The Princess and the Porn Star (13 page)

I needed more. I needed him on his back. I needed to taste him, to find out what he could do with a mouth that kissed like that. I needed to know how hard, how deep, how fast he could fuck me when we weren’t constrained by clothes or an awkward position.

But besides via Xbox—and mine was at home while I was very much
not
—I had no way to contact him. We hadn’t exchanged numbers, and I didn’t dare ask anyone who might know how to contact him. If I did, then someone would know, and before long, the press probably would too. Best not to take the risk, no matter how tempting it was.

And besides, I was scheduled within an inch of my life until the end of time. Getting in touch with him was only half the battle; I’d still need to slice out enough time for us to have more than another hurried quickie. Unless he wanted to meet me at an airport and join the Mile High Club while I was on my way from one appearance to another. Tempting. Very tempting.

But without his number or e-mail, that wasn’t happening. Though some hotels did offer Xbox…

No way. Not worth the risk of someone on the hotel staff figuring out I’m PrincessBadass.

Oh well. Such was life, I supposed.

Three weeks after we finished shooting, I was back in LA. The album dropped tonight, and the finished video would go live tomorrow. To celebrate, the record company had booked the penthouse suite at one of the premier hotels in town for the exclusive black-tie launch party. Champagne, pomp and circumstance. Typical of Risen Star.

As Quinn tied his bowtie in my foyer, he winked. “You always did know how to rock the LBD, darling.”

I laughed and glanced down at my simple black dress. Skirt just above the knees, top low enough it offered only the faintest shadow of cleavage. “Well, it’s definitely more comfortable than what I wore for the video.”

He sniffed with amusement and scrutinized his flawless bowtie in the hallway mirror. “So you’re not going to wear the stripper heels with that, then?”

“Uh, no.” I picked up my clutch off the table beneath the mirror. “If you’re done primping, we should get going.”

He glared at me but then grinned. “You don’t want to be fashionably late?”

“Not when people with the power to fire me are probably already tapping their watches.”

“Very true, very true.” He turned serious. “Sweetie, the party’s in a VIP suite. And you know it’s going to have an open bar. Are you—”

“Relax,” I said. “I haven’t touched a drink in three years. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. But if you want to leave, just say the word.”

“I will. Now let’s go.”

We left Quinn’s car with the valet at the ritzy hotel and then went inside. When we got into the elevator, Darryl Madison, one of the higher-ups at Risen Star, stepped in after us.

“Rachel,” he said, extending his hand, “sounds like you’re ready to be back at the top of your game.”

“Thanks.”

“And who is this fine gentleman?” He extended his hand to Quinn.

“Quinn Doyle,” I said.

“Rachel’s assistant,” Quinn said.

“Oh.” The corner of Darryl’s mouth twitched with thinly veiled disgust.

Quinn just smiled and drew the handshake out a little longer than necessary. When he finally let go, Darryl smiled, then watched the numbers above the doors.

Quinn and I exchanged looks, both of us smirking. Some of the suits didn’t like him because he was obviously gay. Most of them, though, didn’t like the fact that I brought my
assistant
to parties like this. God forbid anyone have a drink with the help. But none of them dared do more than wrinkle their noses or make quiet noises of disgust, because while I made a point of not being a tyrannical diva, I’d dig my heels in and raise all kinds of hell if anyone tried to elbow Quinn out. This party was to celebrate the launch of the new video and the new album. Without Quinn, I never would have gotten back into the game or made it through the last few months of insanity, and the album and video wouldn’t exist. Any snob who didn’t think Quinn had earned every drop of every top-shelf martini he’d drink tonight could go fuck himself.

The elevator reached the penthouse, and before the doors had even fully opened, Darryl squeezed through and hurried out into the hall.

“Was it something I said?” Quinn asked, batting his eyes.

I smothered a laugh and shook my head.

He offered me his elbow, and I slipped my hand into it.

“You know,” he said, eyeing my hand on his arm, “someone might get the wrong idea about us one of these days.”

“If they do, I’m sure you’ll set them straight.”

“Damn right I will.” He stuck up his nose. “I might be flawless arm candy, but I only bat for one team.”

I just laughed. I’d never admit it to him—his head would swell ten times its size—but I liked having him as my plus one. It was nice going out for an evening with someone who had my back and didn’t expect to get into my pants. All the fun of taking an actual date to a party without any of the bullshit.

Quinn and I walked into the room. We weren’t two steps through the door when he gasped.

“What?” I asked.

“Look at the bar,” he said, making a point of looking a different direction.

I rolled my eyes, then looked toward the bar. Didn’t take long to figure out what had caught his eye: that buzz cut in a bowtie with a martini shaker in his hands was so,
so
Quinn’s type. And I knew Quinn. The sleek mahogany bar and colorful rows of top shelf wouldn’t get him all flustered the way six feet of sex on wheels did every time.

“He’s cute,” I said.

“Cute?” Quinn gave me one of his what-the-fuck looks. “That man is beyond cute.”

I grinned. “Aww, how cute. Thirty seconds into the party, and the dog’s already picked out a bone.”

“You’re damn right I have.” He straightened his jacket. “Mark my words, darling. Before this night is over, I will have that man.”

“Care to place a wager?” I asked.

He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I’ll wager a full weekend off against twenty hours of voluntary overtime.”

“Is the overtime with or without complaint?”

Quinn clicked his tongue. “Do we really need to negotiate details of something that’s never going to come to fruition?”

I arched an eyebrow. “You want that full weekend off if you win?”

“Fine.” He huffed sharply. “Twenty hours of overtime, with no complaints.”

I held out my hand. “You’re on.”

We shook on it, and then he tugged at his cuffs as he threw the bartender a predatory narrow-eyed glance.

“All right. Time to score some time off.”

I laughed. “Go get him.”

He strutted toward the bar, and I just shook my head. Why I even bothered making these bets, I didn’t know. Quinn was good. He knew he was good. And he
always
won.

Then the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

He’s here
.

I turned my head. I found him. I almost dropped to my knees and melted.

The man I wanted, needed,
had
to have again looked right back at me, pale green eyes meeting mine over the top of a martini glass, and the son of a bitch—like every man in the room—was wearing a tux.

I needed a drink. Not an alcoholic one, just a cold one that might take care of my suddenly dry mouth and skyrocketing body temperature.

The bar was only halfway across the room, but it may as well have been miles away for as easy as it was to reach. A record exec stopped to congratulate me. Rich introduced me to the head of marketing. A couple of reviewers told me with thin-lipped, fake-as-fuck smiles that they were excited to see my new video and hear the album. I didn’t even have time to be skeptical or wonder just what nastiness they’d have to say about the music or the video. I just needed something cold and wet in my mouth. Something to calm me down as much as I could possibly calm down with that undeniable presence prickling my skin and screwing with my pulse.

Finally, after politely bowing out of half a dozen conversations, I made it to the bar. Quinn glared at me as I distracted his prey for a moment, but then he just grinned into his martini glass—top shelf and free, no doubt—and craned his neck as the bartender bent over to pull a bottle of water from the minifridge. To Quinn, I mouthed,
You’re welcome
.

He just winked.

“Rachel?”

I turned around, and suddenly I was alone with Lee. Buzzing voices and clinking glasses faded into the background.

“Lee,” I finally managed to choke out. “Hi.”

He smiled. “Long time, no see.”

“Yeah.” I gulped. “Too long.”

“You look incredible,” he said.

“So do you.” I couldn’t help doing another quick down-up, and when our eyes met again, his narrowed as the corner of his mouth pulled up.

“So, um…” He cleared his throat. “How have you been?”

“Good. Good.”

“Sounds like you’ve been traveling a lot lately,” he said. “With all the…appearances. And stuff.”

I nodded. “Yeah. They’re running me into the ground.”

I wish you’d run me into the ground.

That thought ignited intense heat in my cheeks, and I quickly went for the bottle of not-nearly-cold-enough water in my hand.

Stilted small talk was like a foreign language when it came to talking to Lee. It was even more awkward than when we’d first met on the video set and had no idea how to interact at all.

But there was something hanging over us this time. Something that needed to be said but couldn’t be, not with press and Risen Star executives lurking around us.

I had no idea what to say, mostly because I was afraid anything I tried to say would come out as “last time wasn’t enough” and “I want you every way I can have you.” I’d never had this much difficulty being articulate with a man. Even at my highest, I’d been able to form coherent sentences most of the time, at least enough to avoid saying something completely inappropriate. Or maybe I was just so high I didn’t care. But right now, sober and lucid, I couldn’t say what I wanted to say because there were too many people around, and I couldn’t say anything else because I was afraid I’d just say what I wanted to.

I nervously swept the tip of my tongue across my lips, and right then, caught Lee’s eye. His gaze darted toward my mouth. Then my eyes again. We both quickly looked away, but not for long.

Eye contact. Clearing throats. Not speaking. How the hell did we stop being awkward with all these people around?

Lee glanced around the room. Then, “Do you have your phone with you?”

I nodded.

He made a subtle beckoning gesture.

I pulled my phone out of my clutch and set it on the bar.

Lee picked it up. He held it under the edge of the bar, and his eyebrows pulled together as he thumbed something into the phone.

Then he set it back on the bar and surreptitiously slid it back toward me. I figured he’d entered his own contact info into the phone, but when the screen came to life, it was on the notepad app, where Lee had written:
Rm 3279. Come by after the party?

I met his eyes, and the lift of his eyebrows echoed the question mark on his note. I pulled in a breath to tell him I would definitely—

“And
there’s
the stars!” Jim came out of nowhere, and his hand materialized on my shoulder. “How about a picture?”

“A—” I suddenly found myself looking down the barrel of a massive camera lens, and instinctively leaned in and smiled.

The blinding flash left me seeing spots, and as I tried to blink my vision back into focus, Jim said, “We’re going to screen the video in just a moment.”

“Great,” I said.

“But first, I have someone I want you both to meet.” He herded us toward a couple of comb-overs in tuxes. “This is Jack Rowan, president of Risen Star Records.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

“A pleasure,” Lee said.

We each shook hands with Jack, and then he said, “You know, I wasn’t so sure about Jim’s idea. I mean, a porn star in a music video?” He laughed and narrowly avoided dumping his martini down the front of my dress. “But between Jim and you two, it worked. It really worked. People are going to love it!”

I responded with a watery smile. So did Lee. Hadn’t we both heard this same backhanded compliment a hundred times?

A fork clinked sharply against a glass like the prelude to a wedding toast.

Every conversation died down, and everyone turned toward the front of the room, where another exec now stood with a martini glass in his hand. “I want to welcome everyone to the launch of
Battle Cry
, the newest album by Risen Star recording artist Olivia Taylor.”

Polite applause tightened the knot in my stomach. Being in the same room as Lee was maddening enough. The message on my phone didn’t help. Seeing us together in the video?

Oh God. I’m going go to burst into flames before I ever make it to Room 3279.