He took heart in the fact that, like yesterday, he kept catching her glancing at him.
For whatever reason, she’d decided he was the devil, but she seemed to be having difficulty keeping her eyes off him.
Now all he had to do was figure out how to break through the ice wall she’d built around herself.
He’d spent last night thinking about her. All of last night. When he should have been thinking about Eugene meshing with the band, he’d been thinking about her. He’d checked into the Hilton, listened to the sexy blonde receptionist offer to assist him in anything he needed or wanted, told Brutal to take the night off and then laid around his suite, staring at the ceiling as his mind turned the puzzle of Lily Pearce over and over and over.
Somewhere around three am he’d given up trying to deny the tight heat in his groin and, with savage pumps on his engorged dick, he’d attempted to exorcise her from his head with his hand.
It hadn’t worked. When he’d collected her from her home in Haight-Ashbury, his cock had instantly sprung to attention in his leather trousers, staying that way for the entire drive to Pier 39 despite the fact she was as frosty as she’d been the day before.
If he didn’t know better, he’d think that was the sole reason for his growing preoccupation with her—that she was the first woman he’d met who didn’t seem entranced with him from the get-go.
He did, after all, have an enormous ego. Narcissistic was a word used often to describe him by journalists and reporters around the world. Egomaniac was another. He could easily let himself believe he wanted Lily to like him purely because she didn’t.
But then he’d remember the protective passion and concern in her voice when she pleaded with her brother to quit the life of a rock musician and his cock would throb all over again. Along with his heart.
Yeah, there was something more to Lily than just distaste for him that pressed his buttons. He was going to make it his business over the next several days to find out what that was.
And to make her laugh.
Really laugh.
Taking another bite from his burrito, he jerked his head at Brutal, then tossed the breakfast item into the bin and followed after Lily.
He wasn’t one to be dissuaded easily. If he was, he would have quit being a musician the day his father had told him it was med school and a roof over his head or out on his arse.
“So…” He strode over to where Lily stood, admiring a coffee mug with a tiara and the words Lefty Princess printed on it. “Are you left-handed?”
She slid him a sideways glance and didn’t say anything.
He picked up a black mug emblazoned with the words I May Be Left-Handed But I’m Always Right and turned it over in his hand. There was a little hole on one side up near the rim and he frowned at it.
“If I buy that for you, will you drink from it?”
He raised his eyebrows at Lily’s unexpected question and cast her a puzzled look. “You’d buy me a present?”
Her answering smile was…sharkish.
A sharp noise behind Samuel made him turn and he let out a sigh. Brutal was blocking someone’s entry into the store, his bulging biceps flexed as he stretched his arms wide across the opening. The person trying to enter was scowling at him, a grey-haired gentleman who looked to be at least eighty-five in the shade.
“Brutal,” Samuel said, doing his best to keep the frustration out of his voice. “I don’t think he’s much of a threat, do you?”
Brutal’s sunglass-covered stare regarded Samuel for a while before he stepped aside. The elderly man let him know exactly what he thought of the situation by kicking him in the shins and then, with a murderous scowl, shuffled into the store.
Beside Samuel, Lily chortled.
He tossed her a quick grin. “The fans are hard to deal with.”
“Oh, I can see that.”
For a second, their gazes met—just a second—but it was enough to send the all-too-eager blood previously occupying Samuel’s cock back there.
He cleared his throat, wishing to hell he hadn’t worn leather trousers.
He’d dressed in his normal Samuel Gibson rock-legend attire that morning, mainly because that’s all he’d packed—black leather trousers, black leather vests, black T-shirts, black biker boots. On his head sat his favourite hat—a beat-up black leather cowboy hat Nick had bought him during their first concert in Texas. He hadn’t planned on spending time with a woman who seemed to despise the very notion of rock. If he had, maybe he would have packed cargo pants.
Truth be told, he found them far more comfortable. But brooding, narcissistic, arrogant Samuel Gibson was never seen in public wearing anything but black leather.
But you’re not that Gibson, are you?
Watching Lily move through the store, he found himself wondering—for the first time in his life—why he’d created that persona for himself in the first place. To piss off his parents?
The band knew that wasn’t really him, but that was it.
So why did he not like the idea of presenting Lily with that carefully honed, long-maintained pretense? Surely not just so he might get in her pants?
Really? Is that what you want to do?
Joining her on the other side of the store, he shoved his hands in his back pockets. “Can I ask a question?”
She didn’t look at him.
“If you could have anything in this store, anything, what would it be?”
She put down the letter opener she was holding, turned to face him and crossed her arms. “I Googled you last night.”
Samuel blinked.
A dry snort escaped her. “I knew nothing about you before then. Shocking, I know, and I apologize for bruising your ego, but if you’re about to make my brother a part of your world I needed to find some stuff out.”
Samuel frowned. Why did he feel nervous? “And?”
“And I discovered all sorts of things. Like how many times you’ve been arrested, like how many times you and your fellow musicians have trashed a hotel room—a bit clichéd if you ask me, but I’m not a rock legend. I found out how many women you’ve supposedly slept with, and—my particular favourite—how naked you were when you first met the Queen of England.”
Samuel’s list of debauched sins lashed at him despite the calm tone of her voice. It wasn’t complete. In the earlier days of his success with the band he’d been wild. They’d all been. Wild and foolish and conceited and self-centred.
But that was a long time ago. More than a decade.
He studied Lily, his pulse pounding. “Her Majesty really did seem to appreciate the tattoo I have of the Australian flag on my arse,” he said, refusing to let her stare go. “But in my defense, I was egged on by Sir Addison Lancaster, the British wildlife cinematographer. He had the audacity to suggest Australian men weren’t as well hung as British, and I had to prove him wrong. It was a matter of national pride and duty. The Queen just happened to be there at the time.”
She didn’t say anything. Not a word. But her lips twitched. A little.
Or had he imagined it?
He picked up the letter opener she’d only just held and traced his fingers up and down its length. “If you’re interested in who won,” he said on a melodramatic whisper, “I did my country proud.”
Bam. Her gaze dropped to his groin.
Samuel couldn’t help but grin. He returned the letter opener to the shelf and took a few steps backward, as if he just so happened to be wandering away. Casually. With his arms held out wide.
Not at all interested in where her gaze was lingering.
And it was lingering. On his groin.
For a second longer. And then she was spinning on her heel and striding towards the door.
Crap. She was leaving.
Flicking his stare around the store, he spied the perfect thing he needed.
“Brutal.” He snapped his fingers and jerked his head at his bodyguard.
The mountain of fluorescent-yellow-clad muscle hur
ried over to him. “Yeah, boss?”
“Buy that.” He pointed at an acoustic guitar sitting on a shelf halfway up the wall behind the counter.
He didn’t wait for his bodyguard’s response. He jogged after Lily and slipped his fingers around her biceps as she was about to descend the wooden stairs outside the store leading down to the ground floor of Pier 39. “I’m sorry,” he said, tugging her to a halt. “I just wanted to hear you laugh.”
A quiet tension fell over her. He thought he heard her pull a deep breath before—expression neutral—she turned to face him. “You’re here to listen to my brother sing, not me laugh.”
He loosened his grip on her arm, but didn’t pull his hand away completely. Her flesh was too warm, too smooth. “True,” he said, his throat tight. “But…”
She cocked an eyebrow at his unfinished sentence, her green eyes holding his with direct challenge. “Why would you want to hear me laugh, Mr. Gibson? Explain that to me.”
He stared at her, his heart fast. And, just as he had yesterday, Samuel was positive he saw something else in her gaze—not just hate, but something…passionate.
A connection.
“Because it is the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard,” he stated. And then he lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers.
Lily jerked away.
She damn near tripped on the stair rung doing so.
Gibson straightened, his blue gaze locking on her face.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked, stumbling back a step. Which put her two rungs down from where he stood. Which meant she had to glare up at him. Damn it, she should have stumbled forward instead. Upwards. So she was above him.
Shoulda kissed him, that’s what you should have—
He studied her, confusion twisting at his eyebrows. His nostrils flared and then he let out a ragged chuckle. “Sorry.”
She swallowed and balled her fists. Not because she wanted to punch him—she hadn’t punched anyone since the time Eugene’s best friend and Zombie Grill’s bass player, Derrel, had tried to cop a feel one night when she’d collected an inebriated Eugene from rehearsal. Derrel had ended up with five stitches in his lip and had never tried to touch her again, even if he did undress her with his eyes every time she was in the same room with him.
No, her fists were balled now to stop herself smoothing her palms up Samuel’s wide chest as she pressed herself against his tall frame and slipped her tongue past his lips.
Which was what her body wanted to do, no matter how much she loathed what he stood for.
“Boy, did you read that wrong,” she muttered, fighting the desire as she pivoted on her heel and hurried down the steps.
Her heels sounded like sharp raps on the wood, a vicious tattoo of retreat.
She ground her teeth. She wasn’t retreating. She was—
“I’m sorry,” Samuel apologized again, close behind.
She shot him a look over her shoulder, dismayed at the way her gaze found his lips straight away. In the brief moment of time they’d caressed hers, her heart had slammed into her throat, her nipples had pinched into tingling points and her pussy had squeezed, tight heat throbbing through her.
“Don’t do that again,” she said, increasing her pace.
He didn’t say anything.
She wanted him to say, “Okay, I won’t.” It would make her feel better if he said that.
No, you don’t.
Hurrying through the crowd, she scowled at the people around her. It didn’t help more than one whispered Samuel’s name. It helped less she saw smart phones raised and cameras flashing as he followed.
“Where are we going?”
She didn’t answer him.
Honestly, she didn’t know. She just had to…walk. Fast.
He trailed her. Occasionally she heard him say hello to someone, the greeting usually accompanied by a female squeal of delight or excitement.
Lily couldn’t stop rolling her eyes every time it happened. God, how shallow were these women? Squeeing and embarrassing themselves over some aging guitar player? So what if he looked as sexy as sin in all his black leather and sounded even sexier when he—
She increased her speed, trying to outrun the exasperating train of thought. Argh. What was wrong with her?
Climbing another set of stairs on the other side of the pier, she scanned the immediate vicinity for something, anything to do that would give her a break from being in his company. Maybe there was a boat tour of the bay she could stick him on? A tour of Alcatraz, perhaps? Maybe he would get stuck in a cell there and never come back?
Her pulse beat faster in her throat and she drove her nails into her palms.
“So?” The deep voice with its Australian accent murmured in her ear, laughter clear in the single-word question. “Where are we going?”
His heat reached out for her. She could feel it stroking at her arms and thighs. She cursed the uncharacteristically warm autumn day that had tricked her into wearing shorts. She should have known better.
“What are we doing next?”
Lily’s gaze fell on a brightly colored entry under a just as brightly colored sign, Marvelous Infinite Mirror Maze.
Perfect.
He could get lost in there and she could slip away—if only for fifteen minutes. It was all she needed. Just long enough to remind herself he was the temptation she didn’t need.
No, that was wrong. The temptation her brother didn’t need. Her brother. Not her. She wasn’t tempted by him at all.
“That,” she snapped a heartbeat before storming towards the glass window that looked like the mirror maze’s ticket booth.
When she got there however, she wanted to scream.
A small cardboard clock with plastic hands tucked at the bottom of the window indicated the attraction wasn’t open for another twenty minutes.
She glared at the offensive timepiece.
“You’re Samuel Gibson.”
The startled gasp directly in front of her made her jerk her head up. A man stood on the other side of the glass, his mouth open as he stared at the space beside her.
“I am.” Samuel’s warm, hard thigh nudged her hip as he leant an elbow on the ticket booth counter and smiled at the gaping man. “G’day. We were hoping to have a go, but you’re closed.”
The man—who appeared to be in his forties, going by his slightly receding hairline and lived-in wrinkles—shook his head. Frantically. “I’m happy to let you and your girl in, Mr. Gibson. I’m the manager, I can do that.”
Lily held up her hand, hot horror licking through her. “I’m not his—”
“We’d love to go in,” Samuel cut her off, his smile growing wider for the man behind the counter. “If it’s not too much hassle.”
“I’m a massive Nick Blackthorne fan,” the man went on, staring with awestruck admiration at Samuel. “Went to every performance he ever did here, and I gotta say, you are the best guitar player I’ve ever heard.”
Samuel chuckled. “You should hear me play the kazoo.”
“Wow.” The manager of the mirror maze looked awed.
Lily wanted to roll her eyes. Instead, she cast Samuel a sideways glance. “I’ll think you’ll have lots of fun here.”
He didn’t miss her attempt.
“We will.” He grinned at her. “Won’t we?”
“You will,” the manager agreed, nodding at Lily. “I’ll keep everyone out for thirty minutes. Just so you can both really enjoy it without any interruptions.”
Hot tension flooded Lily’s belly, and lower. Damn it, why did her sex react to that idea?
“Perfect,” Samuel murmured beside her. “Thank you…?”
“Flemmings,” the man damn near gushed out his name. Lily could see reverent idolization for the rock star on his face. “Martin Flemmings, Mr. Gibson.”
“Thank you, Martin,” Samuel said. “Lily and I appreciate it.”
Lily gave the quivering, smiling man a small nod. “
We do.”
Samuel chuckled again. He knew exactly what she thought of the situation and was antagonizing her.
Martin Flemmings beamed some more and then, with a jiggle of keys, the main entry to the attraction slid open.
“I like this idea.” Samuel’s low voice tickled the side of Lily’s neck. “It’s fun.”
She twisted her head, ready to tell him to stick his idea of fun in his ear. She froze when her stare connected with his.
His face was so close, his eyes so brilliantly blue and direct. The smile on his lips was boyish, genuine, the faintest hint of a dimple creasing his right cheek. His heat seeped into her, his hard leather-clad body pressed to her side.
At some point during his conversation with the maze’s manager, he’d slid his arm around her and now rested his hand on the counter on the other side of her hip. How had she not noticed that? How could she not notice that? He’d trapped her with his body and she hadn’t noticed. What was going on with her?
She stared into his eyes, her pulse pounding. He slowly moved, the hand on the counter moving to her hip, her lower back.
She caught her breath, parting her lips.
Goddamn it, he was gorgeous.
Why did he have to be so—
Loud music shattered the quiet around them. Lily jerked, her heart punching hard and fast in her throat. She took a hurried step away from Samuel, turning to the open mirror maze entry and the smiling Martin Flemmings standing before it.
“Here you go,” Flemmings said, holding out something made from white material. “It’s to keep the mirrors free of fingerprints and smudges.”
Samuel walked past Lily and took the offered item. Gloves. White cotton gloves. “Makes sense. Thanks, mate.”
He pivoted on his heel to face her and held out her pair of gloves. “Come and get them, Lily.”
She crossed her arms. “Would you rather have Brutal in there with you? For when you get lost?”
He shook his head. “I’ve got an amazing sense of direction. I know exactly where I’m heading at all times.”
Lily cocked an eyebrow. “Oh really?”
“Really. Make you a deal, if I get lost in there and can’t get us out, you don’t have to spend the rest of the week with me.” He began walking backward towards the mirror maze entry—now a kaleidoscope of flashing color lights and reflections—his arms wide. “How’s that sound?”
Lead Me On Page 4