When Brian pushes open the door, every nuance from the night I last passed through this same door rushes back to me.
Jill pulled out her press pass plus the pass she borrowed from a friend for me after the show, and voila…we were backstage.
She led me through a series of hallways before we landed in front of a door with a temporary sign that read VAIL. She flashed her pass to the guard like she’d done this a million times, and I followed suit. My hands shook as I held up my pass. The guard eyed me for a second as nerves danced around my stomach. I could swear he was studying me, looking at me differently than he looked at Jill. He could tell I wasn’t with the press. I had some look about me that must’ve said what I was doing was wrong.
He was going to confiscate my pass, we were going to get kicked out, and Jill was going to get in big trouble. Oh, fuck, how much trouble? Could she get fired for this, for sharing a press pass with a friend instead of an actual member of the press? He shook his head and chuckled, but then he opened the door that allowed our entry into Vail’s dressing room.
Instead of the nerves subsiding when the door opened, they only grew into waves that darted through my entire body, from the tips of my tingling toes to the tops of my buzzing ears.
The first thing I noticed were the women—mostly blondes. All had hair longer than mine, legs tanner than mine, and breasts bigger and faker than mine. I don’t know what I expected. I don’t even know if I had an expectation in my mind, but this seemed about right.
I glanced around the room, and my eyes landed on him immediately. Mark Ashton, the whole reason I was back here, stood off to one side of the room wearing nothing but a pair of jeans.
My breath left my body and I choked on a gasp.
The body I’d seen so many times in pictures was standing right in front of me. The tattoos I’d easily be able to pick out of a crowd marked his perfect skin. His feet were bare, his dark hair was damp as if he just stepped out of the shower, and his chest and abdomen were a mass of chiseled muscle. He was lean, though—not big and bulky, but limber and perfect. My mouth watered at the same time my throat dried. My face felt all hot, like I was blushing uncontrollably and involuntarily, and the wave of heat traveled through my body and into my blood.
In the periphery, I knew the three other members of the chart topping band were in the room. A party was in full swing; voices hummed around me over blaring rock music. A group of people started chanting as one of the guys from the band chugged a beer—Ethan, the drummer. He slammed the can to the ground as he finished then grabbed the blonde standing next to him to shove his tongue down her throat. But I couldn’t focus on any of that because my entire being was laser-focused on Mark Ashton, as if there was no one and nothing else in the room.
He held his phone to his ear as he spoke to someone—probably the reason he set himself apart from the group that had formed in the room. It was too loud for me to hear his voice. He held a glass tumbler with amber liquid in his other hand, and a blonde woman hung herself around his neck, clinging to him. He was paying her no attention, though.
He glanced in our direction as I followed Jill into the room as if this was all perfectly normal. He said something into the phone and ended the call, sliding his phone into his pocket with his gaze focused on me. He said something to the woman hanging on him, and she stuck out her puffy lower lip in disappointment before she let go of him and headed over toward her friends who were standing by Ethan.
Jill stepped right up to him as if meeting the biggest rock star on the planet was an everyday occurrence. She’d schooled herself to fangirl on the inside because of her position as a reporter. I had no such training.
“Jill Hart from the Sin City Sun,” she said, sticking her hand out to shake his and ignoring the glares from the women across the room. “I just have a few quick questions.” He stepped toward her and shook her hand, and a dart of jealousy passed through me. She got to touch him.
Little did I know what the night had in store for me.
“Who’s your friend?” he asked, his eyes moving over to me. “A colleague?” He let go of Jill’s hand.
“I’m a huge fan,” I blurted, restraining myself from throwing my arms around his neck. Jill shot me a dirty look. The whole agreement we had that I’d keep my cool flew right out the window.
He chuckled. “Oh, I’m a fan of yours, too.” His voice sent a tingle through my chest and my cheeks burned even more than earlier.
“Wha—what?” I stuttered.
“Blue eyes, dark hair.” His eyes trailed from my face to my torso and down my legs, burning me and branding me as they moved. “Long legs…yeah, I’m definitely a fan.”
Jill shot me another dirty look as my cheeks flamed. I wasn’t sure if she was shooting me dirty looks because he was flirting with me and she wanted it to be her or because she was trying to interview him and he was ignoring her.
“Are you with the media, too?” he asked me.
Was he asking me because he planned to kick me out if I wasn’t? I shook my head, suddenly too dumbstruck and mortified to form actual words. Is love at first sight possible? Because I was pretty sure it was love.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
Who was I kidding? I’d been in love with this man for ten years. He was my teenage fantasy come to life right there in the flesh in front of me. And he was talking to me—like his mouth was forming actual words that he wanted me to hear.
Oh, shit. He was talking to me...as in, I was supposed to respond.
“Reese,” I managed to say.
“Like the peanut butter cups?”
I nodded.
“You know what they say about peanut butter cups, don’t you?”
I shook my head.
He grinned, and my heart nearly beat out of my chest. “Sweet on the outside and creamy on the inside.”
My face continued to burn like the fucking moron I am, but words—and my brain—failed me.
“Mm. Isn’t their slogan something about how there’s no wrong way to eat a Reese’s?”
I usually have ten sarcastic comments at the ready for cheesy lines about my name, but somehow coming from Mark Ashton, they didn’t seem so cheesy.
I stood in stunned silence that this rock god was even looking at me, let alone paying attention to me and flirting with me. He kept firing lines at me, but he didn’t need to. He didn’t have to say a word to me—he could’ve just shot me one smoldering glance, and I would’ve dropped my panties for him.
He lifted the amber liquid to his lips, and my wide eyes followed the path of the glass.
Something came over me in that moment—something that told me this was my chance. I couldn’t think of a time I’d wanted something more than I wanted Mark Ashton right then, that night. I wanted an invitation to his place. I wanted to be the woman he brought home with him. I didn’t know how these things worked, though. I saw him with a different woman in every gossip magazine I’d ever picked up, but I wasn’t sure if he approached the women before he brought them home or if they asked.
So whatever it was that came over me, I went with it.
“I’d love to find somewhere private to let you find out for yourself.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise, and I had a feeling I’d snared his attention. I was proud of myself. This was so far out of my comfort zone that my good sense was practically in another country, but I’d do it for Mark. This was my one shot.
“You want to come back to my place?”
Fuck yes! I almost said that out loud, but I managed to stop myself.
Are you kidding me? An invitation to Mark fucking Ashton’s house?
I drew in a deep breath, determined not to come off like a total fool. He wanted me to go to his place. That could mean only one thing, and there was no way in hell I was going to deny myself that chance—even if he was basing his invitation on nothing more than me asking. And a physical attraction...but what one-night stand didn’t start because of an instant attraction? “I’d love to.”
“Can I just ask you a few questions, first?” Jill asked him, saving a special glare for me.
He finally pulled his eyes away from me to focus on my friend. “Right. Sure.”
She fired away, and he answered. It all seemed very professional except for the way his eyes kept edging over to me.
“Just one more question,” she finally said, and he nodded for her to continue. “What do you look for in a woman?”
He cleared his throat and ran his eyes slowly from my eyes down to my legs. Heat seared me with every spot his eyes landed on my body. “Blue eyes, long legs, Vail tail.”
Warmth crept up my neck again.
“Vail tail?” Jill asked.
Mark shot her a wicked, flirty grin. “Fangirls. You know, the women who’ll do whatever it takes to get backstage after a show.” He nodded toward my shirt.
“Really?” Jill whined. “That’s what you want me to print in the Sin City Sun?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Sweet on the outside and creamy on the inside. Will that work instead?”
“Not really,” she said.
He shot her a lazy grin, the very epitome of a bad boy. “I’m not real picky when it comes to women, as you may have heard. I like women who look like your friend here. I like women who like to have fun, obviously. You probably don’t want to quote that, but it’s fairly well recorded at this point.” He took another cool and confident sip from his glass. “I like women who are smart and funny. Off the record, I don’t usually get to know much more about them beyond that.”
I should’ve felt insulted with his speech, or at least surprised that he was so blunt. He didn’t know anything about me aside from my name and what I looked like on the outside, yet he was ready to take me back to his place. That was a total cocky douche move, yet it didn’t stop me.
Besides all that, I counted myself lucky that he chose me. I counted myself fortunate that even though there were several other women in Vail’s dressing room, he chose me. He could have his pick of anyone in the world, and he still chose me.
Yes, I should’ve been insulted. But fucking a rock star was a total bucket list item.
And I was about to check that off my list.
A few minutes later, his driver wove through Saturday night traffic on the Strip to get us safely back to his place at the Mandarin Oriental as we talked in the back of the car. We were sitting next to each other in the back of his customized Yukon. The row of seats in front of us was turned to face us. It looked like meetings could take place back there. Mark put his legs up on the seat across from us and closed the black tinted glass separating the backseat from his driver up front. His big hand rested on my leg, inching up my thigh, and I hugged his arm to my chest. It felt comfortable, like we knew each other, like we’d been together a long time and we were just headed home after a day at the office together…or something like that.
“What’s it like being a rock star?” I asked him. I wanted to know every single detail about him. I still felt like I was living inside some crazy fantasy, like I’d wake up at any minute alone in my bed. I wondered when he’d attack—when the making out and all the sex would get underway.
I chewed the inside of my cheek for a second just to see if I could feel the pain, to make sure this was all real.
“It’s pretty fucking awesome,” he answered in that deep timbre that sounded like every favorite song of mine.
“What makes it awesome?”
“Getting paid to do what I love. Traveling the world with my best friends. The rush I get on stage. Looking out over a sold-out venue, watching as people sing along to songs I wrote…there’s nothing like it.” His voice was quiet, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he always spoke so sincerely with every woman he brought back to his place. He seemed genuine in the moment, but I had no basis for comparison.
“I sang along to every song,” I said shyly. I glanced over at him, still trying to figure out if this was really happening.
Tingles prickled through my belly as his eyes met mine and his lips tipped up. “I know. I watched.”
“You did?”
“I was drawn to you over and over. I’m so focused when I’m up on that stage, but every time I looked at you, you threw me off my game a little. Your eyes lit up with every new song we played, glowed up at me from down below. When you walked into the dressing room backstage, it felt a little like destiny.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and didn’t hide the fact that he was writing a note. A Little Like Destiny.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“It’s my list. Lyrics, titles, snippets of conversation. Words that speak to me.”
My stomach twisted violently. That was the first time I knew I was going to have a tough time getting over this night.
“For songwriting?” I asked.
He nodded and tapped out some more words on his phone. “You’re different, Reese. You’re not like the others.” His voice was a murmur as he focused on what he was typing.
“I’m not?” I asked.
He shook his head, and I prayed this wasn’t some line he used on every girl.
“How?” I pressed.
He lifted his shoulder. “Some connection with you I felt even from the stage that felt even stronger when I saw you walk in. You seem like you have substance. You’re interesting.”
“The others aren’t?”
He shrugged. “They’re here because I’m the lead singer of Vail. They’re not here because they care about me.”
“And you think I do?”
“I know you do.” His voice was soft and tender, the tone reminiscent of the one he used when he sang my favorite Vail ballad. A shudder ran through me.
“How do you know?”
“I’ve learned how to read people. Did you know I studied Psychology at Northern?”
I shook my head. As much as I’ve stalked his online biographies over the last ten years, I had no idea.
“I have a Master’s in Psych and I’m a few credits shy of a PhD.”
Was I really sitting in the back of a car discussing degrees with Mark fucking Ashton? What was this life? “When are you planning to finish?”
“I don’t know if I am. I take a class here or there when we’re not on tour, mostly online ones, but the requirements for getting the PhD aren’t feasible with my job.”
“What are the requirements?” I asked.
“Depends. If I want to be a clinical psychologist, there would be labs and practicums. If I want to teach it, I’d need to TA or create a course. And then there’s the dissertation, which takes years of research for anyone, but I don’t have years to dedicate to research.”
“Why psychology?”
“I’ve always been fascinated with human behavior.” His fingertips inched up my thigh a little.
“So what about my behavior tells you I care about you?”
He chuckled. “For starters, you actually asked me when I’m planning to finish my degree and you listened when I answered.”
“What else?”
“The way you’re sitting.”
I glanced down at us. We were both leaning back comfortably—slouching almost. His hand was on my leg, and my arms were looped around his arm, holding it captive, his upper arm embraced tightly against my chest as my hands clasped around his bicep.
“What about this position tells you anything about me?”
“You’re holding my arm. Most women by now have grabbed for my junk, put my hand on their tits, stuck their tongue in my—”
“I don’t need the details,” I interrupted, holding up a hand.
He laughed. “You get the idea.”
“Unfortunately, I do.” And that’s what makes this so damn hard. “So why music instead of psychology?”
“Aw, you ask like you care.”
I giggle. “I do care.”
“Told you.”
“Answer the question.”
“I picked up my first guitar when I was seven. It was my uncle’s. He was in a band that was locally successful, and he taught me how to play. I met Ethan in high school and we jammed all the time. We met Steve and James one summer and we just knew that we wanted to play music together. My parents still made me go to college, still made me get a degree, but I had to do a lot of it from the road. My entire Master’s was done on the road. Music was always my first love. Everything else took a backseat to that.”
I imagined that was why Mark was never with one woman for more than a night. No woman could ever hold a candle to his first love. Not only did he not have time for a relationship, but he didn’t have the desire for one, either.
“What’s the worst part of your job?” I asked.
He blew out a chuckle as he looked out the window. “People think they know me.”
“They don’t?”
He shook his head. “Shit in the press is all made up. People think because they read an article in a magazine, they know everything about my life.”
A cloud of guilt swirled around me. I’d done the very thing he was condemning.
“I can’t do shit without someone writing about it, and most of the time they don’t even get the facts right.”
“Like what?”
“The press fabricated an entire relationship between Maggie Westin and me.”
“They fabricated it?”
He nodded. “We hung out a few times at a mutual friend’s house, slept together once, and that was it. The tabloids practically had us married.”
“Do they ever spin stuff in your favor?” I asked.
“A couple years ago, I was hospitalized for exhaustion. Did you see that?”
“Of course. It was everywhere.”
“It wasn’t exhaustion. My publicist covered up an overdose.”
“An overdose?” I asked, surprised at his confession. I knew he was a rock star, but he seemed to have his head on straight. “You do drugs?”
“Not anymore, no. I’m not into fucking up my life, but I tried something Ethan gave me and it put me in the hospital.”
“And your publicist covered it up?”
“Yeah. I realize now how fucking stupid I was.”
“Was it scary?”
“The OD?”
I nodded.
He shook his head. “I passed out cold and didn’t even know I overdosed until I woke up in the hospital. It was scarier for Ethan than it was for me.”
“Was it a wakeup call for him?”
Mark chuckled and glanced out the window. “Nothing’s a wakeup call for him. Some men are born without the part of their brain that tells them they’re not invincible. Ethan’s one of them.”
“Was it for you?”
“Yeah.” He was quiet for a minute, and then he told me the thing that would stay with me for a long time to come. “Only a few people know what really happened that night. Ethan, Steve, and James, because they were there. My publicist and the doctors and nurses that night. That’s it. And now, you.”
“Not even your family?” I asked.
He shook his head and flexed his fingers on my thigh.
It was that moment I was certain I wanted more than one night with him—needed more than one night. I wanted it all, but that’s not what Mark Ashton did. That’s not who he was, and no matter how intrigued he was by me or how different I was from the other women he brought home, I wasn’t going to be the one to change him.
I couldn’t help but wonder why he chose to confess one of the darkest hours of his life to me. It made me believe his words were sincere—I really was different from the others. Or it was just another line, something he told every woman he took in the car back to his place.
I’d never know.
He leaned over and tugged my earlobe between his teeth, sending a jolt of desire through my entire being.
His voice came low in my ear, the heat of his breath sending shivers down my spine. “Usually a woman is all over me in the back of this car and I don’t even have to try. Are you gonna make me try, Reese?”
I fidgeted nervously with my fingers still clasped around his arm. “I don’t even know what that means.”
He chuckled, and then he pressed a kiss beneath my ear, the stubble lining his jaw tickling me and making me even hotter for him than I already was. He pulled his arm out from its captivity between my arms and laced it around my back. He hauled me onto his lap, and then he rested his forehead against mine. “Why does this feel different?” he whispered.
“Because it is,” I whispered back, and then he lowered his mouth to mine.
It was our first kiss, seconds before we pulled into the private resident’s drive of the Mandarin Oriental. He didn’t even open his mouth to mine, didn’t deepen the kiss—just rested his lips on top of mine, the gentlest brush of lip on lip, and every synapse in my body fired at the same time.
It was the sweetest kiss I’ve ever had with a man, yet it pressed an aching throb between my legs like no one else had ever managed to do to me. The throb pulsed and spread into my belly, battling with the butterflies there, the pain gaining momentum as his arms wrapped more tightly around me but his lips didn’t move.
He pulled back, his eyes closed. “We’re here,” he muttered, and then he opened his eyes. We were inches away from each other. His eyes told the story that he wanted this, too, which of course I knew since he took me back to his place…but he wanted me, not just sex with me. I didn’t just represent a warm hole to him. I was something more, something I didn’t understand, something I was terrified of because I was sure I couldn’t be what he needed. He was this overwhelming presence, this larger than life being who routinely serial dated singers and actresses and porn stars, and I would never be enough for him no matter how intriguing I might be in the moment.
I sat on his lap, and we were eye to eye, both of our chests heaving with anticipation.
The car had stopped, and I didn’t even know it. The door beside Mark swung open, the driver standing at attention and waiting for us to exit. He broke our intense moment and I slid off his lap as I wondered what sorts of things his driver saw on a regular basis.
Mark grabbed my hand and then got out of the car, pulling me out behind him. Another man followed us—a bodyguard, I assumed, but Mark didn’t confirm that. We ran into the building and then he led me up to the second floor and we called the elevator from there. The bodyguard stayed on the first floor. “Easier from here than from the first floor,” he said as we waited for the elevator to arrive.
It made sense. The elevator on the first floor probably opened somewhere near the hotel lobby, and if we snuck onto the second floor, there was far less of a chance he’d be recognized.
Doors opened to the elevator in the middle. We stepped on alone. He inserted a key into a slot and then pressed the button for the top floor—the forty-seventh floor.
It should have been a long ride from the second floor to the forty-seventh, but it was far, far too short.
He picked up where we left off in that car the second the doors shut and sealed us into privacy. He stalked toward me, shoving me up against the mirrored wall. I caught sight of the back of him in the mirrored doors, the last image of the him burned into my mind. It was his back side as he pressed his body to mine, his hand coming up to palm my cheek, but because of the mirrored walls, the image repeated and repeated and repeated to infinity. There were a hundred Reeses pressed against the wall by a hundred Marks, a hundred Mark hands touching a hundred Reese faces. That image would stay with me, burned in my mind for eternity.
With the image fresh in my mind, Mark whispered, “I don’t understand this, Reese.” His words were riddled with pain.
I didn’t have time to respond, didn’t have time to ask what he didn’t understand or why he was confessing it to me or what it all meant, because then his lips were crashing to mine and his mouth was opening and there were fireworks going off in that tiny elevator. I responded immediately to his kiss, his tongue finding mine as I tasted peppermint masking a hint of whiskey on his tongue and an even fainter suggestion of cigarettes. He smelled of fresh laundry despite the fact that he’d been sweating up on that stage, a faded trace of sandalwood lying underneath.
They were flavors and scents unique to Mark, different from any other man I’d ever kissed, but I didn’t have time to focus on those sensory details because his body boxed me in. One arm rested on the glass of the elevator wall, and the other came around my waist to haul me against him. His erection met my hip as he pressed close to me. My blood heated and my veins boiled as I was met with the realization that it was me that did that to him. He was turned on. He was hot for me. He desired me.
The elevator doors opened too soon, and he broke away from me. I hadn’t even noticed the elevator had come to a stop, let alone the fact that the doors had opened. I was too wrapped up in what was happening between the two of us. He was my sole focus, and I couldn’t think of another time I’d been with a man when everything else faded to complete insignificance in the background. I’d always been able to maintain some semblance of control—it was what had prevented me from wanting to have sex in public with Justin, my ex, when he’d tried to slide a hand up my skirt in a restaurant. I wasn’t a prude, but I was aware of what was going on around me.
Mark was different, though. With him, I had no control or awareness. It was all him—my entire being focused on him—his touch, his taste, his scent, the fiery, strong emotions he produced in me.
Some people were waiting to go down the elevator as we stepped off. I didn’t take notice who they were because I was looking at him. We stepped off and they stepped on. He waved to someone, greeted someone else, but I was stuck in a fog from his kiss. Was this real life? Was this really happening to me?
He led me to a door marked 4701 and opened it to a party in full swing. People milled around, music blared. Some people sat on his couch while others helped themselves to drinks in his kitchen.
“Welcome to my place,” he said wryly.
I smiled and glanced around, memorizing every detail for the report Jill would surely want the next day. “It’s nice,” I said.
He shrugged. “Better be for what I paid for it. You want a beer?”
“Sure.” I followed him to his refrigerator. “Do you live alone?”
“Usually, yes, but I have houseguests for the next few weeks.” A woman with bleach blonde hair stood just beside it.
“Hi you,” she said, her voice throaty.
“Hey, Delilah. Excuse me.” He opened the fridge and she moved over about a half a centimeter. She ran her hand up his arm, and I felt incredibly uncomfortable as I stood a few feet behind him, my eyes focused on the fridge.
“Marky Mark, take me to bed.” Her lids were heavy and she was clearly trying for seduction. I had to wonder if this is the type of girl Mark normally went for, because that wasn’t me.
I knew what I was here for, and I also knew I had no claim to stake on him. Seeing another woman try to take him out from under my nose sent a shock of reality through me. What if he decided he’d rather be with her tonight? What would I do? Where would I go?
How was I even here tonight? How had he chosen me?
“Sorry, babe, I’ve got company.” He nodded back to me.
Company. Is that all I was to him—after that car ride where he wrote down those words and confessed his darkest secret to me? After the way he kissed me after he typed out A Little Like Destiny, kissed me like a starved man with all that raw, unfiltered passion?
He grabbed two bottles of beer from the fridge, opened both, and handed one to me, and then he took my hand in his and led me through the crowded living room, down a hallway, and into his bedroom.
His bedroom was sleek and, just like the rest of his place, black, white, and gray. The floors were a white, shiny tile, and a soft, plush, black and white rug covered the majority of the floor. The walls painted a soft gray with white panel molding. The bed was the centerpiece, a huge king with white sheets and a white comforter. Black, white, and gray pillows decorated the top of the bed, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he had a housekeeper who made his bed every day. I just couldn’t see Mark Ashton, rock star extraordinaire, making his bed.
His bedroom set was white and simple, and black and white framed pictures adorned the walls. The images were simple and musical—a guitar, a sexy image of just a microphone against the backdrop of a stage, Vail’s first album cover. They were all general photos—none of him, none of people. I wondered if this was his main residence, if he picked out those pictures, that dresser, or if he had a person who did those things for him. I wondered if he had another house somewhere else where he kept pictures of his family. His mom and dad. His siblings. If his parents had a house with his childhood bedroom still intact.
He didn’t turn on any lights—instead, the room was lit with the glow of the Strip right outside his window.
The bedroom was empty and quiet despite the music pumping just in the next room. “Soundproof walls,” he said, a smile tipping up his lips.
I looked out over the view as he walked over to a chair and collapsed in it.
“I’ve never met anybody who had a soundproof bedroom,” I said.
“Helps for when my parents are visiting.” He winked at me.
I wanted to giggle because it was funny, but it just reminded me how I was one of many. I wasn’t special. This night wasn’t special—not to him, anyway. This was something he did all the time even if it wasn’t something I did all the time.
He patted his lap, and I walked slowly across the room to sit on it. I faced the window, looking out over the lights of Las Vegas while I sat on Mark Ashton’s lap in his bedroom drinking his beer.
When Jill told me she’d be able to get us backstage at the Vail concert, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this was how the night would go.
“Do you like being a teacher?” he asked me out of the blue, one of his hands holding his bottle of beer while his other rested somewhere between my hip and my ass as we both looked out the window at his magical view.
I nodded. “Finals are next week and then I’m out for the summer. If you’d have asked me that a month ago, I might’ve had a very different answer.”
He laughed, and something sparked inside me that I was the cause of that laughter. “What do you teach?”
“High school English.”
“That was always my favorite subject.”
“Did you prefer reading or writing?” I asked.
“Both. But writing was always my passion. I had a great teacher my sophomore year who made me see that lyrics are poetry. Without that base, I don’t know if I’d be a lyricist today. What about you? Reading or writing?”
“I love both, but I prefer to read what I want to read over teaching the classics.”
“What do you like to read?”
“Chick lit.”
“Chick lit?”
“You know, literature for chicks…women.”
“Are you a closet romance reader?” he teased.
“No. I’m open about it.”
He laughed again, and I felt that same spark in my chest. I liked making him laugh.
“What’s a teacher like you doing mixed up with me?” he asked softly.
“Because I’m a teacher, I can’t end up at a rock star’s house after the show?”
He lifted a shoulder. “It just seems like teachers wouldn’t do that.”
“Teachers are people just like everybody else. I make mistakes and grow from them. I have a life outside of school. It’s not like I publicize what I do on the weekends to my students.”
“Thank God for that,” he muttered, and I laughed.
I expected to feel in awe around him, which I did when we first met, but he had this way of making me feel comfortable around him—so comfortable that I forgot I was sitting on the lap of a rock star in the lap of luxury while I drank his beer in his penthouse suite on the Strip.
“You intrigue me,” he said.
“Oh?” Butterflies hammered against my stomach. I turned to look at him. “Why?”
He was silent for a moment, as if pondering my question as he looked out over the blinking lights below us. His puzzled eyes met mine. “There’s just something riveting about you. You seem like you have depth. Everyone’s so shallow these days.”
“You intrigue me, too.”
“Oh?” he mimicked. “Why?”
“Because you’re a rock star. And someone once told me that being a rock star is fucking awesome. So I guess that makes you fucking awesome.”
He chuckled at my reference to our conversation in the car on the way over. He set down his beer on the table beside the chair and then took my bottle from my hand and set it next to his.
“Yeah, it is pretty fucking awesome,” he said, and then his hand cupped my neck and he pulled me down until my mouth covered his.
We kissed in his chair with Vegas on one side and his bed on the other. He shifted me so I was straddling him, our kiss heating up as he bucked his hips toward me. His hands settled on my ass for a few beats. He guided me up and down over him, giving me a preview of what was to come. His hands left my ass and trailed up, always moving, always working, and my body responded to his touch, seeking pleasure and moving in rhythm with him. I broke from the kiss because he was overwhelming me with his mouth and his hands. I needed to see him, to look at him—to know that this was real and not just some fantasy I dreamed up.
His eyes flashed from the glow of lights outside the window forty-seven stories down. He was animalistic, his eyes so heavily laden with lust that I wanted to alleviate it—the need I saw there, the passion and the ache. His hand moved to the back of my head, and he pulled me back down with him. We kissed some more as the need between us became this tangible thing we could hold in our hands, this sphere of ache and pain, and then we threw the sphere aside as clothes flew in all directions. My shirt, my bra, at the work of his deft fingers. His shirt as I fumbled clumsily.
My fingertips ran along the cuts of muscle hidden beneath that shirt—cuts of muscle I’d ogled in pictures online for ten years. The tattooed body I’d seen in magazines was real, and it was mine for tonight. My fingertips gave pause over a tattoo I’d never seen before. It stood out from the others. It must’ve been newer. It was a small scripted letter F enclosed in a circle.
I was about to ask him the meaning, but then more clothes started coming off. He kicked his shoes off and pushed mine off, too. He lifted my ass so I was kneeling on either side of him on his chair, and then he unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his pants. My jeans were eye-level for him, and he popped the button and lowered the zipper. My damp black panties peeked out the top, and he ran a finger along the band.
I shivered, and his hands trailed up to my breasts. He massaged and kneaded, pinched and rolled, and then he leaned forward and took one in his mouth while he worked the other with his fingertips.
I sat back on his lap and his hand trailed to the elastic band of my panties. He dipped a finger inside, difficult to do at this angle, and brushed against my clit. I nearly fell apart on top of him. He leaned back to give himself better access, and then he slipped a finger inside, his mouth still working my breast.
I dug my fingernails into his shoulders where my hands rested. He bit down on my nipple, sending a shot of need straight through me. That need only pressed harder upon me as he worked me with his hand. He pushed another finger in, and I threw my head back with a low moan. He grunted before he pulled his fingers away and let go of my breast.
“Stand up,” he commanded, and I did because you always do what Mark Ashton tells you to do.
He pulled my jeans and my panties down my legs. I stood in Mark’s bedroom completely naked, lit only by the gleaming glow of lights from below.
A carnal, guttural growl rose up from his chest, and then he shifted out of his jeans and his boxers. I panted at the sight of a naked Mark Ashton sitting in a chair in his bedroom. Need lit inside of me, a painful need so strong I thought I might die if I didn’t get to quench the thirst. He’d fingered me halfway to an orgasm, and just the naked sight of him was almost enough to push me there.
If I’d imagined his naked body a million times as I rubbed myself to pleasure, I’d have needed a million and one to get it right.
He pulled a condom from the back pocket of his jeans before tossing them on the floor. He tore the packet open and rolled it on before patting his thighs, indicating that I should get back on. I wanted to taste him first, to fist him in my palm, to stroke him and make him fall apart just from my touch, but I wanted him inside of me so much more.
I crawled on top of him, settling my legs into the space between his legs and the arms of the chair, and he guided himself into me.
My body was ready for him, warmed up from his fingers and his kiss and his biting teeth and just him.
He stretched me, so big I could hardly take him all the way in. His hands came under my ass, and he lifted me up.
“Jesus, that’s good,” he muttered on a grunt.
He let me fall back down over him, and this time I took him almost all the way in before he lifted my ass again. We both grunted at the feel of his body claiming mine, and then he let me fall over him again. Up and down, up and down, until he let me fall down and he pushed himself in completely.
We were connected, and while this was just one night, we were connected in far more ways than just body to body. His eyes found mine as we settled into stillness, and a quiet and intimate beat passed between us. This wasn’t just sex to either of us, it was something more, something deeper than I’ve ever felt with another human. We were connecting on some cellular level. We were imprinting on each other’s hearts. I knew he felt it, too, I knew he did, but despite that, I also knew it wouldn’t matter in the morning.
I refused to think of that as my eyes bore into his, though. Morning would come and this would end, but we’d always have this moment. We’d always share this heat, this connection, this fleeting passage of time, and he’d ruin me for any other man. I could only hope I’d ruin him for any other woman, but in my heart, I knew that wasn’t true.
He grunted and closed his eyes, ending the beautiful, fleeting moment, and then his fingers dug into my hips and he ground his pelvis up into mine. Even his grunts were hot—these primal sounds like he couldn’t hammer into me fast enough or hard enough, and I moaned back with some carnal noises I couldn’t control. I didn’t even have to move—he did all the work, spearing me and driving into me over and over until my body broke and swells of pleasure washed over me just as he hit his own wall of bliss.
We tensed and shouted through our orgasms together, coming and coming like it would never end. He grasped onto me as my body shuddered and the waves started to subside, wrapping his arms around me and hugging me close as he stayed inside me. I clung to him, my hands linked around his neck, never wanting to move from him or break this dynamic connection we shared.
Eventually he cleared his throat and whispered to me in the dark as he lifted me gently and slipped out of me. “I think we should do that again.”
I giggled.
“There’s a bathroom through that door,” he said, nodding to a door across the room. He fluttered a kiss to my cheek before he helped me up.
I walked wordlessly across the room to the bathroom. I gazed at myself in the mirror. I was the same woman I’d been before I’d left the house I shared with my best friend earlier this evening, but everything had changed. I didn’t look any different, but I certainly felt different. I felt high from his kisses, like I was flying from the way he made love to me.
I gave myself a sad smile at that thought. Made love.
He didn’t make love to me. It was amazing, yes. It was the best sex of my life—without a doubt, by far. But it wasn’t love. How could it be when we didn’t know each other...when I was just one in a long line of many who came before me and many who would come after me?
He was in his bed when I exited the bathroom. I snuggled in beside him, and he held me as we whispered in the dark. Eventually, sleep took us. I woke to his mouth working against my most intimate skin, driving me to another orgasm before I finally treated myself to the taste of him in my mouth.
I couldn’t sleep after that, so I sat in the chair and alternated between staring out the window and staring at his sleeping form. If I turned to just the right angle, I could see both. Even after he called me back to bed, I couldn’t go. He was sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake him. I wanted to be here with him. I wanted to enjoy my time, and sleeping it away would make it end sooner.
He woke once more and we had sex in his bed. He moved over the top of me, his body moving in perfect sync with mine, and tears leaked out of my eyes as I came. I was grateful for the darkness and his sleepiness, because he didn’t notice—or if he did, he didn’t say anything. Devastation took over as the first rays of daylight peeked over the horizon. Night was over. The magical glow of the lights from the Strip were buried with the night, just like the memories I’d always have of this night.
He was still sleeping when I left. If morning came and we talked, if I got to know anything more about him than I already knew, if he started in with the lines about how I was different and intriguing, it would all just be that much harder to move on from what would only ever be one night of passion.
I dressed quietly then opened his bedroom door and shut it silently behind me. The party from the night before was long over, but evidence remained. Cups, cans, and bottles littered the kitchen’s many surfaces. Ashtrays were full, food had been spilled and attempted to be cleaned, crumbs remained. It looked like a good time.
It was more than a good time.
The kitchen and family room were empty, devoid of the many people who’d been here the night before. I stood in the kitchen and contemplated my next move. Should I leave my number? No, leaving my number would seem too desperate. Wouldn’t it? Had we shared something more? Was he sincere when he said I was different? I had to believe it was just a line. Rock stars didn’t give up their rock star lifestyles for random English teachers who showed up backstage at their concerts.
As I stood and contemplated, I heard a noise down a different hallway. Mark had mentioned houseguests—it could even be one of the other members of Vail. I wasn’t in the mood to get caught sneaking out, so I beelined it for the door, opened it quickly and quietly, and called for the elevator before I had a chance to rethink what I was doing.