Commitment (47 page)

Riley
made
her way toward him
and Shawn
took her hand
pushing
open the d
oor, pulling her in behind him.
They were in a hall
way
harshly lit with fluorescent
bulbs and
l
ined
on either side with
offices and st
eel exit doors at the very end.
Riley
squinted against the unexpected light then
turned to look at Shawn.

“This is the first time all night we’ve . . .”

He
put a finger to her lips and
leaned in
to
kiss her along her collarbone
, h
is fingertips
brush
ing
her nipples through
the light fabric of
her dress.
Riley
leaned her head backward
, eyes closed until she felt his hand behind her head, pulling her
face to his
.
His tongue pressed between her lips and she
opened up to him.
He had a thousand different ways of kissing her
but
every single time,
he took her breath away
.

“My husband is
such
a good kisser,” she breathed, when he raised his head for a moment.

“Shut up,” he said, kissing the shell of her ear. “You talk too much.”

“You want me to be quiet?”
she teased. “Even
though
I’m complimenting you on your . . . skills?”

“I never said I wanted you to be quiet,” Shawn said, smiling
,
his lips pressed against hers once again. “Just that I want you to stop talking.”
He pressed his erection against her in just the right spot and she gasped.

They
leaned
against the door
,
and
t
he bright lights,
and
open space of the hall all
melted
into the
backdrop of
Riley’s
consciousness.
She
pulled back, kissing him as he had her, along his throat, over his jaw, and down again to his Adam’s apple.
She could tell he liked that by the way he pressed against her even harder
;
so she didn’t stop, wanting to drive him just as crazy as he drove her.

A
warm feeling
spread
from
deep
in
her
center,
outward in slow
concentric
circles until
Riley
wasn’t aware of anything but
Shawn’s
warmth,
his
hardness
pressed against her and
the taste of him as she kissed his neck, his mouth and
back again
.
His
breath
was
hot and fast in her ear, and
Riley
put her hand down between them, stroking him through the fabric of his pants.
Shawn
grabbed her wrist and instead raised the hem of her dress, slipping a hand into
the waistband of
her panties
, caressing the skin there, coming tantalizingly close, but avoiding touching her where
he knew
she most wanted to be touched.

“Stop it,” she breathed against his lips.

“Stop what?”

Riley could feel his smile.

“Teasing
me.”

She grabbed his hand and
pushed it further down.
Finding her wet
intensified his excitement and Shawn thrust his tongue into her mouth
again, his fingers
feather light
as they moved over
her. Riley pushed hard against him, twisting
until he
understood what she wanted and
inserted
his fingers inside her, allowing her to
pleasur
e
herself that way.
She couldn’t have said how long they were there
, Shawn’s motions mimicking the
rhythm
of their lovemaking.
Then
the door
shifted.

It took
Shawn
a moment to pull
away
,
and Riley caught her breath,
reluctantly
releasing him
.
He
braced the door to prevent
it from opening
and
looked down
to smooth
Riley’s
dress, kissing her
one last time
before
they
stepped aside
to
let the
intruder
in.

It was one of the bouncers who’d ushere
d them into the club earlier.
He looked at them both and said nothing though it was clear from his smirk that he had some
notion
what had been going on.
A soft tinkle at their feet as the door was opene
d
wider made them all look down.

Riley
had
knocked over
her glass of wine and it splattered across the industrial brown carpeting an
d onto Shawn’s khaki pant leg
.
He
bent to inspect the damage while the bouncer brushed by them and disappeared into one of the offices
.
While he was there at her feet, Riley looked down at him and he back up at her, his eyes lingering on her legs. He reached out and with a smile, slid a hand up her thigh until Riley grabbed it and shook her head in warning.

“I say we head straight for the exit and go home,” Shawn said.

Riley grinned at him. “Are you serious? Just walk out of your party and go home?”

“Yeah. Let’s go finish what we started
.
”

“Straight for the exit?” she confirmed.

Shawn nodded.

But back i
n
the club,
they were
assailed once again by loud music
, the dark
and strobe lights. Almost immediately a dozen
people
descended on him,
reach
ing
out to him
to
claim
even
a tiny piece of his attention
.
Riley
drew further and further into the background with
each person who approached.
And for awhile
he was so caught up in being K
Smooth
he didn’t
seem to
notice she was there at all
. Then
,
i
n the middle of a conversation with a record executive, without even turning around to check, Shaw
n extended his hand behind him.
Riley
grabbed it
in both of hers
and held on tight.

g

Shawn turned off the
CD
and leaning back in his chair with arms folded, looked over at Brendan.

“
See what I’m saying
?
” he
asked.
“That’s not an opening act sound, that’s a
top billing
sound.”

It was
n’t
the first time Brendan had heard Glock perform but from the look on his face, he was impressed
with the recording
.
It was undeniable now that they were more than onstage hype – they could produce in the studio as well.

“How’d you even get this?”

“Chris
slipped it to me,” Shawn said.
“I guess he thought I needed the heads up.”

“What
’d
he
say
about it
?”

“H
e didn’t have to say anything.
He knows it. I kn
ow it.
When this CD drops
these
kids
will
own
hip
hop
,
”
Shawn said.

Brendan gr
imaced
.
“That’s bullshit.
You’re not
about the same things as them.
This is strictly underground, hardcore shit
.”

“So what you saying?
I’m not hardcore?”

Brendan shook h
is head.
“Not like these two.
Nah.”

“So I sold out?”

“Shawn,
you were never about all that. Why you so paranoid?
These
kids don’t appeal t
o the same demographic as you.
All
hip-
hop ain’t the same
.
You know that.”

“So I sho
uld let them open for me on the t
our?”

“Yeah.
I mean, what the . . .”

“But I can’t get upstaged on my own tour, B. I don’t want to come back and start reading shit
about how Glock out-performed K
Smooth
on his own motherfucking tour.”

“Relax, ma
n.
That’s not going to happen.
They already opened for you b
efore and it didn’t happen then.”

“They didn’t have Chris Scaife then.”

Brendan shook his head.
“Man, y
ou forget who
the fuck
you are?”

Shaw
n sighed.
He knew who he was – a
twenty-
eight
year old in a game that was dominated by performers between eighteen and twenty-
three
.
He was riding high right
now, but what about next year?
And the year after that?
And sure, Glock had opened for him before, but truth be told, that was because he hadn’t been paying attention
.
That was when he was in the thick of Operation Get Riley and had spent very little time thinking about much else.

“Call Chris up,” Brendan said.
“Tell him Glock
can
open on the tou
r.
Handle your business, man
.”

Shawn nodded and chewed on
his lower lip, brows furrowed.
“A’ight. Let’s do it.”

He was still in the den listening to the
CD
when
Riley
got home.
With
headphones
on
and
eyes closed, he
didn’t even realize how late it had gotten until she lifted them off his head and tu
rned the light on in the room.
Outside, the sky was a dark, inky blue. 

“Have you been in here all day?”
Riley
asked, turning off the
CD player
. “Did you eat anything?”

“Yeah,” Shawn said absentl
y, reaching for the headphones.
“
Riley
, I wa
nt you to listen to something.
Tell me
what you think
.”

“Sh
awn,” she groaned.
“
I’m exhausted and y
ou know I don’t know anything about s
ampling and all that stuff.”

“
It’s not a sample.
It’s Mike and Darryl.
Just listen for a minute and tell me what you think.” 

He pulled her down to sit next to him and put
the headphones over
her ears.
Shawn watched her face change from indifference to attentiveness to admirati
on.
Even
Riley
.
And she didn’t
even
like rap.
After a couple minutes, she took the headphones off and stopped the
music
.

“Okay.
Let’s go get something to eat.
”

“Hold
up a second,” he said.
“Tell me what you thoug
ht when you heard it.
Your gut
feeling.”