Ice Steam (Loving All Wrong #3) (5 page)

Having Jacob all to himself now? What joys for him.

“Leaving my son behind is a big deal, JK.”

“Nope,” he said, getting up, “making a deal with Lion’s a big deal. One I ain’t helpin’ you out of.”

Another teary evil glare directed at him, but he just shrugged and leaned down to steal Jacob from my arms. Ignoring my protests, he started back to the doctor’s room, stopping briefly to say, “You didn’t ask, but, yeah, she’s okay. The baby’s okay.
We’re
okay.”

Then he was gone. With my son. He’d had him all day, I had him for only an hour, and he was gone with him again.

I could hear Jacob’s voice echoing down the hall “dada…daaaadaaaa…dada!”

For a long while I just sat there, staring down at the tattoo on my wrist, not knowing what to do with myself, and too ashamed to go check on Saskia.

I tried a coffee from the waiting room coffee machine and spat it right back in the cup the thing was so disgusting. I needed,
really needed
, a good cup. My spirit was dying.

My cell buzzed in my pocket:

XX:
Seriously, what did I do wrong? I miss talking to you…

Ignoring the text, I headed out to the parking lot, I found Nick, JK’s driver, and Thomas, Saskia’s driver, looking as worried as they did both times Saskia miscarried.

“The baby’s okay,” I announced before either of them could annoy me with questions. To Thomas, “Can you take me to Starbucks? The coffee inside sucks and if I don’t get a cup of Frappuccino right now, I’m gonna peel my skin off.”

Thomas gave Nick a chin-lift then opened the car door for me to get in. As he drove out of the hospital he asked, “Mind me asking how
you’re
doing, Alina? You don’t look like yourself.”

“Like I said, I need coffee.”

Knowing when to back off as always, Thomas killed his curiosity and silently drove me to my favorite Starbucks in Union Square, located on the fourth floor inside Macy’s, with its lovely view.

With the sun losing its strength, the clouds were a beautiful reflection of pale yellow and orange, shifting against the fading blue expanse of sky.

All the baristas at this particular Starbucks knew me well because of my link to Saskia and JK, so I never joined the long lines. Whenever I walked in all I had to do was find a seat and they’d come to me with my Frappuccino.

That’s exactly what I was doing, sitting by the floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing out across at Saks Fifth Avenue and Tiffany & Co., when someone draped in a black hoodie with a ball cap underneath claimed the seat across from me.

I hadn’t planned on acknowledging the person, because I got harried all the time by both men and women alike about my “features”. Usually I ignored them until they scooped up their dignity and left me alone.

But this person, this particular person brought an energy-sucking heat with them. A defying heat. A heat that changed the direction of the winds, the temperature of the room, the beat of one’s heart. A heat that wiped all your thoughts and
forced
you to acknowledge.

So, I looked. Not because I wanted to, but because my instincts, my stubborn will and nasty attitude was undermined and vetoed by the person’s heat.

It took a second, but when I narrowed my gaze and recognized the steel-gray eyes staring back at me under that ball-cap and black hoodie, I emitted a tiny gasp.

One long, calloused finger slowly pressed to those famous red lips as they protruded out to convey “shh”.

I nodded my understanding. If anyone in the building recognized the face under the ball-cap and hoodie, it would be pandemonium in Union Square.

Sitting across from me, sucking all the air from out of the room with an intense and undeniable magnetism, was Xavier Xander. Guitarist for the reigning number one rock band in the world, Ninety Miles.

Before now, we’d never actually met face to face, and it was lost on me how he was even here.

A couple months back when I was out grocery shopping with Saskia, paparazzi snapped a bunch of pictures of us and blasted them all over the internet, because, well, superstar Saskia Day was
grocery shopping.

Xavier happened to see those pictures and developed a rather futile and unhealthy interest in the “sexy raven beside Saskia Day”. Although he wasn’t supposed to, due to their band-mate’s beef with JK, he’d reached out to Saskia and begged her to hook us up.

Of course, Saskia was afraid of JK flying off the handle, so she outright refused. Xavier, however, was like a dog with a bone. He threatened to show up on her doorstep with Tex and create a scene enough to attract paparazzi to splash all kind of rumors over the news.

Saskia, frustrated and annoyed, gave him my digits so I could get rid of him myself.

In our first text exchange, I told him I was a new mother, fresh out of labor, hence a very slack, cold vagina—hoping that would scare him off.

All it did was make him even more interested. When he asked about the father, I told him he died fighting in the war in Iraq. This horrid lie was an even brighter green light for him. No matter how bizarre the stories I made up about myself, it didn’t deter him.

Soon it became fun, a pastime, and I began texting him for the heck of it. Before I knew it, five months had passed and we were still “text dating”.

Nonetheless, I couldn’t fathom how something as innocent as text dating could lead to him sitting across from me
right now
.

“Nice to see you’re not dead,” he said, voice rich and thick and deep. The bass of his inflect traveled to my stomach, my organs dancing to the treble.

“Uh…”

“Haven’t been answering my calls or texts for the past three weeks. Why?”

All I could do was stare back, dumbfounded at this hot slice of man. What. The. Hell?

His ridiculously long, wavy, non-greasy blond hair hung down the sides of his face, cruising over his shoulders and ending just below his armpits—nowhere to hide all that hair—and his long lashes grouped together as his eyes narrowed on me, those pinkish-reddish lips the highlight of his devastatingly beautiful face.

Come to think of it, he was probably more famous for those lips than for his prowess with the guitar. Was oftentimes grouped with Joseph Morgan and Tom Hardy for who had the sexiest lips.

Those lips were right across from me right now. Speaking to me. Dizzying me.

I never actually entertained the idea of meeting Xavier in person. I never, ever entertained the idea of being with anyone but Davian.

Davian was the love of my life, the beat of my heart, and I would never, not in a million years, be able to let him go. That said, I simply couldn’t deny the sexual attraction towards Xavier, now that he was
right here
in front of me.

“Uh…”

Aquafresh-commercial teeth flashed at me, cocky and self-assured. “Know I make women speechless all the time, but
you
never struck me as the stuttering type. Am I really that…”—he leaned in, hands on the table, face close to mine—“breathtaking?”

That arrogant line snapped me out of it, had me rolling my eyes. “Annnnnnd
you just ruined it by opening your mouth.”

Unfazed, he just grinned. Wide.

“The cockier you are,” I went on, “the less attractive you are to me.”

“Why’ve you been avoiding me?”

“I haven’t.”

He leaned back, shifting low in his seat, keeping his head dipped to prevent being recognized. “Sure as hell feels like you have. Been three weeks. ”

“Did you stalk me here, or were you ‘just in the neighborhood?’”

Leaving mine, his eyes roamed around the cafe. “Got business in San Francisco.”

“What kind of business requires you dressing like a bank robber?”

His eyes landed back on me as sudden as a heart attack. “You.”

My lips parted, slowly, taking in air.

Xavier Xander.

Was.

Mind-numbingly.

Intensely.

Annoyingly.

Hot
.

“You flew all the way here, stalked me to Starbucks, dressed like a hoodlum, just to ask me why I’ve been avoiding you?”

He merely rose his shoulders up in a shrug.

I waited for it. For him to laugh, recant and tell me he was just kidding. But the no-bullshit look he was giving told me his words weren’t bullshit.

This guy’s nuts!
“You’re nuts,” I voiced my thoughts.

“Wasn’t a long journey. We’re resting in L.A for a while. Never-ending touring’s taking a shit toll on us. Benny agreed we take a one year break and let Ice Steam shine in our glow for a bit. So…I got time to stalk…”—grin—“I mean
play
.”

At the mention of Ice Steam, my heart constricted, expanded, then tightened again. I sat up straighter, the pain as intense as it was two years ago. “Ice Steam’s in L.A, too?”

More scanning of the cafe. “Uh-huh. Staying at our villa.”

“Oh…”

The barista couldn’t have picked a better time to show up with my Frappuccino, because I needed a minute to breathe, to think fast, to decide here and now.

Davian was in Los Angeles. I could see him again.

I could see him again
.

His words from two years ago slammed me like a defibrillator to the chest:
If I get back and you’re with anyone, Alina, I promise you I’ll insert myself and rip.it.apart. Because you are Davi’s, you hear me? Davi’s.

He’d had the audacity to make such a promise, then turn around and give up on us. What if
I
kept that promise instead? To insert myself and rip his engagement apart?

Now that I knew exactly where he was, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I could take JK’s advice and contractually move to L.A to be a model by day, and an engagement destroyer by night, using Xavier as my cover.

Would be wrong of me to use Xavier, seeing that he was so deep into me, but I’d still be using him even if I decided not to use him as cover, because my heart belonged to Davian. I couldn’t see myself wanting him for anything more than sex. And hey, the dude was a frigging
rock star
, most likely we were on the same “just sex” page.

The barista was all but bouncing when she handed me my Frappuccino. “We haven’t seen you in weeks, Ally!”

I forced a smile up at her. “Jacob’s been sucking up all my hours.

Her grin was ridiculous as she superfluously updated me, “Oh, JK was here with him earlier today. He grabbed my boob! Then he did the same with Clarissa. Such a womanizer already! But I guess he’s learning from the best, right? I mean, we all know JK was, like, man-whore of the century before he went off the market.”

I raised my brows. If Saskia was here she’d probably punch her in the mouth.

Her face flushed scarlet when she realized what she blabbered, and she quickly shifted her attention to Xavier, who had his head deeply bowed, ostentatiously dicking around on his cellphone. Nothing but beautifully long, wavy blond hair, hoody and a ballcap.

“Would you like anything, sir?”

The blond waves shook from left to right, and I watched as the barista slanted more and more to the side trying to get a full view of his face.

“He’s not in a good mood.” I raised my Frappuccino. “Put this on my bill, okay?”

Still fighting to see under Xavier’s hoodie, she nodded absently, almost on one foot now, she was slanting so far to the side.

To snag her attention from Xavier, I went on, “And I’ll tell Saskia you said ‘Hi’.”

Her head snapped back to me, and she was bouncing again, eyes wide. “Really?”

“Sure.” As if Saskia would even know who she was.

The barista clapped her hands, almost squealing as she skipped off.

“The girl was this close to breaking her neck just to see your face,” I said through a laugh.

Gray eyes lifted to mine, knocking the air right out of me, then dropped to my Frappuccino. “Weren’t lying when you said you were addicted to Frappo, I see.”

“Because I lied about so many other things?”

“Like the warts on your nipples.”

“How do you know for sure I don’t have warts on my nipples?”

“Of all the places warts could be, your
nipples
?”

“Hey, maybe nipples
are
warts. They probably taste the same to men. Have you ever licked a wart?”

He just grinned, his eyes twinkling.

Covering my straw with my mouth, I sucked up the first sip, closed my eyes, savored the taste on my tongue, then swallowed. “Love love love love love love.”

When I reopened my eyes, Xavier was watching me with an expression I didn’t understand, lips glossy as though he’d licked them when I had my eyes closed. “So much more in person than I could’ve imagined. This moment? Priceless. As of right now, you’re ‘Chino’ for me.”

Setting the cup down, I crossed my arms on the table. “How long are you here for?”

He glanced down at his watch and swore. “Leave in less than an hour.”

I hid my disappointment. “Seriously?”

“Been here for four days,” he informed me, “tryna find a way to get to you without showing up on your doorstep and triggering another feud with that douchface dancer.”

“
Four
days?”

He shrugged. “Really like you, Chino. Never done anything like this before. You’ve got me all messed up in the head right now.”

“You’re nuts,” I repeated, laughing this time.

Glancing at his watch again, he sobered up, reached across and squeezed my hand with a certain urgency. “Know you’ve been playing games over the phone. Came here to let you know I wasn’t.” His cellphone started vibrating. He ignored it and implored me instead. “Can we make this real? Can you see yourself with me?”

Intense eyes bore into mine, begging me.

My panties were wet.

“I’m temporarily moving to L.A.,” I blurted.

Buzz…buzz…buzz.

Xavier blinked. As if that was last thing he’d expected me to respond with. Then, a slow smile spread across his face, traveling all the way to his eyes, telling me he really wanted this.

“This is happening?” he asked in a quiet voice, almost as if he was afraid I’d recant.