Elite ballerina Allie Rousseau is no stranger to pressure. With her mother’s eyes always watching, perfection was expected, no matter the cost. But when an injury jeopardizes all she’s sacrificed for, Allie returns to her summer home to heal and recover. But the memories she’s tried to forget rush in and threaten to take her under.
As a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, Hudson Ellis knows that hesitation can mean the difference between life and death. He’s always prided himself on being in the right place at the right time, especially when it came to Allie Rousseau…until the night he left for basic. After the biggest regret of his life, the secrets he keeps mean he can never be with the one woman he wants more than his next breath.
When Hudson’s niece shows up on Allie’s doorstep, desperate to find her birth mother, Allie finds herself in an unimaginable position. Allie and Hudson’s past and present might be endlessly complicated. The thread that tied them to each other all those years ago may have unraveled, but the truth could pull them back together, or drive them apart forever.
Why You Should Read This Book
Tropes
Trigger Warnings
Variation
“I’m not breaking up with Allie. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever, if I get a say. Letting her go was the worst mistake I’ve ever made in my life, and I’ll be damned if your inability to pull your head out of your ass is going to cost me the only chance I have with her.”
“Seriously, though. That’s what does it for you? Bated breath and glimmers? Let me guess—he doesn’t tell you he’s about to come, he declares that he’s arriving.”
“I meant what I said. Every word of it. And if you want to use someone for an escape, then it’s me you’ll be using. Sure, I’d like you to fuck me because you need me, but I’ll take you however I can get you, Allie.”
“I want an explanation as to why my best friend couldn’t be bothered to show up when I needed him most. You had days before you had to report to basic.”
“It took me until that second summer to realize what the feeling was, but I fell for her the first day I met her. She was clinging to the side of the world’s oldest rowboat, and she lifted her chin and demanded I get Eva to safety first, even though she was bleeding. She asked if I had siblings and said there was nothing more important to her than her sisters. I was a goner and didn’t even know it.”
“You broke my heart. Maybe we were just friends, but you broke my heart.”
“We’re on the same team, Anne. I want what’s best for Juniper and Allie. The only place our interests diverge is Caroline, who I will choose over you every time, just like you’d choose your own sister. Same team. Stop trying to draw my blood. Leaving Allie the first time bled me dry already.”
“You know, Allie’s walls were about six feet high as a teenager, just short enough for me to peek over. I was never foolish enough to think she let me all the way in, not with the way you Rousseau girls keep secrets for each other. But now, those walls are thick as hell and easily twenty feet tall, if not more, which is fine—I know how to climb—but we both know those bricks aren’t all because of me.”
“You have to stop dating those dancers. If you can’t tell someone’s working their ass off for you, then they don’t deserve you.”
“To be flawlessly convincing, you should unblock my number so you can get ahold of me, assuming that’s why you never picked up any of the times I tried to call you.”
“So while sure, it makes me jealous that there are a couple of guys here who have seen you naked, I actually feel sorry for them because they’ll never have you again. But I will. First means nothing. Last means everything.”
“I’m the one who needs you. I need you, I always have.”
“But the Rousseau sisters always had the look-but-don’t-touch vibe, and a touch-them-and-I’ll-ruin-you mother, and while I let that torch burn bright and hot before letting it go, Hudson here still carries his, and now that she’s been back in town a couple of weeks? Hudson is the Death Star, and that woman is Luke, about to blow his ass up.”
“You, Allie. You scared the shit out of me. Do you have any idea what you mean to me? You’re my air. And I know you don’t even want to think about going there when it comes to us, that you need things all neat and tidy, but I’m already there. Messy. Tangled. So wrapped up in you that I couldn’t breathe in that ER because I needed to be here with you.”
“So what? Until now, I’ve only dated women I knew wouldn’t ask for a ring. Things change, and I don’t give a shit who she’s dated before, because she’s with me now.”
“I’ve already told you that you’re remarkable. You’ve only been doing this for five months. Give yourself grace, but check your ego. I just told you why you aren’t ready for pointe, not that you suck. You don’t. Ballet is a lifetime of development, of never settling for the skills you have now, knowing that you might be phenomenal, but still striving for that unattainable feeling of perfection.”
“Denying you the little orgasm you almost took so I can ruin you with the one I’m going to give you.”
“I cared about you. That was a mistake I never made again. Sex is fun—necessary, even—and keeping the same partner allows for a certain level of comfort I prefer. But I don’t get jealous because I don’t get attached.”
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