by Casey Hagen
The crowd, god the cheers of all those fans, their smiles, hands thrown in the air, their infectious enthusiasm made her want to lay every last ounce of energy at their feet.
The spotlight flashed to where she stood; a twin beam of light illuminated the crowd of fans right in front of her.
Her eyes locked on his. Her heart climbed into her throat. The rush flowing from the crowd set her head swimming.
Or maybe that was him.
He smiled, bit his plump bottom lip, and winked at her, those mocha eyes dancing with mischief, and holy hell she wanted.
One night.
Just one night and she’d never complain about anything ever again.
With that flash of encouragement, confidence surged, and any lingering doubts as to whether or not it was a good idea fled.
One hundred and twenty-four minutes and seventeen songs later, she headed backstage as the crowd screamed their demands for an encore.
She wrapped a towel around the back of her neck under her hair before climbing into the Mara’s chair for her fourth touch up. Spotting Jasper’s reflection in the mirror as he passed behind her, she reached for his sleeve.
“Wait,” she said.
“What can I get for you?” he asked, his distracted gaze shooting to stage hands as they made their way on and off the stage to make adjustments for the finale.
“You remember the guy at the meet and greet? Tall with dark, wavy hair, Noel gave him shit?” She reached for a torn set list taped to an amplifier as it rolled past. Grabbing an eyeliner pencil, she scrawled a message to Aiden.
“I remember. Noel is still grumbling back there about it.”
She folded the paper into quarters and held it out to Jasper. “Well, then don’t tell Noel this, but I want you to find him and give him this. He’s in the front row. His name is Aiden.”
“What are you up to?” Jasper asked as he took the paper and narrowed his eyes at her.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” she said, crossing her legs and pulling the towel out from behind her neck to blot her face.
“Nikki—”
“Jasper, you can either do it, or I’ll be going into the crowd and doing it myself. Either way, it’s happening. You might as well go with my plan, it’s less of a headache for you and a whole lot safer for me.”
She pretended that she didn’t see the way he rolled his eyes. This made his job harder; she got that.
But the thought of letting Aiden slip away—no.
No more missed opportunities.
No more what ifs.
What did the fame and fortune mean if it meant isolating herself from possibilities?
After a quick touch up, she ran back out on stage ready to give the crowd her final two songs. She knew Aiden was there. She spotted the waves of his hair, but never let herself linger on him or focus on this face.
Coward.
What if the fact that she’d been so forward turned him off? And if she’d misread him? No, she didn’t want to see the answer in his eyes.
There were nineteen thousand nine hundred and ninety nine more faces in the crowd anxious for every last note they could get and she owed it to them to give it all she had.
She moved with her backup dancers and belted out her first number one hit knowing that despite needing a break, she’d miss this.
She’d grow restless.
And before long, she’d be out there again.
“ARE YOU AIDEN?” THE man who’d whisked Nikki away before the show shouted over the crowd.
“I am,” he said as the fans pushing forward crushed him against the fence that separated the crowd from the security guards lining the stage.
He leaned over the metal and shouted into Aiden’s ear over the screams of girls surrounding him. “She wanted me to give you this,” he said, thrusting the paper into Aiden’s hand and nodding toward the stage.
“What is it?” Aiden asked.
“I didn’t read it. I don’t suggest opening it where anyone can read over your shoulder. Just in case,” he said before disappearing back the way he came.
The lights went dim again, and the noise of the crowd swelled to double. He tucked the note into his pants pocket, curiosity burning through him almost as much as the desire to see her face one more time.
The drums kicked up an addicting beat, drawing every anxious gaze to the stage as the fans scanned the darkness for a glimpse of her.
His breathe seized in his lungs as a roar of thunder fell over the crowd and lightening flashed. The spotlight found her at the edge of the stage as the music swelled for ‘Storms Collide.’
She swung her head and her hair flew, cascading over her breast as it settled, and the notes fell from her pink lips.
Her heels landed in time with the beat each step of the way until she stopped center stage and scanned the crowd with that confident smile.
She never looked at him again. Oh, she came close. If he were a relentlessly hopeful sap, he might claim she did, but her gaze passed over him, just barely on the fringes as if he were no more than one of the hundreds of fans in the pit.
As if they’d never met.
As if they hadn’t locked on each other’s eyes early on in the show.
As if she never passed him a note.
Shyness?
Avoidance?
Self-preservation?
The answer had to lie on the piece of paper burning a hole in his pocket.
With the crowd around him focused on the show, he pulled the note out and opened it. Bent over at the waist as best he could, he stayed tucked against the fence. It made it harder to see, but protected her words as the fans around him kept their laser focus on Nikki.
Big, loopy letters, so very feminine, made him smile. No one would ever believe this if he were to tell them. The mega star, woman of his fantasies, passed him a note as if they were middle schoolers tentatively exploring a mutual crush.
Since you’re short a lair, I want to invite you to mine. Mandarin Oriental. I’m in the Oriental suite. Code to get in: Wonkey donkey.
Nikki
An unmistakable rush of heat slid through him even as a laugh bubbled up. His muscles jumped as his body reacted to the words before his mind even wrapped around what it all meant.
Is this what he wanted? One night and goodbye?
All the years he’d spent being the good son, earning excellent grades, and being a diligent athlete. His unflagging focus all through college, clean through to his Ph.D. Picking up the pieces of the practice when his father got sick. Always being the one to put off fun, trips, dates, you name it, all to focus on responsibility first.
And why?
Because his brother was a wondering dick with the attention span of a gnat. He sailed through life chasing new experiences and lacy thongs.
Well, wasn’t it high time that Aiden snatched a piece of pleasure for himself? Hadn’t he earned it through all his years of dedication, exhaustion, and worry?
Hell yeah, he had. If that was all she was offering, he’d take it and deal with the consequences that came with the decision—later.
His logical side took over, flooding his mind with all the ways this could play out and a laundry list of questions that would never have answers.
How long would it take her to get to the hotel after the show? Did he wait a while so she could get settled? Shower? Maybe she didn’t shower after her shows? It’s not like she was a member of an eighties hair band with rancid sweat pouring off and the stench of cheap, stale beer and raunchy, ill-advised groupie sex lingering from a pre-party.
Did he really need to think about it this hard?
He was a damn planner, and this was totally out of left field. This was something his brother would have taken in stride with a smile and unwavering confidence.
Aiden could do that.
Go back to the hotel.
Chill on his bed.
Pour a drink.
Flip through the channels for a bit.
G
ive her an hour and a half or so to get situated before heading up.
Knock on her door with a bottle of champagne and two crystal flutes dangling from his fingers.
Pretend he wasn’t so fucking turned on that he could use his cock as a pogo stick and bounce through Manhattan.
Like it was that easy...right?
He headed for the exit to beat the crowds. He needed a few extra minutes, and if he got stuck in the wave of people pouring out of Madison Square Garden, he’d be racing to get there.
Of course, if he were in a hurry, he wouldn’t have to spend an hour pacing his room and talking his cock down so he didn’t greet her with tented chinos.
With one note, she’d reduced him to nothing more than a randy teenager looking to get his nut off for the first time in the back seat of his parents’ minivan.
Shit!
He didn’t pack condoms.
Why didn’t he pack condoms?
Dude, why would you have packed condoms? It’s not like you were planning on hooking up. And it’s not like the massage you scheduled was in some seedy little shithole that handed out happy endings like fortune cookies at a Chinese buffet.
And even if it did, rubbers not required. Which was gross.
He really needed to get that inner voice checked. The judgmental bastard sounded an awful lot like his brother.
His heart pounded against his ribs so hard it vibrated in his throat. God, he was going to have a fucking heart attack.
Just don’t have the heart attack until after you nail the girl.
“Guy, shut the fuck up already,” Aiden muttered as if it were really his brother saying the words next to him.
“Come again?” a girl with green hair, black lipstick, and a row of eyebrow piercings over her left eye asked in a tone sounding more librarian than punk rock.
“Nothing, sorry,” he said.
The crossing signal changed, sparing him further scrutiny, and he hustled his ass back toward the hotel, dropping into a market nearby to buy condoms.
With the three-pack stuffed in his pocket next to the note from Nikki, he bypassed the staff and headed straight for his room.
He paced.
He flicked on the TV.
Five minutes in, he’d gone through each channel and turned it off in disgust when every last bit of programing bore into his head like an ice pick.
He checked his hair in the mirror.
Brushed his teeth.
He gazed out the window and spotted...nothing despite the city laid out before him.
Frustrated, he sucked down a tasteless, overpriced bottle of water.
Then brushed his teeth again. Because that’s what you did after drinking something as innocuous as freaking water, apparently.
A glance at his phone told him only forty-seven minutes passed. “To hell with this, I’m going in,” he said, heading for the door armed with an over-priced box of Trojans and the most ridiculous code word known to man.
Chapter 3
“WHAT FLOOR, SIR?” THE elevator operator asked as Aiden stepped over the threshold.
“President’s suite, please.”
The man sized him up and cleared his throat. With a jut of his chin and a pinch of his lips, his skeptical gaze scrutinized Aiden as if he were some vagrant that just wandered in off the street. “The password, sir?” he said, his tone dripping with sarcastic edge and a pompous confidence as to whether Aiden could provide it.
“Wonkey. Donkey,” Aiden said with a lift of his chin, his words succinct. “Now, if you don’t mind, I don’t want to keep my date waiting.” He used the words to remind the man that this little standoff might actually be inconveniencing the prized guest he was working so hard to protect.
“Right away, sir.”
Surely Aiden had encountered a life supply of pissing contests in just the few short hours since he’d dumped that stack of tickets on his desk.
Christ.
The elevator car slid to a smooth stop, and his lungs kicked into his dry throat.
“Good evening, sir,” the man said as Aiden stepped out.
“Good evening,” he said back, his voice sounding as though it dragged its way past his tongue, crawling on a bed of broken glass.
He hesitated just a second, his fist in the air before knocking.
What a twit.
No champagne. Suave. So very suave.
With a pang of regret that he hadn’t been more romantic, he banished his nerves straight to hell where they belonged by rapping his knuckles on the door.
He tried to hear footsteps from inside. Anything that indicated she was there and heading for the door, but only silence greeted him and the slow swell of the buzzing in his ears.
He glanced at his watch and waited a full thirty seconds before he lifted his hand again.
The slide of the lock had him abandoning his plan and taking a half step back.
She opened the door about a foot and peeked around it.
That long, thick hair of hers, cinnamon shot through with streaks of copper, slipped from the confines of the knot on the top of her head. Her gray eyes, bright, almost as though shot with silver, narrowed in a sultry invitation, bolstering his confidence.
“Hi,” he said, propping his elbow against the doorjamb just above his head.
She opened the door the rest of the way, standing there in an ivory silk robe hugging her from the base of her kissable neck to her slim ankles. “You’re quick. I didn’t even get a chance to get dressed,” she said as she fidgeted with her collar, pulling the edges closer together.
“Well, if I’m interrupting, I could always go...”
She took a step into the doorway and held on to the doorframe. Her breasts thrust out in unwitting invitation. “Seriously? Just like that, you’d go?”
“If you wanted me to, yes, I’d go. But I’m hoping you don’t want me to,” he said, making no move toward her.
She gave off this vibe, a mix of uncertainty and forced confidence, the two locked in a duel.
She had to work it out. She had to make up her own mind with no pressure from him. As much as he wanted to walk through her door, he’d only do so if she decided wholeheartedly that it’s what she wanted.
“Your call, Nikki. You run this show,” he assured her. He didn’t mind giving her the control. He’d rather she have it because he was seriously out of his element here, and he didn’t want to screw it up.
“Sometimes I get tired of running the show,” she said on the tail end of a heavy sigh.
He crossed his arms and propped a shoulder against the doorframe, ready to wait her out. “Hmmm, a loaded statement,” he said quietly. “What will it be?”
She sucked her plump, pink bottom lip into her mouth, catching it with straight, white teeth.
He gulped; his gaze locked on the way those teeth dragged over the swell of flesh.
He wanted to taste that spot right there.
“Join me?” she asked, taking a step back.
“You got it,” he said. The weight of dreaded disappointment disappeared under a sharp stab of arousal.
He took the door in his hands and closed it behind him, the soft click ominous with a note of excitement and finality.
She glanced to the suite behind her, where the city unfolded outside two walls of windows, and flicked her gaze back at him.
More of an apartment than hotel room, the they’d lavished the place with premium linen, silk pictures, sleek furniture in muted grays and black, and the city served up in what might have been the single best view he’d ever seen.
She had to be paying at least ten thousand a night for the impressive layout, and still, the flash fell short of being able to compete with the sight of her standing there with her robe hugging her in all the right places.
As she shifted her weight, the silk pulled tight, stretching over the curve of her thigh, then slipped off and to the side, giving him a glimpse of skin and he could have sworn a flash of ink.
Interesting
.
He took her in, his gaze never stopping from the teal toenail polish on her toes to the V of skin exposed at the base of her throat, and all the places he wished he could linger on in between.
He bit the inside of his cheek, the blood rushing south at the glimpse of her hard nipples pressed against the delicate fabric.
“I’ve never invited anyone back to my room before,” she said with a note of uncertainty in her quiet voice.
Hoping she didn’t notice his wayward perusal, he slid his hands through his hair, attempting to tame the lock that threatened to fall in front of his eye. “I guess there are certain advantages to going to the guy’s place,” he said.
“I’ve never done that, either,” she said with a shake of her head. “I, uh, don’t really date.”
“Is that what we’re doing?” he said with a nervous laugh. “I mean, if we are, I think I’m off to an astronomically bad start.”
She pursed her lips and cocked her head. “Astronomical is a strong word. I think if you’d shown up drunk and puked on my feet, we could call this astronomically bad. Right now, it’s the Benjamin Button of dates. We’re skipping the awkward silences, the rundown of our family dysfunction, fond memories of beloved pets, and avoiding the big topics of whether or not we’re interested in marriage or kids.”
He laughed. “The Benjamin Button of dates... I like that.”
She crossed her arms and rubbed her palms over her biceps. “So tell me, Aiden, if this were a date, what would you have done differently?”
His hands itched to reach for her. He tucked them in his pockets. “I wouldn’t be here in my work clothes for starters. I would have made reservations at a hole in the wall Italian place I love where we could indulge in rich, homemade pasta so incredible you’d swear you were eating in the candlelight at La Zucca’s in Santa Croce, Italy.”
“I’m allergic to gluten,” she said, taking their date right to astronomically bad minus the vomit.
“And then I would have popped open a bottle of antihistamine on the way to the hospital.”
A laugh bubbled up, and her eyes danced. “I’m kidding.”
“You’re trouble,” he said, his lips twitching.
