6. Stone
STONE
The next few weeks, we’re on the road, and Jackson and I are together nearly every night on a short European tour, visiting Vienna, Paris, and Madrid.
In Paris I am officially starving after the first show, so we swing by a brasserie near the hotel in Le Marais, where I order a salad and a glass of wine as the bells on a nearby church strike midnight.
“And for you, J-man?” I ask, dropping a nickname on my bodyguard for the first time.
He lifts one brow. “Should I call you S-man?”
“That or Favorite Rock Star Ever,” I say with a grin.
He doesn’t crack a smile. “We’ll stick with Stone.”
“Fine, J-man. Leave the nicknames to me. And the ordering. What tickles your fancy?”
He tells me he’ll have the chicken dish, with vegetables on the side, and a glass of water.
When the waiter arrives, I handle the ordering in French.
After the server leaves, Jackson asks, “Are you fluent? That was a little more than tourist French.”
I nod, pride spreading through me that he noticed. “Yeah, pretty much. Learned it in high school and college, but I made an effort to keep practicing, since I tour here a lot.”
A small grin crosses his face. “That’s awesome. It’s always good to know another language.”
“Yeah, it is. Are you impressed with me?” I ask with an eyebrow wiggle, like I’m fishing for compliments. Because I am.
But the man isn’t stoic for nothing. “Do you want to impress me, Stone?”
God, I do. I really want to impress him. “I always want to impress you,” I say lightly.
“Good. I’ll keep that in mind,” he says in that deadpan tone that leaves me wondering if I’ll ever make any inroads with him beyond his dry sense of humor.
But then, why do I want to?
A few nights later in Madrid, my stomach rumbles before the show, so we find a café, where I practically salivate for a veggie paella.
“I’ve got this one,” Jackson says, then he handles all the ordering, speaking in Spanish. He does it again the next morning when we order breakfast at a local spot, and it’s hella hot to hear him talk in another language.
But I have to remind myself it’s just empirically hot. It’s not specifically hot. It’s not hot because I’m attracted to him.
Since I’m not.
There’s a whole wide world out there full of beautiful, fluid people, and there’s no reason I should focus all my attraction on somebody who wouldn’t be attracted to me.
Next, we travel to Tokyo as promised.
Jackson is focused, diligent, and on alert like he always is as we make our way through the Narita airport with the team, then to our waiting cars that whisk Veronica, Candi, the other bodyguards, staffers, Jackson, and me to downtown Shibuya in the heart of Tokyo, the intersection made famous in Scarlett Johansson’s Lost in Translation .
Six streets converge, and thousands of people cross all at once every time the light turns green.
It’s a madhouse, an absolute zoo of people and neon and lights and energy, and I love it.
“What do you think?” I ask, holding my breath, since I want Jackson to like the city he most wanted to visit. “Is it what you hoped for?”
He nods a few times, taking it all in. “Worth it. Definitely worth it.”
Warmth spreads through me. A warmth from fulfilling one of his desires.
I only wish I understood why I like this sensation so much.
A few nights later after a concert, we’re heading back to the hotel. When we reach the revolving doors, I stop in my tracks.
“Everything okay, boss?” Jackson asks.
Boss.
The word bristles me. I am his boss, but I also want to have fun with the man.
Maybe I can have both.
“I’m too amped up from the concert, and I want to go play some games at an arcade,” I say, since Tokyo is a city that knows how to have a great time, a metropolis that embraces games and festivities, from karaoke to pachinko.
“You like arcade games?” he asks with a lift of one eyebrow.
“You don’t like games?” I counter.
“Love arcade games. Pinball is life,” he says with a wry laugh.
“Do I detect a note of competition in there, Jackson Pearce?”
He gives me a you wouldn’t dare look as he pats his chest. “You want to take me on in pinball, Stone Zenith?”
I puff out my chest. “I absolutely do.”
“Have at it,” he says, confidence etched in those hazel eyes. “Even though I am on the job, and I’ll need to be looking out for you the whole time. Might make it hard.”
Hard . Tell me about it.
“Do not try to get out of it with that whole ‘on the job’ thing.”
He stares at me, unblinking. “You do want me to protect you, don’t you?”
“I do. But I have no doubt I can swing us a private pinball room at any arcade in this city,” I say, snapping my fingers.
“Cocky. You are so cocky,” he says, shaking his head in amusement.
And I love it. I love that a couple of months on the job and he already knows me. He’s unafraid to give me shit.
After a quick Google search, I lob in a request for a private room at a nearby arcade. We walk along the crowded streets, him glued to my side, his hand occasionally skirting over my back if someone comes too close.
My skin sparks the slightest bit from those grazes of his hand, but I do my best to ignore the racing sensation in my body.
It’s harder when a crowd pours out of the subway station, and he drapes an arm around my shoulder, keeping me close.
That arm. That hand.
They are fire on me.
Then the crowd dissipates, and he drops his arm. My skin is sad.
Shake it off.
We reach the skyscraper that’s home to the arcade on the sixth floor, typical of Tokyo. It’s located above a karaoke bar.
“Don’t you want to go sing karaoke?” he asks with narrowed eyes and a nudge of the elbow as we walk through the lobby.
“Why don’t we do that next?” My eyes widen. “Hey, can you sing?”
He laughs. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I stare like I’m waiting for an answer as we bound up the stairs. “I would like to know. That’s why I’m asking.”
He gives me a look that says you’ve got to be kidding . “Do you really think I’m going to do karaoke with a rock star? Dude who has Grammys? Who sings in front of thousands every night?”
“Yes. You should.” I poke his chest. Damn, that feels good. He’s so incredibly firm. Like brick. Sexy brick. “Karaoke is for everyone.”
“I’m not asking you to play tackle football with me, am I?”
I stop on that image. Stop and savor. “I would. I would play tackle football with you,” I say.
I would love tackle football with him. Too much.
Too much indeed. I should stop thinking about tackle football. Because it’s not actually tackle football I want to play with him.
It’s tackle me on the bed .
But pinball will have to do.
As we reach the sixth floor, Jackson pushes open the door, smiling as if the exercise has done him good. “Ah, stairs.”
I laugh. “But it’s the elevator next time.”
“We’ll see about that.”
We make our way to the arcade, finding several machines right next to each other in a private room as promised.
We take on each other in a best-of-three pinball match. The man is ruthless. A fierce competitor. He is in the zone, lasered in on every single move.
And he destroys me in Star Wars . I annihilate him in Metallica . And he trounces me in Game of Thrones .
“You won,” I say, shaking his hand good-game-style. “I guess that means I owe you a beer.”
“I don’t drink on the job. But, Stone?”
“Yes, J-man?”
A wicked grin shifts his lips. “You don’t need to get me anything. Because you know what I have?”
“What’s that?” I ask carefully.
A playful glint crosses his eyes. “The satisfaction of winning,” he says, all low and smoky.
A tone that could turn me on.
“You are ruthless. And I love it.”
“Thanks. Also, good game. I suppose since you were such a good sport, I can let you pick the elevator.”
“Oh, no. You don’t need to give in on anything.”
But he doesn’t have to, since the stairwell now sports a sign that says closed for cleaning .
“Sometimes an elevator is where you want to be,” I say, echoing my words from the day we met.
“Sometimes it is,” he says, his tone still in that deeper zone, but now it’s a little sexier, a little racier.
Or maybe it’s all in my head.
We step into the elevator. It’s only us in the small space as we descend, and I dig that we’re alone, since I dig the way he teases me, the way he pokes fun at me, but I hate too that we’re in this small space, his clean, soapy scent more intense than when we’re out in the open, and all I want is for him to pin me in the corner and let me show him why elevators can be better than stairs.
So much better than stairs.
I grip the bar behind me, wishing I didn’t suffer from a case of lusting after my employee, my bodyguard, the guy who’s surely straight.
Probably straight.
I drag a hand through my hair, frustration surging through me, annoyed that I can’t say what I want, ask the questions I’m dying to know.
Put myself out of my misery. But I’m his boss.
I can’t ask if he’s gay or pan or bi like me.
And even if I knew he was, even if he was, would that change anything?
He works for me.
I can’t be into him.
I just can’t.
As the elevator slows near the bottom floor, I toss him a glance, unable to resist some harmless flirting. “So . . . stairs or elevator? What’s your pick?”
His lips twitch in a grin. As he steps out before me, scanning the lobby, then gently sets his arm on mine, he says, “Elevators aren’t so bad.”
My arm heats from his touch, electricity flaring on my skin.
I go back to my hotel room, wishing I didn’t have a wild crush on my bodyguard.