Record, Rewind (10 page)

He reached across his chest and put his hand over mine, and I was filled with a hopeful peace.

Closing my eyes, I listened to the beat of his heart.

*

“O
kay,” he said after a while, and the rumble of his voice in his chest startled me awake. “I think we need to start over now.”

“Okay,” I murmured. I just wanted to go back to sleep, but Damien was having none of it.

“Come on, this is important.” He jiggled me and I grumbled.

“Ugh, I’m awake. What?”

“It’s time to start over.”

“Okay, we’re starting over.”

“No, it’s gotta be special,” he insisted. His voice was earnest and sincere, so I forced my eyes open and looked up at him.

He was breathtaking, his face open like a book. I thought I could read every hope he had hidden away there.

“I want you to promise me,” he said, “that you won’t hold the past against me. Even the good stuff.
Especially
the good stuff. I can’t take that kind of pressure.”

He must have been hurt badly. A whole section of his life that I knew nothing about. I was willing to do anything to get to know it. To get to know
him.

“Me either,” I said. “I promise. I will get to know you exactly as you are.”

And I will love you exactly as you are,
I thought silently,
because I think I already do.

“And I promise the same. Now. Ready to hit the rewind button?”

I laughed. “While we’re naked in bed?”

“It’ll be great,” he said. “Our first kiss will be a naked kiss. I can’t think of a better way to start to get to know you than that.”

I tried to summon an argument, but I couldn’t. “All right,” I told him. “Let’s rewind and record over all that shit.”

“That’s the spirit.” He grinned. “Let’s do this shit.” He lifted a hand and put it in the air, then winked at me. “The button’s right here. It’s invisible. Here we go!”

He pressed an imaginary button and made the most ridiculous rewind noises that made me giggle all over again. I was gasping for breath when he was done and he had to wait patiently for me to stop choking to death to continue.

He looked down at me, and I looked up at him. Our lips were a whisper apart, and the banked fire in his green eyes flared again.

“Record,” he murmured. Then he pushed the button and leaned in to kiss me again, for the very first time.

T
hree months later Damien Colton entered his dressing room to find me sitting on the couch wearing nothing but panties and an open zip-up hoodie, strategically placed to leave something to the imagination.

He grinned at me, and I knew he was using his imagination to its fullest capacity. Shutting the door behind him he crossed the room to the couch and settled down next to me.

“How long have you been holding that pose?” he asked.

“About ten minutes,” I admitted. “I didn’t want to be picking my nose or something when you got here. It’s all about the presentation, the perception.”

“Is that so?” Languorously he reached out and traced his finger down the teeth of the zipper, an indirect but intensely erotic caress. I shivered and Damien smiled again, this time lazily, sensuously. “Did one of your professors teach you that?”

“As a matter of fact they did,” I said. Damien was bankrolling me at NYU so I could finish my degree, and though we had a repayment plan contracted out I couldn’t help but feel I should put my degree to use for him whenever possible. Presentation was part of the acting classes I was taking—I figured senators and lawyers needed to know how to hide their feelings, something I still have no control over.

Damien reached out and twined one lock of hair through his fingers. “You look beautiful, Cassie,” he said.

“You, too, Damien.”

Then he leaned in and kissed me and the fire between us was just the same as it had been for the past three months: hungry, powerful, all consuming. It was hard not to lose myself in it, hard not to live in the fantasy.

But I’d made a promise, and I intended to keep it.

I reached for him and held him to me as his lips worked mine, deft and knowing, and I couldn’t help but smile, thinking of how this all started because he walked into the wrong elevator. Or the right one, if you want to think of it like that.

“What’s so funny?” he mumbled against my smiling mouth.

“Oh,” I said. “Nothing. Let’s record some new memories.”

“Must we?” he sighed.

“We must.”

And we did.

*

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About the Author

Ava Lore was raised by okapis and lives to corrupt the innocent. When she's not writing
erotic romance, she spends her time thinking about writing erotic romance and drinking enough iced coffee to kill a musk ox.

You can email Ava Lore at [email protected], follow her on twitter (@authoravalore) or visit her at authoravalore.com. She yearns for your approval and always loves to hear from fans.

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