AN: Feedback! Love! inspiredthoughts@hotmail.com PS: Hi to everyone from Obscure Thoughts. Jess, I love it when you link me. My traffic triples. Not to mention, your site just rocks my socks in general. But you know that. ************** One Night Stand: Chapter Four ***************** “Keelie.” She ignored him. “Keelie Stephanie.” She wiped her wrench on the towel tucked in her tool belt and sighed. “Keelie Stephanie Marie.” She rolled her eyes and clambered back under the sink, studiously ignoring him even. “Keelie Stephanie Marie Childs.” She twisted the leaking pipe with one violent jerk and resisted the urge to twitch at the intent gaze resting on her back. “Keelie Stephanie Marie Childs,” AJ sang giddily as he danced in the kitchen, spinning, finally tiring of savoring each name with a lover’s attention to detail. Damn him, it was really hard to concentrate on a leaking sink when AJ McLean was paying homage to her name. She turned to snap at her newest employer but stopped, mid insult. A small unacknowledged smile tugged at Keelie’s lips as he hopped around the room, waving his arms and shaking slim hips as he chanted her successive names in litany. She tucked a curling strand of hair behind one ear and wiped a damp brow with the back of one tattooed wrist. AJ paused in front of her, mid hop, and offered a manicured hand, rough with calluses, and a hundred other paradoxes. “Care to dance my lady?” She swallowed her smile with difficulty. “I’m working Mr. McLean.” “I won’t pay you.” Keelie frowned. “For working?” He grabbed her hand in her confusion and winked broadly from behind see-through sunglasses. “AJ.” “AJ?” He yanked her out from under the sink. “I won’t pay you on the clock for dancing.” “Mr. McLean…” He took the wrench from unresisting fingers and placed it on the counter before spinning her into his arms. Keelie went instinctively, like the true dance lover she was, her body knowing his movements before her mind did. He titled his head down so that his brow rested on hers. She quirked her dark eyebrows and gave into the urge to smile again. “You shouldn’t have to call someone Mr. when you’ve had sex with them. At least you don’t have to call me Mr.” “Mr. McLean…” AJ threw his head back and laughed as Keelie stared up at him peevishly. “Would it bother you to call me AJ?” he asked, amusement ruining the seriousness of the question. Keelie shifted in his arms and tried not to remember flashes of tanned golden skin laid out against gold, of sable hair spilling around black, of tattooed limbs searching and finding. Bloody hell. Trying just wasn’t good enough. She’d been working for him for a week and STILL couldn’t get the memories out of her head. “I’m trying to be professional,” she muttered darkly. He laughed again and started to move to a beat her feet followed automatically. Stupid traitorous body. “Forgive me for saying, but I don’t think professional is your forte.” The comment should have hurt, but she could see those damn brown eyes and the sympathetic understanding in them. From one average guy to one average girl, neither one ready for corporate America, and all its promising lies. Of course, ready or not, Alexander James McLean had gotten international fame and fortune. Keelie had gotten a cup of spilled coffee and a pink slip from a construction crew. There were some definite imbalances there. Suddenly flustered but indignant, she pointed a ridiculous finger at his chest, which was only several inches from her. “You owe me a new blouse.” He spun her outward lazily before bringing her back in, quickening the pace of the music only he could hear. “I didn’t like that blouse anyway.” Her mouth dropped open. “That’s not the point!” AJ nodded in acknowledgment. “You’re right of course. I owe you an outfit, but how about something a little more like what you were wearing when you took me home? Something a little more like you than a professional working blouse?” Keelie snorted. “And what good would that do you? We had a one night stand. That, by definition, somewhat limits any use you might get out of my clubbing outfits.” AJ smirked. “Prat. You’re a frigging celebrity, what is your deal with me?! One night stand- forget about it!” He dipped her and swung her up to him with a wicked chuckle. “Let me ask you something- why me?” She blushed but answered hotly, wanting out the conversation. “Because you were dancing like sex and women have hormones too, okay? I was taking someone home and you were the best thing there and, working girl or not, even I deserve the best sometimes.” AJ stopped suddenly, leaving them face to face, lips a breath apart. His brown eyes were intense suddenly, but needy. Her purring cat hadn’t grown claws and a second head yet. She still felt safe with him holding her, and that would have been more disturbing then the need to get away. “That’s why. Because you took home the working class guy with a fine ass for a one-night stand. Because you didn’t leave your number and you didn’t kiss me goodbye. Because it wasn’t about me, it was about two people with hormones having a good time. Because I know you don’t take home guys every night.” Keelie licked her lips before deciding that that was a very bad idea as AJ’s eyes narrowed and turned flinty from barely held restraint. One night stand damnit! One night! “Did I mention your tongue too?” Keelie blushed bright red and managed to slip from his embrace, and damn what her feet and body were saying. Pointing was much more effective from far away. She pointed and shook an admonishing digit at him from the relative safety of the sink. “You, go away. I have work to do and I want to go back ON the clock. Now.” He shot her a harmless but utterly cheeky grin before spinning and hopping away, singing her name from the top of her lungs with careless abandon. With an abandon that belied the understanding she recognized in his eyes. And that was the root of the problem. Keelie should have never spent longer than one night with Alexander James McLean because he was too much like her. Too different not to fascinate her. She’d leave a bad situation in a heart beat, even if it meant a black eye, a split lip, and police forms, but an interesting situation was something else all together. Which totally explained why she was now working for AJ McLean of the Backstreet Boys. Why she had just danced with him in his kitchen, wearing a tool belt and work boots. Why she wouldn’t quit and walk away from the silly lunatic who was obsessed with the name he had finally learned. Well, and because of the whole starving thing too. Keelie sighed and crawled back under the sink with a rueful shake of her head and tentative smile.