Sunday 12:14 a.m. House of Blues, VIP room

It was Sam's first after party.  She loved music and had been to a lot of concerts in her time, but she'd never before partied with the band afterwards.  It was an experience.  The Grunts trickled in slowly.  Russell was taking his own sweet time, of course.  Which was so typical of him.  He could be so annoyingly punctual-- but he also could (and did) enjoy playing the part of the big man when it suited him.  Why not enjoy the perks his fame offered from time to time?  He had to accept the downside either way.  It hardly made up for the intrusion into his life and the loss of his privacy, but it did take the sting away on occasion.

Russell knew full well the world didn't revolve around him, but he was intelligent and cocky and also knew his stardom did indeed number him among the celestial bodies receiving some measure of deference.  Sam thought of her encounter with Hot Jock and swallowed a wry smile wondering if Russell had ever uttered the infamous, 'Do you know who I am?'  Probably.  He could be so gentle and sweet.  He could also be such a bastard.  Especially if he thought he was right about something.  He wasn't so much arrogant as opinionated-- and if you were at all insecure, well... he suffered that about as well as he suffered fools.   

While she was waiting for him, Sam blushingly exchanged greetings with band as they arrived and mingled.  She'd met a couple of them while she'd been at the farm, but for the most part, they were new to her.  She cringed inwardly thinking of the impression she must have made.  It was hard to be sorry for it, however.  In fact, she wasn't sorry.  She'd never be sorry for feeling the way she did about him.  A spark of defiance burned in her.  Nothing they could do together was dirty or wrong.  And now, there was a curious heat curling inside of her, low and smoldering.  It burned hotter when she thought of the coming night.  After what she and Russell had shared backstage, Sam was aware that it would only take the softest breath from him to fan that spark into a raging wildfire.

The heat inside made her feel reckless.  Wild.  She was calm and still on the outside, graceful and poised.  But on the inside she felt like something had been cut away.  She was free.  And soon, very soon, Russell would come and take that wild part of her into his keeping.  But he hadn't done it yet and Sam had the sense that he felt it as much as she did. 

A ripple went through the room.  Heads turned.  It made Sam think of a gaggle of geese.  Her eyes wandered the room, flicking over the people gathered in small knots here and there.  She had no clue who most of them were.  People who worked in the music or entertainment industry, probably.  Club regulars.  Groupies.  There was definitely no shortage of T&A. 

Russell came swaggering up to her with a beer in his hand and a cigarette dangling between his fingers.  Sam's eyes widened.  Now she knew what all the chatter had been about.  And what had taken him so long.  All his lovely long hair was gone.  Gone!  It was cut short-- and he'd shaved.  He was grinning, obviously enjoying her little look of surprise.  He postured a bit, as he had that morning on the farm when he'd surprised her much as he was doing now. 

Sam smiled and saluted him with her glass.  "Peacock," she said into his ear.

Russell shook his head.  "Crowe," he shot back.

She swallowed a muffled giggle as she touched his naked nape and fluffed her fingers into his short hair with a playful sigh.  "No matter.... I was only after your body anyway."

"Yeah?" he laughed, holding his beer protectively against his chest.  "Well, I suppose I should thank my lucky stars you didn't dump my drink into the bushes this time."

Her warm smile softened as the playful moment slipped into something else.  He put his arms around her, lowered his head and touched his mouth to hers.  It was a gesture that couldn't have been more clear to anyone who saw it.  It was an elegantly simple way to say, I'm with her.  She's my girl.  He felt her tremble and broke from the kiss to whisper, "Soon," into her ear.

Russell was still riding the high of the show, drunk on their energy as well the numerous beers he'd consumed.  He seemed to be swinging from giggly and witty to serious and tender, caught somewhere between the need to be alone with her and the euphoria of wanting to show her off, to claim her before the world-- especially since he hadn't yet claimed her in private.

He knew she was dying to talk to him about what he'd blurted out on stage but both of them knew it wasn't the time or the place.  They simply let that sleeping dog lie for now and enjoyed the party.  He was very physical, not quite able to keep his hand off her, though the way he touched her was far from lewd.  He just couldn't seem to give up that physical connection.  An arm around her casually while he chatted.  A fingertip softly stroking her nape.  Absently fingering the ring around her neck and playing with the delicate golden chain. 

"You wore it," he whispered into her ear in a break in the conversation, aware its presence around her neck hinted that she'd accepted something larger in the grander scheme of things. 

He smiled at her tart answer.  "Well, it's not quite big enough for my wrist or ankle...."  His eyes sparkled at her teasing.  "I considered through the nose but thought that might have been a little obvious."

He chuckled and fingered her traveling ring.  "And this isn't?"  Sam gasped, suddenly aware what everyone was going to assume it meant.  She wore it on the third finger of her left hand and after that cheeky little announcement of his....  She could already see the headlines.  'Crowe's Secret Marriage'.  Oh shit.  She raised her right hand with the intention of removing it but Russell stopped her.  "Don't even think it.  You'll just cause more speculation if it suddenly disappears."

Sam turned and gaped at him.  He was looking pretty damn pleased with himself.  Realization dawned.  He was enjoying himself!  That rat bastard.  But it amused her too.  It was scary but exciting.  He didn't at all seem bothered by the fact people might assume they were married.  It was really more than she could handle at the moment.  It was all just so much so fast.  Beside her, Russell smiled inwardly.  He was aware his impulsive comment hadn't exactly been prudent, but even drunk, he knew it for what it was.  An indication of the direction his true heart was leaning. 

He'd seen the little flash of gold on her finger while they were backstage in the bathroom.  Well, actually he hadn't noticed it until her hand was wrapped around his cock, but seeing it there on her hand during that intimate moment...  All he could think of was how right it had felt.  Like some thread of future memories had somehow gotten tangled up with the present.  While he was hardly ready to pop the question, he was ready to entertain it.  And if it confused the fuck out of the media in the mean time, so much the better.

The party lingered on.  Russell seemed to hang around her in fits and starts.  He'd have his arm around her casually while he introduced her to someone and then he'd wander of or be called away, only to be drawn back to her again and again over the course of the evening.  Like he couldn't quite keep away even though everyone seemed to want a piece of him.  It was quite an experience for Sam, who spent a lot of the time at Mark's side, or alone at a table, watching him.  It was her first real experience with his fame.  It was quite something, an eye opening experience to be sure.   

So, this is what their lives would be like.  She had that inner calm while he was the whirlwind.  Everyone wanted to talk to him.  Wanted a piece of him.  Women, beautiful women, were constantly throwing themselves at him, invitation in their eyes as they rubbed against him or pressed their room keys into his hand.  This was going to happen wherever they went for as long as they were together.  Could she handle it?  Could he?  And then there was the scrutiny she was under.  While a more controlled event like this one was a far cry from the waves of reporters on the red carpet or the paparazzi that stalked him constantly, she was still being watched.  Sized up.  The press was bad enough but the women were worse.  She could feel their eyes on her, waiting for her to make a mistake, watching for any sign of weakness. 

Who is she?  Surely THAT'S not the girl he was talking about tonight?  Her breasts are too small.  She's too skinny.  No figure.  And look at that nose?  Those can't be her real tits.  You think she's had work done?  How did a girl like her ever get a man like him?  I bet butter wouldn't even melt in her mouth!  God, and look at those clothes....  I can't see why he'd even be interested.  She must suck a mean dick.  You reckon she's after his money?  Look at that ring!  Are they married?  No, he wouldn't be that stupid.  She's the rebound girl.  You heard he just broke up?  I heard it was because he couldn't keep it in his pants.  Cheating, you know.  Probably with her.  Wish he'd cheat on her with me.  I'd fuck him any day.  You think he's going to fuck her tonight?  Maybe he already has...

On and on it went.  If it wasn't in their eyes when they looked at her, she overheard the malicious gossip as they postured and flaunted their bodies trying to attract his attention.  Sam would wonder if maybe the spotlight of his life was too bright for her... and then he would look up and catch her eye from across the room and give her that little private smile, the one that seemed to say to her, 'You're the only one here who knows who I really am.  The only one I've let inside.  All these people get is the show.  The Game face.  You get the real man, Sammy girl.' 

Despite the fact this was the last concert of the tour and everyone was enjoying themselves, Russell didn't stay long.  He just did the minimal shmoozing and the minute it became tedious instead of fun, he was ready to go.  It didn't take long.  He didn't suffer fools well at all, nor did he care to be asked intrusive personal questions about his private life by women who thought they had something to offer that he hadn't seen a thousand times before.  Russell appreciated the irony.  And precious little else.  He detested clingy women.  Sam didn't like the limelight.  It seemed as if every woman there was trying to attach themselves to him-- except the one he wanted on his arm.  Classic Crowe luck.   

She mostly just watched his progress from across the room and he found himself drawn back to her stillness again and again.  She was a cool breeze in the stifling press of desperate women.  And there was, of course, that one little detail that hadn't escaped his mind since he walked out of the backstage restroom. 

Sam wanted him.

He could feel it in the way she melted when he touched her.  The softest surrender.  A subtle cue given in a crowded room.  One that told him he could expect a whole lot more of that when they were alone.  She turned her face into his kisses and happily held his hand, but she didn't try to entice him in front of the others.  What they had was private and she wouldn't put it on display for anyone.  Not even when he could feel her trembling with desire.  His girl was a class act.  He wondered what she saw in a screw up like him.  He was successful, sure, but until quite recently his personal life had been an embarrassing shamble.  The crazier things seemed to get around him, the more still she seemed to become.  The eye of his storm. 

Russell took one last pull off his beer, poked his cigarette down the neck and abandoned it.  He was at her side in moments, giving her a little twirl before pulling her into his arms and pressing his lips to her ear.  "You ready to go, darlin'?"  He was already dancing her backwards toward the door, aware he was creating something of a spectacle-- and with his usual arrogance, not giving a tinker's damn. 

Sam's heart leapt.  Russell saw it beating there in the hollow of her throat.  He touched it with one thick finger.  "Scared?"  

She nodded.  "Terrified."

"Good.  Thought it was just me," he squeezed her hand and then caught Mark's eye over her head.  A curt nod from the boss and Mark had extricated himself from the cute girl chatting him up and was following them out.                          

Their black car sped away into the night.  Mark drove, smiling at the love birds attempting to behave themselves in the dark back seat.  Russell had his arm around Sam and her head was resting on his shoulder.  They were holding hands.  It was really kind of sweet.  Romantic cunt, indeed.  Sam used the ride over to the hotel to tell Russell how it happened that she came to be so many hours late.

He just shook his head and clucked his tongue at her.  "See!  If you'd done it my way none of that would have happened."  Sam swatted his arm.  He'd wanted to arrange a first class flight for her on a different airline and have a car meet her at the airport.  Sam had refused.  She was still not comfortable with the trappings of his fame or the size of his fortune and she had a tendency to stubbornly turned a blind eye to it, even when she probably shouldn't.

This time she just shrugged and said with a shy smile, "I don't know... I think things turned out all right this time, don't you?"  That was Mark's cue to pull out of the conversation.  Sam's voice was very soft and Mark knew after her little reminder of what had happened backstage that even though both of them were curled up in the back seat, their minds were somewhere else entirely.  Like back in that tiny little bathroom.

He smiled as he pulled the car up to the hotel's private entrance and did the usual check for paparazzi, surprised to find the coast clear.  He might love Russ like a brother, but there were also times he wanted to wring his neck.  Like after that little announcement of his tonight.  Christ on a cracker!  Mark could only imagine what the press was going to be like in the next few weeks.  'Thanks for making my job easy, mate.' Mark thought with a sigh as he pulled Sam's bag from the car.  Russell took it and slung it over his shoulder as they parted ways and he and Sam made their way inside.

The young man working the elevator smiled at them as they stepped in.  "Get that for you, sir?"  He jumped to take the bag.  

"S'alright, mate.  I got it.  No worries."  Russell adjusted the strap and gave Sam a little squeeze.  He didn't want anyone following them in.  He'd been a good boy and now he was done sharing her.  He just nuzzled her hair and said to the attendant, "Straight to the top, mate."

"Yes, sir."  Straight up to the secured floor it was, then.  The doors closed and up they went.  There was the usual awkward silence.  Well, the attendant was silent.  Sam and Russell were murmuring softly to each other.  The attendant thought he heard something about roller coasters and then the woman said 'through the loops' and 'lost my stomach'.  He just shook his head.  Celebrities.  They were all kooky if you asked him. 

Sam's mind was whirling as the door to the suite clicked shut behind them.  It was the first time she'd ever really been alone with him without the pressure of his family a few rooms away or his friends listening to them from the other side of a thin door.  Privacy.  What a precious commodity that was.  Sam trembled slightly.  They were going to make love tonight.  For her, it was the first time in more years than she cared to admit.  She'd been married at eighteen and divorced at twenty-two. It had been childhood foolishness for the most part and she'd learned a lot from it, but not much of it had prepared her for this night. 

She'd never made love to a man.  Only a boy.  She'd married her high school sweetheart two weeks after graduation.  They'd both been fumbling virgins, lost in the heady euphoria of puppy love and raging teenage hormones; just two stupid kids who were pressured into marriage because small town people with even smaller minds had tried to force them into conforming to a mold that just didn't fit.  Of course, at the time they hadn't exactly protested too much.  They hadn't been thinking about the future.  They'd been thinking that a little slip of paper and a pair of cheap rings would buy them the rights to have as much sex as they wanted.

What a child she'd been.  What a child he'd been.  Wedded bliss hadn't lasted long.  Jimmy-- James, Sam reminded herself, still unable after all this time to think of her ex-husband as anyone but Jimmy, the boy with dirty scraped knees who'd lived across the street from her for as long as she could remember.  Jimmy, well, he'd been the usual teenage horndog.  Willing and able but a little rough and more than a little insecure.  It had been good at first, though a great deal of that was simply due to the novelty of it all.  It soon wore off.  Jimmy wasn't a small man by any stretch of the imagination, though he'd had no clue how to use what he had.  He knew even less about women's bodies and like most eager young men, he had tunnel vision when it came to his penis and the pleasure it could bring him. 

Jimmy'd also had a bad habit of expecting certain things.  Like oral sex.  She was his wife, right?  And therefore had to do what he said.  Or so he'd imagined.  Sam hadn't minded too much at first.  She was inquisitive and had delighted in discovering the secrets of his body... until she became aware how one-sided it all was.  Oh, he was curious and adventurous as most young men are, but he was uncomfortable unless the experimentation was his idea and he initiated it.  He was insecure too, most likely because he couldn't imagine she'd ever see him as a man after growing up with him and seeing his every childhood mistake from spills on his bike to detentions at school to premature ejaculations the first few times they had sex. 

It made him uneasy and self-conscious and so he tried to cover it by becoming more controlling.  Over time, it got so he always chose the position, the one he liked best, and it progressed to the point where he would knock her hands away if she touched herself during sex, afraid she might like her own touch better than his.  The fragile threads of their young love unraveled faster and faster as the months passed.  Jimmy had tried.  He wasn't heartless.  Just clueless.  His idea of experimenting was to buy her something sexy and ask her if she wanted to watch some porn with him while she wore it.  It just frustrated Sam, who was more interested in exploring the secrets of a real male body rather than watching actors fake a performance on television.  She was not impressed.

Their sex life, what little there was of it, became boringly predictable and hardly lasted longer than it took for him to climb on, push in and get himself off.  He spent more and more time with his buddies, drinking and flirting with other girls.  Girls who weren't intimately acquainted with his every flaw.

Sam's natural sensuality and curiosity unnerved him.  She'd liked sex and she'd liked Jimmy once upon a time.  He was young and handsome and Sam had longed for those early days before they were married when they'd kiss for hours and whisper to each other all the erotic things they wanted to try.  But reality hadn't been quite so rosy.  She'd felt him slipping away and had tried, as many young wives do, to entice him back.  One time stood out clearly in her memory.  After a shower she'd stretched out on their bed and slipped her hand down, touching herself softly, wishing he would come and make love to her the way she'd always dreamed about.  When he came into their bedroom she'd opened her legs and stroked herself gently, wanting him to want her.  Wanting him to want the fantasy.  Instead he'd flung her towel over her and told her to stop, to cover up-- that she was embarrassing him. 

That was the defining moment of her marriage.  It wasn't so much he'd broken her heart as it was he'd made her ashamed of her sexuality and crushed her confidence as a woman.  It took a further beating when he cheated on her a few months later.  That was the end of it for Sam.  They divorced quietly and Sam left for New York and a new start not long after.  Her parents had never really gotten over it.  They still passed on news about Jimmy whenever she called.  He was married now to a girl he'd met after college.  Someone who'd never known him as Jimmy.  James now had two little boys, ages three and two, and another on the way. 

When her mother had told her that little gem, Sam remembered thinking that life was so damned unfair.  She wasn't without fault, but she hadn't been guilty of anything more than naiveté and she'd wound up alone, whereas Jimmy'd been a cheating asshole and he'd wound up with a loving family.  All she'd had at the time was a string of dateless Friday nights and a prospective commission from some movie star's mother who wanted her to come to Oz.  Funny how life works out, isn't it?

Russell watched Sam.  She seemed to be far away and he wondered what she was thinking.  He came up behind her at the big picture window and they stared out at the cityscape that stretched out below them in a sea of glittering lights.  "Penny for 'em," he said, kissing her neck softly and brushing a flower down her arm that he'd plucked out of the arrangement he'd had sent up for her in anticipation of tonight.

She shivered at the soft tickle of the petals and leaned back into his wide chest.  "I was thinking how funny life is."  She turned in his arms and slipped her hands around his neck, smiling at the flower he was holding.  "Did your 'someone special' send that to you?"  His eyebrows went up.  So did Sam's.  She smiled.  "So, this girl who said 'yes' to you...... do I get to meet her?"  He could tell she was only half teasing.  She wanted to know why he'd said that.  And he really didn't know what to say.  Or maybe he just wasn't ready to say it. 

He tried his usual defense, a touch of vulnerability cloaked in humor.  "About that--  You know me.  Can't keep my mouth shut when I'm happy.  Gotta be partly why I'm mostly not."  He kissed her softly.  "Besides... there was this girl who offered me a blow in the loo."  His eyes twinkled.  "I know I'm in a committed relationship and all, but I just couldn't tell her no.  I had it off with her right before the encore..."  Sam blushed and his voice got lower and more husky.  "She did this bloody amazing thing with her tongue."  Sam's blush deepened.  Russell just grinned.  "I never even had a chance.  Lead balloon Crowe.  Down for the count.  I never even saw it coming."

Sam giggled.  "I sure did."

A low laugh rumbled in his chest.  "Is that right?"  He kissed the tip of her nose.  "Then you must be aware I shot my brains out as well as-"

"A gallon of come?" Sam supplied helpfully.  

Russell winced.  He hadn't meant the first time they were that intimate to be so one-sided, although he couldn't actually bring himself to be sorry for it.  The truth was he said what he'd said afterwards because he hadn't yet come down from the orgasm she'd given him.  A part of her had still been inside him, or maybe it was the knowledge that she'd still had a part of him inside of her.  He hadn't been on stage then.  Not really.  Maybe he had been physically, but mentally he had still been very much back in that tiny little bathroom.  With her.                   

He shrugged and set her from him, twirling the flower's stem in his fingers and then finally holding up his hands in surrender before she could ask him straight out what he'd meant.  "Look about what I said-- ask me about it tomorrow, okay?  You can even yell at me if you want, love.  I reckon I deserve it."  He couldn't quite hide his vulnerability and his little-boy dejected look just melted her heart.  She could tell he didn't care to be chastened for letting his mask slip a bit.  He put his hands on her hips and drew her closer.  "Just give us tonight, Sammy girl."  The serious tone in his voice lightened.  "Besides, I think I definitely need to be sober for that conversation...."  Sam smiled up into his face.  It was flushed and his eyes were bright.        

'Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.'  Sam's smile got softer.  "I'm not going anywhere, Crowe.... except to bed with you." 

And for the second time that night, Sam tossed restraint into the wind and fell into his arms.