Stripped Read online

Page 24

 

  This car is worth more than I’ll see in my life, and he’s driving with an absolute disregard for it and our safety. I’m flung forward as we skid to a stop. My door is opened, and the belt I don’t remember buckling is unlatched. I’m lifted from the car by Dawon’s powerful arms. I smell him, some kind of faint but heady cologne of sweat and man. I recognize the way my body reacts to his presence.

  I push against him. “Put me down. ”

  “No. ”

  I look around me. We’re on the USC campus, and the entire student body is watching, it feels like. I hear whispers. I see people holding up cell phones and snapping pictures.

  “Which building?” His voice is silky and intimate, almost gentle. Almost.

  I point, and he makes a beeline for it. I’m nothing in his arms. He moves as if unencumbered. “Please. Put me down. I can walk. ”

  “No. ” He pushes open the door and pauses.

  “Second floor. Two-sixteen. ”

  Word has spread, and doors are opening as we ascend. I hear whispers, hear the electronic click of cell phone cameras.

  I hear the shriek of a female voice. “That’s Dawson Kellor! Omigod, that’s Dawson! Can I have your autograph! Please? Do you want to come in?”

  He ignores her, brushes past brusquely. “Not now, ladies. I’ll sign a few autographs when I leave. ” Something in his voice brooks no arguments.

  He’s at my door, somehow twisting the knob without letting go of me. I hear the telltale moans of Lizzie and her latest boyfriend. “Boy-toys,” as she calls them. They are toys to her, too; she goes through boys faster than she does outfits. The door bangs open, thumping against the door and shuddering noisily as it swings back toward the frame.

  “Omigod, what the hell—” I hear Lizzie start, and then she recognizes who it is barging through. “Dawson Kellor? Omigod, you’re even more gorgeous in person, Mr. Kellor! Grey, what’s going on? What’s he doing here?

  I feel Dawson tense around me, his hands turning to steel around my shoulders and under my knees. “Not now, Lizzie. I’m not feeling well. Can you give me a minute?”

  “Leave. Now,” Dawson growls, and the sound is pure threat.

  I’m twisting in Dawson’s arms to see Lizzie fumbling from under the sheet to grab her panties next to the bed. Her current boy-flavor does the same, but he accidentally kicks away the sheet, and they’re both left naked. Lizzie squeals, smacks him on the arm, and scrambles into her panties, covering her br**sts with one arm. Dawson hasn’t put me down, and even though I’m a solid one-forty, he’s holding me with complete effortlessness. He just waits impassively while Lizzie tugs on her clothes.

  The boy—who really is a boy, a good-looking blond freshman with a big build that he hasn’t entirely grown into yet—jams his feet into his jeans and hops out with his shirt in one hand and ADIDAS sports sandals in the other. It’s an awkward dance that he does with enough familiarity to make me think he’s done it many times. When they’re gone, Dawson looks around the room for somewhere to put me. I kick my feet, and he reluctantly sets me down standing, but his hands don’t leave my arms.

  I wriggle in his grip and move away to sit in my desk chair. “I’m fine, Dawson. Really. ” My stomach growls again, and his brows furrow.

  “When was the last time you ate?” He demands again.

  I shrug. “I don’t know. This morning?” I don’t lie well, or easily, and Dawson just lifts an eyebrow at me. I sigh, and mutter, “Before class. Six?”

  Dawson’s face contorts. “You haven’t eaten in twelve hours? And you walked how many blocks to the office?”

  I dig a Powerbar out of my desk and unwrap it, holding it by the wrapper. “I’m fine. See? Dinner. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m used to it. ”

  “Used to it? Meaning you routinely go twelve hours between meals?” When I just shrug again, he growls. “That’s not healthy. And a Powerbar isn’t dinner. ”

  He rummages in the mini-fridge, but I stop him. “That’s Lizzie’s. Nothing in there is mine. ” I open my snack drawer in my desk, where I keep Powerbars, granola bars, a bag of bagels, and some Stacy’s Simply Naked Pita Chips.

  Dawson just stares at me. “Where’s the rest?”

  “The rest of what?” I ask between bites.

  “Your food. What do you eat?”

  I shrug again, and then determine to not do it again. I seem to shrug all too often around Dawson, and I’ve only known him for two hours, if that. “I eat. Just not here. I have a bagel in the morning, and I sometimes grab a snack from a vending machine between classes. I have dinner at work. ”

  “And lunch?”

  I’m getting irritated. I crumple the wrapper and toss it in the little round white garbage can under my desk, which is filled with wrappers. “Why are you so interested in my eating habits?”

  Dawson just stares at me. His eyes were a light shade of blue when he was angry, out on the street. Now they’re back to a muted hazel. I can’t look away, can’t take my eyes off his. Off of him. His jaw shifts, and I realize he’s grinding his teeth, thinking. He digs a cell phone out of his pocket, and I’m kind of nonplussed to realize it’s an iPhone. After the expensive sports car, I expected him to have some kind of space-age gadget from a sci-fi movie, not a basic black iPhone 5. He taps at it a few times and then holds it to his ear.

  “Hey, Greg. Yeah, look I’m on the USC campus, and I need some food delivered. ” He turns to look at me. “Are you a vegetarian or anything weird?”

  I shake my head. “No, but—”

  He glances away from me and speaks into the phone once more. “Just a spread of food, I guess. Sandwiches, burgers, whatever. Yeah, campus housing—” He gives basic directions to my dorm room. “Oh, and Greg, bring the Rover and the set of spare keys. I’ll drive you back in the Bugatti. Cool, ’bye. ”

  Bugatti. That must be the silvery-mirror car.

  He stuffs the phone back in his pocket and slumps into Lizzie’s desk chair. Before I know what’s happening, he’s removed my shoes and has my legs on his knees. His hands and fingers are kneading into my right foot. It’s shockingly intimate, sensual, and not a little scary. I want to take my foot back, but he won’t let go. He holds my foot by the ankle and digs into the arch of my foot with a thumb. It feels so good I can’t stop a groan from escaping. It’s a loud, embarrassing sound, and I clap my hand over my mouth. Dawson just smiles, and the small, pleased grin on his lips makes him so beautiful my breath catches in my lungs.

  Page 25

 

  His touch on my foot is like…it’s sinful. It makes me feel things I don’t understand, makes my stomach roil, makes things flip and twist. Something happens down low, near my core. I don’t know if this is an unusual reaction to a foot rub or not. Maybe I have sensitive feet. Maybe he’s just amazing at rubbing feet. All I know is, it feels incredible and I can’t help but relax into my chair as he massages my foot. And then I realize I’ve been on my feet all day, and they probably stink. I jerk my feet away and tuck them under my leg, keeping the fabric of my skirt modestly draped over my knees.

  “Don’t like foot massages?” He seems amused.

  “No, I just…they stink. That’s gross. ”

  “Your feet don’t stink. ” He leans forward and grabs my foot. His hand is on my thigh, near my backside, as he tugs my feet back out. “Now, give them here. I wasn’t done. ”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?” He resumes his slow, thorough massaging of my right foot.

  I start to shrug again and then stop, which ends up in an awkward roll of my shoulder. “Why are you here? Why did you…why are doing all this?”

  His eyes are intense, going dark and stormy as he regards me and considers his answer. “Because I want to. ”

  “But why?”

  He doesn’t answer, but instead returns with his own question. “Why are you questioning it?”

>   “Because you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t be rubbing my foot. You should just go home and leave me alone. ”

  “But that’s not what you want. And it’s not what I want. ”

  Damn him, he’s right. I want him here. I want this foot massage. His presence is…intoxicating. I’m drunk on his proximity. This is all a dream I’ll wake up from, I’m sure. But I don’t want to.

  “You don’t know what I want,” I say. It’s a lie, and I’m a bad liar.

  He doesn’t answer again, just sets my right foot down on his thigh and picks up my left, and his fingers slid along my calf, his thumb rolls into my arch, eliciting another moan from me. And then his fingers slide a little higher, toward the underside of my knee, and it’s too much, too intimate. Too sexual.

  I tug my foot away, and he doesn’t let go, but the motion brings my leg away from his touch. “Don’t, Dawson. ”

  “Why?”

  “Because…please, just don’t. ”

  He only watches me, and now the only contact is his hand around my Achilles tendon and his thumb on my arch and his fingers just above my toes. Silence reigns then, as I struggle with myself. I want to take my foot back and ask him to leave. He sees too much; his eyes pierce my soul and see what I want when I don’t even know it myself. But I also want to slide off my chair and onto his lap, and I want to kiss him again. The thought terrifies me. I shouldn’t want him. He’s…wrong. Wanting him is wrong. Sex is wrong. That’s been drilled into me since I was a small girl. Marriage happens out of chaste, godly love, and children are born out of some kind of pure and holy act. But this is what I want and it’s sinful and sexual.

  It’s a war inside me, and it freezes me into stillness. I watch him, watch his arms flex in his tight gray shirt, watch his eyes shift and roam. My skirt has hiked up to my knees, and my legs are pressed together to present a modest glimpse of calf and nothing else, but I feel like his eyes see through my clothes. He looks at me as if seeing me as I was in the VIP room of Exotic Nights.

  “Dawson, listen—” I start.

  “Don’t. Not now. We’ll discuss that later. Greg will be here with the food in a minute. ”

  “That’s not necessary. I’m not hungry,” I say, just as my stomach growls, showing up my lie.

  He just shakes his head, bemused. I close my eyes and lean my head back to rest on my desk, my legs stretched out in the chair and across Dawson’s lap. I’m so tired suddenly. The press and roll and rub of his hands on my feet is soothing, amazing, relaxing. I feel myself drifting and can’t stop it.

  Dawson’s phone chimes, and then my door opens. I struggle toward wakefulness, force myself to sit up and blink the sleep away. A middle-aged man, who I assume is Greg, stands in my dorm room, his head shaved into egg smoothness. He’s thick and burly, with crow’s feet around his dark brown and sharply intelligent eyes. His arms stretch the sleeves of his Lacoste collared T-shirt, and he has a cell phone clipped to a thin black leather belt. He brings in a stack of carry-out containers, which he sets on the desk in front of me. The smell of grilled burgers and fresh french fries breaks my resolve and I rip open the top container. I’m three bites in to the giant bacon cheeseburger before I realize neither Dawson nor Greg has moved. They’re just watching me eat.

  “What?”

  Dawson just wipes at his smile with a palm, then grabs the container beneath the one I’m eating from. “Nothing. Just…this is L. A. You don’t often see girls dig into a burger like that around here. ”

  I swallow, suddenly overcome by embarrassment. I was pigging out like I was starving, I realize. “Oh. I—oh. I’m hungry. I just…Sorry. ”

  Dawson frowns. “Don’t apologize. It’s refreshing. ”

  I force myself to take smaller bites. I haven’t had a burger this good since I’ve moved to L. A. , and it’s delicious. I want to devour it, but slow down instead. I don’t want Dawson to see me as a hick.

  I glance up at the man who brought the food. “Thank you…Greg, right?” Greg nods. “Thanks. ”

  “Don’t mention it. ” His voice is gravelly, a smoker’s rasp. He has a tattoo on his neck, the “Don’t Tread on Me” snake on the side of his throat. I see the edges of more tattoos peeking out from under his shirtsleeves, and then the myriad of scars on his arms and face and knuckles register. Suddenly, I’m taking in the reality of Greg, and I’m realizing he’s a huge, hard, and threatening man, more of a Hell’s Angel type of biker stuffed into business-casual clothes. He’s a bodyguard, evidenced in the way he moves to stand with his back to the door, hands clasped in front of him in the way only security guards can do and not look stupid.

  Dawson is devouring a corned beef reuben, and I feel better about my own appetite. He casts a glance at Greg and says, “Why don’t you wait outside? We’ll be leaving in a minute. ”

  Page 26

  “You have a dinner meeting with Uri Ivanovich in half an hour,” Greg says.

  Dawson frowns. “I do? About what?”

  “He wants to pitch a script to you. It’s a thriller, I think. ”

  “I don’t remember agreeing to this. ”

  Greg’s lips tighten in a shadow of a smile. “I’m not surprised. You ran into him the other night. You were pretty hammered at that point. ”

  “Cancel it,” Dawson says.

  Greg lifts an eyebrow. “Sure? Uri is a big-money player. He doesn’t go in for shit scripts. ”

  “Just send him my apologies and have him courier the script to me. I’ll read through it later. I’m not doing dinner, though. ” Dawson chews and swallows, and continues, “I’m not sure I want to do a thriller, to be honest with you. ”

  My business mind kicks in. “I don’t think a thriller would be a good move for you,” I say, before I can rethink my intentions. “You want to reinvent your image, then you need to stick to more serious dramatic roles. Uri Ivanovich does big-money scripts, but they’re summer blockbusters, not serious Oscar-contender projects. ”

  Dawson frowns at me. “Really. ” It’s not a question, but his eyes invite me to continue.

  “Before you left Hollywood, most of your roles were thriller and action, a few rom-coms here and there. Gone With the Wind is a great return role for you. It sends the message that you’re serious. ”

  “Serious about what?” Dawson asks.

  “Rejuvenating your image. Your reputation. ”

  “What do you know about my image and reputation?” It’s a challenge.

  I shrug. “Just what’s been written about you. ”

  “Just because they wrote it—” Dawson cuts in, but I speak over him.

  “Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant. The scandals alone, merited or not, gave you a negative image. And yeah, I know what they say about negative publicity being better than nothing, but I’m not sure how accurate that is. For a come back, you need to present yourself as more mature. ”

  I need a distraction to keep myself from falling for how sexy he is. Thinking thoughts I shouldn’t. Even eating, he’s beautiful. Rugged and godlike. His jaw shifts and rocks and glints in the evening light as he chews. He licks dressing off his lip, and I remember the way his lips touched mine, the way his tongue traced my lower lip.

  I shake myself, and focus on my burger, half gone, focus on the grain of the fake wood of my desk, focus on anything but him.

  Greg slips out, and I hear voices chatter outside, see a few camera flashes, and his low growl as he pushes back the crowd. Dawson shoots a tense glance at the door. A crowd is waiting for Dawson to come out. He’s in here with me, eating corned beef, and out there are dozens of people waiting, clamoring for a mere glimpse of him. My head spins a little.

  I finish the burger, muffle an embarrassing belch, which brings a grin out of Dawson, and I wipe my mouth with a napkin. The voices outside grow in volume, and Dawson’s expression turns serious once more.

  “I’m sorry,” I say
, gesturing to the door, and by extension, the crowd beyond it. “Now you have to deal with that. ”

  “I made the choice. It’s part of the deal. ” He shrugs, acting nonchalant. “Not your worry. ”

  I frown. “Are they going to write about me?”

  “Probably. They’ll make up lies. Just ignore it. They’ll go away. ”

  Possibilities and potential ramifications flit through my head, and panic begins to set in. “But…what if they follow me?”

  Dawson shrugs. “Don’t answer. Do what you have to do and ignore them. ”

  He doesn’t get it.

  “I’m not a famous actress, Dawson. I’m a student. An intern. ” I keep my eyes downcast. “You know where I work. What I do. What if they follow me there? People will find out. ”

  Dawson closes the Styrofoam lid and wipes his hands and mouth, then he places my feet back on the floor, leans forward and takes my hands in his. “And that’s a problem?”

  “Yes!”

  “Are you ashamed of what you do?”

  I don’t answer, don’t look at him. I just tug my hands free and stand up. “You should go. ”

  He stands up, too, but only to tower over me, body close to mine. His index finger touches my chin and forces me to look up at him. I do, and I’m breathless. His eyes are the bluish-gray of upset now, intense and conflicted.

  “Grey. ”

  “What?” It’s a breath, a quiet whisper.

  “Why do you do it, if you’re ashamed?” His gaze burns into me, and I know he can see my secrets, see my shame, see my need and my fear. His finger and thumb gently hold my chin so I can’t turn away.

  I refuse to answer. “Please just go. ”

  “Fine. ” He lets go of my chin and turns toward the door. My skins burns where he touched me. “I’ll see you at the office tomorrow. ”

  “No. ”

  He stops and turns back. “What? No, what?”

  “I can’t do it. ”

  “Grey, what are you talking about?” He scowls at me.

  “I can’t work with you. I just can’t do it. ”

  “I was under the impression that you had to, if you wanted to finish your internship. ” He scratches his jaw. “I don’t know what you’re so afraid of. Despite my reputation, I’m not that bad. ”