“You know, a dangerous rock star. Swooping down unannounced.”
“Pouncing on an innocent, unsuspecting librarian.”
“Yes.” I cleared my throat. What was he doing with his hand? Now he brought a finger to my cheek, stroking me so lightly.
“She’s right.” Slowly, slowly making his way over to my mouth, he teased my bottom lip, grazing the edge. “I’m very dangerous.”
A slight gasp slipped from my lips. This couldn’t be happening. I wasn’t standing next to Ash Black in our break room, and he certainly wasn’t touching me, making me throb and ache and start breathing all jagged and quick as I leaned in to him.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, tilting his head down. “May I kiss you, Anika?”
“Oh,” my delighted sigh answered yes for me, and before I knew what was happening, he kissed me. His lips down on mine, so simple and easy, but it felt anything but. Melted chocolate, dipping and seducing, one taste simply wasn’t enough. Hand up to his shoulder, eyes closed, slow and insistent, licking, teasing at the edge. My lips parted and he nibbled, light, along my bottom lip plump between his teeth. It made me catch my breath, clutch his shoulder, that small movement, such a slight shift but so much promise in it. The blend of sweet and wicked, the heat he could stoke within me with the slightest gesture.
“So soft.” He caressed my cheek as if mesmerized by my skin. Light kisses, he trailed down my neck and I tilted my head back, eyes closed. This clearly wasn’t happening. All of my late night fantasies had taken over somehow. Maybe I’d fallen, slipped and banged my head and knocked myself out. This was what I was cooking up in my blackout. I’d wake up any second in a hospital room, my worried parents sitting at my bedside, my head feeling all thick and fuzzy.
But for now, the fantasy still reigned and Ash Black pressed into me, trailing hot kisses along my neck. The stubble on his cheek felt as rough and gritty as I’d wondered, adding a delicious edge to his adoring attentions. He brought his hand to my waist, still keeping it chaste, sort of, his fingers caressing my side, my lower back, my stomach. A moan escaped my lips as he licked me, sucking lightly at my tender flesh along my neck. I fisted his jacket and brought a hand to his chest, a wall of muscle and heat, hard and powerful and solid. He made a sound low in his throat and the way he touched me, kissed me, made me feel like I was amazing, a rare precious jewel he’d somehow discovered, completely unexpected and yet exactly what he’d been searching for.
I clutched his shoulder, his side, wanting him closer, wanting more of his heat, his hardness. He wrapped his hand in my hair, tight in his fist, tilting my head further back as he plundered my mouth with his tongue. With a step forward, he had me against the counter, his thighs pressing against mine, his musky, masculine scent enveloping me.
Dimly, I became aware of a buzzing sound, an angry, persistent sort of an alarm. But it blended with the roar of blood, the rush of our breathing, the steady beat of my heart. Until he pulled away and took his phone out of his pocket.
“Shit, sorry.” He turned it off, shaking his head. “My agent.”
“Hmm.” I bit my lip, trying to remember where I was. My break room. With Ash Black. What was happening, exactly?
“He keeps calling. There’s a thing going on.”
I nodded. He checked a message on his phone, letting go of my waist. I shouldn’t miss the contact so much. My lips, my body shouldn’t feel empty and suddenly cold, just because I wasn’t in the arms of a rock star anymore.
“Fuck.” He frowned, looking at the screen.
“Everything OK?”
He looked up, troubled. “Just some fallout. From a video.”
That’s right. I remembered a video my roommate Jillian had showed me. She loved Mandy Monroe. I found her songs too sugary for my taste, too packaged and sweet. I liked my music with more energy and raw passion. But Ash Black had been an asshole, hadn’t he? Breaking up with her in the middle of a restaurant while she cried.
“You saw it.” He watched me, concern now lacing his dark, gorgeous eyes. Such long lashes on a man. It wasn’t fair.
“I saw it,” I confirmed. “But I try not to believe everything I see on a YouTube video.”
He exhaled, I could have sworn from relief, though why he should care so much about the opinion of some librarian he just met I had no idea.
“Were you a jerk to her?” I had to ask. It didn’t matter, not really. I’d never see him again. He’d walk out of this break room in the next minute and I’d stand there touching my lips and wondering if I’d completely made up our kiss. So I knew I shouldn’t waste the last few words we said to each other on confirming some gossipy rumor. But I wanted to know.
He looked at me as if weighing his options. And when he chose honesty, I felt strangely proud of him. “Yes, I was a jerk,” he admitted. “But there’s a lot more to the story than those 30 seconds.”
I nodded, believing him. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like breaking up with Stan if he had been able to post a video of me to an audience of millions. I didn’t think I’d ever said anything too mean, but I was sure he could find something, some ugly moment when I’d been returning his gym bag and looking grouchy and unappealing. I couldn’t imagine having every second of my life under such intense scrutiny. I almost felt bad sending him off again into it all, that mob of angry waiting photographers literally chasing him down the sidewalk.
“I have to go.” He sounded regretful, looking at me like he’d much rather stay right there. Maybe it was the quiet he liked. I understood that.
“Meet me tonight?” he asked, sounding strangely nervous and expectant. He had to have asked that of thousands of girls in his life. In fact, I bet he didn’t even have to ask most of the time, they just showed up at his hotel room or at parties. Wherever he was, I was sure women threw themselves at him with gusto. Then what was he doing standing there with me, looking absurdly vulnerable and concerned that I might reject him?
“You want to see me tonight?” I had to ask for confirmation.
“I want to see you again. I mean, this break room is amazing.” He gestured at the small, dented microwave. “I could probably heat you up a cup-o-noodles in that, no problem.” I had to laugh again. He didn’t even know how loud that microwave was, buzzing and humming like hive of angry bees. “But I’m staying at the Grand. Meet me there when you’re free?”
“You want me to meet you at your hotel?” This was like every Stranger Danger pamphlet my mother had ever handed me, and believe me, she’d really gotten her hands on a lot of material. Paranoid, over-protective, she’d drilled the word “no” into me from a very young age.
“We can have a drink down in the lobby,” he offered, seeming to sense my mother’s telepathic worry through the airwaves, traveling at light speed all the way down from upstate New York.
“Won’t you get mobbed?” I pictured the brash, aggressive faces of those photographers. He’d be like a sitting duck there, wouldn’t he?
“No, they’ve got good security. Someone can always still sneak in a camera phone, but they won’t last long if they take it out and start filming.”
Hmm. Ash Black was famous for being a bad boy. He had a long, well-publicized history of tearing through gorgeous women. And he was seductive as hell. Those were like the top three items on my mother’s long list of Things to Avoid in Men. I could still picture Mandy Monroe’s tear-stained face, sitting alone in that restaurant.
But then, here he was, Ash Black, looking at me with those bedroom eyes, crooking his sexy lips into an inviting smile. I could practically see him patting the back of a motorcycle seat. Hop on, he seemed to be saying. Let’s go for a ride.
I’d made myself a promise, hadn’t I? The next time anything like that happened, I’d say yes.
“OK.” As the word slipped out, I felt a thrill of excitement.
“Yes,” he exclaimed, victorious. Maybe it had been a while since he’d asked someone out? That was what he was doi
ng, wasn’t it? Asking me on a date? “What’s your number?” He held his phone, all ready to enter in my digits. I gave them to him, still in a state of disbelief.