by Raine Thomas
“All right, kiddo,” Will said. “I’m going to take Jasmine out for a while to show her something. You’ll be staying with Grandpa and Ryan until we’re back, okay?”
She held her arms out, so he gave her a hug and kissed her cheek. Turning to his dad, he said, “Thanks for this.”
“Sure. Can’t wait to hear how it goes.”
When Will returned to the car, Jasmine gave him another searching look. He just smiled and took her hand, not wanting to give anything away.
She played along. They rehashed the conversations they’d had at the pool party since they spent so much of it apart. It was enough to fill the ten minutes it took them to get to their destination.
She looked out the window as they pulled into the parking lot. “Is this the place where we had Katie’s trial lesson back in March?”
“Yep.”
“Wow. It looks so different,” she said as Specialist Velasquez parked. “Didn’t this used to be a restaurant?”
“Giuseppe’s,” he affirmed.
He knew it no longer looked like the nondescript rectangular building it had once been because he’d had a heavy hand in the project’s redesign. Gone was the dated and crumbling red brick exterior. In its place was a more contemporary natural stacked stone in various shades of gray.
The austere face of the building had been softened by a wide steepled portico over the new glass entrance doors. Two large planters filled with flowers framed the doorway with pops of color. The once boxy structure now extended up into a complete second story boasting large rectangular and arched windows designed to fill the interior with natural light. The parking lot had been repaved and repainted, the sidewalks had been leveled, and the landscaping had been updated.
Jasmine took it all in as she got out of the car. “This is spectacular, Will,” she said, reaching for his hand as he walked around the car to join her. “I’ve always wanted to see one of your projects after you finished it. To be able to see what you and Frank did with something that was in such a sad state, well, it’s really remarkable.”
They headed toward the front door. “I’m glad you think so. There are still some details to wrap up, but we just passed the final inspection.”
He released her hand to unlock the front doors with the electronic keypad he’d had installed. When the doors clicked, he pulled the right one open for her. A light chime sounded in the building’s new lobby as the overhead lights flickered to life.
“So fancy,” she chuckled as she stepped onto the plain black mat just inside the doors. “I love these floors. Oh—and that wall color is gorgeous.”
He’d gone with a rich honey tone on the hardwood floors and a soft, welcoming shade of blue for the walls. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll give you the grand tour. This is the lobby and waiting area. Each section will be made more distinct once furniture is brought in.”
She nodded as she looked around and took in every detail.
“Over here is the owner’s suite,” he said, leading her to the far left side of the lobby.
They passed through a single door into an outer office where an assistant might sit and then on to a larger window office with an attached bathroom. The wall color in the office spaces was a quiet gray tinted with the slightest hint of purple. The way Jasmine smiled as she ran her hand over the wall told him she liked his choice.
“The security system and the lights for the rest of the space are controlled here,” he explained, stepping over to a panel and turning the lights on. “Ready to see more?”
“Absolutely. You guys have done incredible work. I’d never recognize this place.”
He smiled and guided her through the door leading into the heart of the building. Then he watched her reaction.
Her eyes widened. She brought a hand up to cover her open mouth.
But it was the tears that sprang into her eyes that told him she understood.
“A dance studio?” she whispered, finally lowering her hand. “You turned this into a dance studio?”
“Yep. I knew that’s what this place needed to be the moment I saw you in here with Katie.” He moved closer to her and took her hands. “And the moment you told me you wanted to open your own studio, I knew this place had to be yours.”
She shook her head as the first tear fell. “Oh, no. Will, I couldn’t—”
“Let me stop you there. First, this isn’t charity. It’s an investment. I know the pride and effort that comes of starting something from nothing and succeeding with it, and I’d never deprive you of that.
“And second, I’ve been trying for months to figure out how I could ever repay you for everything you’ve done since you started working with Katie. You managed to do what thousands of dollars in high-priced therapists couldn’t. Giving this studio to you so you can do the same for other kids isn’t nearly thanks enough.”
She released his hands to fish in her bag for a tissue. “You can’t give this to me,” she argued as she blotted her tears. “I’m fine with signing a lease or paying rent or—”
He tugged her against him to cut her off again. “What do you say we work it out more in terms of free dance lessons for Katie?”
Her eyes narrowed as she considered that. He couldn’t resist dipping his head and brushing his lips against hers in a further effort to convince her. She sighed against his mouth, allowing him to deepen the kiss. When he eventually pulled back, she looked thoroughly distracted.
“Okay,” she relented, wrapping her arms around his neck. “But you’ve done so much work here. It’s beyond perfect. Free lessons hardly seem like enough.”
“You haven’t even seen the rest of it.”
“I don’t need to. I can already see you’ve thought of things I wouldn’t have dreamed of.”
Her right hand drifted down and ran along his chest to his abdomen. Paired with the heated look in her eyes, it kicked his heart straight into a sprint.
“I think you deserve a nice, big bonus for all this work,” she said.
And that sent his libido into overdrive.
“Why don’t we continue our tour in the storage closet without any windows?” he suggested.
“I certainly enjoyed the last time you did me in a storage area,” she said in a husky voice, her hand gripping him through his shorts.
Jesus.
He led her at a fast clip into the adjoining dressing room. The door to the storage area was currently open because there had been a few recent deliveries. There were no windows in the dressing area either, so he left the storage room door open for light.
Then he pressed Jasmine up against the closest wall and claimed her mouth. She immediately opened for him. He groaned as the taste of her set his blood on fire. She had him hard and hurting in seconds.
Their hands soon got involved, tugging at clothes, buttons, and zippers that became obstacles between them and the pleasure they sought. They parted long enough to rid each other of those obstacles before coming together again. Without the clothing hindering their sensitivity, both of them used the knowledge they had gained of each other’s bodies to drive each other wild with need.
“Take me, Will,” she demanded, much as she had the first time they’d been together.
He started to lean down to find his wallet among the discarded clothes. She stopped him.
“I’ve been on the pill since we first agreed to the sex-only relationship,” she said.
Understanding what she was saying, he issued a low growl and lifted her legs so they encircled his waist. When he entered her, he did it slowly, savoring the intimate connection without a condom. She held his gaze until they were fully joined, then guided his head closer so she could kiss him again.
His hands knew just where to stroke. His lips knew just where to caress.
He used both to torment her.
He refused to move until she begged him. Even then, he kept the pace slow and tortuous.
“That’s right, baby,” he murmured into her ear as he slowly withdrew
, slowly sank back home. “You’re going to take it just like this, and you’re going to fucking love it.”
He knew from the sound she made that she remembered how he had said much the same their first time together, but this time the words were spoken with tenderness.
With love.
The first time she came, it was with a soft cry of wonder, as though it caught her by surprise. The second time was on a low, appreciative moan.
The third time, when she had driven him beyond all control and he finally took her hard against the wall, she gave him the words his heart craved most.
“I love you.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“You might want to add a few staff lockers to the break room,” Alima suggested as she walked through the dance studio with Jasmine later that week.
They were there with Jasmine’s father, Frank, and Katie. Jasmine had been to the studio every day since her first visit with Will. She’d shown it to May, Danny and Tobias, and Everly and Sierra. Then she’d taken some time to go through every inch by herself. Each visit, she found something more to love.
The studio filled her with joy and purpose, something she’d been missing in her life until Will and Katie became a part of it. There were still hurdles to overcome before this new dream became a reality, but it was a challenge she welcomed.
That was why she was there now. Frank wanted to create what he called a punch list of items she wanted done to make the place exactly how she envisioned it. Will had told her not to skimp on anything, insisting that the studio needed to be set up for success from the beginning. While she hesitated to spend his money, she also wanted the studio to flourish. She opted to put her pride aside and do her best to anticipate anything her new business might need before opening its doors.
Alima was thrilled to help. Jasmine valued her friend’s insight. She had already pointed out a couple things Jasmine didn’t already have on her wish list, like the staff lockers.
“That’s an excellent suggestion,” she said.
She pulled out her phone and typed a note into the list she was sharing with Frank via an app he and Will used for projects. Even typing “staff lockers” had a mix of excitement and fear rushing through her.
She was going to have a staff.
“This break room is more decked out than my kitchen,” Alima said, opening the door to the stainless-steel fridge and sighing in envy.
“Right?” Jasmine grinned and shook her head. Will had completely outdone himself.
“Have you decided what types of classes you want to offer?” Alima asked.
“I’ve been working on a business plan with my sister, but I would love to get your thoughts on it if you have time. Don’t get me wrong, May is great about understanding the policies and procedures involved in running a company, but she doesn’t have the background in dance education that we do.”
“Count me in. This is seriously fun.”
Jasmine saw her own excitement reflected in Alima’s dark eyes. A thought occurred to her.
“Have you ever considered going into instruction?”
“Me?” Alima held a hand to her chest as though caught off-guard by the question. “I honestly haven’t.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “I guess I thought since I wasn’t good enough to get a job as a professional dancer that I wasn’t qualified to teach anyone else. Maybe that sounds silly.”
Jasmine didn’t think it sounded silly at all.
“I think you’d make an excellent teacher,” she told her friend. “And I think you’d like it a lot more than managing the office at your uncle’s dental practice.”
Alima gasped in mock insult. “What? And leave the unending sound of pneumatic tools and suction devices?” Her expression eased into more serious lines. “Jasmine, are you offering me a job?”
“I’m offering you the potential of one. As you can see, I don’t have anything off the ground yet, but I could sure use the support of a talented, highly organized friend.” When Alima just stood and stared at her, she went on, “I imagine it’ll be a lot of long hours at first, and we’ll probably be handling the jobs of five people, but—”
Alima took two long, graceful strides over to her and threw her arms around her. “I’d love to.”
Unexpected tears stung Jasmine’s eyes. She returned the hug, eternally grateful that Alima had taken it upon herself to speak to her at that months-ago audition. Knowing she would also be a part of this eased some of Jasmine’s strain over starting a new business.
“What’s all this?” came Frank’s voice from the doorway.
Jasmine finally released Alima and used the tip of her finger to dab at her eyes. She saw Alima doing the same.
“This is supposed to be a fun day,” he said.
“It is,” Jasmine said. “Alima just agreed to work with me.”
“That’s excellent news,” her father said from just behind Frank.
Katie stood between them. She had bonded almost immediately with her father, who tended to talk to kids like they were adults. Katie responded well to that, which Jasmine reasoned may have been why Katie warmed to her so quickly when they first met.
Her father had also formed a quick kinship with Frank, something that still struck her as amusing. Her father was a stereotypical Asian scholar. He was five-foot-eight if he was wearing shoes, a slender, well-kempt, and precise man who preferred to wear pressed slacks regardless of the time of year. His one concession to the Atlanta summer heat was wearing short-sleeved collared shirts.
Frank, on the other hand, matched Will’s height at six-three. He was well-muscled from years of hard labor with a softness around his middle that revealed his penchant for enjoying a few beers in the evening. His full beard, sleeveless plaid shirt, and well-worn jeans gave him the look of a cheerful lumberjack.
They couldn’t be more different, yet from the moment they’d shaken hands during Jasmine’s introduction outside the studio and walked inside to begin discussing business plans, they’d acted like old friends.
Apparently having two children in love with each other was enough commonality to overcome everything else.
“We’re both very excited,” Jasmine said. “I think you should chat with Alima about the bookkeeping side of things at some point, Bàba. She’s got a great head for that stuff. It might help keep all your hairs from turning gray.”
“You are rather hopeless,” he said in his pragmatic way.
They all laughed.
“I’d be happy to do that,” Alima said.
Jasmine enjoyed her enthusiasm. “We’re just about done, Frank,” she said. “We skipped the lobby and front offices on the way in, so we’ll wrap up there.”
“Works for me. You keeping up with the list?”
She waved her phone. “Yep.”
“Let’s all head downstairs then,” he said, stepping aside to let them pass. “We were a bit slower in our tour because little Katie here wanted to test out each of the instruction rooms.” He reached down to muss her hair as she grinned at him. “We didn’t see much of the downstairs yet. Wei wanted to have some input into the office space though.”
Jasmine paused and gave her father an Oh, really? look as Alima and Frank started down the stairs.
“What?” her father said with a shrug. “I am no doubt going to spend quite a lot of time in there. I know what makes an efficient workspace. I thought I would offer some input.”
She smiled and gave him a hug. “Thanks.”
He patted her on the back. When they stepped out of the hug, Katie reached over and took her hand. They started down the stairs together.
“You are quite natural with her,” her father said.
“She makes it easy,” she replied, giving Katie’s hand a squeeze.
“You should be proud of yourself for everything you have accomplished, my daughter,” he said in Mandarin as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “You have made great strides since you started paving your
own path earlier this year. This place, it is going to be something very special.” Shifting back to English, he added, “I am especially proud of the example you have set for this young lady.”
He held up a hand to encourage Katie to high-five him. She did, giggling all the while.
Jasmine was taken aback by her father’s support. It was the first time she could ever remember him saying he was proud of her.
“Thank you, Bàba,” she said.
She belatedly noticed that Frank and Alima had paused to watch them. She cleared her throat to cover her sudden awkwardness.
“Why don’t you come with us to check out the girl’s dressing room, Katie?” Frank said with a wink at Jasmine that said he wanted to give her time to compose herself. “Mr. Li and I are going to start our walk-through there and end in the offices at the front.”
“Sounds good to me,” Jasmine said.
The stairs led directly to the largest instruction room in the studio, the main center space on the bottom level. Two of the walls were mirrored and had stationary barres installed. The wood floors gleamed, waiting for the slippered feet of little dancers.
Well, and some grown ones too.
“I thought it would be nice to offer this space to our dance group a couple nights a month,” she said to Alima as they headed toward the lobby. “It would make it easier for everyone to have one location to come to instead of needing to find a place each time. We could bring in food and wine, things like that.”
Alima smiled. “That’s a great idea. Everyone’s going to love this place. And hey, as the studio grows, we know just where we can find more talented instructors, right?”
“Good point.”
It was exciting to think about a future where she would need multiple instructors on her staff. She still hadn’t finalized the plan to get there, but the vision was coming together.
As they passed through the doorway leading from the dance space into the lobby, Jasmine paused when she spotted someone standing at the front doors. The woman’s hands were pressed to the glass as though she was trying to see inside. The glass had a special reflective coating on it designed for privacy and insulation, something Will had pointed out during their post-coital tour.
