ROCK F*CK CLUB (Girls Ranking the Rock Stars Book 5)

by Michelle Mankin

  “Thank you.” I turned toward her, covering her hand with mine. “For always being there for me.”

  “I love you, Jo.”

  “Love you too, doll.”

  “I’ll put this up.” She removed my fingers from the glass and stood. “And I’ll pop into the twins’ room and let them know you’re okay. Then be right back.”

  I nodded. Grateful tears sprang to my eyes as I watched her walk away. She was giving me a moment alone with him. When the door closed behind her, I turned to him.

  “Who did this to you?” Gale’s gaze was hard. Boulders would have had more give in them. “When did it happen? Where?”

  The vise around my throat eased when I realized that if he didn’t know where it had occurred, then I hadn’t revealed the part that would almost certainly send him away.

  I pulled in a breath. “I don’t remember all the girls’ names.”

  “Girls? Fucking hell.” He looked a little sick.

  It was a partial truth. I remembered most of them, but I tried my best not to.

  “Were you in some kind of school? How old were you? Why didn’t somebody stop them?”

  “Can we not talk about this right now?” I pleaded with my gaze. “When the memories are this fresh, I feel exactly like I did then.”

  “How did you feel?”

  “Desperate. Weak. Vulnerable. Dirty. Horrible. Wrong.” Staring at my hands, I whispered, “Wished I was dead.”

  “Jo . . . Fuck.” Gale stood and paced beside the bed, back and forth before he stopped. The hand he raked through his thick hair trembled as he stared down at me. “I wish whoever did this to you was dead.”

  His eyes were liquid metal, red around the edges like a forge for melting silver into weapons. He’d looked like that with the brothers outside by the bus.

  “Me too.” I glanced away, not wanting him to see the frightened girl I’d once been. I wasn’t her anymore.

  “I’m sorry.” He sank down on the bed. “It’s the way I feel, but I didn’t mean to scare you again.”

  The mattress dipped with his weight, tipping my body into him. Not just my body, but my mind and all the rest of me tilted toward him as if he were the axis around which my world had begun to rotate.

  “You didn’t scare me.” I placed my hand on his arm and swept my thumb across his warm skin. “Not now. Not even earlier.”

  My brows pinched together as I thought things through.

  “The flashbacks used to come after a predictable set of symptoms, chills and a tension type of headache, like how I get photosensitive before a migraine. Those symptoms started right after the scene with Mike and Daniel.”

  Gale’s lips flattened. “Why did you have a flashback today?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly. I haven’t had one in so long. But maybe because I was processing emotions similar to the ones I had back then. Pretending to like something I didn’t like at all.”

  “Those assholes forced you,” he gritted out, and the tendons in his arm tightened beneath my fingers.

  “No.” I stopped stroking his skin and shook my head. “No one forced me to do anything. I chose the brothers. I chose the scene. I decided up front that it would be pretend.”

  “It was a fake hookup?” he asked, and a different sort of tension rippled through him. If I weren’t so tuned in to him, I might not have noticed it.

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  “The posts on their social media pages didn’t look fake.” Gale’s brows dipped together.

  “That’s good. They weren’t supposed to look fake.”

  His eyes narrowed, becoming truth-seeking missiles. “Why did you choose the Rage guys?”

  “I ran into Marsha earlier. She told me they would go for an RFC scene with me, probably no questions asked if I didn’t want it to be real.”

  “Why would she tell you something like that?”

  “Because she knows.”

  “Knows what?”

  “That I’m seriously into you.”

  “ABOUT DAMN TIME.” STARDUST sparkled in Gale’s eyes as if I were a wish fulfilled that he hadn’t dared to dream.

  “Arrogant much, Lafleur?”

  I muttered more about lead singers and their egos as I threw my legs over the other side of the bed. Standing, I had a vague plan to stomp off into the adjoining room where Dolly and the twins were, but that didn’t happen.

  “My ego’s barely a blip.” He moved in front of me, blocking my way. “It’s too weighted down by all your cannots and do nots.”

  “And there are too many players on the field with the RFC and me.” I lifted my chin. “I did the fake thing with the Rage guys to try to get rid of a couple. Now there are only three positions left. I want you to be one of them. I want to cooperate, share, and help you how I can, but if you don’t have what it takes to stay and can’t play by the rules I’ve set, then maybe you don’t have what it takes to remain in the game.”

  “I have better than what it takes.” He pressed forward, and I stepped back. “I have what you need.” His lips curved on the one side. “What you seriously need.”

  “You just had to get that in there.” I shook my head at him, trying but failing not to smile.

  The truth was, I reveled in the back-and-forth between Gale and me, and his teasing. He didn’t see me as weak or damaged beyond repair. Getting my power back after those girls had taken it was a battle I’d already fought and won. I didn’t need to go back and win it again.

  “I’m just getting warmed up, babe.”

  He walked me backward another step, and I stopped. The wall behind me prevented any additional retreat. When he planted his hands on either side of me, his heat, his scent, his desire mingled with my own. It was a tantalizing blend, a warm current that washed away the residue of the past.

  “This okay? Me this close?”

  I nodded. “It’s okay.” Those sexy lips of his were almost kissing-distance close. I put my hands on my hips and peered up at him through my lashes. “But it could be better.”

  “I’m not triggering anything?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Only my desire to . . .”

  I licked my lips, and his gaze dipped to them like I hoped it would. An anticipatory tremor rolling through me, I brought my hands up to his chest.

  His went into my hair. Fingers laced in the strands, he gently cradled my skull while he stroked my cheekbones with the pads of his thumbs. I arched my body into his. Heat blazed beneath my fingertips as I glided them over the hard, contoured slabs of muscle beneath his T-shirt, gripped his shoulders, and flexed urgently.

  “I have that same desire,” he said, lowering his head.

  I came up on my toes. His mouth hovered an inch away, but it was too far. I closed my eyes. The warmth of his breath feathered over my lips as he removed the remaining distance between us.

  “Whoa,” Dolly said.

  “Oops.” Linette giggled.

  Startled, Gale and I drew apart. I let out a shaky sigh of disappointment, and Gale cursed.

  “Guess you’re feeling better.” Lark grinned at me. “Cinderella and the prince of the rocking realm, you two are like a fucking fairy tale together.”

  “I’m not.” I shook my head and dropped my hands. “We’re not.”

  “That’s it exactly.” Gale captured my hands. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  “Glad it’s finally decided.” Dolly held up her phone. “Suzanne’s on hold, Jo. Are you ready to explain the situation with the Rage guys to her?”

  I gulped and disengaged from Gale. He could be a rock ’n’ roll prince, but I would never be a Cinderella, and all the stars in the sky would have to realign to give the two of us any sort of fairy-tale ending.

  “This is Josephine,” I said into the receiver after taking the cell. The inopportune call from the WMO exec tolled those truths better than the strike of a clock at midnight.

  “What was the purpose of today’s episode?” Suzanne asked, he
r voice sharp.

  “Um, hello to you too. Are you referring to the brothers? From Rage Element?”

  “Yes, I saw the preliminary video. It’s an obvious sham. No one is going to believe a few kisses and discarded clothes equate to a hookup.”

  “I don’t really—” Before I could finish, Gale snatched the phone from my hand.

  “Ms. Smith, this is Gale Lafleur . . . Yes, we’ve spoken before. I’m fine, but Miss Poet isn’t. She had a rough day. She thinks what occurred in the past makes her weak, but it’s clear to me it’s just another example of her admirable resilience and strength. There’s a history of abuse in her background that I’m guessing your research team didn’t find.”

  My eyes wide, I covered my mouth.

  Yes,” Gale said, spilling a secret I would not have chosen to share. “I think it’s important that you know.”

  Mortified, I reached for my phone, but he turned away, gently deflecting my attempts to get it back from him.

  “Yes, I agree with the theme of the show being a woman’s right to choose. Given that, I would be very careful how I moved forward. If I were in your position, I would applaud Josephine for her courage rather than berate her for those decisions you deem as mistakes . . . Right, I’m glad to hear that. I’d heard that you were unreasonable. It’s a pleasant surprise to discover that you’re not . . . Yes, you too. Good-bye.”

  Glaring at him, I sputtered, “You had no right.”

  Gale looked hurt. “I will protect you, Josephine. Even if the person I think you need the most protection from is yourself.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “I believe you can.” He held out his arms to me, his intention clear.

  “Then why?” I asked, walking into the haven he offered because he recognized my strength. I didn’t need to prove it to him.

  “You’re capable. You heard the things I said to her about you.” He pulled me deeper into his embrace. “But after being in this industry so long, I’ve made connections and built influence that you don’t have. I’ll use them if I see or hear that someone is mistreating you. You have me on your side, Josephine. You aren’t alone anymore. I’d like you to consider that—”

  A cell rang. This time it was his.

  He sighed and withdrew his phone from the front pocket of his jeans. As he glanced at the display, he frowned. “Circumstances seem to be conspiring against me setting my plan for this evening into motion the way I wanted to.” He lifted his head and gave me a long look.

  “What plan? What did you want me to consider?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer me right away. Concern and desire seemed to vie for top position in his eyes as he raked a hand through his hair and stared at me.

  “I’m not sure it matters so much what I say for you to consider. It’s what you feel, what you want. I’ve been very careful all along to be respectful of that.” When he dropped his hand, the thick satiny strands fell back into place around his handsome face. What remained was determination. “Knowing now the specific details that you kept from me about your past, I believe that was the right thing to do.”

  It had been the exact right thing to do. But he still didn’t know all that I kept from him.

  “I had a plan for just the two of us tonight. I wanted to get you away from all of this, thought it might help. When it’s just you and me together, I feel very certain. But then I saw Mike’s Instagram photos of you, and I lost my shit.”

  “And then I lost mine too,” I whispered.

  “Yours is justified. And because I always want you to feel safe with me, it might be wiser to step back and give you space rather than press for us to go forward. But I don’t feel like doing that. I want to hold you and be with you.” His eyes flared. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I think so.”

  “I hope so. I’m going to the gym to work out with my bandmates, then head to my room to shower and grab a few things. After that, I’m getting my bike out of the trailer, and I’m going for a ride.”

  Gale’s gaze softened as he took my hand.

  “I’d like you to come on that ride with me. In fact, I would love the opportunity to be with you, to be ourselves, to be free of all the stuff that exists here for you and me. But the choice to go with me or stay here is totally up to you.”

  “IT’S GETTING LATE.” DOLLY dropped down on the bed beside me, the one by the window.

  I was on the far right edge of it, where I could see Anthem’s bus out the window. This was as close as I would let myself get to a choice I’d already made, but a step I shouldn’t take.

  “I know the reason you think you shouldn’t go with Gale.” Dolly put her hand over mine. “I know many more why you should.”

  I turned to look at her. “None matter but the one,” I said, referring to the remaining secret I feared Gale knowing the most. The sight of her face wavered through the sheen of wetness in my eyes.

  “I disagree. He’s sweet. He’s kind and gentle, and he makes you happy. I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”

  “Gale Lafleur would make any woman happy.”

  “But he doesn’t want any woman. He wants you. And I don’t think you want anyone but him either. I think you’ve fallen for him too.”

  I didn’t deny it. I couldn’t love again, of course. But I yearned for Gale. Oh, how I yearned.

  “After that speech of his, I think we’re all swooning over him.” Smiling softly, she squeezed my hand. “Go, Jo. It’s a ride on his motorcycle. He says he wants to spend time with you. It’s not a marriage proposal.”

  I stood and hesitated, torn between what I wanted—him—and what I should do, which was tell him the remaining secret now.

  “Go, already.” Smiling, Dolly tilted her head toward the door.

  Without another word, I went. It was what I wanted to do, and after my secret was out, I might not get another opportunity.

  Out in the hallway, I separated my hair, pulling an elastic from my pocket to make a pigtail on one side, and then did the same thing on the other. If I was in, I was in. I wouldn’t be able to keep my emotions from getting tangled up. That was done, but at least I could minimize the wind damage to my hair from the ride.

  At the elevator, I hit the call button. The door opened right away. I stepped in, noted on the control panel where the exercise room was, and decided to check there first.

  Gale sweaty? His muscles flexing? Wearing shorts and possibly no shirt?

  Yes, please.

  At the ground floor, I followed the directional signs. The sound of weights clanging and the familiar rumble of his voice reached me before I even got to the room.

  “Don’t talk about Josephine like that.”

  Wary, I stopped outside in the hallway, just beyond the glass door that was propped partway open.

  “Gale, c’mon,” Arthur said. “She’s a hot piece, but there are a lot of those around. She’s not like Diana.”

  “There will never be another Diana,” Gale said adamantly, and my heart, or the cavity where it used to be, registered a swift, sharp pain. “I’m not looking to recreate the past. I’m not looking for someone to feel sorry for me. I’m not looking for the fake bullshit that goes on with the groupies.”

  “What are you looking for?” Noah asked.

  “Her,” Gale said without hesitation. “I wasn’t even looking, but there she was. She knocked me on my ass. No—from the first moment I laid eyes on her.”

  My pulse started to fly.

  “I think she needs me. Me, not just the rock star. I certainly need her.”

  At that, my eyes rounded, and I covered my mouth with one hand.

  “How’s that?” Noah asked.

  “We’re both broken, but together, I think we can be whole again.”

  I must have made a noise, because Gale moved in front of the door and saw me.

  And I saw him. A lot of him. My pulse didn’t just fly now, it skyrocketed.

  Gale wore only cutoff
sweats that clung to his narrow hips. They hung low, accentuating the sharp cut of the V of his abdominal muscles.

  “My eyes are up here, Jo.” He laughed, a rusty beautiful laugh that made me all quivery inside.

  “How did you . . .” I swallowed, looked up, and refocused. “When did you start looking like this?”

  “Like what?” he asked, one side of his mouth tipped up.

  I loved looking at his handsome face, but at the moment, his chiseled chest demanded attention, a standing ovation of admiration.

  “I’ve seen Anthem concert videos. The ones where you take your shirt off. Because of the hot stage lights, probably.” I was babbling and salivating like a brook. “You looked good in those, but not good like this.”

  “I used to write lyrics in my spare time, but since my muse went silent, I started working out instead.”

  “Ah, makes sense.” Blinking fast, I licked my lips.

  Sense wasn’t what my brain was doing anymore. It imagined more interactive physical activity as I let my gaze wander the rugged byways of results of how he used his spare time.

  All that slippery-wet smooth skin . . .

  I wanted to sip from the valleys and glide my tongue along the ridges. I would swirl the cinnamon coins of his masculine nipples, outline the salty corded tendons at his neck. I would grip his satiny thick hair, draw his face down to mine, and kiss him senseless, crooked grin and all. I would make our real first kiss a mutual mind-blowing reality.

  “Done taking inventory?” he asked.

  I lifted my head to see that the silvery surface of his eyes glittered like the stars in a spiral galaxy more breathtaking than the Milky Way.

  “Not yet,” I said sassily. “I have more interactive inventory-taking in mind, but first I need to show you something.”

  “What?” Looking puzzled, he stepped out in the hall.

  “It’s down here.” I pointed with the toe of my boot, sliding it along the bright red carpet in a straight line, just in front of his workout shoes.

  “You just drew an invisible line, Jo.”

  “I did, but I’m scratching it out now. See?” I rubbed the sole of my boot back and forth as if I were erasing a chalk line. “It’s gone.”