Pretty Words: An Enemies To Lovers Rock Star Romance (River Valley Rebels)

by Gabrielle Sands

  I dragged my hands down his pecs, as if to illustrate my point. “You feel so strong. It’s incredible.”

  His eyes sparkled with amusement. “Thank you, Ivy.”

  “How did you get this way?”

  “Lots of time at the gym.”

  I kept petting his chest, now fascinated by the softness of his shirt. “I love this shirt.”

  He cleared his throat and shifted, trying to move away from me. To my delight, the attempt failed. There were more people pushing through behind me, and I was right back against his chest. One of his hands slipped over the back of my head.

  “Do that again,” I told him, my eyes fluttering close.

  “Do what?” he asked, his voice low.

  “Touch my hair.”

  For a few seconds, he didn’t move. I thought maybe he didn’t hear me, but then his hand trailed from the top of my head to the nape of my neck.

  I felt electricity shoot down my spine. When he did it again, I pressed closer to him.

  “That feels so good.”

  “Ivy…” His voice was strained.

  “I like having your hands on me. Touch me, please.”

  Slowly, he trailed his fingers down my biceps, and I felt a tingling sensation all the way through my toes. I nearly purred in delight when he did it again, and again.

  My nose was pressed into his shirt, and I took a deep breath. “You smell divine.”

  A sound I couldn’t quite decipher rumbled in his lungs.

  “What is that? Some kind of cologne?”

  I could feel him shaking his head. “I’m not wearing any. I think it’s just my detergent.”

  “What kind is it? I want to bathe in it.”

  I thought I heard him laugh, but I didn’t want to move my head to find out. I was in a little bubble of sensory pleasure, and I was perfectly content right here.

  “It’s Tide, and I’m pretty sure bathing in it goes against the warning on the label.”

  “Mmm. Well, maybe I’ll just stay right here forever instead.”

  Jamie made a choking sound and moved his fingers to my exposed upper back. My hands curved around the back of his neck. I began to move my hips to the beat while he swayed with me, slowly, carefully, all the while tracing soft lines across my skin.

  I wanted to feel more of him, so I pressed closer, eating up the inches that had remained between our lower bodies. Almost immediately, the pleasure running through me turned more decadent, and I let out a moan. The beat of the song started to pulse between my legs.

  His hands stopped. “Ivy, this is not a good idea.”

  “I think this is the best idea I’ve ever had.”

  “I can’t,” he said, his lips moving against my hair.

  A suspicion entered my mind. “Are you dating someone?”

  “No,” he responded immediately.

  “Then I don’t see why we shouldn’t do this.” I ground my hips into his, and that’s when I felt it. “You’re hard,” I whispered, lifting my face to him. “You want me, too.”

  “Listen to me.” He tried to gently push me away, but I clung to his neck. “You’re high, and you don’t really know what you’re doing. You’ll regret this in the morning.”

  “I seriously doubt that.” Hadn’t he seen himself in the mirror? “I want to go home with you.”

  “Ivy, no,” he said in a strangled voice. He wrapped his hands around my wrists and untangled my arms from his neck.

  “Why?” I asked, exasperated.

  His gray eyes drifted across my face, searching for something. “Is this your first time doing Molly?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  He let out a long breath. “When did you take it?”

  “Just before eleven.”

  Jamie pulled out his phone. “It’s two now. You’re going to be coming down soon, and we should get out of here before that happens. I’m taking you home.”

  “To your home?” I asked hopefully.

  “No, to yours.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t go there. I was supposed to stay over at Mimi’s, the friend who I lost.”

  He frowned. “Why can’t you go to your place?”

  “My roommate will kill me if I wake her up and she finds out I took drugs. I promised her I would crash somewhere else tonight.”

  He took another deep breath and closed his eyes. I studied how his long eyelashes fanned out across his skin.

  “Okay, I’ll take you back to my place.”

  My pulse sped up. Oh my God. This was really happening. I was about to have sex—

  “I have a guest room you can sleep in.”

  His words were like a bucket of cold water thrown over my head. I whined, I actually whined. “Will you sleep there with me?”

  He wouldn’t look at me as he grabbed my hand and led me toward the exit.

  We left through the heavy metal doors and walked through the parking lot to his car. I whistled when he stopped by a fancy-looking silver Porsche.

  He seemed slightly embarrassed by my response as he opened the passenger door and motioned for me to get inside. Jamie hopped in the driver’s seat and gave me a steady look. I licked my lips. His gaze lowered to my mouth and darkened.

  “Do you want to listen to music while we drive?” he asked, tearing his eyes away.

  “Yes,” I said immediately.

  He pressed a button and Dua Lipa’s Love Again started blasting through the car. I hadn’t ever appreciated how catchy the beat was.

  I bopped my head as we drove, drinking in the streetlights that seemed to leave trails right outside my window. They weren’t as interesting as the lights in the club, but they still seemed more vibrant than usual.

  We drove for what felt like a while, and eventually, I shut my eyes, enjoying the music and singing along to the songs I knew.

  The car slowed down, and I checked to see where we were, noting we were exiting the freeway. That’s when it happened. There was a cold tingle in the back of my head, and suddenly, I was acutely aware that I was in a car with a man I really didn’t like.

  A switch flipped, turning off the euphoria of the past few hours and flooding my brain with a sense of overwhelming awfulness. My mouth tasted rotten, and my limbs had turned to lead. I wanted to jump out of the car.

  Jamie was focused on the driving, his eyes glued to the road. My hand reached to press the button to roll down the window, and this made him cast me a look.

  “Are you all right?”

  We were pulling into a neighborhood in the hills of LA, and panic was blooming in my chest.

  I cleared my throat. “Maybe you should take me home.”

  He stopped at the top of a long driveway. At its end stood a house I could only assume was his.

  “It’s wearing off, isn’t it?”

  I shot him a furtive glance and nodded. “I should go home.”

  His fingers tapped against the wheel. “You said your roommate will be mad at you. Trust me, you don’t want to have an argument when you’re coming down off Molly.”

  The thought of having a confrontation with Zoey made bile rise in my throat. But was going to a stranger’s house more advisable? I mean, I knew who he was, but we weren’t friends. This seemed like a very bad idea.

  “I have a guest room with a private bath,” he continued. “You can use it to try to get some sleep and leave tomorrow morning.”

  That sounded innocent enough, but this was Jamie Berg.

  He must have been able to read my thoughts from the expression on my face, because he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I’ve been in your position more times than I can count. I’m just trying to help.”

  What he said was obviously true. He must have done every single drug under the sun, and I wasn’t quite sure what the hell was happening to me now that the euphoria of the previous few hours was gone. If I started to freak out or something, he would probably know what to do with me, unlike my roommate.

  Despite everything tha
t had happened between us, I doubted he would physically harm me. If he’d wanted to take advantage of me, I had given him plenty of chances to do so at the club.

  Memories of us on the dance floor flooded my mind, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “Okay,” I said in a hoarse voice. “Thank you.”

  He started the car back up and drove us up to the house—a two-story Spanish-style home that I might have examined with more care if I didn’t feel like curling under a blanket in a fetal position.

  I climbed out of the car and followed him up the three steps leading to the main entrance. He unlocked the door by putting in a code on a fancy touchpad and waved me inside.

  I shrugged off my boots in the lobby while he stood a few feet away, waiting to escort me to my room. I refused to meet his eyes when I straightened back up, my entire body burning with embarrassment. The fact that I was currently in Jamie’s house didn’t seem quite real.

  He led me down the hall and stopped in front of the first door on the right. “It’s just right here,” he said, pointing inside. I was relieved that the guest bedroom was so close to the main door. It would make my escape in the morning easier.

  After I walked inside the room, I turned to him. He was leaning against the doorframe, giving me a thoughtful look. I shuddered to guess what he was thinking about me.

  “Towels are in the bathroom. Make yourself at home. I’m going to bring you some water. You need to drink it all, okay?”

  I nodded and stared at my feet. Moments later, his steps could be heard down the hall. I ducked inside the bathroom to my right and turned the lock closed. When I flicked on the lights, I nearly screamed. I looked like a complete and utter mess. My makeup was smudged, and my tube top was damp with sweat. I didn’t know why it should matter, but deep embarrassment penetrated my gut at the thought of Jamie seeing me like this.

  “Oh God…” I whimpered as I peeled my clothes off, unable to stand another second of looking like this. I needed a shower and a new identity.

  The cool water hitting my sticky skin felt like heaven. My head hurt, and a hazy feeling of gloom penetrated every thought, but the water helped ground me. I was incredibly tired, but somehow also wide awake. I really hoped I’d be able to go to sleep.

  After using a truly egregious amount of water, I mustered up the strength to get out, turn off the shower, and reach for a fluffy towel hanging on the rack.

  Something compelled me to smell it, and it smelled just like Jamie.

  Oh God. I told him he smelled good.

  I told him a lot of other things as well, but if I started to replay the details of the evening now, I’d possibly die from embarrassment. That particular torture could wait until tomorrow.

  Wrapping the towel tightly around me, I walked back into the bedroom and studied it closer. It was a tastefully decorated room with a small desk, a built-in closet, a queen bed and two bedside tables. A plush rug peeked out from under the bed, and my toes curled when I stepped onto it.

  This would have felt really nice a few hours ago.

  A tray was sitting on top of the bed. Jamie must have brought it while I was in the shower. On it was a big glass of water, a box of coconut water, and a toothbrush.

  This display of thoughtfulness made me feel all sorts of weird.

  The door to the bedroom was closed, but I walked over and made sure to lock it. I still hadn’t quite processed what had happened tonight or why Jamie had come to my rescue, and I wasn’t going to take any chances.

  Moving the tray to the floor, I collapsed on the bed, sinking into the mattress and burying my face into a pillow. After what must have been an hour of restless tossing and turning, I finally fell asleep.

  12

  JAMIE

  As I paced around my bedroom, my thoughts bounced between what Nial was going to say when I told him I went to a nightclub and the herculean self-restraint I’d displayed tonight.

  Oh yeah. And the fact that the woman who’d so thoroughly tested my self-restraint was currently in my guest room.

  It had been thirty minutes since I left the water on her bed, and it was likely that she hadn’t fallen asleep yet. It was difficult to sleep after taking MDMA—I knew that from experience. But if Ivy couldn’t even bear to look at me after the high wore off, I doubted she’d take me up on an offer to hang out for a few more hours. I’d almost asked if she wanted to watch a movie together, but then I’d realized that would be as good as offering to Netflix and chill. As if she wasn’t freaked out enough.

  Coming down from MDMA, especially the street-quality stuff she’d probably taken, was not very pleasant. She’d spent four hours feeling the best she’d ever felt, only to crash right back down to a world far uglier than the one she’d left. What was she thinking trying it for the first time with someone who’d ditched her as soon as they got to the club?

  The irony of me lecturing someone on drug safety, even if it was just in my head, wasn’t lost on me.

  I crawled into bed and told myself to stop replaying the memory of her pressed up against me. I knew she’d come on to me because of the drugs, but damn it. When she’d said she wanted to go home with me, a vision of her naked and bent at the waist at the foot of my bed flashed so fucking clearly in my mind that I thought the bartender may have spiked my water with DMT. Denying her was far more difficult than not ordering a shot as soon as I walked inside that place. But in the end, I couldn’t do that to her, and frankly, I couldn’t do it to myself. The fantasy we’d weaved on that dance floor was all fake, no matter how badly I wanted it to be just a tiny bit real. I closed my eyes, and the next time I opened them, my seven am alarm was going off.

  For a moment, I considered going to the gym. Instead, I decided to go for a run on the treadmill in the basement. I didn’t want Ivy to wake up and sneak out without saying goodbye. It was selfish of me, but I wanted to see her, even if it was just for a few minutes. After all, I had to make sure she was okay, right? If she had any questions about last night, I wanted to be here to answer them for her.

  At eight, I walked into the kitchen and found her standing by the sink. Her back was turned to me, and her purple-streaked hair was tied into a messy ponytail at the top of her head. The tray I had brought to her room the night before was perched on the island.

  The sudden tension in her shoulders told me she had heard me enter. I waited for her to turn around, placing my water bottle down beside the tray. At last, she did, and her hazel eyes widened as she took me in.

  I was wearing an old T-shirt I’d cut into a tank top and running shorts. My skin was still slicked with sweat after the five-mile run.

  “Hey,” I said, rubbing at my forearm. “Thought I’d check to see if you were up before going to shower.”

  She placed her hands on the counter behind her and held on to it with a white-knuckled grip. “I’m up.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Awful,” she croaked, dropping her gaze to the ground.

  I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. “Yeah, you’ll probably feel groggy for a day or two,” I said. “All of your serotonin has been depleted. It takes a while for it to replenish and get you back to normal.”

  She continued staring at the ground.

  “What you’re feeling right now is not permanent,” I said, trying to comfort her. “Just an inevitable part of the comedown—”

  “I’m sorry for messaging you.” The words burst out of her. “I’m…mortified about my behavior.”

  Watching her struggle with the comedown of the drug hit me hard. I’ve been there before so many times—desperately trying to make sense of what had happened and what I’d done while high. I wondered how much of last night she remembered. My memory would often fail at parts, and that was always the scariest part of it all.

  “Hey, don’t stress out,” I started to reassure her. “How hypocritical would it be for me to judge you for it? You saw how I got when I was messed up. If anything, it was a good thing you accide
ntally reached me instead of a friend who might have just freaked out at you.”

  “How can you not judge me,” she said quietly. “I was practically begging you to…” She looked at me from under her eyelashes, regret and shame spelled out clearly in her expression. My heart squeezed painfully.

  It wasn’t real.

  “That’s what Molly does,” I said with a carefully casual shrug. “It makes you want to dance, and touch, and be physical with others because it feels so fucking good. Maybe if I haven’t been there myself, I would have gotten the wrong idea, but I knew it was just the drugs.”

  She swallowed and nodded, holding my gaze. “Thank you.”

  Her face was bare of any makeup, and despite the bags under her eyes, she looked cute. She was wearing the same top from before, and for a moment, I wished I’d thought to bring her one of my T-shirts to put on. Blood rushed to my groin at that image.

  Fuck.

  On second thought, maybe it was better to keep her out of my clothes.

  “You don’t need to thank me. Just promise you won’t do drugs again with people who are likely to leave you on your own.” It wasn’t my place to pry why she’d decided to get high in the first place, but I wanted to at least try to make sure that if she decided to do them again, she’d do so safely.

  “Oh God,” she groaned in response. “That was one of the worst ideas of my life. I can’t believe I agreed to go out with a girl I just met all because she could get me inside a club.”

  I frowned. “That’s why you went out with her?” I’d almost forgotten she wasn’t twenty-one yet. “Listen, Ivy, I know we’re not exactly…friends, but if you ever want to go clubbing, just let me know. I still have all my connections from my Ritual Disruption days. And I know the places that will be safe for you and your friends.”

  She shifted in place. There was something uncomfortable about the movement.

  “I don’t mean I’d go with you guys,” I clarified. “I can just call up the people I know and get you on the guest list.”

  Her expression turned thoughtful, and she pulled on her bottom lip with her teeth, looking sexy as hell in the process. My traitorous cock twitched in response. He didn’t give a shit about the fact that anything happening between Ivy and I was as likely as hell freezing over.