Starlight (Peaches Monroe) (Volume 2) Paperback – September 2, 2013 (5 page)

Keith was so close to me, I could feel his body heat radiating my way. He murmured, “
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
”

I pulled away, a bitter taste in my mouth. “That’s Oscar Wilde. You’re using someone else’s words.”

“That’s from
Lady Windermere’s Fan
. You work in a bookstore, so I assumed you knew that quote.” He pulled me back toward him. “I’m not trying to pull one over on you, Peaches. I’m a gardener with the last name of Lipschitz, and I brought you to see this beautiful view because I was hoping to kiss you.”

I turned and took in the Hollywood sign again. If the letters were all in a perfectly-aligned row, it wouldn’t look as real. The flaws, including some of the sections not being as brightly-lit, were what made me believe I was seeing the sign and not imagining it.

Keith wrapped his arms around me from behind, scooping me in close to him. How good it felt to be embraced. On a cool summer night, there is no feeling greater than this. I trembled at his touch.

He murmured near my ear, “The only thing more adorable than you looking up at the sky for stars is you looking at that sign with stars in your eyes.”

I snorted. “Stars in my eyes? You’re so corny.”

“How about some more Oscar Wilde?
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
”

“That one makes me sad.”

He kissed the top of my head from behind. “Don’t be sad. Tell me what makes you happy, and I’ll do it.”

“Keep holding me like this forever.”

He leaned down and nibbled the edge of my ear. A fierce desire shot through my body like a shot of ice-cold vodka.

For the second time in less than a month, a way-too-hot man was touching me. Actually, it was the third time, if you counted play-wrestling with my former high school crush, Adrian Storm. I was becoming quite the squeeze toy for hot dudes. The downside to being a boy toy was that the boys would get bored and move on. The upside was the squeezing.

Oh, yes. The squeezing.

“I feel so safe in your arms,” I said.

“You shouldn’t feel safe at all,” he growled sexily. “I know we just had dinner, but I could eat you up in one bite. I took the last name Raven because it’s short for Ravenous.”

I shuddered at the rasp in his voice. “You were really helpful during the photo shoot today. All your coaching was so practical.”

“Practical?” He made a sound that was a cross between purring and growling, and licked the crevice behind my ear. “I had to say something to take my mind off all the dirty things I wanted to do to you.”

“You should have done those things for the photos.”

“It’s not underwear modeling if the underwear’s on the floor.”

“Right. That would be porn, I suppose.”

He purred and licked my ear again, which made my eyes roll up into my head with pleasure.

When I finally caught my breath again, I said, “Have you ever done any… nude stuff?”

“Not on film,” he replied with a chuckle. “Why? Do you want to make a sex tape with me and leak it on the internet?”

“Not tonight,” I said jokingly. “My hair’s a bit messy.”

“I wouldn’t make that video,” he said. “If I ever got lucky enough to be with you, it would be very private and very personal.”

I looked down at his forearms, covered by his blazer jacket, wrapped around me and framing my breasts. The jacket was pushed up enough I could see the dark hair on his arms. The hair was very short, like it had been trimmed, which seemed probable.

He continued, “As for tonight, though, all I want is a kiss.”

“That’s all you want?”

“All I want for tonight.”

In the silence that followed, I had a little argument with myself.
He’s lying, and he wants to brag about having you as a conquest
, howled the suspicious detective part of me.
He’s lying, and he’s a filthy sex addict
, said the part of me who wears librarian glasses and her hair in a bun. Then my randy tongue jumped into the argument and started yelling incoherently: MOUTH! KISS! TONGUE-KISS! TONGUE WANT MOUTH!

I have never been in the situation of being involved with two men at once, but I was keenly aware of the wrongness of my desires. Sure, I had broken up with Dalton in my heart, but I hadn’t uttered the magic words, so I technically wasn’t a free agent. I wasn’t free to drill my tongue into a sexy model’s face like I was trying to get the last of the Nutella out of a jar.

But then, despite my reservations, I was turning, turning clockwise, turning in Keith’s arms, away from the glowing Hollywood sign and toward his glowing Hollywood face.

His mouth came down and met my lips hesitantly. His skin smelled like sunshine, even in the dark.

I didn’t know if it was an act, or what, but he kissed me exactly like someone who doesn’t kiss someone new very often. He paused, waiting for me to move before he parted his lips. My tongue charged ahead, into his mouth. He moaned in surprise, but then inhaled deeply and relaxed his jaw, his mouth welcoming.

His saliva was sweet and clean, and I wanted to crawl inside his gorgeous mouth, decorate it with throw pillows, and live there forever.

Then his hands were on my back, rubbing up and down as we kissed, keeping me from floating away. I reached down and did something I’d wanted to do since the minute I’d seen him—I slipped my hands into the back pockets of his jeans and clutched his remarkable ass.

Oh, what an ass it was. Not skinny, but pleasant and round. I dug my fingertips in, pulling my body in tighter to his.

To my surprise, Keith’s hands didn’t stray from my back. We stood and kissed under the night sky, both of us fully clothed, for what must have been close to an hour. My body ached for more, but I was also relieved to be enjoying this moment, this kissing.

I didn’t want to compare, but Keith was one of the better kissers I’d experienced, if not
the
very best. He mostly kept his eyes closed, except he seemed to sense when I opened mine, and then he opened his and gave me a shy look before going back to kissing.

His face had been closely shaved earlier that day, and his chin was only faintly raspy against mine. He kissed his way down my cheek and onto my neck. His touch was gentle and maddening, because I wanted more. Or did I? Being kissed gently on the neck was less overwhelming than having my neck sucked on, but the sensation still tingled all through my body.

I wanted to stay there and kiss him until the sun came up, but the day caught up to me, and one of my kisses turned into a yawn.

He pulled back and looked at me sideways. “I’m boring you?”

“Not at all.” With his eyes on me, my tiredness disappeared instantly. “I didn’t sleep last night. I was nervous about the shoot.” That last part was only part of the truth, but it was all I wanted to think about.

“You’re probably at some sad hotel, right? Do you want to stay over at my place tonight? My sister just moved out, but she left her bed, so I have a spare room. We both have the day off tomorrow, so I can be your tour guide.”

“I don’t know.”

“I live not far from here. I swear, there’s an entire bedroom for you. You can even lock the door if you’re worried.”

I poked him in the chest. “You’d better lock
your
door, mister.”

His eyebrow quirked up. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll find the drawer where you keep your felt pens and I’ll draw boobs on your forehead while you’re sleeping.”

“I’ve never known a girl from Washington before. Are they all as fun as you?”

“Don’t be silly. I’m not that fun. My roommate is the fun one.” I yawned again. “See?” I pointed to my mouth. “It’s not even that late, and I’m ready for my tuck-in.”

He started toward the path leading to the van, his elbow out again like a gentleman. “Come on, then. I’ll fold down the blankets and give you your tuck-in.”

As we drove to Keith’s apartment, I savored the sensation of stepping into someone else’s life, like a tourist.

Something occurred to me.

As I smelled the soil bags in the van and looked around at Keith’s neighborhood, I realized this was how Dalton must have felt when he saw me working in the bookstore, and then tagged along to my cousin Marita’s wedding. Like a tourist. There to take some photos and make some memories. But wasn’t that also the whole point of life?

My thoughts circled and bit their own tails.

I don’t know about you, but I get terribly philosophical when I’m overly tired to the point of hallucinating.

The underwear model driving the van turned to smile at me. Maybe I was hallucinating? That would certainly explain a few things.

We pulled up to Keith’s apartment building, which was the color of my terra cotta pots back home, and cheerily accented by landscape lighting. Great curb appeal.

The building had a central courtyard, with a shimmering pool, and not another soul in sight. Everything looked about sixty years old and worn from use, but taken care of.

Keith was all apologies as he opened the door of his apartment, explaining that he’d been meaning to clean and decorate, but wasn’t sure how long he’d be staying.

Besides a few dirty dishes in the kitchen, the place looked fine to me.

I stumbled around, feeling clumsy and bleary-eyed.

Keith loaned me a shirt to sleep in, I used the toiletries I’d taken with me to the shoot in my purse, and I crashed hard on the comfortable spare room bed, face down. I jerked awake five seconds after falling asleep—one of those feeling-like-you’re-falling sensations—and opened my eyes to see a photograph on the nightstand of two beautiful, dark-haired girls staring down at me.

“Never you mind,” I muttered, flipping the photo over and then myself. Sleep came to me, as welcome as buttered muffins, hot from the oven, only to be interrupted by…

The sound of my telephone ringing.

Brightness. Morning already?

“Hi Dad,” I grumbled sleepily, because I knew his ring—or at least I thought I did.

The room was bright, but if there was an alarm clock, it was hiding from me.

“That’s kinky,” came the voice on the other line.

“Who’s this?”

“Your pony, Lionheart.”

Shit. Not my father. Dalton Deangelo, that lying devil.

“You remember Lionheart,” he said.

I grunted, unsure of how to inform him I wasn’t speaking to him, now that he had me on the phone.

He continued, “You didn’t sleep at my house last night, and I got worried. Did you go to a hotel close to the photographer’s studio?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Where are you?” he replied.

“Wait. How do you know I’m not at your house? Do you have creepy spy cams all over that place?”

“Not spy cams, but I can log in remotely to the security system. I can tell that everything’s armed now and the house has been empty all night.”

“You’re not wrong.”

A pause. “Something’s wrong with you, though.”

“I’ll say.”

“What did you hear?” he asked, sounding less than innocent.

“I didn’t
hear
anything, unless you count the stuff I heard in my head—the stuff I can’t get
out
of my head. I read your script, Dalton. Your little game is up, because I know all about you now. I know what a lying, deceiving twatweasel you are.”

“Did you just call me a twatweasel?”

“Don’t change the subject. Just level with me, one adult to another. Admit you were stringing me along using lines from the script for your movie with the dumb name,
We’re all Stardust
or whatever.”

“
We are Made of Stardust.
That’s the title.”

“Is that all you have to say? No explanation? Well, I hope you got in a lot of awesome research about what it’s like to nail a chubbo, because the next one you get won’t be me.”

“Peaches.”

“Furthermore, I hope the next chubbo you bang for sport is really big and smothers you past the point of enjoyment, until you’re gasping for breath and afraid for your life.”

“What are you talking about?” Heavy sigh. “Okay, I’m remembering some lines that may have bothered you. You do realize that was a movie script you read? It’s not exactly a true account of how I feel. Plus whatever copy was lying around my house is an older one. It’s not even the current version.”

“Oh, really? So when you said that line to me,
Join me in the darkness, walk through my dreams, and hold my hand in the morning light
, did you mean that?”

“Sure. Who wouldn’t? It’s a great line.”

I held the phone away from my head and shook it. The door to the bedroom was closed, but I had no sense of where in the apartment Keith was at the moment, or how thin the walls were.

Slowly and calmly, so I wasn’t yelling, I asked Dalton what I really wanted to know: “When you ran into me at the bookstore and asked me out on a date, was that research for your role?”

I heard a smacking sound in the silence, like the sound of someone’s mouth opening and closing because they’re nervous.

Finally, he said, “I really like you. Everything I said to you, I meant.”

“That doesn’t sound like an apology, or the answer I wanted to hear.”