Starlight (Peaches Monroe) (Volume 2) Paperback – September 2, 2013 (4 page)

We stopped at a red light, and Mitchell jumped out of his Miada up ahead of us and dashed back. “Roommate disaster unfolding. Custom dress, wrong sequins, giant tantrum. Sorry, but I have to bail on sushi.” He handed a business card to Keith to pass to me. “Call me if you need anything. Please forgive me for bailing. See you Tuesday!”

The light changed and people were already honking as he dashed back up to his car.

Keith turned his head and gave me a deliciously naughty look, his brown eyes twinkling under a wavy lock of black hair. “I think we can do better than sushi.”

I chuckled nervously and crossed my legs, feeling younger and much stupider than twenty-two. A good-looking man with a muscular torso and a sizable flotation device will do that to you, even if he
says
his confidence is all an act.

Keith crossed three lanes and turned right, looping back the way we’d come.

He wouldn't give me any hints, then he took me to a cozy steak and seafood restaurant where everybody seemed to know him.

A man I assumed was the owner came by with a bottle of chilled vodka and tiny glasses. “My man,” he said to Keith as he poured us all drinks. “I decided on the Alfa Romeo. You’ll have to take it on the PCH sometime, trade me your wheels for the day.”

I accepted the glass of vodka and shot it back, as I didn’t want to be rude. “Smooth,” I said, smacking my lips. “You do know he drives a green van straight out of a
Scooby-Doo
movie, don’t you?”

The man laughed, partly distracted by another group of people waving him over. “You make sure my man takes good care of you,” he said. “Because if he doesn’t, you know where to find me.” He winked twice, then waved at the other table and headed their way with the bottle of vodka.

“I met Edgar when I started to do the landscaping,” Keith explained. “Don’t get your hopes up. Edgar winks at all the girls, but he goes home to his wife, Vanessa.”

“She’s a lucky woman.”

A waitress with long, dark hair came by our table with a tasting plate, on the house.

I noticed Keith wasn’t checking out the hot waitress, but gazing at me, a look of adoration on his face.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked.

He seemed surprised by the question, and didn’t answer.

I continued, “I’m sure you have a dozen girls on your phone who’d be here with you tonight in a heartbeat. Scrawny girls with big, round boobs up to their chins.”

“I’ve decided not to date models or actresses anymore. I want a real girl, who’s honest.”

“I should introduce you to my roommate.”

“Maybe I’ll have to come visit your town. Foxworth? Farmville? No, that’s not a real town, is it?”

“Beaverdale.” I watched as he drained a tall glass of water. “Did you really take diuretics before today’s shoot?”

“You have to, as a male model. The world may accept a voluptuous girl in her underwear, but it’s a total double standard. We men have to be hard. Rock hard.”

“Speaking of which, did you have a sock stuffed in there? Underneath your goodies?”

He grinned and took the prop glasses out of his blazer pocket and put them on, turning into Clark Kent.

“I know those glasses are fake,” I said.

“But I still like wearing them to read menus.”

“You’re crazy,” I said. “But at least it’s a cute kind of crazy.”

He perused the menu, avoiding my question about stuffing his shorts. Oh, that faux-nerdy look was doing a number on me. He made the room feel warm and my clothes feel restrictive with the simple addition of fake glasses.

That single shot of vodka had gone straight to my head, loosening my inhibitions.

I kicked his foot under the table. “Hey, so what else about today was fake? You gonna tell me or do I have to pat you down?”

He flipped over the menu as he said, “This is a trade secret, so keep it under your hat, but we underwear models use a loop with Velcro. It goes under and over and fluffs everything up.”

“Like a cock ring?”

He flipped the menu page, looking studious. “Yes. Cock and balls.” He looked up at me, catching my breath with his brown eyes, still dazzling in the dim candle light of the steak house. “Don’t be worried about my circulation. I took everything off right after the shoot.”

The waitress returned and we were silent as she set down our drinks—vodka and soda, Keith’s choice. It was also my mother’s favorite drink, and I didn’t mind it sometimes, though I prefer sweeter drinks, usually, like sangria.

I took the smallest sip, my body loosening up just from the smell and the idea of more booze.

Some other ideas floated through my head, including me playing nurse and checking on Keith’s circulation.

Booze always makes me horny.

I felt my cheeks flush, remembering the interesting shapes that had been visible in the pouch front of Keith’s underwear that day. There’d been a lot there for a girl to hang onto.

We placed our food order, and after the waitress was gone, I said, “I wasn’t worried about your circulation, not until now. Are you sure that’s safe?”

“Why don’t you reach under the table and feel for yourself?”

I snorted and sat upright. “I have a boyfriend.”

“How long is the charade set to last?”

“What? You’re weird. I don’t know if I can even talk about Dalton. I signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Which is too bad, because I know some pretty interesting things about the guy.”

“Figures,” he said, nodding. “Forget him, then. Tell me about your favorite books. Your top five deserted island picks.”

How did he do that? Switch from being an incorrigible tease to being a gracious dining companion? Was it the fake glasses?

“Only if you tell me yours,” I said.

He began counting them off on his fingers, as if he’d been waiting for someone to ask this question. “First of all,
Swiss Family Robinson
. Classic story, plus appropriate to the situation, I think.”

I took a sip of my drink—a little bland for my taste, but refreshing—and leaned in with interest as he talked about his favorite books, which were mostly from his childhood.

Our food arrived, and we still weren’t through the list, because I had to keep arguing with him and lobbying for my own favorite books.

We ate and laughed, and I forgot about everything in the world that existed outside of the warm glow of the candle on our table.

“And last, but not least,” he said, “
Call of the Wild.
”

I gasped. “That book always made me cry. You wouldn’t think a story told from the perspective of a dog would be so heart-rending, would you?”

“I know! It seems so silly. I love dogs, but I wouldn’t expect great art from them.”

I grinned, feeling a pleasant buzz from the drinks, good food, and bookish conversation. “Not every dog has it in him to write an epic tale like that.”

Keith tossed back his drink and crunched the ice cubes, keeping eye contact with me the whole time. “This is a great song.” He nodded toward the small, checkerboard dance floor. “Come on, let’s dance off some of this meal.”

The music did have a hypnotic, trippy quality, but no one else was dancing.

“I don’t think you can handle my moves,” I said, shaking my head.

He was already up, offering his hand.

“Oh, hell.” I got up and followed him onto the dance floor.

Keith was doing an admirable job keeping my mind off my imminent break-up, so the least I could do was provide him with a laugh or two at my goofball attempt to move my body to music.

The song changed as soon as we got to the dance floor (doesn’t it always?) and he caught me in his arms.

“Grab onto me,” he said.

“You sure like to say that.”

“And you sure like to peer at me through those pale eyelashes like a flirt, and make me want to kiss you.”

“Stop being so flirty. We have a professional relationship, and I’m not available to you.”

He pulled me in closer, our bodies swaying together easily.

His lips next to my ear, he murmured, “I have those soft bags of topsoil in the back of my van. We don’t even need to drive anywhere. I could be all yours.” His hands traveled down past the small of my back, over my buttocks.

I grabbed his hands and moved them back up again. “Mitchell warned me about you male models, and I should have listened. Now I’m pressed up against all your bumps, and I’m not sure it’s even legal for you to have all these bumps.”

“Bumps,” he said, chuckling.

As we danced some more, he gazed down at me like he couldn’t understand why I was resisting his advances.

And why was I resisting? My affair with Dalton Deangelo had been brief and exciting, but was now as good as over. Did I really care if brown-eyed and charm-oozing Keith had a dozen girlfriends? The attention was nice. The dancing was sexy. He put me at ease, except when his hands traveled down to my ass and I thought about riding him like the twenty-five-cent horsie-ride machine at the grocery store.

Ride A Champion
, the horsie-ride machine proclaimed.

Keith Raven certainly was… a champion. As we danced, I imagined him murmuring stage directions to me in bed the way he had during the shoot.

He leaned down and whispered near my ear, “Those photos of us are going to be so hot.”

“I’m worried about the lack of airbrushing.”

He laughed, loud enough to turn heads in the restaurant around us.

I pinched his butt. “Don’t make fun. I’ve eaten a few more cookies than you, and I assumed there’d be some digital sculpting. Mitchell told me the photographer doesn’t do that.”

Keith swept a lock of my hair behind my ear.

“You know how magazines have spreads on the no-makeup looks? And really it’s just natural shades and as much makeup as any other look? That photographer does the no-retouching look, but trust me, there’s retouching.”

“I’m so relieved I could kiss you!”

His eyebrows quirked up, and then he was kissing me, his hot lips on… my cheek. It ended as quickly as it began, and he said, “You’re welcome.”

I looked around, feeling guilty about a silly cheek kiss. If a paparazzi saw us together, and Dalton saw the photos—and he might even see them instantly, thanks to the magic of the internet—he’d be hurt. I was through with him, but I was no monster.

“I should get going,” I said, pulling away.

“Has anyone taken you to get a great night view of the Hollywood sign yet?”

I shook my head, no. I’d been in LA only one night. My sense of time stretched out like gooey taffy. Had it really been just one night? The lack of sleep was playing tricks with my sense of reality. I wanted to climb into bed. With Keith. His body had been next to mine for most of the day, and I ached to press myself against him. I didn’t want anything from him emotionally. Just his sweet, sweet skin. And his hands. And maybe a little taste of his money maker. The poor thing had been fluffed up, collared, and stuffed into so many underpants that day. He could probably use a massage after all that hard work, filling out pouches.

“Sure, let’s see the Hollywood sign,” I said.

He held his arm out like a gentleman to escort me back to our table. He took care of the bill quickly, then whisked me out of the restaurant.

The inside of his van smelled even earthier now, in the dark of night. The scent of the dirt drove me crazy in a way that surprised me.

My tongue was awake and calling my attention. My tongue wanted to be inside Keith’s mouth. I kept my mouth shut, wondering how my tongue had gotten so randy all of a sudden. My mouth watered, and my tongue swirled around like a hamster on an exercise wheel, going nowhere fast.

I should have stopped drinking after the first vodka and soda, like Keith.

“How did you get into modeling?” I asked.

We were driving through a neighborhood that would have alarmed me if we’d been in a fancy car. The green van blended right in, though, and nobody even batted an eyelash our way.

“Officially, I was scouted after appearing in a charity calendar.”

“What do you mean,
officially
? Is that not true?”

“True enough,” he said. “As true as anyone’s story around here. A word of advice? Don’t ever go peeling back the onion layers. You’ll only find more of the same onion.”

I gazed over at his profile in admiration. “You’re more than just a pretty face and a full underwear pouch, Keith Raven.”

He grinned and fiddled with the buttons of the radio on the van’s dash. “Raven’s actually my middle name. My real last name is Lipschitz.”

“Not as marketable.” I zipped up my jacket.

Keith noticed this and wordlessly turned on the van’s heater.

“Cool night,” he said.

I inhaled the rich, loamy scent in the van and settled into my seat. Finally, I was starting to come down from the action of the day, but I had a new problem. Finding out Keith’s last name was Lipschitz had only made me want to kiss him more.

After a few more minutes of driving, Keith pulled the van to the side of the road and stopped the engine.

He jumped out and was at my side to help me step down before I even had my seat belt off.

We were in an area with few street lamps, and the night was inky black around us. I took Keith’s hand so I wouldn’t stumble in the dark, and followed as he led me up a hill.

When we crested the rise, there was the sign.

“Wow,” I said. “I’ve seen it so many times in movies and on TV, that I have to remind myself this is the first time I’m seeing it for real.”

“For real?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’ve never been to LA before.”

We were still holding hands from the climb, and he turned to look down at me. In the darkness, his brown eyes looked black and dangerous, his cheeks gaunt.

“We think we know what’s real and what isn’t,” he said. “Who’s to say you haven’t seen this sign a thousand times for real? Who’s to say that when you close your eyes and imagine something happening, like kissing a beautiful stranger, that it isn’t just as real as whatever happens when your eyes are open?”

“My eyes are wide open now. This is real.”

“Is the sky above us real?”

I gazed up at the night sky. Because of the city light and the smog in the valley, I couldn’t see any stars. The city itself, with its twinkling lights, made its own starlight.