling in his hands like she used to. Because he'd hurt her, she felt she owed him the pain. "Your blood upbringing."
She recognized the familiar hateful glint of something old in the dark of his eyes and she looked away, shame pinching her heart. Ready for the next move, she only felt the slightest pressure from his fingers, twined with hers, before he turned them both.
"That was rude to interrupt us." She felt his grip shift and knew, even before he took another step, where he was taking her.
"Rude, but necessary." He twirled her away from him but his hand held on tight.
The floor was clearing around them now and he brought her in, smiling as if they were back in time, dancing as they had for so many years, for the judges' approval – for the prize.
"How do you know he wasn't my fiancé?"
His lips brushed her ear. "Because there's only one man for you."
He brought her against him with a demand that sent thrill racing up her spine. When he snapped her out, she remembered the many times he'd let go, letting her fall flat on her rump, and wondered if he would do that again. Squeezing his hand on the thrust, she made sure he couldn't, and she grinned, first at him, then at the watching crowd, until he whipped her back so fast, she almost lost her breath.
His body felt wonderfully familiar next to hers as he deliberately slowed them down and took them through the steps of the samba. It had been their dance; the fight, the passion – equally shared.
"Some things never change, do they Nic?" he asked as their heads came in close, cheeks barely brushing.
"If you're speaking of my well-deserved anger at you, then you're right."
"I'm speaking about the fire that always pulled us together."
She pushed against his chest. Nothing would bring her more pleasure than to leave him there on the dance floor. But he snagged her wrists, his fingers lacing with hers so fast, she had no option but to follow his lead. In one downward whip, he had her back pressed near the floor so that she was at his knees. Raising a brow, he grinned at her.
Bringing her up, he pulled her against him with a force she remembered well and always made her wince. That she knew he took pleasure from as well.
"What would our partnership be without your stubborn wit?" His face broke into that beautiful smile that could liquefy her. She jerked her head toward the crowd and didn't let it.
"There is no partnership," she told him. He whirled the two of them into a spin that rivaled a top. It made her dizzy and weak and completely dependent on him; she knew he knew that, wanted that. If she'd had the will, she'd have pushed away, but she'd never learned to put pride over professionalism and it kept her clinging to him for the sake of the dance.
His laugh was low and teasing in her ear as they spun round together. "We'll see about that."
When the song slowed, he slowed, as the last words sung softly into the thick air surrounding them. He eased back and looked at her. The applause was like fire, heated and cracking. The lyrics pointed, like an iron poker in the flame.
Someday I'll find my way back to you…
Only moments had passed not agonizingly long years, and Breck couldn't tear his eyes away. Her hair still glowed like sunbeams had cast their fingers through it. She wore it down and liquid to her shoulders, bare shoulders he so wanted to skim with his hands to ease the need he felt inside to touch her, not just dance with her. Red had always been her color, and the sparkling dress she wore now clung to every inch he'd dreamed of in the years he'd been gone.
She'd been shocked to see him; the pale gray of her eyes had deepened to midnight when their eyes met. That pleased him, and reminded him of all that he'd missed. Of all he intended to take back now.
From the first day Breck had seen her, he'd known that for him, there would only be Nicole. She'd seen the dregs of his past and held his hand as they danced through awkward teenage years. Together they'd forged a bond that dance alone had gifted to them. He'd known then hers would be the only soul that could truly understand his.
The glow of her now was too beautiful to bear. More than anything, Breck wished he could turn back time, but that was impossible. Her eyes blazed a warning he knew better than to ignore. He merely held her close, knowing he could, without her resisting, until the song ended.
When it did, they both faced the crowd, hands linked tight. Through the deepest valleys of his life, it had been that way.
Bodies filled in around them as the bass thumped and the lights flashed. Breck still had her hand and when she turned away, he brought her around. They were pressed together in the center of the dance floor – the heart of it.
"The spark's alive and well," he said over the music. Neither of them moved much, used to the simple sway of the other.
Nicole's gaze wandered the crowd. "No, Breck, it died when you left."
One thing Breck had learned from her was when she said or did one thing, often times it meant something else. She'd been a very good teacher. He had the battle scars to prove it.
He wrapped his arms around her. "What we had couldn't be extinguished by time."
"Don't be so cocky, Noon." It was the name she'd always used when she was angry with him. Hearing it now only pleased him, even as she placed her hands on his chest and pushed. "That was your biggest problem, once the world knew who you were."
"No.You were my biggest problem." He leaned to her then, covering her mouth with his.
She could barely think. Her heart was beating faster than the music; too fast. Her breath vanished and everything about him threatened to consume her. In the deepest corners of her heart, a place he alone had had ownership of, she wished that she could take back time.
Needing air, needing space, she pushed against him and freed herself.
Without a word, she forced her way through the crowd to the door. Tears, hot and humiliating, burned her eyes as she shoved the door open and let the cool of the night sting her face. When the door paused just after her, she closed her eyes, hoping it was he that had followed her. Always, he'd followed her.
But her shoulders remained chilled and she found herself alone. Fighting the cold, she rubbed her arms and the tears fell. Nicole took in a deep breath and wiped her cheeks. She had vowed to hurt him, just like he'd hurt her. She'd promised herself that when this moment came, she would be strong, but her heart was threatening betrayal. She missed the heat, the spark, the electricity that had kept them joined, like two opposite forces that, when brought together, made their strength as one. One, that's what they'd been for years, since that awkward day when Reuben had pushed them both together and said, "Dance."