Page 42 of Innocent

While I’m doing that, I keep finding myself pitching in with the transition’s social media team. They have some pretty skilled tech and graphics design geeks, but they don’t have a damn bit of sense about style and subject composition. As a result, I’ve helped stage photos and postings, in addition to my own work. They’ve taken to e-mailing me items for my approval or input before they post them. It adds to my workload, but it also buffs my portfolio and résumé, so I can’t complain too much, I suppose.

Tonight is like mental sorbet for me. Between the walk and the music, I can unplug and unwind. If I was back at my hotel room, I’d end up looking through the furniture catalog, or my e-mail, and start working, anyway.

Or I’d be masturbating to fantasies of Leo.

Ineedtonight.

When the second band starts playing, I head upstairs to my previous perch to watch. Unfortunately, some guy trying to sell drugs is making the rounds up here, walking up to people, and I don’t like the looks of him. I nonchalantly return to the ground floor and ease my way around the throng until I find a safe-looking group of older attendees I can join. They’re far enough from the mosh pit I have a buffer, and they’re all focused on the band.

Before that set ends, I make my way upstairs, to the third-floor balcony. I want to be up there when the lights come up so I can take a look at the trim there. The last changeover took about fifteen minutes, and I’ll need to hit a bathroom. Plus, I want another soda.

One of the things I’mreallylooking forward to is getting to roam the White House for a couple of days after the inauguration, and be able to study architectural elements I’ve read about over the past couple of weeks, like fireplaces, trim, and flooring. Even if I don’t stay here in Washington once I’m finished, this is the chance of a lifetime, and I want to make full use of it.

After I’ve spent way too long looking around up there, I return to the lower balcony, check out its trim, and then I head downstairs again. There’s a smaller bathroom inside the auditorium space, tucked down a back hall. Except I wasted too much time dicking around upstairs, and the main act comes on stage and starts playing.

Fuckballs.

Ireallywant that soda. I’ll need sugar and caffeine in me before the walk back to my hotel. The bar will probably be packed as people returning inside after smoking or vaping stop for a drink. So I hold off for a couple of minutes before hurrying out to the lobby.

Yay, I timed it perfectly, and don’t have to wait to be served.

When I yank open the door to the auditorium, I nearly smack into a guy exiting. A guy in a suit and overcoat, and…

My gaze quickly rises, as does my shock. “Leo? What are you doing here?”

He steps forward, grabs me by the upper arm, and practically yanks me off my feet as he drags me back into the lobby, off to the side and between a couple of columns.

Somehow, I manage not to drop my soda.

He plants a hand flat in the middle of my chest and pins me to the wall…which nearly melts my knees out from under me.

Whoa, that’s sexy ashell.

“Whydidn’t you respond to my calls and texts? I’ve been fuckingworriedabout you!”

Confusion spins through me. I’m still trying to process he’s actuallyhere. “What?”

Then he’s kissing me.

I mean, he’s frickingkissingme.

Concert? What concert? The world has contracted and disappeared outside the warmth from his body enveloping mine as this kiss hardens my cock and makes me want to drop to my knees right here.

Damn, can the mankiss!

Thisis the kind of kiss I’ve fantasized about ever since I met him.

Leo stares into my eyes with an intensity that’s turned his brown gaze nearly black. “Life is short. Fuck waiting. After the concert, you’re coming back to my place. With me.”

My brain’s short-circuited by that kiss. “I-I am?”

“Yeah, you are. Unless you don’t want to, then tell me, and I’ll see you safely back to your hotel. But you’renotleavingthisplacealone. Understand me?”

I nod. “Yes, Sir.”

Yeah, I mean it with a capitalS.

Leo kisses me again. “I mean it,” he rumbles against my lips. Then he draws back a little to stare down at me. “I will take you back to your hotel, if you ask me to. But I’m really hoping you want to go home with me tonight. We don’t even have to do anything but sleep, if you don’t want to. I just… I’m tired of being alone. And I wasreallyfucking worried about you.”