Touch Me

  “You're kidding,” he said.

  “No. I mostly listen to podcasts. And, well, I'm a fan of silence.”

  She reached over and muted the song blasting from the speaker. Much better.

  “Have you ever even been to a concert?”

  “Oh, sure. Charles took me to the symphony once.” She’d even bought a new dress for the occasion and had worn it exactly once.

  “Symphony? That doesn’t count. What about a rock concert?”

  She bit her lip. She was about to lose her cool-card. “Never been.”

  Owen gaped at her. Her pox must have started seeping blueberry jelly.

  “Inconceivable,” Owen said. “That needs to change.”

  “I agree,” Kellen said.

  “Tomorrow night we play in Houston. You're going.”

  She might be able to handle a Journey or .38 Special concert, but Sole Regret? If the ten seconds of music from Owen’s smartphone had made her ears bleed, what would an entire show do to her? Make her head explode?

  “I couldn't possibly,” she said.

  “Do you have other plans?”

  “Yes, actually. I came to San Antonio to visit Jenna, and I've hardly spent any time with her yet.” Nice save.

  “She can come with you.”

  “She has to work.”

  “So you can come with us—”

  “On the tour bus?” Kellen interrupted.

  “Yes, on the tour bus.”

  “I don't think that's a good idea.”

  Caitlyn wondered why. Considering the kind of clubs these guys frequented, she could only imagine the kind of debauchery that occurred on that tour bus.

  “I didn't ask for your opinion,” Owen said to Kellen. Then he turned his attention back to Caitlyn. “You can come with us, and I'll send you back to San Antonio—in a limo if you want—to return to visit your friend.”

  “I honestly don't think I'd like it.”

  “You have to try it at least once. I can't be seen in public with a woman who's never been to a rock concert before.”

  She chuckled. “Well I wouldn't want to ruin your reputation.”

  “It was ruined years ago,” Kellen assured her.

  “So is that a yes?” Owen pressed.

  “I could save your reputation by asking you to take me someplace private,” she said. “Then you wouldn’t have to be seen with me in public.”

  “Damn, woman. You’re killing me.”

  “Smart girls,” Kellen said. “They pay attention to what you actually say and use it against you.”

  She hadn’t meant to use anything Owen said against him. She just enjoyed their easy banter. “I’ll go,” she said decisively. Kellen’s wink made her realize that she’d just been outsmarted by a rock star. Damn it!

  “Awesome,” Owen said. “I was trying to think up an excuse to get her to have sex with me on the tour bus. This played out perfectly.” He glanced at Caitlyn when she gasped. “Did I just say that aloud?”

  She laughed. “Unless I’m imagining things.”

  “I think she's onto me,” he said to Kellen.

  Kellen scratched his nose. “Since you tend to show all your cards, I'm not surprised.”

  “I don't show all my cards. I still have an ace or two up my sleeve. Did you know dancing with a woman is a great method of seduction? If you move to their liking, they subconsciously think you’ll be compatible in bed.”

  “You made that up,” Kellen said.

  “Did I?” Owen took Caitlyn’s hand in his and caught her gaze. As she stared into his eyes, her heart thudded faster and faster. Her palm became increasingly damp. “Caitlyn, may I have this dance?”

  Her first instinct was to accept, but then the rattling of dishes in the diner’s kitchen reminded her where she was.

  “I'm not going to dance with you here,” Caitlyn said in a loud whisper.

  “Why not? We have music. I'll even download your favorite song if you'd like.”

  “This isn't the kind of place where you dance.”

  Owen looked at Kellen. “Name three places where I would never dance.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  Kellen shrugged. “Can't think of one.”

  “This is why he's my best friend. He always agrees with me.”

  “I didn’t say it was normal.”

  Owen blocked his screen from view as he downloaded something to his phone. The waitress set two bottles of water and a glass of ice tea on the table. She smiled first at Owen and then at Kellen before blushing and rushing back toward the kitchen.

  “Do you think she knows who we are?” Kellen asked.

  “Did she rip off her shirt and ask you to sign her tits? No, she doesn't know. She just thinks you’re hot.”

  Caitlyn reached for her tea, but before she could take a sip, Owen took her by the hand and pulled her from the booth.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Dancing.”

  From his phone, “The Chicken Dance Song” began to play. When Owen began to flap his arms and scratch and peck, Caitlyn gaped at him.

  “Dance with me, Caitlyn.”

  She laughed—half mortified, half amused. “Oh my God, you are so embarrassing!”

  “Dance, Caitlyn, or I'm following this with ‘Play That Funky Music White Boy.’ ”

  “You don't want him to go there, Caitlyn,” Kellen said, opening his water and sipping it nonchalantly.

  Every person in the restaurant was gawking, pointing, or laughing. And if Owen hadn't been so fucking cute, they probably would have called the cops on him for disorderly conduct.

  “Dance, Caitlyn.”

  “I don't know how,” she lied. She'd danced to this song as a child. Back when she'd known how to have fun.

  He whirled her around and stepped up behind her, one hand on her belly and his groin pressed against her ass. She wasn't sure how he made The Chicken Dance sexy, but by God, she was completely turned on the instant he began to move with her. Especially when he made her shake her hips and rub up against him just right.

  Her face was flushed with something other than embarrassment as she let loose and started to move.

  “I thought you didn't know this dance,” Owen said in her ear.

  “I'm a fast learner.”

  Two young women in a booth several tables away climbed to their feet and joined in. It appeared that they’d had a few too many as they stumbled around more than they danced. When one of the girls spotted Kellen in the booth, looking amused rather than annoyed, she grabbed his wrist and tried to pull him to his feet.

  “Come and dance with us,” the tipsy girl said. “Come on. It’s fun!”

  “No, thanks.” There was no room for argument in his tone, so with a scowl she released his wrist and settled for rubbing up against Owen from behind.

  Owen laughed as he attempted to avoid hands not belonging to Caitlyn. “Three on one, no fair. Save me, Kellen.”

  “There isn't enough tequila in Mexico to make me dance The Chicken Dance in a diner at one o’clock in the morning.”

  Caitlyn turned to face Owen and wrapped both arms around his neck. She lifted an eyebrow at one of the eager young women behind him and the woman stepped back, tripping over her own feet. Her friend kept her from falling to the floor.

  “Want to go party with us?” one of the girls asked Owen. “We love to party.”

  “Caitlyn's all the party I can handle right now,” he said and kissed Caitlyn, as if to make his intentions clear.

  She drew him closer, kissing him deeper, still sort of wiggling to the song. He squeezed her to stop her motion and tugged his mouth free. “Now that I have you loosened up,” he said, “how about a slow song?”

  “How about you hurry up and eat your sandwich so we can go to your room and be alone?”

  Owen glanced at Kellen and lifted his eyebrow to accompany the I-told-you-so lift of his head. “Now do you believe that dancing is a great method of seduction?”<
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  “I have less obnoxious methods,” Kellen said.

  “Yeah, sitting there looking cranky actually works well for you,” Owen said.

  Kellen gave him the finger.

  “There's a bar that's open for another couple hours just down the street,” one of the young women said, “if you want to have some fun. Come on, you don’t want to hang around with her all night, do you?”

  Caitlyn hoped it was the alcohol making the girl so impolite.

  The girl tugged on Owen's arm, and he pulled his gaze from Caitlyn's to look at her. “I’m not interested. But my friend might be.” He nodded toward Kellen and grinned at the look of horror on Kellen’s face when both girls squeezed into the booth with him.

  “If you don't stop torturing him, he's going to wind up hating you,” Caitlyn said.

  “Not possible.”

  But based on the look on Kellen's face as he tried to put some space between himself and the tipsy women now crowding into his booth, Caitlyn wasn't so sure.

  “Are you ready for that slow song?” Owen whispered. “I need a good excuse to hold you close in public until my sandwich arrives.”

  “You really do show your cards,” Caitlyn said.

  “Did you think Kellen was joking?”

  “I didn't think Kellen was joking, I've just never met anyone who throws it all out there in the open.”

  “Do you like it? I hope so, because I’m not sure if I can keep a lid on it now that I’ve let loose.”

  Caitlyn leaned back so she could look him in the eye. He scared the hell out of her, to be honest. She had no idea what to expect out of him next, and he had no problem alerting her to the fact that it would be something she was not expecting, but yeah, she did like it. “I like it when you’re being yourself. Don’t put a lid on it. Just be you. That’s what I like.”

  His brilliant smile did things to her heart, and she definitely wanted to be pressed against him, swaying to a slow song in the middle of diner at one o’clock in the morning.

  “Can I pick the song this time?” she said. “I wouldn't want to end up doing the chicken dance again or worse, dancing disco to some song better left in the past.”

  “Promise you’ll pick something slow and sexy.”

  “I promise.” Caitlyn found the song she wanted on his phone while Owen tried to talk the young ladies into leaving Kellen alone since Kellen was having no luck convincing them that he didn't want to get drunk with them. Even though they kept yelling, “Party!” intermittently, Kellen was obviously not the least bit interested in joining their brand of fun. The young ladies had no business drinking any more than they already had, anyway.

  When Caitlyn found the song she had in mind, she had to hand the phone to Owen so he could enter his password and purchase it.

  “Don't peek,” she said. “I want it to be a surprise.”

  “I won't peek,” he said.

  “Strange as it sounds, Owen loves surprises,” Kellen said.

  “I do.”

  “He can't keep a secret though.”

  Caitlyn chuckled. “Why does that not surprise me?”

  When the song began, Owen tugged Caitlyn against his chest and stole her breath by singing along in a low sultry voice. She wasn't sure how he knew “Unchained Melody,” but he sang it as if he were a long lost Righteous brother. He had a pitch-perfect tone. He should be a lead singer. She’d pay to hear him sing.

  Her body was entirely in tune with his. Her skin tingled in want of his touch. Her ears strained for more of the sensual words pouring from his lips. She’d never felt a song before, but she felt every word of this one. They swayed slowly as he led her into a leisurely turn around the floor between their booth and a small table. Caitlyn clung to him and let him lead. Allowed herself to enjoy their dance and not worry about what everyone else was thinking or whispering. She didn't much care at the moment. Owen gave her an odd measure of courage. Even though he was several years younger than she was, he was teaching her something she hadn't realized she'd been missing—how to have fun and not worry about what people thought. She tugged him closer and nuzzled her face into his neck.

  “Most women don't make it past The Chicken Dance,” he said as the music played without accompanying vocals.

  “So you dance in diners on a regular basis, I take it,” she said. She wished she could say that she had something special with him. And not the things she'd done to him back at the sex club. She hoped he didn't hold that against her. She'd been really hating on men when he'd approached her. And she should have never taken out her frustration on his ass. Even if he had seemed to like it.

  “Not regularly,” he said. “I’ve danced in a few. But it’s been years.”

  Caitlyn caught sight of the waitress, standing with a large tray beside the table. She was watching them with a smile of longing on her face, waiting for their song to finish. Maybe all women wanted a man like Owen, a man who didn't care if the world thought he was a little crazy for making his own dance floor, just so long as he got to hold his woman close.

  When the song came to an end, several people clapped. Owen released her. “There's only one thing I want right now more than you,” he whispered to Caitlyn.

  “Pastrami on rye.”

  He chuckled. “You're getting to know me already.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. Of all the intimate things he’d done to her that night, that chaste gesture was the only one to make her belly quiver.

  Owen helped her find her seat again. Across from them, both drunks smiled a greeting, but he ignored them, still giving Caitlyn his full attention. “You’re still planning on rewarding me for good behavior, aren’t you?” he asked. His hand found her leg beneath the table and slid from the inside of her knee to her upper thigh.

  “We did agree on no public displays of affection.” She caught his hand before it found its target.

  “Dancing doesn’t count.”

  “What about kissing?” she challenged.

  “No?” It wasn’t a statement. More a hopeful question.

  As if she could tell this man no when he was looking at her like that. But she refused to let him off easily; teasing him was too much fun.

  “I have to be honest: that public display felt rather affectionate.”

  “Can you please go back to your own table now?” Kellen said to the pair of young women who were still harassing him about going to a bar that would close in less than an hour.

  The waitress looked apologetic as she set their food before them. “Should I get the manager to remove them from the premises?” she said quietly, as if the young women wouldn’t be able to hear her.

  “That won’t be necessary,” Owen said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  The waitress nodded and took her leave again.

  “So how are you ladies getting home tonight?” Owen asked them, selecting a potato chip from his plate and munching it.

  “Lisa’s car is parked across the street.”

  Owen nodded. “I see. How would you like to go for a ride in a limo?”

  “What?” the one who wasn’t Lisa said.

  “We have a limo parked outside. Want to go for a ride?”

  Caitlyn was too busy trying to figure out what Owen was