by Jaime Samms
Like No One Is Watching
By Jaime Samms
Dance, Love, Live: Book One
Dusty has finally landed a job he thinks he’ll be able to keep long-term, even with his broken brain and bum knee. He didn’t anticipate that cleaning a dance studio would reawaken his yearning to dance—even though he is no longer capable—or that meeting the studio’s director would rouse his dormant libido. Or his sleeping heart.
Conrad thinks his life is finally complete with his successful dance studio and a steady stream of students. When Dusty arrives, he rediscovers his thirst for a man who will let him hand over control and give him the undivided attention he’s never had. The trouble is, Dusty isn’t sure he’s worthy of the studio director’s submission.
To make their relationship work, Dusty will have to trust his ability to dominate the powerful and beautiful dancer, and Conrad will have to stop talking long enough to hear Dusty’s promises.
For Denise.
And for all the people who have entered your studio and left the better for it. You taught us to be brave. To be real. To be true. You taught us to follow our dreams, to be a friend, to fight for a cause, and above all, to dance like no one is watching. Thank you.
Acknowledgments
I want to thank Hannah Irene and Jessie Potts. Hannah’s been a student of Russian ballet almost since I’ve known her, indeed, almost since she could walk. I’ve learned a lot about the discipline just by being her mom. I learn more every day she perseveres, and her help in getting the dance student’s perspective was invaluable.
Jessie’s teaching experience gave me a totally different perspective on things in the dance studio, and I thank her for taking the time to read over the manuscript to make sure I got it right.
Chapter 1
VOICES PATTERED on the periphery of his attention, spreading ripples through the still, heavy air of the dance studio. Dusty glanced over his shoulder but saw no one. The room was empty, as was the office beyond, seen through the plate-glass windows.
He sighed. “Hearing things, are you?” he said. Not that that was a new thing. Sometimes he spent so much time on his own, the world in his head and the one outside it blended together. Giving his head a shake, he bent back to his task, shoving his glasses up his nose with the pad of one thumb as he focused. “Come on, now, pretty girl,” he crooned. “This is for your own good, after all.” He gently set the clean plastic juice cup on its edge on the floor and shooed with his other hand.
His quarry scurried away from his probing finger and scuttled into the cup. Quickly, he slapped the lid in place and picked it up.
“There you have it, darlin’. Safe and sound.” Rising off his knees, he peered past the cup’s logo to the eight-legged beauty inside as he hurried for the door. “Just put you outside where you belong and spare the little ones the trauma, yeah?”
So intent was he on his prize, he didn’t notice another person in the studio until he found himself nose-to-very-broad-chest with him.
“Is there a problem?” the man asked.
“Oh!” Dusty backed a step and looked up. “No! So sorry.” He pushed his glasses up his nose to see the man’s face better. Square jaw, aquiline nose, full, wide mouth, and lashes framing eyes that flashed, faceted and glorious, between them. “I wasn’t watching where I was going,” Dusty said, voice embarrassingly breathy. “Dusty… ah… Hatch.”
Holding out his free hand, elbow bent awkwardly in the tight space between them, Dusty scrunched his nose to keep his glasses usefully in front of his eyes.
The man didn’t seem to have a sense of personal space, but he nodded and tilted his head to one side, as though something about Dusty’s plain, acne-scarred face was incredibly fascinating. Dusty couldn’t imagine what, and the scrutiny forced heat upward to prickle at the edges of his hairline.
Then the man blinked, exaggerated, and shook his upper body as though he was about to spin off to music Dusty couldn’t hear, but he settled. Dusty noticed his eyes were actually starkly pale blue. Intense. And Dusty’s mouth went dry.
The eyes focused on the cup, tucked in close to Dusty’s chest. Sandy-brown hair flopped to one side as the man tilted his head the other way this time. “Conrad,” he said, gaze fixed on the cup. “What’s that?”
Conrad. Dusty jerked back, eyes wide. “Conrad Kosloff.” He gulped, mind filled with the endless hours he’d spent watching this man float across the ballet stage in school. He’d been a sensation even outside the ballet world for a brief time. His talent and his family’s high, moneyed profile had lit up the tabloids in Dusty’s youth, and Dusty hadn’t been immune to the beauty he embodied when he moved.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” Dusty blurted, pushing the images out of his head before his brain short-circuited.
Conrad owned this dance studio, and the last cleaner, Tiffany, had said he was a bear, all growly and prowling around the periphery while she worked, watching to make sure she did everything just so, or didn’t touch that pile, or made sure those things didn’t get moved. To Dusty, he seemed more cougar-like, all sleekly built muscle beneath a tank top and dance tights, tawny skin, and those eyes, focused on him, slightly narrowed, almost predatory. Dusty’s skin tingled. He clutched the cup until the plastic crinkled under his fingers.
Conrad crossed muscled arms over his broad chest. “Did one of the girls leave that in here?” The forbidding timbre of his voice vibrated the air.
“Oh! No. Not at all.” Dusty held it up. “You had a refugee. I’m just putting her outside.”
Two fast steps and Conrad was backed up almost against the stereo table. “I see.” His voice wavered.
“Just a spider,” Dusty reassured. “A small one.”
“Right.” A quick nod. A swallow that made his Adam’s apple bob deeply. “Good.” Another step back. The stereo table rocked, and a pile of CDs clattered to the floor. Bits of plastic casing shattered and shot over the smooth hardwood. “Oh damn!” Conrad’s expletive was colored with trepidation, though.
He was afraid. Dusty schooled the grin into hiding before it made it onto his face. “Just be one sec,” he said softly, holding up a hand and angling to leave the room.
“The floor,” Conrad blurted. “Class starts in twenty minutes. Is it done?”
They both stared a moment at the clear plastic shards sprayed out from the table and Conrad gulped. “Stupid question.”
Dusty pressed his lips together. “Almost. I—”
“I’ll take it.” He held out his hand, lifted his chin, squared his shoulders. His lips tightened. “The garden, I think?”
“I can—”
“Mop the floor.”
Dusty frowned. “Of course. You don’t have to tell me my job.”
That earned him a slow blink. “It has to dry.”
“And it will. Excuse me.” He tried to go around, but Conrad’s graceful, swaying movement cut off his exit.
“I can.” Conrad waggled his fingers at the cup. “Please.”
Please what? Let him deal with a creature he was clearly uncomfortable around? But ultimately, he was the boss, so Dusty held out the cup. Conrad took it between one long finger and his thumb and held it at arm’s length; then he hurried for the side door out into the yard.
Dusty hurriedly pieced together as many of the cases as he could and swept up the remaining bits, then went back to mopping the last section of floor. It took only minutes to finish, and he wheeled the bucket to the back door of the studio. Outside, a six-foot fence had been erected to wall off a gorgeous oasis in the city’s heart. Since the studio floor was washed with plain hot water, he’d been pleased he could empty the bucket out the back door. It kept any grit out of the studio’s aging pipes and save
d him having to lift the heavy thing up to the sink in the kitchen. Plus, it benefitted the plants during the more arid parts of the summer.
He would pour the water carefully over the narrow rock garden that controlled weeds and grass in the space between the wall of the building and the fence. That offered the plants on the other side of the fence a source of sustenance as the water drained under the fence and into the garden. That way, water used every day to clean a floor people could probably eat off wasn’t wasted.
As he carried the bucket off the porch to dump now, a soft murmur caught his attention. Setting the full bucket down, he peeked through the fence rails to see Conrad still holding the cup between his fingers, arm straight out from his body, lips moving.
Dusty held his breath to hear what Conrad was saying.
“Not going to hurt you, because obviously, the cute cleaning guy likes you. Just do me a favor and don’t crawl on me. Please. Pretty please.” He squinted at the spider. “God. Take off the lid and dump. Not a problem.” He pulled in a deep breath. His chest rose and fell with it. Sweat glistened in the tiny divot at the collar of his shirt.
“Oh God,” he whispered. His cheeks were pale, and he seemed to be trying to divorce his hand holding the cup from the rest of his body. “No problem. Just.” He gulped. “Take off the lid and dump.”
His strategy had only one flaw Dusty could see. If the spider was quick, she’d spin a web as she fell from the cup, and the silk would let her hang. The breeze would carry the little critter right into its erstwhile rescuer.
Dusty stepped forward, hand on the gate, ready to interrupt, but then Conrad moved fast, ripped the lid free, and upturned the cup.
His scream split the afternoon, and he jumped, probably five feet straight back, dropped the cup, and minced on feet that barely touched the ground until his tight butt fetched up against the fence.
“Easy.” Dusty rushed forward, crouched, and flicked the errant spider free of Conrad’s leg. She landed in the grass and promptly disappeared.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod,” Conrad was chanting under his breath, fingers clenching around the wooden slats behind him, eyes closed tight.
“Okay.” Dusty had put a hand on the side of Conrad’s thigh, about to get up, to offer some sort of reassurance, when Conrad’s eyes flew open, luminous and wide, and fixed on him.
“Is it gone?”
Dusty smiled. “She’s gone.”
“Good,” Conrad whispered, gazing down at him, freezing him in place. A heartbeat later, Conrad’s hand came free of the fence and his fingertips brushed over the back of Dusty’s hand, still on his leg.
“S-sorry.” Dusty stood so fast vertigo tilted the earth under his feet.
Conrad’s hands, unyielding but steady and gentle, gripped his upper arms, and Dusty blinked. He’d barely drawn a breath when Conrad took a step toward him, lips parted.
Like gravity, the sight of Conrad’s soft expression drew Dusty to him until Dusty touched his lips to Conrad’s. Or had Conrad done the touching? It was impossible to tell, and it made Dusty sigh out a little breath of expectancy. Then there was no air to breathe, no space, and nothing but the pressure of the kiss.
Dusty closed his eyes, ran fingers over the sides of Conrad’s face, and pressed the advantage of the gasp that ran through Conrad at the touch. He pushed his tongue into Conrad’s mouth and moved them until Conrad was pinned against the fence. Dusty had to stand on his toes to reach properly, but that didn’t stop him until they both needed to breathe.
When he stepped back, lips tingling, breath short, Conrad’s eyes were wide, and his chest heaved. His lips, red and parted, curved in a bemused smile.
“Was that meant to make me forget I just screamed like a little girl?”
“I—” Dusty took a hasty step back. He’d just kissed a complete stranger. He’d had this job for exactly three hours, and he’d tripped over a spider and kissed the man who signed his miniscule paycheck. “Oh shit.”
Conrad’s smile grew. The hand that had come to rest at the side of Dusty’s face exerted a tiny amount of pressure, thumb pad ghosting over his cheekbone and back, like he had brushed away a bit of hair….
“I’m so sorry,” Dusty blurted. “I—I didn’t mean—Sir—I—”
Conrad grinned then. “You kiss me like that and then call me sir?”
“Oh God.” Dusty broke away and moved back, out of reach. “I am so sorry.” He turned and fled back inside, through the studio, and out the front door of the building. He had hiked back to his own apartment and was letting himself inside when he remembered he never had emptied the bucket of dirty floor water.
Chapter 2
CONRAD BLINKED and blinked again. Afternoon sun slid a golden brilliance slant-wise over his diminutive garden. He touched his lip and smiled, gaze dropping to the grass at his feet. There was a spider in there somewhere. He stepped back and felt the fence at his back again.
The rough wood against his thin shirt made him shake, just as it had when Dusty had held him there. It had probably been a fluke of their relative positions. Dusty hadn’t pinned him on purpose. He dared not hope Dusty had pinned him on purpose.
He dropped his gaze to the grass again and imagined every minute twitch of every blade revealed the position of another member of a tiny spider army out to get him.
“Don’t. Freak. Out.” He sidled along the fence and out the gate, closing it behind him. The floor pail was sitting just outside the back door of the studio, still filled with warm water. Carefully, he tipped it out and carried it inside. He collected the mop and brought both to the small cupboard in the kitchen to be stowed away.
“I cannot believe I just did that.” He’d kissed a complete stranger. He didn’t do that anymore. He hadn’t since… well, since forever. He turned the tap to let a torrent of water into the sink, squirting dish soap under the spray.
There had been lots of kisses once. Julia, Becky, Alison, Amanda, and Carmen. And then Cobalt.
“Damn,” he whispered, gazing at his dim reflection in the kitchen window over the sink. Cobalt, of the blue-black hair and sculpted pecs. The boy with a name that wasn’t even a real name, and not a single inhibition. Cobalt, who had legs that did way more than just carry him across a stage with utter grace and a tongue that….
“No.” He tossed plastic cups into the soapy water and shut down that line of thought because Cobalt had also pulled Conrad headfirst out of a closet so well-appointed he hadn’t even known it was a closet until he saw it from the other side of the door.
He’d shown Conrad what it could be like to give over all his thought, all his control, all his being to another man. It had been glorious. Conrad had glimpsed what he could be when he had someone to balance out the rest of his life, when he had to be the one in charge and in the spotlight. For a little while, he’d had a foil to the utter terror of thrusting his shy, quiet personality in front of the audience to be dissected and speculated on. Cobalt had kept him safe the rest of the time.
Then, he’d left, taking the dance career that injury had denied Conrad, never so much as glancing back.
After that had come Erin, Monica, Melissa, Julie… and a string of other girls whose names had been less important than the fact that Conrad could fuck them. And a string of pretty boys whose names he had never wanted to know because that would be proof he had fucked them. And not one of them had ever offered even a hint of the sanctuary Cobalt had taken away from him when he’d left.
“And then Peridot.” Conrad swirled the cups, sloshing suds and water everywhere as he worked, cleaning each, then dropping them into the other sink as it filled with hot, clear water.
Why had he never fallen for a guy not named after some precious stone? “And who names their kid Peridot anyway? Pompous, well-heeled jerks with more money than love to shove at their kids, that’s who.”
He clamped his mouth shut, glancing around, though he knew there was no one else in the building, so no one to hear him talking to himse
lf.
For a few silent minutes, he worked, cleaning up after his students and leaving the washed dishes in the sink full of steaming water.
“Not that my folks loved me any more than his loved him.” And Conrad’s parents still had three other boys to do what Conrad had no interest in doing: pleasing them and trying hard to replace the sister they had lost. Peridot was an only child. He’d bent and broken under the weight of family fortune, left when his kid was too young to really remember him and his wife pretty—and rich—enough to remarry. “Good for her.”
He plunged a hand into the water to retrieve the rinsed dishes and yanked it back, cursing at his reddened fingers and the scalding water and the uncomfortable memories. When feeling began to return to his fingers, he went back to work, more carefully this time, and reminded himself he didn’t kiss strangers. Not anymore.
He was drying off his hands as the first student clattered down the stairs to the girls’ changing room. In a minute, he would have a studio full of senior dancers ready to follow his direction and hopefully, eventually, dance the examination dances of their lives. He owed them his full attention.
A last quick glance in the window showed him lips that didn’t look as well kissed as they still felt. He couldn’t help a smile. At least Dusty was a real name.
Chapter 3
Wet seeped slowly along the canvas of Dusty’s sneakers, darkening the pale blue fabric, leaving the interior cold, rough, and soaking into his thin socks. Where his toe poked through cotton to grate against seams between rubber and shoe canvas, a blister had begun to form. Still, he paced to and fro along the narrow walk from the sidewalk to the front door of the dance studio, staring at his feet and constantly pushing his glasses back into place. He almost didn’t notice the rain when it started again.
He had to go inside. He had work to do. Floors to sweep and mop, and he had planned to get started on straightening the shelves above the stereo table today. His list, given him by the owner of the cleaning company for which he worked, was very specific. It was divided between daily chores he had to get done before classes began at three and organizational tasks he could do in the kitchen, office, and storage areas while classes were running.