I smiled at him and nodded.
“Wow! I am truly, madly, offended,” he said, but he was smiling.
I laughed at the reference to his song lyrics.
“Was it that forgettable?” he asked, slipping his hand under the blanket and grazing it against my exposed breast. He pushed the blanket down and then kissed the place between my breasts.
“Well, was it?” he asked again.
“Mmmm,” I moaned as he licked me. “I think I might need some reminding.”
He pulled back and looked at me again. “Seriously? Seriously?” He sounded incredulous now. “You need reminding, of that? Last night? What I did? Because I think I was rather good last night. Some of my best work, in fact.”
I looked at him and laughed. “Yeah, you really ‘worked it, worked it, worked it’ last night.”
Mark laughed now. “And I’m not going to ever live that down, am I?”
I shook my head. “Nope.” I started singing, badly. “I’m gonna work it, work it, work it—”
“Babyyyy,” Mark sang that word and I gasped and shook my head.
“I mean, I know it’s you. But it really is you.”
Mark hummed the song and I joined in.
“God, those songs were terrible,” he said.
“Not to me. Not to millions and millions of adoring fans . . . Wait!” I raised myself up too and looked at him. “Wait, you must be really rich. Like seriously, seriously loaded. Like, Forbes rich list loaded. You guys sold like ten million albums!”
He smiled at me. A little coy, a little self-conscious.
“Is it totally rude to ask how much?”
“Totally rude.”
“You know I can Google it, right?”
“I’d like to see you try,” he teased.
“Maybe I’ll walk all the way to the mountain and climb it.”
He smiled at me for a moment, but then it faded slightly.
“I’m not being serious, you know that, right? I don’t actually care how much you have, in case you think I do. I was just joking and curious for totally ridiculous reasons, because I’ve probably never been in the same room as someone so loaded,” I quickly said, in case he thought that. “I really don’t care. Really.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think that.” He smiled at me, but I could still see it was a little forced.
I sat up fully in bed now and looked him in the eye. “You forget, I kissed you before I knew who you were. This . . .” I indicated the bed, “has nothing to do with who you were. Sure, I was a total groupie and I was insanely in lurrrrve with you when I was fourteen. And I probably fantasized about this moment right here a million times”—I blushed now just thinking about it—“but what happened last night has nothing to do with you being a part of a famous and totally hot boy band who I happened to be obsessed with once upon a time and have tattooed on my lower back.”
I leaned in and kissed him, and he kissed me back, chuckling against my mouth.
“I hope not,” he said, pulling away. “Most of my other relationships had something to do with that.”
“I think I understand that. My last relationship was directly related to how many followers I had, and then didn’t have.”
“I hate your ex, by the way!” Mark said and I smiled.
“Thanks,” I replied with an even bigger smile.
