“I love it here at two in the morning.”
“You would.” Jordan walked past her and linked her arm through the handsome man now standing behind the concierge desk. She tapped him on the nose. “I’ve brought your relief. Wanna go fuck in the linen closet?”
Thomas grinned and quickly extricated himself from Jordan’s hold.
“Thanks, darling, but you know my tastes run different than that.”
Jordan sighed and took her place behind the large carved desk. “Pity.”
“All right, ladies, I’m out of here. It’s been pretty quiet, all things considered. You’d think with a floor full of rockers we’d have had an incident or two by now, but they’re all being so well behaved. Of course, this is just the first night of a weeklong stretch, and I won’t ever forget N.A.M.M. of ’99.”
“You have been here a long time, Thomas.” Jordan started rummaging through the desk drawers.
“I have. It suits me. Anne understands that. After all, she’s been here…How long now?”
She sighed. “It’ll be ten years this August.” She thought back over the past decade and wondered where it had gone and when she’d become so complacent.
“You two are a rare breed. I can’t imagine lasting another year…However, the annual onslaught of rockers is one hell of a benefit.”
Thomas laughed. “You say that now, but wait until you’re calling security at 3:00 a.m. needing to have the orgy here in the lounge broken up.”
“What, are you kidding?” Anne chuckled. “She won’t be calling. She’ll be joining in, and I’ll be the one having to call whilst I’m running around spraying disinfectant on everything!”
She turned and walked to the bar area to check the coffee maker and decided to brew a fresh pot.
“Well there’s a mental picture.” Thomas’s deadpan tone made Anne giggle.
Back still to the others, Anne continued, “Besides, this is their industry convention. You know, where they get all the latest gadgets and equipment. It’s not like they’re performing with a bunch of groupies throwing panties at them or anything. It makes for a calmer atmosphere.”
She turned to find both Jordan and Thomas staring at her.
“What?” Jordan sounded mystified.
“Well who knew ‘little miss innocent’ had a secret musician fantasy.” Thomas turned to Jordan, who nodded her agreement.
“I do not!” Not really.
Not that she’d ever admit to.
“I’ve known a few, and I pick up things.” She smiled as she dumped the grinds in the wastebasket. “I’m astute.”
She went about refilling the pot and flipped the switch that had hot water pouring through the gourmet beans.
“Right.”
Thomas clearly didn’t believe that was the end of it, but Anne knew he was too much of a gentleman to press her on it. She just shook her head and refused to discuss it any further, knowing she’d be quickly out of her depth if she had anyway. She’d been on the listening end of more than one of Thomas and Jordan’s conversations, and those two could have taught that class she’d taken in human sexuality. Maybe she never would understand sex.
“Well, ’night, ladies. Hope it stays quiet for you.”
She waved as Thomas left. Jordan pulled out a small stack of magazines from the desk drawer and lost herself in one. Anne liked working the overnight shifts, liked the quiet. She went to straightening up the lounge. It wasn’t overly large, just enough to suit the needs of the VIP clientele that frequented the upscale hotel, usually on family trips to the park across the street or for the conventions that were held next door at the convention center.
She started straightening the cushions on the built-in sofa that stretched the back of the room, beneath the windows. She was usually pretty fastidious about her job, but the rumor mill was running rampant about the new owners, and she didn’t want to get caught off guard if one of them made a surprise appearance.
“Do you think Brad Pitt’s cock is good and thick or just really long?”
Anne choked.
“What?” She blinked, trying to breathe again. She should be used to Jordan’s infamous random sex musings, but she didn’t think she ever would be. “Why…I mean what would…Oh my God, Jordan, seriously?”
She stood up and brought the magazine over to where Anne stood and held it open to show her a rather nice picture of Brad Pitt with Angelina, who was smiling. That always made the exquisite Miss Jolie look all the more stunning.
“It’s just, come on, look at her.” She tapped her finger hard on Angelina’s face. “That is a wild woman if ever there was one. And though I’ve always said it’s not the size, but how you use it, something tells me that woman wouldn’t be satisfied with average. I bet he’s really hung. I saw this guy once at a party, who was, like, ten inches long and thick as my wrist!” She shoved the magazine under her arm and made a ring around her wrist with her fingers and thumb. “No. Thicker!”
“Oh, good God.” Anne moved away, refusing to think about the subject another second. Of course, her head was now filled with images of a naked Brad Pitt equipped with a variety of different sized…appendages. Even in her mind, she couldn’t say the word “cock.” If she even thought it, a picture of her mother’s disapproving face would pop into her mind and she’d be half traumatized. She wasn’t any more comfortable with “penis” or “dick” either.
Package?
Unit?
She mostly didn’t think about it at all. But with Jordan, sometimes there was no alternative. She reached between the sofa cushions, fluffing them, pulling out bits of paper, a hair ribbon, a few pens and…“Oh my God!”
She screeched and dropped the latest thing she’d grabbed from between the cushions to the floor. When the shock abated enough that she could look away, Jordan was killing herself with laughter.
“It’s not funny!”
“Aw, honey. I love you, but you’re such a prude.” Jordan grabbed a napkin from the bar and picked the used condom off the floor, disposing it without any kind of emotion whatsoever. Anne ran to the small kitchen and started scrubbing her hands under the hot water with all the soap she could get out of the tiny dispenser.
She was equally grossed out and hurt. She wasn’t a prude. She loved the idea of sex, although in her brief experience it didn’t live up to the hype, but there was a purpose for it. It was for people in love and married and…She groaned. “I am a prude.”
Jordan came up behind her and put her arms around her.
“Aw, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I mean…” She reached around and turned off the water, handing Anne some paper towels and turning her so she looked her in the eyes.
“You’re just picky. There’s nothing wrong with that. Sex is fun but not if you aren’t comfortable. Then it’s…Well, hmmm.” She cocked her head to the side and put a hand on her hip. “Funny how the exact same act can be both the most amazing ride on the planet and the most painfully uncomfortable. Just depends on how you use it, I guess.”
Anne felt her cheeks start to burn. She was barely comfortable listening to Jordan talk about sex in general. Talking about her sex life, or lack thereof, specifically, was more than she could take.
“I think you need to get over your fucktard exes, Anne, and find someone to take the leap with. They aren’t all jerks, despite what your history may tell you. And I get that you need to make it special, but, honey, stop being so afraid of it. It is, after all, just sex. And you know my offer to set you up with someone nice always stands.”
Anne got slightly nauseous every time Jordan made that offer.
“You don’t know anyone nice.” She put air quotes around the word “nice.” “And that’s the thing. It’s not just sex.”
Anne wasn’t sure what she was trying to express, since she’d been trying to figure what exactly she believed about sex for years—to no avail. She knew her upbringing had been conservative. Certainly her mother’s views were…Well, actually
she wasn’t entirely sure what her mother’s views had been. The woman had simply flat-out refused to discuss it, quite frankly. Anne wasn’t about to blame her mother for her current issues, though. She was an adult and responsible for her sex life—or lack thereof.
“God, it’s just so frustrating because I’ve really only ever been with Frank and Cole. Frank so wasn’t passionate. I suppose I should have seen that coming though, but I thought he felt the same as I did about waiting until we were married.”
She groaned. Her six-year marriage had been an unbearable existence between two people who couldn’t have been more wrong for one another. Frank’s struggles with his own sexuality had gone completely unnoticed by her until it was too late, and he’d unceremoniously announced to her that he was leaving her—for a man.
“Cole was passionate enough. He just…” She didn’t want to think about Cole, uncertain her spirit ever would heal from that eight-month relationship. She’d taken the advice of well-meaning people who said she needed to just throw herself into a new relationship to get over her failed marriage. It hadn’t worked. In fact, it had only made everything worse.
“Jordan, I want sex. I do. Good lord, honestly, there are moments I crave it, but…” She closed her eyes and forced the words out, not caring about the inevitable embarrassment. “I just want something that goes deeper than the surface. I want passion…and fire…I want to be able to lose myself in a man, to really be me. I want to feel something to the depths of my soul. Something inside me tells me that sex isn’t just the feel of skin on skin and, well, you know, it should just be more. It should fuse two people at a level nothing else reaches. It should make you shudder to your core with satisfaction and…”
She opened her eyes, feeling hollow inside, knowing she’d never come close to feeling satisfied. Even worse, Frank had made her feel undesirable altogether, and Cole had made her feel ashamed of her desires to the point that now she felt simply trapped in a prison of fear and insecurity and had no idea how to change that.
“I sound like an idiot, don’t I?”
“No.” Jordan chewed her lower lip. “Maybe a bit naïve or romantic, but not an idiot.”
The sound of a male clearing his throat drew both their attention and made Anne’s cheeks burn even hotter. Though they were in the kitchen alcove, there wasn’t any real privacy from the lounge, and Anne knew he’d heard every word for as long as he’d been standing there.
She leaned around Jordan to view the interloper. Instant recognition locked her breath down in her lungs. Oh not that he’d know her, but she’d know him anywhere. She felt like she might be sick with embarrassment. He was tall, with shoulder-length, sable-brown hair, tied at the base of his neck, a roguish goatee, and three earrings hanging from his left ear. He wore tight, faded jeans and a torn olive-colored tee, his feet were bare, and though he had clearly lost about thirty pounds of muscle since the last pictures she’d seen of him, there was no possible way the man before her could be anyone other than Grey Hendrix, notorious, couldn’t be any hotter, Hollywood’s bad boy of the moment, and star of almost all of her current fantasies. Lucky her, he’d just heard her most embarrassing secrets.
Chapter Two
Grey tried so hard to hide his amusement at the situation, particularly since the little blonde was clearly mortified, but he was definitely amused. The two girls huddled together in the kitchen alcove, in their rather drab uniform suits that included a shimmering champagne blouse that tied at their necks with a great big bow, as if they were presents to unwrap.
Grey gave them both a quick once-over. The dark-haired one had a fire in her, openly on display. Perfectly put together from the magenta highlights that streaked the dark auburn, to her very expensive pair of Jimmy Choos. Her makeup was flawless, but nature had given her a perfect canvas to work on. She was the type of woman that caught a man’s eye, and ordinarily, under the right conditions, he’d have been all over her.
In direct contrast, the blonde was just as beautiful but more in a precious way, and he wasn’t even sure he knew what he meant by that. Her face was a little more rounded, her eyes were large, her lashes long and dark, her lips very full, her makeup very light. Her hair was pulled back into a band at the base of her neck in an efficient style, but nothing fashionable, and unlike the first woman, the blonde seemed to come by her hair color naturally.
“Oops, sorry.” The second woman stepped out of the kitchen and over to about two feet from Grey. “You didn’t hear any of that, did you?”
He smiled slowly and not at all apologetically. “Not a thing.”
He winked at the little blonde, unable to stop himself, despite knowing how uncomfortable she was. Something about her…He wanted to see her just outside of her comfort zone, wanted to see how she would handle it, but he reined himself in. “I was just looking for some fresh coffee and a pen.”
“Hey, you’re Grey Hendrix.” The first woman rubbed her hand up and down Grey’s arm, but he was unable to take his eyes off the blonde. “Anne’s a huge fan!”
Anne. A beautiful, old-fashioned name that utterly suited her. She probably stood about five foot four, and he would have bet money on the fact she thought she was fat, when in truth, she was lush. Unlike the ordinarily expected blue color, her eyes were a rich brown, and he found himself getting lost in their depth. When she groaned at her friend’s words, he found himself again attempting not to take pleasure in her discomfort.
“Anne’s just going to go kill herself now. Thanks, Jordan. So the man now most likely knows I’m a sex-starved prude, and without reading too much into this, it’s not that much of a stretch to go from huge fan to ‘I fantasize about him every night.’”
She turned her glare on Grey as if he’d somehow done something to her. The fire and fight snapped in her eyes and crackled like a campfire he couldn’t look away from. He grew hard, recognizing how perfect a partner she’d make for him.
“In my own prudish ways, mind you, so don’t get too excited.”
Too late.
He was already spinning any number of scenarios, each one ending with her bound, her legs spread, her pink pussy exposed to his viewing and tasting pleasure. He struggled to draw breath. It had been an extraordinarily long time since he had been so aroused by a woman, and he’d missed the surge of adrenaline. It was really the only high he still got—and he wasn’t ready to let this one go just yet.
She turned back to Jordan. “I’m going on break.”
“But we just got back from break!” Jordan yelled after her, but Anne was already gone. Grey heard the elevator doors slide shut and, unable to contain it, tried to cover his smile behind a hand. The curvy, little blonde had most adorably lost it on him. Something about her courage, even when clearly uncomfortable, had grabbed at his heart. The way she could look him straight in the eye despite being, in her friend’s words, a huge fan, excited him. She was shy, but she hadn’t let that stop her from telling him off, even though he hadn’t technically done anything. That woman had his cock hard and his mind racing with thoughts of how he would gladly help her with some of her issues, but he needed to rein in his burgeoning fantasies.
He reminded himself that he was here for a guys’ week and to catch up with his friends, not to hook up. Even if he had been here looking for women, that one was not the kind a man played with. That one was the kind a man married.
He shivered at the thought, and not in a good way. Brittany had effectively cured him of any romantic happily-ever-after do-you-take-this-woman fantasies he may have ever harbored deep in his heart.
“Sorry about that. She’s usually the stable one.” Jordan gave him an awkward smile before moving to the desk. Grey couldn’t resist a long look at her ass as she bent over and rummaged in one of the drawers.
Sweet.
He crossed the room to stand near her.
“Well, she’s probably not used to being outed as both a prude and sex-starved all in one night.” He wasn’t scolding, but at the same
time, he had heard most of the women’s conversation, and that may have been the abridged version, but it was accurate.
After having heard a woman’s scream, he’d raced around the corner to the rescue, believing her to be in trouble. When he discovered that a used condom had prompted the scream, amusement replaced the adrenaline rush. He honestly hadn’t intended to listen in on their conversation, but when he’d heard the passion in Anne’s voice, something had locked onto him and not allowed him to make his presence known. He had hesitated, drawing back to eavesdrop. Not one of his finer moments, but he wouldn’t say he regretted it, either.
“True. But to be fair, I hadn’t intended to out her, and if you were a gentleman, you wouldn’t have been listening into a conversation that was clearly none of your business. Besides, we’re usually the only two people up here, so it never even occurred to me someone would be snooping.”
She skewered him with her gaze as she handed him three pens.
“You’re not used to musicians.”
She shrugged. “Is there something in the code that demands sneakiness? The coffee’s over there. Anne just made a fresh pot. Help yourself.”
Her sharp retorts amused him, and he smiled to himself as he went to pour a large cup of coffee. He didn’t know what it was about Anne that had so completely enthralled him—maybe just the novelty of her innocence. It felt like an eternity since he’d met anyone truly innocent. After all, in the circles he tended to run in, the innocent were devoured so fast you barely recognized them before they were gone.
Then again, maybe it was her impassioned view of sex. The ferocity of her assertion that sex meant something was refreshing—and something he believed himself. Like Anne, he, too, had difficulty connecting with likeminded people. Was it at all possible she could be like him? Had he just run into a kindred spirit? Did he even dare hope?
Lucas, Samantha - The Seduction of Anne Ruby [The Seduction 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 2
