Rock Star Romance Ultimate Volume 2

by Mankin, Michelle

  “We need to wait this out until some of it dies down.” I held up the bowl. “So we eat, I guess.”

  “I told you I’m not hungry.”

  I wedged myself against the wall so I could keep a look out from the sliver of an opening. I extended my legs until the toes of my boots bumped into the wall across from me.

  She set her purse down near the door. She gave me a squinty look and tried to climb over my legs, but her tight skirt didn’t allow for that much movement. Content to figure out what she was going to do, I twirled pasta and stabbed a mushroom.

  “Could you move?”

  “Can’t.” I picked up another mushroom and popped it in my mouth. “Eating.”

  “This might be cute for your legion of fans, but I’m not amused.”

  I smiled around my mouthful of food. My momma would’ve slapped me in the head, but I couldn’t seem to find my manners. “Sure you are. And you’re hungry.” Her belly growled again and she pursed her distracting lips.

  I wondered what those burgundy lips would look like all smudged. I wouldn’t even mind wearing her lipstick if I got a kiss.

  Or five-hundred of them.

  I twirled a bit of the cooling angel hair around the tines of my fork and held it to her lips. “Just try it. You’ll hurt my feelings if you don’t.”

  “I don’t give a shit about your feelings, Mr. Jordan.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Such language.”

  “Like you haven’t heard far worse.”

  I shrugged. “I kinda like how you say Mr. Jordan—even if that’s my old man’s name. It sounds all smooth and silky.”

  Her nostrils flared and I smiled. Yeah, she was annoyed. I liked it on her. Her eyes were all snappy, and I wished it was me leaning into her mouth, not a forkful of pasta.

  “C’mon, just one taste.”

  She reached for the fork and I shook my head. “Just take it.”

  Her eyebrow spiked and my dick twitched. Fuck me singing, she’d probably do that just before she went down on a guy. I definitely shouldn’t be thinking that way, but those dark lips were distracting as fuck.

  And there was something about feeding a woman that totally bent me sideways. Her gaze locked with mine as she opened her mouth and leaned into the fork. She scraped her teeth over the tines as she took it, then her eyes shut and she moaned. “Oh, wow.”

  My dick went from twitch to full hard with that moan. She chewed slowly, and when she opened her eyes, they were heavy-lidded with bliss. “More.”

  Fuck.

  I carefully rolled another bit, making sure to tuck a mushroom inside. She opened her mouth without another complaint. “God, I love pasta,” she said around another bite. “And dammit, yes, I am hungry.” She stole my bowl.

  I laughed—at least I hoped it sounded like a laugh and not a moan. She leaned against the wall between my feet and took a larger bite. The buttery noodles made her lips glossy. She picked out a mushroom and popped it in her mouth before licking the tip of her thumb. “I don’t know if this is awesome, or I’m just that hungry.”

  “Thanks.”

  She laughed and the smoky sound pummeled my dick behind my zipper. I wanted to hear it again. She picked out another mushroom and held it out to me.

  I sure as fuck didn’t hesitate to bend down to take it from her. Her eyes widened when I nipped the tip of her finger. Instead of withdrawing like I thought she would, she dug out another mushroom and stood up straighter. She moved between my legs until her calves brushed my knee.

  Again, I accepted the food, this time with a tiny flick of my tongue along the pad of her thumb.

  She pressed her lips together and swallowed. “Such a bad idea.”

  My mouth tipped up at one corner as I watched her lips plump. Still glossy with butter and a tiny speck of oregano. “Or a good one.” I swiped my thumb over her bottom lip and showed her the fleck of green before I licked my finger.

  She pushed the bowl into my gut. I grabbed it just before she twisted her fingers into my shirt. “Bad ideas should be an all in situation.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  * * *

  Kennedy

  What are you doing?

  I heard the subconscious shriek in my head, but then there were butter-flavored lips against mine. Not just lips, but lips I’d initiated into a kiss.

  Not a good idea—at all.

  And yet, so delicious.

  It took a minute to align our mouths since he was so freaking tall, but he was very accommodating. Shocker. He probably did this all the time.

  He rested his forehead against mine and cupped my chin. I dragged my eyes open, afraid that any hint of reality would ruin this little slice of heaven. He traced my lower lip with his fingertip, his gaze locked on my mouth. “So loud.” He dragged the pad of his forefinger across my bottom teeth. “I can hear your brain from out here.” His nail scraped the soft inside of my mouth. Just enough to push all of the words out of my lust-hazed brain. “All in, remember?” he said against my lips.

  Then there was nothing but a freefall. He caught my upper lip, sucking gently before moving on to the lower. His kiss was slow, and so thorough I was pretty sure I was the one melting like butter. My fingers inched up to his neck of their own volition.

  Huge.

  Overwhelming.

  Perfect.

  I tried to take a step back. All in was beyond stupid. All in was more of a euphemism for death by Hunter Jordan.

  He locked his other arm around my hip. I was more than a little out of my depth, but I’d never been one to step back from a challenge.

  I kissed him back. I flicked the tip of my tongue along his once, letting him know that I wanted more.

  Mistake.

  Holy crap.

  It was like letting the devil into my bedroom. He took over the kiss. His hands cupped my face as he tasted every inch of me. A winding, dexterous tongue that knew how to tease and tantalize without making me feel like I was kissing a lizard. Oh, hell no.

  I was kissing the prince of all things magical.

  Then he slanted the other way and my brain simply checked out.

  My heart was trying to climb out of my chest, everything took on a hazy sparkle, and oxygen became an afterthought. Maybe the whole lack of oxygen thing was causing the sparkles. I didn’t really care. There was something to be said about a man with moves.

  I wrapped my other arm around his neck, and my fingers coasted under his hat, pushing it off. Then there was nothing but his silky, thick hair fluttering through my fingers. My elbow slammed into something hard, but I couldn’t find my internal compass.

  I didn’t care what I’d hit.

  Just another kiss.

  Just him.

  “Oh my God.”

  He tore his mouth from mine.

  Yeah, I hadn’t said that. I so hadn’t said a damn word. “Please, no. No, no, no,” I whispered.

  He stood up straight and shoved me behind him. The bowl crashed to the floor, and pasta and mushrooms scattered over my shoe.

  “Shit,” Hunter muttered.

  I tried to peek around him. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. A few people. It sounded like a lot more than a few, but surely there weren’t that many people out there. Finally, I lifted his arm, and looked out from under his stupidly perfect biceps. A horde of people was out there. Like, literally…had the concert venue changed to the lobby?

  And I was pretty sure every one of them had their phone up for a photo.

  I was so dead.

  “Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck.”

  He looked over his shoulder at me, a dimple denting his left cheek. “Such language.”

  “This is all your fault.”

  Instead of answering me, his shoulders shook.

  Honestly? This asshole was laughing about this? I hadn’t even managed to be at the venue for an hour, and now there was going to be a splash of pictures with his tongue down my damn throat.

  Sweet Georgia, I was so ruined.

 
; I punched him in the shoulder. The lunatic just kept laughing. “This isn’t funny, Mr. Jordan.”

  He turned around, his back facing the horde now. He leaned down, so we were nose to nose. “Really? Still with the Mr. Jordan? After all we were to each other?”

  I blinked at him before trying to back up. My heel slipped on pasta, or butter, or my pride. All I know is that my arms had become massive pinwheels, and I was going down.

  He grabbed on to me, dragging me into his body. All six-plus-something-feet of him.

  When he was leaning against the wall, he didn’t seem nearly as gigantic. Hell, earlier he didn’t seem so big. Now he was just a pair of shoulders and distracting lips. There were a few reasons why I wore heels. Being vertically challenged was one of them.

  “Stop looking at me like that, Kenny.”

  “Kennedy,” I corrected.

  He skimmed his thumb along a curl snaking down into my camisole. He stopped just before the curve of my breast. “I like Kenny better. It doesn’t suit you at all.”

  What a contrary man. “Then why use it?” I snapped back.

  His dimple flashed again. “Because your eyes crackle with disgust and excitement.”

  “They do not.”

  He hovered so damn close to my lips that I could taste the butter again. “Just like now.”

  “Stop. There’s about five hundred people staring at us.”

  His thick lashes lowered until his storm-gray eyes were mere slits. “I don’t mind when people watch.”

  Oh no, he didn’t. I shoved him back this time.

  He skidded on the mess on the floor and landed on his ass in the middle of the crowd of people. I grabbed my purse, then stepped over his long, sprawled legs. I lifted my chin. The crowd parted for me. So many pictures.

  Don’t react. Don’t look.

  The pops of the cellphone flashes, and the disconcerting shutter sounds made me cringe. I was probably committing career suicide, but enough was enough. I would not analyze the fact that my entire body, down to the soles of my feet, went haywire at the thought of someone seeing us together.

  The last thing I heard was his roar of laughter as I stalked down the carpeted aisle. Indie was standing on the stage with her hands on her hips, hat tipped back. I had the strongest urge to explain all of my sins.

  Since there were too many, I gave her a wide berth and ducked behind the curtain.

  She followed me with a sigh. “You left him there?”

  “He deserved to be left,” I said on a growl.

  “Of course he did. He’s male.” Indie pushed me into a chair next to a pile of signed T-shirts. She turned to their bodyguard-slash-everything guy. “Patrick, go rescue him, would you?”

  Patrick dropped his folded arms to his sides. “Yep.”

  Keys had a silver Sharpie top between her teeth as she calmly signed the records with a scrawling script. “What’d he do now?” she asked around the top.

  Not what he did. What I did. Seriously, what had gotten into me? Thoughts of his manaconda had obviously rattled my common sense. No, actually I hadn’t gotten that far. But if the rest of him was as lethal as his mouth, then there was a reason why the moniker fit.

  Because, Jesus, I’d never been so wound up.

  I liked sex.

  I liked men.

  Occasionally I even indulged in putting both of them in the same equation. But clients were off-limits. I’d learned that lesson a long time ago, and wouldn’t ever make that mistake again.

  Ten minutes with Hunter Jordan and I’d forgotten rule number one. I only had two, for fuck’s sake.

  Don’t get personal. Don’t get naked.

  These were easy rules to follow. Another five minutes in that hidden space and I’d probably be another statistic in the legion of women who had lost their panties to the lead singer of Hammered.

  I rubbed my temples.

  Keys recapped her marker and pushed the finished pile over to a man with jet black hair and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. “Your turn, O.”

  “Thanks, love.” The faintest lilt of Ireland whispered into his voice.

  Owen Blackwell—bassist for the band. My research and eidetic memory clicked in. He’d grown up in the states, but his parents were immigrants from Ireland. A delicate gold cross on a chain glinted just below his collarbone, barely discernible in the other silver and black corded necklaces he wore.

  A man of faith? Or maybe it was just sentimentality. It looked like the kind I’d gotten at my confirmation as a teen. Mine was stashed in a jewelry box in my mom’s closet in Vegas.

  Sin City and all of its ungodly patrons were no match for my mother’s interesting version of morality. Rhiannon McManus might be one of the last Jubilee dancers in Vegas—more of a trainer these days than an actual dancer—but she made sure I’d been raised right. Illegitimate daughter or not.

  I knew all about costumes, duty, outward appearances, and the truth.

  I also knew that people in the entertainment business often didn’t know the difference between truth and public image. I was good at constructing the perfect image, and making them believe it.

  I would do the same for Hunter.

  If I kept my job, anyway.

  “Is anyone going to tell me anything?” Keys asked.

  When both me and Indie remained silent, she sighed and pulled out her phone.

  “Fine,” Keys said. “I’ll just fish out the truth in the chaos.”

  I sighed. It wasn’t like I could hide my transgressions. They were probably being uploaded to YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr, and Reddit at this point. “I—”

  “My new girlfriend just outed us in front of five hundred people.” Hunter flipped the curtains behind him. Patrick reached in after him and thwacked him in the back of the head. “Hey!”

  “Don’t be an asshole.”

  Hunter rubbed a spot behind his ear. “And we just had our first fight, too.”

  I stood. “Your what? And we what?”

  Another man came through the curtain. He had dark eyes and rich mocha skin, and wore a suit that had been cut for his long, athletic build. “Bravo on finding a way to boost your trending numbers into the top three, my friend.”

  I recognized the voice. Dex Munroe, an executive for Ripper Records, had been blowing up my phone since six that morning. His rich, cultured British accent was almost as hypnotic as Donovan Lewis’s, but had a touch of slickness that Donovan never had.

  I’d instantly wanted to block his calls.

  Hunter rolled his eyes at me, but his face morphed into a relaxed smile when he faced Dex. “Yeah, that’s what happened.”

  I hid a smile. Way to lay it on thick.

  I marched over to Dex and Hunter. “We met less than an hour ago.”

  “And within thirty, you had your tongue in his mouth, hey?” Dex smiled, his teeth blindingly white. He held a hand out to me. “Dex—”

  “I know who you are.” I ignored his hand and put mine on my hips. “Are you the one who put the girlfriend thing in his head?”

  “No. God, no.” Dex dipped one hand into his slacks, the other holding his phone, tapping away with his thumb. He barely acknowledged me as he moved farther into the room. “Hunter having a girlfriend is the last thing I want.” He dropped his phone into his suit jacket pocket. He slapped Hunter on the back. “He’s our cash cow. Can’t have him locked down.”

  “I’m no one’s cash anything,” Hunter muttered.

  Dex nodded to Patrick. “Did you have those boxes brought in?”

  Patrick’s nostrils flared, and one auburn brow arched. He waited a beat, then nodded.

  Dex clapped, then rubbed his hands together. “I’ve written up a price sheet to add to what you already have, Indie. Twenty-five a magazine, fifty for it signed by the band. I have three cases that I procured from the printer this morning.”

  “Oh hell no,” Hunter shouted.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  * * *

  Hunter

&nb
sp; The entire room twisted to look at me. I knew I was going to have to deal with the fans who smuggled in a magazine, but this was ridiculous. Now we were going to gouge the fans for the magazine? One that was already stupidly overpriced for what it was?

  Fuck no.

  Kenny squinted at me once before turning her attention to Dex—or my new special name for him, Fucking Dex. “Mr. Munroe, I’m all for capitalizing on a good thing, but I agree with Mr. Jordan about this. It’s bad enough people will be selling the magazines from today on Ebay, but to perpetuate it here? I don’t agree. It makes him seem greedy.”

  My blood boiled. “That’s not me. Not us.”

  Keys came up beside me. “No. We love our fans. That’s why we got albums pressed. It’s a fun thing to get for the true fans.”

  “Record players are actually back in, believe it or not,” Owen quipped.

  Keys wrapped her fingers around my forearm. “I know, right? Is there a better sound than the hiss and pop of a needle on vinyl?”

  I smiled down at her. “No, there really isn’t.”

  She patted my arm. “I get it, Hunter’s going to have to sign some of those magazines, but do we really have to be jerks about it?”

  Dex shook his head. “I could charge two hundred for them easy. Fifty bucks is a bargain.”

  Hunter blew out a breath. “Raffle them off. Ten bucks a ticket.”

  Dex shot his cuffs, then smoothed his tie. “No way.”

  “Kids’ music charity.” When Dex’s eyes gleamed, I swallowed down the distaste. He looked at it from a PR angle. That’s what he was paid for, what Kenny was paid for.

  “Then you can charge more for charity,” he said.

  “More will sell actually.” Kenny’s voice was smooth and clear. “Generosity and kids.”

  “I disagree.” Dex took out his phone. “I can get another two cases here before the show. Do a special signing at the end—”