Tugging on my hands, he smirked a little. "Come here."
I leaned forward, and his lips touched mine. His hand tangled in my hair, pulling me closer into him as his tongue stole all thought from my brain. I melted into him, happily escaping the hysteria. My nerves were so fried that the inability to think was seriously welcome.
When my lungs gave out on me, I had to pull away from him. He rested his hand on my cheek, rubbing my cheekbone with his thumb. "It's really hard to keep my hands off you."
I smirked back at him. "Who said you had to?"
This time he used both hands to pull my face toward him, and the only thing that tore us apart was the announcement over the intercom.
"We're ready for take-off, Mr. Wilder. Please be sure your seatbelts are fastened."
I looked at Sean with confusion. "Doesn't the flight attendant usually come out to say that?"
"I asked him to leave us alone." He was smirking again as he buckled my seatbelt for me, pausing to squeeze my hip and run his hands down my thighs. He winked at me as he sat back and buckled his own belt. The things the man did to my mind and body were overwhelming.
He pulled up a small table between us and reached his hand out to me. I placed both of mine in his and stared at them. His hands were so much larger than mine. I ran my fingers over his knuckles, staring at each finger and every line on his palm. There was a scar on the top of his hand I ran my fingers over and looked up at him.
He had been watching me, and I just couldn't believe I was really sitting in a seat across from Sean Wilder on a private jet headed for Los Angeles to go to his movie premiere. And he was falling in love with me. I smiled and shook my head.
"What sweetheart?"
"I just can't believe I'm here."
He squeezed my hands. "I know what you mean. I've dreamed about touching you a million times. I can't believe you're finally here either."
I bit my lip again and shook my head. "That's not exactly what I meant."
He chuckled and leaned forward to kiss my palm. "I know. I just want you to understand that this is all new to me, too. I've never—I don't want to draw your attention to my past, but you know I haven't exactly been a relationship guy."
I thought about Sean Wilder's reputation—consummate bachelor, caught partying again in New York City, pictured with girl after girl after girl—and he was choosing me?
"Morgan? It gets lonely—being this. Everyone handles it differently. My way wasn't the best, but I couldn't—" He stared out the window for a few minutes. "I didn't want to get hurt. It was easier to not care."
I raised my eyebrow at him. "Easier?"
He dropped his head and rubbed his eyes. "Alright, safer."
I nodded and pulled his hand to my lips, kissing his palm as he'd done to me not moments before. "Now that I can understand."
"Mr. Wilder?" The intercom made me jump a little. "You are now free to move about the cabin. Please let us know if we can get you or your guest anything."
He stood up, keeping his hand in mine and nodded his head behind me. "Let's get more comfortable."
I stood up and followed him to sit on the couch. He kicked off his shoes and pulled off his sweater, revealing a gray T-shirt underneath. As he got it over his head though, he exposed his abs, forcing me to draw in a long breath. He was the sexiest man alive. Wait—he'd said that in one of our phone conversations. I chuckled softly.
"What?" He smiled at me and tilted his head.
I shook my head. "I was just remembering something." At his raised eyebrow, I rolled my eyes at the truth behind the words he'd said and how, at the time, I had no clue what he really meant by it. "You said you'd been called one of the most handsome men in America."
He winked at me. "Three years in a row."
I put my hands to my face, remembering his picture on People magazine's annual list. "I thought you were being arrogant."
He shrugged and sat down on the couch. "I was."
I pushed up the sleeves of my wrap around sweater, feeling the heat in the cabin a little too strongly. I was dressed for a snowy cabin not a stifling plane. He pulled me closer to him and untied my sweater on the side. Slowly, he peeled it off until I was standing in front of him in a thin white tank top. Watching closely for his reaction, I was incredibly nervous and uncomfortable. He'd been with so many women, how could I even compare to them and Michelle Stevens and Glory McKnight, his costar from The Death of Friends, and—
"Sweetie?"
I turned off my inventory of "Most Beautiful Women in America Sean's slept with" and looked down into his eyes.
He ran his hands up my arms, standing to kiss my shoulders. "I need to kiss every single freckle on your body." His lips touched my skin, and my breath quickened. "You are so sexy and amazing. Do you know how long it's been since I was with someone I cared so much about?" I shook my head as he kissed my upper chest, following the path of freckles between my breasts. "Fourteen years—since high school." He sounded wounded, but as he brought his eyes back to mine, I saw that look again—he looked like he wanted to eat me alive. He'd been without love or real emotional companionship for fourteen years.
He kissed my lips and sat back down, pulling me down beside him. I couldn't say anything in response to that. I didn't know if I was falling for him. I was still just adjusting to the fact that Sean Wilder was my Sean. I certainly liked the sound of "my Sean." I wanted him to be mine. I just wasn't so sure that I could fit into his world enough to make it all work out.
His warm breath met my ear, making me shiver. "Pull your feet up here, and let me hold you tighter." Like he asked, I sat with my back to his shoulder and his arm wrapped tightly around my chest. Grabbing a remote from the small table next to the couch, he turned on the TV. A news channel was posting information about the weather and a story about several kittens that were found in a dumpster.
"How long—" I started to ask, but his hand cut me off as he shifted it from my shoulder to my upper chest where he ran his thumb along my collarbone. "Uh, how long is the flight?"
He pressed a button on the remote and a map of the United States appeared with a small plane leaving a trail of yellow dots behind it. The bottom of the screen said, "ETA 7:48 p.m." Almost six hours.
There were so many things I wanted to ask him and know about, but they all just sort of swam around in my head. I wanted to be prepared for what it would be like to be in his life, but being in his arms was just so right that I didn't want to break the peaceful feeling.
I was still so worried that I didn't know Sean—I mean did I know my Sean well enough to say that I really liked him before I knew he was Sean Wilder? My mind ran through all the stories Stewie told me and all the memories Sean shared with me over the phone. I closed my eyes and grabbed onto his hand which was now in the center of my chest. It was tough to concentrate while his fingers dipped down between the tops of my breasts, but something finally occurred to my slow brain. I pulled away from him and got on my knees next to him, a stupid smile on my face.
He drew his eyebrows together. "What's got you smiling so beautifully?" He reached up and pushed a strand of hair back behind my ear.
I pulled his hand away from me and held it, running my fingers along the scar. "Football, right? The linebacker with the nails that made you bleed? You screamed like a girl in surprise, and the guys made fun of you for a month."
He smiled back at me. "Rudy still teases me about that, but that's because he's too big for me to take down. The others are afraid of me—girly scream and all."
I kissed his lips excitedly. I knew this guy. His face might be a new thing, but I knew his stories. I knew his childhood and his protectiveness.
"Why does that have you smiling like that, love?"
I wrapped my arms around him. "I know you. I don't know all the girls you've slept with." He groaned, but I forged on. "And I don't want to. I don't know how you got into all of this, but I know you."
He held my chin in his fingers and gave me
that intense look. "Yes, you do. But it's more than that, Morgan. You understand me. No one's ever made me feel that way before."
"Not even prom girl?"
He chuckled. "Never gonna forget that story, are you?" I shook my head, but smiled, and he pressed his forehead to mine. "No, Morgan, not even prom girl."
My surprised discovery that I actually did know him as a person and not a superstar along with my soft kisses led to a make-out session I hadn't anticipated. Before I even had time to think about what we were doing, I had his shirt off, and he was pulling off mine.
"Sean? We—the flight attendant?" I didn't want to be naked when he came in to ask if we wanted drinks.
Sean shook his head and started tugging on my tank top. "He knows to stay out of here." He managed to get my tank top off and had just gotten my bra off when he stopped completely and stared at me. "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."
I rolled my eyes and looked down, feeling self-conscious. "And how many girls have you said that to?"
He lifted my chin until I was looking into his deep gray eyes. "I can't change my past, and I wouldn't want to. I've been with a lot of women, but there's something about you—I just—I don't want to imagine my life without you in it, without your voice, your laugh, your freckles, your completely perfect breasts—" He ran his fingers down the side of my breast, making me squirm. "And I swear to you—that I've never said before."
I was going to respond, but I couldn't with his tongue sliding in and out of my mouth rhythmically. I could feel myself trembling again.
When my bare breasts touched his bare chest, we both groaned loudly. I rearranged myself so I was straddling his hips and pressed myself closer to him—pushing into his noticeably hard lower body. I moved my fingers to the button on his jeans, but he pulled his lips from mine, breathing hard and shaking his head. "You're seriously testing my will power as it is—don't set me up for failure, love."
But before I could pout or complain, he had me pinned underneath him on the couch with his hips rocking against me. "Sean," I moaned loudly.
His body was so close to mine that I could feel his chuckle more than I could hear it. He didn't stop moving against me, but he leaned up a bit to look me in the eye. "Not that I want you to stop," he whispered, "but it's not a brick wall separating us from the flight attendant."
My eyes widened and my hand flew to my mouth. He chuckled again, and I squeezed my eyes together as he pushed against me again. I wanted to cry out his name and beg him to make love to me, but I didn't want the poor flight attendant to know what we were doing. How embarrassing would that be?
When he kissed a path down my neck, across my chest, and slid his tongue over my nipple, I'd had enough. There was no way I was going to be able to stay quiet while he caressed and sucked on my breasts. I started shaking my head and tugged on him. He was smirking arrogantly as he returned his eyes to mine.
"I can't—be quiet. It's too much."
He put his lips so close to my ear that I could feel the warm breath leaving his mouth. It sent chills up my spine. "And you thought we might not be compatible." He chuckled softly again. "I don't think I can keep quiet anymore either."
He shifted his weight behind me and pulled me to lie beside him on the couch. It wasn't a very large couch, but it was big enough to lie on our sides together. He pulled on a soft blanket that had been draped over the chair in front of us and spread it over our upper bodies. At first, I was happy I didn't have to put my tank top back on because I absolutely loved the way his naked chest felt against my naked back. But then he wrapped his arm around my waist and allowed his fingers to roam up to cup my breast in his hand. He was still for several moments, but then he'd squeeze or move his hand just a little, causing me to just slightly arch my back and gasp. He was good, that was for certain.
"Sean," I said in warning and managed not to moan.
His low laugh alone sent blood flowing to all my moan-worthy areas. "Okay, I'll behave." And sadly, he did, resting his hand back on my stomach. He kissed my shoulder. "Get some rest, it's gonna be a long night. I can promise you that."
"How am I supposed to close my eyes? Sean Wilder is guaranteeing me a long night. I can't even get my heart to stop racing, and you want me to sleep?" My voice had a slightly hysterical tone to it that I couldn't quite calm down.
He pressed his hand to my upper chest, feeling my heart beat and pulled me tighter. "I'm done with promotional crap after this premiere—well nothing I can't fly in and out for. We can go back to the inn and hide in your bed for a century for all I care. Just you and me—Sean Wilder can stay in California in his empty ass house and be famous. Me, your Sean, will go home with you and make love to you every night."
"My Sean," I breathed. That sounded nice—my Sean. I had to remember that underneath the star, there was "my Sean." He dotted little kisses in a path from below my ear to the crook in my neck then pulled a pillow under our heads.
"Close your eyes." His voice was soft and gentle as it had been so many times on the phone. "When I was a freshman in college, I decided to take a children's theater class. It was supposed to be easy credits and a lot of moving around. I had a pretty heavy schedule, so it was my one break in the week to be an idiot. There were a couple of my frat brothers in the class and a few cute chicks, so it started out silly.
"I was a total clown trying to get attention, but then we did this improv thing on Beauty and the Beast. I thought I would show my emotional side to this girl I was bugging to go out with me. I did this big speech where I imagined the Beast talking to himself about how he didn't deserve the girl. I'll never forget the look on everyone's faces when I was done, especially the professor. I was hooked from then on. My professor started taking videos of me and sent them to a friend of hers, who was casting an indie film. I was a nobody in a few small films before I caught the eye of Daedric Smith the director of Trees South of the Horizon. He asked me to read for Suppressing the Flames, and it just went crazy from there.
"It was always fun and something new on every set. My agent, Anna Fitzmark is great and always seemed to have a solid vision for my career. She never pushed me too much to do crap films like a lot of actors are pressured to do. I was handed a lot of films, but when I read Altering a Mind, I just knew it would win Oscars. I fought like hell for that part, but they went with someone else. Anna said the unofficial rumor was that I wasn't serious enough for the part, and I think that's when I sort of woke up. I'd been partying and sleeping with anyone I wanted, and loving being recognized, but when I didn't get the part, I was sort of heartbroken. I went home to Minneapolis and just thought things through. They called a few weeks later and said the actress they chose fell through and they wanted me to do a test with Angela Ailey, their new choice. They told me I got it right on the spot."
I poked him in the chest. "And you went back to partying?"
"No." He kissed the top of my head and buried his nose in my hair, breathing in deeply. "I was really focused. I really wanted to do something great, and I knew I could. It was such a great story."
"I remember crying when I saw it in the theater. When you picked up the picture of your dead wife and son and your hand started shaking, it was so powerful."
"Funny you should mention that. You know… when you said it was over on the phone and you wouldn't answer my calls, I kept dialing and dialing. My hand was shaking so bad. There was some definite déjà vu."
"I'm sorry." But as I thought about it all, the accusation in Stewie's voice came back to me, and I pulled away from him a bit to look at him. "Actually, I'm not sorry. Why was it a big deal anyway? I don't understand why your lawyers, your friends, why Stewie even cared I had an inheritance. Why was it some big deal?"
He pulled me into him and kissed my shoulder. "They thought you were hiding something. It's not fair, but you have to understand that everyone I've met since my career really took off has had some ulterior motives. They always have something they're hiding, so my friend
s are always out to find out what that is and give me a heads up on it. When they didn't find anything on the surface, they went digging. I swear I didn't know they were digging. I thought it was just a routine background check. When they told me about the will, I was happy for you—that you'd be okay down the line. But I also knew how you felt about money and what happened with your ex. Still, it wasn't right to keep it from you, so I told Stewie to let you know about it. I'm so sorry, love. "
"I guess I understand. It's just—my family—they're not nice. They made me feel like I was never good enough for them. You digging through my past and Stewie thinking I was hiding it from you just—it brought all that back to me."
"But the inheritance is a good thing, Morgan. It's like a safety net."
"I don't care about the money. Don't you know that about me? I don't want any of it. I'll never want his money. After how awful he made my mom feel, I don't want any part of him."
"But you could put it into the inn. You could add on or just keep it for retirement. It's—"
My voice hitched up in agitation. "It comes with strings, Sean. When my mom passed away, I swore I wouldn't have anything to do with them ever again. You know her own father didn't even come to the funeral? He didn't even send flowers. I don't want his money. I don't want anything to do with him. Besides, I can manage on my own."
He kissed my cheek. "Well you don't have to do either one. I'm always looking out for intelligent investments. You are certainly an intelligent investment. I'd like to invest some things in you right now, to be honest." I could feel my cheeks and neck get warm as his hand moved back up to caress my breast. "You know it drives me crazy when you blush like that." He kissed my neck and shoulder.
"Mmm. You're the one that causes it." But his words about giving me money bothered me and I pulled away again. "I don't want your money either, Sean. Your support and your advice, I'll take, but I can do this on my own financially."
Accidental Texting: Finding Love despite the Spotlight Page 15