She looked down the street at the mass of people outside the hotel on the corner. She had seen the signs on her way by and almost stopped to join them. Just for a moment. Just to see if maybe she could see something. They were her favourite band too. She had all the albums. She had tickets to the show that night and had recorded the interview that had played while she was at work.
She did not join the mob. She turned the corner and leaned a hip into the door to push it open with a sigh. Her mind was turning over the impossibilities of ever meeting them as she stopped to check her mail. She fumbled out her key without looking up.
"Excuse me, may I?" she said looking up at the guy slouching against the wall of mailboxes. He gave her a sheepish smile and unstuck himself from the wall and went to check the window to the street. She stared at him as he went, her mail forgotten, her bag of groceries forgotten, everything forgotten.
Shadowhunters was a theatrical band. The kind in black leather with eyeliner and sing-along courses and music videos more intricate than most Hollywood movies. They were fronted by William Herondale who was loud and brash and the kind of beautiful that hurt. The female vocalist always grated on Tessa a little bit, a perfectly beautiful blonde who seemed to think everything from adoration to critics was below her deserve. The bassist and the drummer were a husband and wife team who had built the band up around them and had always seemed so adorably in love in ever interview.
Then there was a violinist.
He was tall and thin with silver-white hair and as much as the media had succeeded in turning him into a sex symbol with photo shoots and album releases he still never seemed like a rock star. He talked about music like it was the only thing he loved and he had this smile. If she were honest, she had taped the interview in the hopes of catching a smile from James Carstairs on it.
Now he was standing in her lobby and looking at the street like it was a painful and inescapable medical procedure he was about to undergo. He wore a blue sweater and a pair of jeans and battered running shoes. His hands were dug into his pockets and his hair was tucked in under a hat, still it was him. She was staring.
She turned back and tried to remember her mailbox number. It was the same as her apartment number. If it was this hard to remember she was never going to make it home. She glanced over at him as he jerked away from the window and came to stand beside her.
He leaned a shoulder against the wall of little doors, tucked his hat down tighter over his ears and gave her that sheepish smile again. He hunched in like he was trying to look less tall or less thin or just less like himself.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I might have a stalker on the street and… I'd appreciate it if you could pretend to be my friend for just a moment or two until they've gone by."
"Of course," she said and was shocked to discover that her voice had come out sane and even instead of high pitched and wailing.
"My name's Jem," he said holding out a hand. She shook it.
"Tessa," she said.
He gave her that smile. The one she'd been hoping for on video. It was better in person. It was so much better in person. He was radiant and she was staring again. Realization crossed his face and the smile faded just a bit and he looked down at his ratty sneakers to hid his expression.
"Are you going to scream and sexually assault me?" he asked.
"Does that happen often?" she asked.
"Yes, far more than I would like. The screaming is manageable, the touching less so," he said looking profoundly uncomfortable at some memory. He was beautifully human. Ethereal on stage, quiet and serene in interviews, just a boy in person. He was only a year and a half older than her and instead of part-time studies and a job at a bookshop, he was world famous.
"No touching, no screaming, I won't even ask you to sign anything if you don't want to," she said.
He gave her that smile again and didn't run away. If she were honest, she really wanted to touch him and see if he was real, she wanted him to take his hat off so she could get a close look at that hair. She curled her fingers around her keys and did none of that. He still leaned and faced her and she was suddenly shy. She turned back to the mail boxes and managed to remember that she lived at 1878 and how keys worked.
"How are you going to get back to your hotel?" she asked, "I saw the fans outside."
"I don't know. I was fantasizing that I could just walk by them and they wouldn't notice since I'm not wearing black but you're proof that that won't work," he said it was her turn to smile and look embarrassed.
"Which hotel is it?" she asked and he told her. She smiled at him. "I can get you in there without getting seen."
"How?" he asked.
"Sophie works there, my roommate, there's a staff entrance off the underground parking lot they share with the mall next door. All the staff were pissed when they told them they couldn't park in the guest parking because it's such a long walk but for you, that would work," she said.
"You can get me there?" he asked.
"If you trust me not to assault you or attempt to steal and sell all your clothing on ebay, then yes," she said.
He laughed. He actually laughed, his head falling forward and the musical sound echoing off of the lobby walls. He looked back up at her with a grin still pulling up one side of his mouth.
"Ok, what do I need to do?" he asked.
"I need to go upstairs and change, then we'll take her car, I have the code because I pick Sophie up from work sometimes. She's out of the city for a few days so it won't bother her," she said.
She turned to go upstairs and was surprised to find that Jem Carstairs, violinist, rock star, beautiful person, was following her. She had expected him to stay in the lobby and anxiety exploded across her chest. Was there anything embarrassing in her apartment? Was it a mess? Had she built a shrine to him in her sleep and he'd find it?
The apartment was just an apartment. Her fluffy gray cat skittered into the hall as she opened the door and sat down to look at Jem with narrowed eyes. The cat distrusted everyone. She pet it on the way by and heard Jem close the door behind her. Which meant she was now alone in her apartment with her celebrity crush and that did strange things to her anxiety.
"Make yourself at home, anything in the fridge if you want it," she said. She didn't look at him. She went to her room and shut the door. This was worse than getting dressed for a date. This was getting dressed to sneak a rock star into a hotel while somehow looking effortlessly hotter than she really was. She changed in a rush. Brushed her hair. Put on different shoes.
Out in the living room, he was cuddle with her cat. Her cat who hated everyone was rubbing his face against Jem's shoulder while Jem smiled at him. His hat was off so his mess of silver hair was on full display. He had made her tea. She stopped in the doorway, feeling under dressed and out of sorts and stared at the tea pot and the mugs on the table. When he saw her he smiled and poured her a cup and held it out to her.
Gingerly she took it and sat down to watch him as he turned back to the cat and made silly noises until the cat meowed at him. Celebrity crushes were one thing. Discovering your celebrity crush made tea without being asked and did a very convincing imitation of a cat's meow was quite another.
"Shall we take prove it to your friends selfies?" he asked. It hadn't occurred to her to ask him for a picture and she nodded. He came to sit beside her and paused to ask permission before putting an arm around her. She handed him her phone and he took a picture of them. The cat, jealous at being left out jumped up into the second one. Then, using her phone, he took a bunch of pictures of her and her cat while she laughed at him.
Somehow the tension broke, he wasn't some ethereal super star, he was a new friend. Still a little awkward because they didn't know each other well but just another person. She took her phone back, leaning over him and yanking it out of his hand like he was one of her friends. Then he posed with her cat and she took some more pictures.
His phone rang. He pulled it out of a back pocket, having to lean into her to do it and somehow that wasn't terrifying. They were sitting side by side on the couch, he had one socked foot drawn up under him and the cat had laid down so he was half on Tessa's knee and half on Jem's.
"I'm not dead," he told the phone, "I just needed to get out. I went to visit an old friend. I do have friends who aren't you, shut up Herondale. I will not miss sound check. Tell Charlotte not to worry. I'll meet you at the venue then."
He hung up the phone and looked at it, suddenly looking guilty.
"Are you about to ask me to drive you to your show?" she asked.
"Yes," he said petting the cat who was now purring. "I'll get you and anyone else you want to invite tickets. I've imposed enough. I should take the train like a normal person. I'm sorry."
"It's fine, I'll drive you, I already have tickets," she said.
He didn't leave her at the gates. He pulled her inside with him into the cavernous spaces behind the scenes of an arena rock show. He led her past dressing rooms and crates of sound equipment stamped with the band name.
"Will plays his role a little too hard, he's not truly that bad but on a show day, he's an asshole rock star from the moment he gets up," Jem told her before he introduced her to the band. He kept up the 'old friend' story but never added any details. He made it sound like he'd gone out to see her for tea and to play with her cat like it was an old tradition.
She hung close to him and tried not to be awkward and out of place when he sat her on a piece of the set for the sound check. Every smile made her heart do strange things in her chest. He was all smiles. She could watch pieces of the show persona slide back into place over the bashful boy who had played with her cat and asked her not to grope him.
She sat in a spare dressing room while he went and got dressed. He came and they took a few more pictures with him in his stage makeup including one where he kissed her on the cheek and she blushed. He took a few on his own camera too.
"Don't you have hundreds of pictures of fans?" she asked.
"Yes, but I haven't made a new friend in - how long ago did Lightworm come out? Three years? I haven't made a new friend in three years, I want a picture to commemorate it," he said. Fully dressed with eyeliner and his hair twisted up, he looked different and she was shy around him again as though reminded that he was a rock star.
He looped backstage passes around her neck and passingly introduced her to the opening band as he led her towards the arena. He stopped her before they got to the doors and turned her around to look at him. He took her hands for a moment and then dropped them like he'd done something rude. She took his back and he held on.
"Come back, after the show?" he made it sound like a plea and her heart did another loop. "Bring your friends if you want. Will and Jessie throw a party after each show but Tessa, come back?"
"I'll see you after the encore," she said and leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. Surprisingly, he was the one left grinning after her as she left.
"Do you remember that concert last month where the fire alarm went off and we needed to evacuate?" Bridgette asked dropping herself down on the edge of Tessa's desk. Bridgette was tall and angular with striking red hair and a job as a sous chef at a modest restaurant uptown. Between her and Sophie, the three of them just managed to afford the apartment in a part of town far too expensive for any of them to survive alone.
"Yes," she said trying not to sound bitter. She still had her unused backstage pass tucked into the drawer of the desk. She hadn't made it back to see Jem again or to attend Will and Jessie's party. Bridgette had the other pass and Tessa had no idea if she had kept it or not. The evacuation had been chaotic and she'd had to go back the next day for the car.
"You had mysterious unexplained backstage passes," Bridgette said, "Did you actually go backstage? Before the concert and the fire brigade and the woman screaming that we were going to die?"
Tessa hesitated. She hadn't told the story. It was an absurd story and she didn't really want to share it. She wanted to remember him as just a person and if she told people there would be freaking out and then she'd have to think of him as a star again. Not mentioning it was one thing. Lying was another.
"Maybe," she said looking up at Bridgette and expecting a rebuke, "Why?"
"Have you checked instagram?" she asked.
"I don't have an instagram," Tessa said.
"You have nine tumblr accounts and three twitters, how do you not have an instagram?" Bridgette asked.
"It's three tumblrs, books, photography and everything else, and I only have one twitter," she said.
Bridgette leaned over her and started messing with her laptop. Tessa considered stabbing her with a pen but all she did was open a new browser window and type in instagram and then pull up the Shadowhunter's instagram page. Tessa had seen pictures that came from it of course, everything made it to tumblr eventually, but she hadn't actually been on it. Most of the pictures were taken by Will and Jessie. That was a fact of the band. Most things in the band were Will and Jessie. One of the photos in the tiles at the top was Jem with his hands spread looking baffled. She wanted to click on it and find out the story but Bridgette was still in control of her computer.
She scrolled down to the top picture and opened that one.
It was a picture of Tessa, one of Jem's selfies from the night of the concert. He was grinning and looking at her in a way she was sure, sure, he hadn't actually looked at her when she'd been there. She was covering her face with both hands so it was impossible to see who she was but as Bridgette pointed out, her bracelet was distinctly visible and the sweater she was wearing was the same one that she had on while they were talking.
The caption was "miss you" and nothing else. The list of comments were all questions about who she was and why hadn't they ever heard of his girlfriend before and didn't he want another girl friend and how everyone seemed to be available if he was lonely.
Tessa told Bridgette the story and showed her just a few of the pictures on her phone. Then she marched her out of the room and apologetically shut the door in her gawking face. She went to her desk and set herself up an instagram account and then stared at the empty app on her phone for a long time. She sent a picture of Jem and the cat to theshadowhunters with a message that said, "me too."
Then she put the phone down, walked across the room and lay down with her face on the bed because that was an insane thing to do. She got up twice but didn't pick up the phone. Could she unsend it? She didn't even know. Did she want to? She didn't know that either.
Every buzz on the phone, tumblr reblogs, twitter's insistent updates, a text from her brother, made her panic. When it did finally come, the response she had been waiting for, she almost couldn't open it. What was she doing? She needed to let it go. She did not want to be a rock star's friend. Friends got followed by paparazzi almost as much as the stars did. She looked at the picture that Bridgette had showed her first. The way he was looking at her while she buried her face in her hands. The way he'd made her promise to come back after the concert. The way she hadn't been able to use the mug he'd used that day without thinking about him.
She opened it.
No make up, no costume, a t-shirt and a hopeful look. He was looking at the camera and so he was looking out of the screen at her. She almost clicked off the screen and walked away but that would be like abandoning that hopeful look. He was a puppy. He was world famous and she had seen entire blogs dedicated to fantasizing about seeing him naked but he was a puppy.
The caption on this photo was a phone number. She could sell this phone number for a thousand dollars. She didn't consider it for more than a moment. He'd never reach out to her again if she did something like that.
She took nearly a hundred pictures of herself before she found one she liked enough. That had the right mix of hopeful and happy and her nose didn't look weird. She sent it as a text message and he responded immediately. He was even more normal in text messages and he used punctuation which was a mark in his favour. She had never dumped someone exclusively for poor grammar but it had been a contributing factor more than once.
He didn't like the food in the airport in Dubai. Jessie wanted them all to go on a juice cleanse. Henry wanted to try making an album of synth pop with homemade synthesizers. He sent her Will's jokes. He sent her clips of practices and new fragments of songs and asked for honest appraisals. She got pictures of new costumes with little asides about whether or not they were comfortable and one trench coat that came with the comment, "For my new career as a demon hunter!" She sent him pictures of her cat. Stories about patrons at the book shop. He talked her down from a desire to drop out of all her classes and give up on her degree. She told him stories about her friends and the mad schemes of her brother.
Then months later, he sent her an invitation and a promise of backstage passes at a show close enough for her to drive to. She went and her name opened the doors to the silent closed arena in a city she'd never been too like it was a magic word. She found them onstage running through blocking for one of the more elaborate songs in the evening's performance. He put down in violin in the middle of Charlotte's explanation and the stage manager's waving hands and vaulted down off the edge of the stage to catch her up in a hug that felt like coming home.
"Missed you," he whispered.
"Me too," she said.
When school ended for the semester she booked two weeks off of the job and left Sophie and Bridgette staring after her as she went to get on a plane. They were on the right continent. It wasn't a long flight and he met her at the airport with a grin and a pair of sunglasses that covered his face. People glanced at him but mid-afternoon arrivals wasn't really the right crowd to mob a celebrity. The airport was all business people and families heading on vacation.
She hadn't seen him since that night when he'd given her a full stage tour. He had pulled her up the stack of amplifiers that Will would later sit on during one of the ballads where there would be only two spot lights on the stage, one on him and one on Jem playing the violin melody. Before the show though the arena was a cavern. The sports team's banners hung from the ceiling if she tilted her head all the way back to look at them. The vertigo had unbalanced her and he'd steadied her with hands on her waist. He already wore tight black pants and heavy boots but he hadn't had his make up on yet. He was still her puppy and not everyone else's idol.
He had kept a possessive arm around her shoulder during the party after the show. Will had smiled like a mischievous trickster god and set about giving her the third degree. Some questions got him a look from Jem that was protective and disapproving but others set everyone laughing. She was surprised by how easily the band seemed to make space for her. Jessie made a dismissive comment about what she was wearing and Charlotte had pulled her to the side and made her swear that she wasn't a groupie looking for a trophy lay.
"He likes you and he's too nice to see the worst in anyone," Charlotte had said.
"I'm not looking to screw around. I like him, that's all. I'm not here to steal stuff to auction off or to tell the tabloids your secrets," Tessa had said and Charlotte had accepted it.
Now she was back and he was dropping that long arm around her shoulder like it belonged there as they wove through the airport. He whispered into her ear, not because he was telling secrets, just because it let him pull her in close.
Maybe. She could dream anyway. She had spent a lot of time dreaming since that concert. Dreaming about his arm around her shoulder. About his laugh in her ear. His hair brushing her cheek when he leaned past her to shove Will in the chest for some uncouth comment. His mouth. The smile was a part of that but sometimes he caught his tongue between his teeth or sucked on his bottom lip and it was unimaginably distracting.
"Jem," a voice said and they both looked up to see a girl of about fifteen standing in front of them. Jem slid into the stage persona and gave her the smile that Tessa had first fallen for. The girl was staring at him with her mouth just a little bit open.
"I love the Silent City," she said.
"It's one of my favourites too," Jem said still smiling at her. He was no longer curled around Tessa but he wasn't stepping away from her. Silent City was one of his songs. A haunting melody of violin and vocals that broke into rock guitar and a bass line that could shake the walls. It was a good song but it was an experience live. Tessa adored it on stage and the way his face broke into a smile when the shift started.
"Are you Instagram Girl?" the girl asked and Tessa wasn't sure how to answer that. She had avoided the fandom more since she had gotten to know him. It felt strange to hear the analyses and speculation now that she knew these people. Was she Instagram Girl? Jem was signing an autograph and shaking the girl's father's hand and then pulling Tessa away before she was quite sure what had happened.
"It's nice that you're moving away from that goth garbage to nicer musicians," she overheard the father say as they walked away and Jem laughed and pulled her back in close again.
He steered her luggage and they escaped the airport without being noticed again. Jem opened the door to a very high end SUV waiting out at the passenger pick up area. She slid in and was immediately uncomfortable. She was not rich. She had never been rich. This was the type of vehicle that she wasn't likely to be allowed to touch under normal circumstances. And Jem got in beside her, which meant there was a driver.
"Have you ever been here before?" he asked. She shook her head so he started up an easy patter about the city and the last time they had toured here and the bar they had played once before they had made it big. There was no mob outside this hotel. There hadn't been any promises that William Herondale would be signing body parts or that Henry would be doing a ninja gig drum circle nearby. It was quiet and peaceful but they didn't go from the garage to the main lobby after Jem was finished tipping and thanking the driver. Apparently he had weaseled the drive out of the man rather than going through official channels.
Jem took her up a service elevator that was big enough to hold housekeeping carts or new furniture or a brass band. It was also dull and one of the least extravagant places Tessa had ever seen. The hall they stepped out into was the opposite. It was opulent. It was golds and reds and plush carpet. Cream walls and real art. Jem paused and dug in his pockets.
He did not fit in this space any more than she did. He wore his battered shoes and his jeans were a little too long and had worn through on the back of the hem where he'd walked on them. He had pushed his sunglasses up and lost the hat that covered the hair she still wasn't brave enough to run her fingers through. He handed her an embossed folder. It had two little plastic keycards in it.
"You got me my own room?" she asked. "I could have stayed at the Motel 6, no one wants my autograph."
"Will and I lied to the label," Jem said looking just a little crestfallen that she hadn't met his presentation with enthusiasm. She felt uncomfortable being in a hotel like this and wasn't sure how to accept this gift or reject it.
"About what?" she asked.
"We're working on the fourth album, we told them that you're a lyricist and it would be easier to have you here during the tour than try and do the rewrites after," he said.
"If that were true, we could use email," she said.
"We're artists, far too high strung for email collaboration, besides emails can be hacked, this is better for the creative process," he said with a smile. He was proud of this little bit of subterfuge and it melted her objections. She took one of her key cards and opened the door to the room. It was huge. Her apartment would fit in it. She turned to look at him with wide eyes and he followed her inside.
"I would say you get used to it, but that is a lie," he said, "I chose you this one for the view, come here."
Out on the balcony the city was spread below them. It was a tapestry of metal and concrete and glass. The traffic noise was very far away. He smiled at her. He watched her. He saw her. That look that he had given her on the first day they'd met, the one that had been caught in that photo, was always there now. Sometimes he texted her pictures of himself when he was bored and he always had that look in his eye like even thinking about her brought it out.
She turned from the view and looked at him. Really looked. Did she have the same look in her eyes as he did? She wasn't sure anymore. His confidence wavered in front of whatever look she was giving him and he bit his lip and then stopped and smiled and looked at his shoes. She stepped a little closer to him and touched his hair. He inhaled like he had forgotten how to breathe and it was very difficult to do. She pushed her fingers into the strands and he leaned into her hand.
Then she panicked.
He was a celebrity.
She was already Instagram Girl.
She couldn't be that.
She certainly couldn't be more than that.
She could not finish what she was about to start. She'd never be able to escape it. A tabloid somewhere would learn her name. Ten years from now she would meet someone at a job interview and they would recognize her as Jem Carstairs' Instagram Girl. She pulled away from him and stepped back inside and sank down to sit on the edge of the too big and too soft bed.
"Tessa?" he said.
"I need to go home," she said.
His heart broke. She saw it happen. Saw the little pieces scatter. Dandelion fluff on the wind. Just that fragile. She shut her eyes against it and then her mouth was moving and words were pouring out.
"I love you but I can't. I can't. I can't live like this in hotel rooms that cost more than the house I grew up in. I can't have people knowing my name. I don't want to be instagram girl or Jem Carstairs' girlfriend. I don't want any of that," she said.
He was kneeling in front of her to cup her face in his long fingered hands. His broken heart was still there in his eyes and he wasn't arguing with her. He was famous and it was like he lived on another planet.
"I want you but not any of the rest of it," she said.
"I love you too," he said.
She hadn't realized she'd said it out loud until he returned it. She had said it and she had meant it. It shocked her into silence. It was true. She hadn't noticed until the words escaped. She looked forward to his messages every day. She planned out the things she would send him. She daydreamed about him. His arm fit around her shoulder like it belonged there. How had she fallen in love? Why hadn't she noticed?
"Two weeks," he said. He stood and pulled her up with him. She looked at him with wary eyes. She was going to cry. "Stay for two weeks. Finish the tour with us. Stay just for a little while. You can be invisible. No one needs to know who you are. Just the band, just us, just me."
He held her face between his hands as he spoke. She hadn't been alone with him since the day she had had him in her apartment. She hadn't ever had him this close with bright hair falling around his cheeks and his eyes locked on her. She swallowed and tried to sort out her thoughts.
"I'll stay," she said. She wasn't sure if she meant that she would stay for two weeks or if she would stay as long as he wanted her there. She cut the sentence off because both of those answers were terrifying. Was falling in love always terrifying? Why hadn't people warned her about it?
Jem pulled her closer and his sunrise smile broke across his face. Even closer. The terror fled. Closer. Slowly. Then his lips were against hers and anything left of her fear or her anxiety shattered. The kiss started so gently that it wasn't quite worthy of the word. She looped her arms up around his neck and pulled him in tighter.
He was stronger than he looked as he caught her around the waist and pulled her in hard against his body. She sighed into his mouth and he kissed her deeper. She leaned back and he fell with her, collapsing around her on the bed. There was a brief moment of awkward limbs but she slid up the bed and he followed her. When he kissed her again, she lay back against the duvet and let everything in the world melt away.
His hand found her waist and the hem of her shirt and the kiss broke for a moment and before he could ask, she reached down and pulled it off. He was all smiles and incredulous eyes. He looked at her like he had never seen anything quite so beautiful. She tried for words, tried for questions about why he liked her this much, but she couldn't find them. She kissed him instead.
He had skin like silk below the t-shirt she'd pulled away from him while he'd given her one of those smiles that stopped her breathing. A tattoo curled off his shoulder. She hadn't known he had one and she paused to trace it with her fingers. She had once considered a lyrics tattoo but something about being here where he'd probably find it made her glad that she didn't. Maybe someday though.
She sat up and he made room for her to follow the lines of ink over his shoulder and down to his back. It wasn't really anything identifiable, a pattern. Where it traced down the side of his spine there were Chinese characters.
"It is terribly cliche to have a Chinese tattoo," she said.
"I think I get a pass," he said laughing. She hadn't realized until the words escaped how rude they were and the laugh was a relief.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"I am actually Chinese, you know. Wait, did you know that?" he said, "I can tell you for a fact that it does not say kung pao chicken or something absurd like that."
"I think I read it once but I hadn't thought about it, you were born in England?" she asked.
"No, born in Shanghai. My father is British, my mother is from Beijing," he was still smiling, "I like that there are things you don't know about me. I am pretty sure that is on my wikipedia article. They can probably tell you things I don't know like what hospital I was born in."
"I should do some reading," she told him and sat up and started to get out of the dip in covers and too-soft mattress they'd sunk into. He caught her around the waist and pulled her back in to settle into his arms.
"It is better to learn things in person than from books, I will tell you anything you want to know, I will tell you things that no one else knows," he said into her ear. The teasing was gone. This was a declaration. Serious and unflinching.
"Why do you trust me?" she asked, "There are tabloids that would pay me a lot of money to tell them anything about you."
"You didn't release a single cat photo," he said.
"Cat photo?" she asked.
"You could have sold those pictures, the ones with me and your cat? They would have bought those too. It would have gotten you your fifteen minutes of interviews and internet fame. But you didn't," he said.
"It felt private," she said with a shrug which meant rubbing her shoulder against his. They were halfway to undressed. She hadn't forgotten, you don't forget something like that but for just a few minutes the conversation had been more important than the way muscles moved beneath his skin. The moment was over. The word private and the way he smiled at her when she said it, changed everything again.
"This is more private," he said.
"Yeah," she said and she pulled him back down to kiss. He was enthusiastic and swung between gentle urgency and gasping fervour. It was a kiss worth waiting for. His hands wandered. They were in her hair smoothing out tangled bits he found. They were petting down over her stomach in slow repetitive motions during slow, lazy kisses. They grabbed hold of her hips, of her breasts, of her face as the kisses turned harder and deeper again.
His hands were on her hip, pushing her jeans away when he paused with a puzzled look on his face. She looked up at him. He kissed her cheek and then gave her a look that she couldn't immediately read.
"Too fast?" he asked.
"What? No," she said with a shake of her head. It felt fast but it was really too slow, she should have kissed him for the first time that night he'd given her backstage passes. This was happening exactly where it should, they'd just missed spreading the steps out across the months they'd been sending messages and stealing moments behind set pieces.
"Ok, ok, good, I'm," he had a flustered moment that reminded her less of tattooed rockstar and more of a tiny puppy but she didn't mention either of those things to him as he assembled what he wanted to say, "I don't have anything?"
He said it like a question and it took her a moment to understand the anything in question. She hadn't planned on this. Maybe she should have but it hadn't occurred to her. She lay back and looked at the ceiling and said, "Me neither."
He lay down on his stomach beside her and she rolled into him again and played her fingers down his arm. Not touching him was a kind of impossibility at the moment. She looked him in the eye and he made a face. A rueful face. Determined but uncomfortable.
"What?" she said.
"I could ask," he started and trailed off glancing at the door.
"Is he going to be a dick about it?" she asked.
"Not to you, to me, yes, he will be bringing it up for the next fifty years. You though, he won't even think of mentioning it to. He's secretly a little old lady when it comes to things like that," he said.
"Are you willing to make that sacrifice?" she asked.
"Oh yes," he said laughing. He sat up and went in search of his shirt. It put him out of reach so she got up to follow him as he pulled it on and shook his hair out of his eyes. She reached out with every intention of straightening the shirt but instead they somehow slipped underneath and ran up his stomach.
He grabbed both of her wrists and gently pulled them away, "You try and stay right here, just like this, I'll be right back."
She leaned up and he kissed her again and then he disappeared out the door. By all reasonable assessments she was in way over her head but she didn't feel it. Her usual anxiety at finding herself in new situations wasn't there. Jem Carstairs had said he loved her and kissed her like he meant it and everything else that usually stressed her out had faded into the background.
Jem reappeared in the room and shut the door behind him like he was shutting out pursuit. She raised eyebrows at him and he flashed her a sheepish grin that was even cuter than his full power smiles. He disarmed her with his very presence. She returned the smile. The time away from him had given her time to brush out her hair and think. It wasn't much time but it was enough time to feel foolish for telling him those words and for meaning them so much.
"Didn't I ask you to stay just as you were?" he asked.
"I'm not good at following orders," rolled off her tongue before she'd thought about it. He laughed. As soon as he had finished crossing the room that feeling of foolishness had fled. It wasn't foolish. It was true. She did love him. She loved him a little more each time she saw him.
Tessa had wrapped herself up in one of the plush robes that hung in the closet and she'd changed, not that he could see that, the robe covered her nearly to her ankles and she wasn't a short person. She felt simultaneously daring and like a little kid playing at being a grown up.
"Will isn't in the hotel," Jem said. He curled his fingers into the lapels of her bathrobe and pulled her just a little closer.
"What?" she asked disoriented by the mention of Will. She'd been in the process of forgetting that other people existed.
"He's going to bring us back something. I don't have any idea what that means. He has this laugh that is surprisingly evil," Jem said.
"Shall we watch TV?" she asked. Where had all these flippant remarks come from? Since when did she have that kind of easy confidence? The answer seemed to be since a beautiful man had pulled her tight into his personal space and smiled at her like she was both his favourite food and his only friend.
"No, there are other things I want to do to you," he said and her flippant remarks vanished in a rush of heat that started low in her body and spread higher. His hands in the robe felt different when he looked at her like that. It wasn't cute and flirty but darker and more challenging. Not frightening. Nothing about him frightened her but there was some deeper current running through him now that could change her heart rate with a look.
"Like what?" she asked.
He didn't answer her in words, he leaned down and pressed his mouth to her throat. It wasn't really a kiss, it was a sweep of tongue and just enough suction that she worried it would leave a mark. As he did it his hands burrowed into the robe and found her hips. She leaned in and put her head on his shoulder. He surprised her with his strength again when he lifted her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist. She was nuzzling his neck and that might have been enough of a distraction to explain why he half dropped her onto the giant bed.
He was running his hands over her again and she reached out to tilt his face up to look at her. That smile stopped her. It was just a little mischievous. She'd put on the best underwear she had, all lace and low dips and deep navy blue against her skin. He ran his fingers along the edge of the lace to make sure she knew that he had noticed. She pulled him up again and he settled against her body and kissed her.
"I love you," she said.
He stopped.
Everything froze.
He was close and warm and heavy. His eyes were dark and steady and looked so much like a home she'd never had that she wasn't sure what to do with it.
"I love you too," he said before he kissed her again.
Then he slid down her body, trailing kisses as he went. Each one had weight. Each one left a mark on her somewhere no one else was ever going to be able to see. He set his chin on her thigh and raised his eyebrows at her. She settled back and spread her legs a little wider. Her fancy underwear was gone and he repeated what he had done to her neck.
"Oh my god," she murmured surprised by even that much sensation. It wasn't that she'd never been with a man, it was just that she'd never been with someone who put all their attention on her like this. She'd never felt like the focus before. The wasn't about getting her warmed up enough to give him what he wanted, this was about her and what she wanted.
He kept looking up at her with dark eyes and silver hair as his hands stroked up her thighs, across her hips and her stomach, up to her breasts. She wanted to take it off, to get rid of that barrier between his hands and her skin but he went from licking to something with more suction and her intentions fell away.
She reached down and played with his hair as he sucked and lapped and pulled gasps and murmurs out of her. He slid his fingers into her and smiled. Then, like it was easy, like it was just a question of pushing the right buttons, he brought her the rest of the way to an orgasm.
His fingers moved fast and his tongue matched them and then everything stopped for a flash of pressure and suction that made her cry out for a moment before the thrusting and the licking was back. Her back arched and she twisted. She tried to bite back the second cry but couldn't manage it. She hadn't realized he was holding her down until the release washed through her. He held onto her and made her scream again before he slid back up her body and gathered close against his chest.
She started to laugh once she'd gotten her breath back. He touched her cheek and turned her head towards him. There was a question in his eyes and she realized that laughing was maybe not thing most people did after an orgasm. She kissed him. The laughter wasn't entirely gone and she could feel his answering smile as he kissed her back. She started pull at his clothing again. He'd gotten dressed and she wanted his skin against hers.
He flopped over backwards and let her take his clothing off piece by piece. She was still tangled in the robe and had to shimmy loose of where it was twisted around her arms. She waited to feel uncomfortable or exposed but even though his eyes fairly raked down her body, it didn't happen.
She ran her fingers over him, over his chest and stomach, over tattoos and lines of muscle. He was narrow but it wasn't really thinness. There was muscle under his skin. She got bolder or braver and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. She glanced up to see him smiling so she kept going, kissing across his chest and his collar bone to his throat, getting a taste for his skin.
They were slow and once she started it, he took up exploring her body with his mouth. He didn't take off her bra. Instead, he pulled her breasts free and took her nipple in his mouth. She held the back of his neck to keep him there.
They were interrupted by a knock at the door which startled Tessa so badly she yelped. Jem caught her face in his hand and grinned at her.
"Is that Will?" she asked.
"Better be," he said.
He took the robe and she stayed exactly where she was and let the moment of clarity that came with being alone in the room wash through her. It didn't bring any thoughts of running or stopping or questions about how crazy she was. Even thinking clearly, she just as eager for him to come back.
"I hate you," she heard Jem say but she couldn't hear Will's answer whatever it was. The hotel room was big enough that she couldn't see the door. Jem closed the door on him and it cut off the sound of a laugh. He came back with a bag that he didn't share. He climbed back up into the place half lying on top of her where he had been a moment before and paused to show her that Will had picked up condoms wherever he'd been. Whatever else was in the bag remained a secret that he left on the floor beside the bed. She tried to remind herself to check it later but he was looking at her differently and that erased all the other thoughts.
"Is this something you want to do?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, she pulled him in to kiss and said it again a little stronger, "Yes."
He was naked and the condom was in the right place and he was pushing against her and she was falling back against the mattress with her knees wide. He slid into her slow and she made a small noise. He laughed and waited until she looked at him before he started to move. He kissed her and his fingers kept winding through her hair and he smiled every time she looked up at him.
It had been a long time since she'd been this close to anyone and it had never been like this. She melted into his touch, relaxing and cuddling closer to keep the skin on skin contact. If she could have, she would have purred. He was deep but it wasn't rough. It was just a step farther into the cuddling and kissing they'd done before.
She was out of her depth, inexperienced and a bit overwhelmed but she didn't feel anxious. She tilted her hips, tried to push up and meet him. He slowed and she snapped her eyes open, afraid she'd done something wrong but he was smiling with a soft expression.
"Do that again," he said. She was unsure what exactly she had done but he was looking down at her and waiting so she tried it again.
"That?" she asked.
"Yes, don't stop," he said and then he was matching her and they moved together, her body lifting to meet his. It pushed him deeper into her and she pressed her face in tight to his neck.
He came before she did. She had her eyes open when he did and she watched his expression change as he lost his gentleness for a moment and then collapsed into her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in close as he relaxed. He lay against her, tight and still deep inside, before he pulled away and rolled to the side. She started to roll with him, unwilling to give up the feel of his skin against hers but he pushed her back onto her back with a hand on her hip.
She was a little too dazed to even consider arguing with him. She lay back and ran her fingers through his hair as he slid in close to her side. Tessa had thought it was over but his hand slid down between her legs and nudged them back apart. He pushed his fingers inside and then rubbed with his thumb. Once again, he held her past the point of release long enough to pull a scream from her.
"Jem?" she asked when it was over and her voice sounded hazy.
"Hmm?" he said into her hair as she curled in close to him. His fingers traced up and down her shoulder and she nuzzled his chest.
"I don't know why you like me but I am very glad I met you," she said.
"I like you because you are beautiful," he tilted her face up and kissed her forehead, "and clever," he kissed her cheek, "and kind," her other cheek, "and one of the most incredible people I have ever met," he paused before kissing her mouth to say, "I am so glad to have met you too."
She kissed him back and let herself drift in his arms.