Four Reasons to Come

by Sarah J. Brooks

  Instead of rushing over to her, I stood for a minute and observed what was going on. There were a lot of women coming up and talking to her; they were laughing and hugging her and taking selfies with the girl. When the group of women left, I swept in and stood next to her while I ordered a drink.

  “Bourbon straight,” I said to the bartender when I caught his eye. Then I turned toward Angelina. “That’s a nice looking blue martini,” I said with a smile.

  She turned, and the look of shock on her face made me smile. It was clear she wasn’t expecting it to really be me, but all my animosity about that situation had disappeared when I realized she really was the same beautiful girl that I had seen in her photos. Plus, the way she smiled at me had my heart jumping up and down like a teenager.

  “Well, this is a pleasant surprise.” She laughed nervously.

  “You thought I was lying?”

  “Yes,” she said simply and then sipped on her drink.

  Her eyes avoided looking at me, and a red flush came to her cheeks. This girl was stunningly beautiful, though; even in the midst of total embarrassment, she was more elegant than most women could hope for

  “Angelina, Angelina, can we please take a picture with you?” two young women said excitedly as they came up and pushed me out of the way.

  “Quickly ladies, I’m on a date here,” Angelina said sweetly as she obliged the girls.

  It dawned on me that this woman wasn’t actually in the finance industry at all. I didn’t know her, though I probably should have by the way the girls were so excited to get their photos taken with her.

  “So, the finance industry has groupies, that’s interesting,” I said dryly as I sipped my drink.

  “You know, people love to make money.”

  Angelina looked over at me, and I could have sworn she was turning an even darker shade of red. She was hiding her embarrassment well, a little too well; I started to think she was an actress of some sort. What a beautiful woman she was. Her long brown hair was swept back in a simple low ponytail; she had flawlessly clear skin and huge brown eyes that I could swear were looking right through me.

  She was much quieter in person than her personality seemed over the Instamatch app. Maybe that was because I had shocked her by being real? Or maybe she just didn’t like the chaos of the club. She couldn’t seem to look me straight in the eyes and continually looked away after even a moment of glancing at me. I think I was making her nervous.

  “That dress is one hell of a dress.”

  She smiled at me and looked down without saying a word. It didn’t seem to matter that we weren’t talking much, though. I sipped on my drink, and she sipped on hers. There was so much chemistry between us, I felt it pulling me closer and closer to her. She didn’t pull away, and she didn’t move away. She wanted to be there with me: I could tell by the way she looked at me. Yet, she couldn’t muster much to actually say to me.

  “When you finish that drink, I’m going to take you for a spin on that dance floor,” I said as I watched her slam down the remainder of her drink.

  I held my hand out for her, and she grabbed it so I could guide her out to the dance floor. The music was bumping, and not at all meant for a slow dance, but I didn’t care. Nothing seemed to matter at all at that moment. This girl was something on a whole different dimension than I had experienced. The way she looked at me had my insides stirring and my thoughts imagining every possible way I could kiss her right there. But I held back. As much as I wanted to feel her lips against mine, I wanted to get to know this girl first, and that was the first sign she was going to be a hell of a lot of trouble to me.

  It had literally been years since I felt like I truly wanted to get to know a woman. It had been longer than I cared to remember, and I really loved how it felt. She was mysterious, sexy as hell, and standing there with me. She wasn’t looking at anyone else; her beautiful brown eyes were locked onto mine as I wrapped my hands around her waist and pulled her near me. We were quiet, but we probably couldn’t have heard each other talk much if we had decided to talk; the music was much too loud on the dance floor.

  Her body language told me that she wanted to be there with me. Her hips pressed against mine. Her voluptuous breasts touched my body like they were urging me on to play with them. Every moment I was there with her, I felt my body tingling more and more. The way she looked at me was the way I had always imagined a woman would look at me. Not just any woman, but I had imagined it would be a woman that I also couldn’t take my eyes away from.

  We didn’t talk with words, but man oh man did our bodies do a lot of talking. My hands stayed at her waist, but hers slid up my back and squeezed me toward her. Angelina flashed me a small smile as she let her head rest on my chest for a minute, and I pulled my arms up to wrap her in them. I felt like I was protecting her from something; I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but I was fine with being there to protect her.

  My arms stayed wrapped around hers, and her hands slid down to my waist and held onto me, and she pulled back slightly. She smirked and shook her head as her eyes looked me up and down.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Dean,” she said loudly as she leaned in toward my ear.

  “You too,” I mouthed back to her.

  After dating dozens, maybe even hundreds of women, I was positive I had been thoroughly washed out of the market. There was something about me that made it impossible to find a woman that I liked; I was convinced of it. But then this girl happened. I was smitten by her after hardly talking to her. I wanted to be there with her all night long. Sure, I wanted to talk to her too. I wanted to see her again the next day. There were so many thoughts running through my head of how I could not screw this up.

  Whatever happened, I needed not to mess up like I did with every other woman in my past. I had to say the right things. I had to do the right things because I wanted this feeling to last. I was hooked already on Angelina, and I hardly knew a thing about her.

  “Is there a place to talk around here?” Angelina said in my ear.

  Give me a mission, and I damn sure will make it happen. I grabbed her hand and pulled her off the dance floor. We went straight to the owner of the club who was sitting in the corner; I stood there for less than a second before the man hopped up and shook my hand, but then he shook Angelina’s hand too. I watched how he looked at her and knew I was missing something big about this girl.

  “Private room?” I asked the owner.

  “Of course,” he said and motioned for one of his men to take us somewhere.

  As many times as I had come to the club, I hadn’t been interested in a private room before. I liked being out on the dance floor and in the main area of the club so I could find beautiful women. But at the moment, I was holding the hand of a very beautiful woman, and all I wanted to do was talk to her. I actually wanted to talk to her. Angelina had me wondering who she was; she had me thinking about dozens of questions to ask her. I couldn’t wait to get her alone so we could talk.

  The bouncer opened the door to a back room and shooed away a group of men who were in it. Within two minutes, they had the room cleaned up and cleared out. It was nice to be important enough to kick other people out of a room. But I wasn’t sure if it was me or Angelina that the owner had been so eager to please.

  “I’ll have them bring you some bottles,” the bouncer said as he closed the door and was looking at Angelina.

  “Why do I have a feeling that they did this for you and not for me?” I laughed as I refused to let go of her hand and pulled her toward the corner bench.

  The small room reminded me of a strip club, just because it had leather benches around the edges. I had gone to a high class club with one of my friends when he was trying to convince everyone he wasn’t gay. Eventually he came out and was happier than ever, but I still had that damn club burned into my memory. I glanced around at the high quality art on the walls and expensive tables for our drinks, it was clear this room was meant to show off a person’s weal
th and not a woman’s tits. Yet I still had the odd feeling there was a lot of sex happening in this private room.

  “You don’t know who I am?” She giggled.

  “That’s supposed to be my line.”

  She seemed embarrassed that I didn’t know who she was, and I felt bad that I had no idea. She looked familiar, but even my own past co-stars looked familiar. I just couldn’t pin down who she was. Maybe she was in a different Broadway show? Perhaps she was in one of my previous movies, and I had just forgotten?

  “My family has had a reality show for the last few years. The Kent Family Mayhem.”

  It all started to fall into place. She was one of the daughters on the show, now I remembered. Although I hadn’t actually watched the show before, it was highly advertised, and you couldn’t exactly watch regular television without an ad or two popping up at some point.

  The mom was an uber stage mother who had put her daughters through auditioning and had landed a television show to follow them. As the two girls grew up, the show had become more and more provocative. I remember seeing an ad that had the daughters lying naked by a pool with blurred-out naked bits and a delivery man stopping by with a package. T

  “Ah, so you’re a celebrity,” I said as I leaned back against the cold leather of the bench and relaxed a little.

  “Not really a celebrity. I mean, you’re a celebrity. I’m more of a pop culture obsession right now. I want to be an actress, though. I’m in town filming a movie.”

  “Who’s directing?”

  “Gene Salvador,” she replied with a grimace.

  “Oh, well he’s good. That’s a good first gig, really. He’s like that with everyone, though. Just remember that he’s not actually being mean to you, and you’ll be fine.”

  “Thank you,” Angelina replied and then looked away from me again.

  It was like she realized she was embarrassed to talk to me or something. This girl had me all kinds of confused. From what I knew of her television show, she was very outgoing and a bit outrageous; yet sitting next to me, she seemed very shy and reserved. Over the messaging app on Instamatch she had been much more like her reality show character.

  “I have to say you are the most beautiful woman I’ve met on that app.” I laughed.

  “How many women have you met?”

  “Two.”

  She broke out in laughter that literally made my skin tingle as I heard it. There was such a reserved nature to her that it was a little surprising how joyous her laugh really was. I couldn’t help laughing with her.

  “Do you have a contract with them?” she finally asked.

  “Oh, God. Is it that obvious? I know, I’m that weird old guy on the kids dating app.”

  “I’ve got a contract too. And just so you know. I don’t think you’re a weird old guy,” Angelina said as I felt her hand touch mine.

  “Wow,” I said out loud, although I meant to say it to myself.

  Her touch was smooth and warm. It electrified my body, and I instantly thought about what it would be like to have my hands all over her naked body. Her simple touch had sent off a chain reaction in my brain.

  “What?” she asked as she pulled away and her eyes darted back down to her lap.

  “I was just thinking how fucking lucky I was to get that contract and be forced into this Instamatch thing. You are stunning …” my voice trailed off as I reached for her chin and lifted it up, so her big brown eyes were forced to look at me.

  I felt her body turn toward me, and I couldn’t stop my lips from pressing against hers. Everything in my body wanted to feel this woman against me. I wanted to take her right there in that room, and if she had been anyone else, I might have done it. But there was another driving force inside that I couldn’t silence, the voice telling me not to mess this up. The voice whispering that I needed to do and say everything right because I wanted to keep this woman around longer than one night.

  She opened her lips for me and urged my tongue to play with hers. People had told me before about the attraction that could happen instantly when you met someone. I thought they were talking about the natural lust that often happened when I was around women, but at that moment, I realized they had been talking about something entirely different. A force more powerful than lust, a desire for another human being that was so strong it made me want to be a better man at that very moment.

  I didn’t grope at her body, although I wanted to. I didn’t let my hands slide up her thigh or play with her tits; I was a gentleman like I had never been before. My hands touched her face gently, and our lips moved together in a dance that was sweet and romantic.

  Chapter 6

  Angelina

  If there was a heaven, I was in it at that very moment. Nothing about my life outside of that moment mattered because I was sitting next to one of the best-looking men in the world. I had my lips pressed against his, and he was being more of a gentleman than any guy I had ever dated.

  To say I was shocked that he was real would be a total understatement.. I had convinced myself that it was a fraud online and had left little room for the real man to even exist. I floundered my words and had been barely able to speak to him, yet the attraction between the two of us seemed to be speaking plenty loud.

  When I pulled away from him and looked into his eyes, I felt myself dripping with desire. I wanted to straddle him and feel him sliding inside of me. My cheeks flushed as I imagined what his groans would sound like if I took control of the situation and just took him like I wanted to. He’d be surprised; that was for sure. But that wasn’t the kind of girl I wanted to be around him.

  Even though I had totally lied when I met him online, I wouldn’t lie again to him. My heart fluttered just to be there with him, and I couldn’t imagine being anyone else but my authentic self. Being authentic around a man was scary as hell to me, though. Guys used me. They wanted to date me for the publicity. They wanted to be with me so they could brag about it, but sitting there with Dean, I knew he didn’t want any of that from me. So for the first time that I could remember, it didn’t matter that my family had a television show. This man wanted to be there with me because he wanted to be with me; Angelina Kent, the real woman.

  “So this is going well, I think,” Dean said cheekily.

  His smile made me melt. The way the left side of his mouth lifted up just a little higher than the right, the way his eyes looked at me like he wanted to kiss every inch of me.

  “Hmm, I don’t know.”

  “What? No way you’ve had better first dates than this.”

  “How do you know? I could have.”

  “Tell the truth.” He smiled, and I melted.

  His grin was pure gold; it was no wonder the man had made such a killing as a movie star. Women melted when he smiled at them like that. I know I certainly was putty in his hands. I would have done anything he wanted.

  “Okay, okay, best first date ever. But that’s mainly because I’ve had a crush on you forever,” I blurted out. “Oh, my God I can’t believe I just said that. Forget what you heard. Don’t repeat it. Don’t remember it. Oh God,” I said as I covered my face with my hands.

  “So I’m basically making your dreams come true right now.” He laughed. “Yep, best first date.”

  I had to laugh. He was so funny and charismatic. He was cocky without being annoying. I couldn’t think of enough witty comebacks to reply to him, though. Every time I managed to respond, he was right there with something else funny to say. It was the kind of witty banter that only happened in the movies.

  Soon I found myself with my shoes off and my feet on his lap while we talked about everything in the entertainment industry. We talked about my movie director and how Dean had once threatened to punch the guy in the face. I loved that picture in my head and really wished I could punch the guy in the face. Of course, I wasn’t a big Hollywood celebrity, though; I couldn’t do anything that would label me as hard to work with.

  We talked about his movie career and
my dreams of my own movie career. Dean told me some terrible stories about working on set, and I told him some terrible stories about the reality television world. I felt like I could literally tell him anything, and he would understand. It made my heart fill with promise that I had met another human being that seemed to really understand where I was coming from and where I wanted to go. That had never even been on my radar as a possibility before. I had relegated myself to dating losers and hoping for halfway decent men who weren’t totally going to use me. Never, had I hoped to find a man I actually felt safe with.

  “I have to work in the morning,” I finally ventured to say when the owner of the club peeked his head in to tell us they were closing.

  “I think it is morning.” Dean laughed as he showed me his watch.

  “Four o’clock. Oh shit.” I jumped up. “I’m going to be such ass today during taping.”

  “Here’s a tip. Before you go do your lines, do twenty jumping jacks. It will get your blood pumping and clear your head so you can make it through the day.”

  “Really?”

  “Hey, you’re talking to a guy who didn’t sleep more than two hours a night while filming a movie in Amsterdam.” He winked at me. “You know there’s a lot of things for a single man to do while he’s in Amsterdam.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to know what you were doing up all night,” I said, and then laughed and covered my eyes.

  “Let me get you back to your hotel. Is it near here?”

  “Literally just down the street. If I wasn’t wearing these heels, I could walk.” I laughed as I held onto my five-inch platform Christian Louboutins.

  “I’d carry you if it wouldn’t cause such a scene.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s just the picture I want plastered all over the tabloids. You carrying me through Time Square at four o’clock in the morning.” We both laughed at the idea.