Her Reluctant Blue Cavalier: Indigo Knights Book VII Read online

  It was me and her against the world and I don’t think either of us would have it any other way. When I’d gotten the opportunity to practice dance at Julliard, we’d squealed and she hadn’t had a second thought about sending me.

  Dance was our lives, but my mother understood – there was life outside of dance and she was constantly making sure my life and the experiences I had were as well-rounded as possible.

  While she would have a motherly fit over her only daughter riding on a motorcycle, she would scold with one breath and before she could draw the next, she would be demanding I tell her all about it. Truthfully, I was excited to have something new to be able to share the next time we talked.

  “Hey, kid, you good to go?” he asked and I looked up from where I finished wrapping the cord around the back of the vacuum cleaner. I smiled and gave a nod.

  “Just let me bundle up, it’s cold out there.”

  “Now, that it is,” he agreed. “Shouldn’t be too rough; it’s a short ride, right?”

  “About eight blocks on foot, I’ve never ridden or driven it. Might be a little longer with the one-way streets.”

  He looked impressed that I’d thought of that and gave a nod.

  “Gimme a minute to go upstairs and gear up, myself. Be right back down.” I smiled and nodded.

  “Hang on tight,” Reflash said, “and lock this door behind me. Don’t open it for anyone but Skids when he gets back down here.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, and he put on his trilby hat when he reached the door, bundled up himself against the cold, although he was likely taking the catering van home. I knew, because he held his leather motorcycle vest draped over one arm reverently.

  “Hey, Reflash?” I asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why do you do that?” I said gesturing to the vest with its dull, well-worn patches.

  “What? Keep it over my arm?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s a thing,” he said. “You don’t wear your colors in a cage. It’s not right. Why you ask?”

  “Just curious, I guess.”

  He gave a sharp nod and said, “Well, that’s alright with the likes of us, but anybody else in the club or anybody else wearin’ a different set of colors, I’d keep questions like that to yourself.”

  I laughed and said, “I may have been born at night, but I wasn’t born last night.”

  He made a derisive noise and said, “You been working here too long, you sound like Oz.”

  I laughed and he ducked out the front door and into the cold outside. I quickly shut it, trapping the icy air out on the street and threw the lock under his watchful eye. He gave a satisfied nod and headed for the mouth of the alley, disappearing around the corner.

  I heaved a big, satisfied sigh and stared out the window at the glittering street. It was so silent and still out there, the frost settling over the pavement in a glittering blanket, giving the illusion of snow which was hopefully just on the horizon.

  I loved it when it snowed. The peace, the quiet, the smooth shimmering carpet of white over everything before the city woke up and everything got churned to frozen mud.

  The late-night hours with it just drifting to the ground and everyone sound asleep in their nice warm beds was my favorite time to just sit at a window in thick socks and comfortable pajamas with a steaming mug of hot something in my hands to soak it all in.

  Movement just outside the door at the edge of my vision startled me. Skids laughed slightly and waved at me, a mass of black leather and denim. I quickly unlocked the door and let him in.

  “You alright?” he asked.

  “Yeah, just let myself get lost in how pretty it is out there.”

  “Pretty, eh?” he asked, following me back to the little office behind the bar, beside the banquet room that everyone called ‘the fishbowl’. I opened the door marked ‘Employees Only’ and took down my coat from the line of pegs just inside. He took it from me and held it open, ever the gentleman. I shrugged into the thick white down parka and wound my long gray infinity scarf around my neck.

  “Like everything’s all sparkly and pure,” I said, suddenly embarrassed by the childishness of it.

  Skids scratched his bearded cheek, more white than gray anymore, his bright blue eyes silently laughing as he took in my face.

  It struck me, and not for the first time, that my boss was extremely handsome. Not that I meant anything by it. I mean, it was just an observation.

  I zipped up my coat and put my purse over my shoulder while Skids flipped out the light in the little office and drew the door shut. I followed him down the short little hall as he stopped by the panel outside the kitchen door on this side. He flipped it open and took down the lights a set at a time while I pulled on my gloves. I was already starting to roast but I would be grateful for the extra layers once we hit the street.

  I was a dancer and it showed. I barely had any fat on me; I burned far too many calories to really keep it on even though I tried; I really did. Doctors kept complaining at me that I was underweight, and the struggle to convince every new one I had to see for anything that I wasn’t anorexic was real.

  “Careful,” he said. “Frost is thick and the ground is real slick.”

  “Is it even safe to ride a motorcycle in this? Like at all?”

  “Wouldn’t recommend a newbie do it, but I’m definitely not new. We’ll be fine, but if you’d rather walk, I could probably use the exercise.”

  I laughed. For a man in his fifties, Skids was perfectly fit. When I’d first met him, months ago, he barely had a bit of a spare tire around his middle, and that was gone now. Things had started in his arms and chest, tightening up and lifting, and for a while, Reflash had been razzing him about trying to impress the ladies.

  Skids had laughed him off and denied it, saying it had just been about time he got healthy. I’d wondered to myself if it had been a birthday or something. Maybe a touch of mid-life crisis, but he needn’t have worried. He’d been just as attractive with the fluffier dad-bod as he was now, all cut and stuff.

  Then again, I was one of those girls that was turned upside-down and inside-out over a pair of gorgeous eyes and a total sucker for a great smile. Skids had both.

  Of course, I would never go there! I mean, he was my boss, and he was something like thirty years older than me… It would be weird.

  “Okay, what do I do?” I asked, bouncing on the balls of my feet, lifting my heels off the frozen and cracked alleyway pavement. I was already shivering, my teeth trying to chatter as I tried to do anything to generate some warmth.

  “First of all, let’s get this on yah.” He produced a helmet from one of his locked hard-sided case thingies and dropped it carefully on my head, buckling it for me, which was a lot easier for him when he wasn’t wearing any gloves.

  He put a helmet on his head and dropped onto the front seat, sticking his key in the ignition.

  The bike was so loud in the confines of the alley when he started it that I jumped involuntarily and clapped my hands over my ears.

  “Okay, come on!” he called over the noise and I got on behind him.

  He explained to lean with him and to hold on, and told me whatever I did, to never lean against the curve or I’d throw off the balance of the bike. I snugged against his back as he pulled on a pair of gloves and he asked where I lived.

  I told him the address, he thought about it for a second, then called back, “Ah, yeah! I know where that’s at. Okay, kiddo, hold on tight!”

  I secretly hated it when he called me ‘kid’ or ‘kiddo’ but I never said anything. This time was no exception. I held onto him as he put the bike in gear and carefully took us down the alley. He checked both ways, even though it was a one-way street, and turned us out onto it carefully.

  My cheeks burned with cold, my nose instantly trying to run, but I was enamored. I’d ridden in countless cars and on public transportation. I’d even ridden in convertibles with the top down, but nothing compared to the exhilaration I felt on the back of that motorcycle.

  The ride was way too short, and all too soon, I was stepping up onto the curb in front of my building, struggling with the strap beneath my chin, glowing with excitement.

  “That was way too much fun!” I cried and Skids grinned.

  “How have I not given you a ride home before now?” he asked. “If I’d have known you would have liked it that much, I would have taken you for a ride when the weather was better.”

  “God, I don’t know, but that was amazing! It’s like the difference between watching everything on TV and being there in the moment,” I said, and he smiled and pulled off his gloves, reaching up to undo the catch under my chin, his fingertips rough where they brushed against my skin.

  “Glad you enjoyed yourself; now you need to go on and get up inside where it’s warm. You’re half froze to death, girl.”

  “Thanks so much for the ride,” I said cheerily. “I’ll see you at work.”

  “Lookin’ forward to it,” he said with a wink, and it was nice that he waited until I was safe inside my building’s lobby, waited until I turned back and waved, before he restarted the bike and pulled smoothly back out onto the lonely stretch of street.

  2

  Skids…

  “Jesus Christ, you dirty old man,” I muttered to myself as I watched her go up the steps to the lobby of her building. She used her key fob thing to get in the secured front door and shut it behind her, waving through the glass. I smiled and waved back and fired up the bike.

  I hoped the brisk ride back to the 10-13 would act as a cold shower, but no such luck. I was cold alright, but I was still hard as granite, trapped behind the zipper of my jeans. It was uncomfortable as hell, the material of the rough denim pinching with every stride I took and it was pure murder going up the steps to my own apartment.

  I’d been fine, everything had been totally innocent and I hadn’t thought anything of giving her a ride home, right up until I got back down from my place dressed to ride and spotted her wide-eyed and so-serious look through the glass of the bar’s front door.

  She was all big blue eyes, those lush lips of hers slightly parted as she stared out over the street without really seeing it. The slight smile that played on those lips just made it click, you know? The realization of just how fucking beautiful she was.

  All of a sudden, I didn’t see her as the zany and plucky twenty-something kid. She’d gone from zero to all-fucking-woman with that one look and I didn’t know how it’d happened.

  I’d just… noticed her, that’s all.

  I keyed myself into my pad and dumped my helmet off on the table by the door, dropping my keys into the basket on its scarred top. My wallet and glasses in their case followed suit.

  My colors and jacket were hung on the old-fashioned coat tree next to it, and I worked off my chaps, hanging them up next to my coat. I toed off my scuffed riding boots and set them under the table where they belonged and sighed as my feet found relief in the old scruffy green carpet that was probably a good fifteen years past its need to be replaced.

  I took my tired ass in to shower, pulling down a fresh towel from the hall closet where the washer and dryer lived. I stripped out of my clothes right there in the hall and dumped everything directly into the washer, ditching the odd pocket change into an old Tide pods container that was nearly full.

  I tried to make a mental note that I needed to take it to one of those Coin Star machines, but anything I threw at my mental wall was refusing to stick – all except Coco and that beautiful dreamer’s look she’d had on her face.

  “Shit, Skids. Get your fuckin’ mind out of the gutter!”

  But it was no use, I stood under the shower spray for I don’t know how long, just willing my cock to go down. I even went as far as to try and will the erection out of existence by picturing shit that’d always been my go-to before. I had a lot of fucked up shit locked away in the old brain-trust for just such an occasion, but my damn hard-on was being tenacious.

  “Man.” I shook my head and bowed it beneath the shower spray, letting the water try to pound some sense into me but no dice.

  Frustrated, and even a bit borderline angry with myself, I fisted my cock and gave it a tug. I figured that what no one knew wouldn’t hurt ‘em and as long as I kept shit to myself and didn’t act on anything, I was good to go.

  Still, all the rationalizing in the world didn’t stop me from feeling vaguely dirty as I wanked it with Colette ‘Coco’ Bishop on my mind.

  I tried to keep it clean. Tried just sticking to that look, that one singular moment in time, but no dice. My imagination had other ideas, because before I knew it, the pressure built at the base of my spine, my balls tightened up, and I spilled over the back of my hand picturing her stretched out beneath me, those long dancer’s legs wrapped around my hips, my dick buried in her hairless pussy balls-deep.

  “You fucking sicko…” I muttered.

  Ain’t nothing sick about it… she’s a woman, of age. Younger, yes, but totally legal, and this is just your imagination.

  Just my imagination.

  I let go, let the images flood my mind, let the euphoria take over, picturing that smile of hers as she lowered her lips to mine, and I can honestly say I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. I braced my hands against the tile of the tub surround, let the water beat on the back of my neck, ease the tension between my shoulders and let myself have this because if I didn’t, I’d be tempted to drink, and I couldn’t ever go back to that life.

  I’d already lost everything I’d had once. Lost the love of a good woman, watched her turn bitter and broken… I wouldn’t be that guy ever again for anyone, let alone a twenty-something young girl who had the whole world in front of her and the pick of any guy she could ever want.

  I sighed and shut off the tap, sliding the glass shower door aside and reaching through the steam for a towel off the rack. I set about drying myself off roughly and hoped like hell that when he came along, whatever guy that was lucky enough to have Colette in his life, that he’d realize just what he’d got and be good to her.

  Because if he wasn’t and I found out about it? There’d be a good, old fashioned, wood shampoo in his future. I’d beat his fucking brains out with a baseball bat. I liked the girl that much.

  Just, no one can know about it, I told myself resolutely.

  3

  Colette…

  “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Coco!” Bridgette squealed from the living room. It was Monday, and we were due to get to practice soon. I looked up from where I was throwing things together in my dance bag for practice and frowned at my half-closed bedroom door.

  “What?” I called.

  “Not ‘what’!” Orion called. “Get your ass out here!”

  I rolled my eyes and went out to find out what the fuss was about.

  All of my flat mates and fellow dancers were all standing around looking stupid excited, all eyes trained on me. I blinked and looked from Bridgette to her boyfriend Jess and from Orion to his girlfriend Genevieve.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Lacy went skiing and tore her ACL,” Bridgette said, excitedly.

  “Oh, my God, that’s awful!” I cried. “Why would you be excited about that?” I demanded, horrified.

  “Oh, please,” Genevieve rolled her eyes. “Lacy’s a bitch and you –”

  “You’re her number one understudy.” Orion grinned at me and it hit me.

  “Oh.” I dropped down to sit on the edge of the ottoman. “My God.” I let it sink in what it meant. I dropped my head and stared at my limp hands in my lap.

  “You’re the company’s new principal dancer, baby! Congratulations!” Bridgette dodged around the lot of them and nearly bowled me over hugging me.

  I laughed, a bit in shock. I mean, you could knock me over with a feather. It wasn’t that hard, but –

  “Holy shit, I’m Clara.”

  “You’re Clara,” Jess said, grinning.

  I snapped out of it and stood like I’d been electrocuted, and shrieked. We all jumped up and down in our living room excitedly until the neighbor banged on their ceiling, at which point several of us collapsed on the couch in a fit of giggles.

  “We have to celebrate, the whole company, after practice,” Orion said judiciously.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said.

  “Oh, come on!” Genevieve cried.

  “It’ll be fine. We’ll go to the Cormorant. You get an employee discount, don’t you?”

  I laughed and said, “I don’t know about that. It sure doesn’t extend to you guys!”

  “Oh, we’ll be fine. You just be ready,” Bridgette declared.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Whatever, if we’re late to practice, the Madame will kill us.” We all had a laugh. Our director was strict but not awful. Not like she could be, not at all, but she was very poised and very French and even though I don’t know where the nickname had come from – it’d stuck.

  We shared a Lyft to Bay Water Hall and sure enough, I was pronounced Clara. The Madame seemed well-pleased with the outcome and I was surprised by that. I mean, I had worked really hard to get this far, and I knew I was better than Lacy, but Lacy’s father had money and you know how that goes…

  I’d never relied on my mother’s name to get me anywhere, even though she’d been one of the best in her prime, and most of the company didn’t even know I was her daughter. They just knew me as Coco, thanks to my roommates, who did know, and who had leaked my childhood nickname the first time my mom had come to stay with us.

  I practiced hard, and the Madame was, surprisingly, not even close to tougher on me like I had expected. At the end of the run-through of the first act, she corrected one or two minor things and I asked her if she was sure.

  She’d winked and told me, “Darling, no one here could be half so hard on you as you are on yourself.”

  I’d smiled and had been grateful. It was high praise coming from her, and I almost felt like I was drifting along in some sort of dream-state. I was sure the euphoria and excitement would be worn off by the next day’s practice, though.