“I thought maybe we could talk,” I said to Cindy. “I met your stepmother and stepsister.”
She swallowed. She didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. They danced all over her hair, her clothes, the seat like a pair of nervous birds. “Yeah. Derek told me that.”
They had, apparently, talked for a while before Cindy let him call me to tell me he’d found her. I didn’t love that Derek got to find her instead of me, but at least he didn’t try to take her for himself. He called me. I owed him one. Or, more likely, several.
“I wish you hadn’t met them,” Cindy said. “I wish you hadn’t found me.”
I frowned. This was the worst-case scenario. “You didn’t want me to look for you. I thought when we—”
She shook her head and stared at her hands, now clasped demurely in her lap. Her expression was closed, and her voice was small. “I’m sorry you have to see what I actually am.”
She sounded defeated and I hated it.
“What?” I questioned, confused. “I don’t care that you aren’t a socialite.”
She looked up at me in shock. “What?” she repeated.
“I don’t care,” I told her. “I honestly couldn’t care less.”
“But your dad—”
I rolled my eyes. “My dad is welcome to his opinions, but that’s all they are—his opinions. He would love to marry me and my brothers off to royalty. That’s his big dream, not mine. Socialites are a far, far second place to anyone with a title anyway.” My dad was rich but embarrassed about his poor pedigree. “I don’t let it bother me. Or influence me.”
“But—” she stuttered.
“Did you run because you didn’t think I’d want someone who wasn’t rich?” I asked.
Her expression said yes before her nod caught up.
“That wasn’t the only reason,” she said eventually.
“Cindy,” I told her, reaching out to pluck one of her hands out of her lap. “I don’t care about your bank account. I really, really don’t.”
She stared at me. “Well, that might be true, but it doesn’t change the fact that my family is never going to leave you alone now. So, you’d probably be better off avoiding me from here on out.”
I frowned at her. “That sister of yours is a real piece of work.”
“Which one?”
I recoiled. There was more than one?
“I only met one. Quincy.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Quincy is the worst. Greenlee’s not so bad, but she’s on her way.”
I made a mental note to avoid Greenlee.
“Your sister Quincy set me up today,” I told Cindy. “She told me she could help me find you if I took her to lunch. So, I took her and she called the press and told them she was my new girlfriend.”
It was on the internet already. Somehow, within only about thirty minutes, Quincy had managed to mobilize almost the entire paparazzi force to ambush us at that restaurant. I’d had more cameras and microphones shoved in my face than I knew what to do with. I knew I couldn’t leave Quincy there alone; it would look like I was ditching her. So, I grabbed her hand, led her through the crowd, and probably gave her exactly what she wanted.
Right now, she was getting her fifteen minutes of fame. I’d called my publicist and she’d said just to let it blow over. According to her, the entire story would be dead by tomorrow. I hoped so.
Cindy blinked at me. She didn’t sound surprised. She did sound apologetic. “That sounds about right. She’s slippery and smarter than she seems. I’m sorry.”
“This is why you really ran away from me, isn’t it? You were ashamed of your family.”
She shrugged her narrow shoulders and sighed. “It was half and half,” she said eventually. “Ashamed of me and ashamed of them.”
“You don’t need to be ashamed of anything.”
Derek had told me a little of what Cindy had told him. She was working at the theater, having found a job in less than twenty-four hours. She’d never been independent before in her life, from what I could tell from my conversations with her family. They’d been controlling her. But when called on to take care of herself, she went and found herself a perfectly respectable job plying her trade as a seamstress on a major production.
Lena Blair, the director, was one of Hollywood’s unassuming geniuses. She spent as much time directing blockbusters as she did theater productions. I’d worked with her before myself and found her to be a formidable and talented storyteller. She’d been impressed enough with Cindy to hire her on the spot, which was by no means a regular occurrence. And Cindy had done it all on her own, with no connections.
“Your sister said you had mental problems,” I told her after a moment.
Cindy bristled. Her eyes narrowed. “She said I have mental problems?”
I nodded, fighting a smile.
Then she laughed. “Okay. Well, I’ll let you decide about that.” She rolled her eyes, less offended than I would have thought. “Considering the family I have, I think I’m remarkably well adjusted.”
I was inclined to agree with her. Cindy was almost shockingly normal.
“Cindy,” I told her. “I know you’ve probably had a really rough day. I know you’re probably tired and maybe you don’t know what to think of me right now. But I really like you. I know you aren’t crazy. And I really want to kiss you. Is that okay?”
She stared at me for a long moment. Then she reached for me and kissed me.
24
Cindy
Tommy didn’t waste any time after that. Like a switch had been turned in both of our brains, all rational thought and self-restraint evaporated. His expression shifted into something that made my heart pound. After I kissed him, he took control of the situation, pulling me into the back of the van and pinning me to the ground in the little nest of pillows and soft things I’d created.
I stared up at him, unable to do anything but breathe into the feeling of his weight on mine. I liked being under him. Maybe I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. Instead, I felt a needy, nameless anticipation.
I tangled my hands up in his hair, kissing him back and feeling my final reservations fade into the taste of his mouth. We were wild animals lost in passion and that was absolutely fine with me. It seemed to be okay with him too. This was going to happen now.
“Can I—” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered, not caring what the rest of the question was. The answer was yes. If he wanted to do it to me, the answer was yes.
His lips curled up into a smile and his hands pulled at my blouse, pulling up and over my head. Cooler air rushed in around me and Tommy’s eyes widened in the low light to stare at me in just my black bra and jeans. I arched my back, appreciative of his appreciation. He thought I was beautiful. His face made that obvious.
“So perfect,” he whispered between kisses on my neck, then lower. Behind my back, he flicked the clasp apart, tossing the bra away and carefully attending to one nipple and then the other with his mouth. His teeth grazed me, and I shivered.
I sank into the feeling. Nobody had ever touched me like this before, but somehow, I’d missed it anyway. I’d been missing it my whole adult life, only I hadn’t realized until right now how much. I needed it. Him. I needed him. I panted, staring up at the ceiling of the van and wondering if this could possibly get any better, but also praying it would.
My body was screaming for his. I squirmed and writhed beneath him, desperate for attention. Desperate for his touch. For friction. For love. Or at least for something that felt like love in this moment. That would be enough.
My fingers fumbled for his button-down shirt. I needed more skin. I pressed buttons through holes far more roughly than someone who repairs buttons for a living ought to. But his smooth skin was under that fabric and I needed the warmth against me. We broke apart just long enough for him to pull the shirt off and stare back down at me with fire in his eyes. When he held me again, it was warmer and tighter than before.
> His body was beyond what I dared to dream about. Broad shoulders, strong arms, narrow waist and abs I could count. My eyes drank him in, and my fingers followed, wanting to remember every inch of him. He leaned into my touch, shivering slightly like I was tickling him.
In my haste to get him naked, he managed to turn us over so that I was on top. His hands found the button on my jeans, then the zipper. His fingers ranged down my back next, cupping my ass and squeezing possessively. His expression was one of satisfaction, anticipation, and something else. Something exciting.
I was straddling him, so the only way to get my pants off was to roll sideways and wriggle out of them, which I did. It probably wasn’t the most seductive move, but what I lacked in bedroom skill, I could only hope I was making up for in eagerness. He watched with eyes half lidded and lips parted as I pulled down my jeans and panties and looked back at him, feeling wild and out of my body.
He pulled on his own belt, dispensing with his own lower clothing in short order. I didn’t have time to worry or anticipate pain, because then he was on top of me again and I was spreading my legs obligingly, on instinct. But he didn’t press into me like I expected. Slowly, gently, he petted with long, careful fingers on my most delicate parts, making me gasp and whimper under his touch.
I was ready. I was beyond ready. But he wasn’t rushing this part. I arched my back and pressed myself up into his hand, desperate and needy, but also scared. He pushed one finger inside me. Then a second.
“Be careful,” I stuttered. “I want you. But I’ve never—”
He froze. Blinked down at me. Shock colored his features.
“Never?” His voice was a husky, dark whisper. The sound of him breathless for me made something inside me sing.
I shook my head. This was, officially, the farthest I’d ever gone with a man. But I was too turned on to be embarrassed now. His fingers were already inside me and I needed more. I held tight to his shoulders.
“Don’t stop though,” I told him. “Just be careful. Go slow.”
He stared down at me as if mystified. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He exhaled then, long and slow. “Good,” he told me, finally pulling his hand away to press his cock against my opening instead. “Because I don’t think stopping is an option for me right now.”
He finally took me then, while I held tight to his arms and breathed in his smell. Inch by tight inch, we moved together, heading into uncharted waters. I waited for the pain, expecting it, but there was nothing but a little pinch. It was more exciting than painful, and then it was gone. And in the wake of discomfort there was a pressure and fullness that only lifting my hips seemed to ease, and not very well. I needed him to move. Now. Right now.
“Are you okay?” he asked, still in that low, sexy whisper that told me he needed and wanted this at least as much as I did. He pressed slowly in and out of me, watching my face carefully. “Am I hurting you?”
“Please,” I panted, staring up at him. My voice sounded nothing like me. And words weren’t really a thing I could manage well now. “Please…”
He got the picture then, which was good, because I was dying beneath him. When he finally started to drive into me, settling into a steady, heart-pounding rhythm, I felt like I was flying. I’d been skydiving. That was fun. This was better.
The world slipped away from me. All I felt was the safety and security of Tommy’s arms and the feeling of our bodies trying to get closer, and closer. The awful aching, endless emptiness abated. I felt whole.
The movement of our bodies working against each other sent the whole van rocking, and I didn’t care. He went slow. He was gentle. I was making noises that sounded nothing like me and I didn’t care. My whole life had changed because of Tommy Prince and I didn’t care. All I cared about was that he kept moving on top of me, driving me out of my mind.
Time lost all meaning. I chased the pleasure I felt on the edges of my awareness, riding each cresting wave of pleasure to bring me closer and closer to climax. Tommy pulled at my hair, squeezed my wrists, and kissed my neck, helping me along and watching me carefully to see what I liked. I liked everything.
When my climax came it wiped out everything else. Every thought in my stressed out, messed up brain went blank. I clenched and spasmed, gasping into a feeling so intense I’d thought it might be a myth. My vibrator had never done this to me. I had thought I’d had an orgasm before. Apparently, I’d been wrong. I held onto Tommy for dear life, praying it would go on and on forever.
When I came, Tommy slowed and then stopped, pulling out to turn me over. Prone, I craned my head around to see him smiling down at me, nudging my knees apart with his and pressing into me again from behind. I still wanted to give him everything, and he took it, pressing into me harder and faster from this new angle. Slow and gentle were over now, and I was fine with that, too. When he came a few hot, slick strokes later, I was staring at his reflection in the rearview mirror, unbelievably satisfied to find that he looked just as lost as me.
25
Tommy
“How are you?” I asked Cindy eventually, looking down at her curled up on my chest. Her hands were making a pillow under her head and her long hair was soft against my shoulder. “Did I hurt you?”
Neither one of us had spoken in a long time and she looked halfway surprised by the question. She yawned before she replied. It was dark outside now. I was getting hungry, but I didn’t want to move. Everything was perfect. Too perfect to ruin with words, at least, until now. Worry that I’d hurt her had been gnawing at me. I needed to know.
“Do I seem traumatized?” she asked, smiling up at me shyly. We were lying in her little nest of pillows and sleeping bags in the back of her van. Not the most romantic place to lose one’s virginity, maybe, but better than the alleyway where I’d lost mine.
“Not really,” I admitted. She’d sounded pleased throughout, especially when she came, holding so tightly to my shoulders she probably left marks on my back. I hoped she’d left marks on my back. She seemed a bit sex-addled now, which was fine in my book. I was right there with her.
My brain felt calm and centered in a way I hadn’t realized I’d been missing. It had been a long time since I’d had sex. Longer than I really wanted to admit. Despite Cindy’s misplaced belief that every woman with a pulse had a crush on me, finding someone that I genuinely liked and who liked me back was no easy trick. It had been more than a year since I’d even been on a date with anyone. And that experience had been entirely forgettable, even the sex that followed. It was nothing like this.
“What happens now?” Cindy asked. She looked up at me as if expecting me to say something she’d hate hearing. Now that the spell was broken, she looked scared.
I held her closer, not liking the tremulous tone to her voice. Did she think I’d just take off? Abandon her? After all the work I’d done to find her again? The chances of me rushing off were slim to none.
“What do you want to happen now?” I asked her. “We can do whatever you want.”
I was open to suggestions. Maybe pizza? Chinese? I knew a good Thai place not too far from here.
She nuzzled into my chest and twined her leg between mine possessively. “A little bit more of this.”
That worked.
The sound of a fist banging on the side of the van answered before she could say anything else. Cindy’s eyes went huge.
We both sat totally still for a moment, hoping that whoever was out there would leave us alone. There was no one, no one in the entire world, that I wanted to see at that moment. I had exactly what I wanted: naked Cindy in my arms. There was literally nothing else that I wanted to happen except for this moment to continue without interruption for a while longer.
Whoever it was banged again.
“Fuck,” I growled, keeping my voice low so whoever it was wouldn’t hear us. “I’m guessing you weren’t expecting company?”
More banging.
Cindy blinked
at me. “No. Definitely not. Other than Derek, nobody knows I’m here.”
If my own brother had decided to destroy my post-sex afterglow, he was about to get an earful. I’d need to murder him if he was standing out there. It had better not be him.
The van only had windows in the front. That meant one of us would have to climb up into the passenger seat to see whoever was banging. Reluctantly, I pulled out of Cindy’s arms to put on my pants and shirt. Carefully, I peeked around the side of the seat to see who it was.
Meg Butler, paparazzo extraordinaire, was standing outside of Cindy’s van. Her trusty camera slave was with her. I groaned.
“We need to go,” I told Cindy. “It’s the gossip patrol.”
“The what?” Cindy asked, hunting around for her bra.
“That same paparazzo that your sister loosed on me this morning is outside.”
Cindy paled. “Oh no.”
I slid into the driver’s seat. “Well,” I told her. “The good news is we don’t have to talk to her, do we? We’re in a vehicle.”
“Where would we go?”
I thought about it for a moment. “How about Napa? Do you like wine country? I know some really great places up there. We could have a little break…” I trailed off as I took in Cindy’s disbelieving expression.
“It’s the middle of the week,” she told me. “I have to work.”
Ordinarily she’d be right, however…
“Tomorrow’s a holiday. It’s Martin Luther King Day.”
She frowned. “It is?”
I nodded. I suppose it made sense that Cindy might lose track of the days living in her crappy van. “Yeah. Derek told me the theater is closed tomorrow and the next day. We could go.”
My agent was going to hate that I was doing this. My publicist was going to hate it even more. Even Derek was going to hate it. But I didn’t care. I wanted to get out of Dodge. And I wanted Cindy to come with me.
Auctioned to the A-Lister Page 8
