I roll my eyes. “Can I have my journal back, please?”

He glances down at me, grinning. “I haven’t finished it. I’m still looking for the parts about me.”

I stare at him. “There aren’t any.”

“No?”

“No.”

He looks hurt, but I know he’s just pretending. He’s in a good mood. He’s suddenly all around me, kissing me. He starts kissing my armpit and I squirm, frowning at him, knowing he’s just doing this to irritate me, because he knows I am overly ticklish and he knows I hate it.

God, he is in a wicked good mood. What the heck is up with him today? Happy Alan on turbo-drive. Happy Alan is never on turbo-drive.

I wiggle beneath him, and I see my journal on the bed beside him. I cautiously move my arm. He stops me. He plants his body spread eagle atop me.

“You can’t have the journal back until you make love to me,” he says, grinning.

I twist and squirm beneath him so he can’t kiss me. “Oh, go away. Don’t you have Ian waiting in the studio or an interview or something else to do? I’m irritated with you right now.”

He laughs. “Nope. Nothing but you to do, Chrissie.”

I still. “You mean you are done? As in done, done?”

He rolls off me to lie beside me, stretching on his pillow, and rakes his hand through his hair. “Yes. Done. Ian took the tracks this morning.”

“Ian took the masters? Did he leave a copy?”

Alan nods. I start to jump from the bed, but he stops me with a hand. “I have something I need you to sign.”

He rummages on the floor beside the bed, through papers and whatever else got stacked there while I slept.

I sink back on the bed. “Sign? I don’t understand.”

“Just bullshit legal paperwork. No big deal.” He is scanning the documents, frowning as if trying to find the right one.

He hands it to me. I scan the papers. I only half understand what I’m reading. “What is this?”

Alan yawns and relaxes back against his pillow, turned attractively on his side, facing me. “Just your standard release, Chrissie. It’s nothing. Just sign.”

I make a face. “Maybe I don’t want to. Is it for the label?”

He hands me a pen. “No, me. Just something my management company makes me get. It’s no big deal.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “Unless you count that paragraph on page four that says I own you for the next ten years.”

I make a face at him. “What happens if I don’t sign? Am I free of you at last?”

He gives me a sexy half smile and his eyes glow wickedly. “I dump you right out the front door in a sheet for wasting my time. You either trust me or you don’t, Chrissie. Sign the damn thing.”

God, why is everything a test of wills with him? I’m having that feeling I sometimes get when he’s mocking me, that inside of the mockery he is really being serious. Fine, Alan, Fine. You win.

I take a pen and, angry and heavy, I scrawl my name on the signature line. I’m about to toss it back in his face, when he takes the contract, and starts pointing here and here for my initials.

I stare down at it, studying the papers in my lap. “There. Happy now?”

“Ecstatic.” He stretches back on the bed and closes his eyes.

I focus on the signature next to mine. “Who is Alan Wells?”

“Me,” he whispers through another yawn. “My real name. The lawyers require it.”

I frown and curl into him. “I didn’t know that Alan Manzone wasn’t your real name. It’s kind of creepy to have to have a lawyer tell you who you’ve been sleeping with.”

He ignores that comment and tosses the papers on the floor. He starts to rummage through the junk again and pulls out a board, sitting cross-legged beside me on the bed.

He holds it up in front me. “What do you think of this?”

I shrug. “What is it?”

“The artwork for the album. I like it.”

I give it a thorough study, since it is flattering and unexpected that he wants my opinion on this. The imagery is dark, swirling shades of gray and black, grim with a simple title in bold black lettering: Long and Hard.

I crinkle my nose. “You should change the title. Your fans are going to think it’s a self-titled album about your dick.”

He laughs and drops a kiss on my nose. “Well, that’s better than you thinking it’s short and yuck. Besides, it’s not a phallic reference.” Smiling into my face, he starts to brush the hairs away from my brow. “Long and hard is the way out of darkness that leads to light.”

I turn the art board in my hands. “It’s you, they are going to think phallic. No one is going to think Alan Manzone is referencing an obscure literary passage by Dante.”

Alan laughs. “Probably not. They are also not going to think Milton and Paradise Lost. Fuck, don’t they teach literature in California?”

My cheeks burn, I ignore the jab, and toss the art onto the floor. “I still think your fans are going to think pornographic.”

“My fans won’t buy the fucking thing,” he says exasperated.

Anxiety floods my stomach. I curl into him and lie with my head on his chest. What will happen to Alan if this is as big of failure as the label warns? He’s coming off a rough year and artists have fragile egos and Alan, ego exempt, is right now more fragile inside than he admits to himself or me. Why is he determined to push forward with a project everyone believes should be shelved? Is this all part of Alan’s self-destructive personality?

I wish I knew how to help him. How to make him OK. I kiss the warm flesh of his neck. “Do you want to play with your long and hard or are you too tired?”

He turns until I’m in his arms, we are face to face, curled into each other. “I’m never too tired for you.”

He leans down and gently kisses me, and I can’t help myself, I kiss him back hard, pushing myself into him. He pulls back, his eyes hooded and probing, while his hands knead the soft flesh of my buttocks.

“You don’t have to give me a pity fuck just because you’re worried about me,” he mutters, and I can’t tell if he’s angry.

My entire face burns scarlet.

“That doesn’t mean I won’t take a pity fuck when it’s offered,” he breathes, a salacious smile flashing from his perfect face, as he shoves himself into me without warning.

I groan as his body fills me, curling my leg around his hip, holding him to me.

“Fucking you is all I will ever need, baby,” he whispers in veneration. “You are the light beyond the darkness…”

His raspy theatrics fade with the sudden thrusting of his body. I close my eyes, feeling the buildup inside of him that came so quickly, so hungrily. I revel in his possession; in his flesh that swings from carnal to tender; in his moods from light to dark; and in how when he touches me I want to feel everything, and he makes it so.

I cry out, my nails digging into his back. “I want it harder. I want it to hurt,” I gasp.

Alan’s body freezes even though I can feel him climaxing, and that is usually when he is his most passionate. He doesn’t move, his breathing is ragged with sound withheld, his body shudders but doesn’t thrust, and I am panting and breathless. I want to feel that building climb and he won’t let me.

I open my eyes and he pulls his body from me. His expression is disconcerted, alarmed, and even sad.

He grabs my chin, his eyes smoldering. “If all you want is a guy to make you hurt, get the fuck out of here!”

What? Why did he say that? Jeez, he says nastier things than that to me in our most tender moments. “Alan…I…”

He rolls over from me and covers his face with an arm.

I sit up in bed. “I’m going to shower.”

“Since you’re in the mood for pain, why don’t you take this with you?”

He tosses something at me. I stare down at the shiny silver lighter on the floor. I hold back the tears until I’m in the bathroom.

* * *

When I return to the bedroom wrapped in a towel, Alan is on the bed reading my journal. The room is smoky, as if he’s chained smoked the entire time I was gone, and there is an open bottle on the night table. Not even one of his elegant crystal cocktail glasses.