by Huss, JA
"Huh," he says.
"What?"
"I can't see you as blonde at all. What idiot made you do that?"
"Why would someone wanting me blonde make them an idiot?" And more importantly, I ask myself, why did he suspect I was forced so quickly?
"Because you're probably the most perfect natural beauty I've ever seen, so anyone who wanted you to have blonde hair was looking to ruin you."
"Yeah, you're probably right about that."
He stops the massage on the ends of my hair. "I'm probably right? Or I am right?"
I shrug as he takes his fingertips to my scalp. His touch has just the right amount of pressure and he rubs my skin in small circles, starting from my temples and moving back down my head, and then under my neck.
My whole body erupts in chills.
"Feel good?"
"So good," I murmur, enjoying it to the fullest.
"When you do me," he says as he takes his fingertips to the top of my head, producing another wave of chills, "I like it up here."
I laugh. "Is that right? That's your big shampoo training tip, Larue? Do me like this?"
He leans all the way down into my ear, so close that my eyes shoot open when his breath tickles the sensitive skin. "Do me just like that, Rook. Please."
Oh, fuck.
I swallow, trying to stall for a response, but I have nothing. I take a chance and glance up at him. He's laughing at me. "You're bad."
"You have no idea. Now, close your eyes so I can rinse. I might make you wet, so I apologize ahead of time for that."
Oh, he is so bad.
And I am in so much trouble because even though he's very careful with the water as he rinses my head, I am definitely wet.
"So, you're a model now. Or you most likely will be tomorrow. What's your big plan? Got one?"
"Yeah," I answer, thankful that we're done with the sexual banter for now. "I'm gonna ride it out while it lasts."
"So you think you'll like being a model?"
"Maybe, but it doesn't matter. If it pays decent money I'm gonna do it." He shuts the water off and I turn a little to look up at him. "It's a break I really need, Ronin. You have no idea. So maybe I'll like doing this stuff or maybe I won't. But I'm gonna get as much out of it as I can and then, when it's over, I'll go do something else."
"Like what?" The strong smell of citrus permeates the air as he starts working in the conditioner.
My hair is so long and thick, this usually takes a while even when I'm in a rush, but Ronin takes his time and I sink into the chair a little more, totally relaxed. "College, maybe. I never got good grades, and I took the GED when I was sixteen so I could quit going to school, but I know you can start out in community college and then transfer into a better place. That's my dream. It'll probably never happen, but you asked."
"What would you study?"
"I dunno," I lie. I could just tell him, but I don't feel like it. It's my dream and it's personal. It means a lot to me and I'm not gonna share that with some guy I just met.
"What if you didn't get this job? Or what if it doesn't last? Models are known for having a pretty sketchy schedule. Work one day, none the next. It's not real stable."
This question is even worse than the last one. "Yeah, well, I'm used to disappointment, so no big deal. If it doesn't work, I'll move on and do something else. I might be young, but I've learned a few good lessons in my day."
He goes still so I open my eyes and look up at him. He's frowning. "What lessons, Rook?"
"Don't rely on anyone to get what you want. You just gotta go get it yourself."
"That's kinda sad," he says as the water comes on again.
"Nah, just practical." I shiver as the water rushes over my head.
"So you're not the type who looks for a boyfriend to take care of her?"
I snort. "Fuck. No. The last thing I want right now is a guy who wants to take care of me."
"Huh. Well, what do you tell them then?"
"Tell who?" I ask, looking up at him again.
"The guys you date? Do you tell them you're just interested in casual stuff, or what? I don't get it."
I'm tired of this conversation so I shut it down. "I tell them nothing, Ronin, because I don't let anyone get that close."
"Because someone hurt you?" he asks, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Is this a psych couch or a shampoo station?"
He smiles down at me and shuts the water off, then wrings out my hair and drapes a towel over my head. "Sit up." He fluffs my hair with the towel for a few minutes, then tosses it into a basket across the room and hands me a comb. "So, was it everything you thought it would be?"
The innuendo is back and I smile as I drag the comb through my hair and stand up next to him. He's tricky, this one. Knows just when to light me up and dim me back down. "It was so much more," I gush, "I have no words to describe it."
"Try," he says, suddenly serious.
His hands begin to wander around my waist, tugging on my belt loops, a safe way to make contact but not put his whole hand on my hip.
I'm holding my breath and it comes out in a soft rush. "It was gentle."
He smiles.
"And it made me tingle."
"Tingle?" he asks. "Really? That good?"
I nod as I watch his lips. His mouth opens a little and I draw in a deep breath.
"Well, I'm not sure you're ready to step into my shampoo shoes, but give it a go, OK? And if you get nervous, just take a deep breath and I'll hold your hand the whole way through. From working the faucet to rinsing the conditioner, I have your back, Rook."
Never once does he crack a smile.
I nod and become very serious. "I really appreciate your confidence in me, Larue. Now, please, lie back in my chair and I'll do you just the way you like it."
Chapter Seventeen - Ronin
Rook's hands on me almost drive me over the edge. I take a deep breath as she sprays the water down my head, then leans down to talk in my ear, just the way I did with her. She's totally on to me and this makes me smile.
"What's funny, Larue?" she quips.
"You, Gidget. You think I don't know who Gidget is? Please." I say it the way she did earlier, with mock exasperation. "I fangirled on Gidget before she was on RetroTube every night."
"You do not watch RetroTube!"
I cross my heart with my fingertips. "I swear, Gidge was my girl back when I was a boy. She's hot."
"It's the pigtails, isn't it?"
"Mmmmm, and she did this thing with her tongue…" Rook covers her mouth with her hand to hide her laugh. God, she's beautiful when she's laughing. "… and her feet. When she talked on her little pink phone her feet had this whole other conversation going on."
"Oh my God, you are a Gidget fan! Who would know that?"
I open my eyes and enjoy her delight. "We have a contract coming up soon. The one you're doing is called TRAGIC, right? We have the STURGIS one and then the GIDGET one. I've been researching that little teen-flake for months now."
"So which one, Sandra Dee or Sally Field?"
"Definitely Sandy but Sally has way more episodes, so…"
"Yeah, I agree. When I was a kid I wanted to be Gidget so bad. Who's got the contract for that job?"
I look at her and it sinks in.
"Let me guess, you can't be both TRAGIC and GIDGET."
"Two totally different worlds, Rook."
She just shrugs and goes back to my hair. "How am I doing so far?"
"Magic, your fingers are magic." I close my eyes and relax again, content with how this afternoon is playing out. She's fun and easy-going. She's not offended when I flirt and she flirts back.
Water rushes down my neck and I jump out of the chair and turn back to look at her. "You got me wet!"
"Sorry, Larue. But I'm just a trainee, you can't expect me to be a professional like you on the first try."
I whip my shirt off and wipe the water off my neck. "Are you done with me?"
> "I'm not sure," she replies, tilting her head coyly. "Did I do you right?"
I walk towards her and she holds her hands up and shrinks back into the corner. She's laughing so I know it's all in fun, but the defensive positioning bothers me for some reason. Like she's used to being stalked. Like she's used to guys coming at her with fists.
She starts to shift, uncomfortable with my silence and staring.
"Would you like to come upstairs with me?"
"What's upstairs?" she asks, trying to play innocent.
"My apartment. I could make you lunch." I look at the clock on the wall and it's almost dinner time, then nod towards it. "Or dunch, since it's late now."
"Dunch?"
"Yeah, you know, lunch and dinner. It's like brunch, but it's dunch."
"You cook?"
"No," I laugh. "Not really. But I can buy food and bring it back and put it on a plate and pretend I made you dunch." I walk a few paces towards her and she takes a deep breath but holds her ground. Yes, someone definitely hurt this girl in the past and that makes me angry. She catches my change in mood and I smile to ease her back down. She's perceptive.
"What else would we do?" she asks as I take her hand and pull her out of the corner.
"Watch a movie?" I offer. This piques her interest and she brightens as I bring her towards me and push her wet hair off her shoulders. It leaves drops of water behind on her bare skin.
"Which movie?" she breathes as I pull her into my chest. I can feel her heart hammering against my body and I take her face in my hands.
"Any movie you want. We have a database of pretty much everything." I lean down and caress her lips with mine and then groan when a tiny moan escapes her mouth.
She pulls back, her hand firmly against my chest to keep me at bay. "Why are you kissing me?"
"Because I can't stop myself. And because I'm the only one who knows you, and you're just Rook, the girl who appeared out of nowhere. But tomorrow, you'll be Rook, the face of TRAGIC. And I don't think you're tragic at all, Rook. I think you're Gidget. But what I think doesn't matter, because things will move forward once you sign that contract and we'll just have to wait and see where it all ends up."
"You don't want me to sign the contract?" She scowls at me, like I'm trying to steal her future away or something.
"No, that's not it. I want you to have your chance at that dream you have, but there's a reason this campaign is called TRAGIC and not GIDGET and I'm guessing you already know that, because you look like a smart girl to me. So, just for tonight, I'd like to treat you like Gidget and have you over for dinner and a movie."
She swallows down a sad look and then paints on a smile. "OK, dinner and movie. I'd like that."
I lean down again and brush against her ear with my lips as I whisper, "But no matter what happens—you will never shrink back into a corner from me again. Because I will never hurt you."
She stiffens a little as I hold her close, but I wait for her to relax before I let her go. And then I take her hand and lead her towards the stairs.
Chapter Eighteen - Rook
Oh shit. I'm not sure what I'm doing here. Ronin is all over the place with me this weekend. Last night he had me standing in front of him naked so he could take a picture and hint that he'll take care of me. He leaves to go take care of someone else apparently, then lets himself back into my apartment and sleeps on my couch. He gives me a boat-load of free designer clothes, tests the waters with some not-so-veiled flirting, and then kisses me and invites me up to his apartment.
And I'm going!
Even though my head is screaming stop, my feet keep going. My hand is grasping his just as hard as he is clutching mine. My heart is pounding and if he wanted to take me to bed right now, I'd probably let him.
And on top of all that, he's got some well-formed opinions on what might have happened in my other life.
He stops at the top of the stairs and I try to rein in my wild emotions.
"Everything OK?"
I swallow and nod and this makes him frown. "What?"
"You look scared out of your freaking mind, Rook. You don't have to come up here, you know. We can go eat at Cookie's if you want."
I take a deep breath. "No, no, I want to watch a movie with you." That's not a lie either, the thought of picking a movie to watch with him actually sounds fun. "But I'm not interested in anything else." I look away, embarrassed.
"I don't want anything else, Rook. Just dinner and a movie."
I nod and snap back to reality, noting the hallway we've ended up in at the top of the stairs. Ronin notices my new interest in the place and points to the massive wooden double doors down off to the right. "That's Elise and Antoine's apartment. I'm this way." He redirects my attention to the left, where the hallway goes on for several yards and ends at an equally massive single door.
He keys in his security code and the door beeps and then clicks when the mechanism unlocks. Ronin opens the door and waves me in. I take a tentative step forward and then move out of the way so he can get past me. "Come on, I'll show you the movies."
He lets go of my hand and I scramble to take it back. He smiles over his shoulder and tugs me farther into the room. "Here's the remote," he says, motioning at me to sit on the couch. "Push that turquoise button to get to the movie database."
I push it and a search screen comes up along with a menu for different genres. "What kind of movies do you like?" I ask.
"Your pick tonight, I'll get dinner, and," he stresses, "I get to pick your food. And you can pick the movie."
"What's with you and the choosing food thing? I don't get that. Wouldn't you rather I get something I like?"
"Did you hate the burger I got you?"
"No, but—"
"But nothing. Give me a chance. I promise, I'm good at this."
"Yeah, but it's weird."
"What's weird about ordering you food?"
"It's not the ordering, it's the control."
"Oh, I get it. You're one of those."
"Those what?"
"Control freaks. You have to be in control all the time, right?"
"What? That's so far from the truth it's bizarre."
"What else could it be then? I mean, if I pick what you like, then why do you care if I order you food?"
And I'm trapped. I can only shrug because to tell him the truth will spill all my secrets and to deny it will just keep the conversation going. Luckily he's one of those graceful winners and shoots me a wink.
"I'll be back in like twenty, OK?"
I nod and relax back into the overstuffed couch as Ronin walks down the hallway and comes back with a clean shirt, then heads out. My gaze wanders around the room and I take it all in. It's definitely a guy's apartment because the color scheme is nothing but shades of brown with some black thrown in for variety. He has the biggest TV screen I've ever seen hanging on the wall and I get a little chill of delight as I think about watching movies on that thing. He's got surround sound speakers placed strategically around the room and through the sheer curtains I can see the city lights across what seems to be a pretty significant terrace.
Man, these people definitely have money.
I take my attention back to the database and enter the movie I want to watch. I've been thinking about this movie since I met him actually, because of his name. It's a movie both of us can enjoy—a touching love story with beautiful scenery—cherry blossoms even. And it's a war movie with lots of blood and gore.
I think he'll love it. This makes me warm because if I'm honest, I want him to love it. Because I love it.
I really don't have a lot of experience with men but I can say with absolute certainty that no man has ever looked at me the way Ronin Flynn did when I came out of that closet wearing the blue nightie. His eyes swept down my body in hungry desire and then they climbed back up so slowly my heart started pounding with the anticipation of what his expression would say when he finally found my face.
If I spoke the
language of his eyes I'd know for certain, but I'm at a loss with this guy. I'm fumbling around in the dark trying not to look or act like a complete child and I hope I'm not wrong about my guess, but those eyes looked like they wanted to touch every part of my body.
In the few seconds we twined our gaze together I heard myself ask him to kiss me a million ways in my thoughts, and if I spoke the language of my own desire then I'd know for certain that I almost begged him to do it with the look on my face.
Touch me, I should've whispered. Kiss me. Because my whole body is humming with the realization that this is how a man makes you feel when you actually like him. This is what girls mean when they claim a man makes them feel weak. They don't picture fists hovering over them as they cower in the corner, hoping and praying that those hands never connect with their cheekbone.
I press play on the screen and then pause the movie and go over to the terrace to wait for Ronin. It's not warm out, but it's tolerable for a spring evening so I slip out and leave the door open behind me. It's a pretty large square terrace filled with patio furniture and a grill off to the side.
I walk over to the railing, bend down a little, and rest my chin on my hands. The view of downtown Denver is stunning—the tall buildings are lit up and everything seems to twinkle. I have no idea what any of the buildings are, but I don't care either. They're pretty. It's amazing, when I think about it, how fast things can change. Three months ago I was an abused girlfriend, beaten to within an inch of her life. Three days ago I was a scared girl with very little money in a strange city and living in a homeless shelter.
And tonight, even though I'm still scared and I still have very little money, it's all flipped around. I'm in a fantastic apartment with a beautiful man. I'm wearing some pretty nice clothes that I'll probably regret asking for when I see how much they cost. And I might even have a job as a model for a photographer who is important enough to own an entire building and pay girls a hundred dollars an hour to sit for him.
I hear the soft footsteps but I don't turn.
"Find a movie you like?" he asks as he comes up behind me. He puts his hands on either side of the railing, my body between them, and then takes a chance and leans in to close the distance between us.