“Just nostalgia,” I said. “Which is weird.”
“How so?”
“Well, that’s how we started. The guys and I all grew up on Crüe and Poison and all those LA bands, and we thought we’d do something that was a little bit of a tribute to them, but with our own spin on it. Kind of a hair-metal nostalgia band.”
“And now people are getting nostalgic for the nostalgia band,” she said.
“Yep,” I said. “Guess all art is nostalgic in one way or another.”
Pepper said nothing, instead regarding my words carefully, like she was sizing them up.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “Just thinking about how interesting this is, how interesting other people might find it.”
Right then it hit me. I remembered the conversation I’d had with Primrose or Princeton or whatever the owner of the company’s name had been, how he’d tried to sell me on the idea of that tell-all book.
And now here I was, getting the same business.
“I see what this is,” I said. “Your boss—he put you up to this, right?”
Pepper’s ultra-sexy eyes went wide, like she’d just been caught red-handed. “What do you mean?”
“Come on,” I said. “You really don’t think I know what’s going on here?”
“Um,” she said. “I mean…”
The cool professionalism that she’d affected melted as surely as the ice in our drinks. Pepper, over the span of a few seconds, turned right back into the frazzled girl who’d accidentally walked into the little boys’ room.
“Don’t tell me you only agreed to this date to try to get me to agree to the book,” I said.
“No!” she quickly shot out. “It’s not that at all. I mean, the book is part of it, but…” She paused, as if trying to figure out her next words oh-so-carefully. “I also wanted to see you,” she said. “For real. Not for work or anything else.”
I didn’t feel the urge to press her on the subject—she seemed sincere enough.
But the book thing… It was weird. I knew I should’ve just let the subject drop, but I couldn’t help it.
“You guys seriously want to write a book about me?” I asked, taking a sip when I was done. “I don’t get it.”
“What’s not to get?” she asked. “You’re the lead singer of one of the biggest rock bands of the 2000s. Hell—of all time. You really don’t think people would be interested in hearing what you had to say about all that?” She went on. “And truth be told, I’m not sure why you’re so hesitant about it.”
“Same reason I broke up the band in the first place,” I said. “Because it was time to leave all that behind. Doing a book now? That’d just dredge it all up again.”
She cocked her head to the side as she sipped her drink.
“That bad?” she asked.
“I mean, not like I was in war or something—don’t get me wrong,” I said.
“’Bout to say,” she said with a cute smile. “Sounding a little like a drama queen.”
I flashed her a grin right back before going on. “But it’s just a part of my life that I’m done with. Right now I’ve got my kid and my job, and that’s where my life is at right now.”
“Got it,” she said. “Well, I won’t press the issue.”
“Just doing your job,” I said. “I get it.”
“Such a reasonable rock star,” she said.
“What were you expecting?” I asked.
“Really,” she said. “I didn’t know what to expect. Being here with Noah Mack himse—” She caught herself. “Being here with you,” she said. “That’s surreal enough on its own.”
“Same to you,” I said.
She was clearly confused. “How do you mean?”
“There’s something about you, Pepper,” I said. “Whatever it was that got me to pull you up on stage, whatever got me to invite you back… I didn’t plan on doing any of that stuff. Just sort of got caught up in it all. Something about you brought it out of me.”
“Interesting,” she said. “Very interesting.”
I glanced down, noticing that, without me thinking about it, the two of us had gotten close—close enough that I could smell her perfume, even feel the heat of her body.
My bud downstairs really liked this turn of events.
I glanced around, noticing that more than a few people had realized who I was, one or two of them snapping pictures of me and Pepper.
“People always think they’re so slick with their camera phones,” I said.
Pepper turned in the direction I’d been facing, seeing the people now awkwardly putting their phones away.
“Maybe they are slick,” she said. “And for every one you notice, a few others have taken a picture without you noticing.”
“Oh no,” I said. “Don’t even put that idea in my head.”
“How about this,” she said. “We finish our drinks and get out of here. I’ve been meaning to get you alone anyhow.”
“Now there’s an idea I can get behind.” My cock twitched a notch harder in my jeans—he clearly agreed with the idea. “Me?” I asked. “Alone with the Pepper Barnes?”
She laughed. “Believe it or not,” she said. “Your dream is about to come true.”
“You have no idea.”
14
PEPPER
There I was, walking down the streets of LA arm in arm with the—I mean, with Noah. It was hard to wrap my mind around how natural it all felt. Just like when I’d gotten over my anxiety on stage, it all felt so good and simple and fun. Sure, Noah was a rock star, but he also felt like just some cool guy I knew, like being out on a date with a guy you unexpectedly hit it off with.
It didn’t hurt that he was fucking gorgeous. I mean, damn. Sure, the makeup and leather and all that had a certain sexy charm. But even dressed in his regular-dude clothes and with his face au naturel he was still so hot I could hardly stand it. My pussy sent a fresh wave of tingles out with each step, and the idea of being alone with him was so enticing I could hardly think straight.
“Nice night,” I said, the sun having finally dipped below the ocean to the west as we strolled down the streets of Silver Lake.
It was lame, but I had no freaking idea what else to say.
“Sure is,” he said. His arm moved from being wrapped around mine to the small of my back, melting me like a slice of ice cream cake left out on the kitchen counter. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to throw aside the whole pretense of the date and get right to finishing what we’d started.
But what about after that? Ugh—who cared! I wanted Noah, and I wanted him bad.
Before too long we ended up at his car, a sleek, silver Aston Martin. Materialism had never been my thing, but damned if it wasn’t a hell of a nice car.
“Dope,” I said, my eyes tracking along the spaceship-like curves of the ride. “Uh, sorry to sound like a twenty-year-old there.”
Noah laughed. “It’s cool,” he said. “And thanks—don’t ask me how much it costs to insure this thing, though. Didn’t think about that when I paid for it in cash.”
He unlocked the car, and we both got in. As soon as the doors clicked shut and a heavy silence took hold, I knew what I wanted.
And so did he.
Noah and I turned to one another, both of us regarding each other with the same hungry, horny-as-hell expression.
It was on.
We flew toward one another, my body angling around the gear shift as our lips locked.
Holy shit did he taste good—better than I’d expected.
We kissed hard and deep, our tongues going after one another like two boxers in the ring. My hands moved over his body, and his did the same. Noah’s fingertips slid up my blouse, over my warm, tingling skin. I kept moaning as we kissed, like his dick was already inside of me.
As nice as the foreplay was, all I could think about was getting those jeans off and seeing what he had going on underneath. Because if how he looked
in his leather pants was any indication…
Everything seemed to happen so freaking fast. One moment I was ogling his car, the next I was ogling, well, everything else. His shirt came up, exposing his toned midsection, and his hands worked insanely fast over the buttons of my shirt. I was certain that he’d had plenty of practice getting girls naked, but I didn’t care—right then, right there, he was mine, all mine.
“Damn!” he shot out as he got more and more of my shirt undone.
“Something wrong?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Nope,” he said. “Something very, very right.”
It was so freaking corny that I couldn’t help but laugh. “Come on,” I said. I gave him a swat on the chest, the muscles so hard and firm and perfect that I couldn’t help but let my hand hang out there for just a sec. Two secs. OK, three secs.
Four.
“What?” he asked.
“Just thinking about how what you’re doing right now is what you’ve probably done with a million groupies before.”
“You serious?” he asked.
“Maybe a little,” I said. “Bet the great Noah Ma—bet you know just what to say to make them feel special in the moment, like they’re the only girl in the world.”
“And that’s what you think’s going on here?” he asked. “You think I’m just running some game?”
I said nothing, feeling suddenly a little silly.
“Like a computer program?” he asked with a smile. “Like, see hot-as-hell-girl, execute flirt program forty-five-dash-two-B.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. One, because it was funny, and two, because it reminded me of the sort of nerdy stuff all the guys I’d ever known would say. But instead of coming out of the mouth of a Settlers of Catan-obsessed nerd, it was coming out of the mouth of a totally hot rock star.
“Not like that, exactly,” I said. “But maybe more like you’ve been through this so many times before that you’re just going on autopilot.”
Part of me hated how lame and insecure I was being. But I’d have been lying if I’d said it wasn’t the case. Was I really special? Or was I just special enough for that moment?
“I guess it wouldn’t do me any good to tell you that any girl I’ve been with was special,” he said.
“It’s a nice thought, but…”
“About what you’d expect me to say,” he said.
His eyes flicked away for a second, like he was trying to decide if he wanted to say what he had on his mind.
“Reports of me being a total manwhore might be a little exaggerated, anyway,” he said.
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Seriously,” he said.
“What about you and all those girls you dated?” I asked. “Weren’t you and Jessica Biel, like, a thing?”
He shrugged. “That was dating,” he said. “Not groupies. And yeah, I met some women who I felt were girlfriend material, and Jess was one of them.”
It was so weird to hear him reference a celebrity so casually in nickname-style. That was the world he rolled in, though.
“But I never really got into the groupies thing. Too weird, too impersonal. Part of the reason I wanted to put Lover Boys behind me.”
“What,” I asked with a smirk. “All that female attention started to wear on you? Poor thing.”
He let out a snort of a laugh. “More that the longer I was around it, the more I knew it wasn’t me. The music was fun, and I never got tired of being on stage. But…everything else.”
Either he was a really good actor in addition to being an incredible singer, or he was being sincere. Either way, I was ready to let myself believe it. After all, there’s only so long you can sit and have a heart-to-heart with a gorgeous man with his clothes half taken off, his abs rising and falling, the top button of his jeans undone, a few strands of his hair hanging over his forehead in a mega-sexy tousled way.
Fuck. I needed it, and I needed it bad.
“What about you?” he asked. “I mean, I barely kn—”
Talk was good—nothing wrong with chitchatting. But I needed something a little more tangible.
So, I cut him off with a kiss. Right away the intoxicating taste of his mouth hit me like a drug. Not that I’d had much experience with drugs, but I could imagine.
Sort of.
I was ready for him. I didn’t care that we were in a parked car where people could see us. All I cared about was getting his ass buck naked. And judging by the way his hands were moving all over me, I could tell he had very, very similar priorities.
First, his shirt. Mm-hmm, yep—toned and taut and tattooed. Then he returned the favor as we kissed and kissed, slipping my shirt off over my shoulders and exposing my bra.
“God, you’re so…fucking sexy!” he exclaimed, his words coming out almost like he was surprised.
“Expecting something different?” I asked, his mouth moving over my neck, making my whole body break out into goose bumps. “Like some particularly weird-looking boobs?”
“Nah,” he said. “Just…just surprised with myself.”
“In a good way?” I asked.
“In a very good way.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Now, less talkey, more clothes-offey.”
He laughed, wrapping his arm around my waist. “My thoughts exactly,” he said. “Though maybe not quite as poetic as that.”
“Shush,” I said, putting my finger on his lips.
He did shush, kissing me hard again. Both of our hands did some more exploring, making their way to the below-the-waist zone and all the good stuff that was hidden underneath. By this point I was so wet that I could hardly stand it. What Noah was packing was the only thing that would satisfy me, and I knew it.
“Come on,” I moaned. “Give it to me.”
“Trying,” he said, his hands working on the buttons and zippers down below. “The Martin’s not really made for this kind of front-seat activity.”
“Then try harder,” I said. “Because I need it so badly I can—”
Thunk-thunk-thunk.
“That wasn’t your dick, was it?” I asked.
“You mean that noise?” asked Noah. “No. I mean, it’s impressive and all, but it’s not made of solid steel.”
I could feel it through his pants, however. “Solid steel” didn’t seem far off the mark.
Thunk-thunk-thunk.
“Shit,” said Noah. “Behind you.”
For a moment I was totally freaked out. But when I whipped around and saw the unmistakable figure of a uniformed cop, flashlight in hand I…well, I got freaked out all over again. The weird noise that exploded from my mouth was some bizarre combo of a shriek and a scream, and only added to the extreme embarrassment.
Luckily, Noah was more on top of things than I was. He quickly produced my shirt, sticking it out in front of me. I snatched it and covered my boobs, my face still red. Noah then brought the window down, cool evening air and the harsh vibes of the officer pouring into the car in equal measure.
“Good evening, Officer,” said Noah, sounding cool-as-hell about the whole thing.
“I can see that it is,” he said. “But I think you can guess what the next thing I’m going to say is.”
Noah and I squirmed into our seats, my eyes fixed dead ahead.
“Of course, of course,” said Noah.
“Then I’ll leave you to it.”
I mumbled out a “thank you” to the officer and that was that. The window went back up, and he was gone. The two of us sat in silence for a few moments, neither sure what to say.
“So…did that totally kill the mood?” asked Noah.
“Kinda sorta,” I said. “Hard to feel sexy when there’s a six-and-a-half-foot-tall police officer looming over you when you’re half-naked.”
“I dunno,” he said. “Bet there are a few people in the city who’d pay for something like that.”
Another smirk, and I felt the weird tension melt away. “Bet you’re right about that,” I said. “B
ut not this girl.”
“How about this,” he said. “You far from here?”
My eyes went wide in panic as I thought about the state my apartment was in. Aside from the place being barely big enough to hold one person at a time, there were enough empty delivery food containers and clothes strewn here and there to not exactly make it the most hospitable place there was.
“I’m…actually in the neighborhood. But my place is a mess.”
“I’m just downtown,” he said. “And I could drop you off, but if you feel in the mood for hanging out a little more we could—”
“Sure!” I said, cutting him off.
Another chuckle. “I like that enthusiasm,” he said.
And I liked a lot about him. There wasn’t any more to say. Noah pulled the car out of the spot and we headed down Sunset Boulevard, a tingle of excitement in the evening air.
15
PEPPER
We drove in silence. Not the weird kind of silence, but the nice kind where you’re just taking in the scenery and each other’s company, and everything’s nice and mellow. Which was surprising—in my experience that was the sort of vibe you only got after knowing a guy for a while…if ever. But with Noah it was right there, only a couple of hours into our first date—or whatever it was—and only a little while after nearly getting busted screwing in public.
And believe it or not, after having a little time to let the whole thing percolate, it was actually kind of hot.
“You ever done anything like that before?” asked Noah, as if reading my mind.
“Which part?” I asked. “The, um, sleeping-with-someone-I-barely-know part, or the getting-caught-in-public part?”
“Sleeping with someone?” asked Noah. “Someone’s being presumptuous.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“The second thing,” he said. “The in-public part.”
“Never,” I said, feeling a little silly right away about blurting out the word so quickly. “My sex life has been…pretty tame for the most part.”
“That right?” he asked.
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