“In privacy, or with people who also should call him so.” Adrien grinned, still scanning the lobby around them, and the skin around his eyes crinkled in laugh lines. When they got into the elevator and the doors slid closed, his voice dropped. “I have been with His Grace since he was a teenager. It is pleasant to not pretend that he is a rock star.”
“But he is,” Georgie said.
“Of course he is.” He sounded amused, as if Xan was just playing at being a musician.
The elevator doors cracked open, and the hallway led to exactly one door. Georgie couldn’t help herself. “He’s really good at it.”
“Yes, mademoiselle, but this is all just a lark until he goes back to the violin, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know that he will go back to the violin,” Georgie said. “Every time he plays it, it sounds like it’s ripping the soul out of him.”
“Well, yes,” Adrien said. “But you can’t deny genius like that. Even with what happened, everyone still wants to work with him.”
“What happened?” Georgie asked as Adrien let her into Xan’s suite.
Yvonne and Boris stood across the room. They both turned, surveyed Georgie in her rumpled yoga pants and tennis shoes, and looked back to the tablet they held between them.
“Nevermind,” Adrien said.
CRAWLING INTO BED
Georgie
The world tilted in Georgie’s dream—something about dragons and flying—and she opened her eyes to see the numbers 4:07 glowing red in the darkness.
The stiff hotel bed tilted underneath her, and something large, warm, and smoky settled beside her. One thump clomped off the bottom of the bed, then another.
“Xan?” she asked the darkness.
A cough, and Xan’s voice grated out, “Ouais.”
He sounded worse than when he had left.
Georgie rolled over under the smooth, crisp sheets to face him. Green light from the electronics on the far wall and the red glow from the clock traced his strong cheekbones and jaw in the dark.
She reached out to touch his chest, and her fingers found small, flat circles running down his shirt from his neck to his belt, and the silk cords holding silver amulets still looped around his neck. “You didn’t change into pajamas?”
His breathing was already the deep, slow rhythm of sleep, and whiskey floated into the dark air around her.
Georgie lay her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes.
RUNNING INTO A BURNING HOUSE
Georgie
Georgie reached out, feeling for Alex in the bed, but the sheets slid cold and empty under her fingers. She pushed herself up on her elbows. The clock glowed 8:35 in the dim morning light leaking through the curtains.
A jet airplane was revving up in the bathroom, the whine and whoosh blowing through the cracks around the door.
Georgie staggered to the door and knocked. The tee shirt that Adrien had procured for her from the hotel’s gift shop, which read Virginia is for Lovers, brushed the tops of her knees. Her hair fell in knots and snarls around her shoulders and nearly to her waist.
A man’s bass voice sang out, “Come ih-in!”
That was not the voice of a tenor front man of a hard rock band singing out like that. That guy in the bathroom was far more musical theater than rock and roll. And that voice had to be two octaves lower than Alex’s because this guy was a warm and dramatic bass, and he wasn’t hoarse like he had sung for three hours last night at all.
She pushed the door open, gingerly. “Hello?”
Inside, soap-scented steam floated in the air and fogged the mirrors. Alex sat in a dining room chair in the center of the bathroom, an enormous soaking tub behind him and a glassed-in shower stall on another wall, glaring at his phone. A white towel was cinched around his trim waist, but his pale gold skin was on glorious display everywhere else. His broad shoulders shrugged as he shook his head at something on his phone. Tendrils of blue and teal watercolor tattoo ink slipped over his shoulders, around his biceps, and around his ribs like curling smoke.
The portly guy who had been following Alex around last night was blow-drying Alex’s hair, swirling long hanks around a round brush and aiming the dryer down. Artful, white-blond bangs flopped over one of the guy’s brown eyes and his round cheeks.
“Hello, honey!” the guy shouted over the roar of the dryer. “You must be Georgie! I’m Boris. Come on in!”
Alex swiveled, a quick glance to the side at her, and he rolled his shoulders, muscle rippling all the way down his torso to the towel around his waist. He tapped his phone to hang up.
“You’re up?” she asked him, smoothing her messy hair.
Alex nodded. “I have an interview at a radio station in an hour,” he grated out. The damage in his voice from the concert the night before overshadowed his British accent.
“How long did you sleep?”
“About four hours.”
His deep hoarseness hurt her own throat. “You okay with that?”
He gestured to a silver carafe and coffee service standing between the two sinks. “As long as someone supplies enough coffee.”
“He’s on his second cup,” Boris said affectionately, even maternally.
“Got some extra?”
Alex’s head tilted back as Boris yanked his hair. “I made sure of it. You don’t take cream, right?”
“I like my coffee like I like my bank account, in the black.”
“Sensible. I wasn’t sure when you might wake up, so I ordered a cold breakfast. If you’d like something more substantial, you should call it in.” He poured a cup and handed it to her, careful not to move his head away from where Boris was holding handfuls of his hair.
Boris yanked Alex’s head around some more, heating big, soft curls into Alex’s hair, starting with the caramel brown roots around his face and looping down to the blond below his chin.
Georgie sipped the coffee, feeling the warmth on her tongue. Even though she was sure that it was psychosomatic, the heat drained into her arms and legs as her cells lapped up the roasted, bitter goodness.
Boris mentioned, “If you jump in the shower, I can blow you out before we have to jet.”
Georgie eyed the transparent glass of the shower stall. “I’m okay, but thanks. When will you be back?” she asked Alex.
“Evidently,” he waggled his phone to indicate his schedule, which was blocked in colored boxes on the screen, “we have two interviews this morning, and I should return to the hotel by eleven for gym time and band meeting, then we have the sound check at the venue and the show.”
“Today is Easter Sunday, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes, but I wasn’t planning on going to Mass.” His dry tone masked something close to a laugh.
“Well, no, but you have a show on Easter?”
“It’s a charity show. I would dearly love to cover ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ tonight. We would have to break that after the sound check, though, and I don’t think some of the band members will be coherent enough for something so impromptu. We’ll run the usual set list, I suppose.”
He sounded so nonchalant about having a show that particular Sunday. “And you have an appearance after the show on Easter Sunday?” she asked.
“I see Yvonne has sent you the schedule,” Alex said, a dry tone in his grating voice.
“Is this a usual day for you?”
“Oh, no,” Boris said, gently letting a long curl drop from the brush. “The Southern Swing on the tour is laid back, especially on account of Easter. The Northeast leg damn near kills us. Sometimes he has four appearances after the concert instead of just the one.”
“Seriously?” she asked Alex.
He shrugged, examining his phone again.
It wasn’t like she was going to be around for his packed schedule, anyway. “Xan, can I talk to you a sec?”
Boris clicked off the blow dryer and patted Alex’s bare shoulder. “I’m done here, mon petit chou. I’m going to go eat those pastries out ther
e. All of them.” He winked at Georgie, and his shoes clicked on the tile as he left them alone in the bathroom.
“What do you need?” Alex set his phone on the counter and sipped his coffee.
Georgie squatted down beside him. She set her coffee on the counter and laid her hand on his bare knee just below the thick terrycloth towel. “I just wanted to say good-bye.”
“I beg your pardon.” Pah-dun. His teeth didn’t even unclench, but that might just be his English accent.
She said, “I appreciate that you gave me a place to stay last night, and thanks for swooping down and rescuing me from those guys. And for the plane ride out of there. And rescuing me in Paris. And for helping me sneak out of that hotel.” As long as she was telling the truth, she might as well throw it all on the table. “And for the most wonderful week I’ve had in a long time.”
Alex leaned forward and covered her hand with his. The thick calluses on the fingertips of his left hand were rough against her wrist. His dark eyes turned intense. “Don’t go.”
Oh, this was why Georgie had rules about how many times she boinked a guy before she broke it off with him. She glanced over, but the bathroom door was still shut. She whispered, “Look, Xan, you’re a great guy.”
“Yes, thanks.” Even though his voice was wrecked, she could tell that his tone was dry.
“And I’ve had a great time with you.”
“Me, too,” he said.
“But I have to start putting a new life together.”
“There’s no reason for you to leave right now. It’s only April. You can’t start taking classes until fall semester. When is that, mid-August?”
“I have to change my name, get my transcripts, and apply for admission to a new university. I have a whole life to set up. It’s going to take a while.”
“Have you settled on going to Georgia?”
“Yeah, Atlanta area. I’m hoping Emory will take me. They have a good law school, so I wouldn’t have to move again in a year and a half.”
“So it’s logistics?” he asked.
The number of things she had to do so she could start taking classes in the fall overwhelmed her. “Yeah. Logistics.”
“I have lawyers who can draw up the paperwork for your name change. My admins can arrange for your transcripts and start the admissions paperwork. You should stay with me.”
She shook her head, swishing her long, tangled hair. “I’ve imposed too much. I’ll pay you back for all of this.”
He closed his eyes, and the corners creased. “All of what? This hotel room that was booked months ago? The plane that filed its flight plan days before you were on it? You don’t owe me anything.”
“I can’t impose any more.”
“I’ll assign Adrien to you for your safety.”
“You have two security guys for a reason. You can’t just have one of them following me around.”
He leaned in, watching their entwined hands on his leg, and whispered, “If something happens to you, I can’t run off to rescue you in Georgia. I should not send Adrien with you. I must not cancel concerts. These people depend on me. The only way I can begin to keep you safe is if you’re here with me.”
Georgie shook her head, the rat’s nest of hair snagging on her shoulders. “I’m not your responsibility.”
“I wouldn’t let you run into a burning house. You’re safe here.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I’m not debating that, but you should stay with me,” he said.
She watched his dark eyes, the deep color of night with a bare red-brown cast like a far-off fire. Dark lashes framed his long, tilted eyes. Those dark eyes photographed well, as she had seen in Rolling Stone. You could almost see him thinking about sex in the darkness. There was something of an incubus about him.
Well, not really, but you could see where the legends came from.
She said, “You’re really pushing this. You don’t have the feels or anything, right?”
His pained grimace reassured her. “I’ve known you a week. I just want to fuck and be friends.”
Every cell in Georgie’s body yearned to jump him and ride him, just to fuck and be friends. That was sheer, unadulterated awesome.
She licked her lips, wetting them for whatever reason might happen. “So why all the pressure?”
He drew in a wavering breath, which shocked Georgie. His wary glance up at her eyes smoldered with emotion. “I have to write more songs. I’m desperate for them. When I’m with you, I can write.”
So Alex wasn’t falling in love with her or any of that claptrap crap.
Whew. Georgie deflated with relief.
With anyone else, Georgie would have shrugged and told them to man up, or as her friend Rae called it, cowgirl up. Georgie wasn’t anybody’s crutch.
Instead, she flipped her hand over and held his hands in hers, because she could and he wouldn’t go all schmaltzy. He was gorgeous and sexy and ambitious and could talk for a solid week about music and was a wild animal in bed and yet wouldn’t get all goo-goo eyes all over her.
Georgie didn’t fall in love, and Alex was perfect for her.
Maybe she could stay, just for a while.
She smiled at him. “You’re never around anyway. Your schedule is insane.”
Someone pounded on the bathroom door, and a woman yelled, “Xan? Ten minutes.”
Perfect timing.
Georgie rolled her eyes. “See?”
He said, “Come with me in the evenings to the shows and the appearances.”
“People will post pictures. It wouldn’t take a genius to watch the photos of you after we’ve been photographed together once.”
It didn’t seem like Alex had blinked his large, dark eyes for minutes, and his long hair and thick eyelashes made him look more mysterious, like a medieval warlord. Every time she looked at him, she wanted to tilt her head and press her lips to his, just for one more kiss.
Maybe she should leave.
He said, “Boris can do your hair and makeup. He works miracles. After all, he can make me appear presentable.”
A laugh bubbled up in Georgie’s throat and popped out before she could stop it. “Oh, my God, Alex.”
“We can keep you safe here. The lawyers can get your paperwork started. In a few weeks, you can go to Atlanta and you won’t have lost any time.” His gaze sharpened. “I need you, just for a few weeks.”
“You shouldn’t rely on me. I absolutely have to disappear at some point. I can’t hang out with you long enough to write your whole album.”
“I understand, but if you leave, if something happens to you, I will never forgive myself. That’s the more important thing and the less embarrassing one.”
“Maybe it was just that you had time to breathe, that you weren’t caught up in this frantic treadmill of a tour. Maybe it’s not me at all.”
“Maybe it was, but I know that I won’t be able to concentrate if you’re out there somewhere, maybe in danger, maybe hurt. Stay with me, where you’re safe.”
“Just for a few days.”
“The summer. Until fall semester begins.”
“Oh, good Lord. There’s no way I can stay that long.”
“We have a show at the end of June at Madison Square Garden, the capstone concert at the end of the US tour. Stay through then,” he pressed. “The lawyers will surely need that long to have your name changed, and Yvonne will help you with the paperwork and details for Emory.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“You’ll be safe until then. They won’t be able to find you as easily if you travel with the tour.”
A moving target was harder to hit. “It’s such an imposition.”
“If you go directly to Georgia, they might look for immediate court filings or track you in that fashion.”
Damn it, he was smart, too. She admitted, “Dropping off the radar for a while might help me hide later.”
“Indeed.” He leaned toward her, and th
e warm mint of his breath danced on her lips. “Stay.”
His lips were so close to hers that anything he said seemed like a great idea. She half-closed her eyes, trying to hide that they had gone glassy. She breathed, “Okay. Until the Madison Square Garden concert. I would love to see you on a huge stage.”
He brushed his lips across hers, a transparent reward for her correct answer, but she didn’t care.
He broke off the kiss and whispered, “We’ll start with that. Meet me in the gym at noon?”
She nodded, her breath fluttering in her chest. “I could use a run. I’m all creaky.”
More pounding rattled the door. “Mr. Valentine?”
He glanced at the door but looked back to her. “I have to go. Promise me you’ll be in the gym at noon.”
She nodded. “I’ll be there.”
He leaned in again for another gentle kiss, the softness of his mouth reminding her of the days in the hotel, their bodies wrapped around each other. His hands stole up to her face, and Georgie slid her arms around his neck and rocked to her knees, bringing herself closer to him. Cords and sheets of thick muscle wrapped his shoulders, and she traced the ridges of the tattoos on his back with her fingertips.
After a moment, Alex pulled back. “I have to go.”
She nodded, her mind stunned.
“The gym, at noon.”
She nodded again.
“I’ll see you soon.”
He stood—his hand touching where the towel was tucked tightly around his waist—and walked out with her still kneeling on the floor.
Georgie sat back, dizzy.
She told herself that it was the music calling to her, even as her lips were swollen and her head buzzed from his kiss.
WALK AND TALK
Alexandre de Valentinois
Alex walked away from Georgie, an act of great will, and pulled on his clothes, buttoning his shirt and pausing to grab the handful of chains and rings off the dresser. He strode through the living room’s conversation area and formal dining room toward the front door.
Wild Thing Page 2