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  The words flowed easily over my tongue as I sang to this girl I’d just met, a girl I felt in so many ways like I already knew. “I saw her standing by the Champs de Mars, staring at a sky full of stars…”

  I didn’t know all the words, so I made them up as I went along. When I finished, Sara wasn’t shaking anymore. I came to a stop, and she rested her cheek on my shoulder.

  “You all right?” I tilted my head to hers.

  “Yeah.” Her head still rested on my shoulder. “That was amazing. So different from your other songs. I can’t believe you’re serenading me. Dancing with me. This is so surreal.”

  I released her waist and brought my hands up to stroke her hair, taking in the details of her pale face. Maybe it was just the adrenaline running high from being stuck in the elevator, but I couldn’t resist any longer.

  “Come here, Little Red.”

  “As in, Little Red Riding Hood?” she asked, a smile toying at the corner of her mouth.

  “A very grown-up version.” I wondered if she was as innocent as she seemed, or if she was out in the forest, looking for trouble. I slid my thumbs along her cheeks and she shuddered, her widening smile letting me know she welcomed my touch.

  “This feels like a dream,” she said.

  “For me, too.”

  “This sort of thing doesn’t happen to everyone, does it?”

  “Not like this.”

  Kissing after a great show was a thing for me—sparked by the high energy I felt after every performance—but it was usually with Ben or some girl totally different from Sara. People who expected things from me, even if it was just a night of great sex. For some reason, this—now—felt like a first.

  I thought I’d have to take it slow and gentle, but when I lowered my mouth to hers, Sara kissed me back with intense fervor, her tongue stroking my own at a frantic rate, and then it was no longer just stroking. It was a battle, our tongues dancing for dominance, mouths plundering one another. She raised her leg and wrapped it around my hips, and I leaned forward and ground against her.

  Hardness into heat. I loved smelling her hair—was that strawberries, I smelled?—and tasting her lips, and I could’ve inhaled her aroma all night long.

  “You’re amazing, you know that, Little Red?”

  She giggled, then bit my lower lip before grazing those same teeth against the stubble on my jaw line. “If I’m Little Red, does that make you the Big Bad Wolf?” she murmured in my ear.

  I let out a growl, low in the back of my throat, and nibbled her earlobe. “I gotta admit, I can’t seem to stop wanting to taste you.”

  “Then don’t stop,” she said, huskiness in her voice.

  At that moment, the speaker crackled. “Are you still in there?”

  Annoyed, I pulled back and responded with, “Still here.”

  “Fire department’s running a little late, but help is on its way. Another ten minutes, tops.”

  “No worries, man.” The call went dead again, and I turned back to Sara. “Did you ever play Seven Minutes in Heaven?”

  She giggled. “No, but I always wanted to,” she said.

  Then she surprised the hell out of me by boldly slipping off her hoodie slash cape, her lips parting in an invitation.

  My mouth came down on hers again and I held her close, kissing her, feeling her firm, round tits crushed against my chest. She kissed me back, equally intense. We couldn’t get enough of each other. We were a kissing, licking, panting mess of pure lust. If I could’ve snapped my fingers and gotten us both naked in seconds, I would have.

  Luckily, Sara was on the same train of thought with no stopping at the station. Pulling back, she gripped the hem of her T-shirt and tugged it out of the waistband of her mini-skirt. My already-hard cock just about turned to stone.

  “We’d better hurry,” she said.

  So much for claustrophobia.

  Her body was making the calls, and I knew that feeling of urgency all too well. “Anything you say, sweetheart.”

  She ripped off her T-shirt. Beneath was a white lace bra that made me lick my lips in anticipation. Smirking at me like the saucy minx she was turning out to be, Sara reached behind her back and unhooked her bra.

  “I’m good with this, just so you know, but are you sure?” I asked.

  She smiled. “I’ve never had anyone sing to me before. I…it touched something deep inside me, and I know this is crazy, that we just met, but yes, I’m sure.”

  Her boobs spilled out.

  She said other things, but I couldn’t focus on them.

  All I knew was that she was gorgeous, with milky white breasts that begged for my mouth, and that she was torturing me with those eyes and lips of hers. Leaning low, I brought my mouth to the pert mounds. My tongue traced a delicate pattern over the dusky rose of her right nipple. I relished the way it hardened and pebbled under my tongue. I opened my mouth wide and suckled all of it into my mouth. I loved laving at it, feeling my tongue flick over her raised peak.

  Then I did the same to the other one.

  The elevator trembled again, and I sucked her tit harder to make her forget about it.

  Sara bucked and moaned. I took that as encouragement to let my hands roam lower until I could grab the curves of her ass. There was something about the delectable thickness of her hips that drove me wild and made my cock twitch and strain against my jeans zipper.

  She kissed my cheek, and I worried the stubble I hadn’t shaved in days would scrape her soft lips.

  “How many minutes do we have left?” she whispered in my ear.

  I didn’t want to respond. Instead, I thrust my hips against hers, excited by her sudden gasp.

  “Seriously, Wes, we should probably stop. They’re going to arrive soon.”

  I pulled away far enough to look in her eyes. If she wanted me to stop, then we’d stop. “Whatever you want, Sara.”

  “I mean, I don’t want to—hell, I took my top off for you…” She bit her lip. “What do you think? Do we have three minutes left?” She gave me a naughty smile and tugged my head back down to her breasts, and again I suckled at her tits, squeezing them together. Her fingers gripped my hair and she moaned.

  “Two minutes, thirty seconds,” I said between licking her nipples.

  “Oh, that’s so good,” she moaned. “But what if people find us like this?”

  “We—” I began, pulling away, but she used her other hand to pull my hips into her. Talk about mixed messages. Unable to resist, I suckled at her nipple again, running my tongue over her in semi-circular motions. Her panting urged me on more and more, making my dick so hard I was crazy with lust. At the same time, I remembered how reserved she’d seemed when we first met. This had all begun because she was scared. I didn’t want to take advantage of that, or risk her being embarrassed if someone discovered us, so when she lowered her hand to feel between my legs, I somehow mustered enough self-control to stop her.

  “Time’s up?” she asked, panting.

  Taking her hand, I pulled it up, kissed it, and pressed it against my chest. “Yeah. Time’s up. I want you, and I want like hell to keep kissing you, but you should probably get dressed.”

  For a second, she blinked as if she was having trouble understanding me, then without another word, she slowly sank to her knees. My cock twitched as I imagined her preparing to give me a blowjob, but she was only picking up her bra and her shirt. After standing, she stood back up and slipped the bra back on, then covered those gorgeous breasts with her tee. When she was finished, we immediately started kissing again.

  I wanted more. As soon as we were out of this elevator, I was going home with her for the night—assuming she wanted the same thing. Or maybe we’d go back to my place. I had to know more about her mouth, what my cock would feel like inside of it, and how she’d feel up against a bed as I fucked her from behind. My hands strayed over her body, reaching down to feel the soft flesh of her thighs.

  Suddenly, a loud screech sounded out, and Sara let out
a small cry and clung to me. Then the elevator rose a few inches.

  I patted her back. “It’s okay—that’s the good guys out there. You’re safe.”

  Her fingers dug into my arm when the elevator suddenly dropped a few inches. I glanced at her and once again, her pupils were wide—from fear, not arousal, this time. The elevator rose again, continuing its upward motion until it stopped with a jolt.

  Suddenly the door opened, and as Sara clung to me, we saw a whole group of people standing in front of the elevator.

  Staring at us.

  Firefighters stood in front of a small crowd of fans. Behind them, Liam held up his phone and pointed at it. “Tried calling you, bro.”

  A couple of people snickered and Sara stepped a good two feet away. Her hair was tousled, so I reached out and brushed it back from her face. She stared at the crowd with a freaked out expression on her face.

  The elevator hadn’t quite cleared the third floor, so we couldn’t yet leave. Instead, we were like zoo animals, with a whole crowd staring at us.

  “Hey, don’t worry about the attention,” I said, trying to reassure her. After all, it’s not like we’d been caught naked or anything. In fact, Sara had been able to get dressed in time, so we were ahead of the game. Still, she seemed mortified, her cheeks flushed, eyes wide. She noticed her cape on the ground and scooped it up, flinging it over her shoulders and placing the hood on her head, covering up most of her gorgeous face. She drew into herself and wrapped her arms around her body. The elevator continued climbing, slowly.

  “Thanks, guys,” I said to the two firemen who held the doors open.

  Several people applauded when the elevator car finally stopped, even with the floor.

  When one of the firefighters reached out his hand, I stepped back and touched Sara’s shoulders. “You go first. It’s okay.”

  She stepped forward into the crowd. I was about to do the same when a sudden flash from a camera blinded me for a moment. When I opened my eyes, it was to see Sara pushing through the crowd, already well ahead of me.

  “Sara.” When she didn’t turn at the sound of her name, I tried again, louder. This time she did turn. She didn’t say anything, but I could see tears ready to fall from her eyes. Concern swept through me. Was she remembering when she’d been rescued from her father’s bathroom, and how embarrassed she’d been? Did she feel even worse now?

  I thought we’d step out of the elevator, talk to the fans, take a few photos, and then go finish what we started somewhere else. Now I just wanted to comfort her.

  But Sara turned and pushed her way through the crowd. I could no longer see her.

  “Sara!” I called, stepping forward to go get her. The crowd pressed around me, groupies with pens and CDs of Point Break’s latest release in their hands, all eager for my signature, my attention. All blocking me from what I wanted.

  Dutifully, I scrawled my name on the CDs and a couple of T-shirts, then with an apologetic smile, shouldered my way past the crowd until I could see down the long hallway.

  There was Sara, rushing away.

  Something very real had happened between us in that elevator. I couldn’t let her go. If Sara disappeared into the night like Cinderella, I’d never see her again. I couldn’t let that happen. That was the wrong fucking fairy tale.

  “Hey! Little Red!” I called as she hit the end of the hallway.

  Turning the corner, she stopped long enough to give me a look full of emotion, then lifted a hand before disappearing completely.

  What the fuck?

  More fans had poured into the service hallway and the crowd reformed, closing back in on me and Liam. I pushed against the crowd but was trapped.

  Someone touched my shoulder, and I wanted to turn around and slug them for no good reason except I was panicking. A fireman shoved a cell phone in my hand. “Sir, don’t forget this. Found it on the floor in the elevator.”

  I was about to say it wasn’t mine. Mine was in my pocket. But that meant the phone could only belong to one other person.

  I jabbed the home button. My panic eased when I saw she didn’t have a passcode activated. With her phone, I’d be able to find a way to talk to her again. See her again. Ask her why the hell she’d run. Get her to go out with me and see where this night of magic could lead us.

  All is not lost, Wes.

  She might be Little Red Riding Hood, truly trying to escape the Big Bad Wolf, but I wasn’t about to let that happen.

  Chapter 2

  Wes

  After another five minutes of signing and posing for selfies with the firefighters and fans, Liam and I finally made it to the guarded back entrance where our rides waited. I flipped Sara’s phone in my hand as we walked across the fenced-off parking area. It was lucky for me, but why hadn’t she put any passcodes on it? Was she that unconcerned about her privacy? Or was it because she had a jealous boyfriend? I might’ve only spent thirty minutes with her, but the thought of her having a boyfriend rubbed me the wrong way.

  Once I got in my town car, I’d go through her phone and get whatever info I needed to find her. All I knew was her first name and the fact she went to college somewhere, maybe in a completely different state.

  At the back gate, Tucker waited, leaning against a black limo and thumbing through his phone. After saying a quick goodbye, Liam slipped into another limo with Abby, while Tucker and I hopped into the one he’d been leaning on. We both lived in the Upper East Side and it was easier to share a ride.

  In the limo, I flipped Sara’s phone in my hand.

  Tucker snorted. “Nice cover.”

  “Not my phone.”

  “Of course it’s not. Yours is cracked on every edge. So, whose is it?”

  I waved the phone in the air. “Someone’s.”

  “How cryptic. I’m guessing it’s that girl’s, the one you got stuck in the elevator with.”

  I frowned. “How did you know?”

  “We were all headed out when Liam got your text. Said he’d stick around to make sure you got out okay. He also called a minute ago to tell me you got out fine, and that you’d been stuck with a woman hotter than Hades who’d taken off as soon as the rescue team got you out. What’s up with that? You’re supposed to chase women and catch them, not chase them away.”

  “I don’t know why she ran off. One minute we’re making out like two teenagers in the back of a car, and the next minute, a few groupies and firefighters are staring at us and she’s taking off without a word.”

  “And without her phone.” Tucker nodded at the phone in my hand.

  “Yeah.”

  “And she’s different from everyone else…how?”

  “I didn’t say she was.”

  “You didn’t have to. You’re looking like that teenager, all dreamy and distant, like you can’t stop seeing her face in your mind. And each time you flip that damned phone, you get a damned goofy smile on your face. So she sure doesn’t sound like the average groupie to me.”

  He was right. Little Red was a lot of things, but “average” wasn’t one of them. I thumbed the phone and grumbled, “Fine, she wasn’t. A groupie, I mean. For a minute, I wasn’t even sure she recognized me. She was a fan, but she didn’t squeal. Didn’t grab me. She was different. Acted different. Looked different.”

  “Ooh, she has a name.” Tucker’s eyes widened, a shit-eating grin on his face. Sometimes he acted like we were thirteen-year-olds at a slumber party. “You gonna call her up? The night is still young.”

  “I can’t. Like Liam said, she bounded off like a scared deer. Besides, genius, this is her phone.”

  He yanked it out of my hands and started fiddling with it. “No password, sweet. Not like we have Israeli military intelligence to help us hack this baby. And, huh, ‘Sara Crawford.’ Sounds familiar.” He kept fiddling through her shit and his eyes got wide as he flipped the phone my way so I could see a family picture on the screen.

  “Dude, don’t go through her pics,” I told Tucker.


  “Why not? How else will you get clues?”

  “What if I don’t want to get clues?”

  “You do. You’re just scared you’ll find her with those clues, and then you’ll be hooked.”

  “Bullshit. Give me that.” I snatched the phone from his hands.

  The photo Tucker had found showed Sara and a couple of girls who looked older than her but still had the same striking auburn hair and green eyes. Behind them were an older couple, maybe late fifties, who had to be their parents. The mom and daughters were snazzy in their nice dresses and her dad in a suit, and the whole family seemed super shiny. Perfect. Polished. All-American.

  Tucker got up and switched seats, plopping down next to me. He grabbed the phone back.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going through her shit. I’m gonna find this girl for you.”

  Part of me wanted to argue about preserving her privacy, but the other part…the other part wanted to know who Sara was so I could find her again. Guess which part won?

  “She has an NYU email address.” Tucker pointed to the mailbox icon on the screen. “A few emails are from one of her professors and her study group. And get this, she’s an RA for a dorm. The address and room number is right here.”

  I wanted to punch Tucker and hug him for being simultaneously creepy and problem-solving. But now I knew where she lived.

  I held out my hand for the phone. “You got the info I needed. Time to give it back. We’re not going to search her internet history.”

  Suddenly Tucker looked uneasy. It was like he’d seen a damn ghost.

  “Wes, man, maybe you should just return her phone. Stay away from her,” he said, his brow furrowed as he stared at the screen.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Because I know this chick. At least, I know her dad, the dude in the pic.” He looked up at me, worry in his eyes. “Have you ever heard of ‘Glory to God with Peter Crawford?’”

  “Should I have?”

  “Peter Crawford’s an evangelical preacher with one of those megachurches. That’s his TV show, and it’s hugely popular. Shit man, you were making out with his daughter.”