“Hello,” she answered in a sweet voice and I wondered what she was going to say to me tonight. Every time I spoke to her, she went on and on about me finding a husband and settling down, but I wasn’t in the mood for her. My head was hammering against my skull and I was tired, overwhelmed, and hungry, not to mention embarrassed.
“Grams, is my dad there please?” I asked in a polite tone and she began yammering away at me again about finding a proper husband and settling down, but I interrupted. I almost told her I was in the car with the freaking rock star, who’d taken my virginity, but I didn’t want to kill her, so I swallowed the words and asked the most pertinent question.
“Grams, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, but I really need to speak to my dad, please?”
She sighed and then muttered, “Honestly, young people today. He’s not here, Cara. He left his cell at our house earlier this evening and he’s going to come by tomorrow to pick it up. He’s out of town on business tonight and your mom is with him.”
Both my parents were out of town. Great. Just freaking great.
“Okay, thanks Grams, I gotta go. I love you, bye now.”
I quickly ended the call and saw Blake give me a quizzical look from the corner of his eye, as I thumped my head off the back of the seat. I scrolled through my cell again to find my mom’s number when Blake put his hand over mine.
“Cara, what’s wrong?” he asked, I turned to him and promptly burst into tears. He stared back at me in complete horror for a second, before he gave my hand a gentle squeeze.
“I have nowhere to go and I don’t have enough money to get a hotel room for a few nights and come on the tour.” I sobbed out and he ran his finger over my hand, trying to calm me.
“Cara, you’re coming to stay at the hotel with us. Yani has already sorted it. You’ll be in the spare room in my suite and he’ll be in with Ry, next door.”
My mouth dropped open in surprise as I turned to see him, and he gave me a small smile, before withdrawing his hand from mine and replying to a message on his cell. As he sat ignoring me, Ross climbed into the car and he drove us uptown, towards the hotel the band were staying at.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sleep Over
Blake
The next few days were heaven wrapped in a little bit of hell. Cara was so upset about not being able to pay her way, that I told her she could pay me back after the tour. I didn’t tell her the cost of the suite was thirty-three hundred for the week, because I didn’t want her money, nor did I need it.
Drew went apeshit, as expected, when he found out Cara was staying in my suite and threatened to fire her, but I informed him and Mason that if she was, then I was walking too. I wasn’t having them hold her job over her fucking head because she’d been made homeless.
The night Cara arrived, we’d sat and talked. I’d told her all about how Ry had a crush on her and how she needed to stay away from practice, because I couldn’t have him getting distracted. She was so innocent, that she actually believed me, and we rearranged her meet with Laurie to the hotel. Laurie had been pleasant when Ry wasn’t around and had shown Cara all of the things already set up. She gave her a list of interviews that she’d already booked and a list of shows that she was waiting to hear back from. She also gave Cara a list for each town’s music journalists, concert ticket winners and bloggers, who would attend each show, she gave Cara her number and told her to call her with any questions. Doug saw her out and Cara was buzzing to get started. Seeing how happy she was, gave me a little bit of a glow inside and I went off to practice, and left her in my hotel room without worrying.
The next two days flew by as we spent more and more time at rehearsal. Cara sometimes came along if she had questions for Janie, but true to her word, she stayed out of my way and they spoke in the office. She didn’t come to the final practice because I’d asked her not to, that morning. She’d stayed in the hotel and was packing and repacking her clothes as we’d left. Half way through our final practice, which was one of our best so far, my cell was ringing. I glanced down to see it was Cara but before I could answer it, Crystal stormed into the space, walked up to me and smacked me full on across the face.
“Fuck. You. Fuck. Her. And. Fuck. This.” she screamed at me as Kerr wrapped his arms around her waist and tugged her away from me.
“I can’t believe she was in your room. What the fuck, Blake? I thought you didn’t sleep with the staff, or those on tour with you? Why would you want a little nobody like her, who isn’t even all that pretty by the way, when you could have me.”
My temper was beginning to flare and Ry shoved me towards the smoking area.
“Go, before you lose your shit. Go. I’ll calm this banshee down and come get you when it’s calmer.”
I knew he was trying to keep me sane, but I was a second away from kicking her from the tour, consequences be damned. I’d then found out she’d got a friend to hide and take a picture as she kissed me and then sold it to the tabloids. It told them how we were in love and when the tour was over, we were going to be looking at moving in together. She was fucking delusional, but insulting Cara was a low blow. I stood outside, clenching, and unclenching my fists as my cell began ringing again. I saw Cara’s name on the log and I quickly answered, with a bite of impatience in my voice.
“What?” I barked at her and I heard her sharp intake of breath.
“Blake, Crystal was here, and she went totally nuts when she knocked on your suite door and I answered. I was just out of the shower and had a robe on. She began screaming obscenities at me, then tried to barge into the room to see you. I told her you were at rehearsal and wouldn’t be back for a while, but she screamed that she didn’t believe me, and didn’t I know she was your girlfriend. Then when I still wouldn’t let her in, she lost it and I had to shut the door in her face.”
Her words caused anger to flare in my gut again and I had to physically stop myself from storming back inside.
“Yeah, I got that when she showed up here, slapped me across the face and started screaming at me like a complete and utter maniac.”
I rolled my shoulders and tried to relax, as Cara chuckled softly down the line.
“Fuck. I’m so sorry. I did try to call you to warn you, but you didn’t answer.”
I laughed, but before I could say something else, Drew came outside with his serious face on and I saw the cell in his hand. ‘Mr. Michaels,’ he mouthed at me and I turned away from him for a moment.
“I have to go. Try not to answer the door to anymore crazies. I’ve had my fill today.”
I ended the call without saying bye and quickly took the call from Mason. He just wanted to check in and make sure that Crystal was behaving, because after the other day when he’d called furious at me, I’d told him what happened and thankfully he believed me.
I explained what had happened and he sighed.
“Nothing is ever simple with you lot.”
I laughed because I couldn’t help it. He was right. He was so right, and it wasn’t even funny how much I longed for things to be simpler.
“I’ll speak to her, but Blake, listen to me, I won’t have this tour disrupted. So, if something is going on with the publicist, you better make sure it doesn’t impact on my bottom line or we’ll have a problem. You feel me?”
His voice was low, and it sent a shiver down my spine, as though I’d been doused in a bucket full of cold water.
“Yes, sir. Nothing is happening with Cara.” I answered him and then groaned internally because I shouldn’t have called her by her first name. Fuck. Thankfully, he didn’t call me out on it.
“Okay, I’ll check in when you guys come to Cali. Until then enjoy your tour.” He muttered and ended the call, leaving me feeling worse than before.
Mason would fire Cara’s ass if anything happened and I couldn’t have her lose her job. Fuck, this shit was a complete clusterfuck and all because of fucking Crystal.
I turned to Drew and handed him back
his cell, before I put my head in my hands. Fucking complicated bullshit. I wanted Crystal gone, but I knew it wouldn’t be easy, because she was on our label.
She was a fucking nightmare and was using me to make a name for herself, which I was so fucking far from okay with. Drew clapped me on the shoulder and ordered me back to rehearsal and I took my frustration and anger out on the songs, finishing at just before five. We’d gone over and over our signals, over and over our songs and everything was completely perfect. The songs all flowed into one another, the music complimented each section and our voices were perfectly in sync. We were ready for our show. We had a sound check the next day and that was it then, it was show time.
My nerves and excitement built up as show day arrived and I barely slept the night before. Cara found me a nervous ball of energy at six that morning. She came and sat beside me and we had breakfast on the sofa together. She’d organized a few events for us to attend and was speaking with journalists, lining up interviews and setting up TV appearances, like she’d been doing the job for years, instead of days. She was sweet, tenacious, and respectful, which got people to fit us into slots that had been full already.
She’d also managed to get us a slot in Rock in Rio on the second, last night which was amazing and worked perfectly, because we were in Austin the night before and Dallas two nights after. Everyone was really impressed with her and her work ethic, but none more than me. She was true to her word and kept things between us strictly professional, which was great, but I wanted to break the wall down too and get to know her all over again.
The first night of the tour went off without a hitch. Crystal was utterly beguiling as our support act and everything went as well as it could have gone. We did have a few tweaks to make, but we had time to make them on the rest of the tour. Once the show was over, we all piled on to the six tour buses that were outside. One was ours, which was one of the biggest, then there were two smaller ones. One for Crystal alone and the other for Cara and Janie, Christine, and a few of the female roadies.
Originally Crystal was supposed to be on the bus with Cara, but I’d decided she should get her own bus and the other guys agreed with me. We didn’t want any drama when we were on the road and tiredness, homesickness, and cabin fever, were a real issue, so they’d all agreed, and we convinced Mason that it was necessary. Drew and our security team, plus Pete, Jack, Uri, and Lincoln, were all in one bus and the other two were for our roadies. The rigs with the stages would bring up the rear and that was our family for the tour.
The first few stops Philadelphia, Washington, Richmond, and Charlotte all went amazingly and we were all ecstatic at how amazing the reception was for the band, but Crystal was becoming an ever-increasing problem. She followed Cara around and would make comments about her clothes, weight, and her ability.
Even though we tried to stop her, and I was all for kicking her from the tour, my bandmates stopped me. I began to spend more and more time with Cara, and we talked about everything and anything as the dates went on. She told me about school and how Stanford was, how Josh was doing at Harvard and how her parents were, but we never spoke about our shared past, or how connected we seemed.
She was so proud of us for Rock in Rio and the crowd went wild. Then we were back on our own tour, but it was grueling and I was beginning to get snappy, especially when Cara booked us something else on our precious few days off.
“Cara, not another fucking interview.” I hissed as we rolled into Denver in early October, after almost four weeks on tour.
She’d come bouncing up to me at the rest stop to say that she’d scored us an interview with an up and coming blogger. They were so interested in our music and would be able to meet us after the show on one of the two days off we had. Her eyes widened and she stepped away from me in surprise.
“It’s okay… I’ll uh… I’ll call and reschedule.”
Her voice was small, and I could hear the hurt in it. She was just trying to do a good job and it was working, gate sales were up nearly twenty-five percent since she’d taken over and even Mason was complimenting her.
“Don’t fucking bother if it’s already arranged but stop organizing shit on our days off. We all need to rest and recharge, or I’ll lose my fucking mind.”
Every day we were working was putting me closer to her and I wanted to blur the lines with us. I wanted to take her into the Green room before the show and make her scream, to lick her pussy until she creamed. I was so tempted at our after-show parties to show her what I could do, but I knew it could cost her everything, but I needed space from her to stop the feelings. I didn’t like her making me feel guilty, so I quickly paid for my sandwich and stormed back onto the bus. Kerr took one look at me and sighed.
“What day are we not off now?” he asked in a low pissed off voice and Doug gave me a death glare, while Ry shook his head.
“Again?” he asked, and I threw our sandwiches and snacks onto the table.
“Yep,” I gritted out as everyone glared at me like it was me taking away our days off and making us do the same stupid fucking interviews in different cities.
“I thought you were going to talk to her about that?” Ry muttered and the other guys nodded in agreement.
“I did and she promised she was going to stop, but apparently she forgot and now we have another interview on Saturday.”
The boys all sighed because we’d planned to go to a club opening after the show on Friday night. I knew we wouldn’t be able to because Cara thought that scheduling the interviews early was better, so we could get time off. Instead, it just pissed us all off because we couldn’t go out after the show and get pissed.
“Fucking talk to her, Blake. I mean it. Make her listen, because that’s six days off out of nine we’ve ended up doing shit, instead of having a day off and I’m fucking sick of it.”
I agreed with him and I sighed, rolling my shoulders.
“I will. I’ll speak to her.” I told them and I knew I had to make her listen somehow.
Every eye watched me, and I glowered around at them.
“Now?” I quizzed and they all muttered yes.
I stormed off the bus and found Cara pacing around outside. She was wringing her hands together and chewing on her lip. For a moment I just stood and watched her. The wind whipped her hair around her face and her tight jeans, which were molded to her ass, moved, and showed off every single curve.
For the briefest second, I forgot how angry I was with her. I was so overcome with desire for this beautiful, feisty goddess in front of me, that all I wanted to do was scoop her into my arms and kiss her senseless, but I didn’t. I managed to keep myself under control, just about, anyway.
“Blake,” she muttered, finally looking up from her pacing. I saw the nervousness in her expression, as she watched me staring at her.
“Cara, why are you pacing around out here?” I demanded without preamble and she stopped, chewing on her lip to stare at me.
“I… well… I kinda… sorta… uhm…”
She stuttered and I glared at her until she steadied herself and stood upright.
“I organized for you to go to open a Children’s hospital before your show tomorrow, but they wanted to know if you’d go in early to meet some of the kids.”
Her words flew out in a rush and I stepped towards her, stilling her by taking hold of her arms.
“Cara, tomorrow is a travel day and a show day, so it’s fine to book things for us then, but we’re all exhausted babe. So, you gotta stop booking us on things when we should be off, or the guys may murder you.”
She laughed and I pulled her into my arms for a quick hug. I wanted her. I wanted her so fucking bad, that my balls ached whenever she was near me, but I couldn’t break the vow we’d all made to stay celibate on the tour. I made the promise to Drew when he saw how I looked at Cara, that nothing was going on and nothing would be happening with us. I said it and I meant it. I had to mean it, because I couldn’t blast into her life again, fuc
k her and chuck her. I wouldn’t do that to her. She was too special for someone like me and knowing that, killed me a little every fucking day.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kiss Of Fury
Blake
That night, Cara and I were sitting in my hotel room, chatting about a movie, and debating the quality of it, when she turned too quickly, and her lips brushed against my cheek. She quickly turned away, blushing furiously. I was so fucking tempted to take her into my room and fuck her senseless, that I almost forgot what was at stake.
My blood thrummed beneath my skin as she leaned across me to pick up a slice of pizza. I sat with my soda in my hand and watched as she lifted it to her lips and took a bite. I watched as she chewed, swallowed, and then licked her lips, before lifting the pizza to her lips again. Before she could take a bite, I reached over and brought it to my lips and took a bite from the same slice.
Her eyes darkened and we sat in silence, sharing the rest of it, without a word. Once we were done, I got up and took the pizza box to the trash can, while Cara cleared away the sodas. My blood pulsed in my ears as I watched her delectable ass in her sleep-shorts, as she bent over the table and scooped up the remainder of the trash and came towards me with a glint in her eyes.
I was standing in front of the trash can and she had to reach around me to put the soda cans down. Her lips brushed my bare chest, I stood indecisively torn between wanting her and fearing the consequences. As she stood upright, her breasts brushed against my chest and her erect nipples rubbed against me.
“Fuck, Cara,” I muttered breathlessly, and she stared up at me with innocent eyes, that turned my world upside down.
Nothing but The Sheets Page 24