“And you think he’s right?”
“I don’t know.” Don’t say it, some small part of me that sounded a hell of a lot like Devi whispered, deep down in some tiny back room of my heart. Don’t show him. He doesn’t need to know how broken you are. “Maybe I fear he’s right.”
I really should’ve called it a night. Like, immediately. Gone up to my room and drunk dialed my best friend. The only person who could be trusted to witness me like this and not judge.
By now Jesse Mayes was probably trying to figure out how to rescind the entire offer, kick me the hell off his pant leg and hightail it out of here.
But he didn’t move.
He sipped his second drink, slowly, savoring it. Then he put the empty glass down, stared at the melting ice a moment, and turned to me.
“I’m going to tell you something now and you’re going to wait until I finish so you don’t take it personally.”
“Sure.” I picked up my own glass and busied myself crunching on the ice, avoiding that magnetic stare.
“The guys in the band, both bands, actually, and Brody, even Maggie, don’t think this is a good idea. Me and you. Bringing you on tour.”
I glanced at him. “And this is supposed to help convince me?”
He cocked his head a little, flashing his charming grin. “I didn’t know I was still convincing you.”
I started polishing off my second swordful of cherries.
“If you want out, Katie, I’m not going to hold it against you,” he said. “I’m not gonna twist your arm. I’ll give you tonight to think things over. It’s only fair. There was a lot of pressure on you tonight. All these new people, your ex-fiancé showing up. The media. And you’re looking like you could use some time to sleep it all off.” I noticed he politely omitted my current state of intoxication from that assessment. “So. Here’s what we do.” He leaned in a little, his shoulder nudging mine. “I’m taking you up to bed.”
Heat raced through my blood. I looked up into his eyes. Maybe he hadn’t meant that as dangerously as it sounded, but I really couldn’t tell. The man was impossible to read, unless he was overtly flirting, which he didn’t seem to be doing just now. Still, the butterflies in my stomach did a drunken twirl.
“You’re going to sleep,” he went on. “And in the morning, you can let me know what you decide. No pressure. You come with me on tour, or you don’t and we forget about all of this. You go back to your life, and I never bother you again.”
One thing I knew: I did not want that. But it was dangerous to want what I was beginning to want when I looked in Jesse Mayes’ eyes.
“But first…” He took my plastic sword and empty glass and set them aside, holding my gaze. “I want you to know why the guys don’t think bringing you on tour is a good idea, and why I’ll do it anyway. I’ve never brought a girl on tour with me before, Katie. Other than Elle, but we’re in a band together, and even then it didn’t work out so well. My friends aren’t used to me getting serious about anyone so fast, and they don’t see how it will help the tour. They think the only way the media or the fans or the record company will give a damn about the girl I’m dating is if she’s some starlet or supermodel. Someone more famous, more glamorous than Elle.”
I cringed, inwardly. He really didn’t need to spell out for me all the ways I didn’t measure up to his ex-girlfriend. Clearly I was nowhere near as glamorous. Or as talented. Certainly not as famous, even with our steamy video burning up the charts.
“They don’t think anyone will care if I show up on tour with an ordinary girl,” he said. “And by ordinary, I mean not famous. But here’s the thing, Katie. I think they’re wrong about that. And for the record, I don’t think there’s an ordinary thing about you. The world got a glimpse of that in the video. It’s what your ex saw. It’s why that video has been viewed online over seven hundred million times already.”
My stomach did an uncomfortable flip, because I still couldn’t quite digest that fact. “You don’t have to say that.” No matter what he said, I knew it was him and the incredible song that had people watching that video.
The bartender came for our glasses and Jesse told her, “I’ll take the bill.”
“No chance, sweetheart,” she replied. “Gentleman at the end of the bar took care of it.”
Jesse looked kinda pissed at that. He acted like he was oblivious to the woman practically drooling as she said goodnight, before finally walking away when he only stared me down.
I wondered if he got that a lot. I wondered if the bartender was drooling because she knew who he was, or if that didn’t even matter when you looked like he did. When you exuded that kind of effortless, feral sexuality. The kind that told a woman, without words, what he could do to her.
The kinds of things he pretended to do to me in that video.
Jesse sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. He looked tired, something I hadn’t picked up on before. My own drunkenness and hurt feelings had gotten in the way of seeing what this night meant to him, and what it had taken out of him. Suddenly I felt ashamed of my selfishness, my petty drama over my ex.
Josh wasn’t worth this. I should never have let him get to me or get in the way of whatever time I might have with Jesse Mayes, even if our relationship wasn’t real.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “This isn’t your problem.”
“It isn’t yours either.” His eyes locked on mine again. “Look. I don’t know what he saw all those years. Those five years you were together, and all those times he fucked you and told you he loved you. Or that day when he left you at the altar. But he wasn’t seeing you.” His gaze searched my face, heating my skin. “You’re more than that, Katie. You’re more than the girl he abandoned, and you’re more than the girl in bed with me in that video. If you come on tour with me, you’ll have a chance to show the world, including him, who you are, if that’s what you want.”
“But that’s not really me, either,” I said. “Your fake girlfriend.”
“No one knows that. They don’t know you yet. You can be whoever or whatever you want to be, starting tomorrow morning, and the world will believe you. Your ex believed it. That’s why he hosted this party. To see for himself. That video gave him a glimpse of what he’s missed out on, and now he’s got regrets.”
And that’s when it struck me, as I stared at his beautiful face in the flickering candlelight. That all the time I was worrying if I was going on a date with some rich, entitled asshole who might turn into a creep at any second, I should’ve been preparing for a different scenario. Because what if Jesse Mayes turned out to be nice?
No; fuck nice. I could handle nice.
What if Jesse Mayes turned out to be awesome?
I swallowed as his dark gaze skimmed my lips. “I don’t know about that, Jesse.”
“I do.” He stood and offered his hand to me. “Don’t live with regrets, Katie Bloom.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
* * *
Katie
I woke near dawn, hungover as all fuck.
Correction: still a little drunk.
Morning light was beginning to bleed around the edges of the blackout curtains as I blinked my crusty eyelids open. The clock by my head said it was six seventeen. The light of the digital display stabbed at my brain and I closed my eyes, groaned, and rolled over, intending to go right back to sleep. Which was when I realized I wasn’t alone.
I was in bed with Jesse Mayes.
Naked.
I rubbed my eyes until I could see straight. Until I was sure of what I was seeing.
Jesse lay sprawled beside me on his back, his gorgeous form skimmed with the faint window light. His face was turned away from me, one arm bent so his hand lay across his muscular chest, the white sheet tangled low around his bare hips.
I clutched the sheet to my chest, carefully running my free hand over my body beneath.
Yep. Definitely naked.
I peeked under the sheet, slowly, moving an inch an hour as I li
fted it from his hip, until I could make out his cock. The cock he sent me a dick pic of last night. Not quite as enthusiastic this time, but he did have a decent morning semi going on.
I dropped the sheet like it’d scorched me.
What the fuck??
My skull crackled as I looked around, squinting into the near-dark. I remembered leaving the hotel bar with him. And some kind of argument over the bed?
God, did I do a strip tease for him?
The rest of the night came back in disjointed flashes as I scrambled to piece it together.
We’d ended up at the after party in Dylan’s hotel suite. I remembered having a drink in my hand, and various people refilling it, so I must’ve had several. I could still taste the salt and lime. Margaritas; that’s what Dylan’s buddy Ash kept making. Which would explain my raw tongue and the battery acid churning in my gut.
I hated margaritas.
I remembered Brody announcing that the guys needed to sleep because they all had shit to do in the morning, and Jude kicking people out. But the party kept going. I also vaguely remembered sitting there in the midst of the rowdy energy, the rapid-fire conversation, the raucous laughter, and thinking that this would be what life would be like on tour—if I went.
I worked my way to sitting, careful not to disturb the bed or the sheet around Jesse’s hips. The hand on his chest twitched but he didn’t wake. I could remember his hands on my body at various points last night… On my back. On my waist. On my thigh as he sat next to me on the couch.
I let the sheet go. I wasn’t a religious person, but I did a little prayer that Jesse Mayes wouldn’t wake up in the next few seconds to the sight of my bare white ass dashing to the bathroom. Or up in the air as I searched the floor for my clothes.
I found them, one piece at a time. My red dress, flung on the coffee table. My panties just under the bed. My bra on the couch. My lucky leather jacket over near the door.
It was a big suite, like Dylan’s, but I barely remembered walking into it last night.
My hotel room.
Jesse’s hotel room, apparently.
It didn’t quite dawn on me until we were inside it that my room was his room, and vice versa.
I don’t get my own room? I’d whirled on him and asked that, incredulous, when it became clear he was heading for the bedroom.
You’re my girlfriend, we share a room. You get a separate room and that shit gets out.
Okay. That did make sense.
Whatever. But I get my own bed. There were two of them, thank God.
But somehow we’d both ended up in the same one.
Got two beds. Which one you use is up to you.
Fuck.
And ugh.
Fugh.
Because it was up to me, wasn’t it?
I slunk off into the bathroom after a failed search for one of my shoes. Shutting the door and turning on the light, I winced as an invisible ax cracked my skull. I gave myself a few moments to adjust, blinking, and held onto the counter for balance. I was bloody dizzy. And dehydrated. I really must’ve been wasted to drink tequila in any amount. Especially after all the beer, champagne and assorted cocktails I’d already put back throughout the night.
Tequila had never been my friend.
I ran the water in the sink, just a trickle so it wouldn’t make noise, splashed some on my face and downed several glasses of it.
I pulled on my panties, shakily, stopping to grip the counter at intervals.
God. What a mess.
What the hell did I think I was doing? Clearly I was in way over my head here. I’d spent the better part of the last two years in a virtual cave; I could barely handle a night out with Devi and a few pitchers of sangria, much less Jesse Mayes and his rock star friends.
As I stood with my eyes closed, I felt his arm around me. A memory of last night, his hard body warm against mine, his hot lips brushing my ear. You choose who you are out there, Katie. Who you want to be for them. You give what you want to give. And then his lips on my neck. Who you are in here… you choose that, too.
Yeah, I chose.
I chose to be a lippy flirt.
I opened my eyes and took in my reflection, naked but for my black panties, and cringed as the memory came. Walking over to the bed closest to him, all bravado and boozy courage.
You’re sleeping over here, then I am too. I’m gonna fake girlfriend the shit out of this joint.
Up to you, babe.
Then he proceeded to undress. That part I remembered.
Vividly.
Because I got an eyeful of naked Jesse Mayes.
Apparently he had no qualms about stripping down in front of me. Not surprising, really, for a guy who’d texted me a picture of his dick only hours before. A guy who grinded me to near-orgasm while a camera crew recorded every simulated thrust and very real gasp.
The guy had no shame.
I busied myself finger-combing my hair and wiping the raccoon makeup from under my eyes. Thank God I’d had the sense to remove my disposable contacts before I passed out, but I really could’ve come more prepared. A toothbrush and some powder foundation would do wonders right now.
Was that a bloody hickey on my neck?
Jesus…
More fragments of the night came back. Like telling him to put his dick back in his pants, when the ship had already sailed on that, since his jeans were on the floor. Did the man not wear underwear? And I must’ve been blatantly checking him out, because I could recall every detail of his gorgeous body. The long, lean lines of his torso. The muscles that bunched in his chest, his rippling abs, his thick biceps and long, muscular thighs as he pulled back the covers, tossed them on the floor, and flopped onto the bed.
Always sleep naked, sugar.
He’d reclined there, the sheet haphazardly over a leg, like he’d meant to cover up but didn’t, his superb cock on full display, half-hard. He tossed his right arm over his eyes, showing off the sexy tattoo on his forearm, and appeared to be going to sleep.
But apparently I didn’t want him to sleep. Hence my bull-headed response.
Fine. If you’re sleeping naked, I am too.
And hence my clothes ending up all over the room.
I scowled at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and stood up straight, hoping I at least looked hot while I was making an ass of myself. I put on my bra and squeezed myself back into the red dress; anyone who saw me this morning would know it was the same dress I’d worn last night. This was not a Sunday morning dress. It was a Saturday night dress.
A walk of shame dress.
The kind of dress a stupid girl stripped off in front of a rock star, apparently.
Because I had.
Stripped.
In front of Jesse Mayes.
I’d turned it into a show when he started clapping and hooting, doing a clumsy drunken dance and flinging my clothes around. I cringed as I suddenly recalled what had happened to my lost shoe.
I’d tossed it in the air, where it got lodged in the ceiling light fixture.
Wonderful.
He’d howled at that smooth move.
When I peeled off my panties, though, the laughter died and his expression darkened.
You get in this bed like that and neither of us is sleeping, cherry pie.
I got in the bed.
Put your panties back on.
What’s the matter? You said you’d be happy to taste my pie.
He’d growled and rolled away, onto the very edge of the bed, as far as he could get without falling on the floor, and covered his head with a pillow.
I’d closed my eyes then, thinking I’d prove I could sleep even if he couldn’t, but that was a mistake.
Ugh. Is your side of the bed spinning?
The bed shook as Jesse got up in an agitated huff and stalked to the other bed. He tore the blankets off that one, got in under the sheet, and buried his head in the pillow.
I got up, went over to his bed and got in.
> Fuck, Katie. I’m not sleeping with you naked unless we’re gonna fuck, and we’re not gonna fuck while you’re this drunk. Especially the first time.
First time? Like there would be other times? First time? For some reason that struck me as hilarious, and the last memory I had was of my naked, drunken self, laughing my ass off.
And waking up in the morning with an ax in my skull.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Did we have sex?
No. No fucking way. I’d know.
Wouldn’t I?
Yes. Absolutely. No way I’d forget that.
Right?
I scanned myself in the mirror. Reasonably presentable.
For a walk of shame.
My hair looked a little ridiculous and desperately in need of a brush, but because it never let me down, my lucky leather jacket coughed up a hair elastic buried in the lining of a pocket. I managed to work my hair into a decent braid. “Get your shit together,” I whispered at my reflection. Then I squared my shoulders and prepared for what was sure to be a humiliating journey home.
When I cracked the bathroom door, Jesse’s body was still flung across the bed. He hadn’t moved. I could hear the slow, deep, throaty rhythm of his breaths.
I glimpsed the dark form on the ceiling that was my shoe, wedged into the light fixture. Clearly, that was a lost cause. No way I could rescue it without standing on Jesse’s face.
I grabbed my purse and slipped out, barefoot.
I saw no one in the hall or the elevator, thank God. I went down to the lobby and spoke to a guy at the front desk. “Is there anything you can do for a patron on the occasion that she got super drunk last night and lost a shoe?”
Rock Star Romance Ultimate Volume 2 Page 39