Aryn's Desire: A BOLD Security Novel (Finding Submission Book 1) (25 page)

I shrug. “Does that bother you?”
 

He doesn’t answer. He turns toward the window that overlooks Time Square. “No, I guess I just never thought that you were gay.”
 

I huff. “I’m not gay.”
 

He turns toward me. “Then what?”
 

“Curious might be a better word for it.”
 

“How long have you been curious?” he asks.
 

“I’m not sure you want me to answer that question,” I tell him and lean back against the wall. I’ve baited him and I know damn well what’s going to come next.

“Me, isn’t it? You want me?” His voice is confused, concerned and a hint of curiosity.
 

I give him a hard stare. “Hardly.”
 

He rolls his eyes. “Denial does you no good.” He turns back toward the window and adds, “Since when?”
 

I shrug, despite him having his back to me. “Probably around the third or fourth chick we shared together.”
 

He turns back around, and I expect him to be angry, to come try and fight me, but he doesn’t, he just looks at me calmly.
 

“Look, it’s entirely irrelevant. I knew you didn’t want me, that it would never go that way between us and I accepted that, Dex. It’s not like I was in love with you or anything.” I stop talking and he just stands there. His eyes bore into me and I know he wants me to finish, but I don’t know how to tell him that I wanted to take things up a notch with him. That I wouldn’t have minded turning the tables on the girls we were with. Giving them a little more of their fantasy. But it never went there. I never talked about it with him and more importantly, I never told him, until now.
 

“But what?” he finally asks.
 

“I just thought maybe it would be fun.” I shrug, trying to portray to him that was honestly what I thought, which is true. “I don’t even know if I could have done it to be honest with you, but, you were nice to look at. Especially if we had a rather uninteresting girl between us.” I rub my palms on my thighs. “It was nothing more than a fantasy that I never acted on.”
 

“That’s good because I wouldn’t have, not that. Oh for fuck’s sake, I’m not into that. Not curious about it. Not now, not even back then.”
 

My shoulders drop. “I know, which is why I never acted on it. But you have to admit, for as close as we are, it wouldn’t be hard for someone’s signals to cross and well, maybe they did with me a little bit. But Dex, I never would have done anything to you. I never did do anything to you. I threw the fantasy out the window for a couple of reasons, one of which being that I knew you weren’t into it.”
 

“What’s another reason?”
 

“Because I didn’t want to ruin the friendship we have. You know, the whole sex between friends thing.”
 

Finally he nods. I know this conversation hasn’t gone the way he probably planned on having it go, in fact, it wasn’t what I wanted to talk about either, but it seems to have distracted him from Caden, which was my intention.
 

“You need to get ready to go-”
 

“What about Caden?” he cuts me off.
 

“What about him?” I snap.
 

“Did you text him?”
 

“No,” I tell him. I didn’t text him, I called him.
 

“Why the hell not?”
 

“What’s the point?” I grumble. “He rejected me, remember?”
 

“I don’t think that was his intention, Beck.”
 

I shrug. “So what, it’s what happened.”
 

“So you were ready and willing to have sex with him and he rejected you?”
 

“Not exactly.”
 

“Then what, exactly?”
 

“Why do you need all the fucking details, Dex? This isn’t about you, this isn’t about Derek, hell, this isn’t even about Caden. This is about me and no one else. I was willing to give him what he wanted. He wanted me to do it, he ordered me to do it, and then he flipped a switch and rejected me because I was honest with him.”
 

“About what?” Dex snaps.

“Don’t get fucking pissy with me, asshat. You fucking dragged me in here to talk.”
 

“What did you tell him?”
 

“That I’d never sucked a dick before.”

“Oh.” He stops and relaxes again.
 

“Are you happy now? You’ve gotten it all out of me.”
 

“Not hardly. Why did you run away?”
 

“Fuck me, come on, man, that’s really none of your fucking business.”
 

He takes steps toward me. “Yes, it is. You abandoned me in Nashville, left me to bodyguards who are not paid to watch over me and Raine. What if something had happened to me or her while you were running away and wallowing in your personal pity party?”

“I fucking ran away because I was willing to give a man, who I barely fucking know, a goddamn blowjob because he ordered me to do it. Then he turned around and rejected me at the same time he was comforting me. He showed me the first inkling of fucking affection I’ve had in my entire life. It scared the living shit out of me, Dex. What the fuck else was I supposed to do? Not only was I ordered to give a man a blowjob, but I was more than willing to surrender to him, to do what he asked, despite the fact that I have never done anything like it before. So not only was I dealing with the fact that you all seemed to see it before I did, the fact that you all saw I was a submissive and not a Top, you all let it go, let me flounder, let me look weak in Caden’s eyes, in everyone’s eyes because here I was introducing myself as a Top and low and behold, I’m nothing but a goddamn submissive.”
 

With that, I turn and leave the room, making a bad attempt at slamming an air controlled door on my way out.

THIRTY~SIX

DEX AND I don’t talk about Caden anymore after that. Despite his attempts throughout our busy week in New York. A look was all it took to shut him down. I got the impression that he squealed to Derek about what I’d told him and he was trying to come back at me with a counter argument from Caden. Frankly, I don’t want to hear it.
 

I had hoped that the press tour and getting back to Los Angeles before taking off with Alyssa would be enough to put Caden out of my mind, but it didn’t happen.
 

Despite all my best efforts, I couldn’t get him out of my mind and there were three failed attempts with random barmaids that made me wonder what the fuck was wrong with me. Ironically enough, when their lips would land on mine as we fell into bed, all I could see was Caden. I wanted to be kissing him and that bothered me that much more.
 

When I got back to California, I was pulled into duty with Alyssa Serin and her tour. Casey and Troy kept me occupied with plans for the premiere circuit. We planned our routes, our escapes and lastly our timing on where we needed to be and when we needed to be there. Unfortunately, like with 69 Bottles, we don’t have the ability to search out the venues beforehand and we certainly don’t have the chance to practice for anything, but that’s what makes us such a great team.
 

Fortunately for us, these events are under tight security anyway so what goes on in the buildings is hardly a concern for us. Our only goal is Alyssa and making sure she’s protected and taken care of.
 

Alyssa’s issues with her previous bodyguard are obvious to me when I meet her. She’s a tiny, sexy thing. Only about five two or three with long blonde hair. She’s gorgeous, but I knew that already. Actresses are notoriously gorgeous on the red carpet but hardly gorgeous outside of their ‘stage’. Alyssa is an exception to that rule. I won’t lie, I had a very hard time controlling myself and of course the raging hard-on she excited in me before I managed to push her off me. Which explains why her previous bodyguard was compromised and the suspicions behind his inability to remain objective are confirmed.
 

While normally I wouldn’t hesitate to sleep with a gorgeous woman like her, I draw the line at my clients, especially on the first meeting. But since I left Nashville, I’ve come to realize that stopping her before hitting the bedroom would save her disappointment and my embarrassment.
 

Casey wasn’t so easily deterred from her and while I can’t confirm or deny them sleeping together, I’m at the point that I really don’t want to know.
 

Casey’s distaste for country singers became perfectly clear when one of Alyssa’s friends was over at the house while we were discussing our escape plans for the Los Angeles premiere. She was far sexier than Alyssa is in my opinion and Casey made no secret of looking Avery Storm up and down on more than a few occasions despite his ‘anti-country’ campaign. I’ve never had the balls to ask him what his deal is with country singers but Avery seems to be pushing all his buttons.
 

Avery made no secret of checking Casey out either. I tried my damnedest to shrug it off and prayed that we wouldn’t see much more of Avery while we were here in Los Angeles.
 

“Avery is coming with me tomorrow night,” Alyssa tells me. “She’s my date.” Oh fucking fabulous.

“Does she have her detail?” I ask Alyssa, praying that I can use them to help keep Casey and Avery separated.
 

Alyssa scrunches up her face. “No,” she says in her snotty way. “That is what I pay you for.”
 

I nod. “Yes, ma’am.”
 

Needless to say, I pulled Casey aside after that. Warned him to pay attention to Alyssa as she is our primary mark. He was pissed that I’d considered he was remotely interested in Avery. But he had very little conviction in his argument. Country singer, celebrity or not, Casey is a strong bodyguard and I have every faith in him. In fact, I trust my life to him and I know damn well that some hottie like Avery isn’t going to get in his way.
 

*~* CADEN *~*
 

“Son of a bitch,” I say to the TV as I watch the red carpet premiere of Lost Hope in Los Angeles. “Motherfucker. That asshole knew all along.” I shake my head as the movie’s leading lady walks the red carpet and who is flanking her? “Aryn,” I breathe before downing the rest of my scotch and grabbing my phone.

I press two buttons and call Jessie, my personal pilot. “Jessie, I need the plane as soon as possible.”
 

“Yes, Sir. Flight plan?”
 

“New York City.”
 

“On it. We need at least forty-five minutes.”
 

“Fine, I’ll be there in ninety.”
 

I hang up the phone with Jessie and call Derek. “You cheeky bastard.”
 

“Hello Caden,” he says calmly into the phone. “To what do I owe-?”
 

“You knew about his assignment and you didn’t tell me?” I interject.

Derek laughs into the phone. “How’d you figure it out?”
 

“Oh, I don’t know, watching the Los Angeles red carpet on TV.”
 

Derek laughs again. “I thought they were supposed to stay behind the scenes.”
 

I roll my eyes. “I’m going to New York, you want to go?”
 

“I’d love to, but I’m stuck in Texas for at least the next week. Go, track him down, talk to him.”
 

“That’s not going to be easy. Besides…” I let the thought drop off. This is fucking stupid. Why am I firing up my plane to go to New York for something, someone, that doesn’t want me?
 

“You’re not alone, Caden. Trust me on this.”
 

“How the hell would you know?”
 

He snorts into the phone. “I don’t, but what I do know is that he’s failed at least three times to bed anyone else since leaving Nashville. I also know that he’s closed himself off and gotten defensive with Dex when it comes to discussing anything that has to do with the lifestyle and last, but certainly not least, neither one of you will ever know unless one of you grows a pair of fucking balls and makes the next move.”
 

“I’m holding you to this.”
 

“Fine, but remember you just don’t know until you try and since you can’t call him and he’s doing everything he can to run away from it someone needs to confront the situation. Force him, order him if you have to, but damn it, talk to him.”
 

“Yeah, alright,” I tell him and hang up the phone before heading toward my bedroom, my suitcase and my closet.

THIRTY~SEVEN

THE NICEST THING about being who I am? Nobody cares when the stunt coordinator shows up, or a producer for that matter. I usually blend into the crowd and more importantly, I enter without drawing too much attention to myself. Sometimes, depending on the movie, I get inundated and when you’re as attractive as I am, you draw attention to yourself. No, I’m not conceited, it’s just a part of being in Hollywood and when you get labeled as such, it sticks with you.
 

Regardless, it didn’t seem to matter this time because I’m not on the appearance list. Allowing me to enter the red carpet at a time of my choosing. In this case, about three cars after Alyssa arrives. Giving me the perfect opportunity to enter, see Aryn and yet keep my distance. Even if he is paying attention, the crowd won’t be.
 

New York is the biggest premiere location on the US circuit, so that means that anyone who is anyone usually shows up for these things. Whether they intend to stay for the movie or not.
 

Stepping out of the car, I take in the sights, the sounds and most importantly, the reason I’ve come. He is precisely where I’d expected him to be. Near Alyssa, but a safe distance away from her and though I can see him from here, he’d be hard pressed to pick me out of the crowd surrounding me. Good.