Rock King

by Tara Leigh

  But she wasn’t. A fact she’d proved with just one sentence.

  That earlier jab about sex not being a requirement, and now calling herself my whore. There had been plenty of girls before Delaney, although she was the first to make me feel like a pimp.

  Or was I a john?

  Stifling a groan of frustration, I jogged downstairs and into the garage, dropping heavily behind the wheel and slamming the door. Damn Delaney. She was mistaking lust for lechery.

  Once she was seated beside me. I gunned the engine, streaking out of the garage and sending paparazzi scattering like seagulls. Gnashing my teeth, I silently brooded over Delaney’s indictment for the length of the ride, working my jaw as vigorously as the clutch. The nondisclosure agreement, the employment contract—those were just to minimize the amount of bullshit that landed on my plate while on tour. The physical stuff that happened between me and my girlfriends, that had always been voluntary.

  Until my success in the music industry, I’d been a burden my whole life. Unwanted. Unneeded. I never wanted to feel that way again. Ever. If Delaney wasn’t interested, my balls might be blue for the entire tour, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to force anything on her.

  We pulled up to the restaurant, our entrance captured dozens of times over by clicking cameras. I knew it was important that my picture appear in as many tabloids as possible before kicking off another Nothing but Trouble tour, but sometimes it was a grind.

  After we were seated by the same fawning hostess who managed to slip me her number at each visit, Delaney leaned across the table, offering me a tantalizing peek at her breasts. I still wasn’t quite used to the red, and the overall effect was more disconcerting than I wanted to admit. “So, am I allowed to drink on the job?” she whispered, her conspiratorial tone taking a small swipe at my temper.

  Exhaling, I pushed a breath heavy with irritation from my lungs. The whole night didn’t have to be ruined because of one comment. Meeting Delaney’s guileless eyes, I forced a smile onto my face. “As long as I don’t have to carry you out of here,” I said, my pulse tripping over itself as I watched her teeth sink into the puffy sweetness of her lower lip, nibbling anxiously. On second thought, carrying Delaney in my arms, holding her close, didn’t sound like a bad idea.

  A grin tugged at the corners of Delaney’s mouth and her lip slipped through her teeth, even pinker and puffier than before. “That wasn’t my plan,” she said, head tilting to the side, dark hair pooling at her shoulder. “Has that happened before, with other, umm…?”

  I glanced around as her voice trailed off, spotting several people paying far too much attention to us. “Let’s not talk about anyone else tonight, Delaney. Just us.” My voice was a low rumble, almost indecipherable from the steady hum of the busy restaurant.

  Sufficiently admonished, Delaney nodded. “Sorry.”

  I waved her apology away. “No worries.” I’d been through awkward first dates too many times, with too many women. Real relationships, fake relationships—they both came with their share of ups and downs. But the one thing they had in common was that they always ended. For all my so-called fame and fortune, I had yet to find a woman who wanted to stay.

  The waitress returned, and we placed our respective drink and dinner orders. Wine and kale salad with grilled salmon for Delaney, beer and a burger for me.

  We made small talk until the food came. “Tell me about yourself,” I finally prodded.

  After spearing a piece of kale slathered in dressing and pecorino cheese, Delaney put it in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. When she was done, she put her fork down and licked at her lips, blotting them with a napkin. “What do you want to know?”

  “Hi. Sorry to bother you, but could we get a picture with you?” Two tweens were standing at the edge of the table, hopeful looks on their faces.

  “Sure.” I wrestled into a bright smile as the girl handed her phone to Delaney, practically vibrating with excitement.

  “Oh my God, thank you so much. You’re my favorite,” she squealed, not a single breath between words.

  Delaney took our picture and handed back the phone, staring at me with a mixture of awe and pity as the two kids scurried back to their parents. “That must get old.”

  You have no idea. In today’s market, album sales were few and far between. Now it was downloads, Facebook likes, Instagram followers, and Twitter retweets. Unless you were a Kardashian and spent every day trying to “break the Internet,” being a famewhore didn’t necessarily translate into dollars. I built my fan base the old-fashioned way, with good music, frequent albums, and near constant touring. And treating every single fan as if they alone were personally responsible for my successful career. Throw in a few suggestive smiles and risqué comments—Shane Hawthorne was every girl’s fantasy come to life. And guys wanted to be Shane Hawthorne too much to hate him, so they downloaded my songs and bought tickets to my concerts, too. Something for everyone.

  “Just part of the game. And, getting back to our conversation, I want to know everything.”

  A confused look crossed Delaney’s face before her memory kicked in. “Oh. Well, you already know the outline, right? Isn’t that what Travis did, pry into my background to see if I would be suitable, then use it against me—” She stopped at my sharp look.

  I took a sip of my beer. I wanted to enjoy our first full evening together. “Travis isn’t here tonight. It’s just you and me. And I’d really like to get to know you, Delaney.”

  “That’s not how it seemed the other night. All you wanted was to get in my pants.”

  A lewd smirk took over my face as I recalled the way those body-hugging pants had shown every curve of her delectable ass. “Not gonna lie. I still do. But the rest of you is pretty appealing, too.”

  She stared at me for a moment, as if she was trying to read me. “What if you don’t like what you find?”

  “Try me,” I prodded. I could feel myself growing hard again under the table. There was something about Delaney that drew me in. Something that felt familiar in a way that was almost eerie, but good, too.

  Delaney leaned back in her chair and hoisted one shoulder up in a half-hearted shrug, a pause settling between us as she weighed how much she was willing to share with me. “I grew up in a small town, was raised by a typical suburban soccer mom and a dad who worked on Wall Street. He wasn’t home much, but when he was, my mother had a hot meal and a cold martini waiting. Very Stepford.”

  I quirked a brow at the difference in our upbringing. “Sounds like the set of Father Knows Best.”

  She groaned. “That could have been our family’s motto.”

  “I take it you didn’t agree?”

  “No. Things were great. No complaints.” Her smile faltered. “Do you know that poem from The Outsiders. Nothing gold—”

  “Can stay,” I finished.

  “Exactly.” Her eyes were glassy when they broke away from mine to fidget with the silverware.

  I had read The Outsiders in junior high, and those eight lines from Robert Frost stayed with me. Mostly because they were so true. Gold would eventually tarnish. Every bubble would burst, or at least deflate. Perfection, if it existed at all, was only fleeting. “I loved that book, and the movie, too.”

  “Ditto.” Delaney lifted her glass to her lips, and I thought I saw the glass shaking.

  “So, what happened? With your parents, I mean.” I was genuinely interested in her backstory.

  Delaney’s shoulders tensed. “Travis didn’t tell you all the grisly details?”

  I shook my head. “Only a brief sketch.”

  Delaney met my gaze, her blue eyes as dark and deep as the ocean on a windswept, rainy day. “I was a junior in college, home for winter break. I went out to dinner with my parents. By the end of the night, my dad was in jail and my mom was in the morgue.”

  “Car accident?” I managed to choke out over the buzzing in my ears.

  Delaney nodded, reaching for her wineglass again. Grief rolled
off her in waves—an emotion I was all too familiar with. I wanted to comfort her. But I didn’t know how.

  Her admission felt like a kick in the gut. Could this be a coincidence, too? “I’m sorry.” Travis had mentioned Delaney’s father was in jail, but I hadn’t asked why. I’d wanted to hear the details from Delaney herself. Now I wished I had let him tell me. I hated surprises, and this was a big one.

  “Yeah, me too.” She twirled her fork, looking at her salad as if she wasn’t sure how it had gotten there. “So, not to change the subject or anything—” she flashed a smile that told me she was doing exactly that “—did you always want to be a musician when you grew up?”

  I sucked in a breath and nodded, eager to talk about something else. Anything else. Well, almost anything. “Yes, always. How about you?”

  “All I ever wanted to be was a finance geek, just like my father. That’s what I’ve earmarked my paycheck for. I’d like to go back to school, finish what I started.”

  “But in the meantime, you’re about to become the newest member of the Nothing but Trouble tour.”

  “Yes.” She took the last sip of her wine. “Quite the career shift.”

  I took in Delaney’s trembling hand, her heavy swallow. I was a means to an end for her. “Don’t worry. I promise it’s only temporary. You’ll have your life back before you know it.”

  Delaney

  Temporary. Fleeting. Here today, gone tomorrow. Why should Shane be any different?

  Although his promise was almost laughable. The life I’d once known was gone forever. Locked up. Buried.

  There was so much more to my story. So much I couldn’t say that I was shaking. Talking about that night was never easy, and sticking to my script was getting tougher.

  He can’t know. He won’t understand. No one will.

  Not even someone who had stuck his neck out to prevent a drunk driving accident.

  I’d tried to save someone once. It hadn’t ended well.

  Luckily, we were interrupted by another fan. Fans, actually. This time a group of four women, probably in their thirties, squealing over Shane more loudly than the tweens earlier. I took their picture, grateful for the interruption so I could pull myself together.

  Eventually, they wobbled off in too-high heels, no doubt to update their Facebook status and profile pictures. Shane turned back to me, unfazed. “So, what kind of men do you usually date, Delaney?”

  I looked down at my half-empty plate, then at the crowded restaurant. It seemed like too many heads were turned our way, although I’d never been out with anyone worth being stared at before. It was going to take some getting used to. “Are you asking me lots of questions so I won’t be able to ask you any?”

  Shane laughed. “Maybe.”

  “Well, I haven’t dated any guys like you.”

  “Do you mean famous, or is there something unusually aggravating about me?”

  “Both.” A light laugh escaped my mouth, the tension in my shoulders easing. Staying mad at Shane wasn’t easy. “By your standards, they’ve all been pretty tame.”

  “Any of them last long?”

  I shook my head. “No, not really.”

  He cocked his head to the side, studying me as if I were the next course. “You’re very different from Piper. You were friends in school?”

  Our plates were cleared, another glass of wine set in front of me. Shane was still nursing his one beer. I took a small sip, then placed it back on the table. “Friends, no. Piper ran with a different crowd. I’ve known her forever—we even went to the same nursery school—but we’ve never been friends.”

  Shane nodded, looking unsurprised. “I’ve only met her a few times.”

  “She’s growing on me now, I guess. But to be honest, I’ve spoken more to Piper in the past week than all the years we’ve known each other. She didn’t want me at Travis’s party, either. He pushed her to bring me.”

  A slight smirk lifted his lips. “And you couldn’t wait to leave.”

  The sapphire at my neck sat heavily on my clavicle, despite weighing next to nothing. I stared at him, curiosity getting the better of me. “There had to be fifty women there…Why did you talk to me?”

  “Why did I talk to you?” His voice dropped an octave, and he leaned forward, resting his thick forearms on the table and pinning me beneath his stare.

  I crossed my arms in front of me, straightening my spine even though all I wanted to do was crawl beneath the table. “Yes. Was it some kind of setup?”

  “Travis isn’t my pimp.” Shane’s jaw clenched as he bit out the words, his eyes twin pools of molten fire.

  I longed for his light, teasing tone, but I couldn’t keep from digging into the strange twist my life had taken. The answers I needed were bottled up inside Shane’s seductive, rock-star swagger. I pushed again. “Okay. So…Why did you talk to me, then?”

  Shane

  My eyes skidded over Delaney, taking in her flushed face and now naked lips, their gloss left behind on her wineglass. I continued my downward trajectory, sweeping over every inch she’d poured into the red dress still scratching at my corneas. “I don’t know what kind of guys you’ve been with before—but I’m with you right now because I think you’re fucking gorgeous. I look at your face and all I see is your perfect mouth, practically begging for me to kiss you.”

  Finishing the last of my beer, I set the glass on the table. “That night, I could barely tear my eyes away from your ass, like half the guys there. And as for the rest of you, no one needs to tell me that you were made for my touch, Delaney.”

  I kept my comments focused on Delaney’s physical attributes because everything else—especially this strange connection we seemed to share—made me feel like I was unraveling from the deepest part of me. It was too big, too unruly, to cage in with mere words. But whatever it was, it had kept me from walking away.

  My heart thudding, I tried to stem the tide of words leaking from my mouth, but they wouldn’t stop. “I don’t want you because Travis told me I should. I want you because…Goddamn it, I’d have to be dead not to.” I cast impatient eyes for the waitress. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Even though my shallow explanation barely went halfway toward answering Delaney’s question, it appeared to satisfy her. She placed her balled-up napkin on her plate and waited for me to handle the bill.

  Minutes later, our short walk to the car was lit by an explosion of blinding, flashing lights from the horde of paparazzi clustered outside. I opened the door for Delaney and waited for her to slide in before rounding the hood to my side, giving a casual smile and a brief wave then slamming my own door shut. Once the car was quietly purring, I shifted into gear and streaked down the road, heading for home with smooth precision.

  Delaney’s bare leg was an invitation I couldn’t resist. Taking my hand off the gearshift, I rested my palm on the top of her thigh, running my fingertips along her silken skin. Knowing her face would be more of a distraction than was safe, I kept my eyes trained on the road, but my ears caught the quickening of her breath, the tapping of her nails on the armrests as she latched on to them, squeezing tightly.

  It was delicious torture to keep from exploring farther beneath Delaney’s dress, sliding beyond whatever thin barrier stood between my touch and her heat. I wanted to stroke her inner folds, sliding deeper with each pass, her desire coating my fingertips. I wanted to hear Delaney’s throaty moans over the purring of the car’s engine, feel her squirm in her seat, thighs inching apart to allow me better access.

  I wanted a lot of things.

  Hell, I wanted to know why I wanted her so badly.

  The photographers had apparently gotten their quota of Shane Hawthorne shots for the night, and we slipped inside the iron gate, unaccompanied by the glare of flashing lights. I cut the engine and turned to face Delaney. “Got you back, safe and sound.”

  “Thanks for a lovely evening,” she said softly.

  I traced the hem of her dress, my fingertips slipp
ing just beneath the edge. So fucking soft. “Do you want it to end?”

  Delaney lifted her gaze to mine, the sapphire at her throat glinting, its color the same mysterious shade of blue as her eyes. She took her time answering, every second that passed scraping at a part of my soul she’d somehow exposed. “No.”

  Thank Fucking God.

  I lifted my arm, threading my fingers into the hair at the base of her scalp, pulling her toward me. “Good answer.” My mouth closed over hers just in time to capture her trembling sigh, tasting more than Delaney’s natural sweetness and the tart remnants of wine.

  If anyone could understand the crushing power a fatal accident had on the survivors, it was me. And yet innocence flavored Delaney’s mouth, as if the harshness of the world we inhabited hadn’t permeated her skin, like it had done to mine so many years ago. As I nibbled on her lower lip, enticing her tongue to tangle with mine, I hoped it never would. I’d been surrounded by sycophants and stalkers, jaded industry professionals and reporters pandering sleaze for so long, I’d forgotten what it was like to be around someone without feeling their ulterior motives weighing on me like a lead vest.

  You’ll ruin her.

  The thought floated into my mind, as slippery and undeniable as Delaney’s tongue in my mouth. I tried to bat it away, threading my fingers into her hair, groaning at the way she eased into my embrace and opened to my kiss.

  You’ll ruin her.

  Why did she have to be different? What was it about Delaney that made me think she could fill the cracks in my soul, that maybe I could fill the ones in hers? She was a little bit broken too, I could tell. But her chips and cracks were drawing me in. So damn beautiful.

  You’ll ruin her.

  Until now, Delaney had clung to the terms of the contract. If I did this, would she ever believe I hadn’t hired her for sex? That I had made her my whore?