Lead Me On

by Lexxie Couper

  He scrolled through all of them, his chest tight.

  The night had been everything he wanted it to be—a normal, everyday bloke taking a woman he had a thing for out on a date.

  He hadn’t thought twice about the ramifications of paying off the tour group to facilitate such an event. In all honesty, all he’d wanted was to live in the moment with Lily without interruption.

  He knew she was uncomfortable with Brutal trailing him everywhere, so what better way for her to feel more relaxed than to remove the bodyguard from the picture?

  Remove the bodyguard and the reason for the bodyguard’s existence.

  Of course, Brutal needed to be close by, even if Lily didn’t know that. Not for Samuel. Samuel really didn’t give a toss about himself, but he was worried about Lily. He remembered all too easily what had happened to Nick’s girlfriend, Lauren—now Nick’s wife—a lifetime ago at a concert when the fans’ rabid frenzy had turned on her.

  She’d almost been killed in the crush of jealousy.

  Samuel didn’t think anything like that would happen to Lily—he wasn’t, after all, as big an object of obsessive lust as Nick Blackthorne—but he didn’t want to take the risk. Better to create a safe environment for her than run the chance some crazy fan deciding to remove any obstacle Lily might present to their plans of getting close to him.

  He’d slept with enough crazy groupies to know what fame could do to an unstable person—even a tenuous link to fame such as being in public with a celebrity could be enough to turn a fan into an unhinged, dangerous fanatic. More than once Samuel had needed Brutal to remove a woman from his bed who refused to go.

  More than once he’d needed his bodyguard to stop a catfight between two women who thought they had exclusive groupie rights on him.

  Being famous wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, but few who craved to bask in its lurid light knew that.

  Perhaps you should have told Lily all this at the beginning of the night? The risks, the reasons for your deception?

  He studied the last image on his phone, a shot of Lily he’d taken without her knowing. Her attention was held by their tour guide as he regaled the group with tales of Al Capone’s ghost playing the banjo in the shower block.

  Samuel’s chest tightened again, along with his stomach and something even deeper within his body.

  His soul?

  He traced the outline of her profile with his gaze, pulling a slow breath.

  Why did he like her so much?

  Why did he care so much she didn’t call him back?

  What did he do?

  He’d been a bloody rock star for so long now, getting whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it, he really didn’t have a fucking clue what he should do next.

  If, in fact, he should do anything?

  Of course you should, dickhead.

  He flicked a glance at his phone’s clock.

  3:42 am.

  Damn it, he needed to talk to someone, but who could he call at three forty-two in the morning?

  Who the fuck knew where Jax was? Probably banging some pneumatic groupie or flight attendant or FBI agent back in New York—the keyboardist had checked that little item off his bucket list two years ago thanks to a crazy stalker who caused Jax so much trouble he was put into federal protection for a few weeks.

  Noah was probably sound asleep with Pepper in LA, and as much as Samuel wanted to ask his best friend how to deal with the situation he’d found himself in, he didn’t want to wake either of them. He wasn’t a self-centred arsehole, even if Lily thought he was.

  Which left Levi or Nick.

  What time was it in Australia? He had no fucking clue. Levi was the freak who knew what time it was anywhere in the world at any given moment, and Samuel had no real idea where his friend was right now. And as for Nick…it had been a long time since Samuel had poured out his grief to the man who had once been the biggest rock star in the world. The last time had been about his parents and their refusal to speak to him again. That had been over twenty years ago and both Samuel and Nick had been half-sloshed on Chivas Regal. What would Nick do if Samuel cold-called him and asked him how to make a woman like him?

  He returned his glare to the ceiling and let out a groan.

  This wasn’t getting him anywhere.

  With a growl, he threw himself from the armchair and prowled the suite.

  There was nothing he could do. Not at three—he checked the time on his phone again—not at three fifty-five am.

  Stripping off his clothes, he stormed into the opulent bathroom and flicked on the shower.

  He’d wash the tension from his body, clean the bay’s salt water from his skin and then do some yoga. He had a yoga app on his phone. He’d actually open the damn thing and see if it could help him centre his mind.

  Once he’d done that, he’d sleep. Then eat breakfast and call Lily again. Surely she’d let him explain after twelve hours or so?

  The trouble with his plan, he discovered, was his body wouldn’t centre on anything but Lily.

  The fifteen minutes he spent under the cold water was a wicked torture. Every time he soaped up his balls all he could think about was the way the curve of her sex had pressed to his groin back on the boat, how they aligned so perfectly. Every time the water flowed over his nipples he remembered the hesitant feel of her fingers exploring their hard tips through his shirt.

  An overwhelming urge to take his cock in his hand and beat off the tension in his body surged through him. He planted his right hand to the tiled wall and hung his head under the shower spray, his left hand fisted at his side.

  His balls ached. His dick grew stiffer.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. He had no issues with jerking off. He was a fucking bloke after all. He’d been masturbating since he discovered what his dick could do. But for reasons he couldn’t fathom, the idea of drawing pleasure from his body to the thoughts of Lily when her hate for him was so great somehow seemed…sordid.

  A dry snort vibrated low in his throat. “Which means you’re either not having an orgasm any time soon, or you’re going to have to make her change her mind quick smart.”

  He lifted his face into the icy water and stood that way, motionless, for a heartbeat. Another.

  And then he scrambled like a flailing orangutan for a towel when his mobile phone burst into life on the toilet seat lid.

  “Fuck.” His wet heel slid on the floor. His arms pin-wheeled. “Fuck!”

  He snared the closest towel, dried his hand, tossed the towel and then snatched up his phone.

  Just as it fell silent.

  “Fuck!” He stared at the missed call notice, Lily’s number burning at his retina.

  A second passed. He stood motionless, waiting for the tone and alert that indicated she’d left him a message.

  It didn’t come.

  Not unless she was leaving a long one.

  Maybe she is?

  Five minutes passed and nothing.

  Nothing but a pool of cold water at Samuel’s feet, a chill seeping into his tense muscles and an ache in his chest.

  No message notice.

  No SMS.

  He bit back another curse. Should he call her back?

  Staring at his silent phone gave him no answer.

  He stormed out of the bathroom, uncaring of the damp footprints he left in the suite’s lush carpet in his wake. His body thrummed. His head throbbed. He ground his teeth and bunched his fist.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, his stare jumping about the luxury around him.

  What did he do? What the hell did he do?

  His gaze fell on the hotel-supplied notepad he’d cast aside before leaving to collect Lily for dinner. On it, scribbled in his none-too-neat handwriting, were words to a song.

  Her song.

  A wave of potent heat washed over him. Along with the rhythm he’d been humming on the yacht before he’d kissed her.

  Before his world changed.

  He crossed to the desk a
nd dropped into the seat in front of it. His damp arse and balls pressed to the cool leather. For a split second, the surreal notion he was sitting on a hotel chair buck naked, his junk mashed to a surface sat on by countless other people, passed through his mind.

  But only for a split second.

  Long enough to make him snort.

  And then the rhythm claimed him, haunted, sad and hopeful at once.

  A rhythm wrung out with complicated guitar riffs and the tortured backbeats of a fully loaded drum kit.

  She turns from me and my heart aches.

  She moves beyond and my soul weeps.

  She smiles and life is born anew. And hope becomes fate and fate becomes her.

  She holds the end and the new and the whole.

  I crave her touch and fear it so.

  For I am hers, unwanted, enslaved. And hope becomes fate and fate becomes her.

  The world will burn and the heart will tear.

  I seek her smile and she seeks my end.

  Life is born and dies and the world will turn. And hope becomes fate and fate becomes her.

  The words flowed from him. His butt grew numb. He wrote line after line, scratching out lines, underlining others.

  Occasionally, he stopped, closed his eyes and listened to Noah pound out an explosive fill, to Jax layering notes through the complicated beat. Occasionally, he sang the words before they finished forming in his head.

  His hand cramped.

  But he didn’t stop. Not even when his cock throbbed, fully engorged and demanding attention. It was only responding to his soul’s need for Lily, a need Samuel was pouring into the lyrics.

  A hope.

  It wasn’t until the white light of the breaking sun stabbed Samuel in the eyes that he realized he’d written the hours away. He squinted into the sunrise, his heartbeat fast, his fingers screaming at him.

  Pain lanced at his knuckles. Dropping his gaze to the notepad on the desk, he read the last line he’d scrawled:

  Hate unmends the hope of the lost. The hope of fate will fade. But she holds the end and the new and the whole.

  And I’ll face my fate.

  For…

  He stared at that last unfinished line, his chest heavy, his throat tight.

  And knew exactly what he had to do.

  Finally.

  Dropping the pen onto the desk, he flexed his fingers, wincing a little at the popping crack in each knuckle, and then reached for his mobile phone.

  He scrolled through the list of numbers he’d recently dialed, found the one he was after and hit the call button.

  “Hopeton Rehabilitation Centre.”

  Samuel drew a slow breath. “Hi, this is Samuel Gibson, I know it’s early, but I’m hoping I can come and visit Eugene Pearce. Please?”

  Turning her cell phone off was, Lily admitted to herself, childish. And cowardly. And infantile.

  Nevertheless, it was off and it was going to stay off. The rehab centre knew her landline, as did her boss. At this point in time, she didn’t want to talk to anyone else.

  Especially that lying son of a bitch rock star.

  Which was exactly who she’d almost talked to in the wee hours of the morning, four hours ago.

  A tight lump rolled over in Lily’s chest. She let out a choppy breath. How could she have been so weak?

  Thank God Samuel hadn’t answered the call or she would have made a fool of herself. She would have apologized for her histrionic, told him she understood why he’d done what he had and asked him to come over.

  Not because she wanted to have sex with him, but because she realized she’d behaved like a loony. Because she missed him not being with her and wanted to see his smile. Hear his voice.

  Because she liked him.

  But he hadn’t answered his phone, and commonsense had reclaimed Lily. Cold, hard commonsense.

  She’d glared at her cell, her heart thumping fast in her ears. Of course he wouldn’t answer his phone. Just because she’d rejected him didn’t mean he was pacing his hotel room aching for her. Hell no. He’d probably laughed at her dramatics as her cab sped off. Probably snapped his fingers at his bodyguard and had three or four vacuous bimbos draped all over him in a second. Brutal probably collected them up from the marina just in case Samuel’s plan to seduce Lily didn’t work.

  He was probably too busy having sex with a groupie or four to answer Lily’s call.

  Pfft, “Lily’s Song”? Who was he freaking kidding? She was too smart to fall for BS like that. He probably told every woman he wanted to sleep with he was writing a song about them.

  She’d turned her phone off there and then, stormed into the shower, stood under the cold water for a good thirty minutes and then gone to bed. To stare at the dark ceiling, her stomach churning, her chest aching until the sun streamed through her bedroom window three and a half hours later.

  Now, she stood in her kitchen, bleary-eyed and cranky, the mug of coffee in her hand no longer hot, her belly still a knot of tension.

  Damn him.

  Damn him, damn him, damn him.

  She strode to the sink, poured her tepid coffee down the drain and then deposited the mug on the strainer. This wouldn’t do. She was letting a guy get to her. She didn’t do that.

  She would shower—again, a warmer one this time—and then get on with the day. She may have taken the week off work to babysit a self-absorbed rock star, but it was now Friday. Friday in San Francisco was awesome. She’d swing by Starbucks, grab a latte and then go see Eugene, maybe take him one of those blueberry muffins he liked so much.

  She’d visit with her twin for an hour, tell him how big a jerk Samuel Gibson was, threaten him with sibling divorce if he even thought about telling her she was being stupid, inform him he was moving in with her until she was convinced he wasn’t going to fall off the wagon again, and then spend the rest of the day roaming Golden Gate Park. She’d intended to take Samuel there today. She’d go without him and enjoy every minute of not being with him.

  Just to spite him.

  A dry snort tore at the back of her throat. Oh yeah, you’re being very rational and grown up about this all, aren’t you?

  Lily released another sigh. Oh God, the son of a bitch had really gotten under her skin.

  Thirty minutes later—hair washed, coffee bought, muffins bagged and a dogged sense of determination to forget all about Samuel Gibson firmly in place—she waved down the first taxi she saw and climbed inside. “Hopeton Rehab Centre, please.” She gave the driver the address and then settled back in her seat.

  Yes, this was achieving something.

  Who knew what she’d be doing right now if Samuel had actually answered his phone when she’d called him. Probably hating herself for succumbing to his deceptive charm. With the way she’d been lost to the pleasure of his kiss on the boat, she’d probably have ended up doing something really stupid like sleep with him.

  Lily’s sex throbbed. A thoroughly vivid image of Samuel—naked and gorgeous—crawling over the foot of her bed and up along her body flashed through her head.

  Her breasts grew heavy, round. Her nipples puckered into straining tips, reminding her with tormenting clarity how wonderful his lips and tongue had felt wrapped around them.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and willed the memory away, even as she pressed her thighs together. Her clit ached. Her breath left her in shallow pants.

  Goddamn him. Goddamn him, if she ever saw him again she would—

  “We’re here, miss.”

  Lily snapped open her eyes, startled. Oh God, she’d gotten all flustered in a cab? Maybe she would let Eugene call her stupid.

  “That’ll be thirty-two fifty, miss.”

  Drawing in a slow, steady breath, she reached over the seat, handed the driver two twenties and then climbed out of the taxi. “Thank you.”

  He smirked, his gaze flicking over her in the mirror. “You’re more than welcome, miss.”

  Lily dropped her stare to her chest, and let
out a groan at the sight. Damn it, her nipples were straining against the white cotton of her T-shirt. She may as well draw red circles around them with lipstick and scrawl I’m horny above them.

  Another reason to despise Samuel Gibson. He was making her body misbehave in the most embarrassing ways.

  After muttering some sort of nonsensical response to the cab driver, she flung herself from the backseat, slammed the door and stormed up to the main entrance of the Hopeton Rehab Centre. She’d just pushed open the door, when she remembered the lattes and blueberry muffins in their brown paper bag were still sitting on the backseat of the taxi now driving away from her.

  She huffed a breath into her bangs, hitched her handbag farther up her shoulder and swung the entry door wide.

  The normal friendly greeting from the receptionist Lily received whenever she visited Eugene didn’t come.

  Lily frowned, surprised to find the counter empty.

  Where was Jillian?

  Lily had spoken to the receptionist earlier, to make sure Eugene was taking visitors, and had been informed it was okay. She would have been surprised if the answer had been no, given he was meant to be released tomorrow.

  The thought sent a hot lick of disgruntlement through Lily. She still wasn’t convinced her twin brother was ready to be released, but his treating doctor assured her Eugene was good to go.

  Gripping the strap of her bag tighter, she walked to the door leading beyond the foyer and pressed a tentative hand to its cool steel surface.

  Should she go looking for someone?

  “Hello?” she called, pushing the door a fraction open. “Jillian? It’s Lily Pearce. I’m here to see Eugene.”

  Silence answered her.

  Or maybe not.

  Lily frowned, opening the door a little more. What had she heard? Something faint…

  From down the corridor, behind the closed door of the communal visitor’s room, came…what?

  Stepping through the door completely, Lily pricked her ears.

  And bit back a soft moan at what she’d heard.

  Music.

  Specifically, a guitar.