by Owen Andrews
Falling for him? Yeah, I guess that would be pretty accurate. I felt like I was falling for him in a way that I hadn't fallen for a guy in quite some time, and it terrified me.
I turned back to Grant. I smiled. There was something infectious about the way he smiled at me. There was something oh so hot about the way he smiled at me.
"Fine," I said. "You win. I'll go out with you."
His face lit up and I felt so hot. Not just aroused either. There was something about that look that filled me with warmth. That made me feel good. That made it seem as though everything was right in the world even if it was only for just a moment.
It was the giddiness of having a crush and knowing your crush was returned. A dangerous feeling. Very dangerous.
Grant smiled and held out a hand. I looked at his offered hand and blushed as I thought of all the things he'd done with those hands last night. Magical hands. Hands that were far more talented than any man had a right to be!
I took it. As I took his hand I heard a squeal from behind. No doubt Rachel getting a little too excited as she lived vicariously through me.
Only I could understand where Rachel was coming from. Just taking his hand was enough to send electric pleasure running through my body. It was enough to send memories of all the naughty things I'd gotten up to the night before running through my mind and body at the same time. I very nearly gasped in pleasure right here in the cold fluorescent glow of the cube farm.
Thankfully my body didn't betray me. That would've been too much. Too much indeed!
"Let's go then," Grant said.
It was too bad. It really was a fairytale moment, only I couldn't enjoy it because I was so damn nervous. I was going over and over this situation in my mind. Wondering what all of it meant. Wondering why he was here at my workplace of all things. Wondering why he seemed to be chasing after me when we'd just had the one night together. An incredible night, to be sure, but it was still just one night.
I was so worried that I missed the fairytale moment where a beautiful rock god took me by the hand and escorted me out of my work while all the girls I worked with stared on with a mixture of hostility and jealousy.
It's really too bad. That would've been a fun moment if I wasn't so far up my ass worrying.
20
Mia
"Why did you leave?"
I sighed. I'd been afraid he was going to ask this question from the moment he showed up at work today. And I didn't have a good answer even though I'd been thinking about it all morning.
"I had to work…"
It seemed like a weak excuse even as I said it. Judging from the way he was looking at me across the table he thought it was a weak excuse as well. He had a look that said he wasn’t putting up with my bullshit, though it was at least a friendly and amused “not putting up with your bullshit” look.
"Your boss seemed more than reasonable. I'm sure she'd understand if you had to take the day off…"
“Yeah, that would’ve been pretty easy,” I said, a little annoyance creeping into my voice. “I’d have to convince her I’d just spent the night with Grant Thompson and I needed the day off to have a whirlwind day with you. Kinda hard to believe unless you’re standing right there validating the story.”
“I could’ve sent a selfie or something,” he said.
That was true. There were ways around my flawed logic. Hell, she’d seen me at the concert the night before even if I didn’t know that when I was sneaking away in the middle of the night. She probably would’ve believed me even without the crazy story, but I wasn’t telling Grant that. No, this was getting too close to the real reason why I left.
I was afraid. Afraid I’d been a one night stand. Afraid I might be more than a one night stand. Afraid of my feelings and of the world he lived in. Afraid of being pulled into that world which I wasn’t sure I wanted.
Grant reached down and picked at his salad. We were at a nice little diner just down the street from where I worked. Not too different from the diner where we'd met the night before, only now we were sitting at a booth instead of up at the counter. Also we had to deal with women walking by and taking a look, then taking a second look as though they couldn't believe they were seeing what they thought they saw in the giant diner windows.
So far no one had come in.
Yet.
Someone banged on the window and I looked up to see a woman who looked to be in her middle years. We made eye contact for a moment and she scowled at me. Yeah, it was pretty damn obvious what she thought of me. It was pretty damn obvious that I wasn't required. She looked to Grant who in turn looked down at his food and studiously ignored her. Not that it stopped her from pulling out her phone and snapping a quick picture. I rolled my eyes.
Talk about a shining example of the sort of thing that made me hesitant to think of him as more than a fling. I couldn’t imagine dealing with that on a regular basis. I didn't know how he lived in that world. It was crazy!
"So do you get this a lot?" I asked, desperate to find any excuse to change the subject.
Grant looked up and locked eyes with me. A smoldering glance that took me aback. That had my entire body raging. That was a look of pure lust, but there was something else under all of that lust. There was pain there. I wanted to reach out and take his hand, but I didn't. I was mindful of the people walking past, of the cell phone cameras that would flip out and take pictures.
Grant might live in a totally different world, but I knew enough about that world to know that a picture of Grant with some random woman was already going to be all over the Internet. A picture of him holding that girl’s hand would set gossip sites on fire, and the last thing I wanted was to have my face plastered all over the Internet. Not that there was much I could do to stop it at this point.
"You never answered my question," he said. "Why did you leave last night? I thought we had a good thing going."
I sighed. It seemed like we really were going to do this. It seemed like no matter how hard I tried to avoid this conversation it was something that was going to happen. Well, if he wanted to have this conversation then I guess we could go ahead and have it. I might as well rip the bandage off now.
"We come from two different worlds Grant. You've got all the stuff you're doing, and I'm just a girl fresh out of college who pushes spreadsheets around!"
Grant leaned forward, reaching out to take my hands. I grimaced and glanced over to the window where more people were taking pictures. I thought I even saw somebody out there with a real camera. Well, I suppose it was only going to be a matter of time before word got out that Grant was here.
Amazing how quickly people gathered even if it was a celebrity whose star had faded quite a bit.
He seemed to take that grimace for something that it wasn't though. I saw that pained expression on his face again.
"Mia…"
He stopped. He seemed to be at a loss for words. And I felt my heart going out to him. I melted at that look. He really was everything I would look for in a man if I could choose all the traits I wanted in a partner. There was just the little problem of him being sought after by women all around the world. There was just the little issue of him being the "hot one" in a band I’d despised ever since I was in middle school.
Though after last night I was at least willing to admit that maybe my distaste for the band hadn't been entirely warranted.
"I don't think that's really what's going on here," he said. "What's really the problem? You can tell me."
What was really the problem? Other than being pulled into a world where people were randomly taking my picture just because I was out having lunch with a guy? Other than the fact that he'd been doing tours for more than a decade now and I was sure there were plenty of girls just like me who’d gone out with him, had a little bit of naughty fun in the back of that tour bus, and now all they had were the memories of that brief encounter?
I was sure the road behind his tour bus was littered with forgotten one ni
ght stands. I didn't want to be one of those forgotten girls. If I was going into this then I wanted to know it was serious, but at the same time I was terrified of it becoming serious because it would mean being pulled into his world. The world I was getting a sample of right now as even more women were snapping pictures.
"It's hard to explain," I said. "You can have any girl you want, and I'm nothing special. And you are what you are…"
Grant’s hand squeezed tighter on mine. He held my gaze. It was a hypnotic stare. For a moment the outside world was forgotten. The sound of the diner disappeared. Even all the people out on the street stopping to take pictures of us, which seemed pretty damn rude if you asked me, left my mind as I was captivated by his stare.
It wasn’t fair that a guy could do that to me.
"I really think you're not being fair to me here Mia," he said.
I blinked. "I'm not being fair to you? Are you being serious?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You do that whole charming thing at the diner last night, you take me back to your bus and seduce me…"
Grant blinked. Then he shook his head and started to chuckle. "What are you talking about? You're the one flirting with me with those text messages. You're the one who agreed to go back to the bus for a tour. You're the one who started playing that little what-if game…"
"Are you seriously saying I was the one who…" I felt my voice rising. I knew that was bad, I knew there were people from the lunch crowd all around us, but I couldn't help myself.
Grant stopped me by putting a finger to his lips. And for a surprise I found myself closing my mouth and shutting up. I blinked. Had I really just done that for a man? It was hard to believe, and yet there it was.
"Maybe we should just start over," Grant said. "I…"
He seemed to be having trouble finding his words again. He paused and then the worried expression was gonna from his face. That thousand watt rock star smile was back.
Damn. It wasn't fair that he could turn on that smile and have me immediately melting. I could see why he was so popular. Being able to do that to any girl was definitely a career skill in his line of work.
I frowned. That thought naturally led to thoughts of how he probably had done that with plenty of girls over the years. I don't know why that was bothering me so much, but I couldn’t help how I felt.
"I think we're getting off on the wrong foot here Mia," he said.
"Are we?"
I was trying to sound contrary, but it was difficult with the way he was looking at me. It was very difficult considering how his touch, just a simple brush of his hand against mine, was making me feel!
"Look," he said. "It's pretty damn obvious you have some reservations about me and my… Lifestyle."
He paused and glanced out the window. In the time we’d been talking a completely new group of women had gathered and were snapping pictures. Well, they were doing a combination of snapping pictures of Grant and glaring at me which just served to make me feel even more self-conscious about being here with him in the first place. Somehow I felt less secure here with this small crowd of women than I did last night surrounded by thousands of women who might want to rip me apart.
Grant looked back to me. "All I'm asking for is one night."
I cocked an eyebrow and smiled. He had to realize how that sounded. "One night? Didn’t you get that last night?"
He shook his head. "That's not what I mean. Last night was amazing, but I wanted a date night with you. I want tonight to be just the two of us. Just like last night at the diner. Is that too much to ask?”
I thought about everything that had happened. More than anything I thought about last night in the diner. At how easily conversation had come. And that naturally led to thoughts of what had happened after when we were together in his bus.
I blushed as I thought about that. Sure I'd been in the middle of a dry spell, but that had been some of the most intense sex of my life, and I'd had some pretty wild encounters back in college. Not so much since I started a day job, but them's the breaks.
Would it really hurt anything to give him one night? I could go out on a quick date. I could endure being a part of his world for one evening, and when it was all done I could go back to my regular life and forget any of this ever happened. I could go back to my nice and safe existence, free from women giving me threatening glares and people trying to take my picture just because of who I happened to be sitting with at a diner. Free from the worry of Grant leaving me because I’d just been a particularly interesting one night stand that got less interesting as time passed.
Because ultimately that was all I could think of myself as. He might be playing a pretty good game here, but it had to be a game. A guy like him didn't go ten years doing what he did without learning a few tricks. It just didn’t seem possible that I would be the girl he suddenly decided he wanted to settle down with after so many years of tomcatting around. It didn’t seem like he’d actually give up that life even if he paid lip service to wanting something more. So what if I played along with those tricks for one night? It's not like it was going to kill me.
I looked at him. I smiled. "Fine. We can do it your way. We have one night. You get a date, but that's it mister!"
He finally released my hands, but I found myself wishing he’d hang onto them. I desperately wanted to feel his hands against mine. I desperately wanted to feel more of his body against mine. And I found myself thinking back to the night before. Back to how he'd felt pressing against me. His muscular body over mine. His cock sliding in and out of me and…
Damn it. If I allowed myself to keep getting distracted like that I would be in very real danger of starting to take this "date night" seriously!
I didn't care how hot he was. I didn't care how sincere he seemed. I had to remember he was a man who was probably very skilled at getting what he wanted from women. He was a man who was very used to getting what he wanted from women. I was not going to be another silly groupie, never mind that was exactly how I'd acted last night. Never mind that I seemed to throw caution to the wind and completely forget myself when I was around him.
There was just no way I could possibly be more to him than a one night stand, and so that's exactly how I was going to treat him. One more night. That was it.
It was one date, but there was definitely an expiration date on this relationship. So what if I was misleading him just a little? Was that really any different from how he’d no doubt treated countless women over the years? I was striking a blow for equality, or something like that.
He grinned. "Great!"
I looked down at my watch and back up to him. "So when should we get together? Will I be meeting you somewhere?"
Grant blinked. He looked out at the ever shifting crowd and then back to me. He smiled. "It's not going to be that easy."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You said you’d go on a date with me," Grant said. "And as far as I'm concerned that means I have you all to myself for the rest of the day!"
"Hold on a second," I said. "I said a date tonight. I never promised we'd spend the day together. I have to get out of my work clothes, get ready, all that stuff…"
Grant smiled and leaned forward, suddenly looking conspiratorial. He whispered even though there wasn’t anyone close enough to hear what he was saying. The crazy ladies out there might not have any qualms about snapping our picture like we were some sort of exhibit at a zoo, but none of them were tapping on the glass or approaching the animals on display.
"You have a mall around here, don't you?"
"Well yeah," I said. "It wouldn't be much of a downtown if there wasn't shopping for all the tourists."
"Exactly, and I presume any downtown shopping is going to be a pretty swank joint, right?"
I leaned back. I thought about the diner the night before. I looked at the diner we were at right now. Even though he was probably pretty damn rich, it seemed like he had pretty down-to-earth tastes. A “s
wank joint” for shopping didn’t seem his speed at all.
Still…
"I suppose the shopping around here is nice enough," I said.
He held up his hands as though that settled it. "There you have it!"
I blinked. "I'm afraid I don't quite follow…"
"It's simple. We’re probably going to go out to some impossibly expensive stuffy place tonight, so that means you have to get dressed up. I'm sure we can also find someplace at the mall that does makeovers as long as I throw some money around."
"You think I need a makeover?"
Grant leaned forward again and there was that intense gaze on his face. That hungry look. A look that had me wanting to lean forward and plant my lips on his. My eyes darted towards the window, towards the row of phone cameras that seemed to be moving in a never-ending line taking pictures of us. That would definitely give the gossip rags something to talk about!
"I think you're beautiful. I think you’re perfect just the way you are." He shrugged. "But you’re the one who said you needed to do some makeup before our date. I figure if we have them do it at the mall I can spend some more time with you. You agreed to hang out with me, and I'm not giving up a minute more than I have to!"
I rolled my eyes. He was trying to lawyer me, and I figured I could get out of it if I really wanted to. Only I wasn't sure if I wanted to. The idea of spending a day with him was suddenly sounding kind of nice. And so I found myself grinning and shaking my head.
"You're not going to give up until I give in, are you?"
He grinned and shook his head. Damn it. That grin almost would've been frustrating if it didn't make him look so damn sexy and eager.
21
Grant
I was going crazy as I sat in the back of the store. Luckily none of the people who worked here had recognized me. So far. The girls working here today looked to be college aged. Probably a little too young to remember who I was or when I'd been famous.