“You answered the question well,” she says, and I hear the creaking of bed springs. “And the thing about Sydney, you did great on that, too.” I grin and conjure up an image of Dax's face, all scrunched up and frowning. The skin around his nose crinkles when he's irritated. I find it … cute. Yes, that horrible C-word. I mull Turner's advice around in my head. It's ludicrous that I'm even considering it, but then again, it doesn't take a hurricane to topple a house of cards. I don't need much coercion to act on my desires. How hard is it to give into your wants? The answer is, not that fucking hard at all.
“I laughed at her, Blair,” Dax says, and I hear fingers moving across a keyboard. “At Miley, the supposed quadruple threat: sing, dance, act, market.”
“Market?” Blair asks him as I consider my entrance. I'm not a hundred percent sure what I'm doing here or what I'm trying to get out of this, but my mind can't get past Dax blowing the sweat from his lips while his arm muscles contracted and expanded, a glossy sea of sweat and power. Christ.
“That's what it says on LMTV's website,” Dax groans. “Marketing is just as important as talent, and Miley knows how to get the word out. My God, what a nightmare. I could tell she hated me from moment one.”
“She didn't hate you,” Blair says, but she sounds unconvinced. I'm inclined to agree with Dax though. The Miley girl had a face like a chimpanzee and a nasally voice that's still lodged in the deepest recesses of my brain – and not in a good way.
“She asked me why everyday was Halloween,” Dax says, and I laugh. Oops. I take a deep breath, pretend I'm heading onstage and put on my best disinterested face. It's supposed to make me look untouchable. I'm going to need that if I walk in here just a second after being discovered eavesdropping. I push open the door and saunter in, letting it close behind me and leaning my butt against the wood.
“Sorry. I didn't mean to butt in, but the door was cracked and I was passing by in the hallway … ” I shrug nonchalantly. White lies are okay sometimes, aren't they? Especially when they make you look like less of an asshole. Blair is giving me a woman once-over, but that's okay. I let her do it, whatever makes her feel comfortable with me. Apparently, my plan backfires because she squinches up her mouth like she's intimidated and glances away. I'm not trying to project, just saying. I don't always win in their eyes; the bitch nurse definitely thought she was hotter than me.
Dax wets his lips, but I can tell he doesn't know what to say. Not that it matters. He doesn't need to talk, not with his damp hair curling softly over his gray eyes. He's got on a white tank that's also damp from his freshly washed skin, making it just this side of see-through. And I have a big thing for guys in sweatpants. He's got black ones on now, hanging low on his hips. I clench my thighs tight and try to maintain a normal expression. I'm not even supposed to be making friends with the guy and here I am, about to ask a really stupid question.
“Would you like some company?” I say, moving over and sitting next to Blair. She doesn't like that, giving me a look like I'm encroaching on her territory. I smile at her and she gets a confused expression on her face. Nobody ever expects anyone else to be nice, so if you really want to throw them off their game or even just disarm a dangerous situation, try it. It works fabulously.
“Company?” Dax asks, taking a step back towards the bathroom. His face is clear and clean, not a speck of makeup to be seen. I study his freshly shaven chin, the way the skin on his neck gets tight when he looks at me. Unconsciously, I cross and uncross my legs, feeling the fabric of the denim catch and tease me with the slightest hint of friction.
“For your trip to Tulsa,” I add, fully aware what my previous statement might have implied. God, I'm such a bitch. I didn't come here trying to give Dax blue balls, but I kind of just, I don't know, like him. For example, when I went into the bathroom and he apologized for his erection? Who does that? And how many men can spring a freaking woody in record time? “The drive. Would you like some company?”
“I was going to go,” Blair says, moistening her ridiculously red lips. I love the shade of 'stick. I'm gonna have to ask her for the brand. “But if you want to, you're welcome to my seat.” She might not feel warmly towards me yet, but I can tell Blair is watching Dax for his reaction. I figure she knows him, and I don't, so I let her read his expression. Apparently, it's a good one. Blair stands up and adjusts the black and white polka dot dress she's got on. I like her style. Are all the women on this tour fucking fly as shit? I want to make friends. I grin at her.
“Not super pumped for a hometown tour?” I ask, looking back at Dax. He's leaning against the edge of the table now, staring at me with a neutral expression. I don't know why everyone keeps calling him girly. Dax is a man if I've ever seen one. He's tall, ripped, and his voice is a dark delicacy. I like the way he talks, like he's thinking twice about everything he says before he says it, even if it comes out the wrong way sometimes. There's this edge of nerd there, like maybe he once holed himself in a room and OD'd on video games. I think it makes him even more appealing. There's nothing I like better than a butterfly that's finally come out of its cocoon.
“Not particularly,” Blair says, following my eyes to her friend's face. “My family doesn't live there anymore. I was just going for Dax's sake, but I'm sure he'd prefer your company to mine.”
“Blair,” he says with a small warning in his voice, but he doesn't look angry, just contemplative.
“What? All I'm saying is that when it was just me in here, you didn't have that.” Blair bats her fake eyelashes and points at his crotch. Dax groans while she spins on her heel and leaves with a small wave. The door falls back into place with a heavy sigh as Dax turns around and puts his hands on his hips. I don't know that he knows it, but his reflection in the windows is mirror quality. I can see all the little – and not so little – details. A smile quirks the edges of my lips.
“I can't even fucking believe this,” he grumbles, casting a glance over his shoulder. “And I'm sorry. This doesn't usually happen to me.”
“I bet that it does,” I say, hooking my ankles together. “At least once a morning your entire adult life.” Dax snorts and then shakes his head, but I notice he doesn't turn back around. “Hey, it's alright. Like I said, used to it.”
“I still feel like a dick.”
“Nah. I mean, we know you have one though. That's always a good thing,” I joke, running my hands along the sheets. The covers are partially pulled back, exposing the perfectly pressed white linens, tempting me into doing things that shouldn't even be considered until well after dark. I check out the window, just to make sure we're cool. Black as pitch. “That should've been your answer to the interviewer's questions. Just a big, grinning picture of Mr. Happy.”
“I didn't want to be accused of plagiarism. I'm pretty sure Turner's already done that.”
I laugh.
“Yes, well.” The room goes silent, tension stretching between us. My pussy's already calculating the distance between his happy and my smile, cooking up an equation to figure out how close I have to get before the magnetic pull will cause Dax and I to become entangled. I scoot a few inches away. “I wouldn't worry about the hard-on, baby. It's only a dig deal because you can't see how wet I'm getting over here.”
“Fuck. Me,” Dax snarls, spinning around but staying right where he is. Maybe he's already figured out the magical equation? Maybe we're already in it? I keep my eyes downcast, focusing on the carpeting beneath my heels instead of on his face, his rockin' body, his dick. “Why do you keep saying things like that? I thought we already agreed to … leave this alone.”
“And we did, and I'm sorry. I have a huge, fucking mouth sometimes. I just meant that it's okay for you to be attracted to me. I'm attracted to you, too, even if you can't see it.”
“And that's supposed to help me be … less horny?” Dax asks. More awkward silence. I'm sort of blowing this whole meeting, aren't I? I unhook my ankles and stand, turning towards him with a hand on my hip and my heart in my
throat. I'm twenty-nine years old, and I feel like I know my way around the dating scene, around sex, around life in general. I've been through a lot, more than most of the girls I knew at the club even. So why is this Dax thing so hard for me to wrap my head around? Not only is this the strongest physical attraction I've ever had for a guy, this is also the first time I've ever consciously rebelled against it. It doesn't even make any sense.
“So can I?” I ask him, taking another step closer. Dax backs up again, the heels of his feet brushing against the tiled floor in the bathroom.
“Can you what?” he asks me, voice low and strained, like he's exerting physical effort simply to stay standing still. It makes me even more determined not to mess with him. If I move forward, I do it with clear intentions.
“Come with you. To Tulsa.” Dax licks his lips and I move again, stepping into this aura of sexual energy that surrounds him like a storm. The lightning licks my skin and the cool rain falls enticingly, coating my body in wetness. It's not just between my thighs anymore. “I want to ride with you, talk, maybe unravel a little more of this Stephen mystery.” Another step. Now I'm within touching distance of him. If Dax raised his hands, and I raised mine, we could melt fingertips. I wait until I think he's at least considered it, and move again.
“What are you doing?” he asks, voice getting a little more panicky. He's afraid I'm going to touch him. Well, he's right: I am. I slide that last few inches into his sphere, picking up Dax's energy like an antennae, channeling it through my body and letting it prick my arms and legs with goose bumps, raising the hair on the back of my neck. The toes of my red heels bump his bare feet and my fingers hover around his face. He swallows and lifts his own hands up, reaching forward, tentatively, touching my sides so softly I can hardly feel the pressure. But what he lacks in self-confidence with his touch, he makes up for with his kiss.
Dax bends down and I rise up. For a second there, our lips hover, but it's an almost painful sensation, holding back like that. I move the extra quarter inch up, rocking forward on my toes and pressing my lips against his with a groan. It feels so damn good to just give into the pressure that's curling my spine. I came here with innocent intentions, I swear. But animals will be animals, right? And today I'm a growling beast, nibbling his lower lip, running my fingers through his damp hair. My breasts squish against his flat chest as he struggles to figure out what he wants to do with me. The pressure around my waist remains frustratingly light, his fingers just barely grazing the white cotton fabric of my shirt. Now that we've kissed again, it's easy to see why we ended up behind that curtain, this fucking close to a rut.
Dax pushes his tongue into my mouth, swirls his strange hot-cold sensation through me, making me shiver at the same time I'm sweating. He doesn't crash his teeth into mine, doesn't bite at me, even though I swear to God, I feel like I'm gnawing on him. His lips are soft, not girly soft, just nice. I hate when I kiss a guy and he has rough lips. Put on some fucking lip balm for fuck's sake. They make it in Alpha Gorilla flavor, too. It doesn't just come in cherry and vanilla.
The whole time we're kissing, Dax holds his breath. He doesn't pant on me, blow hot air into my face or down my throat. His chest remains completely still and his mouth seals mine, airtight. I let him pull all the oxygen from my lungs until I feel dizzy, like I can't balance on my toes anymore. So what does he do when I start to stumble? His fingers finally find their grip, taking the pressure off my toes, and then he dips me. Full on dips me. Like swings me down and kisses me horizontal, his mouth working at mine while my eyelashes flutter a bit. His arms are around me, supporting me completely, my hair hanging down towards the floor, a silken curtain that tickles my neck as it sways with the motion.
And then up I go again, and he's setting me on my feet with a gasp, letting go and stepping back a full foot from me. The places where his fingers were tingle painfully and my thighs clench involuntarily, wishing they had something, or rather someone, to grab onto.
“You can come to Tulsa,” is all he says as he turns around, steps into the bathroom, and shuts the door.
“This isn't a vacation,” Brayden says to me, guiding me down a dark hallway and through an empty kitchen. We're heading towards the exit the restaurant staff use during business hours. Right now, Brayden says, a half dozen delivery trucks have pulled up to start unloading. We're going to use them to get away from the hotel as safely as possible. Short of sending me in an armored car, stealth is the next best thing. I'm not sure what to think of this man. Obviously, he's skilled. I can tell he's good at his job, but what sorts of resources does he have? What can he really do for us in the long run? And where the fuck did he come from? “This is a mission. You get to your father's house, you unload, you leave. I don't even want you to stay the night there.” Neither do I, so I don't bother to argue. “I'm sending three men with you; it's all I can spare. We're a little short-handed around here.”
Brayden moves over to the door, touches a hand to his earpiece and smiles.
“And lucky for you, there a couple other people on this tour that Stephen seems to personally have it out for, and you're not one of them. Naomi Knox and Turner Campbell aren't leaving my sight until this is over.”
I pause, fully aware that Sydney's just a few steps behind me. Her presence is making it hard to concentrate. I should be thinking about the drive, my dad, my posthumously present mother. But instead I'm thinking of her lips, and I'm comparing them to fucking Naomi Knox. I've been doing this all night, sitting at the table in my room while Sydney slept in my bed. She was lying there when I came out of the bathroom, curled on her side like there was nowhere else she'd have rather been. I almost came in my fucking pants. Seriously. And you chose not to touch yourself last night, why? I hate to admit, but I kind of like the sexual tension between us. It's so intense, it's almost painful. And if it's going to break, I want it to break during the actual act, not with my fucking hand. If there ever is an actual act. I keep trying to figure out what Sydney's intentions were last night, but I still don't know. And I still can't stop comparing her to Naomi, like she was ever really a choice in the first place. Maybe I'm just too stubborn to let Mi go, even though I know I should? And maybe I'm too scared to see Sydney as a real possibility? She's in a transitional period in her life, and I have no clue where she's going. Besides, this tour isn't going to last forever – although it fucking feels like it sometimes. What happens then?
“When will it be over?” I ask Brayden, causing him to actually pause what he's doing to stare at me. “What's the final objective here? Killing Stephen?”
“I'm afraid it's a bit more complicated than that, but I think that's the thread that will unwind the knit. If we get rid of Stephen, everything else falls apart.”
“But it's not an endgame move?” I ask him, suddenly desperate to just be finished with this. I think it's my anxiety about … her. My secret. I still haven't decided exactly how it is that I'm going to get over to see her, but I have to try. Brayden sighs and touches his earpiece again, turning to face me with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
“Stephen is a complicated man from a complicated family, Mr. McCann. Where you or I might let certain things go, they have a tendency to hold grudges that … evolve over time.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Sydney asks from behind me. But I don't look at her, not yet. If I want to be able to focus on anything besides her lips, it's best if I just don't see them.
“It means that this isn't just Stephen's problem anymore.” I lean against the wall while we wait for our clearance and puzzle through the facts. I wonder if the others are hiding more secrets from me, like Naomi was. What else is there that I'm not seeing? “This is a Hammergren problem.”
“Uh huh.” I don't sound particularly friendly when I respond. “And that means what?”
“It means,” Brayden begins, and I imagine that whatever it is he's going to say, I'm not going to like. “That Spin Fast Music Group no longer belongs to Stephen, w
hich means it no longer belongs to the family.”
“And so how is that our problem?” I ask him. See, that's where I really get caught up in all of this. Now, don't get me wrong, I think Stephen is absolutely fucking bat shit insane, but I see how that rage got focused on America. Even Indecency. I mean, it's a stretch, but if Stephen blames Travis for America leaving him, then why not take revenge on the thing that meant most to him? But why are we involved? America isn't even our friend, just our manager. We could fire her tomorrow and there'd be no connection. Hell, I would fire her tomorrow if I thought it would make any difference. She might sue the crap out of us, but at least we wouldn't be getting corpses delivered to our hotel on a regular basis.
“Dax, America is the one that got him … I won't say fired because that's not the right word, but forcibly removed from the position of CEO. Granted, he still has a seat on the board, but the company his grandfather started is no longer under the Hammergren's direct control.” Brayden laughs, but it's not a funny sort of a laugh. It's an I can't fucking believe what I'm saying right now sort of a laugh. That scares me. That really, really fucking freaks me out. “Forty-nine percent of a multi-billion dollar company just isn't enough when your head is lost in the feckin' clouds.”
“How the … how the fuck?” I ask because, I mean shit, why? Why? That uptight bitch, I think in my head, squeezing my hands so tight, my leather gloves creak. “How did she even manage that?” Brayden sighs and shakes his head, reaching out for the handle of the door.
“You'd be surprised at what that woman is capable of,” he says respectfully. “Long story short, they lost the company. They blame America. They blame you. And when the Hammergrens decide your time is up, you clock out. I'm sorry, Dax. I almost wish they had a personal vendetta against you. But they don't. They probably don't even know your name. Somebody down here is feeding information up there. For now, they're lookin' to make America suffer. Eventually, they'll get tired of that and decide it's time for the fun to be over with. This isn't the scary part; that's the scary part. And it doesn't matter if you're here or there, they will find you. I'm sorry Dax, but with the Hammergrens, it's blood in, blood fuckin' out.”
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