“You’ll love it!” Chalcey said, beaming. “The intermediate class starts in about ten minutes.” She wiggled her eyebrows and mouthed, “Tell me all about him later!” behind Marcus’s back.
An eager female student dragged Jai away to show her a move, and some semblance of normality descended.
Wulf reappeared, and Esmeralda thanked him and Marcus for sticking up for her. Although she seemed calm enough, her voice shook a little.
Chalcey’s brain kicked into gear and suggested a brilliant way to help Esmeralda forget all the unpleasantness. “Esmeralda, I’ve got to cash up and get ready for the next class. Why don’t you do me a huge favor and show Wulf some moves? I’m dying to get him to join in a class.”
They both eyed her doubtfully.
“Go on. You’ve got the routine we learned tonight pretty much down, Esmeralda. You should have no trouble talking him through it.” She walked off and left them to it before either could raise any protests.
While she cashed up and got ready for the next class, she snuck glances at them. Once Wulf loosened up, he wasn’t a half bad dancer. He certainly had rhythm, and the two of them danced quite well for absolute beginners. Her attention was diverted by a couple of brand new students but when she next spotted them, Esmeralda had a smile on her face that could have lit up the room. “See you next week!” she trilled, as she departed with a bunch of other students.
Wulf waited until Chalcey finished signing in the newbies before he approached. His brows were scrunched, eyes narrowed, lips downturned—a man who’d been thinking real hard about something, was still puzzled, and was about to tip over into frustrated as heck if he didn’t get some answers.
“What’s up?” she asked. “Surely it wasn’t that bad. I thought you both looked great out there.”
“She— Esmeralda. She is woman who is not truly a woman.”
“That’s right. She’s a man who dresses like a woman.”
“But if she is a man, then how can she have real breasts?”
Ah. This wasn’t gonna be easy to explain. “My guess is that she takes female hormones and has had a breast augmentation—that’s when doctors uh, operate to give a man like Esmeralda breasts, or a woman bigger breasts. So, Esmeralda looks like a woman on the outside, but unless she’s had a complete sex change, she’s still a man from the waist down. If that makes sense.”
It took him a while but he eventually got it. And, inevitably, had more questions.
“This sex change. Your world has methods of making a man fully into a woman?”
“Yep.”
“How?”
Now it was Chalcey’s turn to blush. “Um… it’s not something we should discuss in public, okay? Uncomfortably graphic and all that. Just take my word for it. Surgeons—you know what a surgeon is?”
He nodded. “I watched ER with Samantha.”
“Right. Of course you did.” Sam had a secret that no one else knew. She liked to chill out on a Sunday morning and watch DVD episodes of ER. And Grey’s Anatomy. She even liked Nip/Tuck.
“These days,” Chalcey said, “surgeons can operate on men to change them into women so you’d never know to look at them.”
Horror flitted briefly across his face, then acceptance and finally, wonder. He shook his head. “’Tis an amazing world you live in, Chalcey. Amazing indeed. Full of wonders I could never possibly have imagined.”
“And that’s a good thing, I hope?”
“Indeed.”
“I take it you would be quite happy to stay on then, if everything works out for us?”
His answering smile melted her heart. “My life would not be worth a single grain of sand without you, Chalcey.”
She smiled back. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me in my whole life. C’mere.” He bent so she could kiss him on the cheek.
“Chalcey,” he murmured, his voice making her shiver with want. “Samantha tells me she has devised some ways to alleviate your lack of funds.”
She puffed out a sigh. Back to reality. Money troubles would do it every time. “I just bet she has. And they’re all probably completely outrageous, if I know her. I don’t even want to think about that little problem right now, ’coz I’ve got to get this next class underway.”
He kissed her. Lingeringly. With tongue. “Then I ask that think of me until I return from my work, Chalcey.”
“Oh, I will,” she promised, resisting the urge to fan the heat from her face. “I certainly will.”
He slanted her a toe-curling, wholly masculine look, that told her he knew exactly what kind of naughty thoughts she’d been thinking. She watched him until the door closed behind him, releasing her from his spell.
She glanced at Mickey and heaved a sigh. Roll on the hours. She turned her mind back to her coming class and tried not to be distracted by thinking about what she and Wulf might get up to as soon as he returned from his shift. Rippling muscles and bare, sun-darkened skin. His thick, dark hair tickling across her flesh as he kissed his way down her body….
Hoh boy. She sure had it bad. If she’d had the misfortune to possess a penis it would have been almost permanently upstanding ever since Wulf had moved in. When he was with her, she was sexually aroused. And when he wasn’t with her, she was thinking of him and aroused. He did things for her libido she never thought possible.
Her life was just about perfect. Well, except for her cash-flow issues. And the big-ass specter of the Testing hanging over her.
The Testing….
Shit. She’d never been very good at taking tests. As a kid, her mind tended to go into full-on panic mode and present her with a big fat blank, no matter how much prep she’d done.
If she flunked this one, she’d never forgive herself.
~~~
Chapter Fourteen
“Hello?”
Chalcey heard the faint shout over the water running in the shower. Cleaning bathrooms. Her favorite thing in the world. Not. And she’d been hoping to get them all done before Jai turned up to go through the new intermediate level routines. The time must have gotten away on her. Rats. “Won’t be a sec, Jai!” she yelled.
She gave the cubicle one last swipe with her cloth, ditched her spray-bottle, and headed into the studio. Where she did a classic double-take. Sooo not Jai.
“Sorry for the delay,” she told the visitor. “And before I ask how I can help you, how the heck did you get in downstairs? Because this time, I definitely remember locking the street door.”
He dangled a set of keys before her face, like that explained everything. She couldn’t help noticing the his wristwatch. It probably cost more money than she would ever make in her entire life. Not that she’d swap her beloved Mickey Mouse watch for his in a million years, but that didn’t stop her from breathing an envious little sigh.
He pocketed his keys and stuck out his hand. “William Sparling.”
Chalcey made a move to shake his hand, then realized she was still wearing pink rubber gloves. Ack. How embarrassing. She yanked them off and tucked them into the waistband of her shorts. “What can I do for you, William?”
He cocked his head to one side, eyebrows raised. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
He was a corporate lawyer type, clean shaven, with prep-school haircut and handsome “of course you can trust me” features. His beautifully tailored suit screamed designer, as did his terribly shiny shoes. And given that he had a key to access her building, she figured she definitely should remember him. But she drew a big fat embarrassing blank.
She screwed up her nose and decided to get it over with. “Sorry. Have we met before?”
“I own the building.”
“Shit!” She clapped a hand over her mouth. Ooops. Too late. “Jeez, sorry, Mr. Sparling. I have so many students coming and going, sometimes faces and names get to be nothing a bit of a blur.”
He appraised her, taking in her bare feet, disreputable t-shirt splotched with damp patches from the shower spray, and ta
tty shorts. His face split into a grin. “Call me Will. Have I caught you at a bad time?”
“Hey, anybody who gives me a valid excuse to quit scrubbing shower cubicles is more than welcome to interrupt. Can I get you a coffee?”
“No thanks. Can’t stay long.” He swiveled on his heel, doing a full three-sixty, his gaze darting about the studio. “I was seriously considering selling the building and cutting my losses before you showed an interest. You’ve done a great job with the space.”
“Yeah. I like to think so.”
His gaze lingered on the partially open sliding door leading to her private rooms. “I gather you’ve made use of the storage rooms, too.”
Uh oh. She made a non-committal noise. If he was going to object to her living on the premises, she could be trouble.
“Could I take a look at the bathrooms you put in?”
It was an innocuous enough request. She couldn’t think of any reason to refuse. His affable manner didn’t prevent her from wondering what was up, though. She led him through to the men’s bathroom and stood back while he peered into the cubicles.
“Nice job,” he said. “Must have cost a bit.”
“Yep.”
“Glad the studio’s doing okay.”
“Yep.” If you didn’t count the money that she owed the IRS because of her dumbass accountant, everything was peachy. “So what’s the real reason for your visit, Will?” She watched his face carefully.
He noted her scrutiny but merely chuckled. “Ms Laureano, I—”
“Call me Chalcey.”
“Chalcey. I saw your studio’s ad and wanted to come over and talk to you in person. Or rather, my wife wanted me to.”
She relaxed and puffed out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Lemme guess. She wants to start dance classes.” She squinted at him, gauging his expression, then took a punt. “And she wants to drag you along, too.”
He chuckled. “You’re good.”
“And I’m betting you’re not entirely keen.”
“You got that right.” His face creased in a mock scowl. “I’ve got the whole two-left-feet thing going on.”
This, she could handle. “Have either of you done any dance classes before?”
He shook his head and added mournfully, “I think she’s keen on Salsa.”
“Could be worse.” She smirked and waggled her eyebrows. “Could be Lambada.”
“Lambada?”
She thrust forward her hips and treated him to a quick butt-wiggling demo. Poor guy gulped and turned quite pasty beneath his tan. “Tell you what, Will, how ’bout I give you and your wife a couple of trial Ceroc classes. No charge. Ceroc’s the easiest class for absolute beginners. It’s similar to Salsa in that it’s still a partner dance, but it’s a little more versatile coz it’s done to any music with a decent beat. Means you can easily dance it at parties and clubs and such. Plus it’s much easier to learn than Salsa. If you hate it, no harm done. But I’m picking your wife will love it and she’ll probably keep coming on her own. And since she doesn’t need to bring a partner, she’ll have a perfectly good time without you.”
His turn to raise his eyebrows while he contemplated the ramifications of that last statement. “Okay. Thanks.”
She was also betting he’d keep fronting up, if for no other reason than to make sure his wife didn’t get hit on by other guys in the class. Sneaky but hey, business was business.
She snagged a timetable from the Perspex holder screwed to the wall by the staircase and handed it to him, pointing out the days and times for the beginners’ classes. “Give me a ring before you front up, so I can make sure whoever’s at the desk knows not to charge you.”
He folded the timetable and stuck it in his jacket pocket. “There was one other thing.”
“Oh?” She chewed her lower lip, hoping it wasn’t anything dire. Such as wanting to up the cost of her lease. Or, horrors, shorten the term.
“No need to panic, Chalcey. Having you here has been a boon, believe me. There’s been far less vandalism since you moved in. No, it’s about the empty downstairs office. I’ve been unable to lease it so I’ve decided to help out a friend of my wife’s by letting his company use the area for overflow storage—just files and suchlike.” He shrugged, palms out, like he was apologizing. “I’ve given a key to his PA. And once everything’s moved in, there’ll likely be an office junior or two hefting archive boxes in and out. I just wanted you to know so you didn’t panic if you saw people hanging ’round.”
“Appreciate that. Thanks. I’ll remember not to use the security chain during the day.”
They shook hands and she escorted him downstairs.
“Chalcey, forgive me for lecturing, but you might want to consider locking the stairwell door to your studio when you’re in here alone. If someone does break in downstairs, they could waltz straight on up and surprise you in here.” Like I did….
He didn’t need to say it aloud. She threw him a sheepish look. “Yeah. You’re right. Guess I am pretty lax about security sometimes. Now I know you’ve handed out a key, I’ll be more careful, I promise.”
“Good. The downstairs office space is alarmed. I could organize one for you, too, if you like. A woman like you, living on her own in an area like this—you can’t be too careful these days.”
Chalcey wondered whether he’d be half as concerned for her safety if he got an eyeful of the warrior-turned-bouncer who was currently sleeping off his shift in her bedroom.
Jai let himself in with his key just as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “Hiya, doll-face.” He gave Will a once-over that had the poor man flushing to the roots of his hair. “And who might this be?”
“Will, this is Jai, my dance partner and co-teacher.”
Jai struck a pose designed to display what had been poured into his butt-hugging jeans and muscle-tee to the best advantage. “Well, hiii, Will.”
“Don’t even go there,” Chalcey told him. “Will’s the owner of this building. And he’s married.”
Will’s blush flamed an even brighter shade of crimson.
“Dang. The good ones are always taken.” Jai took pity on Will and turned his attention to Chalcey. “Did you know some asshole’s tagged the front of the studio?”
Will smacked his forehead with his palm. “And that was the other thing I meant to mention. You’d better take a look, Chalcey.”
She blanched, feeling sick to her stomach. “Shit. They better not have tagged my sign.” She elbowed her way past the two men to rush outside.
Her studio sign was still pristine but the rest of it wasn’t pretty. The brickwork had been defaced with swathes of black spray-paint. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The tagger had scrawled, FOR A GOOD TIME PH 1800 COCK-TEASE.
She frowned. A certain scene at a certain nightclub pricked her memory….
She knew exactly who’d done this. And if he was dumb enough to pull something like this, odds on, he was responsible for the nuisance calls, too. She felt the unnatural warmth of an angry flush paint her face. “That little prick!”
“You know who did this?” Will asked.
“Oh, I know all right. He accused me of being, uh, that at a nightclub when I got POed with him trying to feel me up. Then he followed me home, and didn’t take too kindly to being shown the error of his ways by my, uh, boyfriend.” She’d been going to say “a friend” but Wulf was far more than a mere friend.
Jai narrowed his eyes as he put two and two together. He clicked his fingers. “The same asshole you threw out at the opening night party.”
“Yeah. He’s got a bit of a chip on his shoulder.” To put it mildly. And considering her relationship with Wulf, the man who’d recently chucked him out of Sam’s apartment, Ray was probably choking on a huge case of the vengefuls. Not that she wanted to go into all that with the building’s owner. He didn’t need to know.
“What was that guy’s name again?” Jai asked.
“Never mind that,” Ch
alcey said, and directed her attention to Will. “I’m really sorry about this. I’ll get this cleaned off right away and—”
Will held up a hand to halt her apologies. “I’ll deal with it. Tagging is an issue with a couple of other buildings I lease out, so I keep a company on retainer. And if you give me this guy’s name, I’ll have one of my buddies pay him a visit.”
She opened her mouth but before she could protest, he elaborated, his eyes dancing with amusement. “He’s a cop, not a personal hit-man. Just because I’m a filthy rich bastard, doesn’t mean I consider myself above the law.”
He stared at her expectantly, awaiting her response to his offer. Which she was pretty sure he figured was a foregone conclusion. Another alpha male. Great. Just great.
Jai joined in the whole “let’s stare at Chalcey until she caves” thing. And raised the stakes. “If you don’t give Will a name, I’ll tell Wulf,” he said. “And if I know our friend Wulf, he’ll quite likely deal to the guy more permanently next time around.”
Chalcey resisted gnashing her teeth. But only just. “You’re as bad as Wulf. What is it about you men that makes you think women need you to solve all our problems? Is it genetic, or something?”
“Chalce,” Jai said, his tone warning.
Her gaze cut to Will, who grinned unrepentantly. “I’ll find out one way or another,” he said. “The hard way, if I have to.”
She believed him. “All right, all right! You two are worse than my freaking mother. His name’s Ray. And other than a description, that’s all I’ve got. I don’t know his surname but Sam—”
Jai had already managed to extricate his mobile from the pocket of his skin-tight jeans, and dialed Sam’s number. “Hey, babelicious, it’s Jai. Listen, Chalcey’s had another little run-in with that asshole Ray. Nah, it’s nothing serious. Just a rather personal message spray-painted on the side of her studio. Nah, our lovely new friend Will’s gonna handle it. Just need Ray’s surname, doll. And anything else you can give us on him.”
The Crystal Warriors Series Bundle Page 22
