California Dream (5 page)

“Forget it,” he said, looking down at her with a smile. “Now, are you going to just lie there looking lovely while I starve to death, or are you going to get out of bed so you can take me somewhere for some food? I’m very hungry.”

They opted for a huge, cheesy pizza at an Italian place just a few blocks away. Roddy seemed at home there, and none of the waiters or other patrons seemed to recognize him, or if they did, they were discreet.

“This place was great after some of the greasy spoons we stopped at on tour,” Roddy told Lee on their way out of the restaurant. “What else is there to do in this town?”

It was a beautiful summer evening with lots of possibilities, but Lee didn’t know what rock stars did for fun, so she said, “Not much.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” he said with a grin. “I’m a little tired after the drive and all.”

“And I keep forgetting things like that. You must think I’m so inconsiderate.” Lee looked up at him with contrition. “I can let you go back to your hotel and get some rest.”

To her surprise, Roddy scowled again and their easy stroll down the sidewalk stopped. He slowly backed her up against the brick wall of the restaurant and pinned her there with his hips and his eyes. He was firm without seeming aggressive, but Lee’s eyes widened a bit in shock. She struggled against his hands for a moment when they gripped her upper arms, but stopped when his hips pressed into hers more firmly.

“Let’s get something straight,” he said in all seriousness. “I’m plenty capable of telling you to kiss off if I want to, and don’t think I’ve never done it to anyone before. I’m here for
you
, and nothing else, so while I’m here, I want to be with you. I drove all the way from LA because for some reason, I haven’t been able to get you off my mind. And now, I get the feeling you want me to go. Is that what you want? Because if it is, I’m gone.”

There was the slightest catch in his last word that hit Lee right in the gut. She supposed it stood to reason that he really had been thinking that much about her, considering all the flowers he sent. It was hard to think of Roddy O’Neill in the same way she thought of other men because of who he was, but Lee realized that under the fame, he was just a man.

She didn’t know what to say, so she simply reached for him. Her hands softly came up to frame his face and, without even bumping his bandanna, she pulled his mouth down to hers. Her kiss was gentle and giving, yet at the same time held some of the fire she felt for him. He responded in kind. His hands on her shoulders moved to the back of her head and buried themselves in her hair. As his hips ground hers roughly against the wall, both of them forgot where they were for a moment.

When Roddy finally pulled back, Lee met his eyes. “I’m sorry, Roddy,” she told him. “I’ve been acting like an idiot, but you have to see things from my point of view. You’re a rock star and I’m nobody, and stuff like this doesn’t happen to me every day.”

Something flared in his eyes, but he just smiled and took one of her hands in his. “Come on. I booked us a nice hotel suite before I found you at work. Why don’t we go back there and hang out for the rest of the weekend?”

“I don’t have anything else to wear.”

“You won’t need anything.”



“I’m not, but my mother is always after me to take my vitamins,” he said on a grin. “She’s afraid I’m going to die of scurvy or something.”

“I take it you’re close?” Lee asked while her fingers absently stroked the tattoo on his upper left arm.

“Yeah.” His voice turned husky.

Roddy glanced down at her leisurely exploration of his skin and felt an almost overwhelming wave of warmth steal over him. What was his problem? His body responded like a fifteen-year-old’s to her slightest touch. When he should be exhausted and lying limply in the tangled sheets, her fingers on his arm were doing wild things to his pulse. Women with impressive skills had tried much harder to get a response from him with disappointing results, but all Lee had to do was look at him and he wanted her.

She jerked his attention back to the present with a question. “What’s your mother like?”

“She’s great,” he answered with a smile. “She’s just a—a mom, you know? She bought me my first guitar and then started parking her car in the driveway so I could use the garage to practice.”

“How come you never play guitar on stage?”

He ruffled her hair a little. “I’m not all that good. Certainly can’t touch Eddie. I can get by, but my main talent is singing. I didn’t get a recording contract until I put down my guitar.”

Lee sighed and rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling for several seconds before answering. Obviously, talking about her family was not one of her favorite things.

“My father lives in Minneapolis, but we don’t see each other much,” she said at last. “I have no idea where my mother is.”

“Do you want to?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes, when I’ve felt like he drove her away and she had to leave me behind for some secret reason she couldn’t say, I have wanted to find her. But, deep down, I know she never would have left me if she really wanted to be my mother, so I leave it alone.”

“That’s pretty sad,” Roddy told her candidly.

Lee snorted. “If you say so. But my life doesn’t revolve around
her
. Or my father. I’m kind of on my own, and I have friends.”

Lee inched closer to him, fascinated again with his tattoos. The one on his left arm was a stylized sea monster, and after she ran a finger over the outline, she leaned over him so she could check out the one on his right. That one showed a heart with an arrow embedded in it, and a drop of blood beneath.

“I think my mother gave up the dream of having a normal kid the day I came home with this one,” he chuckled, covering her hand with his over the heart tattoo. “She just shook her head and started praying for me.”

Lee laughed softly, her lips brushing his knuckles. He moved his hand to stroke her hair, so she started to kiss his tattoo.

Nobody had really ever done that before. Though women always told him they liked his tattoos, up close, they tended to shy away from them as if they were contagious. Lee, who claimed not to care much for body art, kissed his arm almost worshipfully, which managed to drive him crazy on more than one level.

When she finished with his right arm, her lips moved softly across his chest and began the same ministrations on his left.

Roddy felt the sensations taking him under again and tried to restart their conversation. “Do you have any other friends besides Debbie?”

“A couple, but no one else I’m close to like her. I guess I’m kind of self-contained and private.” Lee’s lips made a trail across his chest, punctuating her words with soft kisses as she made her way back to his neck, and then moved down toward his navel.

“Private, but quite personable,” Roddy murmured, a hand catching in her hair.

Roddy couldn’t understand Lee’s response once she reached her destination, but he suddenly lost all interest in conversation.

Chapter seven

The following morning, Lee was awakened by a discreet knock from room service. She cracked her eyes open wide enough to watch Roddy go to the door in nothing but a pair of white cotton pants hanging low on his hips. He opened the door and stood back while the waiter wheeled a cart into the room, then gave the man what looked like a generous tip before closing the door behind him again.

Roddy pushed the cart up to the bed and pulled the cover off a plate of bacon. The smell wafted to Lee’s nostrils and mingled with the scent of steaming coffee he poured. Lee yawned and stretched, then finally fully opened her eyes to confront Roddy’s.

“Good morning,” he rumbled in a voice that sounded as sleepy as she felt.

“Do you ever sleep?”

“Not much,” he admitted with a smile as he seated himself on the bed beside her. “I hope you’re hungry. I ordered lots of food.”

He gave her a slow, wicked grin. “I get the feeling you’re trying to keep me locked up in this hotel room. Don’t you ever need to see the sunlight, or are you some sort of vampire?”

Roddy laughed and rolled on top of her. “You should see the look on your face. It’s priceless. Don’t worry, Lee. I was joking.” His lips nibbled at her ear. “But you can bite me anywhere you want any time.”



The intimate camaraderie between them lasted all day, even when Roddy insisted on buying her a dress at a downtown department store. It was a beautiful garment, but the style was a bit more daring than what Lee usually wore, and the price tag was outrageous. She had never worn anything worth more than a week’s pay before.

“I can afford it,” Roddy said flippantly when she objected.

“You’ll make me feel like a kept woman,” she argued.

He stared into her eyes for a moment. “Would that be so bad?” He waited a beat and then added, “Besides, one little dress hardly qualifies.”

“Little sums it up nicely.”

“The librarian in you is showing.”

That remark was all it took. Lee did work in a library, but it didn’t mean she was dull and frumpy. She wasn’t completely comfortable with it, but she let Roddy buy the dress.

He insisted she must have shoes to match, and when she suggested she could pick some up at her apartment, he refused to take her home. Once again, she gave into his wheedling charm and allowed him to buy the shoes, too. That they were gorgeous, strappy sandals in iridescent peacock blue didn’t hurt in the decision-making process, but the fact that they cost almost as much as the dress made her bite her lip.

The answer was so calm and matter-of-fact, Lee took him at his word. She knew nothing about his day-to-day life, and found herself intensely curious about it, but still afraid to pry. Despite the chemistry between them, and the way he acted so natural with her, Lee still could not forget he was a millionaire rock star. It seemed so unreal that he was even there, she found herself just going along for the ride. She would sort out what everything meant later.

Lee offered to take him to the Mall of America, but Roddy made a face and told her everyone wanted to see the Mall when they came to Minneapolis. He wanted to see other things, so she took him on a drive around the city’s three premier lakes, then they parked the Maserati and wandered through nearby Calhoun Square and the rest of Uptown. They ate dinner at a restaurant there, and emerged when the sun was dipping toward the western horizon.

“What kind of night life do they have in this town?” Roddy wanted to know.

Lee balked. She didn’t sit home with six cats every night, but she also lacked the means to enjoy a glittering night life. She occasionally shared a beer at a corner bar with Debbie, and from time to time they went to a nightclub, but she hardly felt qualified to take Roddy out for a night on the town.

“I’m not really up on the hot spots,” she told him. “But we could troll a few of the nightclubs downtown.”

Roddy frowned. “Hmm. We could, but I might get recognized. Minnesotans are pretty mellow about stuff like that, but I’d still rather not go through that right now.”

“Okay.” Lee thought for a moment, and finally decided to take him to a little place she occasionally visited on Lake Street. It was kind of a dive, but when she explained, Roddy just smiled.

Roddy gave her another odd glance. “I just got through several months of utter craziness, and I’ve been in some bars I wouldn’t even drive past with you. Come to think of it, I even got into a couple fights. So…if something happens tonight, I doubt if it’ll be your fault.”

Lee couldn’t argue with that.

“Besides you, there is only one other person on earth who knows where I am right now,” Roddy went on. “I can’t tell you how nice that feels. I’d kind of like to keep a low profile, so I’ll try not to start anything, okay?”