Taking the Lead(3)

"You haven't said anything-?"

"Of course I haven't. Ricki, your secrets are always safe with me. All he knows about you is you're the Bitch Queen of Hollywood."

"I am not!"

"You have the worst case of resting bitch face in the state of California." Sakura framed me between her thumbs and index fingers. "Just sayin'."

I resisted the urge to fold my arms across my chest, which I knew would only make me bitchier looking. Sakura really didn't understand how important it was that I not come off as a frivolous airhead or a flirt. Unfortunately the only other stereotype left for women in the popular media seemed to be "ice queen."

Ice queen had worked for me so far. I had secured a nice job in development at Blue Star that would be a good steppingstone to eventually running CTC. And other than a few "society" photos here and there I had mostly stayed out of the media, because ice queens weren't actually all that interesting to them. They much preferred the party girls and the fuck-ups, the Paris Hiltons and Lindsay Lohans.

She tried to change the subject. "So tell me about your date. You never told me who you're taking."

"You know Milford Randolph?"

"The president of Blue Star Entertainment? Of course I know him! But he's more than twice your age!"

"Not him. His nephew, Grant."

"Oh," she said, much less energetically. I guess she was less impressed with a mere executive at Blue Star Pictures. Or less upset. I had quit trying to figure out Sarah's moods back when we were college roommates. 

"Yes." I decided not to try to describe him to her. She'd be meeting him in a few minutes, anyway. "He's a nice enough guy."

"If you say so," she said, sounding skeptical, but she didn't outright contradict me. The only real reason I was going with him was politics, but neither of us was going to say that out loud.

We pulled up to Axel's hotel. I settled back into my seat and took my phone out of my clutch, expecting we'd be waiting for a while until he came downstairs. But to my surprise, Riggs, my chauffeur, opened the door right away.

Axel Hawke alighted on the seat across from me like a cat hopping onto his favorite perch-lithe, sleekly groomed, and self-possessed. He kissed Sakura on the cheek. He had a diamond-stud earring, a barely tamed coif of blond-streaked hair, and a tuxedo tailored to make it look like his arm and chest muscles were barely contained by the fabric. What looked cute on the magazine page was downright devastatingly good-looking up close. He even smelled good. I found myself suddenly wishing I had worn something more interesting, more of a statement, something that might seem worth his notice, instead of the classic-but-boring dress I was in.

Sakura smiled coyly, as if holding in a gleeful grin at seeing him. He took her hand and kissed the back of it. "Good to see you."

"You, too, sweetie," Sakura said. "So this is the 'playboy' makeover you were telling me your image consultant wanted?"

"Yeah. Bad boy isn't good enough anymore, she says. So now I'm a good-bad boy. Or maybe that was a bad-good boy? I don't know."

She gave him an approving shrug. "Suits you, anyway. Axel, may I introduce my friend, Ms. Rickanna Hamilton?"

I held out my hand. Instead of looking at it as he took it, he held my gaze. His eyes were agate green. He grasped my fingers with a gentle surety, lifting my knuckles to his lips and saying, "May I call you Ms. Hamilton?" And then planting an intensely warm, suave kiss on the back of my hand. I hadn't realized my hands had gotten so cold in the air-conditioning of the limo, and the warmth of his mouth seemed to send a wave of heat through me.

"You may," I answered, a little taken aback by the intensity of his gaze and the fact that he surprised me, asking if he could call me Ms. Hamilton, not Ricki. He had been pointedly polite-and yet the force of his charisma was hitting me like a searchlight. It was too much, I had to push back, had to dim that light somehow and take him down a peg. "So are you really a good boy at heart?"

The light didn't dim in the slightest. If anything the beam narrowed to point even more directly at me. "Oh no, I'm very definitely a bad boy," he said, his voice quiet, but firm.

In spite of myself I felt a little shiver go through me at that sound, that tone. Parts of me very suddenly wanted to find out just how wicked he could be. Little fantasies flashed through my head like sunlight coming through patchy clouds: which part of him was the wickedest? His tongue or his fingers or something lower down  … ?

And then I thought about what Sarah had said. He was a closet dom?

Ugh. The last thing I needed was another spoiled-rotten man in my life bossing me around. And I definitely didn't need any more BDSM in my life given how hard it was going to be to keep that damn club a secret.

But that didn't mean I couldn't have a little fun, did it? She was right. Tonight was for celebrating glitz and glamour, not for showing off resting bitch face. A little flirting would be polite and wouldn't hurt anybody, as long as I kept my hormones in check. I gave him a little "cat-canary" smile of my own. "In that case, should I call you Axel? Or Mr. Hawke?"

I saw his eyes flick toward Sakura for a moment, as if wondering if she'd told me anything. The intensity in those gray-green eyes ramped up again and it almost felt like he was wrapping me in invisible velvet. "Definitely Mr. Hawke," he said deliberately, and it was as if with each syllable the invisible velvet wrap grew tighter and tighter around me. Like I was being pulled into his spell.



       
         
       
        

No. We're not going there, I reminded myself. Especially not with Sakura sitting right here and my actual date about to get into the car. Time to take things down a notch. I tried to bring the chitchat back to business. "So, Best New Artist nominee? Are we allowed to say 'good luck'? Or is that bad luck?"

He laughed, a deep, unexpected and genuine laugh, and sat back, resting his hands on his knees. His artfully tousled hair was not as wild or full as a lion's mane, but he still reminded me of a big cat sitting there, languid but alert. "I have no idea. It's my first rodeo. The only 'Superstition' I know is that old song by Stevie Wonder."

Sarah began to sing the song, then, and he clapped his hands and snapped his fingers along with her for a few bars, though she only knew a few of the words, and Axel didn't really know much more. Then they punched each other in the shoulder like playful siblings.

"Oops, careful," she said, reaching a hand up to make sure the glass beads strung in her hair hadn't come loose. "Let's not be rowdy, now."

"Yes, ma'am," he said with another deep chuckle. I got the feeling when he said "yes, ma'am" he meant the opposite, though. I wondered if Axel Hawke had grown up a troublemaker or what.

We pulled up to the Blue Star building then. Under Randolph they'd swallowed up several of the major studios and record companies. I needed a score card to keep track of who owned who these days. Riggs got out and I expected the door to open, but it didn't. I peered through the tinted glass: he was standing beside the car, waiting for our last passenger to come out. There was no sign of him just yet.

I turned my attention back to Axel. Let's see. I was curious if Axel Hawke was a stage name or his real name, but it would be gauche to ask. What could we safely make small talk about?

I settled on, "So where are you from?"

"Everywhere, I guess." He shrugged. "My dad was a weapons instructor in the Air Force so we moved around a lot when I was a kid. Japan, Texas, Germany, a couple of years in England. Then when I was a teenager my parents split and my mom and I settled in Boston, so I guess that's the closest thing to an answer to the question. Kind of depends on what you meant by it."

"Just making conversation," I said. "Though I guess that explains why I can't really place your accent."

"Sometimes when I get really tired I forget to speak English," he said. "But I only remember a little Japanese, a little German. My bandmates say I need subtitles at times like that."

That made me chuckle. He sounded so down-to-earth now, so genuine and honest, it only added to his air of self-possession instead of detracting from it. I could see why Sarah liked him. I wondered if the reason they weren't a couple was because they were both dominant in bed. Maybe he would be a fun addition to the "Governor's Club." I had a couple of women on the staff who'd probably enjoy him. He couldn't have been much older or younger than me, and if I was tired of catering to the annoying, middle-aged and older men who were the majority of the club's members, I'm sure the gals were even more so. I imagined him moving through the dungeon like a hungry tiger. A hungry, sexy, bad-boy tiger. 

"You're staring, Ms. Hamilton," Axel said, startling me out of my reverie.

"Oh! Sorry. My thoughts were a million miles away." Oh thank goodness, I thought. Here comes Grant to distract everyone from the fact I was just staring at a rock star while sort of fantasizing about him.

Riggs opened the door and Grant half-fell into the seat I had left for him. He pulled his legs in and shook himself, holding up a bottle of champagne. For half a second I wondered if he'd been drinking from it, but no, it was still corked, and he wasn't drunk, merely a klutz. "Whoops, here we are. Hello, I'm Grant. Alex, is it?"