Boy Meets Geek

by Archer, Arielle

  And yet there was no other way to explain it. Who else would have the kind of money to just fly two friends out on a whim like that? How else was he able to afford that suite, for that matter? To pull the strings and get us VIP tickets that weren’t even for sale? The only way he could pull something like that was if he was the person who was in charge of the convention.

  And of course there was the way he wanted to cover his face when we were going down to the convention floor. He was probably worried that somebody would recognize him and then the mob surrounding us would be nothing like what we got when it was just the two of us in costume.

  And how about the way he’d summoned that golf cart seemingly out of nowhere and had it whisk us straight over to where we needed to be complete with convention security and everything?

  No, now that it had been obvious something fishy was going on from the get-go, and I’d been so wrapped up in the fairytale of it all, so dazzled by everything that was happening and how quickly it was happening, that I’d been blinded to what was really going on.

  But the cold hard truth was that I’d managed to attract the interest of the most famous, richest writer in the world. The only thing that remained to be seen was whether or not I’d attracted his attention for real or just for a little fun at the convention.

  I knew what my heart was hoping for and what the worst-case scenario center in my brain was telling me. And they were definitely at odds with one another.

  18: Action Plan

  “So what did you think of the big surprise?”

  What did I think of the big surprise? I thought I was furious he kept such a big secret from me. And at the same time and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was still in the middle of some sort of geek girl fairytale. After all, it wasn’t every day that you got to meet your favorite artist in the whole world, let alone have a little fun with him in your hotel room and maybe find yourself falling in love with him at the same time!

  “I honestly don’t know what to think,” I said.

  “Did you like it?”

  “Honestly I thought I was going to die from embarrassment until the big reveal,” I said. “You really had me thinking you were a crazed lunatic rushing the stage!”

  Conlan, Eric, Sean, chuckled. I wasn’t sure what name to use, there’d been so many at this point, but I figured I’d have to get used to calling him Sean and not his middle name. Sneaky, that.

  We were walking through one of the tunnels that ran under the convention center. It was the only way to get around now that Sean had revealed his costume. I had a feeling that anybody wearing an Orthaur costume was going to find themselves getting rushed by mobs of crazed fans whether or not they bore even a passing resemblance to Sean’s version of the costume.

  I looked over to him and suppressed the flash of irritation that went along with the next question. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “Would you have believed me if I told you?”

  I thought about that and realized he had a point. I hated that he had a point, it made it a lot harder to be really irritated with him, but he had a point.

  “Thought so,” he said. Even more infuriating! And yet I was losing myself in that smile as he looked down at me.

  “What was I just thinking oh great mind reader?”

  “You were just thinking that if some random guy playing Tales Elassa told you he was none other than the great Sean Taylor you would’ve cut off all contact. You would’ve thought I was telling one hell of a whopper.”

  “Probably,” I said. I decided to ignore the part where he called himself the great Sean Taylor. It was true as far as I was concerned, but I didn’t want to inflate his ego any further.

  “And you definitely wouldn’t have come to the convention if you thought I was lying about being Sean Taylor,” he said. “It’s why I go incognito when I’m playing the game. You’re the first person I’ve ever revealed myself too.”

  It wasn’t fair how he could make me feel love drunk just with a few words like that. How he could cause a thrill to run through me with a simple admission. I glanced at him again and smiled, and felt another naughty thrill run through my body as I caught a glimpse of his muscles through his armor that he still hadn’t taken off entirely, though I wouldn’t mind taking giving him a hand with that.

  “Okay, so maybe you have a really good point. You still could’ve told me the truth when we met up at that restaurant!”

  Sean paused for a moment. “To be perfectly honest I thought the game would be up as soon as you got a good look at my face.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “It’s really not often I meet a fan who claims she’s been reading my books since the very beginning who doesn’t know what I look like.”

  I blushed at that and looked away for a moment, suddenly ashamed. I suppose I didn’t seem like much of a fan if I didn’t even know what my favorite author looked like!

  “I’ve actually been meaning to look up a picture of you for the past couple of weeks, but for one reason or another I got distracted every time I thought about it,” I said.

  He reached out and took my hand in his. He’d done away with the claws at least, and so I just felt one of his strong hands wrapping around my own.

  “I’m glad you didn’t know what I looked like though,” he said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Let’s just say that in my line of work, especially at these conventions, it’s very difficult to find somebody who likes me for who I am and not for what I am, if that makes sense,” he said.

  “No, that makes perfect sense,” I said.

  I could only imagine that girls probably threw themselves at him at these conventions. The combination of who he was coupled with his smoldering sexiness was probably deadly as far as the ladies who went to these things were concerned. I couldn’t begin to pretend to understand leading that sort of life, but I could imagine that it would start to be a serious pain in the ass to wonder whether or not somebody was interested in you because they liked you or if they were just interested in you because you were world-famous and coincidentally super rich.

  I suppose in a way meeting online was the perfect way to get around those awkward questions. I liked this guy before I knew who he was. I figured it would be better to steer the conversation away from that though. He seemed uncomfortable now that we were getting close to questions of his fame.

  Of course thinking about that fame just made me wonder again why exactly he was with me of all people. Sure he seemed tired of girls throwing themselves at him because of who he was, but by the same token that meant he constantly had girls throwing themselves at him because of who he was.

  How could I possibly stack up to the kind of groupies he ran into in the course of a convention? I’d seen some of the girls out on the convention floor, some of them in costumes more scandalous even than what I wore, and to say that there were a lot of tens in the crowd would be an understatement. And I’m sure any one of them would jump at the opportunity to jump Sean Taylor.

  Yet he was with me. It was a crazy world if something like that could happen. I didn’t understand what it was he saw in me, not exactly, but at the same time I decided I wasn’t going to worry about that too much. I was going to do my best to strangle the worst-case scenario part of my brain before it could ruin this for me.

  “So what’s the plan for the rest of the day?” I asked.

  Sean blushed and looked away for a moment. I felt a moment of panic as he did that. Was something wrong?

  “Well the problem is I have a lot of obligations here at the convention,” he said. “A couple of panels, meetings with some people.”

  My heart sank as I heard that. He had a busy day, probably too busy to spend time with me.

  “If you’re busy then I can make myself scarce. I can find Samantha and hang out. Maybe we can meet up later or something.” I mumbled.

  Sean must’ve stopped as I kept walking because I felt a tug on my arm. I yelped and then turned to a look at hi
m, wondering what the hell he was up to. He was staring at me, totally serious. That rakish smile that I loved so much was gone.

  “That’s the last thing that I want,” he said.

  I felt a chill run through me as he said those words. I felt heat as though I was in the center of a volcano erupt from between my legs to every nerve ending in my body. A very unladylike reaction but fuck it. That was just the sort of reaction he inspired in me.

  “I’d like nothing more than for you to spend the rest of the day with me,” he said. “I just worried that’d bore you when you could go off and have fun at the convention.”

  I smiled and moved closer to him. The plastic from our costumes clattered together and I giggled but didn’t pull away from him. I closed my eyes and inhaled his scent. I luxuriated in the warmth radiating off of his sculpted body. In the feel of his hard muscles where they were peeking out from under his costume.

  “I’d love nothing more than to spend the day with you,” I said.

  I was already in a mood to melt into a puddle just from him smiling down at me, but that was nothing compared to the look that crossed his face when I said I wanted to spend the rest of the day with him. He looked both relieved and excited at the same time and it very nearly made me come just from that look alone. Seeing him look at me like that made me happy. Content. It made me feel secure and comforted in a way that I hadn’t felt in a relationship in a while.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he said.

  He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer. Or at least he tried to pull me closer. It was a little difficult because we were both still in these ridiculous getups. Our costumes clattered against one another again and one of his shoulder pieces got knocked free entirely and fell with a loud crack to the hard concrete floor.

  I looked down at the hunk of plastic and back up to Sean. I moved a finger up and ran it along his chest where it was exposed. He closed his eyes and breathed in sharply as I did so and I giggled at his reaction. It was nice to know I could get as much of a reaction out of him as he seemed capable of getting from me!

  “You know this gives me an idea,” I said.

  His eyebrows rose. “Oh? What sort of idea is that?”

  “Maybe we should head back to the suite and change into something a little more practical before we go to your business stuff and your panels? I know I’d love an opportunity to help get you out of that costume.”

  I walked my fingers up his chest and he took in another sharp breath. I looked over my shoulder at the convention staffer who was leading us through the labyrinth. He was apparently oblivious that we’d stopped. He disappeared around a corner so I decided to risk reaching down and running my free hand along his cock. His cock which was definitely rock hard and throbbing. I smiled up at him and gave him my best sweet and innocent look as I bit my lip.

  “Does that sound like fun?”

  “Fuck yes,” he said.

  I wanted nothing more than to rip all of those clothes off right here, pull him down to the rough concrete floor, and have my way with him right here and now. Only I resisted the urge. It could wait until we got up to the suite. Besides, I was truly worried that if we got too far behind our minder we’d get lost in this labyrinth of tunnels running under the convention center never to find our way out.

  So I reluctantly reached down and pulled Sean’s hand away from where it had slipped around and started to squeeze my ass in a most delicious way.

  “Save it for getting changed Tiger,” I said.

  He grinned but pulled his hand away. I promptly grabbed it and started dragging him through the tunnels. I needed to get him back to that fucking suite, and the way I was on fire I needed to get him there twenty minutes ago.

  19: Whirlwind

  The rest of the day was a whirlwind of activity. It started with an exclusive signing ceremony for people who paid for the top level VIP package which meant they each got about five minutes with Sean after he signed one of their books. After that we had time for a quick bite to eat and then it was off to a panel where he answered questions from fans.

  Most of it had to do with where the series was going, though there were a few people who were angry that it’d been a few years since his last release with no release date for the next one. I realized I had a very real power if I wanted to use it or abuse it. I could just ask him what was going to happen with the books.

  Only I dismissed that thought almost as soon as it occurred to me. Sean had opened himself up to me, despite the subterfuge and the outright lying about who he actually was, and I decided in the middle of that Q&A session that I wasn’t going to take advantage of that trust. I wasn’t going to ask him any questions about his plans for the books or why the latest one wasn’t even announced, despite the burning curiosity I had about where the series was going.

  I also felt something new and interesting in the Q&A session. Jealousy. I’m not proud of it, I was reluctant to even admit to myself that was what I was feeling, but by the end of the session I couldn’t deny it.

  I’d been absolutely correct in my assessment that Sean was a man who attracted quite a bit of interest from his female fan base. How could he not attract interest the way he looked and being as rich as he was? I thought one girl was having a seizure when she went up to the microphone and Sean repeated her name back to her. It turned out she wasn’t having a seizure, not at all. She was just freaking out that Sean Taylor actually said her name, and she told him as much at least five different times while she was asking her question.

  Apparently that first crazy girl who was so excited about hearing him say her name gave ideas to another creeper who came up to the microphone a few questions later. She had her phone out and she was taking a video, only she didn’t have a question. No, she was just interested in hearing him say her name while recording it for posterity. I tried not to think about what she might do with that video.

  Of course that was nothing compared to a girl who came up to the microphone and actually had the audacity to ask him how big his cock was! He’d fielded all the other questions pretty well up until that point, but even that one obviously threw him for a loop. It threw me for a loop as well. I was standing and about to walk across the aisles to the microphone to scratch her eyes out when I saw him pointedly look to me and make a motion for me to sit.

  I didn’t want to, but he had more experience with this sort of thing so I was going to defer to his judgment. For now. Maybe if I saw her out in the convention hall later I’d scratch her eyes out. Security came up and pulled her away from the microphone as she kept screaming her question over and over while people around her took pictures and videos of her display.

  I also have to admit to feeling a sense of smug satisfaction as I listened to her screaming. I knew the answer to her question. I knew it in the most intimate way possible. In a way she’d never know.

  Of course all those girls were nothing compared to her. The same girl I’d from the opening ceremony. The girl who’d been staring daggers at me and had been staring with barely concealed lust at Sean. She was sitting back on the stage, the same stage where he delivered the opening keynote, and she was staring at him the entire time with a blissful expression on her face. Except for one brief diversion. One moment where her eyes swept out across the crowd and she noticed me sitting near the front. Then that blissful expression turned to a glare.

  Even more interesting was how she reacted to those girls asking their stupid questions, particularly the last girl with the cock size question. Stage girl was reacting in much the same way that I was. With a possessiveness that made me want to jump up on stage and scratch her eyes out along with the girl who was being carried out by security screaming at the top of her lungs.

  Who was that girl? And what the hell was her problem?

  Seeing all these girls throwing themselves at him was unsettling. Once again it brought up some of those doubts I’d been feeling since I found out who he actually was. If he had all of these girls thr
owing themselves at him, and some of them were pretty good lookers, what could he possibly see in me?

  No. I wasn’t listening to my worst-case scenario brain. I was going to enjoy the Q&A and laugh at all of those girls who couldn’t have what I’d already had. What I hoped to have again later tonight!

  Of course that didn’t stop me from asking a few questions when we got out of that Q&A session.

  “So that was interesting,” I said.

  “Was it?”

  “Those pretty girls who asked you to say their name? What about the one who asked about your cock size?”

  I was incredulous. I couldn’t believe it. He shrugged as though that was no big deal. As though nothing all that odd had happened. Can he really be that oblivious? Or was that actually normal for him? I’m not sure which prospect was more terrifying.

  “All that?” he said. “That sort of thing happens at all of those Q&A sessions. It’s just something I’ve learned to tune out over the past couple of years.”

  I stopped in the middle of the tunnel and stared. My mouth must’ve been hanging open because a look of concern flashed across his face when he finally realized I wasn’t walking next to him anymore and he turned to see where I’d disappeared to.

  “You can’t really be that nonchalant about that?”

  A sympathetic smile crossed his face and he stepped forward to wrap his arms around me. I closed my eyes and inhaled his scent as I enjoyed the feel of those muscular arms surrounding me. I felt so safe, so secure, every time he did that. Every time he wrapped his arms around me it was as though all my insecurities were washed away.

  Never mind that they’d probably come crashing back in full force once he no longer had his arms around me. I was going to enjoy the moment.