Friction Read online

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  “Had to stop reading your book,” he said, glancing over at me for a moment before turning back up front.

  “It bored you,” I assumed.

  “Not at all. The exact opposite, actually,” he said and then looked at me with burning eyes.

  Holy hell!

  “It turned me on,” he said unapologetically. “A lot. We’re about to land and I don’t want to walk through the airport with a raging hard-on.”

  I stared at him with my mouth hanging open, and dear me, I couldn’t help myself. My eyes dropped to his lap. My book was on his thighs, but above that, an impossible monster pressed against his jeans. It was perfectly outlined in the snug denim. I couldn’t believe it. He had to be no less than ten inches of all man.

  Oh, my god, Noa! Look away, look away! Stop looking at his cock, for heaven’s sake!

  Instead of looking away, my mind thought about all of the pelvic thrusts Alden had done on stage, exciting and firing up the women. I had an unwanted image of his hips doing that thrusting while inside of a woman – okay, inside of me in particular.

  Maybe that was one of the reasons women were willing to kill each other to get to Alden Breck. Perhaps many of them were aware of the monster between his legs, because they read about him or drooled over photos of him, and I was sure it had to come up, so to speak, at some point. But I never paid that much attention to the cocky (oh yeah) Friction front man before last night. Now I couldn’t peel my eyes away.

  “Okay, the fact that you’re staring at my boy isn’t helping him to go down,” Alden said to me, and finally, I snapped out of my haze and looked away, red faced and dumbstruck.

  “My god,” I whispered before I could stop myself.

  He chuckled. “You’re even more gorgeous when you’re blushing, Little Noa.”

  I said nothing. I looked straight ahead at the back of the seat in front of me. As we began to descend toward the earth, Alden had the balls – of course, he did – to run the back of his hand over my cheek. I disappointed myself when I actually shuddered slightly before knocking his hand away. He invaded my personal space, leaned over the several inches between us until his face was close to mine. I felt his breath on my cheek as he spoke.

  “I’m intrigued,” he said thoughtfully.

  “With what?” I responded, leaning away from him before meeting his eyes.

  “With you.”

  I probably looked as flabbergasted as I felt. “Why?”

  “Because you are trying so hard to dislike me.”

  I snorted. “I don’t have to try at all. It’s so easy.”

  “I want to get to know you better,” he said, leaning toward me as far as he could. I plastered myself against the bulkhead and there were still only a few mere inches between us.

  “You mean you want to bed me,” I corrected him with a scowl.

  “Fuck yeah, I want to bed you. I want to pull you into my lap right now and fuck you until you can’t breathe. I’ve wanted to slide into you since I saw your scowling ass at the concert, but I was going to settle for a kiss instead.”

  “What?” I said a little too loudly.

  “I was going to kiss you, but we’re not talking about that now. I want to get to know you, and I want to get to know you more than I want to fuck you.”

  I scoffed. “I’ll bet you say that to all of the reluctant women. Smooth, Breck, but not smooth enough.”

  He reached for me and I flinched so violently, I hit my head. He paused, looking at me with confusion. His fingers extended toward me again, but tentatively. I froze and held my breath, but he only pulled a length of my hair between his fingers and twirled it. My breath came out slow and shaky.

  “What if I promise you that I won’t try to fuck you?” he asked in a cotton soft voice that made my belly flutter.

  Frustrated, and a little scared of the fluttering in my belly, I swallowed hard. “Why? Why are you doing this? Why don’t you leave me alone?”

  He looked at me for so long, I didn’t think he’d answer. I thought he was going to release my hair, give me back my personal space, and give up. But he didn’t do any of that. His eyebrows lowered and he looked just as flummoxed as I felt.

  “I don’t know,” he said just above a whisper. “But I don’t break promises, Little Noa. I promise you I won’t try to have sex with you. Give me a chance here. Let’s be…friends.” He said the word as if he had never said it before in his life.

  “Friendship must be a foreign concept to a slut like you.” It was such a cruel thing to say, but he took it with a shrug of his shoulder and a small smile.

  “Yeah, I don’t really make friends easily, especially women.”

  “So, what…I should feel privileged or something?”

  “Maybe I’m the one that would be privileged,” he said seriously.

  We stared at each other for a long time. The plane stopped at the terminal, the seatbelt sign shut off, and people began to stand around us. Yet, we continued to sit there and stare.

  “Why?” I asked again, my voice barely audible above all of the other noises around us.

  “Fuck if I know,” Alden said in the same tone I used. “But I feel it, you know? I feel like I want to know who you are. Come on, Noa. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  I had a long list of the worst things that could happen, but I swallowed it back. I wrung my hands in my lap, a sure sign of my anxiety. I wasn’t anxious because I felt pressured. I was anxious because I knew my answer from the instant he first asked the question.

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  Alden’s smile was radiant. And sexy.

  Damn it!

  After we deplaned, I tried to go my own way, but Alden wasn’t having any of it. He steered me away from the line of cabs toward a waiting limo.

  “No, no,” I said, backing away.

  “How are we supposed to be friends if we don’t spend any time together?” he chided, shaking his head. Gently, he put his hand on my back and nudged me toward the open door as his driver began putting our luggage into the trunk.

  “I just spent seven hours with you,” I said in disagreement, but I conceded and climbed in. Alden scooted in after me but was kind enough to leave some space between us on the bench seat.

  We were awkwardly silent for a couple of minutes. I looked out of the window at the familiar scenery, happy to be back on the east coast finally, but I shivered. I had thoughtlessly packed my jacket in my suitcase, forgetting that I wasn’t going to be in eighty-degree weather when I returned home. I rubbed away the goose bumps on my arm just for more to pop up. Alden reached across to the other bench seat to where he had thrown his hoodie. He offered it to me. I stared blankly at it for a moment before taking it from him.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly. I pulled it on over my t-shirt and pulled my hands into the sleeves in an attempt to warm them. I couldn’t help but to breathe in a little slower, getting a good whiff of what was Alden’s skin.

  I had wondered how he was just going to waltz in to a restaurant without getting mobbed, but his virtual assistant called the little steak house ahead of time and asked them to reserve a private table for two with access to a back entrance and exit. No one would even know we were there.

  “Must be nice to be able to get privacy like this whenever you want it,” I said after the waiter poured me a glass of wine and placed a tall pilsner glass of beer in front of Alden.

  Alden shrugged. “Sometimes, but honestly, most of the time, I just want to sit in the dining area with everybody else and enjoy a meal like everyone else.”

  “I can hardly believe it.” I smiled over the rim of my glass. “You want to be like everyone else?”

  He gave another small shrug. “When I started out in this business, I just wanted to make music and entertain my friends and impress the girls. I wasn’t shooting to be a superstar. I liked meeting up with my buddies and bullshitting over good
food and drinks, or taking a beautiful woman to dinner.” He gave me a pointed look. “But I just can’t do that anymore. I live this extraordinary life, living the dream, you know? But in order to live this life, I have to be…squeezed into a box.”

  I stared at him. “You feel squeezed into a box? You have the world at your feet. You have the means to go almost anywhere, anytime, with anyone you want.”

  He smiled, but I was shocked at how much sadness was in that smile. “The world is at my feet, my door, my window…I can’t take a piss without the world knowing about it. When you need something from the store or get a craving for ice cream, you just go out and get it, right? You may run into a few people you know. Hell, maybe you have book fans stalking you, but it’s not like my situation at all. I can’t pick up a newspaper at the edge of my driveway without someone taking a picture. I can’t go into the convenience store and grab a pint of ice cream without having something happen. Someone always wants something from me.”

  I sipped my wine, letting his words swirl around my brain. I hated going to a certain grocery store because one of the girls there found out whom I was and loved my books. She was a nice girl, but sometimes, I just wanted to get my groceries and be on my way, and not answer ten thousand questions about my books or the characters. Mr. Obnoxious had millions of fans worldwide. Going into a different grocery store wasn’t going to make a lick of difference. He’d meet with the same result almost every time. We couldn’t even get through the airport earlier without him getting stopped several times by fans.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Alden started a minute later. “I love what I do. I love my fans. I love being at the center of attention, and the women, the parties, the drinking, and luxuries. Sometimes I just want to put it aside. That’s all.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I would never have suspected that he didn’t always like the spotlight, judging by the way that he thrust across the stage, kissing random women, and stripping off his clothes.

  When the waiter appeared, Alden ordered for both of us before I could even utter a syllable.

  That chafed me, made me feel all prickly-like.

  I spent more than three years with a man who outlined nearly every aspect of my daily life, even the meals I ate. I know it was ludicrous that after all of the shit Alden pulled since the concert, that ordering my dinner for me was what triggered unhappy and unsettling memories, but it did. My mind flashed with images of Larson’s cruel face and dishes crashing to the floor inches away from my head, all because I didn’t eat the meal that had been chosen for me.

  An unreasonable fury rose swiftly inside of me, broke out of my mouth, and flew right at Alden.

  “Why did you do that?” I flared after the waiter walked away. “I am fully capable of ordering meals for myself.” I pushed back in my chair, ignoring his surprised, raised eyebrows. I got to my feet. “You’ve been trying to control me since the concert,” I said as I snatched my bag off the back of my chair. “You didn’t like that I didn’t like you, so you were going to try to proselytize me into liking you by kissing me.”

  Amusement twinkled in his eyes and a corner of his mouth pulled up. “Proselytize?”

  “I am not halting my rant to explain to your tiny brain what proselytize means,” I snapped. “While I was unconscious, you went through my phone! You put yourself in my phone, like you assumed that I would ever want to call you.”

  Alden sat back in his chair and casually crossed his arms across his chest. I tried not to let my eyes linger too long on the tattooed muscles.

  “Do you know how many women would gladly go through what you did to get my phone number?” he asked smugly.

  “Trust me, Breck, I’m not one of them. Then you come out of nowhere, force me into the VIP lounge at the airport, and change my seat on the flight.”

  He snickered. “Yeah, that was so wicked of me, to make sure that you were comfortable after getting hurt at my concert.”

  I ignored the truth in that and marched on. “I was just going to take a cab home, but you kidnapped me—”

  “Kidnapped?” he laughed.

  His amusement was only firing my fury. I wanted to slap the grin off his ridiculously handsome face.

  “Yes! Kidnapped!” I exclaimed. “And then you ordered for me, didn’t even give me an option!”

  His mouth set in a line. He was no longer smiling. He looked at me for several moments, seemingly deep in thought as his brow creased. I don’t know why I didn’t just walk away, why I stood there waiting for some kind of response, but when I finally got one, it was simple. Just one word and a nod. “Okay.”

  I stood there, breathing hard after my crazy diatribe, and clutching the straps of my bag on my shoulder. “Okay,” I said snippily.

  “Okay,” he said again.

  “Okay.” I nodded and took a step backward. The instant I did, Alden stood up from the table. I watched warily as he took the few steps to reach me.

  “Are you finished?” he asked quietly as he towered over me.

  I looked up into his disgustingly beautiful, soft hazel eyes with my mouth slightly ajar for a moment before I shook myself and slammed my mouth shut.

  “Yes, I am finished,” I said insolently. I started to step back again, but I gasped when Alden’s hands closed over my shoulders. He bent slightly, so that his face was close to mine.

  “I apologize that you got hurt at my concert, due in part to my own actions,” he said softly. “I will not, however, apologize for going through your phone. At first, I was going to look for someone to call for you, because I didn’t know how badly you were hurt. But the more I looked at you lying there like Sleeping Beauty, waiting for a prince to kiss you, the more I wanted to know about you. Then when you woke up and saw me, you were all claws and teeth. I’m not used to that. I was intrigued. It is rare that I meet a woman who isn’t in some way star struck or throwing herself at me – not that I don’t like having women throw themselves at me, I fucking love it, but it is…refreshing to meet someone who would rather stab me in the eyes. I just want to get to know you better, Little One. I told you that on the plane, and I meant it.”

  I was temporarily speechless. I blinked at his chest for a moment. Maybe I was just paranoid. I didn’t want to be paranoid. But shouldn’t I be cautious? I’d trusted the wrong men before, who’s to say I wouldn’t do it again?

  In addition, befriending a superstar like Alden could put me under a spotlight I wasn’t interested in having on me. Being an author had strong elements of anonymity; my hardcore readers may know who I am if they saw me walking down the street, but the normal, everyday citizen would just see me as another nameless face in the crowd. However, if I started spending time with Alden Breck, anonymity would be almost non-existent. I had a past that was mostly silent and in the dark, and I wanted to leave it that way.

  But…

  I could not disregard that Alden had risked his own life by jumping from the safety of the stage into a pit where he could have been trampled by his own rabid fans so that he could save my life. I could not disregard how attentive he had been since finding me in the airport. As much as I wanted to pretend otherwise, I could not un-see the glimpses of the ordinary human man behind his absurdly obnoxious outer personality.

  “I can’t stand here and tell you that I’m not bossy or dominant, because I am,” he said when I remained silent. “I like to take charge, but please believe me, it’s not coming from a bad place. Maybe a sometimes arrogant place,” he admitted with a small smile. “But never a bad place. As for your dinner, if you don’t like the steak and potatoes I ordered for you, we can get them to change the order to whatever you like,” Alden said placatingly. “I thought chicks dig that kind of thing.”

  I deflated. I wanted to crawl under the table and forget the last few minutes happened, that I had not looked like a freaking nut job. Even if the incident at the concert was partially his fault for being a pompous prick, and the fault of the venue for not making sure their equipm
ent was safe, I wasn’t completely ungrateful. The least I could do was give him a little bit of my time.

  I lifted one shoulder under his big hand. “I like steak and potatoes,” I whispered.

  I let him lead me back to my chair. After he sat down across from me again, we sat in another awkward silence for a few moments. Well, I felt awkward and stupid for my outburst, but Alden looked very comfortable, sitting there, staring at me like his new favorite shiny toy.

  “I have a very serious question to ask you,” he said, looking very serious indeed.

  I waited with my heart pounding in my chest. I wasn’t ready to answer the personal questions my behavior had most likely stirred up, and he looked like he wanted to dig deep, to find out what made me tick.

  “Why don’t you like my music?”

  I was so relieved that I burst into giggles. It hurt my ribs, but I couldn’t help myself. I covered my face as I laughed. Alden’s fingers closed over mine and he pulled my hands away from my face.

  He was smiling. “I can’t see your face if it’s all covered up,” he said.

  “So?” I said as the giggles subsided.

  “So, your face just lit up the whole room while you laughed. Don’t cover up,” he gently commanded.

  I looked down at the table as my heart beat a little bit harder.

  “Now,” Alden started again. “Why don’t you like my fucking awesome music?”

  I laughed again, but I was careful not to cover my “lit up” face.

  We had talked about music for a long time. Alden had repeatedly referred to himself as a “lyrical god” and other egotistical titles, but I had to give him some credit. He had written more than three quarters of Friction’s songs, and of the six albums they had released, four had reached platinum status, and the other two gold. Three years ago, he had created the Frictitious record label, which currently had over a dozen signed bands or artists from different genres, and almost all of them had at least one hit playing on the radio at any given time. Along with a designer friend, Alden had also created the Friction Merchandising Company. They sold all things Friction – hats, apparel, key chains, posters, action figures, and even guitars, and more.