Because Ricki Hamilton, that's why. Other women ceased to interest me, even for a quick fuck. They kept throwing themselves at me, though. I found myself flirting reflexively, keeping up my public front, but Ricki was all I could think about.
Maybe it was the way she brushed me off, but I wanted to prove to her I wasn't just a man-slut. But that made me think how? If I convinced her we should get together, I knew the magnetic sexual chemistry we had would kick in-but that could backfire. It might only prove to her I was easy.
I've never been a prude. I've always been happy to have sex whenever a partner wanted it. I've always enjoyed giving pleasure.
I wanted to give Ricki Hamilton all the pleasure she could stand. My fingers tingled with the memory of her nipples wrinkling under them. And deep in my gut, loneliness ached. I wanted her to believe me, to believe that my feelings weren't just because I got off on bossing pretty girls around. She didn't understand, not at all, that if what I wanted was willing "sex slaves," I could have that on speed dial. But it wasn't them I wanted; it was Ricki herself. I'd felt something in that stupid limousine, something I really hadn't expected. I felt like I never wanted to let her out of my sight, and now that I'd been two weeks without her I wanted to claw my eyes out when I was alone. I tried assuaging my longing by Googling her, but seeing her photos online only made the longing worse so I'd shut that down pretty quickly. I was sure that, deep down, she felt more for me than she would admit, too. I'd felt a connection with her. It wasn't just "chemistry"; we clicked. Obviously she struggled with it. She'd given me the cold shoulder, put up her walls, but then let me shave her bare and make her come three more times … before shutting me out again. I knew when I got past those walls I had reached the real Ricki. Why wouldn't she let me in again? Was the only way in to dominate my way in?
Hm. Or would the backlash be even worse the next time I tried? I didn't know.
Meanwhile, my heart was writing lyrics about broken hearts and broken dreams. With a few raunchy numbers thrown in. Most of it was going to end up in the trash bin but I'd learned I couldn't judge whether an idea for a song was good until Mal and I sat down and worked out the music. So I wrote scraps of lyrics and choruses and cringed at how, on paper, the words always looked like bad high school poetry. It took a lot more than a clever lyric to make a song good.
Fortunately Christina agreed Los Angeles should be our base for the foreseeable future. Our record label would be setting up the studio time with a producer for us to record the next album at an all-digital facility in Van Nuys in a couple of months, and the search was on for a suitable place to rehearse and work on new material. Mal already had a condo in Santa Monica.
I flew into LAX after two weeks of appearances and promo work and he picked me up in a new cherry-red Alfa Romeo 4C. Which meant that once we were sitting in traffic I had to say, "What's the point of a sports car that can go two hundred miles an hour in a city like this?"
Which earned me a dark glare from Mal. Of course that was Mal's reaction to a lot of things.
But he was a good listener. Especially when I had my head up my ass.
"Help me figure out what to say to Ricki Hamilton," I said, as we inched forward.
"The heiress?" Mal had been raised mostly in England and when he said a word like heiress it came out extra long.
"Yeah."
"There are two Hamilton sisters, I seem to recall. Do you mean the blond one or the dark-haired one?"
"The dark-haired one."
Mal grunted in approval at this fact and kept his eyes on the road.
"The one I kidnapped," I added.
"Making sure that was who you meant." He gave me a sidelong glance. "Your eyes followed her all around that party."
"Well, she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."
"I think perhaps you're conflating your euphoria over the Grammy with the effect Ms. Hamilton has on you."
"What are you, Mr. Spock?" "Give it a rest, Mal. There's an amazing chemistry between us. Intense and fantastic."
"Are you telling me you did something more that night than just drive to her house after making off with her from the ceremony?"
Ah. Confession time. "Yeah. I fucked her brains out on the way."
"And?" He glanced at me, then back at the road. "You've fucked a lot of brains out of a lot of women in the time I've known you."
I didn't feel judged by Mal's statement: it was simply a fact. He easily matched me when it came to number of sexual conquests. In fact Mal undoubtedly had tallied more sex partners than I did because he never did the same girl twice. I did, however, feel like I needed to defend Ricki's honor. "Yes, but this one's different."
"Because she's an heiress?"
"Because she's gorgeous, she's smart, she's amazing, and I know if she'd just give me a chance-"
"A chance to do what? She's out of your league, Axel."
I was surprised by his negative attitude. Mal is never sunshine and light but I thought he'd be more supportive. "Which league is that? I don't recall being assigned to leagues."
"You know perfectly well what I mean. It's like commoners and royalty."
"I'm not asking her to marry me and extend the royal line, for fuck's sake. I just want a date."
Mal snorted. "It wouldn't be you who-oh, never mind. Tell me what's amazing about her."
I guess Googling her had been a little helpful. "Ivy League smart, fresh out of business school, already a big donor to charities-"
"Like I said. Out of your league." Mal gave a sharp honk to a car in front of us and I saw the driver guiltily drop his cell phone. "Her credentials can't possibly be why you're so stuck on her, though."
"They can't?"
"No, because you've never given a bloody thought to any of that before." Now his frown looked concerned. "You didn't get her pregnant or something like that? Are you being blackmailed?"
"No! It was only two weeks ago. Seriously, Mal, I'm just … just … "
"Completely obsessed with her, I see."
I pressed my fists against my thighs. "Yes. I know I'm not acting like myself. It's that I've never felt this way about a woman before."
"Some playboy you are." Mal looked at me again. "You're in love."
Hearing him say it like that was like a knife through the heart. It wasn't just the pain of being in love with someone who wasn't, apparently, in love with me. This of all moments was not the time to fall in love. Not right now. Not when we were about to be on the road for most of the upcoming year. We were supposed to get to work on our next record while we were in LA, and then by March when the weather would start warming up, hit the road right through the summer. "Maybe it's that it was the first time I really did the dom/sub thing for real."
"What do you mean, 'for real'? I've heard the spanking from your hotel room."
"Yeah, but that never felt like anything more than some silly play-acting. This was like … " I could practically feel the way the curve of her hips had fit in my hands as I held her still and filled her with my cock, like my palms had imprinted the way she'd trembled, the way she'd taken me all the way in despite how tight she was. "This was like I owned her. Claimed her. Like we belong together and if I can't have her again I'm going to go insane."
"Hm," Mal said. "Love."
Fuck.
We drove in silence for a while, Mal snarling at the traffic from time to time. I think if it would've been legal to mount flamethrowers on the front of the car, he'd have done it. Fortunately for the rest of California's drivers, it wasn't.
"So," he said when I was just starting to think we weren't going to talk again until we got to the house. "You own her? You claimed her as yours? Explain to me, then, why don't you just call her?"
I looked at my hands. "She's really angry with me."
"Why is she so angry at you? Over the publicity stunt? Or because you had sex? Or because she doesn't want to be your slave girl?"
"All of the above," I said. "I'm waiting for her to call me."
He actually turned his head to glare at me this time. "You expect to get anywhere with this woman like that?"
Trust me, I wanted nothing more than to drive directly to her mansion, demand to see her, and then … and then what? My fantasies of talking my way into her panties again were undone by the memory that I'd tried that. I'd even succeeded in having more mind-blowing sex with her. And she'd still thrown me out. "I don't want to come off like a stalker and scare her off completely. No one likes a stalker. And that's assuming I haven't blown it already. She's got some issues."
Mal shrugged. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe kidnapping her raised some consent issues?"
"But she kissed me first."
Mal was heavily silent. I'd known him long enough to know the difference between the silence that meant he was paying close attention and the one that meant he was trying to ignore me. He was listening intently.
"In fact, she kissed me like a drowning woman taking my last breath," I said. "And I was all too happy to give it to her. The sex was like that, too. Like she needed … every inch of me or she'd die."