One Long Kiss

by Susan Ward

  I definitely need therapy. And crap, I should definitely find Manny before I cut out for the night. My ass will be grass if he’s not at the hotel for the car pickup. My job may be assistant road manager, but Sandy Harris made it clear my job was to keep Alan Manzone on a leash.

  A handler. Fuck, how do they expect anyone to handle Alan? I start ticking off facts from the label’s investigation report of him. Genius mind. Musical prodigy. Vulgar weakness for drugs and women.

  Boy, they didn’t get that one wrong. If the kid makes it to twenty-six without frying his brains or using up his body it will be no less than a miracle.

  Brilliant musician. Former Oscar-winning child star. Now, that one surprised me. How the fuck did he bury that interesting tidbit about himself so well, never to be recovered? And why did he bury it? He’s already famous. That would be an enormous help in his long-range musical plans. But that history is forbidden to be spoken, ever. No one knows outside of Alan and the label executives and the investigators. Not even the band knows he used to be Alfie Wells.

  I navigate through the bodies still lingering in the corridor, poking my head into rooms. I hate being a handler and I suck at it. He handles me. Another room. Nope, not there. He’s probably not even still at the auditorium.

  “Nice show, Linda,” I hear from behind me as I’m patted on my back.

  I turn and stop, coming face-to-face with a reporter. Ah, press.

  I muster my press smile. “The guys really tore it up on stage tonight,” I say. I remember my talking points. “Alan Manzone is the most brilliant guitarist of the last fifty years. The label is all in with this kid.”

  Ronald Blake rolls his eyes. “Tell me something I can’t read in a press brief, Linda. Who is this guy? Where the fuck did he come from? Why won’t anyone talk about his history?”

  I tilt my head slightly to the side and give him a pointed stare. “Because they’d rather make history. Mark my words. By this time next year the entire world will know who Blackpoll is. Stop looking in the rearview mirror, Ronny. You’ll miss the show.”

  He laughs. “Give me something, Linda.”

  I shrug. “I don’t have anything to give. There’s no story there.”

  I continue making my way down the corridor.

  “There is always a story, Linda.”

  I look over my shoulder, smiling. “Then write one. Don’t ask me to do it for you.”

  He shakes his head and I disappear into the throng near the exit. I pause at security. “Have you seen Manny?”

  Jenkins shakes his head, amused. “What? You’ve lost him again?”

  “I didn’t lose him. He disappeared. There’s a difference.”

  “Not to Sandy Harris or the label.”

  Inwardly I cringe. Does every member of the road crew and security know what my real job is? I choose to ignore that one. “Have you seen him?”

  “Left the second he came off stage. Fancy chauffeur-driven car waiting for him at the door. Not unoccupied, mind you. Two lovelies tonight.”

  Oh crud. The kid is going to fuck himself to death and the women flock to him like bees to honey, more than willing to let him. Self-destruction by fornication. Crud.

  I fight to keep my reaction from my face. “Thank you. You could have just told me that instead of giving me shit.”

  That he ignores.

  I push my way through the doors, step out into the damp air and instantly start to shiver. Shit, why don’t I own a single coat that can do battle against this? I tug my collar high up to my chin and tighten my arms around my body in a poor effort not to freeze to death.

  Jeez, I’m from Southern California. What the hell am I doing here? Why can’t it be sunny and dry year-round like in LA?

  I spot the car waiting by the curb, open the door and climb in. “Take me back to the hotel,” I order.

  Phil stares at me. “We’re not waiting for the band?”

  “You can come back for them.”

  I turn to stare out the window as if the issue is resolved. The car starts and we pull away from the curb. At least Phil is afraid of me and does what I tell him to.

  At the hotel, I climb out of the backseat before the doorman can open my door. Shit, I’m American. I can open my own damn door.

  I cut through the lobby, and enter the elevator.

  “What floor, Miss?” the attendant asks.

  “Third.”

  Crap. Why did I say that? Manny’s floor, not mine. I shake my head as I feel the elevator start to move. You know why, Linda. It’s your job to keep close tabs on him.

  I close my eyes and will myself not to panic. Let him be in his room tonight. It will make it so much easier to make sure he’s here when the car arrives in the morning.

  The doors open and I step out, feeling a touch of dread. Alan Manzone hates the press. He’s probably a hundred miles from here.

  Reluctantly, I knock on the door. I wait. Nothing. I knock again. Fuck. I rummage through my bag for his room key. He’s nineteen years old. He doesn’t need someone doing a bed check. Why the fuck did they give me a key to his room and why the fuck do they expect me to do this?

  Scrunching up my face in apprehension, I slip the key into the lock and slowly ease open the door.

  I loathe doing this.

  I quietly step into the room, close the door and turn. My heart stills and everything starts to flash in disjointed images. The groans force me to look in his direction and the sight of Alan Manzone naked on the bed renders me flat against the door.

  I know there is more than him in the room, but for a time-stopping second that has the feel of eternity, I can’t focus on anything else.

  Jesus Christ, I’ve not seen him totally nude before—I’ve seen the chest, the arms, below the thighs, but not all of it in one showing—and nothing could have prepared me for what my mind only suspected. Tousled black hair, long limbed body, glistening rich olive skin. I feel my flesh rapidly heat. He’s only nineteen. He shouldn’t look this way. The height and muscled fullness of a man.

  Then my vision widens and I wish I could drop through the floor. Two blond lovelies. Models, by the looks of them. One with her mouth hovering over his cock and another riding his face. They seem oblivious to me…well, the girls do, but oh, not him.

  Something changed in the room when I looked at the bed. Something radiated from him and shot through my veins. He knows I’m here. He ignored my knocks on purpose. He knew I’d come in. He wanted me to see him doing this. Crap, his game with me—his subtle, relentless pursuit to get me into bed—has just taken a more perverse turn than even I expected.

  I feel the flash of my temper and it doesn’t do a damn thing for me. My mind is a blank. Like all things Alan, I stare and I can’t look away.

  His hand moves and I see it in a strange, slow motion kind of way. The elegant acts of his limbs are quiet, erotic, seductive. Those long fingers lightly brush the ass of the beauty sitting on his face, and she begins to ride faster, moaning. His other hand moves to the girl giving him head, and with a lightness you can almost taste, his fingers dance through her hair.

  Perverse. Erotic. Seductive. Elegant. And gentle, somehow, gentle among the carnal.

  I hear the sound of his tongue flicking her clit, his face hidden by his long, wavy black hair and her thighs, and then him breathing into her when I can barely get breath into my chest. I fight my body’s reaction, but my sex ignores my will. I feel myself grow taut, pulsing and wet there.

  I’m about to slip out when he moves his face, his black eyes locking on my brown, and I’m frozen again. He doesn’t stop the moves of his pelvis, his flexing hips as he plunges into the girl’s mouth, the play of a hand where his tongue had been. The girls moan loader, climaxing as if by his will so it would happen in this moment he stares at me.

  The way he moves is mesmerizing, even in this. Fingers in cunt. Hips flexing in rhythm with the model deep-throating him. How the hell does a guy learn to fuck this way at nineteen?

&nb
sp; I start to turn back toward the door.

  “Don’t go. I enjoy you watching me.” Startled, I realize that low, raspy command was addressed to me. My eyes widen and Alan says, “Unless you’d prefer to join us.”

  Damn. I go from damp to dripping in my panties in a half-second, even though I know he’s messing with me, but the guy puts on one hell of a fuck show.

  Somehow, I manage to lift a brow. “Aha. I think you have all you can handle here.”

  As a response, that was pretty lame, but I tell myself not to be hard on myself. I doubt any woman could muster wittier words at this moment because the girl runs her mouth up the length of him, letting me get my first full view of the package as she flicks and runs her tongue.

  Jesus Christ, even that part of him is perfectly made.

  “The car is coming at ten in the morning,” I say firmly, enormously pleased that I sound unaffected when everything inside me is liquefying. “Be here. Don’t make me look for you.”

  I can tell by the change in his body, the huskiness of his moans, that he’s coming into the girl’s mouth. He didn’t even wait for me to completely finish my sentence to finish himself.

  I rush into the hallway, run to my room, and bolt the door behind me. I lean back against it, breathing rapidly, trying to quiet the alertness of the flesh of my sex and the rapid pounding of my heart.

  If I had half a brain, I would have packed my bags and returned to California the day I met him. It’s only a matter of time. I know it and so does Alan. That’s why he toys with me. That’s why he let me see that. He knows whatever he does, it doesn’t matter. It won’t change this.

  I knew it the first time I laid eyes on him. Some men have that power. They instantly ignite something feral in you, whether you want it or not, and the sexual electricity is always there, in every room and every moment, from the first time you see them. An inescapable web, swirling around you until you surrender. And at that point, they devour you.

  It was a revolting game he just played with me. Me watching him fuck them. I’m aroused and rattled and I don’t want to be either. Alan Manzone unnerves me more than any guy I’ve ever met. And crap, he’s not even really a man yet.

  Two

  I sit on my bed and reach for my wineglass on the nightstand. I should be sleeping. Why am I studying this again?

  You know why, Linda. The flames may have cooled in your sex organs, but in the rest of you the Alan aftereffect is still going strong.

  My eyes carefully move from document to document neatly arranged in front of me. It doesn’t matter how I organize it, there are no answers here. I’ve read these reports a thousand times. If some insight into Alan existed in this I would have found it by now.

  I pick up a page, doing another fast scan as I run my lip along the rim of my wineglass. There is a chunk of Alan’s history missing. It jumps from child star to eighteen when he started popping up in some of London’s seedier clubs as lead guitar and front man for Blackpoll. Quickly signed by the label. First release a UK/European hit. A stint in rehab for a heroin addiction, and now here with me. But nothing from the age of ten until a year ago. Blank. Nada. Nil.

  How did he get from the posh side of town to the gutter, and why is this missing? Why does it bother me? And why do I care? He’s a job. Nothing more. Another two weeks and he won’t even be that.

  I check the clock. It’s after 2 a.m., but it’s early evening in California and I could definitely use a dose of Jack tonight.

  I grab the phone and request from the operator an overseas call and then give her Jack’s number. Crap, I hate that I can’t just dial direct, and I definitely don’t like that the charges of these calls are on a permanent record, even if it is only with my employer. The custody battle between Jack and Walter seems to reach a new low with each day. I can’t even imagine the direction it would take if Walter ever found out about me.

  Lying back on the bed, I grow impatient as the phone rings and rings and rings. Shit, I don’t want to go to the service. Answer the phone, Maria!

  “Parker residence.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. “Maria. It’s Linda. How are you?”

  “Chica, it is good to hear your voice. Señor Jack will be so happy to talk to you.”

  I frown. Maria has that worried tone of voice. She may be only the housekeeper, but there isn’t anything that happens with the Parker family that she doesn’t know about.

  I sit up, suddenly anxious. “Is everything OK?”

  “Ah, Chrissie,” is all she says.

  My anxiousness moves to alarm. “What do you mean, ah, Chrissie? Did something happen?”

  “Nothing happened. Not really. The fighting. It is not good for mi niña.”

  Fighting; Jack’s court battle with Walter.

  “Has something new happened that I haven’t read in the papers?” I ask more impatiently.

  “No. It is just that mi niña is very, very sad. She does not talk to her father, but she is very troubled and Señor Jack is very worried. I think she knows what is happening. I do not know how she knows. Señor Jack he does not talk about Señor Walter. It is not good for a child to know this.”

  I shake my head, a touch exasperated. “There is no way for her not to know, Maria. It’s in the papers. Kids are rotten. It’s unavoidable with all the press this is getting that someone would say something to her about this.”

  “I do not like this fighting.”

  The way she says that rends my heart. Jack doesn’t deserve any of this. None of them do. I feel an almost leveling wave of sympathy for Chrissie and I haven’t even met the girl.

  “I don’t like it either, but it will pass. I promise, Maria. There is not a judge in the world that would take Jack’s daughter from him.”

  “I hope you are right,” Maria says sadly.

  “I am. Is he there? Can I speak to him?”

  “He is working. He is in the studio. It will take me a moment…”

  “No, don’t interrupt him,” I say quickly over her. “I can call tomorrow.”

  “Señor Jack says whenever you call I am to give him the phone. Does not matter what he is doing. Linda comes first.”

  My heart does a pleasant little flutter, and I relax back into my pillows, waiting. I can tell by Maria’s heavier breathing and silence that she’s moving through the house toward the studio.

  I hear the sound of a door opening and then music. The music shuts off.

  “Hello?”

  Jack. A smile fills my face. “Hey stranger, it’s Yolanda.”

  A low, husky laugh. “Oh, somebody misses me tonight.”

  “I miss you every night. I even miss you sometimes during the day.”

  “Always a wisecrack.” A long pause. “I miss you too, baby. I wish you were here.”

  The way he says that makes tears rise behind my lids. “I wish I were there, too. You doing OK, Jack?”

  “Better. Now that you called.”

  I can tell by his voice that he’s smiling, but I can also hear that he’s worn out by all the goings-on in court.

  “Tell me about your day,” he asks.

  “No. I want a happy thought.”

  I hear laughter and a squeaky door opening this time. Ah, he’s on his way out to the patio to sit in a lounger and stare at the ocean while he talks to me.

  “A happy thought, huh?” Jack murmurs. “I dreamed about you last night.”

  I make a face at the phone. “I didn’t say a nasty thought. I said a happy thought.”

  Jack laughs. “The nasty thoughts are happy thoughts. However, I didn’t say it was a nasty dream.”

  “No?”

  “No,” Jack counters firmly. There is the sound of wind and the ocean whispering through the phone now. He’s on the cliffs. “I dreamed that you were here and we were sitting on the cliffs at night together and you were laughing. I love your laugh, Linda. It was nice to have you visit happy in my dreams. See, not nasty at all.”

  I curl around the phone.
“No. Definitely not nasty. Definitely a happy thought. And you avoided my question. Are you doing OK?”

  He lets out a ragged sigh. “You see the papers, Linda. No need to rehash what you’ve already read.”

  I crinkle my nose. “It’s not that bad, Jack. It won’t even be a footnote in anything anyone ever writes or remembers about you. You’ve done too much good, for too many people, for anyone ever to waste ink on this.”

  “Well, they are spending ink by the barrel loads these days. They like to build you up, Linda, but they love even more tearing you down. I don’t give a shit about me. It’s Chrissie I’m worried about.”

  “Screw the press, Jack. How is Chrissie?”

  “She is still with Walter in Pasadena for the summer. I’ve gotten to visit her twice. She hardly spoke a word to me. I don’t know what sort of crap Walter is telling her, but she becomes more withdrawn every day. I get Chrissie back next week until school starts at the end of September. And as for how my baby girl is, well, I would say sad, worried, and hating me.”

  “Jack, she doesn’t hate you.”

  “You haven’t seen how she looks at me.”

  I make a sympathetic face even though he can’t see it. “I don’t need to. There is no way that girl hates you. You are a wonderful father.”

  Another heavy exhale of breath.

  “Wonderful father or not, I’m about to be put under a microscope,” Jack says solemnly.

  “Microscope? I don’t understand.”

  “Walter requested a psychologist’s evaluation of Chrissie, me, our relationship and my parenting before the next hearing and the judge approved the motion, Linda.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. Random visits through the month of September so they can submit a report before the next court date.”

  “This is insane,” I exclaim, half in anger and half in disbelief.

  “Insane, but it’s going to happen. Which brings me to my next unpleasant tidbit of news.”

  I tense. “What?”

  “I can’t travel to the UK in September to see you as we planned. I can’t risk not being here with Chrissie and having the psychologist arrive with me gone. Earliest I can get to you is mid-October. I’m sorry, baby.”