Spin (Songs of Corruption #1)(2)

But though I’d been with him for seven years, he’d never looked at me the way Jonathan looked at that singer. Never. Maybe that was why Daniel had had sex with his speechwriter. He didn’t revere her; he f**ked her.

Daniel had always called me Tink, short for Tinkerbell, because of my curvy, petite frame. A sprightly, delicate fairy. Not someone you looked at hungrily.

I saw the singer in the hall, looking distant and resolute at the same time, as if she was convincing herself of something. She stopped short when she saw me.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I was rude and unbecoming.”

I was going to deny it, but I was struck by a distraction that cut me to the core. I smelled pine trees, deep in the forest, damp in the morning after a night of campfires and singing. The burning char and dew mingled in the song-like trails of cigarette smoke, rising and disappearing. And then it was gone.

“My brother’s an ass**le, so I don’t blame you.” I regretted that almost immediately. I didn’t talk like that, especially not about family. I took her hand and squeezed it. “We both loved your voice.”

“Thank you. I have to go. I’ll try to see you on the way out.” She slipped her hand away and walked toward the dressing room.

I caught the scent again and looked in her direction, as if I could see the smell’s source. It could have come from anyone. It could have been the gorgeous black lady with the sweet smile. It could have been the plate of saucy meat that crossed my path. Could have been the waft of parking lot that came through the door before it snapped closed.

But it wasn’t.

I knew it like I knew tax code; it was him. The man in the dark suit and thin pink tie, the full lips and two-day beard. His eyes were black as a felony, and they stayed on me as his body swung into the booth.

The smell had come from him, not the other man getting into the booth. It was in his gaze, which was locked on me, disarming me. He was beautiful to me. Not my type, not at all. But the slight cleft in his chin, the powerful jaw, the swoop of dark hair falling over his forehead seemed right. Just right. I swallowed. My mouth had started watering, and my throat had gotten dry. I got a flash of him above me, with that swoop of hair rocking, as he f**ked me so hard the sheets ripped.

He turned to say something to the hostess, and I took a gulp of air. I’d forgotten to breathe. I put my hands to my shirt buttons to make sure they were fastened, because I felt as if he’d undressed me.

I had two ways to return to Jonathan: behind the piano, which was the crowded, shorter way, or in front, which was less populated but longer.

I walked in front of the piano. The less crowded way. The longer way. The way that took me right past the man in the pink tie.

I wanted him to look at me, and he spent the entire length of our proximity talking earnestly to the baby-faced, bow-lipped man next to him. I caught the burned, dewy pine scent that made no sense and kept walking.

I felt a tug on my wrist, a warm sensation that tingled. His hand was on me, gentle but resolved. I stopped, looking at him as his hand brought me to his face. He drew me down until he was whisper close. A sudden rush of potential went from the back of my neck to the space between my legs, waking me where I thought I’d died.

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t speak.

If he kissed me, I would have opened my mouth for him. That, I knew for sure.

“Your shoe,” he said with an accent I couldn’t place.

“What?” I couldn’t stop looking at his eyes: brown, wide, with longer eyelashes than should be legal, hooded under arched brows proportioned for expression.

Was I wearing shoes? Was I standing? Did I need to take in air? Eat? Or could I just live off the energy between us?

He pointed at my heel. “You brought yourself a souvenir from the ladies’ room.”

He was beautiful, even as he smirked with those full lips. Did I have to turn away to see what he was talking about? It was that or put my tongue down his throat. I looked down.

I had a trail of toilet paper on my stiletto.

“Thank you,” I said.

“My pleasure.” He let go of my hand.

The space where he’d touched felt like a missed opportunity, and I went to the bathroom to return my souvenir.

two.

After I’d kicked Daniel out of my loft, Katrina moved in. Living alone had thrust me hip deep into depression, and her things around the house changed my feeling of complete emptiness into a feeling that something was right even when everything was wrong.

For her part, she was dealing with a career that had crashed and burned when she filed a lawsuit against the studio that had funded her Oscar-nominated movie. She said there were profits she was entitled to share; they insisted the production operated at a loss. Fancy, indefensible, and legal accounting proved them right, leaving her bank account empty and her career in tatters.

She and I were cars passing on opposite sides of the freeway. As a nearly-but-not-quite-famous director, she was on set at odd hours, and when she wasn’t, she was trying to hold her production together with spit and chewing gum. She couldn’t pay much, so her crew left for scale-paying gigs and had to be replaced, or they dropped out of a day’s shooting with grave apologies but no replacement. Set designers, assistant camera people, gaffers did it for love and opportunity. Production assistants, also called PAs, were the unskilled and barely paid necessities on set, and most likely to drop out.