Natasha (Little Girl Book 1) Page 2

  If she were honest, she couldn't count on what she would do next. She wasn't as steady as she pretended to be, but here among the barre and mirrors of her small class of twenty hopeful and bright-eyed students, she could pretend to be the ballerina who had commanded stages as awe-inspiring as the London's Royal Opera House and New York's beloved Broadway. Arming herself with a smile that she prayed reached her eyes, she glanced over the filling class, but then she froze. Her breath caught in her throat. He was here again.

  The blond. Correction, the big blond.

  He accompanied one of her most talented students, a slight girl of thirteen with big brown eyes and a broad smile that hid the powerful dancer capable of leaps that made even Natasha feel inspired to don her pointe shoes. Madeline danced with a joy that was contagious. She was the big blond's niece, but other than that, Natasha knew nothing else about the muscular man who graced her studio three times a week. He was broad-shouldered and well-muscled, something that even his loose sweats and zip-up hoodies couldn't hide. He had sparkling blue eyes that always seemed to find Natasha's green ones when she didn't anticipate it. Like the ocean or a bright summer day, which irritated her because the two images never failed to make her smile, which meant that an unbidden smile, a true smile, never failed to appear on her lips whenever the blond man looked her way. It was a chain reaction. Her smiles brought a grin to his lips that always made Natasha wonder what it would feel like to have his mouth against hers. His lips seemed out of place on such a muscular man, too sensuous for the angular jaw, high cheekbones, aquiline nose, and sun-kissed skin that made up his handsome face.

  Natasha felt the smile on her face before she was aware of even having smiled, and she blushed at the blond's ability to elicit such a response from her.

  Natasha lowered her eyes and shook her head at herself. She had once been courted by New York's most eligible bachelors; there had never been a shortage of beautiful male dancers and directors vying for her attention. She'd had a brief dalliance with a senator at the start of her career, and her mother's favorite story after too many cocktails was the British lord who had proposed to Natasha after seeing her rendition of Swan Lake in London. Yet here she was, blushing and smiling like some provincial girl. It was during moments like this that her new life seemed surreal.

  The blond had a way of throwing everything around her in high contrast; even her own reflection seemed more vibrant, sharper than she had grown accustomed to seeing. And that meant that Natasha did her very best to avoid the blond like the plague.

  She didn't even know his name, a feat that had been painstakingly carried out, given the small nature of the dance school. She knew that her mother and grandmother knew his name, which led to an even bigger reason Natasha avoided the man. She knew that if she expressed the smallest bit of interest in him, the two older women would stop at nothing until she was sitting across from him in a restaurant that served far too small portions while a waiter offered them overpriced wine by candlelight.

  The blond's comfortable sweats and sneakers would vanish, replaced by a tasteful suit, maybe a tie, and his corn silk blond hair, which always fell haphazardly over his forehead, would be styled and combed perfectly. If there was anything her mother and grandmother loved equally, it was a sharply dressed man, which was what they would form the blond into before allowing her to get close to him.

  Natasha didn't need fancy suits or expensive dinners; she liked him just as he was. And that was the crux of it, the catch 22 of showing interest in the man who accompanied Madeline to her lessons. He didn't appear sloppy in the casual sweats that he wore. Somehow, the soft cotton of his shirt, the athletic cut of his sweats, the unzipped sweatshirt hoodies that he jammed his hands into as he waited for Madeline all seemed to fit him like a glove. Armani and Gucci tailors could be brought to their knees at how beautifully the simple garments fit the blond's seemingly perfect physique. Thick, muscular thighs, a trim torso that tapered from wide muscular shoulders, and equally sculpted biceps that stretched the sleeves of his shirts just so set Natasha's heart beating a tiny bit faster.

  Simply put, the blond was beautiful. Gorgeous, even.

  Natasha wouldn't allow the matriarchs of her family to meddle in his simple beauty. It was better to observe him from afar, from the corners of her eyes, in the reflections of the mirrors that lined the walls, or in brief glances as she bid Madeline goodnight.

  Natasha smoothed her hands over her hips and down the sides of her leotard. Flexing her feet, she limbered her ankles out by briefly rising en pointe. She liked to do it from time to time to stay warm between classes, and she loved how wide her students' eyes became when she did so with seemingly no thought, appearing to float as effortlessly as a butterfly. So she did so now and even gave a small turn, one leg raised behind her as she came to a stop and grasped the barre in front of her, lowering her nose to it with a small exhale. Even after everything, she felt at peace when her hands touched the wood of the barre. It was her anchor when her mind became too loud. The smooth wood under her fingers was a gentle reminder to breathe and move forward.

  "Heart steady," Natasha huffed to herself, eyes still closed as she flexed her fingers on the barre.

  A cough by her side made Natasha's eyes pop open. She looked and felt her blood go cold in her veins. It was the blond, hands in his pockets and his eyes on her reflection in the mirror in front of them. Abruptly, Natasha let go of the barre and lowered herself off her toes. Her hands went behind her back, and she schooled her features into a calm expression, one that did not bely how nervous she suddenly was at the blond's proximity.

  "That was beautiful," he said.

  Natasha's calm facade slipped at the words. Her mouth dropped open. She knew her cheeks were pink from the blush she felt creeping across her skin. "Oh." She closed her mouth and nodded slightly at him. "Thank you."

  "I, ah, I'm here with Maddy." The blond rubbed a hand over his face and jammed his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt. "I just, I wanted, well, I saw you just now, and I had to... I had to say something. Finally."

  "Madeline is a very talented student." The words burst out of Natasha before she could stop herself and she cursed her suddenly tongue-tied state. "I mean, she's a very hard-working girl."

  "Thanks for saying so." He grinned at her.

  "Of course." Natasha gave him a slight smile, her eyes darting to the clock ticking over the door, and she cleared her throat. "I should begin class. My grandmother will have me cleaning the entire school with a toothbrush if I'm even a minute late."

  "Russian discipline at its finest," the blond joked, but as soon as the words fell from his lips, he winced. "I mean, well, it's just that she seems very old school and I've heard about her, you know, in the Soviet Union…" He stopped speaking then and looked at his feet with a huff. "I'm going to stop speaking now. Sorry, that came out all wrong," he apologized.

  Natasha giggled, the sound surprising the both of them, and she clapped a nervous hand over her lips. "You're more right than you know," she said, her grin hidden behind her fingers. "You're observant that my grandmother has a penchant for the way things were, despite her midnight run to freedom. No need to apologize."

  He nodded and took a step back. "I'll let you get on with it. Thanks for not thinking I'm a complete idiot."

  "I don't th—" Natasha began, but he was speaking again, this time taking two steps closer to her until they were only a hand span away from one another. Natasha hated that she was instantly aware of his body heat, that she knew how little effort it would be to move her hand and have it touching him.

  "I'm Silas." He held a hand out to her.

  "Natasha," she replied, slipping her smaller hand into his.

  "I know." He gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

  At Silas' answer, Natasha felt like she stopped breathing. She met his eyes for a moment before she looked away and licked her lips. "I—"

  "It's on Maddy's paperwork, her schedule," Silas said quickly with a
gentle smile that set Natasha at ease.

  "Oh, yes, of course." She gave him as friendly a smile as she could manage before she clasped her hands in front of her. "I should really start class."

  "Of course." Silas cleared his throat and took a hasty step backward. "Have a, ah, a good class."

  Natasha paused before turning to the classroom of students. It was simultaneously exhilarating and frightening to have Silas' attention wholly focused on her. She had admired him for so long that finally speaking to him was almost like a guilty pleasure.

  "Thank you, Silas," she said. She liked how his name fit in her mouth.

  He gave her a curt nod and then turned on his heel and strode out of the room. Natasha wished she could say that she didn't stay rooted in her spot, staring after him like an infatuated teen, but that was precisely what she did until he turned the corner and disappeared from sight. Natasha allowed herself half a second more of staring after Silas before she clapped her hands in front of her to call the class to order. A moment of getting lost in Silas' eyes was okay, so long as she made sure not to indulge in her guilty pleasure again. A man like that was the type to make a woman forget herself, which was the exact opposite of what Natasha had in mind for the foreseeable future.

  Thankfully, she had the next ninety minutes of instructing her students to keep her mind from wandering too closely after Silas. She had just given her students their final series of turns to execute when a scowl twisted her pretty features, albeit only briefly before her cool veneer was back in place.

  The reason for her scowl was, of course, a man.

  But this man was not like Silas. He wasn't the type to make her forget herself or to cause her to lose her way in too-blue eyes. This man's eyes were hungry in a way she recognized from her time as a dancer. His looks were the type that took from a woman, the kind that made her skin feel like it needed a good scrubbing before it was fit to be touched again. He was the father of one of her students, a new one Natasha hadn't had much time to interact with.

  Though Natasha had wanted to voice her dislike about the father who lingered far longer than necessary after class, the man who invaded her space at every turn, who used any and every excuse to touch her, she hadn't. She wasn't sure what stopped her. Every time she had thought about approaching her mother about him, she had stopped herself because it seemed silly; he was only in her life for ten or so minutes at a time, after all. Every time he made her uncomfortable, it was with his daughter nearby, and that made Natasha question her distaste for him.

  However, during her last class, there was no mistaking the man's interest in her. He had invited her to coffee, an invitation that she had skirted around by giving an excuse that she was busy, that she didn't think it was best to mix the personal with business. The man had persisted until his daughter had pulled him away with an embarrassed look on her face. She had, for all her eleven years of age, understood that her teacher was uncomfortable, and Natasha had never been more grateful to the girl.

  Now she scanned the classroom, thinking of the girl, and raised an eyebrow when she saw that she wasn't in line with the rest of the students. How had she not noticed that the girl wasn't in her class today? Because you were too busy mooning after Silas, a voice whispered to her. Natasha fought the urge to roll her eyes at herself and turned her gaze back to the class, watching her students move through their paces. It filled her with more than a small measure of pride to watch them improve as dancers. Her time as their teacher made her self-exile from professional dance all the more bearable. It was hard to be upset with where she was in her life when she had so many eager and smiling students working their hardest to not only improve but to impress her. She smiled at them then and clapped as the final students spun across the studio floor.

  "That was beautiful," Natasha told them, her voice holding genuine warmth for them all. She saw the students' eyes light up at the praise, and her smile grew wider. "I think we will have the best spring recital of all this year, with so many fine dancers to cast. Don't you think?"

  A murmur of agreement rippled through the classroom, and her comment, Natasha saw, even pleased the parents whom she knew thought their sons or daughters were the next undiscovered star. Natasha stepped forward, ignoring the too intense father standing in the back corner, the furthest away from the rest of the students. It was when the students and parents began to filter out of the classroom that the father made his approach. Natasha's brow furrowed slightly as she tried to recall his name. She was almost positive it was Brandon. Brandon Peachtree. She gave him a neutral smile and nodded at him.

  "Mr. Peachtree. How are you this evening?"

  The man's eyebrow rose at the greeting, and he cleared his throat with a smile that seemed too slick to be genuine. Nothing like Silas. "Mr. Peachtree? Now, Natasha, I'd prefer it if you called me Brandon."

  Natasha took a step to the side, toward the door where there was still a small group of students waiting to be picked up, and inclined her head toward him. "Of course, Brandon."

  Brandon's eyes lit up at her use of his name, and he followed along beside her. "I wanted to speak with you...privately," he said, glancing at the cluster of people Natasha had been angling for. Internally, Natasha felt like screaming, but she couldn't let on that he bothered her. She knew men like Brandon. They took a no for a yes and seemed to thrive off of cornering a woman in the name of persistence, and Natasha had no intention of accidentally feeding into Brandon's advances.

  "What about?" she asked, keeping her voice calm and measured, all the while watching the number of students dwindle. Now there were only a couple left, which made her want to wrap up the conversation as quickly as possible to avoid being alone in the studio with Brandon.

  Brandon crossed his arms over his chest and said, "I know you said you weren't able to go on a date, but—"

  "I thought you assured me it wasn't a date. That it had been to discuss your daughter's progress in the class," she said, interrupting him.

  Brandon frowned and let out a sigh. "Well, yes, you know what I mean."

  "I'm sorry, but I don't think that I do." Natasha stepped around him when she noticed he was cutting her off from the few remaining students. He had now put himself between the students and Natasha, hiding her small frame behind his much larger one. She took a hasty step toward the center of the room so that she had the empty studio to her back rather than the barre that had just been at her fingertips. Something wasn't right. She could feel it in her bones, and she had no intention of finding out what was telling her to run, to get away from this man as fast as her slippered feet could carry her.

  Brandon let out an impatient sigh and tilted his head to the side, giving Natasha an annoyed look. "You know what I'm getting at. Don't play coy, Red."

  "Red?" Natasha's mouth dropped open. A shocked laugh escaped her. "Are you serious, sir?"

  "It's Brandon," he said through gritted teeth.

  "Sir, I think you should leave. I'm more than happy to discuss your daughter's progress in the class with you during normal school hours, but as you can see…" Natasha gestured to where the last student skipped through the doors with an excited look on their face. Natasha bit her lip when she saw that it was Madeline, which meant that it was Silas picking her up. She wished she was staring up at Silas and not Brandon, with his too hungry eyes, which gave her a sick feeling in her stomach.

  "I think right now works," Brandon said, his voice low. He took another step toward her, but not before glancing over his shoulder at the sound of the studio door clicking shut behind Madeline. "You can stop pretending now, Red. Everyone's gone."

  "I wish you would stop calling me that, Mr. Peachtree."

  "Brandon," he repeated, glaring at her. He took a step toward her and then another, until Natasha found herself backing up faster than her brain could process.

  Steady heart, she thought to herself as she began to search for a way out of her situation. Her mother and grandmother were both gone for the evening, and
her class was the last of the night, which meant that Natasha was all alone except for the off chance the janitor had arrived early. Her eyes darted over to where her duffel bag sat on the floor with her phone inside. If she could grab the bag and make it to the bathroom just outside the classroom, she would be able to lock herself inside and call for help. Looking back up at Brandon, Natasha licked her lips and cleared her throat to speak when he surprised her by suddenly reaching forward and grabbing her. His fingers dug roughly into her arms as he jerked her against him.

  "I see you licking your lips. You're a damn tease, aren't you, Red?" he growled, his breath hot on her face. "Like it rough. I know you do."

  Natasha twisted to the side and tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong. "Mr. Peachtree, let me go."

  "You think I don't see what you're playing at here? In this outfit that's barely clothing?" He gave her a shake, his eyes raking over her with a heat that made Natasha's stomach lurch. She wanted to cover up, to be anywhere but here, but no matter how hard she pulled back, Brandon only held fast to her.

  "Stop it!" Natasha raised her hands up and shoved as hard as she could. "Let me go or I'll—"

  "You'll what? You think I don't know why you dress the way you do? That I don't see the way you look at me?" Brandon was close now, pushing her back against the mirrored wall, his hands rough on her body and his hips grinding against her. Natasha could feel that familiar wave of panic that had dropped her to the floor her final night on stage. There was a roaring in her ears, and she swallowed hard, trying to stay on her feet while Brandon's breath was hot on her neck as he leered at her.

  Pleading with a man like this wasn't going to do anything. She had to do something—and fast. Otherwise, she was going to end up as just another statistic in the Brooklyn crime blotter. Just as she was mustering her strength to give another shove at Brandon's chest, a movement over his shoulder caught her eye, and she had a fleeting sense of hope. Maybe a parent had come back to grab a forgotten jacket. She could use the distraction to escape.