by Fran Lee
“Doesn’t it flatter you just a little to know that you have one of the world’s most gorgeous, magnificent, sexy brutes drooling over you? His manager says that if I don’t tell him where to find you, he’s going to sic his attorney on me-and your publisher too. I thought you said he’d settled with you?”
“Oh Phyllis. I’m so sorry. I thought that’s all he wanted.” Sam closed her eyes and rubbed her temples.
“Well, it appears he’s changed his damn mind about what he wants. And like it or not, the man wants you. Nothing less will satisfy him.”
Sam swallowed hard. She had similar feelings about him. “Where is he now?”
“I believe his manager said he was on his way back to Chicago for a two-night engagement at the Sports Arena. He said to tell you that you still have his cell phone number and he expects you to call him within the next twenty-four hours. And girl, if you don’t, I stand to lose everything I own.”
“He can’t do that, can he?” She swallowed.
“He most certainly can. And he most certainly will. Just do both of us a damn huge favor and dump that miserable pride of yours. I have no idea what happened between you and I don’t really want to know but if you care at all about me as a friend and as your loyal business manager, you will call the man. No maybes.”
Sam pressed the end button and stared numbly at the cat, who sat on the arm of her chair, cleaning his long white fur. “Oh Snowball. What the hell am I gonna do?”
The cat looked up at her and twitched his fluffy tail with a plaintive meow.
“You think I should stuff my pride and call too?”
The cat purred and returned to cleaning, splaying the claws of one paw as his raspy pink tongue licked around the pads gently.
“You’re probably right but I don’t know how I can face him again. He thinks I’m some sex-starved nympho and I have no idea what he wants at this point.” And he was right.
The cat turned his luminous blue eyes on her and meowed again, then almost twisted himself in half to reach the fur at the base of his hind leg.
“Okay, so I do know what he wants but I’m terrified that’s all he’ll ever want from me.” But would that be so damn bad? That was exactly what she wanted from him at the moment.
The cat rose and stretched and yawned and padded down from the arm of the chair to coil up in her lap and purr.
“You’re right. I won’t know unless I talk to him again.” And maybe seduce him again.
David picked up his phone after five rings. She sat there silently, trying to think of something to say but she couldn’t. She was about to hang up, but he seemed to know who was on the phone.
“Is that you, Sam?” His voice alone was enough to send her into orbit. She cleared her throat but said nothing. When she couldn’t form a coherent response, he asked, “Where are you?”
“Um, I’m in my hotel room. What do you want, David?” She managed to get the words out. The sound of his voice was enough to bring a night’s worth of incredible memories flooding in and she shivered.
“What do I want? I don’t think you really need me to answer that, do you?” The disembodied voice was low and rough and it caressed her body like an unseen hand. She chewed her lip nervously. Sam’s stomach felt like it was going to race away.
“You said you weren’t going to sue. Now you’re threatening my business manager?” She did her best to sound indignant but only succeeded in sounding breathless.
“If that’s the only thing you care about enough to jog you out of hiding, then I’m guilty as charged.”
She felt hot color fill her face. “You can have whatever amount of money you want. But please don’t involve my friend. She hasn’t done anything to you. I’m the one you want to sue.”
“We’ll see.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Take a wild guess.”
She swallowed hard. Just considering the possibilities was enough to make her shamefully pre-orgasmic. Play it cool, Sam. Play like you aren’t all trembly and horny. “Let me think about it?” Lame. So lame.
“You know where I am. I expect you to be here by tomorrow night. I have a lease in the Embassy Suites on NW Forty-fifth. Just ask at the desk. If you don’t show, I will bankrupt you and your business manager.”
He hung up without another word and she sat there for a moment before hitting the end button. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply to calm her rapid pulse. The cat meowed and shifted into a more comfortable position.
“You think so, Snowball? Well, I’m not as sure about that as you seem to be. What if he’s just pissed off and changed his mind about more money for the books?” But even as she said it, she didn’t believe a word. He was waiting for her. He wanted her. With a vengeance. And as that thought sank in, a thrill of fear slid down her spine. Oh God. What the hell had she gotten herself into? She shuddered to think what he might want to do to her. Vengeance could be pretty damn scary.
As she sat there, gathering her courage, she closed her eyes and whimpered as heat pooled between her legs and her body shivered with what she realized was anticipation. Would it be the same? Had she built that one experience up to a fever pitch in her damn dreams? Would he feel the same way once he had her in his clutches again?
Oh, who the hell cared? One more night spent with that man would be worth it, no matter what he intended. Let him strangle her afterward. She intended to enjoy the hell out of him before he did.
Sam glanced at her watch. Then she called the travel service she and Phyllis had a contract with.
“When’s the next flight from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Chicago, Illinois?”
* * * * *
She sank back in the seat, her thoughts a confused jumble as she stared out the window of the jumbo jet. She had managed to find a seat on a flight the following day and had checked out of her hotel with flushed cheeks and hammering heart. She hadn’t had much to pack and it had been a simple thing to catch a cab to the airport.
Snowball was safely sleeping in the pet compartment with two other cats and one French poodle and she was free to close her eyes for a short nap. The flight from Council Bluffs to Chicago was not a terribly long one. She would step off the plane at four thirty and be in a taxi on her way to the hotel by five.
She had just shifted into a more comfy position once the plane had taken off and she was about to drop off into a relaxing nap when a voice came from behind and above her.
“You’re that woman. The one Chance Braza is looking for. Ohmygod. You are!”
Sam looked up over her shoulder into the excited face of a handsome young man sporting a stiff black Mohawk and several facial piercings, who was leaning over her seat from the next row back. She blinked up at his excited face and frowned. “And you are?”
“Joe. Joe Garcia. Wow! I knew it was you the minute you got on the plane. Me and my friends are on our way up to Chicago for the show. We got tickets a couple of months ago. Is that where you’re headed?” The guy talked almost faster than she could listen.
Sam sighed and sat back up. “Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to converse if you weren’t hanging over the seat like a vulture?” She patted the empty seat beside hers and the young man looked like he was going to have a heart attack before giving a whoop and saying excitedly to his pals, “She wants me to sit by her!”
As he moved to the seat next to hers, four more youthful male faces popped over and around the backs of their seats and she said, “Hello. Are you all going to the FPW show?”
Joe seemed to speak for the whole bunch as he nodded and said, “Yeah. And we got pretty good tickets too. I waited for two days at the SportTix office to be first in line when they opened the sales. I got us all seats in the third row back at ringside. They cost a lot but it was worth it. I think Braza is the best but Greg really thinks Wolfman will take him out tonight.” He ran out of breath and stared at her. “You really are gorgeous. You and Chance got a thing going, don’t you?”
Sam blushed sligh
tly and cleared her throat, noticing that several other passengers were standing to look over their seats to get a glimpse of her. “Chance is a really great guy but no, we haven’t got a ‘thing’ going.” She shrugged. “That’s all hype. Just a lot of fun publicity.” The lie slipped smoothly from her tongue. “I write novels and he let me use his face on the covers. Sort of a mutually lucrative publicity thing.”
“I watched Chance’s interview before last week’s pay-per-view and he said different. He said he hadn’t ever met a woman like you and he wouldn’t stop looking ’til he found you again. Sounds like he’s really got it bad for you,” Joe’s friend behind her said excitedly.
Great. This was all she needed. “Of course. He’s a great actor. It’s just part of the show, guys. Do I look like the kind of girl Chance Braza would drool over?” She grinned wryly up at the young man.
The kid nodded and said, “You sure do, Ms. Hastings. I bought your last book just for the photo of you on the back cover.”
She blinked and blushed warmly. Now that was an unexpected statement. “Well, thank you for that lovely compliment. Now I really hoped to get a nap before the plane gets to Chicago, guys, so if you don’t mind?”
Joe stuck his hand out and she shook it, then she shook the hands of the others before Joe climbed back into his own row and the guys continued their lively discussion. But once she was alone again, the curious glances from the other passengers in the row across from her made it too uncomfortable to go to sleep. She didn’t want someone telling the world that Samantha Hastings snored.
Chapter Five
“Ms. Hastings!”
She was waiting on the airport curb for her cab when Joe Garcia hurried up beside her, shoving her latest novel in front of her with a pen. “We just pooled our spending money and bought this in the airport gift shop. Could you sign it for us?”
She grinned at the hulking group of young men surrounding her and she wrote a few lines then signed her name. She handed the book back to Joe, who held it up to read it.
“Wow. That’s some autograph, Ms. Hastings. Thanks!”
“Let me see!”
“Keep your paws off. You’ll get it dirty!”
“What’d she write?”
Sam smiled at them and said softly, “I wrote, ‘To a great bunch of guys, especially you, Joe, who is such a great fan of Chance’s. Your friend, Samantha Hastings’.”
She was about to move to the cab that had pulled up when one of the guys said, “You gonna be at the event tonight, Ms. Hastings? You can go with us.”
“I don’t have a ticket, boys. But thanks for the offer,” she smiled, as the cabbie started loading her bags into the trunk while she juggled the cat carrier and her bag.
“Hey, we can let her use Jim’s. He couldn’t get the cash together for the plane ticket.”
Joe fished in his camouflage jacket pocket and came up with a handful of tickets. He looked them over and then handed her one. “We were gonna try to sell it to get the cash back but Greg’s right. You can go with us, Ms. Hastings.”
Sam blinked at them as they waited eagerly for her answer. “Wow. That’s so sweet of you. But I really can’t take the ticket unless you let me pay for it.”
Joe flushed and shrugged. “If you really wanna. It was kinda expensive.”
“When does the event start?”
“Seven. We were gonna sit around the arena until it’s time to go in. We have some cash left for hot dogs and stuff,” one of the other boys piped up.
“Well, how about this. Since you were kind enough to invite me to join you tonight, how about I pay you for the ticket now and meet you all at the arena tonight?” She handed them three twenties, which they crowed over excitedly, and she waved as they headed for the shuttle area while she climbed into her cab.
* * * * *
The front desk clerk ran his finger down the list. “I have you listed as Mr. Braza’s guest, Ms. Hastings, in his suite.”
Sam blinked. “But I reserved a single of my own…”
“The hotel reservation was changed when Mr. Braza came down earlier.” He gazed at her, waiting. Sam sighed and shrugged. She might as well enjoy the free stay. She would sort out the sleeping accommodations later.
“That will be fine. I have my cat with me.”
“No problem at all, Ms. Hastings.” The man signaled a bellhop and she was whisked into the elevator with her luggage and her cat carrier as if she were royalty.
She tried to tip the bellhop as he left, but the man smiled and shook his head. “That’s all been taken care of, Ms. Hastings. Enjoy your stay.”
Once Snowball was nicely settled into the large bathroom with his food dish, water bowl, litter box and a few minutes of loving, she made her way back to the bedroom and tossed her largest case onto the king-sized bed. She searched for the proper attire for her excursion. She wasn’t sure what would be best to wear to the event, so she chose a pair of designer jeans and a tank top worn under a light cardigan sweater. She dragged her unruly mop up into a ponytail and pulled on her western boots. That should, hopefully, be casual enough to sit in a shrieking crowd of wrestling fans.
She glanced at her watch as she emerged from the bedroom into the sitting room. She explored his marvelous luxury apartment, hovering with a smile over a bowl of fruit on the glass-topped dining table. There was time for a meal, but since she wasn’t terribly hungry she opted for an apple and a huge orange rather than trying to find ingredients and fix anything more substantial to eat.
He lived in decadent luxury. Who’d have thought that high-class hotels had apartments for permanent residents? She sighed and munched the apple she’d chosen as she poked her head into the guest bedroom. She had an hour before she had to leave for the arena. She decided to move her stuff into the smaller bedroom, so Snowball could wander a bit and not be stuck in the marble-tiled bathroom.
By the time her things were neatly stacked in the guestroom and Snowball was curled up on her queen-sized bed, it was time to call for a taxi again. And despite her misgivings about being in a crowd of thousand of screaming people, she was actually looking forward to going. Besides, she would have her own bodyguards. A phalanx of strapping, tattooed, pierced and otherwise menacing-looking young guys who would see that she came to no harm. Right?
* * * * *
Stepping out of the taxi, she was instantly surrounded by the guys who had been watching for her arrival. She took the soft pink cylinders that Joe handed her and frowned. “What are these for?”
“Ear plugs. It’s gonna be real noisy in the arena. No acoustics in there. Just a lot of noise. You’ll be deaf after a couple of hours of that. We always bring them.”
“Thanks.” She tucked the earplugs into her jeans pocket and said, “Okay, entourage, it’s time to rumble.”
The arena was packed from top to bottom with twenty-five thousand roaring, yelling fans and she pressed the pink plugs into her ears gratefully as she followed the five young men down a long stairway from the mezzanine entrance to the seats blocked out at ringside. As she sank onto the chair they pointed out to her, between Greg and Joe, she was completely amazed by the number of people who were holding up colorful homemade signs and blowing horns and making all sorts of racket in a frenzied carnival atmosphere. Good Lord, it was wilder than New Orleans at Mardi Gras!
She shook her head. This was the kind of notoriety he knew. This screaming, raucous mob of frenzied wrestling fans who idolized him. One purple-haired woman had his likeness actually tattooed on her cheek. Others swore skimpy T-shirts with his black eyes glaring out of them. More than one girl of about thirteen was holding up a banner that read, “CB, will you marry me?”
Sam had never seen anything like it. She hadn’t exactly lived a sheltered existence but this type of adulation was surreal. When the ring announcer at last climbed the steps at the corner of the ring and bent to enter, the place went even wilder, if that were at all possible.
“Welcome, Chicago! We at the F
PW are thrilled to be back with you once again. I’m sure you’re going to enjoy our main events tonight. We have two world championship diva matches for your enjoyment!” A roar went up. “And three FPW challenge events to see who gets a shot at FPW bad boy Chance Braza and his world title. The winners of all three matches will join up in a three-against-one free-for-all. Watch out, Braza, they’re coming after your title!”
Another couple of minutes of screaming and yelling and then it started with a few warm-up matches between those in the FPW who were still working their way up the steep road to mega-stardom, just to get the arena worked up for the main events. As Sam watched the antics in the ring, she wondered what on earth would possess grown men to behave in such a macho, embarrassing manner. There was enough testosterone running rampant in that ring to sink a battleship. Muscular, sweating bodies-totally denuded of body hair-and grunts of exertion and rage that would rival a herd of fighting bulls running the streets of Madrid before the corrida.
But when the divas climbed into the ring, Sam couldn’t believe what she saw. The women had enough raw silicone on board to make the guys’ tongues hang out and they were dressed in some pretty skimpy bits of clothing, which pleased the guys seated around her as they shouted for their favorites and gave bawdy advice to the women. If these were the females who worked arm in arm with David Chance, what the hell was he doing chasing her sorry ass? She had never seen so many stunningly gorgeous women in one place outside Hollywood.
Even so, Sam felt a grudging admiration for the women in that ring. The matches may have been choreographed but the girls were taking some damn serious hits. She could see the mat scrapes on knees and elbows and one of the blondes really gave it to a small brunette as she came flying off the ropes. Sam knew enough about martial arts and momentum to know that the brunette was really gasping for breath after a slam to the mat.
After the diva matches came the elimination matches for the right to join forces against David. Sam winced and closed her eyes several times and nearly jumped out of her skin when one of the hapless wrestlers came flying out of the ring and landed smack in the row of seats two rows ahead as spectators ran for safety. She realized numbly that all five of the young men were on their feet, ready to catch any flying bodies that appeared to be coming too close. She grinned as she realized they were taking their jobs as bodyguards very seriously.
