All Chapters of LOOK ME IN THE HEART: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

She could still hear the doctor’s verdict… ‘The knee isn’t working the way it's supposed to, Blaze… I know it’s not what you needed to hear, but… you can’t go on. As a ballerina, this is the end of the road for you. I’m sorry.’ No, she couldn’t stop now. All she needed to do was work even more. In time, the pain will go away. No, this wasn’t the end of the road. Dancing was her reason to be… it has been since she was three years old. Dammit! This injury could not have happened at a worse moment. The Company was preparing ‘Swan Lake’, the most known, loved, and extremely difficult ballet in the dancing world. It has some of the most notorious steps in ballet repertory. There were still so many rehearsals to attend… And Violet had some problems with those 32 fouettés. On their last rehearsal, the last five of them were quite slow. Odile/The Black Swan was as important as Odette/The White Swan, so Violet needed to pay the same amount of

As always when he thought of Blaze, Fabien pictured her on stage, standing in a circle of light, her small, elegant body arched into a perfect ‘arabesque’. Then came the memories of her as a woman, laughing with him on the ratty couch in the dump of a house they’d shared with two other dancers, or lounging on the back porch in the hot evening air. False memories, he knew. Gilded by time and distance. Blaze couldn’t possibly be as funny, as warm and beautiful and sensual as he remembered her. He’d turned her into a symbol of everything he’d given up.“So, what are you going to do now?” Willow asked as she slid a box across the floor to join the others he’d stacked against the wall. Fabien deliberately misunderstood her.“Well, I’m going to finish packing these boxes, then find someplace warm to have a cold beer,” he said. She rolled her eyes.“Would you stop, please? I mean… What are you going to do next? What are you going to do now that you’ve

She gazed at him for a few seconds then smiled slightly.“Yeah, it’s been too long…” Blaze whispered. “Way too long.” A small silence fell as they both savored their wine.“Do you want to talk about what happened?” Fabien asked after a while. “Call people names, throw a tantrum? I’m happy to listen if you do.” Blaze drew her legs up so that she was sitting cross-legged.“I wasn’t ready for this... forced exit. I mean, they told me the surgery was a long shot, but I’ve always been a good healer. I did everything they asked of me. I followed the rehabilitation schedule guided by Patrick Rump, I did yoga, Pilates… I did every single thing. It has been so hard and the pain has been excruciating, but the knee was getting better. If they’d just given me more time… just a few days more, maybe…” She looked down and saw that her left hand was clenched over her knee, while her right was strangling the glass.“What did the doctor say?”“Oh, that man… A bun

Fabien woke to find himself curled into Blaze’s back, her butt nestled into the cradle formed by his hips and thighs. One of his arms was wrapped around her chest. He was painfully hard, his erection pressed against the roundness of her backside. So much for the protection of his briefs. His hand had somehow crept beneath her T-shirt to rest beneath the lower curve of her breasts. He could feel her ribs expand and contract as Blaze breathed in and out. Bon Dieu… She felt good. Small and sleek and feminine. He knew he should back off, roll away before she woke, and realized where she was and who he was, and what was happening in his underwear but his mind and his body ignored his thought. All Fabien wanted, right that instant, was to flex his hips and press himself against her… He wanted it so badly that it hurt. His whole body tensed as he imagined sliding his hand a few vital inches and cupping her breast… feel it,

“Blaze… Chérie… No…”“Please, I can do it, Fab. I really can. I’m here, I’m available and you desperately need a model… Even if I’m in Paris for other reasons, it seems that fate brought us together again to help each other out in moments of crisis like the ones we are going through. Come on… Think about it…” Her passionate speech felt kinda flat, since, just by looking at Fabien, Blaze knew he was still going to say no. Blaze could tell by the way his eyes darkened and his jaw tensed. She had no idea if she was the right model for what he wanted to do. But as soon as the idea popped into her head, it felt right, perfect. Especially given the realization she’d woken to this morning.“Okay, before you say no, hear me out, please,” she said. “This morning, while staying in bed a few minutes more, I’ve started to think about my situation and I took an interesting decision that involves me and my future.” Fabien said nothing, so Blaze took that as a good sign