Meeting Trouble (New Adult Rock Star Romance) (12 page)

“I just mean…
” I tried to get back on topic, tried not to think of those dark eyes watching me. And he was. All the time. I really was the center of his attention. “I guess I thought about being in a group. You know, playing acoustic guitar, singing harmony.”

“You sing amazing harmony,” he agreed. He was eating his scallop and cooking another one.

“Thank you.” I blushed, gratef
ul for the darkness.

“So I was right—you did dream about being a musician.”

“Of sorts, I guess.” I finished my first fuzzy navel—it was now very watered down with ice. Brian wasn’t anywhere in sight. “It just wasn’t meant to be.”

“Practical parents.”

I nodded. “Exactly.”

“I got a question for you.” He leaned forward, eyes on mine.
“Would you rather be smart and ugly or dumb and beautiful?”

“Ummm…”
I blinked, frowning. “I guess… I don’t know. That’s hard.”

“If you could have your choice, wouldn’t you pick smart and beautiful?”
he asked.

“Well yes, but you said…”

He shook his head, smiling. “See how our choices are limited by the questions we’re asked?”

“So what are you saying?”

He shrugged. “No one ever asked you the right questions.”

“Like… what?”

“Like… what do you want?” he asked, lowering his voice. “What do you
really
want?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but I couldn’t. Nothing came to my mind. I was a complete blank.

“…I don’t know.”

“Close your eyes,” Rob urged.

“Here?” I glanced over at the couple across from us. “Now?”

“Where’s my wild Sabrina?”
he teased.

I closed my eyes.

“Now I’m going to ask you…” His hand found mine, fingers stroking, urging mine to open. “And I don’t want you to open your eyes until I tell you to. Okay?”

“Okay.”
I nodded.

“What do you want?”

This time I was ready for the question.

“Um… I guess… I want to be loved…”

“What else?”

I frowned, hesitating. What did I want? I wanted… something. I wanted…

“I want sweetness.”

“Stuffed French toast?”

“Yes…” I smiled, my fingers opening completely to him. He stroked my palm, sending shivers up my arm. “No. Real sweetness. Like this, like us together. Laughing and kissing and loving.”

“Mmm. Sweetness. What else?”
Rob’s voice stayed low, almost hypnotizing. I hesitated again, my eyelids fluttering. “No, don’t open your eyes.”

“I want to swim in the ocea
n and go scuba diving in Aruba,” I said.

“What else?”

“I want to… live near the water and swim every morning. I want a dog—a great big dog. And a baby. Some day.”

“What else?”
He sounded surprised. I didn’t blame him. My own answers were surprising me.

“I want to wake up next to someone I love every single day.”
I felt tears behind my eyes and bit my lip, trying to hold them back. I didn’t want to turn into some blubbering idiot in the middle of the restaurant. Sitting in the booth with my eyes closed was bad enough.

“What do you
really
want, Sabrina?” His hand was in mine now.

“I want…
to give myself,” I whispered.

“More.”

I struggled, trying to express it.

“I want to give myself. I just want to give everything I have, everything I am.”

“Who do you want to give it to?” he urged, squeezing my hand gently.

“To my kids
to school… to…”

“
Say it,” he insisted.

“To you.”
I flushed, swallowing hard. It was true, I wanted to give everything to him. He’d asked me to close my eyes in the middle of a crowded restaurant and I had. He could have asked me to strip naked in front of him and kneel and I would have done that for him too. I wasn’t in control anymore, not with him. And I think he knew it.

“Not just me,” Rob went on.

I shook my head.

“Say it,” he urged again.

“To… everyone,” I whispered, squirming at the revelation. “The whole world.”

“Open your eyes.”
Rob was there when I did, a soft, bemused smile on his face. “There it is. That’s the truth I saw in your eyes from the moment I met you.”

“Um… your fuzzy navel…”
Brian put it on the table, looking at me strangely. Had he been waiting to bring it over until I’d opened my eyes?

“You should have stopped me!”
I hissed when Brian left.

“Why?”
Rob had resumed cooking. He had my skewers too and they all had something on the end of them, sizzling away in the hot oil.

“I’m…
embarrassed,” I admitted, taking a long drink of my new fuzzy navel.

“To be embarrassed you have to care wh
at other people think about you,” he said. “Do you care what Brian thinks about you?”

“Yes…
” Did I really care what the waiter thought? “No. I don’t know.”

“Stop paying so much attention to what other people think
and want.” Rob checked the little bits on the ends of the skewers for doneness. “And start paying more attention to what Sabrina wants.”

“I want you.”
The words were out before I could think. The truth sank into me, into the hot, pulsing race of my blood, into the ache of my bones. I wanted him so much it hurt, so deeply it was in my marrow.

“That’s a good start. Here.”
He reached over with something fried and dipped, holding it in front of my mouth. “Bite.”

“What is it?” I couldn’t tell if it was meat or vegetable or what.

“Live dangerously.”

It was a stuffed mushroom dipped in the sweet and sour
sauce. I licked the sauce of my lips, seeing his gaze lingering there, watching.

“Sweet?” he asked.

I nodded. “And we haven’t even had dessert.”

“I can hardl
y wait.”

The way he watched me lick my fingers,
I had a feeling he wasn’t talking about the melted chocolate of the next course.

We finished our entree course,
thanks to Rob’s assembly line cooking technique, fighting over the last of the mushrooms stuffed with cream cheese.

“Sword fight you for it!” Rob held up his skewer. “En garde!”

“You really think I’m going to sword fight with a guy who wanted to be a pirate?” I laughed, skewering the last mushroom and rolling it quickly in batter before dropping it into the hot oil.

“Hey!” he protested, mouth agape.

Of course, when it came out, I split it with him. How could I not? I couldn’t say no to the man. I bit it and handed him the other half, laughing and wiping at his face with a napkin as juice ran down his chin.

“Are you ready for dessert?”
Brian asked, stopping to check our table on the way by. He was carrying a tray with all the fixings for a cheese appetizer for the new table in the corner.

“Hell yeah,” Rob agreed, looking at me. “Bring it on!”

Brian took the hot oil away and brought back a pot full of chocolate, setting it over the heat and stirring, waiting for it to melt. Me, I was already melting from the hot look in Rob’s eyes. Dinner was almost over and we were just a half hour or so from heading back to my place where we could completely forget about time and lose ourselves in each other.

“There are marshmallows, strawberries,
bananas and pineapple.” Brian put down two small plates. “And over here we have angel food cake, pound cake, and little bits of brownies and Rice Krispie treats.”

“Does it get any better than this?” I laughed, eyes widening with delight. I was already full but I could always make room for chocolate.

“I can only think of one thing sweeter.” Rob smiled, picking up one of the new skewers Brian put down next to the plates.

We were almost all the way through clearing both plates—just a single marshmallow left—when my phone buzzed. I pulled it out of the side pocket of my purse, checking the caller I.D., noticing for the first time the
re were six other missed calls—all from Katie.

“It’s Katie.” I looked up at Rob. “She’s called six times. Should I answer?”

“Up to you.” He shrugged, leaning back in the booth.

It buzzed again
and I struggled, debating. Finally, Practical Sabrina won out.

“Hello?”

“Sabrina!” Katie gasped. “Where the hell are you!”

“Right now?” I half-smiled, looking across the table. “Eating dinner with Rob
Burns.”

“Oh thank God!” Katie covered the phone and spoke to someone else. “She’s with him!” Then her voice came back full volume again. “They’ve been looking for him everywhere!”

“Well he’s right here.”

“I’ve called you a hundred times. Didn’t you get any of my texts? We even came by your house this afternoon but no one answered and your car was gone.”

We must have still been at the DIA, I realized.

Thank God they hadn’t come by a little bit later!

“Who’s ‘we?’”

“Me and Tyler.”

I heard Tyler in the background, “Give me the phone. Tell her I need to talk to him.”

“Sabrina, Tyler wants—”

Then Tyler was in my ear. “Hand the phone to Rob. Right now.”

“Uh…” I blinked, looking across the table, seeing Rob’s expression darkening. “It’s Tyler. Do you…?”

Rob didn’t say anything. He just held his hand out and I gave him the phone.

I watched his face, wondering what Tyler could be saying for so long as I skewered the last marshmallow, swirling it around in the last of the melted chocolate. I couldn’t hear anything, although I tried.

Finally, Rob spoke. “Tomorrow, Ty.”

Tomorrow. That was the day the tour bus left. When Rob left. The thought turned the sweetness of the marshmallow in my mouth to cardboard mush.

“Yes, I’ll be there… I don’t know… You are?” Rob looked across the aisle, watching the new couple start in on their cheese appetizer. They were older, probably in their forties, maybe celebrating an anniversary or a birthday. They looked happy. I remembered how we’d laughed through our cheese course and wished I could rewind.

Why had I picked up the stupid phone?

“I’m going to try.” Rob sighed, glancing at me. “I said I’d be there… okay, fine… I said, okay!”

He hung up the phone with a tight little smile. It wasn’t his usual smile at all. I didn’t like it.

“Everything okay?” I asked, knowing, of course, that nothing was.

“Mom says I gotta go home.” Rob leaned back, running a hand through his hair.

“Now?” I gulped.

“No, b
us still leaves at noon tomorrow.” He slid my phone across the table, meeting my eyes. “We have tonight.”

“So we’re a bad Bob Segar song?
” I put my phone back, trying to make light of it.

“We are whatever you want us to be tonight, sweetheart.” His smile was about twenty-five percent back. “What do you want us to be?”

“Just us.”

“I like us.” His smile stretched wider, almost seventy-five percent back.

“Me too.”

“Let’s go,” he said, his smile all the way back. He was Rob again. My Rob. He was mine. For the moment, he was all mine. “Let’s go home, Sabrina.”

Home.

That word had never sounded sweeter.

Chapter Ten

“Well, here we are.” I tossed my purse on a chair along with my jacket, slipping out of my heels and looking over my shoulder at Rob coming in behind me. “Home sweet home.”

He toed off his sneakers and tossed his jacket with mine, sliding his arms around me from behind. It had become such a familiar gesture in so short a time, but it took my breath away anyway. I tilted my head back against him, letting him hold me, feeling his lips pressed briefly to my temple.

“What now?” I wondered out loud, unable to stop thinking about the phone call from Katie-slash-Tyler. I had silenced my phone completely after that, although I’d glanced at the screen when I went to the ladies room before we left the restaurant and saw she’d called back. Three times. Damn Katie. Damn Tyler too. And damn me. Why had I answered the stupid phone?

“So no work for you tomorrow?” Rob asked.

“Martin Luther King Day,” I said. “They plan midwinter break around it. We get Friday and Monday off.”

“I remember those days. I worked in a shoe store and lived for paid holidays.”

“You worked in a shoe store?” I looked over my shoulder at him, incredulous.

“It’s true,” he replied. “I was a normal person once. But it was a long time ago.”

That made me laugh.

“So what do normal people do on nights like this?” Rob rocked in his stocking feet, back and forth. The motion was soothing.

“Are you asking what the peasants do?” I laughed.

“Yes, what do the simple folk do.” He snorted. “I mean… if you were home alone right now, what would you do?”

“I’m not home alone.” I turned in his arms, putting my hands behind his neck, my fingers playing in his hair. “I’m home with you.”

“I want to spend a normal, everyday night at Sabrina’s house.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “What does that entail?”

“Well…” I wrinkled my nose at him. “I’d put on a comfy pair of jammies…”

“I’m liking this already.” He grinned.

“Probably make a big bowl of popcorn and find a good movie on Netflix.”

“Now we’re talking.” He brightened. “You go get changed. I’ll make the popcorn.”

I groaned, hand over my stomach. “I can’t eat any more!”

“Sure you can,” he scoffed, already heading for my kitchen, calling back over his shoulder, “It’s popcorn!”

So I went to my room and changed into a nightgown.
If Rob Burns wasn’t in my house, I would have probably opted for flannel pajama pants and one of my old, mismatched, Haagen Dazs stained pajama shirts and a pair of fuzzy socks, but a girl had to retain a little bit of an air of mystery, didn’t she? Lingerie was out, of course—he’d know I didn’t go walking around like a Victoria’s Secret model all the time—but a pretty black nightgown with creamy lace around the v-neck and along the mid-thigh hem seemed just about right. Sexy but not too.

I was rewarded when I wandered back into the kitchen to find Rob popping popcorn on the stove in a big pan with a lid. I thought I was smelling the hot oil from fondue but it was the oil in the pan for the popcorn.

“I have microwave popcorn.” I opened the cupboard next to the fridge to show him.

“Stuff’s poison. Do you have any
idea what they put in that?” He made a face, shaking the pan over the burner. “Besides, this is way more fun.”

“Really?” I took down the microwave popcorn box, staring at the ingredients.

“Might as well just go under the sink and mix a cocktail of cleaning supplies.” He lifted the pan away from the flame, putting it on the adjacent burner to let it cool, glancing at me for the first time. His gaze started at my toes—bare, painted pink—and traveled slowly up, pausing at the hem of my nightgown, mid-thigh, before moving upward, stopping again at the lacey v-neck, finally meeting my eyes.

“What’s so bad about microwave popcorn?” I shook the box at him, trying to break through that dazed expression on his face.

“Those are comfortable jammies?” His voice cracked and then he cleared his throat, blinking at me, gaze moving down again, like he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Sure.” I shrugged, secretly enjoying the way he couldn’t keep his eyes off me. “What do you wear to bed?”

“Nothing.” A slow grin spread over his face.

I lifted the lid off the pan. “That smells good.”

“I told you.” He reached around me, opening the fridge and finding a stick of butter. His body pressed mine against the counter and I felt the denim crotch of his jeans rubbing against my behind. I smiled, wiggling back against his erection and he groaned.

“Be careful or I’m not going to use this butter on the popcorn.”

“Oh?” I ground my hips fully against his, grinning over my shoulder.

He reached down, lifted my nightgown and swatted me.

“Ow!” I was wearing panties but it still stung enough to bring tears to my eyes. “That hurt!”

“Tease.” His hand moved under my nightgown, caressing the same place he’d spanked me. The sensation was incredible, his rough, calloused hand moving over that hot spot. I moaned, bending forward over the counter and going up on my tiptoes.

“Damnit, girl,” he murmured, fingers edging under my panties, seeking heat. “I just wanted to watch a movie with you and now all I can think about is using this butter to…”

I squealed in surprise when his finger located my rectum, circling. I froze for a moment, too surprised to move.

“Hey!” I finally protested, flushing and turning to him with wide, shocked eyed.

“Go on.” He chuckled, reaching around and squeezing my bottom with the hand not holding the butter. “Find a good movie. I’ll be in with the popcorn in a minute.”

“Okay.” I edged past him. “But it won’t be
Last Tango in Paris!”

He laughed.

When he joined me, carrying popcorn and two cold cans of Diet Coke from the fridge, I still hadn’t found a movie. I’d passed by all my usual choices—anything based on a book by Nicholas Sparks or Jane Austen, for example—but didn’t want to consider movies with an aging Bruce Willis or Steven Seagal either. It was a conundrum.

“What did you decide on?” Rob put the popcorn and Cokes on the end table, glancing at the TV at the red Netflix on the screen.

“Nothing yet,” I admitted, tossing the remote aside as I watched him unbutton his shirt. He pulled it out of the waistband of his khakis to unbutton the last few and I licked my lips, remembering the feel of him pressed up against me. All of a sudden I was actually considering letting him have his way with me—whatever way he wanted, even if it included butter and naughty scenes from a certain old Marlon Brando movie.

“You had one job!” he teased, looking down at me with a smile. He caught the expression on my face and his smile widened. “What? You got more comfortable. Can’t I?”

“Be my guest,” I encouraged, reaching for his belt. “Want some help?”

He looked down at me with a soft smile as I unbuckled his belt, my fingers itching to trace those fascinating
ridges and valleys that made up his abdomen. But another part of me was far more interested in what was underneath his zipper, something I couldn’t wait to get my hands—not to mention my mouth—on.

He let me go so far as unbuttoning him, but then he stopped me, grabbing the remote and sitting next to me on the couch.

“Come on,” I snuggled up close, sliding my hand down his deliciously bare chest. “Let’s go to bed.”

“Popcorn, movie,” he reminded me, waving the remote at the television. “What do you want to watch?”

“Now I’m thinking something along the lines of
Emmanuelle.”

“Softcore porn?” He laughed. “No sense watching it when you can go into the bedroom and make it. And I can guarantee you, it would be nothing less than hardcore.”

“That’s what I was hoping.” I grinned, following that dark line of hair down from his navel toward that first askew button of his pants.

“Hey, look,
Cabin in the Woods.”
He pressed the button on the remote. “I haven’t seen it yet. You?”

“Cabin in the Woods?”
I perked up. “I wanted to see that when it was out but Katie won’t go to any horror movies with me.”

“
You like horror movies?” He raised his eyebrows. “What’s the scariest horror movie ever made?”

“The Exorcist
, hands down,” I scoffed. “Especially if you see it unrated and uncut. I have the DVD.”

I pointed to my shelf where there were hundreds—literally—of horror titles.

“Damn.” Rob leaned back, putting his arm around my shoulder. “She’s a little wildcat in bed, plus she likes my music, Thai food
and
horror movies? I could have made-to-order you. Are you sure I’m not dreaming?”

“No.” I snuggled up to him as the movie started, pulling a blanket over us from the back of the couch. I didn’t want to think about dreams—or reality. I just wanted to listen to his heart beating against my ear and feel his hand moving in my hair. I just wanted to breathe and be with him.

By the time the movie was over, the popcorn was gone and we were both stretched out on the couch, me twisted between Rob’s thighs, my head resting on his belly, his hand tangled in my hair. The sound of the television being turned off woke me. I blinked sleepily up at him, wiping spittle off the side of my mouth and seeing I’d been filling his navel with saliva for quite some time.

“Sorry,” I apologized, flushing and trying to clean up the mess with just my hand.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispered in the sudden quiet. “I watched you sleeping and wished I knew how to draw. If I was an artist, I would paint you.”

“You watched me sleeping?” I blushed. “Because that’s not creepy.”

He laughed. “Let’s go to bed.”

“Mmmm okay
.” I agreed, putting my cheek back against his sleep-warmed stomach. It was rock hard and made an unlikely pillow, yet it was strangely quite comfortable. “Carry me.”

I didn’t think for a moment he would do it, but before I knew it, he was up, putting one arm under my knees, the other behind my back, lifting me off the couch.
I squealed in protest, laughing, but he kissed me quiet, carrying me back to the bedroom.

It was dark but he didn’t turn on the light as he felt his way to the bed, setting me down there. I snuggled under the comforter, listening to him unzipping his
khakis and sliding them down his slim hips before slipping under the covers with me.

I put my arms around his neck, feeling his lips press to my forehead, hearing him take a long, deep breath.

“Tomorrow,” I whispered. I couldn’t help thinking about it. I’d been dreaming about it—a real horror story.

“Shh.” He kissed me quiet again, arms tightening around me in the darkness. “I want to sleep with you. I want to listen to you breathe and feel you against me and just… sleep.”

“Nope, not creepy at all,” I said again, grinning, but I planted a soft kiss on his chest and snuggled my head under his chin before I drifted off again, hoping tomorrow would never come.

* * * *

I was in bed with the most beautiful man in the world.

Now I was the creepy stalker, watching the rock star sleeping in my bed. He was on his back, one arm thrown off the side of the bed, the other in the middle of his chest, fingers splayed, palm down. I watched that hand rise and fall with his breath, the first bit of sun kissing his skin, giving it a
bronze glow. He was like a god wrapped up in my sheets.

How had I managed to catch this man—even briefly?

I didn’t understand it but I wasn’t going to quibble. He was here, now, and I didn’t want to waste one moment of the short time we had. I didn’t want to think about him leaving, but I couldn’t come up with a way around it. He had a tour to finish. I had classes to teach. We led such different lives, I couldn’t imagine carrying this dream-weekend forward. Could I have a long-distance relationship with a rock star?

Maybe.

But I didn’t know what he wanted.

We had created a cocoon this weekend, just like Rob had wrapped me up the night before in my comforter. Just us against the world. But the world was about to come crashing back in. What then? I didn’t know.

“Stop thinking.” Rob’s words were slurred with sleep.

“Hm?” I leaned in, propped on my elbow, getting closer. “What?”

“Stop. Thinking.” He opened one eye. “You’re thinking so hard I can hear it.”

“Am not.” I laughed.

“Liar.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulder, kissing the top of my head. “So what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking we haven’t christened the bathroom yet.”
I traced one fingernail around his nipple, watching the skin purse, hearing his sharp intake of breath.

“You’re lying again.” He reached down to grab my bare behind, squeezing hard. “And distracting me. Not fair.”

“I’m not lying,” I protested. “I was thinking about that… too…”

“What else were you thinking?”

“I don’t want you to go,” I admitted.

“I know.”
He sighed. “I don’t want to go.”