by Lee Kilraine
“Yeah, me neither. Thank God she’s my groupie.”
Sometimes when you saw something up close, it never looked as good as it did far away. That sure wasn’t the case with the hot blonde. Christ, she was striking. White-blond hair almost the color of the petal of a white dogwood tree. Streaks of moonbeams and sunshine shot through so casually, it was either the world’s best dye job or her natural color.
As if reading his mind, Tynan said, “I volunteer to find out. I will take that bullet for you.”
“No, thanks.”
As far as groupies go, she was different. Instead of acting like she had the right to touch him, she stuck out a slender hand for a very polite handshake. He looked down into her Elizabeth Taylor lavender eyes and swore she gazed up at him with . . . whoa, what was that?
“May I have your autograph, Mr. Cates?” The hot blonde regarded him like he was a god. Something about her drew him closer toward her pink lips, which released a siren song of a voice.
“Sure,” Sijan said. “Do you have a photo or a piece of paper you want me to sign?”
“I’m trying to save the trees. Would you mind signing me instead?” A grimace flashed across her face, but it was quick and replaced so fast with an expression of adoration that he figured he must be mistaken. The hot blonde lifted her already short skirt up, exposing her lightly tanned and very sexy thigh.
Sijan normally had a policy against signing body parts, but for the life him he couldn’t remember why. He thought he heard the woman next to her choke down a laugh, but when he pulled his attention away from the blond goddess, the friend with spikey magenta hair silently mouthed, “I love you,” then turned to his brother and blew an air kiss. What? Something suddenly felt off. But when he focused on the blonde he couldn’t gather his thoughts enough to figure it out.
“It’s okay. I’m sure it’s beneath your dignity to take part in the dehumanization of women. I respect you for that,” she breathed in her sexy voice.
She dropped her skirt back down and leaned in close to his lips. Her warm skin and sultry voice drew him in. Then, in the next second, she whipped her head to face the cameras as the paparazzi snapped away at her wide, perfect smile just as other fans closed in. That snapped him right back to reality. She was just another starlet out to get famous. He was just another opportunity.
***
Avery sat across from Pia in the local Climax diner the next morning drinking coffee and eating fluffy buttermilk biscuits with homemade blackberry jam.
“How could they miss this shot? Look at this. My face is covered by someone’s autographed paper.” She tossed the tabloid down onto the table wanting to scream. “Do they just let anyone ruin the lives of stars these days? Can’t they at least make sure they can take a half decent photo?”
Pia delicately blotted crumbs off her lips with her napkin. “Well, I’m sorry to be the one to point this out, but they did get a great photo of Sijan. I mean, the guy probably doesn’t take a bad photo, but, um, yeah, they got him . . . and your cleavage.”
“What?” Grabbing the paper back up, she stared at the photo again. “Well, would you look at that. They focused the photo on my cleavage, which, thank God for you, Pia, is lifted and separated like nobody’s business.”
“I told you it would get you photographed.” Pia’s lips wiggled suspiciously, but she got serious when she looked at Avery’s face.
“I need a plan B.” She picked up a biscuit and slathered it with jam. “I Skyped with Tansy last night from my hotel room. She looks awful and she’s so pale.”
“It just so happens, while you were talking to Tansy, I was working on plan B.” Pia gently scooted the plate of biscuits out of Avery’s reach. “I ran into Sijan Cates and his brother at the VFW last night.”
“Those biscuits are a work of the devil.” She licked the jam from her fingers before reaching for her napkin. “Ran into?”
“Okay, so I saw them and followed them.”
“Holy heck, I’ve turned you into a stalker. I’m so sorry.”
Pia rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah. It was terrible. You’re going to owe me something big.”
“Anything, Pia. So what happened? What’s plan B? I hope it’s better than my plan A.”
“Well, plan B is still plan A. Tynan was sweet enough to buy me a beer, which bought us some time. I told them both all about you, Sijan’s number-one fan. I’m not sure they’re convinced, since yesterday they decided you were all about getting discovered by getting your photo in the paper.”
“How could they think that?” Avery sipped her iced coffee serenely.
Pia narrowed her eyes at Avery. “Because it’s true and they’re not stupid?”
“Huh, it’s those small details that get you.” Avery laughed at herself. This time, she’d stay focused on the task at hand and not let the darn man distract her. “I’m ready. Let’s go do this.”
“Patience, you crazy obsessed fan, you. We’re supposed to meet them tonight,” Pia said, pulling a book out of her bag and sliding it across the table until it sat in front of Avery. “You have all day to learn everything there is to know about Sijan Cates: Movie Star, Sex Symbol, Hero. The Untold Story.”
“Right. Or, I could volunteer for a root canal over at the dental college.” Avery made a face at Pia’s raised eyebrows. “Ugh, Pia . . . he’s an actor. I’ve had my fill of them.”
“He is also your ticket to help Tansy.”
“You’re right. Okay, so I’ll look through the book. But guess what else we can do?” Avery smiled brightly. “I’ll give you a hint. It’ll be fun.”
“You know we have totally different ideas of fun, right?” Pia crossed her arms, looking like she was the one about to get a root canal.
“Oh, admit it, grumpy. You usually have fun when we’re finished,” Avery cajoled. “We’ve got all day, right? Some of our clients live nearby. We can visit a few, maybe even set up an interview or two from one of the new applications we’ve received. We can always use new clients and don’t forget our star client, Petey, had surgery last week. We should visit him and see how he’s doing.”
“Oh, please, not Petey. Petey is high maintenance and he hates me.”
“Yes, Petey.” Avery’s excitement was enough to make Pia moan.
“Fine. I’ll drive . . . so you can study up on Sijan Cates.”
Avery’s grin fell fast. “I walked right into that one. I’ll go call Tansy before she hits the beach. I might as well make sure she hasn’t heard from the doctor before we go with plan B.”
***
Pia watched Avery walk away, then signaled to their waitress Renee for the check. As she settled up the bill, she asked, “Renee, if you had a best friend who met a guy she didn’t like, but you had a gut feeling he’d be great for her, would you listen to your friend or listen to your gut?”
“Well, hon, that depends on if you just ate anything out of Dave’s kitchen back there.” Renee glanced at the plates on their table. “Just the biscuits and jam? So, probably not indigestion. I’d go with the gut then. Are we talking sex or love here?”
“Sex. Really hot, delicious sex for a woman who has only seen the worst from manipulative men who only cared about their own orgasms.”
“Jerks, huh? You go with that gut feeling and help your friend out,” Renee said. “And, sugar, you ever get a gut feeling like that about me, jump on it. Just give me a heads-up so I can shave my legs.”
“You got it. And thanks,” Pia said, feeling better about where this might be heading. Tansy’s track record said she was lying her skinny little behind off. Avery always gave Tansy the benefit of the doubt, until the truth became too obvious to deny. Pia had been planning on focusing all her energy on convincing Avery anyway—until she’d noticed Avery’s reaction to Sijan Cates.
The hell of it was, she’d seen Sijan’s reaction too. She’d captured his face on her cell phone camera at the precise moment he’d seen Avery. She brought it up on her phone to look again as sh
e headed out to the parking lot. Whoa, baby, there was definitely the promise of hot sex in that face. But it was the intense, slightly stunned look in his eyes that suggested this could be something more.
Chapter Three
“Okay, the good news is Petey is recovering like a champ and I’ve learned three facts about our movie star. The bad news is”—Avery paused to hike up the precarious neckline of the plastered-on dress Pia had insisted she pry herself into—“I only know three facts about the movie star and I look like a hooker.”
Pia looked Avery over as they entered the VFW, where they were supposed to meet Sijan and Tynan. “Oh, a high-priced escort at the very least. There they are, over in the corner. Take a deep breath and act like you’d like to perform a tonsillectomy on him with your tongue.”
“If I breathe any deeper, my nipples will pop out of this sausage casing of a dress, which is only my third-biggest problem tonight.”
“What else ya got?”
“Number two, once I’ve discussed that he’s twenty-eight, prefers boxers, and got his BFA here in North Carolina, I’m fresh out of ‘I am so your number-one fan that I’m obsessed with your life’ facts.” Avery tried to look like a sexy, obsessed—but not to the point of crazy—fan while she surreptitiously looked around the place. Dark wood furniture and bar, walls covered in military memorabilia, and chandeliers made of antlers gave the feel of a cozy high-class fraternity house. “And number one is I don’t see a single paparazzo.”
“How much of the biography did you read?” Pia asked under her breath as they waited for the hostess to seat them.
“The back of the book jacket.”
“You never did like to read.”
“Sue me. I’m a visual learner. I preferred movies. Until I started making them.”
“Okay, I’ll jump into the conversation when I can.”
The hostess arrived to seat them and Pia led the way toward the brothers, who stood as they approached. She raised her phone and captured Sijan’s face with her camera, whispering over her shoulder, “If the you-know-who don’t show, I’ll get a photo on my cell phone. We got this.”
Avery mentally transformed from normal person into super fan. She channeled adoring hunger and upped her energy level. Her breathing sped up, which put a spotlight on her cleavage. Both men appeared to have a difficult time keeping focused on Avery’s face.
“Oh my gosh! This is so exciting.” Avery reached out her hand to Sijan, shaking it in short, nervous pumps, forgetting to let go until Tynan reached his hand out to shake. “I never in a million years thought I’d actually get to meet Sijan Cates. Pia, look who I’m talking to.”
“It’s amazing. She’s dreamed about this for years. This is such a moment for her.”
Sijan cleared his throat and motioned to the booth, “Won’t you sit down? I was happy to meet with you when Pia explained how hard you work as the president of my fan club.”
“President of the Sijan Cates Fan Club?” Avery squeaked in surprise until Pia poked her from behind. “Oh, yes, it’s like a full-time job, o-only it’s not a job. It’s a labor of love is what it is.”
The brothers appeared to lose the power of speech as Avery tried to maneuver herself into the booth with the restriction of the skin-tight dress. She didn’t usually give her breasts the starring role, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Pia wasn’t helping one bit, darn her.
Avery knew Pia was having too much fun at her expense when she said, “So, it was after Avery killed the wild boar that she knew she wanted to have Sijan’s children. Nineteen of them, if I recall correctly. Do you like children, Mr. Cates? Do you have space in your house for a mounted boar head?”
She swung her purse wide, hitting Pia in the stomach with it before sliding on the seat and scooting over to make room in the booth. “So sorry,” she said, sounding very regretful. Then she turned her gaze up to the men and blinked. “How about mounted children on your wall then?” There, that brought their eyes up.
Sijan shook his head, while Tynan took Pia’s elbow, helping her slide into the opposite side of the booth before sitting down next to her. Sijan sat down next to Avery, his gaze carefully focused on her face. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“She said would you mind taking a photo with her to mount on her wall at home?” Pia held up her cell phone, motioning Avery closer to Sijan. As soon as Avery was plastered up against Sijan’s side, heads together, Pia said, “Say ‘skilled moose,’” and snapped off two pictures.
Photo accomplished, Avery started to get up and leave until Pia kicked her shin. “Sit . . . sitting here with you is something Avery’s been dreaming about.”
The waitress came by to deliver glasses of water and take their drink orders before speeding off to the next table.
“You could have just thrown your underwear at him.” Tynan sat back and looked at Avery closely. “That’s what most of his true fans do, right, Sijan?”
Avery choked on the sip of water she had just taken. “Fans still do that? I mean . . . sure, I would have, but um . . . I’m not wearing any.”
“I don’t believe you could in that dress,” Sijan said.
“Thank you for noticing.” Avery batted her eyelashes in Sijan’s direction. “So, you’re twenty-eight years old?”
Pia kicked her under the table again. Ow. Sitting next to Sijan was scrambling her brain cells, darn it. She willed herself to recall the painful dose of movie star she had five years ago to shore up her immunity.
“What I mean is, we just saw your last movie and we were discussing that in the last twenty-eight years we haven’t seen one like it. The hidden dystopian message symbolized by your character eating the . . . the—”
“—Brussels sprouts.” Pia jumped in to help, but looked ready to unbutton a few buttons on her blouse if more distraction was needed.
“Yesterday you said Avery was only twenty-six years old.” Tynan looked at Pia, then at Avery.
“That’s right, but I studied an extra two years,” Avery said just before Pia kicked her. Again. “Ow! . . . owlets are baby owls. Isn’t that interesting?”
***
“This is interesting, all right.” Sijan stretched his arm along the bench behind Avery. He had no clue what was happening, but he hadn’t been so intrigued, amused, or turned on in . . . hell, years. Obviously, something was up with this woman, but he was still pulled toward her. It wasn’t just her looks, although she was stunning.
Good thing he’d decided to take a hiatus on women or he’d want to examine the electric jolt he got when she touched his hand. He reached out to test it, covering her hand with his. Yep, there it was. That shot of energy that made her eyes connect with his in confusion.
“What do you do, Avery?” Sijan asked.
Avery shook her head, but couldn’t look away from his eyes. “Do with what?”
Pia cleared her throat and said, “Avery and I work together. Isn’t that right, Avery?”
Sijan looked into Avery’s eyes and forgot his own question. Did she feel it too? Whatever it was. He reached out to give her hand an encouraging squeeze, but ended up caressing his hand up past her wrist to the bend in her elbow. She shivered under his hand.
“Mmhmm. It’s . . . a, um, job, you know, a small job. People pay us money. We pay rent. And buy some food.”
Sijan fell into her purple eyes. “It sounds fascinating.”
“Why don’t we clear off the table and let them have at it right here,” Tynan said.
“It’s not like I wouldn’t pay to see a Sijan Cates love scene. In fact, I have, many times. Just not with my best friend, you know?”
Sijan ran his hand up Avery’s arm and along her collarbone. He slid his fingers up the side of her neck to caress her jaw. Tilting her head back, he moved toward her until they were only inches apart. This felt dangerous. And hot as hell. Could he play with the flames and not get burned?
“Which of Sijan’s movies is your favorite, Avery?” Tynan’s
voice sliced between them, and Sijan raised an eyebrow in his direction.
“Oh, well.” Avery turned her head and blushed, scooting back from Sijan. “I love them all. I wouldn’t be able to pick just one.”
Tynan apparently had a point to make because he wouldn’t leave it alone. “I bet you can. If your life was in danger, you could.”
Avery sucked in a sharp breath. Her gaze jerked to Pia, then back to him. “Well, the one where you, um, wore that suit, you know?”
He could see Pia nodding her head out of the corner of his eye.
“And you looked into the camera and then killed that . . . that guy, kind of like James Bond”—Pia’s head moved with a quick negative shake—“but not really like James Bond, you know? I like that one a lot.”
Yup, something was definitely up with this woman. Sijan sat back in his seat, taking in the look of disbelief on Tynan’s face. “What else do you do as president of the fan club?”
“Oh, well, there’s the website. I manage that.”
“Which one is that?”
“Uh, it’s the, uh . . . www.sijancranksourtractors.”
Pia choked on her water.
“What?”
“We had to shut down the original website, you know the www.sijancatesfanclub when all the drool short circuited it.”
Sijan was pretty sure Pia kicked Avery under the table.
“Cut that out”—Avery frowned across at Pia—“is what I always tell her when she tries to be funny like that.”
“What kind of information is on the website?” Sijan asked.
“Oh, the usual fan site stuff. Photographs. Lots of those. Apparently, you do not take a bad photo. Backwards or forwards. And clips from your movies. Copyrighted, of course. And, there’s a place where your fans can post a ‘Sijan Sighting’ or a ‘Sijan Encounter.’”
“An ‘encounter’?”
“Sure. You know? When a fan meets you at an autograph signing and you say ‘Nice to meet you,’ but she swears you really meant, ‘I want to make mad passionate love to you.’ That kind.”