Lead Me Back

by Reiss, CD

  “Lawyer up, asshole.”

  I jabbed my elbow into the red button. The alarm went quiet, and the elevator lurched to life.

  “I hope you like mud,” he said. “Because you’ll be dragged through it.”

  We were locked in a stare until the doors slid open. He nodded with a smirk and—as if nothing had happened—walked out to meet the crowd of friends waiting for him.

  I pushed my mask down and flipped open my fan. My hands shook. My composure collapsed into a pounding heart and sweating palms, lost in the moment of verbal violence that had just passed. I’d done it. Something. Declared war. Fought a battle with no winner that left my confidence shredded.

  I wanted to run, but from what?

  My focus narrowed to what was directly in front of me, the path back to the ballroom.

  And in that narrow path, looking at me with a smile, stood a beautiful man in a period suit and mask.

  When I saw him, my vision widened, my heart quieted, and my step quickened. I ran into his arms.

  “Whoa,” Justin said.

  “I’m so happy you’re here.” I slipped off him to look into the shelter of his gorgeous, wonderful face.

  “Yeah, I heard the elevator alarm.”

  “No, it’s . . .”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I did something stupid.”

  “How stupid?”

  “Not stupid like an accident.” I lowered my voice when Signorile’s crowd passed. “Something I thought would be easy and satisfying, but it wasn’t.”

  Taking both my hands in his, he led me to a couch and sat down with me.

  “Talk to me.”

  I turned my gaze down to our interwoven hands. No matter how I told it, he was going to have a strong reaction.

  “I set off that elevator alarm. That was me.” I looked back up at him. We hadn’t bothered to take off our masks, and maybe that was for the best. “I was in there alone with Signorile.”

  “What did he do?” Justin’s body was coiled in tension as if he wanted to launch out of his seat.

  “Nothing.”

  “He didn’t touch you?”

  “No.” I squeezed his hands when I said it, and a little of the tension released.

  “Lucky for him.”

  “I set it off because I wanted to tell him something, and we only had one floor.”

  “Tell him what?”

  “That I’m coming for him. I won’t be quiet anymore. I won’t let him call me a liar and . . .” I took a deep breath. “I’m doing it for me, but it has a side effect for us. If I clear my name, maybe I won’t be a liability for you.”

  A quick laugh escaped him as he looked away, then back.

  “I should have asked you first,” I continued, “but I was so tired of this. Ken, and your contracts, and I realized you weren’t the only one with problems that interfered. I had to take care of it. So I got a lawyer, but I might have just made it worse.”

  “Not as bad as I’m gonna make it when I go in there and kill him.”

  “Justin.”

  “It’s gonna hurt my career, but it’s gonna feel so good.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Who’s stopping me?”

  Did he want me to beg for mercy? Petition his sense of self-preservation?

  I wouldn’t do either.

  “He’s mine,” I growled. “You understand?”

  Justin bit his bottom lip, clear blue eyes narrowing under his mask.

  “That’s so hot,” he said. “Say it again.”

  I leaned into him and deepened my voice.

  “You leave him alone. He’s mine. I’m going to be the one to destroy him.”

  “You’re making me want to destroy you,” Justin answered, running his hand up my thigh.

  “Later,” I said. “I want to have fun. Ask me to dance.”

  He stood up and held out his hand. “You wanna dance or nah?”

  I took him up on it, and we strolled to the ballroom together.

  “I didn’t ask what you were doing here,” I whispered.

  “Making sure no one else dances with you.”

  On the ballroom floor, couples stepped and twirled with a cohesiveness that looked practiced. I didn’t think I could ever be part of something so seamless, not the way I felt right then, with my heart ready for war and my body’s desire for Justin.

  “Didn’t you have a birthday party?” I asked.

  “Louise kicked me out when she found out you weren’t coming.” We got on the floor. He placed a hand at my waist, and I put my arm on his shoulder. “What was I supposed to do? Say no?”

  “Happy birthday, by the way.”

  “Thank you.” He took my right hand in his left.

  “I’m warning you ahead,” I said. “I don’t know how to waltz.”

  “Follow my lead.”

  He swung me to one side. I almost fell over, and he laughed.

  “Don’t make me tickle you,” I said, craning my neck for Evelyn but only catching sight of my old boss. Signorile was dancing with a woman in a white gown. I followed his gaze to Evelyn and Eddie.

  “It’s one-two-three, one-two-three. Follow.”

  I let him take me, following his steps as if I were in clown shoes.

  “Where did you learn how to waltz?” I asked.

  “Had to be a triple threat. Singing, acting, dancing. You’re getting it. There you go.” He tightened his grip around my waist. “Stop looking at that guy or I’m going to punch him.”

  I turned back to his expressive lips and the half-hidden eyes. I’d seen him in costume a hundred times, but at the ball, his willingness to be there made him more handsome than ever.

  “You look gorgeous,” he said.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I said. I hadn’t noticed the tension in his shoulders until I felt them relax. “Even though I specifically told you to fuck off for your own good.”

  “I’m not good at my own good.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You should get better at letting people take care of you.”

  “Here’s the thing.” We spun with the room. “My whole life started with me and my people. I had my buddies and my family. Me and them. We said it wouldn’t change, but it did. Everything got distorted. What happened with us started going through this filter of what fans thought. Or what our team thought fans would think and how the label would react. Then it was just straight-up ‘How’s Ken gonna be?’ I stopped thinking for myself. I hired it all out, and I gotta say, once you hire out your brain, your heart’s right behind.”

  The room spun behind him, and I surrendered completely to the music and the way he moved.

  “I’m done,” he continued. “I want to be the guy you can trust, because I trust you. I don’t want any filters. It’s you and me. Nobody else is telling me who you are. Not the public or my PR guy or fucking DMZ. Fuck all of them. I can’t control what they think. And if they want to think I’m a fuckup? Let them. As long as you don’t.”

  “What if I’m the fuckup?”

  “You’re not.” He pulled me as close as the dance allowed. “It’s not that I don’t care. I care. I don’t want you to fuck up, because I want you to be happy. And you’re not a fuckup at all. You’re the balls.”

  I laughed.

  “And I’ll tell you what else,” he added.

  “What else?” I caressed the back of his neck.

  “I’m not a dick. I got a lot going for me. I’m not entitled to you or nothing, but if you want me, I think that’s a pretty good choice on your part.”

  “Is it?”

  His steps stopped when the music paused, but we stayed in each other’s arms.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You could do a lot worse.”

  He wasn’t bragging. His confidence came from a place I hadn’t seen through the filters of who I thought he was. Maybe the mask made him more visible, or maybe he’d changed. Maybe I’d broken past th
e need to harness my love to my expectations.

  The music started again, but we didn’t dance. We were locked in a moment only the truth could break.

  “I’ve loved men who were worse,” I said. “But I’ve never loved a man as much as I love you.”

  We bent toward each other, collapsing the waltz-appropriate distance between us into a soft kiss made of sighs. He pulled me so close only my toes touched the floor—and flicked his tongue on my lips until my mouth opened and our kiss went from gentle dance to passionate embrace. The music was miles away until a twirling body brushed against us.

  Signorile was now dancing with a woman in a gold dress, and I didn’t even care.

  “Upstairs,” Justin said into my ear. “There’s a conference room. I want to pull that fancy dress up and show you how much I love you back.”

  Every word went right from my ear to the fast-melting throb between my legs, bypassing my brain altogether and angling my hips to brush against the outline of his erection.

  Another couple bumped us, so we moved off the floor.

  Evelyn stood with Eddie. Signorile didn’t matter. The throb in my vintage undergarments was very present and very insistent.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  Justin pulled me into a narrow wooden door behind the bar. When he was stopped by security, he pulled up his mask and was let through. Through another door, and halfway up the back stairs, we stopped to kiss. My back to the plaster wall, I gasped at the feel of his cock through our clothes and his hand on the bodice of the gown.

  I was sure we weren’t going to make it to the second floor, but a door opened above us, and we got our hands off each other just as a waiter skittered down the steps.

  “No more stopping,” I said, taking his hand.

  A door. A carpeted hall. We passed the Toledo Room to another door that opened to an empty room with a long shiny table and six chairs. Windows with closed blinds. A door on the other side of the room. Justin snapped both locks shut and stepped close enough to push up my mask.

  “Beautiful,” he said, running his hand down my face and along my collarbone, where his lips took over. I bent backward over the table, and he hitched me up by the waist to sit on it, wrestling with my skirt and slip until he hit bare skin.

  “I hate to ask now,” I said when he laid his hands on my thighs.

  “In my wallet.” He opened my legs. “Lie back.”

  The hard wood was uncomfortable, but smooth enough to let him pull me forward. He took my panties off and stuffed them in his back pocket, then spread me wide again. His gaze on me was enough to send a wave of arousal down my spine, and, when he ran his tongue inside my thigh, I didn’t think I’d be able to keep the orgasm down long enough for his mouth to get to its destination.

  As if he knew how to torture me, he went slowly and methodically, prying me open with his tongue and teasing me with the point, kissing my clit so gently I barely felt it and almost came anyway.

  “You’re really close,” he said, easing two fingers inside me.

  “Master of the obvious.”

  “I’m going to make you come.” He took his fingers out and laid them on my lips. “Be quiet or someone’s going to think I’m killing you.”

  “You won’t even know.”

  “I’ll know.” He dipped his head down and ran his tongue where I was wettest, then up to the core of my pleasure, slowly flicking, then sucking until my hips jerked against him and it was hard to keep my lips locked around his fingers.

  When the orgasm burst through, my mouth opened, and I let out a silent howl into the sparkling blackness.

  Justin removed his fingers and stood between my open legs with a glistening smile.

  “Thank you,” I gasped, dropping my head back to stare at the ceiling.

  “No problem.”

  I heard him get out his wallet and open the condom. He undid his trousers and pulled out his dick. I wondered if there would ever come a day when it didn’t look monstrously huge.

  “You comfortable?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He slid the condom on.

  “You still love me?”

  I got up on my elbows.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s good.” He got between my legs, shifting them open so he could slide the head of his dick along me. “I never made it with a girl I could say that to before.” He pushed against me, and I pushed back until he was in. He laid his hands on my knees and thrust again, stretching me open.

  “God. Damn,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “You okay?”

  “I think I can come again.”

  A few more thrusts and he was all the way in. I opened his shirt to feel his skin. We wrapped our arms around each other and he took me, owned me, and cared for me with kisses and sweet, true words, bringing me to another silent orgasm as he buried his face in my neck for his own, and I wondered how I’d gotten here, to this strange city thousands of miles away, only to find myself home.

  “Damn, I love you, Kaylacakes.”

  Maybe I should have been surprised, but nothing seemed more natural, more true, or more obvious than those words.

  “Good. You oughta.”

  We kissed, and it was lovely and sweet until we heard a bang from the adjoining room and a half grunt, half squeal. Justin raised himself a few inches from me, turning to face the doorway we hadn’t come through.

  “Stop it!” a woman’s voice came through from the adjacent room.

  “Is that—” I started but couldn’t finish as he went to the door, taking the air with him. I got up on the heels of my hands and dropped my legs over the side of the table while Justin turned the lock with his shirt open, his waistband halfway down his ass and his condom-wrapped dick hanging out like packaged kielbasa.

  “Justin!” I shout-whispered, sliding onto my feet. “Your pants!”

  He opened the door in that state, which showed an impressive prioritization of heroism over shame, and he leaped for Josef Signorile, pulling him by the collar and dragging him to the floor.

  The first thing I saw was Evelyn, with her mask pulled down over her chin. Her eyes were kohl with running mascara, wide with shock as she stared to my left.

  Justin was straddling Signorile, dick still out, fist pulled back.

  “Justin!” I shouted. “Stop!” As if woken from a nightmare, Evelyn ran into my arms.

  Justin’s right arm was frozen by his ear. The left was pushing my old boss down by the throat.

  “Please,” I said, holding my friend. “Don’t make it worse.”

  As if he had to do it before he changed his mind, Justin shot up, standing with a foot on each side of Signorile’s hips.

  “You—”

  “Get off me!” Signorile growled. I remembered that voice. The way he’d groomed us with snarls of dissatisfaction and complimentary cooing.

  “God, I want to fuck you up so bad,” Justin said with his fists at his sides.

  “Put your dick in your pants.” Signorile tried to shove Justin’s leg away.

  “Nah.” From behind, I could see his hips bend forward.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Evelyn. Before she could answer, the door to the hallway opened, and a security guy came in, closely followed by Eddie.

  When Evelyn saw him, she ran into his arms.

  “Step away,” the security guy said to Justin.

  Justin put away his assets before turning around, thank God. I didn’t want everyone looking at what was mine.

  The cops came and took statements. Evelyn had been in line for the bathroom when Signorile said he knew of one that was less crowded. He made her laugh in the elevator. Eddie thought she was gone too long and came up after her. He heard a scuffle on the other side of the door and called security.

  Signorile had never gotten caught in the act before, but he had his story. Evelyn repeated it to me when she was out of the room. He’d said she’d wanted him to stick his hand up her skirt, and when he saw that
Evelyn and I were friends, it turned into entrapment.

  When the cops called me into the little room, I stormed in like an angry, Regency-era goddess.

  The cop was in her twenties, dark skinned with exacting care to her hair and makeup. You could tell a details person.

  “You don’t have to say anything if you want a lawyer,” she said. “And I can’t detain you, if you want to go.”

  “I have a lawyer.” I looked at the clock, because we were all supposed to be in the ballroom—a public space—not the hotel’s administrative offices with beige industrial carpet, blinds, no-frills paintings that looked as if they belonged in the rooms upstairs. “He has a history of this.”

  “So does Justin Beckett.”

  “Signorile assaulted my friend.”

  “Oh, we know that.”

  “How?”

  “The hotel has a new security system,” she said. “All the event spaces have cameras.”

  My cheeks tingled. If there were cameras in the Toledo Room, there were cameras in the adjoining room. Which meant there was video of Justin and me screwing on the conference table, and security had seen it.

  Justin.

  If the sex video leaked, I’d be seen, and it would be terrible, but I’d get over it. Justin wouldn’t be able to shut the internet off. He’d be a dog who was inappropriate for young fans. This was going to be a problem for him.

  I tilted my chin up haughtily—a woman incapable of shame.

  “Are we done?” I asked.

  “All done.”

  My phone buzzed. My lawyer.

  —Now—

  Evelyn and Eddie were in the waiting room, still in their finery. My stay was starting to pinch, and I’d stepped on the hem of my skirt so many times it was gray.

  “Kayla,” Evelyn said when she saw me. Eddie put his arm on her back as if letting her know he was there.

  Yes. It was just lovely, and I wanted to hear all about it, but not right then.

  “Where’s Signorile?”

  “He just left,” Evelyn said, indicating the door out to the lobby, as if that was the one to avoid.

  “Perfect.”

  Before they could ask why, I texted my shark.