“So, reading between the lines of that statement… We’re not hooking up in some heated moment in the middle of the night?”
Unfortunately.
“That would be inadvisable. And… improper,” I told her, feeling awkward and damn stiff as I searched for the right words. It wasn’t the first time a client had come on to me. But it was definitely the first time I’d liked it. “And by the way, we’re late for your meeting with Roni.”
Jude’s girlfriend, Roni, was a local event promoter; she’d booked Summer a show next month, and they were meeting up for happy hour, like ten minutes ago.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure Roni will understand,” she said, “when she gets a look at you.”
I completely ignored that. Or tried to.
Summer started the car and turned up the music, and finally, we pulled away from the curb.
As it turned out, Roni did understand.
“Jude told me he’d put a guy on you,” she told Summer as soon as they’d sat down at a table in the restaurant. I’d taken a seat at the nearby bar, where I could clearly hear them. “I’m impressed. He looks like he could choke someone out while he fucks you up against the wall.”
I almost choked on my water.
“Doesn’t he, though,” Summer said, and I could feel them both checking me out.
Clearly, the fact that I’d advised my client that it would be improper for us to cross professional boundaries… had fallen on deaf ears.
But mercifully, they got talking about business.
Happy hour turned into dinner, and since Summer had been drinking, she actually let me drive her car home afterward. She was in a great mood and didn’t even complain when I plucked the car keys from her hand in the parking lot.
The great mood didn’t last long, though.
We hadn’t even left her house to head to the Ruby nightclub for her gig when we got into a debate—over who was driving us there.
I’d told her we’d take my car.
She had a problem with that. Of course.
She was standing in the middle of her living room in one of her many silk robes, stage makeup on and hair slicked back in a tight bun, and she put her hands on her hips.
“Are you planning to drink at the club tonight?” I asked her.
“I don’t have to drink at the club,” she said vaguely. Because apparently she’d rather insist on driving and just not drink tonight than let me drive her.
It was a constant power struggle with this woman.
Plus, there was leftover tension from today. At least, there was for me… even though I’d fucked my hand in her guest bathroom about five seconds after we got home, just so I could survive this night.
Just her standing there, defying me like that, in her little robe, was making my balls throb again.
“This is a high-profile event,” I reminded her. “You’ve been on the bill for a while now. We want to keep a low profile going into the venue, and we don’t want your car visible anywhere outside. My advice is we take my car, and once we’re there, Andre and I will be as visible and as close to you as possible. We want the fact that you now have personal security to be evident.”
“Andre’s coming?”
“This is your first event since the attempted break-in. Brody and I agreed that it would be best to have an extra set of eyes on things tonight.” I didn’t say, In case Blair Sanchuk shows up.
But for sure, that’s what Brody and I were prepared for.
At that point, she said, “I’m calling Brody.”
She took her phone upstairs, and returned forty minutes later.
“We’ll take your damn car,” she announced, as she strode over to the front door, where I was waiting for her.
She didn’t offer another word of argument, just pulled one of her many faux-fur coats from the closet. This one was a pale, silvery-gray. The silver pantsuit she was wearing had skintight pants and a low-cut bodice with silver sequins all over it—and push-up cups that seemed to barely contain her nipples—with a little cropped silver jacket overtop. She caught me checking her out as she slipped the coat on and picked up her purse, and I looked away, opening the front door for her.
We headed out to my car and I opened the passenger door for her.
She slid in with a muttered, “Thanks.”
Then she spent the entire drive to the nightclub downtown talking on her phone, flirting with friends who were coming to the show tonight.
At the venue, Andre met us at a door to backstage, where I ushered Summer inside. Then Andre headed out to park my car for me.
Summer’s roadie-slash-tech guy, Sledge, also met us backstage. The man was a mess of hair; he had long brown hair, an unkempt beard, hairy arms. He was like a grungy teddy bear with a permasmile. I introduced myself to him and Summer gave him an exuberant hug.
He told her she was all set up. He’d brought a few cases with her personal things and left them in the dressing room for her. One was a standing wardrobe case filled with accessories and shoes; the other two smaller cases were filled with cosmetics and beauty tools. More wardrobe stuff. Apparently, Sledge stored it for her with her DJ equipment, in-between gigs.
Summer closed herself into the dressing room and Sledge headed out to the bar for a drink. And when Andre got back, I left him guarding the dressing room door so I could introduce myself to the shift manager, who I’d already spoken with on the phone, and meet his head bouncer.
I took a good look around the entire venue. I was familiar with the club, but I scoped out the exits, the security cams, the bouncers’ positions. The clearest paths to each exit from the stage.
Then I headed backstage to wait for Summer, and sent Andre out into the club to keep an eye on things and make sure Sanchuk didn’t appear. I’d given printouts of his photo to the manager and the bouncers. The manager had taped them up at the front desk, the coat check, and the two bars, where only the staff could see them. The staff had been prepped that there was an impending restraining order against the man in the photo and he wasn’t allowed in the venue. They’d been instructed to notify the head bouncer or the manager immediately upon seeing him, and to call 911.
Sure, I’d heard what Piper—and Jude—had said. But if Blair Sanchuk showed up at one of Summer’s events, and the bar staff happened to call the police… so be it.
When Summer emerged from the dressing room, her faux-fur coat was gone. She was still wearing the silver pantsuit, though she’d added platform heels that boosted the top of her head up closer to my eye level, and she’d put on a long, expensive looking turquoise wig. The hair was stick straight and silky, with blunt bangs, and she’d put on more makeup. She had giant black feather eyelashes on.
She looked fucking gorgeous. Radiant and dangerous at the same time. Like some femme fatale from a film noir… set in space.
“Wow,” I muttered.
So sue me, it slipped out.
“You like?” she asked, a sultry sparkle in her eye.
“You look great,” I said, as neutrally as I could.
“Like grandma’s sweater again, huh?”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Like that.”
She grinned.
I walked her out to the club, which was up the hallway and through a door that was guarded by a bouncer. It opened into the VIP area, which was down to one side of the stage. From there, a half-flight of steps led up to the stage.
The house DJ was playing, drawing people onto the dance floor as the nightclub filled up. It was probably close to capacity already. We were approaching ten-thirty and Summer would be playing soon.
She greeted a bunch of people in the VIP area, seeming totally calm about her impending performance. She’d told me she liked to arrive a bit early for most shows, to absorb the vibe of the club and the crowd before she went on.
If she was worried about Sanchuk showing up, she didn’t show it.
She was very cool about everything, smiling at everyone and taking her time doing her rounds.
I watched her accept the cocktail the manager brought for her and sipped, chatting with him, while other people hovered, hoping to talk to her.
I recognized her friends Wendy and Jewel. Elle Delacroix was here with Flynn. I said hello and talked to him for a bit, casually, while I kept an eye on Summer.
Andre was hanging out at the other end of the stage, halfway up the big staircase that led to the upper level, where there were more tables, the second bar, and people lined the railing, watching the club floor below.
I’d stay at this end while Summer played, on the steps up to the stage, so I’d have a good vantage point of her and the stage, the VIP area, the crowd, and a direct line of sight to Andre.
By the time the house DJ introduced her, Summer had already slipped up onto the back corner of the stage to watch him and the crowd.
I stood next to her.
When she finally took over, the crowd exploded with noise and excitement. Bodies pushed in around the stage. The volume on the music went way up as Summer dropped some insanely heavy beat. The music was loud, thumping, grinding… and definitely heavier than I’d expected.
The crowd was all over it.
As Summer played, I surveyed the room. Watching for any early signs of trouble. A disruption in the flow of bodies around the dance floor, any sign of tension or a fight breaking out, or the club going over capacity.
I didn’t see anything of concern.
I kept an eye on the bouncers, too. They kept to their positions, sometimes swapping stations, and doing rounds. The security in the club seemed on the ball, well-trained and attentive.
They weren’t always that good.
I scoped out the guests in the VIP area. And the people pressing in around the stage while Summer played her set. There were a lot of them, and they were vastly men.
Call me a fucking idiot, but I hadn’t expected that.
I knew DJ Summer’s thing was dance music, but I really didn’t know much about dance music and this particular scene. I hadn’t had much experience with it, personally, until now. My guys worked live music events all the time, but I hadn’t worked event security myself in many years, and I’d never had a DJ as a client.
I’d pretty much assumed there would be more women than men at these events, and that the men who came would mainly be here to scope out the women on the dance floor, like a spectator sport.
Not so.
The closer to Summer people got, the more the ratio of men-to-women increased. There were almost as many men as women on the dance floor, the VIP area was probably seventy-five-percent men, and the people on and around the stage were almost entirely men.
There was Sledge, of course. And the DJ who’d be playing after Summer’s set, who showed up early, lingering by her deck and talking her ear off every chance he got. The manager, who hovered for half her show. Bouncers. Random staff poking around.
And fucking fanboys.
I definitely didn’t expect so damn many of those.
Didn’t much like them, either.
It was incredibly obvious which ones they were. They hung on every note Summer played, but they also watched her play. At a glance, I would’ve dismissed a hell of a lot of them as gay.
But now… I was rethinking that.
I’d heard every word Summer and Roni had said over dinner, and they’d definitely said some stuff that led me to believe Devoid wasn’t gay.
I still wasn’t sure, until I asked Summer about it afterward.
Well, he’s definitely invited me to have sex with him, and his girlfriend, several times, was her response. So, draw your own conclusion.
I wasn’t sure what conclusion to draw. But the fact that he’d invited Summer to fuck him was throwing me for a major loop.
I was still trying to come to grips with the fact that her friend Jewel wasn’t gay. I’d assumed he was, but then he’d spent the entire night at her house party giving out massages to every woman in the room. Apparently, he was a massage therapist, but he definitely didn’t offer me a free rubdown. And right now, he was making out with Summer’s friend Wendy in the VIP section.
Clearly, I had shit judgment on this topic. And as I looked around at the crowd… I wondered how many of these guys might actually want to fuck my client.
All of them, I decided.
The men. The women. They all wanted to fuck her.
Because up on that stage, in her silver pantsuit, Summer Sorensen was electric, and her music was nothing short of erotic.
She was a force to be reckoned with.
She was an orgasm waiting to happen.
After her show was done, the fanboys and fangirls followed her offstage, too. Long after she’d come off and the other DJ had taken over, her friends and fans continued to engulf her in the VIP area, trying to get her attention.
When she headed back to her dressing room, they crammed in there, too, drinking with her.
Offering her cocaine.
I fucking saw that, and I watched as she declined—hugging the guy, like she was softening the blow of rejecting the drugs he’d offered by pressing her tits against his chest. He looked too young for her, but he was definitely pretty, and he had an entourage of his own. When he left a while later, I heard someone say he was an actor.
By then, some other guy had already glued himself to Summer’s side.
Obviously, I totally fucking disapproved of this.
Though not particularly for security reasons.
Summer was safe. Both Andre and I were in the room, and everyone was just partying, having fun. Summer herself had approved of every person who was allowed backstage, and I was keeping a close eye on things.
Very close.
It felt to me like no one could keep their eyes off my client, including me. I kept wondering how many of these guys would fuck her in the bathroom, right now, if she said the word.
I knew I would. If I could.
By now, it was uncomfortably clear to me and my dick that I wanted her. But I knew I couldn’t have her. Simply put, it was not in her best interest for me to have her.
I wasn’t here to fuck around with her.
I was here to work.
So I just stood back and watched. I watched all the other men in the room, who thought they could have her.
Around one a.m., she finally looked over at me and gave me a head flick, like, Come over here.
I went over to her, not bothering to be subtle about it, just kinda plowing the fanboys out of the way.
“Do you think you could clear the room?” she asked me. She looked slightly exhausted, but that sparkle that’d been in her eyes all night was still there. She was sipping bubbly from a champagne glass someone had given her. “I need a moment to freshen up.”
“No problem.”
I nodded to Andre and he helped me escort everyone out. He herded them back out to the VIP area, while I stood guard outside the dressing room.
A few minutes later, Summer emerged, champagne in hand and purse under her arm.
No faux-fur coat, though, so I was assuming, for her, the party wasn’t over yet.
She was still wearing the silver pantsuit, but she’d taken off her wig. “It was giving me a headache,” she said, noticing as I watched her smooth back her dark hair. It was still in the bun. “My things are packed up. Sledge will haul them out for me with everything else. We can lock up, and the staff will let him in later.”
I made a mental note to have Andre help Sledge with that, so we didn’t have another theft.
I locked the door, and as I escorted her up the hall, back to the club, she asked me, “So, what did you think of your first DJ Summer show?”
“It was hot,” I admitted.
She grinned. “Why, thank you, Ronan.”
I glanced at her. “Honestly, it was a lot more… intense… than I expected.”
She stopped dead. “How so?”
I stopped with her. “I don’t know. I guess I pictured something a little more happy-pop-music. Co
llege girls dancing, while chachi guys pounded beers and watched them dance?”
“I guess you were wrong,” she said.
“Yeah. You’re kind of a powerhouse, DJ Summer.”
“Yes, I am,” she said.
Fuck, I liked her confidence. Her sass.
Her everything.
“And how was the security level for you?” she teased. “Did anyone breech the zone of safety?”
“Nope.”
“Good.” She smiled.
I’d had enough teasing from her this afternoon, at her fitting, and yet I ate it up. Hungrily.
I didn’t even want her to go back out into the bar, just stand right here with me in the hall, alone, and give me the gears.
But she turned to head out there.
“You have a lot of interesting friends,” I said.
She stopped again. “Interesting… how?”
“What’s that line from the Eagles song… about all the pretty boys, the ones she calls friends?”
“He knows the lyrics to ‘Hotel California,’” she mused. “Fascinating.”
“Is it?”
“It says something about you. I’m not sure what, yet.”
“Let me know when you figure it out,” I said.
She studied me. “Do the pretty boys bother you, Ronan?”
“Why would they bother me?”
She looked me over. Up and down, slowly. “You seem bothered.”
“I’m not bothered.”
Fuck. I sounded like a jealous teenager.
“Then why bring it up?” she said cooly.
“Just letting you know, I heard you fielding a lot of offers. For afterparties.”
Her pale-blue eyes narrowed at me a little. I noticed she’d removed the feather eyelashes.
I also noticed I was getting waaay too in-her-face.
“Did you.”
“And you should also know,” I informed her, “I’m taking you home. Soon.”
Why was I fucking looming over her?
And when did my voice get so unnecessarily growly?
She tipped her head, giving me a look that said, And who the fuck are you to get growly with me?
“And what if I’m not going home?”
“I go where you go,” I reminded her. “And if you think I’m sitting outside in my car while you bang some guy in his apartment, you’re dead wrong.”
Sweet Temptation: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 3) Page 20