First Position

by Melanie Hamrick

Genres: Women's Fiction; Psychological Thrillers

Synopsis

‘Riotously steamy’ The Times

‘Compelling… absolutely fascinating’ Daily Mail

‘So edgy, so different, with a constant undercurrent of tension whether on the stage or in the bedroom… Raw and addictive. I loved it.’
Jodi Ellen Malpas,Sunday Times bestselling author

‘Melanie Hamrick’s debut novel treads similar obsessional ground to the film Black Swan in its steamy imaginings of backstage shenanigans at a ballet company’
The Times

The Times Book of the Month June 2023

‘Compelling… absolutely fascinating’
Daily Mail

‘[An] erotic novel that pulses with Black Swan energy… combining the artistry of The Red Shoes with the eroticism of Fifty Shades of Grey.’
Entertainment Weekly

Dance was her obsession.
Desire was her undoing.

As a young dancer, Sylvie Carter has a list of rules for making it big in the ballet world. Avoid drama. Don’t do drugs. Skip dessert. And of course, never sleep with another dancer. Ballet is a cutthroat profession, and she can’t afford a scandal.

Not again…

But when she meets renowned Italian dancer Alessandro Russo, an electrifying encounter has her throwing out the rulebook. And as he tempts her into the darkness she swore she’d left behind, she wonders if this relationship will be the making of her… or if it will cost her everything.

Readers LOVE First Position:

‘[An] addictive novel perfect for those who love their story with forbidden and steamy elements for a romance book’

‘Addictive like Black Swan. Perfect for those who love spicy, explicit, forbidden romance.’

‘This is probably one of the best representations of ballet and the ballet world I have read in a fiction book.’

‘It was dark, there were twists, it was hot!’

‘Raw emotions, dirty reality of jealousy, pain and dance set in the harsh world of elite ballet.’

Release date: June 20, 2023

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 336

Sample

His face comes close to mine and then I feel his breath on my neck as his forehead touches my jawbone. My head falls back, exposing my neck and chest to him as if he were a vampire who could suck me dry — and has my permission to do it. It was literally intoxicating. I don't know how a voice or a touch can do that, but it did. I am powerless against it.

"What do you want, little swan?"

Chills run through me. "I don't know."

"Yes, you do. Tell me."

I think again about apologizing or saying I don't know, but then decide to be honest. "I want you to touch me."

I feel like I'm on hard, deadly drugs. My inhibitions have vanished.

He draws back almost imperceptibly, and I feel a reprise of fear.

"How do you want me to touch you?"

I nod. "Any way. Every way."

I am breathless.

I am so suddenly stolen away into the night of this feeling, and I don't even know how I got here. I can't remember the last time I felt something like this, and yet I am also feeling this ache with the skill of someone who has done it a million times over. My mind is hesitating, but my body has not a slice of confusion about what it wants. And the only reason my mind is hesitating is because I am truly afraid I have lost my mind.

"I want to give you what you want," he says, a slight rasp to his voice revealing that he isn't quite as in control as he was a few minutes ago. "Are you sure of what that is?"

His hand is on my waist. I take it and guide it quickly, feverishly past the waistband of my training sweats and don't stop guiding him until his fingers are winding around the sudden wetness of my leotard and nudging between the fabric and my skin.

"Mm." He makes the noise by my ear, crippling me yet further, "I believe you that you want it now."

A gasp escapes me as he touches me.

I glance half-heartedly around, making sure there is still no one near us, but honestly even if there was, I wouldn't have the power to hide.

The feeling he is giving me is a little like drowning. I'm losing myself more and more, feeling more and more deeply submerged in it, and losing the ability to do anything but give in with every gesture.

In my past, when I have been more prepared, I have often found sex to be as performative as the stage; I move my hips this way, toss my head that way, arch my back now, and fold before my audience. But this is making me forget I can even be seen.

I believe it's not just him, this man whose name I do not even know, but also how badly I need to feel free. In this moment, I don't care about anything but this.

I raise my hips and he takes the sign I can't believe I have communicated effectively and pulls down the sweatpants and moves aside the thin cotton of my leotard.

"Again!" Barks Diana on the stage. "But very good, Jocelyn. Very good."

"Yes?" he asks before putting his mouth on me.

"Yes, yes." I touch his hair, that gorgeous hair. It's even more perfect to the touch. I pull him by the back of his head, and push him where I want him. He moves out of his seat to crouch in front of mine.

The heat and the wetness and the surprise of it makes me feel desperate. My heart is pounding and everywhere I am throbbing and clenching and releasing. There is no longer a past or even a future. All that matters is now. And it is intense. It is taking everything in me to remain silent.

He exposes my thigh and runs his hand down the muscles of it, chasing his own touch with his lips, kissing, biting, and sending me into quick convulsions.

"This — yes, that, do that," I whisper throatily, my voice wild and quiet and nearly primal.

He squeezes my thigh and then smacks it. The sound reverberates through the auditorium and my head lurches up and he forces me back down and puts his mouth on me and begins to do something I do not even have a guess for. Sucking, kissing, licking, flicking, I have no idea whatsoever; all I know is that I am suddenly plunged into an ecstasy I have scarcely, if ever, felt.

My hips begin to twitch, I feel my insides throbbing and responding to everything he does. I let out a moan and he somehow does more of what he's doing, and I squeeze his arm to indicate that he's doing the right thing.

"Resa, swan, surrender."

In the moment of relief from his touch so that he can speak, my body yearns so desperately that when he goes back to it, it is too much. I let out a gasp of air and convulse into him, then again, again, and . . .

"Yes," he breathes against me.

I grip into his body as if I trust him with my life and surrender completely to him.

He doesn't disappear as soon as I am through. Instead he lingers on my thighs, kissing and touching me lightly. I lie there with my eyes shut, certain that my legs would go out from under me if I were to try to stand. I could sleep or slip into the devastatingly soothing heat of a warm bath.

But almost a moment too late, I register the sound I have just heard: the stage manager, Mike, clapping his hands and yelling at the theater at large. This is the moment when the dancers are summoned to the stage over the god mic for notes. I know what comes next.

"He's going to ask for the house lights up," I say, patting the stranger on the back, though he is already off me. "He's going to ask for the house lights up!"

I scramble into my sweats just as we both hear, "House lights, please!"

With the dancer's grace, I swing my leg over the stranger and twirl a few seats away, crouching silently behind the backs of the seats in front of me just as he leaps covertly over the other rows.

I catch my breath and register that Robert Calvo, our director, has joined Diana onstage. His shock of white hair is lush against his dark skin and he still moves like a dancer, even though he has not been on the stage in more than twenty years.

"Everyone gather round," says Robert, clasping his long fingers in front of him.

I stand and adjust my warm-ups as I prepare for the walk down the aisle. My inner thighs are weaker than they've been in years and I'm afraid there are telltale signs on me that I cannot see.

Robert does not wait for the full company to arrive before saying, "I want to introduce to you all, our newest principal dancer, "the great Alessandro Russo!"

The entire company erupts in gasps and applause from the usually impermeable girls. And I see a man begin to walk down the aisle. Chestnut hair. Broad shoulders. A perfect frame.

He glances at me as he walks by. He takes his right hand and touches his lips and nose. To anyone else it would look like a human gesture that meant nothing at all. But I know where that hand has just been.

"God . . . dammit," I utter.

He winks.

I have just made a huge, huge mistake.

From First Position published by arrangement with Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2023 by Melanie Hamrick.