CLOSING NIGHT: Driven Dance Theater Romance Series, Book 2 (Standalone)

  CLOSING NIGHT

  Driven Dance Theater Series, Book 2

  BRIANNA STARK

  Copyright © 2020 by Brianna Stark

  www.briannastarkauthor.com

  First edition, May, 2020

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, or other electronic or mechanical methods, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978-1-7770067-6-1

  Cover Design: Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations

  Editing: Amanda Bidnall Editing and Writing

  Please note: This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, business, locations, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales or actual events is purely coincidental.

  For Randall.

  WELCOME TO DRIVEN DANCE THEATER

  All of the stories in the Driven Dance Theater series take place in a thriving dance company in Manhattan. CLOSING NIGHT is Book 2 in the series.

  Want to know more about Driven Dance Theater?

  Join my VIP LIST and receive LIGHTS UP (Driven Dance Theater, Book 0) for free, exclusive content, and release updates. Or CLICK HERE to hang out with me at Brianna’s Driven Readers Group where we can get to know each other better.

  Hint: Did you know I used to be a professional dancer? Yup, it’s part of the reason I decided to write a dance company romance series. I also love romance novels.

  You can also contact me via my website: www.briannastarkauthor.com

  I would love to hear from you!

  XO,

  Brianna

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Author note

  Sneak Peek of DRESS REHEARSAL

  CHAPTER ONE

  About the Author

  Also by BRIANNA STARK

  1

  “We did it again, babe.” Patrick’s breath crawls down my neck as I slap away the fingers reaching for my hips.

  “Hands to yourself, mister.” My neck tilts and my lashes lower as I say it.

  No one would’ve believed it a month ago, but it’s true. Tonight, we pulled off another masterpiece. Driven Dance Theater’s artistic director pops a bottle of champagne and steps onto a black box backstage. A technician hands him a microphone.

  “After one long and crazy season, I think it’s safe to say we now know everything about one another.” The temperamental genius takes command of the room, and he spots me through the crowd. My heart palpitates as his sly smile turns the heads of company members, artistic staff, and technical crew my way. “And if there’s still something you don’t know about someone, just ask Londyn.”

  I mouth, “I’ll get you back,” and everyone laughs.

  Thing is, I am not laughing or thinking about anything other than the way Patrick keeps looking at me from my side, the palm of his hand warming my back. The director moves on to his next target. I wiggle my spine away from Patrick’s touch to concentrate. A male soloist whistles loudly, and the unified group making up the backstage space divides into smaller fractions. Patrick reaches for two flutes of champagne and hands me one.

  I take a sip and cross my arms over my chest, feeling the heat of his body next to mine. His full pink lips smile at me, and I instinctively sink into the side of his muscular arm. It was a huge stretch to work with him so intensely after our devastating breakup last year, and what are we now—‘friends’? I step away and clutch the stem of my glass. Tightly. Patrick and I called a truce when Kent Morgan asked us to work on the same team for his monumental departure year. We would be amicable, but that was it.

  “Stop looking at me like that.” I roll my eyes and look away, feeling the corners of my lips creep upward.

  The way his gaze is on me, the way his rugged jawline makes way for his full lips, the way that long rock star hair I’ve always loved brushes over his square shoulders, has me temporarily weak. His chilled green eyes are as clear as the Atlantic and spiced with earthy tones of brown. They flicker into mine teasingly, but the weight of his gaze lifts with one of his renowned half-baked smiles and a raspy chuckle. His masculine scent draws me into his tall and toned frame. It was an emotional and highly successful premiere after the tense and drawn-out months working up to it.

  With Patrick so close, it’s hard to breathe. Think. It’s been so long since I let myself feel anything, never mind the desire I spent the entire season determined to escape: him. We gravitate closer so his breath heats the top of my ear. “Why don’t you want me to look at you, Londyn?” Gaze heavy. Voice husky.

  Earlier this evening, before the curtains went up and the performers took their places on the stage, I wouldn’t have dared to dream it. But now… I let out a breath and close my eyes. It was such a fucking fantastic night. Branwen killed it, the press ate it up, and the fans were more than thrilled. The music, the costumes—the whole thing—was a dream, and Patrick’s affections seemed to grow stronger every day.

  My feelings for him: stronger every day.

  “Because it makes me want to leave here.” I lift my lashes and pull down a tight swallow. “With you.”

  He brushes a tangle of my hair over my shoulder. I have the kind of thick, curly hair that I can barely run a comb through at the end of the day, and I’ve given up on straightening it.

  “Then come home with me.” Patrick’s focus cuts into mine. I slam my eyes shut, tugged in opposite directions. The familiar scent of him seeps through my seams.

  Dizzy. I can’t seem to make myself sane. Every part of my being is up against the hard wall of my better judgment. I was so broken two years ago when he left Manhattan for Los Angeles to cut his first album with my nemesis, leaving me hanging. I’m just starting to get my groove back.

  I look away. Everyone in the room is elated, loose, and ready to go home with someone to celebrate the success tonight. Maybe if I gave into every impulse in my body, I could purge my attraction to him for good.

  “Just one night, though.” I lick my lips with a thick swallow. I cannot believe what I’m suggesting. I don’t want to wait, either. Even if the thought is crazy, the faster I get him out of my system the better. There’s a tingling in my crown. Just go with it. I exhale and take one last breath of surrender as I place my hand in his, and we leave the backstage room without formal goodbyes.

  The rest is a blur. The valet hands off the keys, the passenger door to the vintage sports car is held open, my head ducks through the frame and falls back into the leather seat cushion, his fingers force back the stick, a wash of city lights and people zoom by, and we reverse into park with a halt. The car is gone and we are on the top step, the same one I know well, because I used to live here with him, but now it’s different. My tense fingers scrape at the back of my neck, and they knock Patrick in the face on their way to reach for him. He lifts me off my feet and pulls me inside, b
efore I can say…

  “Sorry,” I stammer, because there’s more to the apology than the scratch to his brow. Although right now I am not sure he’d notice if I took out his eye.

  Then it hits me. The smell comes first. Then the sounds, like the loud hum of the old air-conditioning unit lodged in the window that takes me back. The last time I was in this apartment, we had a huge fight. I packed my things and left. He took off to the other side of the country in pursuit of his success shortly after. It wasn’t the first time a man in my life destroyed the relationships around him in the name of achievement.

  I pull my hand from his grip and make a turn for the door. “Sorry, but this…” My breath catches. I turn away from him before he can see my eyes burn.

  His wide palm warms the side of my arm.

  “Just one night,” he whispers, as though he is also reassuring himself. Right. That was why I came here in the first place. Dammit.

  “Promise?” My eyes slice to his, even though it’s not his decision. It’s my own rebellious self I’m reasoning with.

  “If that makes you happy.” His voice is thick breath. Reassurance. By his raw expression, we’re not here tonight because I’m the only one who can’t keep it together.

  One night. Okay. Possibly. Maybe.

  “Branwen killed it. The costumes were…” I remind myself of what we are celebrating and perhaps the reason behind my uncharacteristic behavior.

  “Your best.”

  His mouth quiets mine. Finally. His fingertips catch over my damp cheek, and then trail down the top of my neck, and everything in me stills. My Alexander Wang handbag falls to the floor, and I stumble out of my Gianvito Rossi heels. Soft. Sweet. Nostalgic.

  Lost.

  The hum of his lips vibrates over me. “So many nights thinking about this.” He mumbles into my mouth as his lips crash over mine. Hunger.

  “Babe,” his voice is raspy when we stop to breathe. One second I am pouring myself into him, the next everything in me comes to a halt.

  What the fuck are we doing?

  My limbs are rigid and I can’t make myself move or stop, frozen somewhere in between. I want him so badly, and yet I thought I would never go there again.

  “Kiss me,” I blurt to quiet the rest of me and he nods quickly, before he weaves his fingers through my hair at the nape of my neck. He lowers his full lips to mine, making me a goner.

  The bottom of his black T-shirt is clenched in my fists to pull it over his head, and his lips stretch into a sexy smile. I almost forgot what a beautiful body he has. Almost. It startles. His six-pack ripples as he kicks off his pants. My hand stops midair before I lower my fingers to his bare shoulders. He gives me an amused look, but it doesn’t irritate me that in this moment his confidence shines through. There’s a deep insecurity in the pits of his eyes. I touch his warm bicep, the angular lines of his chest. His dark nipples are erect. There’s a low growl in his throat. He lifts me off my feet.

  His mouth tastes like champagne as his hands cup my bottom. My fingers hold his face close to mine and then spread around the back of his neck. I land on the bed.

  “Wait.”

  I sit up and press my hand to his rising and falling chest, trying my best to bring in air. There’s a dark cloud over our heads.

  I close my eyes and try to push it away, but it’s thin like smoke and slides through my digits.

  “Whatever you need. Whatever you want.”

  Patrick anchors us to the physical moment, as he strokes back my hair. There was a time I trusted him with my life. There was a time there was no black cloud.

  His plump lips scorch my neck, and I gasp.

  “This is…” I try to get the words out, but they are lost.

  “Babe?”

  His voice is deep and rugged. This time when his hips press against me, I am reminded of how well endowed he is and how well he’s mastered what he’s been given. It’s also at the spot that’s a little higher and achier, and my eyelids jam together as I let out a raspy moan. My fingers tense in to his silky skin. He looks up with green eyes that come in waves, for me to okay what comes next. And I guess I do, because I’m on my back, and he is unbuttoning my blouse.

  One night. Not a big deal. Or is it? The black cloud is back. My spine arches, and my lips part wide for air as his teeth trace the outside of my bra, and his thumb sweeps over my pant zipper.

  “Patrick?”

  I struggle to gather my voice, and lift myself upright and onto my elbows with what strength I have left.

  “Patrick.”

  I try again this time with more sound, but he’s as lost in this as I am.

  His eyelids are hooded. “What is it, babe? You okay?”

  I am about to make the next move and take this to the next level, when I notice the gold record on the wall—and remember what Patrick gave up for it to get there. I was never going to open my heart again, only for it to be crushed. At least not while I worked in the arts in Manhattan. Ambition and love do not mix well.

  His Atlantic gaze sears through me. It’s like I am deep in a dream where I can’t find the words. There is no simple answer.

  “Just…” I suck in a shallow breath. Patrick watches. Dark, knowing, beautiful. A cool breeze hisses through the air conditioner, which makes my skin taut with dimples.

  “What is it, Londyn? Tell me.”

  His thumb strokes my stained cheek as his brow wrinkles.

  I slam my lids shut. The black cloud called the past is back. It’s written all over the walls, rising through the floorboards, and hovering in the air above us like a plume of smoke.

  I rub my hands over my face, fast. With the sudden urge to escape, I jump out of bed, not bothering to button up my blouse. I just hold the two sides messily together, while I wiggle my toes into a heel and try not to fall over. I avoid looking as he stands up, so beautiful half-naked and, through his jeans, hard. Shit.

  “Don’t do this,” he says.

  But I do. I go.

  2

  Two months later

  Nothing compares to autumn in Manhattan: the crisp blue sky and jagged patches of shadow carving out their geometry on the gray pavement.

  There’s something about the way people point their eyes down the sidewalks, on a mission as they clutch designer—or knock-off—handbags at their sides and commute in thick streams through the gridlock.

  Even the way the skyscrapers point straight up and loom overhead—the sheer drop from above—reminds you of how much higher you have to go and makes the concept of success that much more vivid.

  In one of the most industrious cities, at a time of year when most people’s brains are rewired back to their main goal, you can almost smell it: the sweet scent of ambition mixed with the perfume of new beginnings.

  At least that’s the fragrance that films the back of my nostrils as I walk up the cement steps to the ultra-contemporary uptown structure that is home to the world’s best dance company. As the resident costume designer, my position seems to have bled into more of an advisory role on the artistic staff, which makes it hard not to take the company’s success personally.

  It’s relatively quiet in the stark halls of Driven Dance Theater.

  The kind of quiet that isn’t very quiet at all.

  I’m rounding the corner after a quick exit from the elevator when the sound of fingertips hammering on piano keys thunders through the white, modern walls.

  I stop by the viewing room located above the main rehearsal studio. Company class is in full swing down below. Through the glass walls, dancers can be seen in black uniform suits, biting down on their lips in concentration as they look up from the corner of their eyes to see who’s there.

  I wave a tight little wave at Lexi, and she shakes her booty my way while showing off a new haircut. Simone blows me a kiss.

  “Concentration, people.” Sergeant Katherine claps her hands in the air.

  Limbs brush the sticky dance floor as though it is skating ice.


  It smells like the beginning of something. You can hear it buzz silently through the air, hidden under the old classical notes.

  Rick presses a bottle to his lips, splashing water as he gulps between exercises at the barre. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand. Daniela moves through an adagio with her skinny long limbs and furrowed plucked brows.

  “Daniela.” Katherine cues her by pointing to the same spot on her own face just above the bridge of the nose. “This isn’t Les Mis, and you aren’t an orphan.”

  Daniela unfurrows her brow with a tight nod and forces her eyes toward the wall-sized mirror.

  Swish.

  Her leg slices the air. Katherine’s pointed chin turns. The muscles and veins bulge in her neck.

  “Did any of you take a single class over the summer break?” She shakes her head, addressing the room. “This isn’t a spaghetti house, people. It’s a dance company,” she says, even though the room is nothing but tight and smiling at Katherine’s tough love.

  Katherine rests her hands on Rebecca’s hips. “What is this, the Wild West?” She winks while holding her hands firm, and Rebecca grins.

  Natalie’s leg hovers in ronde de jambe. Fingers flutter. Foot arches. The joints on her big toes look like round eyes. Katherine gently brushes her finger along the crest of her foot and then waves the dancers off the floor.

  There are bodies littered on the sidelines, and then there are the ones taking the floor.