A flash of sparkling white enters my vision and I open my arms instinctively, knowing it’s my girl. My angel. My Posy. I catch her up against my chest and heave a choked sound, cradling her and stumbling under the onslaught of sensations. My blood warms, head clearing. I can breathe better. I’m no longer caked in ice.
“I’m sorry,” I say gruffly into her fragrant neck, running my hands all over her. Assuring myself that she is real. “I love you and I’m sorry. I will live in the sun. I’ll live in your sun and I’ll be the sun for you, too. Forgive me. Forgive me for not grabbing the privilege of being your man with both hands. I am now. I’m not human without you.”
With her legs wrapped around my waist, she leans in, pressing our foreheads together, love shining in her eyes. “I was coming back to you after the show.”
Her grace knows no bounds. “After everything?”
“After everything.” Moisture shines in her eyes. “I love you too much to stay away.”
Baker moves in my periphery and I twist around, shielding Posy with my body and growling at him over my shoulder. “Aren’t you two so fucking cute? You’re nothing but the trash under my feet. Neither one of you amounts to anything without me—”
A ballerina hits him over the head with a prop.
My brother goes down hard. Unconscious.
The remaining audience applauds, causing Posy to giggle into my neck.
And of course, of course the musical, carefree sound stiffens my dick in a hot second. “Where can we be alone?” I whisper against her mouth. “I haven’t been inside of you in hours, little girl. How do I change that?”
She hums playfully, flexing her thighs on my hips. “First, you take me to my dressing room where we can touch each other. And then we go home. To my place or yours. It doesn’t matter, as long as we’re together.” I’m already walking backstage, grunting a thank you to the avenging ballerinas as I pass, my heart in my throat over Posy’s words. “Then we get started planning forever together.”
Heat brands the back of my eyelids. “Forever in the sun.”
Our mouths melt into a slow, winding kiss. “You are the sun,” she whispers. “You’ve just been behind a cloud. It’s gone now.”
“Gone,” I repeat thickly, kicking open the door of the dressing room she indicates, pulse sounding in my ears in the rhythm of her name. “It’s only us.”
“Only us,” she agrees when I set her down, drop into a kneel and begin peeling the tights down her legs, unraveling her ribbons and slippers, putting them aside. Kissing the mound beneath her tutu with reverence. Lick between her folds to find her sopping wet. Panting, I stand and unzip, throwing my ballerina up against the door, that ass back in my grip where it belongs. “Now climb on and rut Daddy back to life.”
Epilogue
Posy
Five Years Later
I pout at my husband, arching my back where I’ve been posing on the padded table for hours. “How much longer?”
“Almost done,” he says, gruffly, staring hard at my thighs and shaking his head slowly. “Believe me, I’m ready for bed, too.”
I pretend to be doubtful, even though the proof that he very much wants to take me upstairs to bed is thick behind his fly. “Are you, though? Like, really?”
Smith bares his teeth at me. “If the people who commissioned this piece weren’t coming in the morning, you would already be passed out, full of my come, little girl. And you damn well know it.”
My clitoris throbs between my legs. “That’s how I fall asleep most nights,” I say, running my fingers up my ribcage. “Maybe you should have me pose like that.”
“It would hang it in our bedroom. I’d never sell it to anyone.”
“You have nine pieces of your work hanging in our bedroom, husband.” I giggle, and a muscle flexes in his cheek. “When people buy a piece of artwork featuring me, there is no guarantee they will ever receive it. You end up keeping half of them.”
“That’s the risk they take when they buy a depiction of my world-famous wife.” He stands up, wincing at the bob of his erection. With a hand wrapped around his stiffness, Smith crosses the room in measured steps and the closer he gets, the heavier I start to breathe. We’ve spent countless hours in our house’s downstairs art studio, Smith modeling his glass work after me. After the first one sold for over a million dollars at auction, he became a household name in the art world, well known for being temperamental and possessive about my image…while also insisting that the world shouldn’t be deprived of my talent.
Smith has become a very rich man in his own right, but he has no use for the money, so most of his commissions end up on our wall. Personally, I think he just likes me sitting in one place. Posing. Being with him.
Sometimes I wonder if he has any intention of selling any of them ever again.
And if he doesn’t? So be it. My run as Giselle was a critically acclaimed success—after the wildness of opening night, of course. My love of dancing was recaptured after Smith set my soul free, reminding me how to soar. I’m a coach now within the same company and teaching our two young daughters ballet in my spare time.
There are truly no words to describe my happiness. But I’ll try.