Undone, Volume 1 (6 page)

“Let’s get out of
here and go somewhere together.”

So vague and somewhat
letchy, but boy did it sound inviting. “I…” How could I just
walk out on a shift? Ditch my responsibilities? Maybe rock stars did
that kind of thing all the time, but not piano-teaching librarians.
We showed up on time, prepared, with a helpful, accommodating
attitude and stayed until we got the job done.

“I have to do
storytime at three.”

“Storytime?”

I’m reading
Olive
the Other Reindeer
.”

“All of the other
reindeer?”

“No, Olive. You
haven’t heard of it?” He looked at me, bemused and blank. I
guessed if he didn’t have kids in his life there was no reason he’d
have come across the Christmas book. “It’s really clever and
sweet. Olive is this little dog who misunderstands the song. She
thinks ‘All of the other reindeer’ is ‘Olive, the other
reindeer.’”

“All of the other
reindeer,” he sang softly into my ear. Ooh, that put me on pause.
His husky voice, like aged whisky poured over ice, such a dangerous
blend of soothing and sexy. How could he make a line of “Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer” sound so good it made me want to take off
my panties? I guess that’s why they called him an idol.

“So,” I exhaled,
the hitch in my voice betraying how tempted I felt.

“You’re turning me
down to read to kids about a confused dog?” He smiled at me. I
blushed. It did sound stupid when he put it like that. “I like your
priorities,” he insisted. “But when do you get off?”

Get off. He gave that
simple, innocent phrase a whole new twist. I bet if I met up with him
he’d get me off. Probably give me the best orgasm of my life.
Probably pin me down and take me, rough, plunge into me so hard I’d
scream for more.

“I can pick you up at
five,” he offered.

“I teach piano
lessons until nine.”

“You’re a piano
teacher too?” He looked delighted at the news.

“Yeah.”

He shook his head,
marveling at me. “A librarian piano teacher. I’ve hit the
jackpot.”

I had to laugh. My
career choices had never exactly invoked that response before. I
mostly got a slightly bored reaction. Not hot like the fashion
industry, sexy like modeling, creative like an artist, or big money
in any sort of way. When I met people my age and told them what I
did, I usually got a detached nod, maybe some head-scratching, and a
subject change.

“You’re perfect.”

And it was Ash Black
saying that, all muscular six foot two inches of him, praising me in
his famously gravelly, seductive voice. I blushed. And I laughed.

I couldn’t stop
laughing. I felt so giddy, as if I might float away like a helium
balloon untied from its mooring. The lead singer of my favorite band,
the bad boy starring in my late night fantasies, standing there
holding my hand and complimenting me in my tiny, dingy break room.
This would be a great story for my roommates.

“What’s making you
laugh?” He looked at me, a smile on those delicious lips.

“I’m just imagining
telling my roommates what happened today at work.”

“Oh, how you had to
help that little girl check out some books?”

“Yeah, that.” I
cracked up again. “And the rock star who ran in behind my desk.”

“What will they say?”
Oh my, he still held my hand as we spoke, our fingers intertwined
like a perfect fit. I swear, in the middle of this December day the
man radiated heat and his chest was so broad. That leather jacket was
unzipped, revealing a plain, faded black shirt. It looked like it was
cotton and I bet it would be soft to touch, but he’d be hard
underneath.

I swallowed. “My
roommate Liv won’t be impressed. She’ll probably go on a rant
about corporate rock.” She’d shaved her head last week and gotten
a new tattoo on one of the few remaining bare patches on her right
arm.

“No?” he asked, low
and husky. He brought his hand up to my hair and caught a strand
between his fingers, feeling it as if it were fine silk. “How about
your other roommate?”

“Jillian. She’ll be
worried.”

“Worried?” His hand
continued to work magic, stroking my hair, making me feel like a
gorgeous, rare treasure.

“You know, a
dangerous rock star. Swooping down unannounced.”

“Pouncing on an
innocent, unsuspecting librarian.”

“Yes.” I cleared my
throat. What was he doing with his hand? Now he brought a finger to
my cheek, stroking me so lightly.

“She’s right.”
Slowly, slowly making his way over to my mouth, he teased my bottom
lip, grazing the edge. “I’m very dangerous.”

A slight gasp slipped
from my lips. This couldn’t be happening. I wasn’t standing next
to Ash Black in our break room, and he certainly wasn’t touching
me, making me throb and ache and start breathing all jagged and quick
as I leaned in to him.

“You’re so
beautiful,” he whispered, tilting his head down. “May I kiss you,
Anika?”

“Oh,” my delighted
sigh answered yes for me, and before I knew what was happening, he
kissed me. His lips down on mine, so simple and easy, but it felt
anything but. Melted chocolate, dipping and seducing, one taste
simply wasn’t enough. Hand up to his shoulder, eyes closed, slow
and insistent, licking, teasing at the edge. My lips parted and he
nibbled, light, along my bottom lip plump between his teeth. It made
me catch my breath, clutch his shoulder, that small movement, such a
slight shift but so much promise in it. The blend of sweet and
wicked, the heat he could stoke within me with the slightest gesture.

“So soft.” He
caressed my cheek as if mesmerized by my skin. Light kisses, he
trailed down my neck and I tilted my head back, eyes closed. This
clearly wasn’t happening. All of my late night fantasies had taken
over somehow. Maybe I’d fallen, slipped and banged my head and
knocked myself out. This was what I was cooking up in my blackout.
I’d wake up any second in a hospital room, my worried parents
sitting at my bedside, my head feeling all thick and fuzzy.

But for now, the
fantasy still reigned and Ash Black pressed into me, trailing hot
kisses along my neck. The stubble on his cheek felt as rough and
gritty as I’d wondered, adding a delicious edge to his adoring
attentions. He brought his hand to my waist, still keeping it chaste,
sort of, his fingers caressing my side, my lower back, my stomach. A
moan escaped my lips as he licked me, sucking lightly at my tender
flesh along my neck. I fisted his jacket and brought a hand to his
chest, a wall of muscle and heat, hard and powerful and solid. He
made a sound low in his throat and the way he touched me, kissed me,
made me feel like I was amazing, a rare precious jewel he’d somehow
discovered, completely unexpected and yet exactly what he’d been
searching for.

I clutched his
shoulder, his side, wanting him closer, wanting more of his heat, his
hardness. He wrapped his hand in my hair, tight in his fist, tilting
my head further back as he plundered my mouth with his tongue. With a
step forward, he had me against the counter, his thighs pressing
against mine, his musky, masculine scent enveloping me.

Dimly, I became aware
of a buzzing sound, an angry, persistent sort of an alarm. But it
blended with the roar of blood, the rush of our breathing, the steady
beat of my heart. Until he pulled away and took his phone out of his
pocket.

“Shit, sorry.” He
turned it off, shaking his head. “My agent.”

“Hmm.” I bit my
lip, trying to remember where I was. My break room. With Ash Black.
What was happening, exactly?

“He keeps calling.
There’s a thing going on.”

I nodded. He checked a
message on his phone, letting go of my waist. I shouldn’t miss the
contact so much. My lips, my body shouldn’t feel empty and suddenly
cold, just because I wasn’t in the arms of a rock star anymore.

“Fuck.” He frowned,
looking at the screen.

“Everything OK?”

He looked up, troubled.
“Just some fallout. From a video.”

That’s right. I
remembered a video my roommate Jillian had showed me. She loved Mandy
Monroe. I found her songs too sugary for my taste, too packaged and
sweet. I liked my music with more energy and raw passion. But Ash
Black had been an asshole, hadn’t he? Breaking up with her in the
middle of a restaurant while she cried.

“You saw it.” He
watched me, concern now lacing his dark, gorgeous eyes. Such long
lashes on a man. It wasn’t fair.

“I saw it,” I
confirmed. “But I try not to believe everything I see on a YouTube
video.”

He exhaled, I could
have sworn from relief, though why he should care so much about the
opinion of some librarian he just met I had no idea.

“Were you a jerk to
her?” I had to ask. It didn’t matter, not really. I’d never see
him again. He’d walk out of this break room in the next minute and
I’d stand there touching my lips and wondering if I’d completely
made up our kiss. So I knew I shouldn’t waste the last few words we
said to each other on confirming some gossipy rumor. But I wanted to
know.

He looked at me as if
weighing his options. And when he chose honesty, I felt strangely
proud of him. “Yes, I was a jerk,” he admitted. “But there’s
a lot more to the story than those 30 seconds.”

I nodded, believing
him. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like breaking up
with Stan if he had been able to post a video of me to an audience of
millions. I didn’t think I’d ever said anything too mean, but I
was sure he could find something, some ugly moment when I’d been
returning his gym bag and looking grouchy and unappealing. I couldn’t
imagine having every second of my life under such intense scrutiny. I
almost felt bad sending him off again into it all, that mob of angry
waiting photographers literally chasing him down the sidewalk.

“I have to go.” He
sounded regretful, looking at me like he’d much rather stay right
there. Maybe it was the quiet he liked. I understood that.

“Meet me tonight?”
he asked, sounding strangely nervous and expectant. He had to have
asked that of thousands of girls in his life. In fact, I bet he
didn’t even have to ask most of the time, they just showed up at
his hotel room or at parties. Wherever he was, I was sure women threw
themselves at him with gusto. Then what was he doing standing there
with me, looking absurdly vulnerable and concerned that I might
reject him?

“You want to see me
tonight?” I had to ask for confirmation.

“I want to see you
again. I mean, this break room is amazing.” He gestured at the
small, dented microwave. “I could probably heat you up a
cup-o-noodles in that, no problem.” I had to laugh again. He didn’t
even know how loud that microwave was, buzzing and humming like hive
of angry bees. “But I’m staying at the Grand. Meet me there when
you’re free?”

“You want me to meet
you at your hotel?” This was like every Stranger Danger pamphlet my
mother had ever handed me, and believe me, she’d really gotten her
hands on a lot of material. Paranoid, over-protective, she’d
drilled the word “no” into me from a very young age.

“We can have a drink
down in the lobby,” he offered, seeming to sense my mother’s
telepathic worry through the airwaves, traveling at light speed all
the way down from upstate New York.

“Won’t you get
mobbed?” I pictured the brash, aggressive faces of those
photographers. He’d be like a sitting duck there, wouldn’t he?

“No, they’ve got
good security. Someone can always still sneak in a camera phone, but
they won’t last long if they take it out and start filming.”

Hmm. Ash Black was
famous for being a bad boy. He had a long, well-publicized history of
tearing through gorgeous women. And he was seductive as hell. Those
were like the top three items on my mother’s long list of Things to
Avoid in Men. I could still picture Mandy Monroe’s tear-stained
face, sitting alone in that restaurant.

But then, here he was,
Ash Black, looking at me with those bedroom eyes, crooking his sexy
lips into an inviting smile. I could practically see him patting the
back of a motorcycle seat. Hop on, he seemed to be saying. Let’s go
for a ride.

I’d made myself a
promise, hadn’t I? The next time anything like that happened, I’d
say yes.

“OK.” As the word
slipped out, I felt a thrill of excitement.

“Yes,” he
exclaimed, victorious. Maybe it had been a while since he’d asked
someone out? That was what he was doing, wasn’t it? Asking me on a
date? “What’s your number?” He held his phone, all ready to
enter in my digits. I gave them to him, still in a state of
disbelief.

“Anika,” he
repeated my name as he typed it in. I loved the way he said it, like
a wicked promise. I could picture him whispering it against my skin,
licking me and teasing me as he spoke. “What’s your last name?”

Bad girl, I shook my
naughty thoughts from my head. “Ivanov.”

“Russian?” he asked
as he entered it.

“How’d you guess?”
If I were any more Russian I’d be wearing a fur hat and holding a
bottle of Smirnov.

“Cool.” He nodded,
typing into his phone. “Russian mafia, or…?” He kept his tone
light, teasing, but I still felt like he actually wanted an answer.

“Come on.” I shook
my head, slightly annoyed at the stereotype. “My father’s a super
nerdy engineer. He’s the most straight-laced guy you’ll ever
meet.” Wait, had I just implied that I thought Ash was going to
meet my father? I blushed. “Not that you’ll ever meet him,” I
stammered.

“I’m just joking
around.” He grinned at me. “So, I’ve texted you the address.
Meet me at the bar. Ten o’clock OK?”

I nodded. That should
give me enough time to head home and change.

“The door’s down
here?” He pointed to the hallway.

I headed down, keys out
again to unlock the side exit. It led out into an alleyway and should
provide him with the perfect getaway.