Chapter 22 Calum
Calum
“No!” I shout. The class full of dancers freezes in place. The piano player falters. “Absolutely not. You are all deeply disappointing. Run that entire piece again.”
My words ring out in the studio. The only sounds are the shuffling of feet as the dancers move back to begin again. The piano player starts the movement again, the music swelling and speeding up.
Bas turns his gaze on me, narrowing it slightly. “After this combination, you are dismissed!” he calls out.
I glare at him. He points to his wrist. I’m not wearing a watch, but I would guess that he’s trying to chide me. I clasp my hands behind my back and prowl the studio.
When I come to Kaia, I force myself not to stare at her. I just move on though I want nothing more than to pretend that there is no one else in this studio but her.
The knowledge that she gave me one of her firsts — her first orgasm from another person — rests heavily on my heart. I feel conflicted about it…
But also, it’s the hottest thing I can imagine. When Kaia closes her eyes and thinks about coming, she can only draw from one experience. Something that I gave her.
I made sure as shit that she had a first time worth remembering. No one should have a terrible memory like I do, in a closet on a pile of coats, with a woman old enough to be my grandmother.
The thought of Anita makes my lips thin.
The combination ends and everybody sags. I purse my lips and glance outside.
“Thank you, everyone,” Basil says, clapping his hands.
The sun is already starting to set. I admit that I may have run roughshod over Bas’s little schedule. My frown deepens.
I turn around and make eye contact with Kaia. Jerking my chin toward the studio door, I grab my water bottle and head out. I walk to the next studio over, which is empty. Making sure that Kaia sees me, I step through into the emptiness.
It’s a couple of minutes before she slips in the door, closing it behind her. Tucking back a loose strand of blonde hair, she raises an eyebrow. “Are you talking to me again, then?”
My eyebrows lower. “If there was a time when I was ignoring you, I’m not aware of it.”
Two spots of pale pink appear in the apples of her cheeks. “You have been acting strangely for the last couple of days, Calum.”
I repress the urge to roll my eyes at her.
“I wasn’t trying to act any particular way.” I wave a hand in front of my face. “That’s not the reason I want to talk to you. I wanted to know if you would accompany me to a charity gala later.”
Her look of surprise is complete. “What? I thought… I mean… you wouldn’t want to be seen with me, would you?”
I flash her a smirk. “Relax, Kaia. It’s an event that I usually don’t attend, with people I normally don’t socialize with. No one will know you.”
She ducks her head. “I was going to spend the night catching up on laundry.”
I reach out and snag her hand, pulling her a step closer. Kaia looks up at me, those hazel depths containing innumerable mysteries. Her gaze sinks to my lips and then to the door behind me.
She sucks in a breath. “If I say yes, can we leave? I don’t want to get caught.”
I flash her a smirk. “Yes, beauty. I feel the same way.”
Her eyes narrow on my face. Her lips quirk. But she doesn’t disagree. She just moves back, tugging her hand out of my grip.
“If I want to get home and shower and still meet you out at a reasonable hour, I guess I should take a cab.”
She starts to walk away. I reach out and snag her around the waist, pulling her body close to mine. “I’ll take you.”
“What?” she asks, startled. “No, I don’t need you to take me to my house.”
I shoot her a hard look. “I said I would take you. Now I’m going to go hit the showers. I’ll meet you out front in twenty minutes.”
Her delicate throat works as she pulls away from me. She tosses her hair, raising her chin. “Fine,” she says, not a little huffy.
Normally after charging up my batteries like that, I would’ve spent a little time letting the water run while I stroked my cock.
But since I’m pressed for time, I race through my shower and dress in an immaculate bespoke tuxedo.
Speeding out the door, I’m still fussing with my bowtie when I find Kaia waiting on the curb.
She’s fresh out of the shower too, her hair thrown up in a wet ponytail, her skin glowing. I flag my limousine down as I look her up and down.
There is a part of me that realizes that if I were a slightly different person, if life hadn’t fucked me up so badly so early on, I would want to be with a girl like Kaia. Fresh faced, no makeup, no fucking artifice. She’s stunning without a face full of make up or a wardrobe of designer clothes.
If I had met her here as a ballet dancer first, without knowing her secret life as Cerise, would I still feel the same?
“Calum,” she prompts.
I realize that the chauffeur has opened the back door and is waiting patiently for me to get in. I climb in after Kaia, smelling her honeyed fragrance. I lean closer to her as the door closes, getting another whiff.
It’s coming from her damp ponytail.
“That scent… what shampoo do you use?” I ask.
She looks embarrassed. “It’s something French. I might have splurged on shampoo and conditioner last week. You don’t hate it, do you?”
I let out a bark of laughter. “I love it. You smell just like a ripe honeycomb. I’m having a hard time not rubbing your scent all over my fucking body.”
She grins at that and rolls her eyes. “I’m glad that it meets with your approval.”
When we pull up outside of her apartment in Queens, I rake my gaze over her house. It’s nothing much to write home about, just a brown brick house that has three stories. Even though it’s taller than most of the surrounding buildings, it can’t have much square footage.
Kaia opens her car door and gets out. She almost closes the door on me and then looks at me with surprise. “Oh! Did you want to… come in?”
I get out of the back of the limo, buttoning my tux. “I planned on it.”
She looks nervously over her shoulder. “Oh. Ummm… all right.”
As she leads me up to a door around the side of the house, I look at the neighborhood. From the look of the little Hispanic grocery store on the corner and pedestrian traffic on the street, the neighborhood is mostly Latino. Kaia glances back at me as she unlocks her door, her expression uncertain.
She heads inside, trotting up the stairs.
I close the door and lock it, then follow her up.
Her space is at once very light and airy, and very small.
Nestled up here in the eaves of the house, her bedroom is on the left and her tiny kitchen on the right.
Her bedroom is basically a big white bed and a bedside table; I can see that she has a hanging rack of clothes near the wall and a laundry basket beside it.
Between the rooms is a gap with shiny wooden floors, probably perfect for stretching.
There is a bathroom in the far corner, it’s heavy wooden door pulled shut. And the last thing I notice is a black cat poking it’s head out from behind the bed, staring at me with intense green-yellow eyes.
I take the whole room in with a jaundiced eye. I can see that she has a wall of photos pinned up over the bed and a bed for her cat in the corner. Obviously she cares for this space…
“So you live alone,” I guess.
She ducks her head, moving to the bed and dropping her duffel bag. “Yes.”
Somehow I had imagined her living somewhere more glamorous. I squint around at the room, putting my hands behind my back.
Kaia turns to me, her mouth tugging down. Her cheeks are already stained with color. “It’s small. But it gets really good light during the day,” she says.
I tilt my head. “I didn’t realize that you were struggling financially.”
She shoots me a hard look as she goes over to the hanging rack of clothes. “I didn’t work at Club X because I liked the camaraderie, Calum.”
My lips twitch. “No, I suppose not.” I pause, thinking. “Where is your family?”
Her shoulders visibly tense up. She quickly sorts through several dresses, pulling one off its hanger. It takes her a long time to answer my question. “My parents live in Hartford.”
I cock a brow. “And why doesn’t your family pay for a nicer apartment?”
Kaia turns, her expression baleful. “Not everybody has everything that you have.”
I raise my brows at the heat in her tone. “I didn’t realize your family was disadvantaged.”
She toes off her shoes, her expression pinched, and heads to the bathroom. “They aren’t. I grew up with money. It’s just… my story is more complicated than that.”
She shuts the heavy bathroom door hard, effectively ending the conversation. But her evasiveness doesn’t settle anything in my book.
No, it only makes me more curious about Kaia’s background.
Walking around her apartment, I notice that she has a number of votive candles, most burned down to the bottom. She also has a box of old pointe shoes in the corner, most pulled apart and scavenged for bits and pieces.
The next thing I see is a small side table with a tray of what appears to be costume jewelry. A cluster of oversized pearls, a diadem with several stones missing. A long chain of intricate silver bangles with several missing links.
“What’s with all the broken jewelry?” I call.
“It’s not broken! It can still be salvaged. It just needs a little love and attention…” She answers, her voice muffled by the bathroom door.
I pull out my phone, texting my assistant to pull a background check on Kaia and her family. From the look of this apartment, I don’t actually know what to think.
There is a mural made of photos that are carefully pinned up by the window. I walk toward it, trying to find some answers.
In the next second though, she steps out of her bathroom again and my mind goes blank. She wears a clingy light blue cocktail dress that shows off her cleavage. She has pulled her wet hair down and it curls gently about her shoulders.
I bite my lip appreciably. Kaia tosses her hair and steps into a pair of dark heels. Then she adds a grey winter coat.
At that moment, I wish I had a diamond necklace to put around her neck and frame her décolletage. Making a note to keep some more jewelry on hand, I exhale deeply.
She turns to me. “Do I need to bring anything?”
My lips curl up. “No. Just yourself. You look utterly intoxicating, Kaia.”
She blushes, a little smile playing about her lips. “Thanks, Calum.”
I offer her my arm. “Come on. Let’s go to the gala and act like we are sophisticated socialites rather than depraved sexual deviants.”
She walks over and slides her hand into the crook of my arm. Her hazel eyes glint with a mischievous look. “You take the lead, Calum.”
I lean down and kiss her on the lips, hard and passionate. She pushes up onto her tiptoes, kissing me back for just a moment.
It’s indefinitely satisfying, the feeling of being wanted by someone as beautiful as Kaia.
Then I urge her toward her apartment steps, thinking of how good that dress will look on my bedroom floor later.