And he was. Gorgeous.
First, he was tall. Because I was just a bit over five-eight, I liked men I had to look up to. Second, there were the broad shoulders and wide chest, that wholeVshape to the man that I was a fan of. His legs were long and muscular, stretching the vintage denim they were encased in, and the fact that he was wearing those sinfully tight jeans with a dress shirt, blazer, and Prada dress shoes made my breath catch. A well-dressed man was a huge turn-on.
Honestly, though, it wasn’t the clothes, it was his eyes. He had big, deep dark-brown eyes with the long lashes I’d only ever seen in Renaissance paintings and Japanese manga. His brows were thick and expressive, and he had great cheekbones and a beautiful mouth with lips made for kissing. I was as thunderstruck as Maven, both of us probably looking like simpletons, standing there in the kitchen, staring and drooling. She left seconds later, making a beeline for him. She was a principal dancer, always moving gracefully and powerfully at the same time, so I didn’t even wait to watch her reach him. I knew he’d be entranced in moments. Instead, I went back to what I was doing, even though my mouth was dry from hanging open when I was staring at him.
I was mixing drinks when I was asked if I needed help.
Turning, I looked straight ahead, then had to tilt my head back to meet the bottomless brown eyes of the man I’d been lusting after. “Sorry?” I asked brilliantly, nearly breathless.
It was stupid. I’d been all over the world, seen millions of stunning men, slept with hundreds, danced with more, and yet nothing and no one had prepared me for him. Something about the warmth in his gaze, his smile, his laugh lines, and the sound of his voice, all husky and low, made me want to slide right into his space. I was betting there were miles of hot, sleek skin under his clothes. I really wanted to put my hands all over him, and that in itself was a revelation.
Normally it took me a moment to notice people. I wasn’t, as a rule, much of an observer. I missed things. Not dogs or kittens, not mountains or sunsets, and definitely not designer shoes I coveted but couldn’t wear since they would hurt my feet. Those things I noticed. But people, men in particular, snuck up on me. Whenever I was asked out, I was always surprised when a particular man appeared before me. And many of them, more than not, were handsome. Stunning even. I once had a one-night stand with an Italian race car driver who was voted one of the most beautiful men in the world. Yes, he was pretty, but more pretty thanxnumber of people on the planet? I always wondered who made those determinations. How could that possibly be judged. No one knew everyone else in the entire world, so to say that, to make an absolute call on someone being beautiful and then putting “in the world” next to their name seemed, if not hyperbole, then vastly uninformed. And I always thought that actors and actresses and models should automatically be stricken from the list. Of course they were all lovely; that was a given. But I’d met gorgeous bank tellers and mechanics in my life, waitresses I’d told to find an agent immediately because they could make money solely on their bone structure. After everything, I was fairly certain that beauty was truly in the eye of the beholder.
For me, that night, I understood that I was standing in front of my absolute ideal of beauty. It was surprising that brown eyes and brown hair, light stubble and a shy smile, had me utterly floored. He was somehow ordinary and luminous all at the same time. I understood how I would have, could have, easily passed him on the street without a second glance, and yet, there, in that moment, gazing up at him was like having the heat of the sun on my face.
“Who are you?” I barely got out.
The grin that made an appearance then, I could always spot thereafter, across a room, in a crowd, and never miss it. I could see the mischievous little boy he’d been in the rakish curl of his lip.
“I’m Eli Kohn.” He offered me his hand.“And you’re Celso Harrington. I’ve had the privilege of seeing you dance a few times now.”
Already, I was getting my bearings with him. Anyone who thought I was gifted, I could have a conversation with. I’d found that to be true most of the time. Because even if we ran out of things to talk about, I could fall back on my work. “Have you?”
“Yeah.” Eli looked down, sheepish, embarrassed, and then quickly up, meeting my gaze. “I’ve followed your career since you moved here from New York.”
But then I was back to being at a loss for words, which never happened to me, and since I didn’t want him to go, I was doubly screwed. How was I supposed to be witty and engaging if I was tongue-tied? It was the weirdest thing. Sometimes you met someone and knew your life was changing right there, right then, and you had the opportunity for something new, for an adventure; you just had to be brave and take their hand, metaphorically speaking. Sometimes, like for my mother, it was bad. She’d rolled the dice on my father, and he’d left her pregnant and alone with absolutely nothing. But she always said he gave her me, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You have to be fearless.”
She told me that often. And when we shook, he and I, I didn’t worry, and instead I simply jumped. Whatever we were going to be, I wanted. Because I could just tell—and couldn’t say how I knew—that he would stick. He was built loyal. I could read it on him like the words were written over his head. His subtitles were good. I needed that. I needed a rock. I’d been missing permanency since I lost my mother.
“Ask you a question?”
“Certainly,” I told him, feeling it then, the sudden ease that comes from talking to someone you already knew, or had known and were reconnecting with. My nervousness disappeared like it had never been there. I felt like we were already friends. I’d heard about things like that, just never experienced it before.
“How come you left New York?”
“That’s simple. I wanted to be a principal,” I informed him, moving around the kitchen, getting out the sugar to make some simple syrup for mixed drinks. “They had others they preferred. I said if I couldn’t move up, I was out, and they thought I was bluffing.”
“But you’re a soloist now, not a principal.”
I shrugged. “It won’t last. You’ll see.”
“I have no doubt, but…aren’t you worried about playing games?”
“I don’t play games,” I said, meeting his gaze. “In fact, I’m a bit too serious for most people.”
“Serious is good. I like serious.”
Of course he did. He was going to be my anchor, after all.
“So you left one soloist position for another. They must have thought you were nuts back in New York.”
“They did. Could you stir this?”
He moved quickly to comply, which I liked. I passed him the small whisk, and he stirred the sugar, waiting for it to go translucent as it heated.
“Go on,” he prompted.