One More Kiss

by Stephanie Ash

Genres: Romance; Erotic & Steamy Romance

Synopsis

His hands weren't quite so gentle now . . .

Amelia Ashton has made it. The singer-songwriter is one of the biggest recording stars of her time - but the success she has longed for has taken its toll and her life is no longer her own.

When things get too much during her sell-out tour of the US, Amelia heads back to London in search of some quality time. Meeting up with Karis, her former girlfriend-in-crime, Amelia is soon in the midst of some sensual adventures, such as consummating a childhood crush at her friend's wedding. And furthering her career in a most unexpected way . . .

Readers of Fifty Shades of Grey will consume this intensely romantic and sensual story of adventure and true love.

Previously published as Blue Notes.

Release date: November 10, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 224

Sample

‘HI. IS THAT room service? Yeah? This is Amelia Ashton in the penthouse suite. “The Amelia”? That’s right. Thank you very much. I’m glad
you enjoyed it. Signed photo? No problem. To your kids? Gavin and Hayley. That has an “e” in it, right? OK. Yeah. I’m calling
because my sheets need changing. No, no. They were absolutely fine. I just had a bit of a sweaty night last night. Fever?
Amelia grinned. ‘Yeah, I guess you could say that. No, I don’t need any aspirin. Just the new sheets. Can you make sure that
somebody does that? I’ll be going out in about fifteen minutes, for lunch. If it could be done by the time I come back I’d
be very, very grateful. Thank you very much. Goodbye.’


Amelia Ashton, famous enough to be known as plain old ‘Amelia’ to her fans, smiled as she replaced the telephone receiver
in its shiny gilt cradle. She was sitting at her dressing-table with its mirror surrounded by bulbs. A real Hollywood mirror
of the kind that she had always known she would one day have. Now it was a fixture at every hotel she stayed in on tour, preceding her on the crew bus, to be set
up and plugged in ready for when she arrived. It had been a present from her best friend, Karis, to celebrate the phenomenal
success of Amelia’s very first album and acknowledge that after all those years of trying and crying she had finally become
a star.


Amelia studied her reflection. She had hardly slept a wink but, that considering, she really didn’t look too bad at all. The
new exercise regime she had recently adopted seemed to be working. She had never had so much energy before, though it was
a bit of a bore having to take a jog with Frankenstein’s monster in tow. ‘Frankenstein’s monster’ was the highly appropriate
nickname of Amelia’s bodyguard, Franklin, employed on the orders of Amelia’s manager, Rowena, after some crazy fan had managed
to get into Amelia’s hotel bedroom in Chicago and steal two dozen pairs of her specially monogrammed ivory silk French knickers.
Amelia had protested at the time that she didn’t really mind; after all, she had lost three pairs of knickers to a phantom
laundry snatcher in Kentish Town in the days before she got her multi-million-pound record deal. Now she could afford to replace
her underwear two hundred times a day if she had to. She didn’t want this one incident to mean that she had to have some great
oaf following two steps behind her ‘for security’ for the rest of her life. But Rowena had insisted. You could never be too
careful. And after all, Amelia was her record company’s most valuable product.


Amelia picked up her soft-bristled Mason and Pearson brush and carefully parted her long red hair on one side. It shone with
the polish of hundreds of pounds worth of attention but, to Amelia that morning, even her crowning glory was becoming something
of an encumbrance. She wanted to take a pair of scissors to it, have the kind of hair that didn’t get tied up in knots or
end up halfway down her throat every time she gave a blow-job … but Rowena was just as firm about Amelia’s hair as she had
been about the bodyguard. It was part of Amelia’s image. Her fans had paid for that red hair. At the very least, there was
no way she could change her look before the end of this tour. Amelia had long red hair on the album cover and that was what
her fans expected to see. Who did she think she was, wanting to get her hair cut off? Madonna? That had hurt.


Amelia coloured in her lips with the browny orange lipstick that suited her best. Boring, boring, boring. She had been wearing
this lipstick since a particularly successful photo session in 1995. But again, there was no question of changing the familiar
cupid’s bow, just as there was no question of her walking out of that hotel suite with no lipstick on at all. And the clothes,
the clothes she had to wear! Always having to dress like she was going to the opera even when she was only going down the
road to get her toenails done. She practically had to wear a full face mask when she went jogging so that no one with a camera
would catch the girl who had won the ‘Britain’s Best-dressed Woman’ award for the past two years in anything less alluring than Armani.


Well, Amelia had finally had enough. She took a flimsy paper tissue from the pink box on her dressing-table and wiped the
lipstick that she had just applied so carefully straight back off again. Then she scraped her thick red hair back into a ponytail
and stepped out of her Chinese silk dressing-gown and into a pair of old blue jeans. She dragged a dirty white T-shirt over
her head and topped the lot off with a battered, oil-stained denim jacket that was hanging from a post at the end of her bed.
Then she pulled on the trainers that were strictly forbidden outside the gym.


‘Reclaim your life, Amelia,’ she said in a sexy whisper to the new improved reflection which winked back at her from the mirror
surrounded by bulbs.


There was a knock at the door.

It was probably room service.

Amelia grabbed a handful of credit cards and opened the door to the maid as she walked on out into the lobby.

The sound of the Hoover woke the poor young male model who had been left naked and firmly tied to the corners of the four-poster
bed.


‘I CAN’T BELIEVE you did that!’ Rowena was shrieking.


Amelia held her mobile phone away from her ear and casually stirred her cappuccino until the chocolate powder on top of the
froth had all but dissolved.


‘The maid went straight to the press, of course,’ Rowena continued. ‘There will be photographs all over the place. Whatever
were you thinking of? You were seen leaving the hotel wearing his clothes, for goodness sake! Do you want to send your career
into a nosedive, or what? You are not the Rolling Stones, Amelia. You have a certain kind of image. Grandmothers buy your
records for eleven-year-old boys.’


‘But… I…’ Amelia tried to get a word in but Rowena was unstoppable.

‘How I am going to get you out of this one, I just do not know. Where the hell are you, anyway? You have a rehearsal in fifteen
minutes.’


‘I’m at a friend’s place,’ Amelia lied. She looked out through the grimy café window onto the busy New York street. Outside, it was a normal Monday morning. People rushed by
the cafe on their way to work with no care for the red-haired girl who nursed her coffee and a mobile phone. They had jobs
to go to. Jobs where they would sit in front of a computer screen all day, filing forms and typing letters and wondering what
it would be like to be famous. What it would be like to be rich and glamorous. What it would be like to have a fleet of fast
cars at your disposal and a walk-in wardrobe the size of their whole apartment. What it would be like to be public property.
Yeah, thought Amelia bitterly. That was what she was these days … public property. Unable to kiss a male friend in the street
for fear of provoking a scandal. Unable to change her hair without prompting an opinion poll in the national press. Unable
even to go outside the hotel in her jeans. It was a nightmare. That was what it was like to be famous.


‘Which friend?’ Rowena persisted.

‘No one you know.’

‘Amelia!’ The pitch rose uncontrollably again. ‘You’re not supposed to be with anyone I don’t know! Tell me where you are
at once and I’ll send Franklin straight down with the car.’


‘Don’t send him anywhere near me, Rowena,’ Amelia growled. ‘If you really must know what I’m up to the whole time, I’m actually
all on my own. I’m having a quiet coffee in a little cafe on Houston. There’s nobody in here but me and the Italian mamma
who made the cappuccino, and I’m wearing a baseball cap over my hair so that even if someone were to look at me twice in this outfit, they would not know who I am. I’ll meet you at the hotel for lunch
in an hour or so, but for now, I just need a little space.’


‘But I …’

Amelia turned off her mobile before Rowena could protest once more. At that exact moment, the woman behind the counter turned
on her battered old radio and tuned it in.


‘If you don’t love me, I don’t know what I’ll do …’

Amelia winced at the sound of her own voice. It was definitely time to go. She drained her cup double quick, left a five-dollar
note to cover the bill, and raced out onto the busy street.


As she wandered back to the hotel through early morning SoHo, Amelia couldn’t help smiling at the thought of the guy she had
left tied to her bed for the chambermaid to tidy up that morning. A bit embarrassing for the poor girl, no doubt, but better
than finding a pile of sick, Amelia supposed.


The unfortunate boy’s name was Guido. Amelia seemed to remember that he had been at last night’s show. She had spotted him
a couple of times as he stood right at the front of the crowd waving a white rose like the one she had fondled on her album
cover as he desperately tried to catch her attention. Afterwards, he had somehow managed to get past dozy old Frankie and
appeared in the specially cleared hotel bar where Amelia and her crew had gone to get a good-night drink. He seemed to know
one of the backing singers – the tall black girl called Darleesa who had once been on the cover of Italian Vogue. When Rowena had finally finished delivering the rest of the week’s itinerary to Amelia’s more sober band members and gone
off to bed, Amelia had made a beeline for Darleesa’s chatty little party to find out more about the pretty young guy in the
tight white T-shirt.


As she walked straight towards him, Guido looked like a puppy about to get his first lick of a really big bone.

‘I’m Guido,’ he said, as deeply as he could.

‘Amelia,’ said Amelia, extending her elegant hand. As if she really needed to introduce herself at a gathering in her own
honour. ‘But that’s enough about me,’ she murmured as she slid like a cat onto the leather sofa beside him. ‘Tell me about
you.’


Guido was a model, he began in faltering English full of American affectations. To Amelia, entranced by his classical good
looks, that news didn’t come as such a surprise. Guido had started out in his native Italy. Done quite a few good shows in
Milan. He had come to New York to model the autumn collections. The younger designers liked him for his brooding Byronic look
…


As he spoke, Guido struck poses. It seemed as though he was constantly shifting so that Amelia only ever saw his best side.
But he didn’t always want to be a model, of course, he told her later on. He was taking acting lessons too and by this time
next year he hoped to be in LA.


‘Yes, I can see you on the big screen,’ Amelia told him, her eyes drifting over his smooth full lips. ‘And the casting couch.’


One by one, the chattering group around them had drifted off to their respective rooms until Amelia and Guido were the only
people apart from the barman left in the specially open bar. Guido was rolling yet another cigarette on the low purple table
between them. His hands were shaking and it was taking him a painfully long time.


Amelia fought the urge to reach out and take a handful of his thick curly hair and hold it out of the way so that she could
see his face and draw him near to kiss her.


‘Do you want one of these?’ she had asked as she offered him her packet of Marlboro Lights. ‘Only you seem to be struggling
with that roll-up and I don’t know about you but I would really like to get to bed before daybreak.’


Guido looked up from the table and blushed.

‘Would you like to get to bed soon, too?’ she asked him straightforwardly, fixing her gaze on his light brown eyes.

He gulped. His Adam’s apple moved up and down nervously. He let the rolling paper unfurl itself a final time.

‘Let’s go upstairs,’ Amelia continued. ‘Yes?’

Amelia stood up and offered Guido her hand. He shoved the cigarette-rolling paraphernalia haphazardly back in its box and
leapt up to follow her. As he did so he knocked the table flying and sent the remains of a couple of discarded drinks all
over his scruffy trousers – the very borrowed jeans which Amelia now noticed were embarrassingly stained as she waited at
the edge of a road for the lights to change to red.


But the night before, Amelia had just laughed and lightly brushed an affectionate hand over Guido’s crotch. ‘You’ll just have
to change out of those wet things,’ she told him. This time he blushed deep crimson and Amelia was sure she felt the faintest
twitch of arousal beneath the well-worn denim.


They left the bar.

Amelia passed the barman a hundred-dollar bill for his discretion and then she and Guido took the lift which went directly
from the bar to the penthouse suite without stopping at any other floor. At the penthouse, the lift door opened straight onto
the huge sitting-room with its magnificent view of Central Park below. The room had windows on three sides and when Amelia
turned the lights on, the glass reflected the room inside, making it appear even bigger than it was. Three huge sofas and
a chaise-longue fitted easily into the central space around a hideously expensive oriental carpet that was complemented by
a number-one album’s worth of antique porcelain.


Amelia stole a glimpse at her reflection in one of the windows as she stalked across the room and arranged herself gracefully
on the petrol-coloured chaise-longue. Guido remained in the centre of the carpet, unsure what to do with himself. He was still
trying to take in the reality of his luck. He was actually there. In Amelia’s penthouse suite. He rubbed the back of his strong neck nervously and flicked his thick fringe back from his heavily lashed
brown eyes. Please God, he begged, don’t let me cock this one up.


‘Fetch me a drink, could you?’ Amelia nodded in the direction of the barely used kitchen. ‘There’s vodka and tonic in the
fridge. And ice. I like it half and half. Make yourself one too, of course. And dim the lights on your way back.’


Guido disappeared more keenly than any of the hotel staff to do as she had asked.

As she waited, Amelia closed her eyes and stretched out like a big cat in her tight black bodysuit. She let her high-heeled
suede shoes drop one after the other to the polished wooden floor and flexed her toes. She was ready for this man. She had
been feeling desperately horny all evening. The show had gon. . .