Waking Kiss

by Annabel Joseph

“I’m sorry, okay?” Rubio threw up his hands. “I am very, very sorry… What’s your name?”

  I hissed, but Ruby protested, “I don’t know her. I never saw her before today.”

  Ashleigh wiggled away from me. “I’ll find my way out.”

  I followed, pushing past Trina, who never fucking gave up. “Ashleigh, please stop.”

  She halted and spun to face me. “Why didn’t you tell me this was your house? Your party?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to freak you out.”

  “Oh, because everything else here isn’t freaky enough.” She rolled her eyes and walked away. I didn’t want her to leave this way, storming out in a huff. I didn’t want her to leave at all, damn it. I wanted her to transform into what I’d fantasized she was, but that seemed unlikely to happen.

  “Will you at least accept a ride home?” I asked, catching her at the door.

  “I’ll take a cab.”

  “I’m calling my driver. He’s just down the street.” I pulled out my phone and paged Travis, vaulting after Ashleigh when she slipped outside.

  “I’ll walk,” she said. “I’ll find a cab along the way.”

  I stepped into her path. “No, you won’t.” I stared into her eyes, very intensely, very directly. Liam Wilder, lifestyle dominant. “I won’t let you walk. Tell my driver where you live and he’ll take you right to your doorstep. It’s the least I can do.”

  Travis eased up to the curb but I kept my eyes locked on hers. I’d call her a cab if I had to, but she wasn’t going to walk.

  “Okay,” she finally said.

  “Okay. Or you could go out for a drink with me,” I heard myself say. “We could talk. You could calm down and we could talk about…whatever.” What?

  As soon as the words were out I wished I had them back again. She wanted to say yes. I could see it in her eyes, but then she looked up at the house and something in those eyes shut down.

  “Thanks for the ride home,” she said. “I appreciate it.”

  I stood at the curb and watched the car until it turned the corner. She watched out the back window too, pretty, shy Ashleigh Keaton, who wasn’t kinky. Of course she wasn’t.

  Fuck me.

  Chapter Three: Dangerous

  I danced the afternoon matinee the next day, Sunday, in the back of the corps again. One of the principal ballerinas filled in for Mariel, who was out for the season to rest and rehab. Suzanne did a great job as Princess Aurora. I don’t think Rubio whispered an expletive to her once.

  I was over Rubio, though, over the trauma of our brief, ill-fated partnership. I convinced myself I didn’t care about losing him as an idol, about learning the truth of how awful he really was. I was determined not to care, but then he passed me backstage and looked right through me, and well, I cried a little. I cried squeezed-off, secret tears because I didn’t want my friends to notice. I pretended I had makeup in my eyes, poked and prodded at the corners until the emotion passed. That’s what I got for trying to make eye contact with The Great Rubio when it was against the rules.

  I tuned out the post-performance chatter in the dressing rooms and begged off when a group of friends invited me to dinner. My Sunday nights were sacred. After I showered I put on worn, comfy sweats, gathered my laundry and shoes and left the theater without speaking to anyone. I had the rest of the day off, and all of Monday and Tuesday. The free time stretched before me, the greatest amount of time before my next class or rehearsal. I normally loved that feeling of freedom, but today I was grieving. For what? For Rubio’s attention? He was an asshole. For Liam Wilder?

  Maybe a little for Liam Wilder, who lived in a big house and threw parties with cavorting, naked people who enjoyed BDSM. When he’d invited me downstairs to his “play room” I was thinking video games, pool tables, maybe a trampoline. That would have been awesome. Yeah, this is not a play room. This is a sex dungeon. Not the same thing, Liam Wilder. Jesus Christ, these people are naked. And what—what the fuck are they—?

  I knew about BDSM, vaguely. I’d even let a guy spank me once when he was trying to get me in the mood. It hadn’t worked. I had a complicated relationship with sex, unlike Liam Wilder, who threw parties in his personal home dungeon. He must have thought I liked to do those kind of things, maybe even imagined doing them with me. After I left, maybe he’d hooked up with that hovering woman who’d shadowed him all night, whose boobs and sex appeal put mine to shame. A guy like him could probably have any woman he wanted.

  I told myself I didn’t care, that I’d dodged a bullet with Liam Wilder, but I knew I’d always wonder what might have been if I was his type. If I was a sub. If I’d taken him up on his drinks invitation. Well, it was too late now.

  I kept my head down all the way home, not wanting to draw anyone’s attention. I sought solace in invisibility like I always did. About halfway there it started to rain, making big dots on my heather-gray hoodie and tee shirt. The sky darkened and a full storm swept in, complete with lightning and thunder. I stalked on, letting the rain soak me while everyone around me ducked into shops and under awnings. By the time I got to my building I was drenched down to my bra and panties. My hair plastered in wet streaks across my face as a freak gust of wind propelled me through the building door and into the cement stairwell that led to my apartment.

  “Fuck you,” I muttered as the door crashed closed behind me. How dare the wind slam the door on me? It felt like another insult, not as bad as Rubio ignoring me, but close. I pushed the hair back from my eyes, shouldered my dance bag, and started up the stairs to the third floor. I turned the corner and was digging for my keys when the shape of a man moved out from the shadows.

  “Oh my God!” I wasn’t sure if I screamed it or mouthed it. My heart kicked into overdrive and my hands came out to ward off the intruder. It took a few seconds to process the fact that the intruder was Liam, looking taller and more imposing than ever in the claustrophobic hallway of my low-rent building.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. My breath huffed out in a gasp. “How did you know this was my place?”

  He blinked, staring at the front of my soaked hoodie. “My driver has an excellent memory.”

  Oh yes, the silent, uniformed driver. He’d walked me right to this door, and it hadn’t occurred to me that in his insistence to do so, Liam would know where I lived.

  “You’re soaked,” he said, taking a step closer. He was in jeans, the expensive, weathered kind that cling to a man’s body in all the right places. He’d paired them with a sage pullover and an equally weathered, caramel-colored leather jacket that probably cost two months of my dancer’s salary. He was completely dry.

  I clutched my sodden bag closer to my side. “Why aren’t you wet? How long have you been here?”

  “Not long. I would have called but I didn’t have your number. I wanted to bring you this.” He held out a single rose. “It’s from last night’s performance, to replace the one Rubio…ate.”

  I stared at it, awed by his thoughtfulness. The rose was velvety pale pink, just like the other one. “Where did you get it? I mean, how—”

  “The flowers were still in the back, in a box. Yves was very helpful.”

  “You know Yves?”

  “I know Yves.” He frowned. “And Ruby too, although it pains me sometimes to call him a friend.”

  I took the flower and held it to my nose, swallowing back emotion as I stared at him. He’d gone to the theater to find a replacement rose for me. It was the nicest thing anyone had done for me in months. “Thank you,” I said. “I felt bad about the other one.”

  “I know. I felt bad about a lot of things that happened yesterday. I made Ruby apologize to you, but I should have apologized too.” He ran a hand through his hair and looked at the floor, then back at me. “I should have listened when you said you weren’t a party person. I should have read your signals better. I should have seen you home myself after I kicked Ruby out. I should have done a lot of things I didn’t do. I guess my
main concern is whether you’re okay.”

  It was my turn to talk. To say I was perfectly fine, that it was no big deal. I wanted to say all the right words but they wouldn’t come. I could feel my face breaking. I didn’t want to start bawling in front of him—I was so ugly when I cried. No graceful, pretty tears here. More like awful, miserable, emotional-weirdo tears, so it was really, really important that I get away from him. I clutched the rose to my chest and searched for my keys.

  “Ashleigh.”

  “What?” My voice sounded thick and weird. Maybe he wouldn’t notice since he didn’t know me that well. And why the fuck were keys as elusive as unicorns when you needed to find them in your purse? I saw him reach out in my peripheral vision, and then he took my face in one of his hands, just gripped it between thumb and fingers. Our gazes met and locked. His eyes were liquid amber, even more beautiful than I remembered. He came close, so close to me, and I realized he was going to kiss me. He tilted my face and brushed his lips across mine with the barest hint of pressure.

  It wasn’t a lucid decision—okay, I’m going to cry now—but as his lips moved over mine, the tears that had been building up all day spilled out of my eyes. My face scrunched up and my mouth trembled uncontrollably. He brushed his fingers through the wet trails, nuzzling me, dropping warm, light kisses on my cheeks. “Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t cry.”

  I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t seem to stop. I touched his waist when he drew back, my silent plea for him to continue even if I was falling apart in his arms. He answered with a deeper kiss, a skillful, attentive exploration that had my fingers tightening against the softness of his sweater. While he nibbled and teased and slipped his tongue between my teeth, he slid a hand back to cradle my nape, then he walked me backward, pressing me into the corner of my door.

  His kiss transformed then, from soft and gentle to something else. I tensed, fearful of the sudden change in his demeanor. He stood like a wall in front of me, his muscular, sculpted physique pressed against my much smaller body. He didn’t paw at me. If he was rough or clumsy, I could have pulled away and said, ugh, this asshole, and regained control of the situation, but he was the opposite of clumsy. Each touch of his lips, his tongue, ignited a response in me. His fingers twisted in my hair, his tugs causing pain but something pleasurable too.

  His arm slid around my waist and tightened in a hard clasp, and in that moment something inside me awakened, some part of me that I’d stuffed down and smothered for years. That thing—want, desire—stirred to life with a starving vengeance. I returned his kisses with uncharacteristic abandon, and the harder I kissed him, the tighter his grip became. He had me cornered, but I found I liked being cornered by him. I wanted to be trapped and restrained against the wall and kissed into submission. I’d avoided passion and sex for years because I feared force, because I was afraid to give up control, but somehow he took all of that out of the equation and made me want him.

  The more he kissed me the harder I cried, because it felt so good and so scary, and because each kiss was changing me a little inside. I grasped his arm with my free hand, clutching the rose stem in the other. I had to stop him before I lost myself, before bad memories and bad feelings turned this dream into a nightmare. I forced myself to stop responding, to push him away. His kiss gentled and his arm at my waist loosened. He drew back—only slightly—and pressed his forehead to mine.

  “What is it?” His thumb caressed my cheek. “What’s wrong?”

  You brought me a rose. You kissed me. He wouldn’t understand why that called for tears. He didn’t understand anything. Instead I said, “I had a terrible day,” which was mostly true.

  He rubbed behind one of my ears, a light touch that made my breath shudder. “What was so terrible about it?”

  “I don’t know. I felt bad about last night.”

  “Bad in what way?”

  I swallowed and turned my face from him. I shivered with cold, or anxiety, or perhaps the shock of his proximity. He drew away with a soft sound. “Where are your keys? Let’s go inside and get you out of those wet clothes.”

  I understood from his words exactly what he wanted me to understand. Let’s go inside and fuck on some horizontal surface. His gaze communicated it, along with the pitch of his voice and his gentle but possessive grasp on my arm. I understood—but old fears die hard. I wanted him but I didn’t. I fumbled around in my bag, my fingers useless and heavy with nerves.

  “I can’t— I—” I can’t do this. I’m embarrassed. I’m afraid. “I can’t let you in. My apartment is a mess.”

  His hand stroked up and down my arm. He watched me with far too much attention. “Are you okay?”

  I shrugged and flailed around in my bag for the keys. If I didn’t come up with them soon I was going to fling the whole damn thing against the wall. “I’m fine.”

  He took it from me and within five seconds came up with the keys.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry. I have to go change.” I could really feel the cold now that he’d let go of me. I stared at the middle of his chest, wondering how to turn the closeness of this moment into a goodbye. The idea of it started my bottom lip trembling again. Why not me? Why couldn’t I have this man and the things he offered? Why couldn’t I be different?

  “Ashleigh.” He said it light and slow as I stared at his lips. “Let me come in, just until you feel better. We don’t have to do anything.”

  I leaned back against the door, gripping the knob. “The thing is…”

  “The thing is…?”

  “I— I don’t usually let anyone in my apartment.”

  “Why, what’s in there?” he asked in a bemused voice. “Piles of dead bodies?”

  No, I thought. Just one dead body. My own. I turned back to the door, opened the lock and edged myself inside. I intended to close it but something in the way he stood there stopped me.

  “I don’t want you to come in,” I said. “I’m just… I’m just too weird.”

  He stepped forward, right into my apartment, and smiled at me. “Too normal, I’d worry about. Too weird is perfectly fine.”

  *** *** ***

  I’d been with a lot of women in my life. I’d seen a lot of strange things over the course of my adventures, but one thing I’d never seen was a blanket fort in a grown woman’s apartment.

  At first we both ignored it. She put the rose on her kitchen counter and ducked into the bathroom to change out of her wet clothes. She emerged in a tiny tee and form-fitting sweatpants that I wanted to peel right back off her, but then she pulled on a drapey cardigan that swallowed her whole. She faced me with a look that said you’re still here? She offered me coffee and I accepted. I didn’t want to leave.

  While the coffee brewed, she showed me around her studio apartment. Here’s the kitchenette. Here’s the bathroom. Here’s the closet. Here’s the window. There was no bed. Believe me, I looked.

  But there was a blanket fort. I was having second thoughts about what I was doing here.

  I’d come here to fuck her, in case you hadn’t figured that out yet. Kinky or not, her graceful, unique ballet body attracted me. I wanted to grope her all over and work out my curiosities with some prolonged and athletic sex. I wanted to pull her glossy hair, pinch her small, pert breasts. After I fucked her, I could stop wondering what it would feel like to fuck her. I could walk out of here in the morning and sleep a lot better tomorrow night.

  That was the plan. I just hadn’t expected a blanket fort in the corner.

  But she ignored it and drank coffee, and so did I.

  “Where did you say you were from again?” I asked.

  She half-smiled at me. “I didn’t, remember? You guessed.”

  “But you never actually told me.”

  She stared down into her coffee cup. “I grew up in Wyoming. In cattle country.” She made a face and looked back up at me. “To this day, I can’t stand to eat beef. I don’t like anything from a cow.”

  I stared at
her. “No steak? Hamburgers? Roast?”

  She shook her head firmly. “I don’t eat beef.”

  I pointed at the cream she’d set out for our coffee. “That comes from a cow.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Leather jackets?” I asked. I’d slung mine over the back of my chair.

  “I don’t care about those so much. It’s the food that makes me sick. The taste.” She shook herself a little. “There’s a smell in Eastern Wyoming that makes me sick.”

  “One nice thing about London—there aren’t a bunch of cattle ranches stinking up the place.”

  That made her smile. A little.

  “Tell me about your security job,” she said, stirring her coffee. “And your talent for opening locks.”

  “I only work on the right side of the law, I promise. I own a personal service agency with my dad. Ironclad Solutions—discreet personnel for the rich and famous. Bodyguards, PAs, travel security. Business is pretty good.” That was an understatement, but she’d seen my house. She knew. I was past apologizing for my money. I gave away as much as I could and enjoyed my life with the rest of it, although I felt a pang of guilt sitting in her tiny, bed-less apartment.

  “Bodyguards, huh?” She glanced at my well-developed biceps. “Is it ever dangerous?”

  “Sometimes. It depends on the situation. Sometimes it’s just escorting a client around an unfamiliar city, or babysitting celebrity kids. When Rubio travels, he uses our agency’s protection to ensure his…personal space. We serve high profile clients who need security and management, but in most cases it’s not a life or death thing.”

  “In most cases?” She shook her head. “Wow.”

  “Are you worried about me?” I teased. “About my agents? Believe me, they’re well trained. Like you, only a different set of talents.”

  “Is that how you found out about Rubio’s…uh…proclivities? You had to follow him into some sex club?”

  “Not me, no. My employees probably have, a time or two. But I knew Rubio in BDSM circles before he ever used Ironclad.” I fell silent a moment, my gaze trailing off over her shoulder to her slouching blanket fort. “Can I ask you a personal question, Ashleigh? Where is your bed?”