Charmer

by Loring, Kayley

  “Even if you hadn't met her before?”

  “I'd put her on the list and decide if I want to take her for a drink after the show and if that goes well, it goes on for the rest of the night. If not, I’d hang out with local musicians or if I’m hitting the road with Ricky right away, I’d just decompress on the bus by myself. In New York I’d be meeting up with friends and going to see them perform, do dinner and drinks. The usual.”

  “But what about the girl at home, at the end of the line?”

  “Well, if there is one then I’d try to fly her out to meet me somewhere, but usually by the time I'm mid-way through a tour she's not at the end of the line anymore. However, I do commit to her completely until that point.”

  “Wow. So, just blowjobs from the groupies, then?”

  He shakes his head. “Such a cynic.”

  I lean forward, sticking my lower lip out. “That sounds like kind of a lonely life, to be honest.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t really let yourself think about how lonely you are when you’re in the middle of it. I didn’t, anyway.”

  “Do you miss it yet? Being a bachelor musician?”

  “Not even a little bit. I miss you as soon as you leave the room.”

  My cheeks heat up and I cover my face, shaking my head. It’s still a little hard to handle those lines, even when I believe they’re genuine. I do get why he had to become such a flirt. When Nico Todd is being genuine, it’s devastating.

  He’s watching me, when I’m finally able to look at him again. “I mean it.”

  “I know. I do too.”

  He puts his fork down and holds his hand out on the table. When I place mine in it, he stares down at it and strokes it with his thumb. “My manager’s been riding my ass about booking dates for a European tour. That’s what my meeting was about today. With a promoter…” He watches me for a response.

  I try to swallow my bite of wiener schnitzel, but it gets stuck in my throat. When I finally stop coughing and get a sip of water down, I say, “I didn’t know you have a European tour.”

  “Nothing’s been booked yet. I’ve been holding off. They originally wanted me over there a month after this tour ends. I had talked them into next spring, back when I was still in LA. But now I’m thinking it should be next summer… So you and Tate and Louise can come with me again.”

  I can’t believe he’s thinking about being with us a year into the future. I clear my throat. “You want me to document a European tour too?”

  “Sure. But mostly I just want you guys to be able to come with me. Or visit me. Whatever you’re up for.”

  I use my free hand to bring the wine glass to my lips. “Nico… I can’t think that far ahead yet. Would it be another two-month thing?”

  “No. A month. Spending at least a week in the UK. There’s just a lot more preparation involved. We’d announce it half a year in advance. I just need to make a decision, but you don’t have to decide now.”

  “Right.”

  “I just wanted you to know.”

  I nod, vehemently. “I appreciate it. I’ll think about it. I mean, I’d love to go. I know my mother would love to. I’m just not sure how much Tate would be able to handle.”

  “I get it. He seems a little more sensitive lately. Since Raleigh?”

  “Yes. You noticed?”

  “Of course I noticed.”

  And now I’m thinking about Tate again. “Kids are resilient,” I mutter. “Or so my mother keeps telling me.”

  “I shouldn’t have brought up the Europe thing tonight,” he says, waving it off. “You want dessert?”

  “I’m kind of full. I think I’m still digesting meals from Texas.”

  He laughs. “Me too.” He signals to the waitress for the check. “Where do you want to go now? Wine bar? Dancing? Cheesy carriage ride around Central Park? I’ll take you anywhere.”

  I lower my voice and reply very seriously. “I would like to go back to Pound Town, please.”

  “Well, we were always going to end up there eventually, darlin’. But your wish is my command.”

  * * *

  When we return to the hotel room, I kick off my shoes and immediately reach back to start unzipping my dress. Now that Nico doesn’t have his arm around me, I’m realizing I’m tipsier than I thought. Apparently, he was propping me up. I can’t seem to reach the zipper. Or maintain my balance with my arms up. And then a thought pops into the photographer part of my brain. “Oh wait. I need my camera.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to get pictures of you dressed like that. Don’t take your blazer off yet. Can you open the safe for me?”

  He smiles and shakes his head but goes to the closet anyway. “This is supposed to be a night off for both of us.”

  “Well then you shouldn’t be workin’ it so hard in that outfit.” I wave my arms around. “Nope. Forget I said that.” I go around the suite, turning on all of the lamps, inspecting the lighting situation. When he hands me my camera, I immediately start taking pictures of his stupidly gorgeous face.

  He bites his lower lip and calmly reaches over to remove the lens cap.

  I get a shot of him biting his lower lip before saying, “Shut up. Happens to everyone.” I step backwards, getting more shots of him. He starts posing. Hot guy poses. Rubbing his neck. Dragging his fingers through his hair. Shoving his hands into his pant pockets, tilting his chin down and looking up at me with a smirk. “Good. Gorgeous! I love it.”

  “That enough?”

  “You may begin disrobing now.”

  He slowly removes his jacket and I get a million shots of him doing that and then of him pulling his shirt off over his head. He crosses his arms in front of his bare chest and frowns at me.

  I toss the camera onto the bed and go over to the dresser to check my reflection in the mirror. It feels like I have makeup smeared all over my face, but I don’t. “Okay okay, I’m done. Can you unzip me?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  When I look back at Nico, he is holding my camera and it takes me a second to comprehend that he’s taking pictures of me. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking pictures of you.”

  I turn my back to him. “I don’t like being in front of the camera.”

  “I’ve noticed that,” he says. “Why is that? You’re so gorgeous. You look amazing in these, look.” He comes over to show me the images on the screen.

  I have heard that the Chinese used to be superstitious about having their picture taken, because they believed the camera steals your soul. That’s not what I fear, exactly. Or maybe I do feel like the person who’s taking the picture is capturing little moments and pieces of me and I don’t like giving up that kind of control.

  I do look pretty good in these pictures, actually. He takes well-composed shots.

  I need to get comfortable with the idea of giving more of myself to this man, because every part of my body and my brain has fallen for him.

  I want to show him that I trust him.

  “I’m not going to take dirty pictures—unless you want me to. You’re so beautiful and you’re always recording other people for posterity and I want to do it for you.” He brushes the hair out of my face and kisses my forehead. “Or you can do it for me.” He grins. “Your choice.”

  24

  Nico

  “Nico…” Kat whispers, looking down at the camera in my hands. After a few seconds, she sighs and says definitively, “Turn on some music. And get me some alcohol from the mini-bar.”

  “Yesssss.” I place my phone in the iPhone dock and cue up Roxy Music on Spotify. Then I bring my reluctant model a tiny bottle of scotch from the mini bar. “Milady.”

  She cracks the bottle open, takes a sip, and then a gulp. Sighing again, she slams the bottle down on the dresser, and removes the pin from her hair, letting it fall. She drops the pin onto the dresser and tosses her hair over her right shoulder, placing her hands on her hips and angling her body. “My left side is the
good one.”

  I get a shot of her glancing up at me, pouting her lips. “I’ll be sure to get shots of the naughty side too.”

  She laughs and touches one hand to her face.

  “So beautiful.” I keep snapping away. “Good. Gorgeous. I love it,” I say, imitating her.

  She smirks at me.

  “So sassy, so sassy.”

  She reaches back to grip the edge of the dresser, tilting her chin up while staring at me.

  “Yeah, baby, yeah!”

  She turns her back to me. “Unzip my dress.”

  I do. All the way down to the small of her back. And then I get the camera ready because something awesome is about to happen.

  Kat tugs at one side of the dress, revealing her left shoulder and peering back at me over it, shyly at first.

  “Hot.” I catch so many frames of her as she slowly slips out of the dress and manage to capture images of her as she runs to the window in her bra and panties. She hides behind the blackout drapes, and I get a shot of her peeking out from behind it. “You sexy little tease. Show yourself.”

  She opens the blackout drapes and stands behind the sheer curtains. Even through the gauzy white fabric, she is so hot my eyeballs might be melting a little. It’s dark out, so I doubt the camera can make out that she’s removing her bra back there, but I keep clicking anyway. She tosses the bra at me, and then runs to the bed in her panties, lands face down on the mattress, arms reaching out in front of her.

  I climb up on the bed, just as she turns onto her back, covering her bare breasts with her hands. I suck in a sharp breath, because fuck me, this woman is doin’ it for me. I straddle her legs, kneeling, shooting down at her as she stares up at me. Her hair is splayed out all around her head and her breaths are coming faster and faster. So are mine. She squeezes her tits with both hands, and I am so hard but I keep taking pictures of her even though I don’t think I will ever forget the way she looks right now.

  She slides one arm across both breasts, obscuring her nipples, and reaches for the bulge in my pants with the other hand.

  “Fuuuck. Kat.” I’m not a trained professional. I can’t hold a camera while the sexiest woman in the world is holding my balls in her hand. I put the camera down and lower myself to her. Kissing her mouth, her neck, her breastbone. “Thank you,” I breathe. “Thank you for letting me do that.”

  “I’m going to send those to you and then delete them from my camera,” she says, stretching her arms out overhead again. “Guard them with your life.”

  “Trust me, I don’t want anyone else seeing them.”

  “I trust you, Nico. I do.” She pulls me up, holding my face and kissing me so tenderly. “You’re the only person I’ve ever done this for.” She rolls me over onto my back and calmly removes the rest of my clothes before taking off her panties and kneeling between my legs. “You’re the only person I want seeing me like this.” She bends down, giving me a generous view of her glorious tits, and then kisses up the inside of my thigh, licking my shaft like an ice cream cone and then climbing on top of me. “You’re the only person I want to do this with.”

  I lift my head up so I can watch as that beautiful wet pussy kisses the crown of my cock and then groan as she lowers herself down, down, down. All the way down. “Baby. You feel so good.” She exhales slowly and then takes a deep breath and starts to rock. Back and forth and round and round, nice and slow. Her head rolls back and she lets out a soft moan as I massage her thighs and watch her. “You are…the most beautiful woman.” She doesn’t laugh or smirk, the way she usually does when I compliment her like that. She takes it in, and I can actually see and feel her accepting it. This sexy mama is opening up and blossoming before me and I’m the only one who gets to see her like this.

  It’s what I always wanted.

  The delicate treasure chest is finally revealing everything she’s been hiding from me and it’s even more rewarding than I’d imagined.

  We have all night together. It’s more than usual and never enough. Without a doubt, I will never get enough of Katherine Dempsey. I may have fallen for her fast and hard, but I’m still falling for her, slow and deep and wide and more and I don’t ever want it to end.

  I sit up so I can kiss her mouth and touch her all over. We have gotten comfortable with each other’s naked bodies and that is new for me and so, so erotic in a way that I haven’t experienced with anyone else. She’s becoming a part of me. Instead of aching to get into her pants, I am aching for her to let me in all the way, in all the ways.

  We kiss and kiss and stroke and rock and our orgasms build and build until they break free and bring us closer together in a way that is more intense than anything I’ve ever felt. Emptying myself into her—the way she takes me in… Not hungrily the way she usually does, but lovingly and gratefully. It’s the closest I’ve come to euphoria but there’s a beautiful melancholy mixed in. A taste of heaven with another person followed by the reality of our separateness. I could spend the rest of my life trying to get back there with her, I think.

  That thing that I was almost ready for, I’m here for it.

  This thing, I’m afraid of losing it and determined to hold on to it and I feel completely vulnerable and totally protective at the same time.

  This woman, and everything she is, everyone she has, I want it. Everything she wants, I want to give it to her. If this isn’t love, then what is?

  * * *

  “Tate told me he wishes he had a little sister.” I trace Tate’s name into her back with my fingertip, swirling in cursive and punctuating it with a kiss.

  “He did?” She turns her head to face me, still lying flat on her stomach alongside me. We’ve turned off the lights and I can barely see her. “When?”

  “In Raleigh. Did you know that?”

  “He’s actually mentioned it a couple of times over the years, when there were younger girls around, yeah.”

  I lay my head back down on the pillow, face to face with her in the dark. “Do you? Want another kid?”

  “Eventually… Do you?”

  “I do now.”

  “Aww.” She touches my chest, covering my heart with her hand.

  “I really care about Tate. A lot. I want to teach him to swim and ride a bike. And how to talk to girls.”

  “Well, I will have to think long and hard about that third thing,” she says, gently. “But I love that you want to teach him to swim and ride a bike. He’s still using training wheels. And arm floaties. He’d love it if you’d take him swimming sometime.”

  Love.

  There’s that word again.

  Since I was a kid, I’ve never said ‘I love you’ to anyone besides my sister, Grammie, or “I love you, man” to Shane. Never even sang it in a song unless someone else wrote it.

  But it’s all I’m thinking when I’m with this woman now.

  There’s a pounding in my chest but it’s not my heart. It’s a word. And now it’s traveling up to my throat and waiting there to be freed.

  “You know, for a few years, I had been thinking that I needed someone that I couldn’t wait to get home to whenever I was on tour. But then I’d realize I was just infatuated with whatever girl I’d chosen. Now I feel like I’m at home on the road, with you guys.”

  I kiss her shoulder.

  “Yeah. It feels that way to me too… Nico. I was so wrong about you, and I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry.”

  “I made assumptions.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “I do.”

  I stroke her cheek, feeling a tear on her skin. “Baby. It doesn’t matter now.” There’s only one thing that matters now. “I’m so in love with you,” I whisper.

  I should be shouting it from the rooftops, but it’s a start.

  I hear her gasp and hold her breath. I feel her fingertips on my lips. “Nico. I love you.”

  I feel her fingers make way for her lips.

  “I love you, I love you, I love
you,” she says, between kisses.

  “I love you.” It’s more than just a relief to say it out loud. It’s like harmonizing with someone for the first time. I’ve finally hit the right note and I want to hold it forever.

  THE CHARMER TOUR UNEDITED FOOTAGE – Detroit

  GRAMMIE TODD: Oh, just look at this one. Can you zoom in on this picture here?

  NICO: Stop trying to direct the movie, Grams.

  GRAMMIE: Oh hush, you. Stop trying to direct me—you know it never works.

  KAT: Oh my God. How old is he there? Eleven?

  GRAMMIE: Eleven, exactly.

  KAT: Is he playing Annie?

  NICO: Whoa! Do not show that!

  KAT: You look surprisingly good as a redhead.

  NICO: Give me that.

  GRAMMIE: Nico beat out all of the other girls and boys to play little orphan Annie in his school’s production of Annie because he was the only one who could hit those high notes and hold ‘em. And because you could see his big beautiful smile clear at the back of the auditorium.

  KAT: It’s so weird that he isn’t smiling right now—Nico you should be very proud of this. You look so pretty in that red dress.

  NICO: You’re a menace and you’re disinvited to the show tonight. Both of you.

  KAT: Please tell me you have the performance on video.

  GRAMMIE: The whole thing.

  KAT: If you loan it to me, I can have it digitized.

  GRAMMIE: You’re on.

  NICO: Okay, I’m just going to leave the room so you can be assholes and get this out of your systems. Because obviously this will not be in the final cut of the documentary. But let me just say this—the ladies have always dug my falsetto and I got asked out by not one, not two, but three seventh grade girls because of Annie, so…