He arrives just before the music ends.
Quiet.
Uninvited — yet expected.
He watches from the doorway,
shoulder pressed to the frame,
breathe caught in his throat,
like a note she hasn't played yet.

She moves —
back arched,
legs slicing the air with velvet control,
spine rippling like water remembering touch.
A black leotard, sheer and near-sinful, clings to her
like it knows what he’s thinking, like it knows everything.
Tutu teasing the curve of her hips.
And beneath, he imagines —
lace, maybe silk.
Nothing more.
Nothing else.

She finishes the last sequence
in a hush of breath and power.
Hair pinned but threatening to fall.
Her eyes meet his in the mirror.
Not startled.
Not shy.
Just aware.
Utterly, devastatingly aware.

He’s hard.
Painfully so.
The kind of hard that builds
from watching,
from not touching,
from knowing her discipline
is part of what undoes him.
He feels the first slick pulse of need —
a warm insistence
gathering beneath denim,
like his body can’t wait
for permission.

She doesn’t speak.
She doesn’t need to.
The studio empties around them,
yet the air thickens.
She walks towards him,
slow, deliberate,
each step a promise.
Her nipples tight beneath that black second skin,
tiny peaks that beg to be taken
between lips or teeth.

He wants to kneel.
To drag that tutu up,
pull her against the glass
and worship with his mouth —
the salt of her skin,
the silk of her thighs,
the heaven between them.

But he waits, even when he is burning.
Because she is grace.
And he, he's hers.

She reaches him.
Doesn’t speak.
Just rests her palm flat on his chest,
feeling the war drum thunder beneath.

He leans in,
his voice a rasp at her ear:
“You have no idea what you do to me.”

Her answer is a kiss —
not chaste, not rushed —
not even close,
the kind that stakes a claim.
Tongue sliding over tongue,
bodies straining not to give in too soon.

They won’t fuck yet.
Not here.
Not now.
But they will remember this moment
when they do —
how control slipped like soap in a shower.

The mirror watches.
The room holds its breath.
And their bodies burn
for what comes next.