Kate turned to show him the front of the dress she was wearing. Several others were lying on the bed where she’d tossed them after vetoing them. This one had a scoop neck that didn’t show off too much, tapered in at the waist, and fell in a loose skirt to just above her knee. She’d slipped into some ankle boots with a low heel.
“Are you sure you want me to come?” She could have bitten off her tongue for voicing her insecurity. But as usual, with Syon, she lacked all sense of control.
“Yeah.” He held out his hand for her. “Double sure when I see that you’re taking it so seriously.” He looked at the discarded dresses. “My dad’s going to mess with you though, and my mom is going to try to decide if you’re knocked up.”
“I’m not going,” Kate groused at him, turning to look at her reflection again, specifically at her waistline.
He came into the room and put his arms around her from behind. She was wrapped in his power again so easily. “Yes, you are,” he whispered against her neck. “I need you to.”
She drew in a deep breath, feeling like something had hit her in the chest. Syon was watching her in the mirror, a soft sense of vulnerability in his eyes.
She melted.
“So what’s for lunch?”
He kissed her neck again before capturing her hand and pulling her toward the door. The elevator ride down was quick and quiet.
But Cid stepped up as they entered the lobby. “Word with you, mate?”
The implication was clear. Cid wanted her to shove off.
“I’ve got a lunch date with my parents, Cid.”
“Yeah, about that.” Cid tried to crowd her.
“Kate’s coming,” Syon said as he stepped to the side to make sure there was room for both of them.
“Got the car waiting for you,” Cid offered smoothly. “But this thing with Kate…it’s rather new, isn’t it?”
“I pay you to manage the tour, not my personal life.”
Syon tried to take off, but Cid cut him off, stepping up close so their words didn’t drift. “It’s all the same thing. I explained that to you before I agreed to take Toxsin on. You take the girl, the tabloids get wind of it, and suddenly, you aren’t the stud any longer.”
Syon’s fingers tightened around hers.
For a moment, she thought she imagined it.
But she didn’t.
“Deal with it, Cid.”
Syon’s voice was low, but that didn’t keep her from hearing how menacing his tone was. A clear warning from the hard, business side of his nature. Cid’s eyes widened, but he covered his shock with a smile and a pat on Syon’s shoulder.
“Have a blast,” the road manager said as he stepped aside.
Syon pulled her along beside him, but she felt Cid watching them. Several of the polo-shirted guys lined the walkway from the hotel doors to where a tinted-window SUV was waiting. Even at noon, there were still a scattering of fans hanging out in the hope of gaining a glimpse of their idols. Paparazzi came out of the foliage, snapping away with their cameras as they worked the telephoto lenses with expert fingers.
The car door shut behind Kate, giving her a barrier to take refuge behind. She let out a sigh before she realized Syon was watching her.
“Does it wig you out?” he asked, retreating behind a stony expression.
“Ah…what part?”
His eyes narrowed. “Cid again.”
“He is pissing on his turf a little aggressively.”
Syon snorted. “Not sure I care for the visual, considering I’m the ‘turf’ in question.”
Kate shrugged. “Better than me saying he’s humping your leg. Because he is.”
His expression turned hungry.
“Stay.” She had a single finger pointed at him, and it felt like she was trying to hold a grizzly bear back with a cheese knife. “I am not meeting your parents with my wits dulled by your kisses.”
He made a low growling sound.
Kate reached for a can of soda sitting in the center console and shook it up, fingering the tab and pointing the opening toward him. He laughed, but the sound was dark and dangerous.
“Until later,” he promised.
* * *
“I’m a bit confused,” Syon’s mother drawled out in a sweet voice that was nothing more than a different sort of aggression. She fixed Kate with her blue eyes and fluttered her eyelashes innocently.
“I thought I saw pictures of her over one of the other band member’s shoulders. But now you’re telling me this is your girlfriend?”
“You can’t believe everything you see in the tabloids, Mom.”
“Hmmm…I suppose,” his mother said as she tore off the top of a sugar packet and dumped the tiny grains into her iced tea.
Syon reached beneath the table and squeezed Kate’s hand. His mother didn’t miss it.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” She put down her iced tea a little too hard, and some of the dark liquid sloshed over the rim of the glass. “What am I doing wrong now? I can’t ask a legitimate question when I know for a fact that I saw a picture of this woman over your drummer’s shoulder? I’m being too difficult, is that it, Kevin? Too demanding in expecting the woman you bring home to meet your mother be more than one you pass around your band?”
“Now, now,” Syon’s father interceded. “You know what the psychologist said. Kevin has sensitive boundaries.”
Syon’s mother nodded at her husband. “I think sensitive is too mild a word.” She took another sip of her tea and fixed Kate with a look. “So what do you do, young lady?”
Kate had no idea what she ate for lunch. Syon looked like he didn’t taste his meal either. When the check came, his dad tried to pay it. By the time they were back in the car, Kate found herself looking at her cell phone.
“That was the longest two hours of my life.”
Syon had leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He stiffened as her comment sunk in.
“That was an attempt at levity,” she said.
Syon opened his eyes and looked at her. “I guess it was a lot to ask you to sit through that.”
Kate moved closer. Syon caught her head and put it on his chest. For a long moment, they just sat together, the sound of the car engine the only noise.
“I liked it,” she said at last.
“Bullshit.” Syon released her head and looked out the window.
She climbed onto his lap and cupped the sides of his face with her hands to bring his attention back to her.
“I did,” she said firmly. “I see where you get your passion from. Your mom has a definite streak of eccentric in her.”
Syon snorted. “She’s that, alright.” He closed his arms around her, holding her for another long moment. “But you couldn’t have enjoyed that.”
“I enjoyed knowing you wanted me to see it…Kevin.” In a way, it was cool to see him being treated like everyone else, his parents calling him by his birth name.
Understanding flashed in his eyes, and something else, something very vulnerable. They were standing on that uncertain ground again. That place where what they felt didn’t make a whole lot of sense.
It was a damned scary place to be. Uncertain to say the least.
“And I’m relieved,” Kate added.
Syon lifted an eyebrow. “How so?”
“If you ever meet my mom, you’ll understand.”
His lips curled. He leaned forward and kissed her. She melted into his embrace, enjoying the way her senses took over.
Because it was a lot less scary than thinking.
Chapter 6
“You rock, Kate.”
Taz was excited. His speech took on a slight Asian accent as he turned and looked at himself in the full-length, three-sided mirror she had set up in her makeshift shop.
“I love it.”
He did. Kate watched the way he stroked the lapels of the Loki jacket. She’d even made the under jerkin and pants for him.
“You got all the details.”