Well, shit. What the hell was I supposed to do about this? This store was incredibly deep, so she’d been a good ten to fifteen feet away from me, but I couldn’t get back to the door without her seeing me—or, at least, I wasn’t going to count on being able to do that. I was sweaty and dirty from the show, and completely unprepared for a meeting. I didn’t even know what I’d want to say to her—or if she’d want to say anything at all to me.
Oh, man. What if I walked right up to her, thinking it was so great that we had a chance to meet, that the world had finally brought us together in a place where there was no one else to screw it up, and she turned away and ran in the other direction?
Hold on. “Get a hold of yourself, dude,” I muttered to myself.
What was I doing, undermining myself like that? Why would I even think about getting out the door again without her seeing me? Why was I even worried that she wouldn’t want to see me? I remembered every second we’d spent together in China. The way we’d been. The ease we’d felt with each other, and how she’d started to come out of her shell after that first day. The way we had been able to laugh—both at ourselves and at each other—and how she’d gone out of her way to make me smile, again and again.
I remembered the feel of her hands on my face. The press of her lips against mine. And the way she’d arched up into me, again and again, when we’d made love.
That wasn’t fake. None of that had been fake. She might be an actress—well, sort of—but I’d looked deeply into her eyes plenty of times to know she hadn’t hidden anything from me. She’d let me see right into her soul, the depths of it, and I’d seen nothing there but love.
I didn’t know why she’d left the next day without saying goodbye, but I was willing to bet it was more to do with her being scared than anything else. I was willing to bet a whole lot on that, because I knew we were meant to meet again. We’d been too good together for us to just throw it away.
And with that in mind, I ducked back around the corner and into the aisle where she was standing and turned toward the books, starting to casually browse through them. I could see her out of the corner of my eye, her face now turned down and her nose buried in a book.
Wait. Yes, that was right; her nose was actually buried in the book. I’m talking literally. She had the book up to her face, smelling it.
“I knew we were meant to be together,” I said, making my voice just loud enough that she’d be able to hear it.
I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye and turned toward her just in time to catch her as she practically leapt into my arms, wrapping her own arms around me and burying her face in my neck. Her legs wrapped around my middle in a pose that was going to reveal exactly how happy I was to see her a lot sooner than I thought either of us was ready for.
But that didn’t matter. I held onto her like I’d finally found the one thing I had been needing for my entire life—which was exactly how I felt. Having her in my arms again felt like coming home after the longest tour imaginable, only about fifty times better. She filled the hole I’d been feeling ever since I returned from China. Blocked off the emptiness I’d seen opening up inside me.
“What do you mean, you knew we were meant to be together?” she asked into my neck, her lips brushing against my skin.
My cock grew suddenly harder at the contact, and I stilled, trying to keep from pushing her up against the stacks of books right then and having my way with her. Patience, patience, I told myself. We were together in the real world, now. We had time.
We would make time.
She leaned back, though, and gave me a joke-scolding look. “Happy to see me?” She followed this up with a crooked smile, and at that I did push her up against the book stacks, just so I could lean forward and brush my lips against hers.
“You have absolutely no idea how happy I am right now,” I whispered.
And the glow in her cheeks, the sparks shooting out of her eyes, told me that we were definitely on the same wavelength there.
“I can’t believe you smell books, too,” Alexis said, laughing, after another sip from her glass.
We were in the wine bar across the street from the book shop, shortly after our reunion, and we’d had just enough time to order drinks and take several quick sips before starting to talk like our lives depended on it. Like we were drowning for want of contact with each other.
I knew I had been. I was hoping she’d felt the same.
“My mom taught me to do it,” I replied with a self-conscious shrug. “She told me that the better a book smelled, the more magical it was. When I was young, my dad was finishing up law school, so we were pretty poor while he was getting his degree. We spent a lot of time in the library—it was free to be there to hang out, free books for me and textbooks for him. And it didn’t take me long to figure out that the oldest books smelled the most interesting. I thought it confirmed what she’d said. The oldest books had the best stories to tell, so they smelled the best.”
Alexis laughed like this was the funniest thing anyone had ever said, and I glanced at her wine glass, wondering exactly how much she’d already had. But she couldn’t have had more than three sips.
This was the laughter of true happiness. Giddy, wonderful, sparkly happiness. Not wine.
“I never would have pegged you for a poor kid,” she said, touching my arm and sending sparks shooting through my veins. Then, she frowned. “Though…I’m not sure what kind of kid I would have thought you were.”
“A bookworm,” I told her immediately. “I didn’t like real life all that much, so I escaped as often as I could into books.”
“And now you live in a world where you have to be whoever the label tells you to be,” she said, sounding like she knew exactly what she was talking about. “From one form of living a fiction right into another.”
She paused to take a sip of her wine, and I could see that her eyes had turned sad. Thoughtful.
I reached out and took her hand, bringing her fingers softly to my lips.
“You get it. No one’s ever explained it so well. You feel the same way too, sometimes, don’t you?” I asked.
Instead of answering, she leaned forward and brushed her lips over mine, making the kiss light enough that it was barely a kiss. Just a breath of her skin against mine, a sliver of possibility there.
“I missed you,” she whispered. “I miss how little I have to say with you. And at the same time, how easy it is to say exactly what I think whenever you’re around.”
I reached up, wrapped my hands around her jaw, and pulled her back to me, and this time, I didn’t allow the kiss to be light. I angled her face and dove in, my tongue entering her mouth and pulsing in and out as I showed her exactly how much I had missed her. She leaned into it, deepening the kiss even further, and her hands went to my chest, then up and around my neck. She kissed me like she needed to be closer, and closer, and like it would never be enough.
And my body responded in kind. Within moments, I had her pulled onto my lap, her body flush against mine as I tried to get a hold of every piece of her that I could. This was the woman I had been craving since she left me in China. Hell, this was the woman I’d been craving for my entire life.
I just hadn’t known it until I’d found her.
I finally broke the kiss when some rational part of me told me that we were making a scene—and that we were in a very public place, when I had a reputation to uphold. A reputation of a man who had a girlfriend.
“I missed you just as much,” I told her roughly. “And for the sake of everyone in this bar, I suggest we find a more private place for the rest of this reunion. I’ve spent the last several weeks starving for you, and I don’t want to share you with anyone else.”
Alexis
The great thing about Manhattan is that there’s always a hotel around the corner, and they’re usually pretty nice ones, too. We found a Hilton a block from where we’d started our reunion, and I used my card and my name to check in.
&n
bsp; “Keep that reputation safe,” I whispered to him as we entered the elevator.
And at that, quite suddenly, he had me shoved back against the wall of the elevator, his hands on my cheeks, his eyes staring hotly into mine. But he didn’t kiss me, like I expected him to. Instead, he started talking to me.
“Alexis, I have to tell you something,” he said quickly.
Oh, terrific, here we went. This was the time where he admitted to having a girlfriend, but said that they weren’t doing that well and he was going to break up with her, and yada, yada, yada. I didn’t want any of it. Didn’t want to hear it. Yeah, I’d known he had a girlfriend. Hell, I’d just checked us into the hotel under my name specifically so there wouldn’t be problems for him. And I’d known his butt would need covering.
But I hadn’t really stopped to think about it, you know? Hadn’t bothered to think about what it all meant. I’d been so excited to see him, so suddenly filled with everything good, that I hadn’t bothered with that little thing called reality.
Now, with his words, it all came rushing back to me. The fact that he had a girlfriend. The fact that I’d actually seen her with him. Seen him holding her hand. The fact that he’d brought her to my goddamn show.
I started to push him away, my rational mind coming back into control, ready to assert itself once more. The romantic part of me was already wilting. I needed to remember what the truth of the matter was, here. And the truth was that if I slept with him again, I’d do it knowing that he was cheating on someone else with me.
“Right, actually, now that you mention her, I’m not positive this is such—”
He stopped me with a kiss, and it was one of those searing, mind-numbing, bone-melting deals where he absolutely took control of my mouth, shutting off anything but a groan from me. When he pulled back, he left me feeling hazy and craving his presence.
“Please just be quiet and listen. Just for a second,” he whispered.
I looked up into his eyes and realized that I couldn’t tell him no. Not when he looked like I would tear his heart out and stomp all over it if I did. So, I nodded and sealed my lips, waiting.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said quickly. “Haley. She’s not. It’s just…a fake. It’s just something the label set up, after she joined the band. They thought we should have a girl in the band to appeal to a wider audience, and they made me kick my friend out and take Haley on. Then, it turned out she was hugely unpopular with the audience and we had to do something about that. So, the label had this idea that if we started dating, it would build unity into the band and make us all one happy family. It’s not working, though. It’s complete bullshit, and I hate it and Haley hates it and we’re not even friends. Honestly, we don’t like each other all that much, and—”
I’d heard enough. I put a finger to his lips and looked up into his eyes, letting him see exactly what I was feeling. All the emotions I generally worked so hard to keep bottled up and hidden. All the vulnerability I never let anyone see, for fear that they would hurt me. Because the truth was, I wanted to believe him. Something in me needed to believe him. Needed to believe that I felt this way because we were meant to be together—and that anything standing in the way of that could disappear if we wanted it to badly enough.
“If you’re telling me it’s fake, I believe you,” I said simply. “Maybe it’s stupid, maybe it’s naïve, and maybe I’m just lying to myself to get what I want. The rational side of my brain is screaming at me right now. But I don’t think I want to listen to it. I think I just want…I want us.”
He brought my face to his again for the sweetest, most heart-wrenching kiss I’d ever experienced, and then bent down and scooped me up into his arms. When the elevator doors slid open on the fifteenth floor, he carried me through them and toward our room, my own arms twined around his head and wrapped in his hair, holding him close to me like I’d never let him go.
The moment we got through the door, though, that sweetness ended. Rian tore at my clothes like a dying man. And I let him, helping him get my T-shirt up over my head and my sweatpants off, until I was standing in front of him in nothing but the black lace bra and panties I’d worn for the shows.
He took a step back and stared at me, his eyes running up and down my body not once, but twice.
“Damn, you’re more glorious than a sunrise,” he whispered.
His words sent warmth coursing through my body, and I could feel myself glowing at the compliment. Something about the way he said it, like he’d never experienced anything like me in his life, made me feel not only that he was one hundred percent mine—but that I was one hundred percent his, too.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” I replied. “Now, get those clothes off.”
He made short work of his jeans and shirt, and then he was lifting me off the ground and shoving me against the door, his lips on mine, and then moving to my neck, where he nipped me twice as he pulled my panties to the side and slid his fingers into the wetness there.
“Alexis,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“Don’t talk,” I said, my voice matching his. “Please, Rian, just—”
I stopped talking suddenly when he entered me, sliding in deeper than he had been before, my legs wrapped around him so I could ride him. He started rocking, rearing back to stare into my eyes as he made love to me, and I melted into him.
An hour later, he was lying on top of me in bed, running his tongue down my neck, over the tip of one breast, and toward my belly while his fingers moved in and out of me.
“So good, Rian,” I gasped, squirming under him.
Instead of responding, he pulled his two fingers out, flicked my clit with one of them, and then pushed three back in. I screamed his name, then, writhing as he fingered me, his thumb brushing against my clit in time to the movement of his fingers. Within seconds, I was reaching the edge again.
When he dipped his head to my other breast and bit the nipple, I clutched his head to me and let myself dive over, the world exploding into a million stars, my head thrown back in ecstasy. I was vaguely aware of his fingers leaving me, vaguely aware of his weight changing locations as I reveled in my climax, in the glorious clenching of every muscle in my body. I could hear that he was saying something to me.
I just couldn’t get myself to focus on anything.
Then, his weight came down gently on top of me, his cock reaching for my opening, and he slid into my core. My muscles clenched down on him, still not finished with my climax, and I screamed his name again, clinging to him like my life depended on it.
“Alexis,” he breathed into my ear, moving in and out of me so slowly that it made me want to scream anew—with frustration this time. “Do you know how beautiful you are? How special you are?”
Well. The simple answer there was no. People very rarely told me that sort of thing—not with any truth. And never like this. Never with every inch of their body. Never with worship in their eyes and love on their tongues.
“You make me this special,” I whispered back, pushing him up so I could look into his eyes. “I’m only this special with you.”
He leaned down and rested his forehead against mine so that our eyes were only an inch from each other.
“And I’m only this special for you,” he answered. “No one else has ever made me want to be this special.”
When he kissed me, I came again, and he crashed down after me, our bodies joining the wonderful, star-filled oblivion that we could only find together. Only find with each other.
When he collapsed on top of me, I knew only one thing: I never wanted to let him go again.
Rian
It was definitely past midnight when we decided that we were hungry.
“I need food,” I groaned. “The last thing I ate was a hot dog before the bookstore, and I hadn’t had anything before that since lunch.”
“I haven’t eaten since yesterday,” she admitted on a laugh. “Or…wait, what time is it? Maybe it was the day before.”
I grabbed at my watch and glanced at the time, my eyes foggy with the need for sleep and the aftereffects of the last three hours. “It’s two in the morning,” I said, grinning as I turned to her and placed my teeth gently on her skin. “I’m starving.”
She pushed at me, returning the laugh. “Me too, but I think we’re talking about different things right now. I can’t survive on sex alone.”
I mock pouted at that, though I couldn’t hold it for long.
“So what do we want, then?” I asked her. “Room service? Do they keep room service open this late, do you suppose?”
“Of course they do,” she answered. “It’s a hotel in New York. The city that never sleeps, right? But I happen to know that there’s a great twenty-four-hour café open at the end of this block, and they have Italian food that’s to die for. Let’s go there instead. Get out of the room for a little bit.”
I crawled up to plant a slow, lingering kiss on her lips. “You just want to get me out on the street and show me off, don’t you?” I asked, teasing. “Tell the truth. You just want to be seen with me.”
She made a face like she’d been caught, and then gave me a big sigh. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have tried to hide it from you. I’ve been your biggest fan for the past three years. This whole thing is a setup. China? A setup. That hotel? Totally planned the whole thing. And then I did everything I could to get your attention. Wandering onto your set. I’d known the whole time it was there and was just waiting for the opportunity to crash it. Standing out in the rain like that, pretending like I didn’t know what to do about it? I paid the employees to lock that door, just so you’d have to save me. And I did it all so we could meet, just so I could steal your heart.”
I tapped my lips with a fingertip, pretending to consider that outrageous story. “In that case, you sure were lucky that I happened to get to the hotel right after you. And that I happened to know about that side door.”
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