Quinn glanced at her folded clothes waiting by the sink: the old dance sweats she usually slept in, plus a flimsy T-shirt that would leave a few inches of midriff bare.

She glanced at her naked body in the mirror. The other dance girls were full of angles. Graceful angles, but angles nonetheless: a hip bone here, a sharp edge of shoulder there, a jawline practically cut from marble.

Quinn’s body was all sloping lines and curves.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She had a new worry: keeping Tyler interested so she had a place to sleep.

He’d been quiet in the truck, but it was an anxious sort of quiet. A nervous tension had clung to the vehicle, worrying her that any minute he’d pull over and demand that she get out.

“You’re like them,” she’d whispered finally, terrified that he’d snap and demand that she keep his secret.

“Like them?” he’d said flatly.

She’d had to lick her lips. “A full Elemental.”

But he hadn’t snapped. He’d just nodded.

That same tension was hanging around his apartment now. What would he do, now that she knew? It seemed like enough of a reason to put her out. Quinn pulled on the T-shirt and a pair of lace panties, then slapped a coy smile on her face and strolled out the door.

It sounded like all the air left Tyler’s lungs at once. Quinn kept walking, picked up a copy of Maxim magazine on her way to the couch, then sprawled suggestively against the cushions. She flipped open to the middle and didn’t look at him.

She could practically hear his brain cells reorganizing to head south.

But then her sweatpants hit her in the chest, landing on the magazine. “Put some pants on,” he said.

She glanced at him. “You don’t really want me to.”

He came and sat in the chair in front of her. He kept his eyes level with hers. “If I hadn’t just watched your mom lose her shit, you’re right. I wouldn’t want you to. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I’m not going to play. Put some pants on.”

She pouted. “Make me.”

He sighed. “Fine. The hell with it. Sit around half naked.”

She pushed the magazine and the pants to the side and crawled into the chair with him, straddling his lap like she’d done the night before.

Tonight, however, his jaw was set, and he didn’t make a move to touch her.

But when she leaned in, pressing her chest against his, he caught her waist, holding her at a slight distance.

“What do you think?” he said. “That if you don’t sleep with me, I’m going to put you out on the street?”

Well, that was honest. Anger flared, and Quinn started to climb off his lap.