Chapter Twenty-One

 

 

 

Gale Ann Spaulding had just come off another kick-ass show chock-full of speculation and rants about Alexander Valentine and his little girlfriend. It was ridiculously petty of her, but she hated it that the woman’s novels were suddenly jumping off the shelves. She hadn’t read one, but went out of her way to make sure the people who talked to her on the show didn’t like them. They were rubbish, full of filth and porn, one commenter had said. Tawdry dribble, another had commented. She’d left that comment off, disappointed that the caller hadn’t known the difference between drivel and dribble, but then her business dealt in the lowest common denominators, in people who would much rather take hearsay as gospel than actually bother to do the research. That made her job easier too. However, it didn’t mean she could rest on her laurels. A tiny bit of research, just the right bit of research presented in just the right way could go a long way with an audience like hers, and her instinct kept telling her that little Ms. Blake was keeping secrets, big, fat juicy secrets. Her run-in with Andy Matthews at Eddie’s Supermarket had piqued her interest majorly. No on reacted the way that boy did unless they were hiding something, something pertaining to Ms. Pert Ass. He was still her best lead. Gale Ann’s stakeout at Mountain View had turned up nothing. No one had gone in and no one had come out. Her sources told her that at Kelly Blake’s house, nothing had changed, and the woman’s secretary was terrifyingly protective of her friend. No one was brave enough to tackle her, especially since they figured it would take nothing less than torture of the highest magnitude to get her to tell them anything. Still, an intrepid few reporters hung out on her front lawn just in case. But she was through hanging out anywhere waiting for something to happen. She was sure that the result of shoving a Dictaphone in either of the major players’ faces would be no more satisfying than it had been the last time—though she had gotten a good amount of mileage from that little incident. She checked her email to find that her researcher, at her request, had set up a meeting with Jenny, her cousin, the journalism major, the one who was dating Andy Matthews. They would meet for drinks at Clyde Common—her treat. Nothing softened up a poor college student better than drinks with a celeb and a pricey place. If this Jenny had any idea what Andy was hiding, she’d lubricate it out of her with a few Cosmos. It worked every time. She was great at being a girl’s best friend when she had to be.

 

* * * *

 

Andy groaned and slapped at his phone in an awkward one-handed stretch as the alarm went off. Jenny half mumbled a protest in an attempt to make him lie still. She had one leg thrown over his belly and an arm over his chest with her face buried in the hollow of his neck. He stretched harder, knocking the phone off onto the floor, and grunted a curse. “Jenny, honey, I’ve got to get up. I’ve got a chem lab in half an hour.” He liked that they’d already fallen into the habit of calling each other pet names, and he liked that once a week, sometimes more, she stayed over. Though in all honesty, they seldom got much sleep when she did. They were always ravenous for each other. He smiled to himself as she gave him a sloppy kiss on the shoulder and rolled over, barely breaking the surface of sleep in her efforts. His cock hardened at the fleeting glimpse of a pink nipple in the gray morning light as she did so. But it was chemistry lab and he couldn’t afford to miss it for another romp between her glorious thighs. He could risk a little kiss, though.

He shut off the alarm and pulled down the comforter just enough to nuzzle her breast and give her a teasing suck. She gave a little kitten growl and reached for him, but he only grabbed her hand and kissed her fingertips. “Gotta go, love. Stay as long as you like.” He headed for the bathroom, thinking bromides to keep his cock from taking over all higher brain functions. He peed then hopped into the steam of the shower, smiling at the fact they’d barely got dinner eaten before they were all over each other. No matter what happened from now on for the rest of his life, he would always consider Kelly Blake a saint. She had given him confidence he would have never had, and in such a simple, unobtrusive way. She was a goddess. He wished he could afford to pay her, he really did. As he got out of the shower to the smell of coffee drifting in from the kitchen, he didn’t think he could have smiled harder if he tried. Jenny was waiting for him in the kitchen with his travel mug filled and ready to go along with a croissant tucked in a napkin, warm from the microwave.

“It was amazing last night,” she said, when he pulled her into his arms, not missing the fact that she was wrapped in his pajama top. “You were amazing.”

“No, you were amazing,” he said, nipping her ear and releasing her to her own coffee. For a long moment, they stood smiling stupidly at each other, and the she gave him that little pout that said she was about to ask an important question and she wasn’t sure how he’d respond. “What?” he said. They hadn’t been together long enough for any of his responses to be negative, nor for any of her questions to be troublesome.

“My birthday’s next week,” she waved her hand dismissively. “You already know that and it’s not a hint, really. It’s just that I got a birthday card from my Aunt Phyllis yesterday and she always sends money, a lot of money.”

“Ooh, nice to have an aunt like that,” he said.

“Yeah, well, I was going to spend it on a spa weekend for me and my best friend Sherry, you know, surprise her. But that was before.” She blushed prettily and reached to straighten his collar. “Anyway, I was just wondering, since your little impromptu session with Kelly Blake had such fabulous results, maybe I could forget the spa weekend and we could, you know”—she made a very suggestive nod down at his crotch—“go for a little tutoring sesh together and see what comes up.”

“Seriously? That’s what you want to do with your birthday money? Wow! Honey, it’s a great idea! I mean, great minds, right? I was just thinking that I wish there was a way without me offering up our first born to pay for a few more sessions with Kelly Blake.” Oh, she liked the mention of a firstborn, he could see it in her smile. So did he, actually.

“Well, this will save our offspring from such a clandestine exchange and”—she sucked in an excited breath and rolled her eyes—“and completely eliminate any possibility of sleep for the two of us in the foreseeable future.”

“And a sacrifice well worth the making, I’d say.” He glanced at his watch and grabbed his keys. “Gotta go.”

She followed him to the door. “The money’s already in the bank. You just make the arrangements and I’ll make myself available.”

“Oh,” Andy said, stopping in his tracks. “There might be a small problem, though I’m sure it’s only temporary, and besides that, my cousin, Dillon, can handle the situation for us, I’m sure.”

“Problem?”

“Well, actually it’s not really a problem. You see, Kelly Blake has just recently become engaged, and you’ll never believe to whom.” He didn’t give her the chance to guess. “Alexander Valentine.”

“Oh, my God!” she said. “I do remember hearing something about that on the news, but I didn’t make the connection that it was your Kelly Blake. Wow! It’s been all over the TV, actually, and who knew he was so hot? Not as hot as you, though,” she added quickly.

“Well, my cousin, Dillon, works for Lex Valentine and it seems that at the moment, with the press hounding the two of them and all, they’re holed up at Lex’s fortress. Now that would be amazing if Kelly could meet us there,” he said. “Anyway, my point is that at the moment they’re under siege by the press, but hopefully that’ll pass soon enough, and anyway, we have plenty of time, don’t we? Christ! Speaking of time, I gotta go. Dinner tomorrow night?” he said, pulling the door open and giving her a sloppy kiss that was more of a miss.

“Sure, though I might be a few minutes late. I’m meeting my cousin Madeline over at Clyde Common for cocktails. She’s bringing some friend from work she thinks I ought to meet. Good for my career, she said. But if I know you’re here waiting for me, I’m sure I’ll be motivated to speed things along and limit the intake of alcohol so I’ll be ready for the evening’s entertainment.” She flashed him a naked breast, and blew him a kiss as he rushed out of the door contemplating what other food items Kelly Blake might use for her tutorials besides canned pears.