Commitment (4 page)

“That must be nice,” she said. “Knowing that the world will bend to your will just because you’re famous.”

“I don’t know about ‘the world’,”
Shawn
said. “A few restaurants in Manhattan maybe.”

Riley laughed. “All the same, I should go. Thank you for this, for talking to me on such short notice.”

“Don’t get all businesslike on me now. Let’s get some coffee
or
something
. I think there’s a Starbucks a few blocks over.”

Riley hesitated for only a moment.
“Okay
.”

Shawn took care of the bill, and tipped everyone, even taking a minute to thank the chef before they walked out into the night. His stride was slow and he walked close enough to her that their fingers occasionally brushed. He smelled like clean, fresh soap. In the air between them was something heavy and unspoken. Riley could see her breath in front of her as they walked and it was cold enough for her to want to shove her hands deep in the pockets of her coat, but she didn’t.

A couple walking in the opposite direction with a cocker spaniel on a leash recognized him and with saucer eyes, stopped dead in their tracks.  Shawn deftly avoided looking in their direction, pretending to find something interesting in a store window.

“Very good,” she laughed, when they were out of earshot. “Nice pass interference.”

“Pass interference is was what
you
were supposed to do,” Shawn said.  “But you just left me wide open. I’ll show you how this works. Next time, you block me like this.”

He came closer, so close his chest was almost pressed against her and she had to look up to see his face. 

“How was I supposed to know?” she said, trying to slow her breathing. “Some celebrities love talking to their fans.”

Shawn grimaced. “Celebrity.” He hunched his shoulders as though the very sound of the word made him cringe. “All I do is make rhymes. I don’t know anything about being a celebrity.”

“Yeah, yeah. How about all the free drinks, the big banner with your name on it in the club? And all those women fawning over you. Looked like celebrity treatment to me.”

“A’ight, you got me there. But that’s all external stuff that gets projected on me by other people. Doesn’t have anything to do with me – Shawn Gardner – the regular guy.”

“Do your other interviewers fall for that? That’s a really nice line. In fact, it sounds like you’ve used it before.”

He looked down at her, trying to muster a straight face, but before he could get a word out they both dissolved into laughter.

“You like that?” he said as they started walking again. “Brendan made that one up. I thought it had a nice ring to it . . .”

“Oh it does. So now I know what Brendan thinks about you being a celebrity,” Riley said. “But what about you?”

“What I think is that . . . it’s cool being me.”

“Thank you,” Riley said. “A little honesty.”

“Here’s some more honesty for you,” he said, his voice different. “I don’t even like coffee. I just don’t want you to go.”

Riley glanced at him, but he kept walking, looking straight ahead.

Starbucks was almost deserted. Apart from a couple of sleepy baristas and a man with an old newspaper he was pretending to read, they were alone. While Shawn went to order, Riley glanced at her watch. It was almost one a.m. If she wanted to maintain even a shred of her professional distance, she would leave after a couple sips of coffee. 

Shawn returned with
fruit juice for himself and
a coffee for her.  Riley meticulously ripped open one of the yellow packets of no-cal sweetener and emptied it into her cup, stirring it slowly with the wooden stick, pretending not to notice that
Shawn was staring
at her
.

Who was she kidding?
Her professional distance had fallen to pie
ces at his feet hours earlier.
He popped the top off the bottle and sipped from it, leaning back, his eyes still fixed on her face.

“Come back to my hotel with me,” he said.

Riley sat very still, not blinking. Not breathing.

“You look surprised,” he said when after a moment she still hadn’t spoken.

“I am.”

Shawn shook his head slowly. “No you’re not.”

He pushed his bottle of fruit juice across the table toward her.
“Taste this.”

Riley lifted the bottle, grateful for a distraction.

“Kiwi,” she said.
“One of my favorites.” She took a sip. It was sweet, tangy and delicious.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Shawn said. “
But
I want to spend the night with you.”

“I tasted yours. So taste mine
.”
She
slid
her coffee cup in his direction.

“No thanks. Coffee just tastes bitter to me.”

“It’ll make your juice that much sweeter afterward,” she pointed out.

Shawn looked at her for a moment then took a tentative sip of her coffee. Riley laughed at the look on his face. 

He took
another
quick swig of
his
juice to wash the coffee away.

“You’re right,” he said. “It was sweeter
.
But you’re avoiding my question
.”

“Was there a
question?
I didn’t hear one.”

“Will you spend the night with me?”

Before she could respond, he had
leaned forward and put a hand at the back of her neck, gently pulling her across the table toward him.
His lips were wa
rm, soft.
When his tongue met hers,
she could taste
an amalgamation of their evening
together
: an underlying spiciness from their
meal
, the bitter
barley
of the Red Stripe beer, a hint of coffee bean and finally the
sweetness
of kiwi.
It was a brief
,
sweet and softly persuasive kiss, and like everything
else about him, so unexpected.
Riley leaned back in her chair and smiled. When he smiled back, she actually got goose bumps.

The
hotel
lobby was almost deserted when
they
entered
and
they rode the elevator up to the twenty-first floor
in silence
, standing close to each other, their arms
barely
touching. When Shawn unlocked the door to his suite, the curtains had been
pulled
open and the
panoramic view
of Manhattan at night was breathtaking. Riley walked over to the wall of windows and stood looking down and across at the city. 

“Amazing view
of the Brooklyn Bridge from here
,” she said.

“Yeah it’s great.” He sounded utterly uninterested in the view. 

Until he spoke, she didn’t realize he was so close. His breath was warm on her cheek. Then his hands were on her shoulders, and she turned to face him. When she tilted her head backward he kissed her again, but it was very different than the kiss in the coffee shop. That kiss had been an exploration
; this one a prelude.
Riley reached up and wrapped her arms about his neck.
It felt like she’d been waiting for this all evening, and in a way,
maybe
she had.

They stood there for
awhile
kissing
,
and
her
hands seemed to move on their own,
exploring
his chest and back. She reached down so she could feel his bare skin under his shirt. His stomach was
s
mooth
and firm; Riley’s fingers followed a soft line of hair that disappeared where the waistband of his pants began. Just as she reached down to tug at his belt, he raised his head and slowly pushed her back into the bedroom and toward the bed. 

Riley
didn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t this; that he would carefully, almost reverentially remove each piece of her clothing and kiss the parts of her newly revealed. He was so deliberate and
so
gentle that
soon she was arching her hips toward him, reaching out to peel his shirt aside so she could feel him against her.

When he was naked Shawn stood and left her on the bed for a moment and she could see him, silhouetted by the light from the next room, firmly muscled and sleek and beautiful. He returned and sank between her legs like a sigh. For a minute, he was still, his breath warm on her neck and Riley
felt the fullness of him, deep inside
her
, her
muscles involuntarily gripping and releasing him.

Shawn groaned and his mouth was on hers again and then he
moved
, slowly at first until she matched his rhythm. When their tempo and intensity increased, he wrapped his arms about her and rolled over so that she was on top, her
thighs locked about his hips.

The suite was warm and in no time they were both slick with perspiration tumbling over and under and next to each other, hopelessly tangled in the sheets until Shawn cast them aside. They didn’t stop for what seemed like forever until finall
y, Riley cried out her release.
When Shawn moved she dug her fingers into his shoulders.

“No,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “Don’t.”

So he was still, his eyes locked with hers until the tension dissipated and he began to move again, bringing her back to where she’d been just moments before. This time, he climaxed with her and instead of rolling free as she’d expected, he held her face in both his hands and kissed her.

g

When
she
awoke, the sky outside was gray. It was almost sunrise.
Riley
held her breath as she turned to face Shawn. 

“Hey,” he said. He was sitting up and had a lit Phillies blunt
in his hand
that didn’t smell like tobacco.

Riley glanced at the clock nearby. It was
just after
five
a.m. Shawn reached over to put out the cigar he’d been smoking but not before offering it to Riley who shook her head. As he leaned forward, exhaling the last of the pungently sweet smoke, the sheets fell loosely about his naked hips. 

“There is no way I’m going to kiss you if you taste like smoke,” she said, drowsily regarding him through half-open eyes.

“I think you want to kiss me anyway,” he said.

They looked at each other for a moment and he leaned into her. When their lips touched, he did taste like smoke, but it was not unpleasant
. Far
from it. He slid downward so their chests were pressed against each other and Riley pulled back, exhaling deeply.

“Wow
,” she laughed softly. 
“Still.”

“Still what?” he asked, pressing his lips to hers once again.

“You know that feeling?” she said. “That feeling when you want someone, when you really, really want them,
but before you
have them?  I’ve
still
got
that feeling.”

“You do?” 

He shifted his attention to her neck and Riley felt the breath catch in her throat. She could stay here all morning, and afternoon and into the evening. She could drown in this man if she let herself.

“
I do
,” she said, her breathing still uneven. “It’s weird, right?  Because you’d think that after last night . . .”

“Riley,” he stopped her mid-sentence. “Not everything was meant to be analyzed.
Y’know?”

“Why not?
If I find it interesting, I analyze it.” 

“You find me interesting?”

“Yes. But not just you. This.” She traced a finger along his arm and watched as
goose bumps rose on his flesh.
“See?”

He smiled at her then, as though she’d
scored a point at his expense.
“Chemistry,” he said.
“It’s a crazy thing.”

Over his shoulder she saw that it wa
s growing even lighter outside.
Soon it would be bright. Things would look very different then. She would be reminded that this wasn’t a date that had gone particularly well, this was in fact Riley
Terry
, surrendering her professionalism in
spectacular fashion. 

And there was something else. Something she had inexplicably put completely out of her mind until just that very second.

She sat up, reaching for her bra.

“What’re you doing?” he asked as she snapped it on.