“No doubt you think those hands should be on you.” She rolls her eyes.
“See? You’re already getting smarter.” She swats at me but laughs as I catch her hand, hold on to her wrist, and start pulling her to the door.
“No. I can’t.”
“I’m taking you to the kind of school only I can teach.”
“What are you—”
“Shh.” I put my finger up to her lips and wink. “I’m about to tell your boss I’m not feeling well and am skipping dinner tonight. The last thing you want him to do is hear you kidnapping me.” Her eyes widen as I lead her by the hand down the hall, passing in front of his room, to the elevator.
“Vincent Jennings,” she whisper-yells . . . but only halfheartedly.
“Help!” I play as the doors shut on us. “I’m being manhandled and abducted.”
“That’s not even funny.” She shakes her head and looks at me, cheeks flushed but smile wide. “I need my purse. I need—”
“No, you don’t.”
I slide a glance over to her and pat myself on the back. We’re going to paint the fucking town while I spoil her rotten.
And I’m going to enjoy every fucking second of it.
? ? ?
I motion my finger for Bristol to do a twirl. She just gives me the look—every man knows what the look is—but when the overly attentive salesclerk leaves the dressing area to remove the discarded clothes, Bristol does just that.
Her skirt is short but classy. Her top is tight with killer cleavage and long sleeves. Her black boots are so high that all I can think about is what a hard time I’d have unzipping them since my hands would want to keep running up her thigh to her pussy.
I may have paid for the boutique to stay open and cater to Bristol, but I’m pretty damn sure that price didn’t include the right to fuck her against the wall like my dick is begging me to do right now.
It doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it, though. But that would require quick and quiet—me getting mine only—and after waiting seven years to have Bristol Matthews again, you best be sure I want to take my time.
But a man can dream.
Fuck, can he dream.
“That’s the one,” I say. Visions of peeling it off her later are already concrete fantasies in my mind.
“I don’t know.” She grimaces as she studies herself in the mirror. “I think it’s too tight and shows too much—”
“And you look incredible in it,” I say as I walk up behind her and press a kiss to the back of her exposed neck.
When I meet her eyes in the mirror, she’s looking at me with an expression I’m not sure I can read but don’t think I’ll forget any time soon.
She gives a quick shake of her head, almost as if she’s clearing whatever thoughts she’s thinking, and then refocuses on her reflection. She smooths her hands down her hips and narrows her eyes in indecision.
“I’m telling you, that’s my favorite.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not as skinny as I used to be.”
Fucking society and its bullshit standards.
“I hadn’t noticed.”
She snorts and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
My silence pulls her eyes back to meet mine. “You think I’m lying?”
“Vince . . .”
I put my hands on her shoulders and turn her to face me. She does so reluctantly, her dubious expression reminding me so much of when we were in high school. It’s hard not to smile.
“When I look at you, all I see is you. Don’t you get that? This body that has turned me on since I was sixteen years old. I assure you—”
“This body has changed some, though.”
“So has mine. More scars. More tattoos. More—”
“Abs.” Another roll of her eyes that has me smiling.
I reach out and frame her face so she’s forced to meet my eyes. “Your different is your beautiful, Shug. It always has been for me. It always will be for me. Don’t you see that?” For the first time since I’ve come back, when I brush my lips over hers, she doesn’t fight me and she sure as shit doesn’t hide the tears welling in her eyes.
“Decided yet?” the salesperson says as she walks in the room, her heels stopping abruptly when she sees us. “I’m sorry. My apologies—”
“We’ll take all of them.”
“Vince—”
“She’ll keep this one on. The rest can be sent to our hotel.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Bristol
Your different is your beautiful.
I haven’t been able to get that damn comment out of my head. Not after the boutique when he took me to a salon to get my hair and makeup done. Not after dinner on a rooftop with the view of the Golden Gate Bridge. And yet, it paled in comparison to the man across from me.
“What about you, Vince? You’re here now, but where will you go next? After you finish the album. Back to New York? To London?” I take a bite of food, needing to have these answers to cement the many reasons these feelings—that keep growing through all the cracks of my heart like invasive weeds in a sidewalk—need to be ignored. “Do you ever plan on settling down? Settling in?”
Vince tilts his head and stares at me. The same stare he gave me when he kissed the back of my neck earlier in a rare show of true affection. “I don’t know if I’ll ever settle. I’m a selfish bastard, you know that,” he says with a ghost of a smile to cover up the self-deprecation. “The word home always had a bad connotation for me. A place to stay away from, so . . . who knows.” He chuckles, the emotion in his eyes cleared, the wall partially back up. “Maybe in my forties. This industry moves at a lightning pace. People come and go, are forgotten and buried when the next big thing comes. I just want to take the ride as long as I can, as far as I can. Every road takes me farther away from him and the life I never plan to have.”
I think it’s the most honest thing he’s said to me since that night he left my bedroom. And it hurts at the same time.
“What about Bent? About plans for—”
“I don’t make plans for the future. It’s better for me if I just don’t.” He reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “Enough about me. Tonight’s all about you. Too much of the world revolves around me—it seems like everyone fucking already knows everything and if they don’t, the documentary will help that along.” He lifts a glass of wine to his lips but stares at me over the rim. “So tell me more . . .”
“There’s not much more to tell,” I say, hurting, because the biggest thing in my life, the thing I talk and brag to everyone about, I can’t tell him. If I did, he’d ask for a picture and he’d know immediately.
Jagger was my decision. He is my responsibility. And if there’s one thing I’m learning about Vince today—and the man I had sex with seven years ago—is that he doesn’t want to be trapped by anyone. He’s sick of people wanting things from him. The last thing I want is for him to think I had Jagger to bind him to me. To us. To contain him and prevent him from reaching his goal—conquering the world.
So I won’t burden him with this truth. He’s made it clear a child is the last thing he wants. And I’m okay with that. I’ve more than come to terms with that.
By the same token, I don’t want Jagger to believe he’s not wanted. It’s better to have no father at all than to know you have a father who doesn’t want you.
“I’m sure there’s plenty to tell about your life, Bristol. I want to hear it all.”
Dinner led to selfies on the Golden Gate Bridge. Laughter and antics. So much laughter. Sundaes at Ghirardelli. And to me standing backstage at Bottom of the Hill, with a huge crowd waiting, and Vince about to take the stage unannounced.
I look at myself in the mirror across from me, my hand on my stomach, and wonder who this person is whose reflection is staring back at me.
I definitely don’t look like the mom of a six-year-old . . . and dare I say it feels kind of awesome to be a little of my old self again.
And while I say that now, it’s been less than twenty-four hours, and I miss Jagger ridiculously.
It doesn’t help that my head’s buzzing from the whirlwind of tonight, and every time I look at Vince my heart races a little faster.