Undone: A Fake Fiancé Rockstar Romance
Page 21
I’d carried her into the bedroom and we’d slept together, entwined. For a man who never shared his bed, it came easy with Ana. I woke with my arm around her in a protective circle, her ass against my engorged cock.
She didn’t seem to realize my state, though. Or if she did, she chose to go librarian on me and hop out of bed. There was Paris outside the window. I understood her excitement. The sun shone on the streets, calling us outside.
“Ash!” she exclaimed, hopping up and down. “Croissants!”
“Pain au chocolat,” I smiled at her, telling my boy to settle down. My girl had a city to explore, and apparently some baked goods to enjoy. Patience. He’d have his moment in the sun. Lots of them, if I had my way.
We spent the day ambling along, letting ourselves get pulled into a mixture of classic tourist attractions and random storefronts, basically anything that caught our eye. The Musee d’Orsay, a shoe store, Notre Dame cathedral, a chocolate shop, the Eiffel tower. We stopped for café au laits and, once the afternoon turned long, glasses of Bordeaux.
The bar we found was a little hole-in-the wall. The ancient bartender looked to be about 80 and he still used the black swiping machine for my credit card, with the raised numbers pressing into the purple ink on the paper. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen one of those things.
We found a quiet table in a corner, just the two of us in the Parisian night.
“I have to confess something.” Ana leaned in to me. My dick remembered a confession she’d made last night. I didn’t say that, though, I merely leaned in to listen. “I just realized wine types are named after actual regions in France.”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Bordeaux is on the coast.”
“And Burgundy and Champagne. They’re places!”
“I want to take you to all of them.” It had been years since I’d been in the French countryside. I’d lived in England for a few years after my parents divorced, with my grandmother. She’d taken us around the continent, as she called it, making us visit churches in obscure towns. I’d sulked and dragged my feet like a typical 13-year-old boy, too cool for school. Tours had taken me back through France, of course, but not to Bordeaux.
And I’d love to take Ana to Provence. We could rent an estate for a few weeks, just us. We could break in every room in the house, plus a lot of those places had extensive grounds. There’d be all sorts of hidden groves and alcoves where I could fuck her and fuck her again.
“Do you see what I see?” Ana gave me a mischievous smile and nodded her head behind her. Another place where we could fuck?
“What?” I asked, my eyes not leaving her face. For all the sights to see in Paris, she was my favorite. And it wasn’t just because I’d been to Paris before. Ana pulled me in like a magnet, her radiance, her excitement. She might be the first person who really helped me understand the phrase ‘beautiful inside and out.’ She was definitely making me think some pretty over-the-top thoughts. Even two weeks ago I would have rolled my eyes at a sap like me, mooning over his girl. Who he hadn’t even slept with. There it was again, on my mind, fucking. I took a sip of my wine.
“They have a piano!”
She was right, tucked in a corner by a window, they had an old but gorgeous upright. Everything in Paris looked old but gorgeous, even this tiny, hole-in-the-wall bar. Narrow and simple, there was almost nothing to it. No celebrity DJs or signature drinks served by sexy waitresses or VIP rooms admitting only a select few. This bar was all understatement, but the more you sat the more you noticed the rich, subtle details. The gilded frames on the ancient paintings and mirrors on the walls, the carved wooden legs on the bar stools, the burnished gleam of the polished brass lamps. And they had a piano.
“Should we?” She looked at me, all impish delight. As if anyone could say no to that.
“Let’s do it.” I knew I was risking some exposure going over and playing piano. I’d relished our time in Paris; thus far I’d only noticed a handful of people recognizing me. And it had been the harmless type, families on vacation over the holidays, usually one of the daughters’ or moms’ eyes going wide when they realized who I was. But they weren’t on the hunt, they didn’t have professional cameras trained in with zoom lenses, and Ana and I had successfully ducked them all. Pure heaven.
“May we?” Ana asked the bartender who was busy doing not much at all behind the bar. There weren’t many patrons, but he hadn’t been overly solicitous with us. Or solicitous at all, really.
He shrugged. “Bien sur.” But of course we could play piano. I loved the French. Simultaneously embracing the pleasures of life while also acknowledging the fleeting nature of it all, the balance of “la vie en rose” with a dash of ennui.
Me, I was a more simple guy. I knew what I wanted and I liked to indulge. Right now, I wanted to sit next to my girl and play piano.
We sat together on the bench and it was all so easy, our fingers finding the keys, in sync as we noodled around. Then she found a melody and I followed, a lilting tune I didn’t think I’d heard before.
“You make that up?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “Not really. It’s a Russian folksong my parents used to sing to me.”
“Sounds like more than that.” Her fingers played and danced along the keys, giving it twists and twirls, fanciful and light.
“I’ve added on.”
She was so modest. I wondered if she even knew how talented she was. So many people I knew, famous in the music industry, could barely play a note. A camera-ready face, a hot body, sexy dance moves and an active social media following went a long way to promoting your music career. Where vocals failed, auto-tuners could correct, and professional songwriters and studio musicians could always be hired in cheap to fill the gaps. Ana’s technical expertise and lyrical creativity really blew me away.
I took her melody and blended it into something I was working on, morphing it and transitioning it into the chords I kept hearing over and over in my head. It really stuck with me, this theme, and I knew it was going somewhere but I didn’t know how it would come out, yet. She heard it and joined in, recognizing it from what we’d played together in Santa Clara. She read it as easily as if she had sheet music with it in front of her, yet her eyes were closed. She felt it, the same way I did. Something moved inside my chest, something that had lain dormant my whole life. I looked at her by my side, so lost in the music. I was lost in her.
“Oh! Look! It’s started snowing!” She’d opened her eyes, looked out the window, and it was true. Fat, lazy flakes came drifting down out of the sky, a perfect accompaniment to our evening. Unhurried, languorous, enjoying their spectacular moment in free fall.
“Oh, the weather outside is frightful,” I couldn’t help but begin singing, quietly, just to Ana. It was only three days after Christmas. Holiday songs could still be sung. By the time I got to the chorus, Ana joined me, looking up with a full smile on her face.
“Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.” Oh, man, she had a lovely voice, too, just like the rest of her. Sweet and soft, she sounded like a classic crooner from the 1950s, melting hearts with her candied notes.
A few more people came into the bar as we sang, but I didn’t mind. This was too much fun to worry about getting spotted. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had fun like this. Connor and I used to mess around with music together, him on bass and me on guitar or piano, but we hadn’t in who knew how long. It had been practice, perfect, perform, driving hard into the next show, for a couple of years now. Those early days of exploring and creating, getting a spark and fanning it into a flame, that hadn’t happened together for a while. I hated to admit it, but we’d even cribbed a few songs from a ghostwriter for our last album. I’d made sure they were well-compensated for their work, but it wasn’t the same.
But now wasn’t the time for feeling guilty and reflecting on how I’d failed to live up to my own musical standards over the past couple of years. Now was the time to sit next to my girl and
sing, our fingers playing over the keys.
That song ended, and I started up the familiar notes to another holiday song. She smiled up at me and picked up my cue like we’d been doing this together for years. With a shy, sexy lilt to her voice, she started in.
“I really can’t stay.”
“Baby it’s cold outside.”
“I’ve got to go away.”
“Baby it’s cold outside.”
We flirted through the lyrics, her demure and resistant to my relentless seduction. We were speaking other’s words, but they rang out real and true.
“I ought to say no, no, no sir.” She shook her head, an adorable pout on those luscious lips.
“Mind if I move in closer.” I gave her a slow smile and did just that, our thighs pressed together, the heat traveling right through our clothes into each other. Did she know how husky she was making her voice, how perfectly sexy she sounded? She was like a pro, giving all that emotion into her vocals. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was getting turned on. Wait, was she?
“Ooh, baby, you’re so delicious.” Her skin, so soft and smooth. She obviously had packed herself for this trip, no slinky silver numbers tonight, but she still looked so good in a simple Henley t-shirt with a few buttons undone at the top. Yes, I could start with kissing her there. Then at the hotel, I could slip the shirt all the way off.
“Well, maybe just one little kiss more.” She gave me a flirtatious wink and I nearly fell off the piano seat. Did she know what she was doing to me? I somehow made it to the final line of the song without tearing my fingers off the keys and sinking them into her.
We chorused, “Baby it’s cold outside!” smiling at each other as we did it. And then, then I sank down to her, one hand at the back of her head, the other around her slim waist, and I kissed her like I’d never kissed anyone before. I drank her in, sweeter than anything I’d ever tasted, my favorite drug. I could feast on her all night long.
Applause rose up around us, cheers too, and I realized we had an audience. She slowly did, too, though she seemed as rapt in our kiss as me, and we only reluctantly loosened our embrace to turn our heads and see.
At least 15 people stood around us, half of them with camera phones up and in action. Snapping pictures, capturing it all on video. We’d just put on a show.
I rested my forehead against hers. Thankfully, I felt her chuckling, her arms still around me. I exhaled with relief. I didn’t want her freaked out over it, the way the spotlight followed me around. If she were going to become part of my life for real, she’d have to get used to it. And I was realizing I wanted that to happen. Needed it to happen.
“Happy holidays!” I raised my arm to them all, surrendering into it. Once people had found you like that, there was nothing to do but embrace it. I caught the bartender’s eye. Now he was looking over at us in a way he hadn’t been before. He clearly still didn’t recognize me. He looked like he listened to nothing but Edith Piaf and Charles Aznavour. But he’d realized I was someone other people recognized.
“Drinks for everyone!” I called out. “On me!”
Another cheer erupted and the phones got tucked away in the clamor to claim their prize. Free drinks were a fun way to spread around my celebrity status. Also I’d learned that they served as a great diversion tactic when you were trying to make an exit. The excitement of free drinks trumped Ash Black every time.
“On my card,” I mouthed to the old bartender who looked dumbstruck. He probably hadn’t had that many patrons in his bar over the past month. But he did have my card numbers still, imprinted from that ancient machine of his. The Parisian hole-in-the-wall version of “on my tab.”
Ana and I snuck out together into the falling flakes. She wound her scarf around her and I took out the hat she’d made me from my pocket. It really was a fantastic hat.
“That was so fun!” she exclaimed as we made our way along the cobblestone street.
A few flakes lay on her hair and eyelashes. I couldn’t help it. I pulled her under the arch of an entryway and sank into her again. The way she tasted, Bordeaux and Ana, so rich and sweet and delicious, savory and enticing. She wrapped her hands around my shoulders, pulling me down to her like she felt the same way. Standing there in the chilly night, snow falling around us, we made our own heat.
“I want to get you back to the hotel,” I murmured into her ear and she shivered. It might have been the cold, but I hoped it was anticipation. I knew I couldn’t wait.
We walked, arm in arm, through the streets toward our hotel. “You should do an album of old standards,” she declared. “People would love it.”
“You think?” No one had ever suggested such a thing to me.
“I know it. You’re so good with those old songs. You’re a really amazing singer. It’s such a cool combination. You hit all the right notes but with this gritty, Ash Black growl in it. People would go wild for it.”
“Do you go wild for it?” She was the only fan I cared about just then.
She looked up at me, shy. “Yes.”
We couldn’t get back to the hotel soon enough. And it did take a while. We’d somehow wandered a long ways away in our explorations. By the time we got back, there was no question about it, Ana was shivering from the cold. I should have grabbed us a taxi but I hadn’t realized we’d traveled so many city blocks away. Paris had a way of enchanting you, each street so engaging you lost track of how far you’d walked. Now Ana looked slightly blue.
“You need to warm up!” Inside the room, I set right to making a fire. That’s the last thing our vacation needed, Ana catching pneumonia. “Why don’t you warm up in a shower?”
She nodded, her teeth chattering, too frozen to speak. The staff had restocked our supply of dry firewood and I had a nice blaze going in no time. Perfect for Ana to stretch out in front of. With me. I’d warm her up.
One room over, I heard the sound of the shower running. The shower was running. With Ana in it. Naked.
There was my cock, instantly hard again, pressing against my jeans at the thought of her. So close, so naked, so pink and warming up and I could hop right in there with her.
Couldn’t I? We had signed a no-sex clause. That had been holding me back, though less and less as the days went on. Like a seatbelt that had frayed to the point of becoming useless.
I didn’t think Ana would turn around and sue me. To a PR rep like Lola, everyone was a walking lawsuit waiting to happen, but I knew Ana. She didn’t seem the litigious type. And right then, I didn’t care even if she did go ahead and sue me for everything I owned. Somehow in the last two weeks she’d turned everything upside down. All the shit I used to care so much about holding onto, none of it mattered anymore. All I wanted to hold onto was her.
“Ash?” Ana’s voice drifted to me, calling me through the bathroom door standing slightly ajar.
“Ana?” My voice sounded husky, even more so than usual.
“Want to join me?” she asked, sounding shy.
She didn’t need to ask me twice. I fed that no-sex clause right into the mental paper shredder where it belonged.
Under the spray of the shower, she couldn’t look more tempting, like a nymph rising out of the ocean. I’d crash my ship into the rocks over a siren like her. My clothes off in seconds flat, I joined her in the shower, my chilly hands around her waist making her jump.
Then I kissed her and she melted into me, so soft and sweet, a moan rising up out of the back of her throat. My cock throbbed painfully, pressing into her stomach, the two of us naked together for the first time. Like a kid finally allowed into the candy store where he’d been pressing his nose to the window every day for the past couple of weeks, I didn’t know where to put my hands first. Her ass, I grabbed her soft cheeks, marking her with my fingers as I pressed her against me. Her breasts, the perfect size, filling my hands, her nipples standing out hard and aroused. Her pussy, so sweet and sticky slick for me already as I sank a finger into her.
“Ash,” s
he murmured into my neck as she licked and sucked me there, her hands traveling down my chest as if she’d been just as desperate to touch me. She caressed my angles and planes, trailing kisses along my pecs, licking the lines of my tattoos. I’d tattoo every inch of my body if she’d do that to every one of them, tasting me, savoring all of me. Down my stomach, my lower abs.
Before I knew what was happening, she kneeled down before me, the warm spray of water hitting right between my shoulder blades. She took my huge shaft in both of her hands, cupping it, running her hands along it as if admiring its length.
“Jesus, Ana.” I groaned, steadying myself against the wall. Just her touch felt so good, so intense. My cock throbbed in her hands, pumping thick, straining for release.
“There’s something…” She hesitated, running her thumb along my wide crown. Every nerve in my body zeroed in on that touch. She found a drop of precome and spread it over my tip. And she licked her lips. “I want to…but I haven’t done it much so I don’t know—”
“Ana, suck me.” I panted, remembering her words from last night. “Suck my cock.” I knew she wanted to do it. And now she knelt before me exactly as I’d fantasized, her wide eyes looking up at me, her hands wrapped around my length.
She swallowed and parted her lips, then took in my tip. Slowly, tentatively. I groaned and made myself ball my fingers into fists instead of grab her hair and force her down on my shaft, hard. I wanted to feel her mouth around me, wanted to fuck her face, hard, but right now we had to go slow. I didn’t know if she’d like it, giving me that kind of power, surrendering and serving me. I thought she might, but right now I held back and let her have control, going slow.
She licked me like a delicious ice cream cone, swirling her tongue along my length, savoring every inch. She cupped the root of my shaft in her hands, pumping me, and I didn’t know how much more of it I was going to be able to take. Just the sight of her, her plump lips parted, at my feet. Then she took more of me into her wet, sucking mouth and she moaned.