Lead Me On

by Lexxie Couper

  No, that was wrong. Two guitars. And a voice.

  A male voice.

  No, two male voices.

  Singing…

  Lily swallowed. Her blood roared in her ears. Her pulse pounded there as well, loud and thumping. But not so loud as to drown out the faint music coming from the visitor’s room.

  Two men were playing guitars and singing Nick Blackthorne’s “Shattered”, the one Nick Blackthorne song Lily could listen to over and over and over again.

  Two men with incredible voices.

  One of them her brother, the other Samuel Gibson.

  A prickling wave of heat razed over her. She licked her lips, her mouth dry.

  The singing faded, replaced by abrupt clapping. A lot of clapping.

  Well, guess that clears up where everyone is.

  Letting out a wobbly sigh, Lily began walking for the closed visitor’s room door.

  She stopped when a guitar started again. Just one guitar, plucking out a rhythm she remembered all too well.

  “Oh crap,” she whispered, a heartbeat before Samuel Gibson’s voice joined the guitar.

  “I know what I’m meant to be,” he sang, the words muffled behind the door but still so clear Lily could hear every nuance. “I know how I’m meant to live. But fate plays with you and life plays with fate and she plays with me until my heart breaks.

  “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.”

  Lily’s lips tingled. Her belly knotted. She stared at the closed door, listening to the song Samuel had been humming last night on the charter yacht, listening to the words she hadn’t heard before.

  Hearing them in her soul.

  “Lily’s Song”.

  It continued, each verse a testament to the singer’s confusion and longing for that beyond him. The words grew haunted, tormented. The rhythm grew fierce. And underneath it all was hope.

  It finished on two words, words Lily didn’t think she wanted to hear fall from Samuel’s lips. “For her.”

  Those in the visitor’s room erupted into applause. Lily heard more than one excited whistle. A strange male voice with a distinct Australian accent told Samuel he’d “done all right”. When Eugene’s voice rose above the noise, telling Samuel he was a freaking genius, Lily’s throat squeezed shut.

  She pressed her face to her palms. The joy in her brother’s voice and the honest enthusiasm in the unknown audience’s reaction to the song sent shards of poignant tension through her.

  “It’s still a work in progress,” Samuel said from the other side of the door, a chuckle in his voice. “But if Levi says I’m doing all right, I guess I’ll keep going on it. Levistan is a notorious hard-to-please critic.”

  “And you’re a notorious grumpy bastard,” the other Australian male voice uttered, “but you do know how to pen a song, when you’re not being a narcissist.”

  A relaxed wave of laughter came from the room. “Shut the hell up, Levistan. I want to hear what Eugene does with ‘Glass Houses’. You ready, Gene?”

  “Hell yeah,” Eugene answered, a second before music started flowing again. Two guitars, two singers.

  Lily closed the distance to the door and flattened her palm to its cool surface. She opened it a crack, enough to see Eugene perched on a stool, playing an acoustic guitar, his eyes closed, lost to the music.

  Lily stared at him, her heart tight.

  He looked healthy again. Healthy, happy, alive. The sheer joy on his face echoed the euphoric happiness in his voice. The words of the song were conflicted and angry, but Lily had little doubt there wasn’t an ounce of anger in her brother at this point in time. How could there be? He was playing with one of his idols.

  A man Lily wanted desperately to hate.

  But she couldn’t. Not when he made her brother so happy.

  Throat thick, she opened the door farther—just a crack more—and slid her gaze to Samuel.

  Oh God.

  He sat on the edge of a stool beside Eugene, his eyes closed, his head down, his blond hair hanging around his face like a bronzed-gold curtain, the leather cowboy hat he wore constantly perched back on his head. His fingers plucked the strings of a guitar, his heel bouncing up and down in perfect harmony with the song they played.

  As always, his body was covered in black leather, the vest hugging his torso leaving his exquisitely muscular arms exposed to Lily’s gaze.

  She ate him up, devoured him with her stare, unable to deny any longer how much she wanted him.

  Wanted him.

  Liked him.

  More than liked him.

  Maybe even loved—

  Lily’s heart slammed into her throat. She stepped back from the door and let it shut, cutting Samuel from her line of sight.

  The music continued from the other side. Teasing her.

  Taunting her.

  She caught her bottom lip with her teeth and stared hard at the closed door, listening to the man on the other side singing.

  God, was she in love with Samuel Gibson?

  Her pulse thumped faster. Her belly clenched. Her sex contracted.

  No, she couldn’t be. Not after just less than a week.

  It wasn’t possible.

  Why not?

  Because he was a rock star. Because he deceived her. Because…because…

  No other reason came. Not a one.

  But the music did. Through the door, slightly muffled but there all the same. Samuel singing with her brother.

  Closing her eyes, Lily slumped her back to the wall and slowly slid to the floor.

  She’d never heard Eugene sound so haunting, so confident and moving. But then she’d never heard him sing with Samuel before, had she? Did Samuel have that power with everyone? Affect them until they were more than they’d been before?

  Was that the reason she felt the way she did now? As if her world was being torn apart and remade with every word that passed his lips, with every note he sang and played? Was he really some ancient deity who entranced mere mortals with the power of his voice? She’d never reacted so physically to anyone before, let alone someone who existed in the world she’d grown to hate.

  Had Samuel mesmerized her? Was that why she’d fallen in love with him? When he was everything she loathed?

  She sat motionless, her eyes closed, her face in her hands, waiting for an answer. The answer.

  But there was none.

  All that consumed Lily was the sound of Samuel singing with her brother.

  And the sound of her confused, conflicted heart beating in her ears. Fast.

  Chapter Seven

  Samuel glanced over at Lily’s brother who was strumming out the complicated rhythm of “Glass Houses”. The guy could play and holy shit, could he sing. His voice had an ethereal tormented quality that stroked at Samuel’s core. It seemed to have the same effect on their small audience—a group of people comprising ten of Eugene’s rehab inmates, the clinic’s staff and Levi.

  Levi was nodding, a gleam in his eyes Samuel liked to see. It told him Eugene had what they were looking for.

  Now all the guy had to do was sing with them tomorrow to make sure they had chemistry, and it was a done deal.

  The thought pulled at Samuel’s heart. He should be ecstatic. Their search for a replacement for Nick was over. Instead, he was thinking about Lily and how she was going to react.

  She was going to hate him even more.

  An off note scraped at Samuel’s senses, jarring through the beauty of the music.

  He lowered his gaze to his fingers moving over the strings of the borrowed guitar—an old acoustic the rehab centre kept for therapy.

  A wrong note? When was the last time he’d played a wrong note?

  His chest tightened and he raised his head.

  Levi was staring at him, a puzzled frown knitting his eyebrows. The bass player had heard it.


  Beside Samuel, Eugene continued playing “Glass Houses”. Around them, the audience sat enrapt.

  Samuel shook his head, opening himself to the music again.

  It flowed over him, soothing and powerful, and by the time the song finished Samuel could almost forget the off note.

  But not the reason for it.

  Lily’s anger with him.

  “That was incredible. Thank you, dude.”

  Eugene’s elated statement jerked him away from the unsettling thought. He smiled at the grinning man, and then turned it on the clapping people seated around them. He didn’t look at Levi. “Thanks, everyone,” he said, resting his elbows on the guitar. “I gotta say, Gene here can really—”

  He stopped dead.

  Someone—he had no idea who—had opened the visitor’s room door and slipped out, giving him a split-second glance at the hallway beyond.

  And the woman scrambling to her feet out there.

  “Lily?”

  Her name fell from his lips a heartbeat before her head swung in his direction. Their stares clashed. Melded together. And then the door swung shut, with Lily on the other side.

  Samuel threw himself from the stool and ran for the door, passing the guitar to who the hell knew as he went.

  He slammed into the door. Shoved it wide. Tumbled into the hallway. “Lily?”

  Movement to his left swung his head about and he caught a glimpse of her disappearing through the door to the foyer. The closing door to the foyer.

  Shit.

  He bolted, chasing after her.

  His heart punched in his chest like a hammer, not from the exertion, but the need to catch her, talk to her. Tell her he’d fucked up. Tell her he was a douche-bag tosser who shouldn’t have deceived her.

  The foyer door flung open under the force of his momentum. Hot pain lanced up his arms from his palms. He didn’t slow down.

  She was outside now.

  Running.

  He sprinted after her, through the heavy glass foyer door, down the steps of the entryway, onto the sidewalk.

  Bright morning sun fell over him, stinging his eyes after the clinic’s muted lighting. He didn’t pause to put on his sunglasses.

  She was hurrying away. Fast. Only a few feet from the corner. Trying to look as if she were just out walking but doing a shoddy job of it. She was fleeing. Anyone looking at her would be able to see that.

  Fleeing.

  But he wasn’t going to let her go again.

  Not now.

  Not ever.

  He caught her in five long strides and wrapped his fingers around her upper arm to tug her to a halt. To swing her back to face him.

  She stared at him, her breath fast, torment etched on her beautiful face. “Leave me alone, Samuel.” She tried to pull her arm from his grip. “Please.”

  “It was wrong,” he burst out, refusing to do what she asked. “What I did last night, with the tour group. I know that. It was wrong and deceitful and I shouldn’t have done it. I should have told you what was going on, not lie and pretend to be something I wasn’t. I won’t do it again. I promise. I will never lie to you again. I just wanted to—”

  He didn’t finish. Lily’s lips crushing his made it impossible.

  She buried her fingers into his hair, knocking his hat from his head. With a moan, she swiped her tongue into his mouth, fierce and urgent, crushing her breasts against his chest as she pressed her body to his. He had a surreal moment to wonder what the fuck was going on—one minute she was running from him, the next she was kissing him—and then the reality of the situation crashed over him.

  She was kissing him.

  Passionately.

  Exquisite heat surged through him, joy and rapture and hope, and he growled into her mouth, grabbed her arse cheeks and hauled her closer to his body.

  If that was even possible.

  She whimpered again, mating her tongue with his, fisting her hands in his hair.

  He plundered her mouth and rolled his hips, unwilling and incapable of hiding his desire, his need for her.

  He didn’t care they were on a sidewalk in San Francisco. He cared less anyone and their dog could watch them, photograph them.

  Lily Pearce was kissing him.

  Holy snapping duck shit, Lily Pearce was kissing him.

  He roamed his palms over her butt, reveling in her moans the ungentle caress tore from her. He pushed his hips forward, grinding his hard-on—trapped by the leather of his trousers—to her belly. She scraped her nails at his scalp, down the nape of his neck before she ended the kiss and pulled away from his embrace.

  She gazed up at him, her breath shallow and rapid. “I haven’t forgiven you, Samuel,” she rasped. “I haven’t. But you make my brother so happy. I just saw you singing with him…heard…my song…” She scrunched her eyes closed, shook her head and then glared at him. “You’re everything I hate about the rock world and yet everything I love…” She stopped. Chewed her lip. Shook her head again. “Damn you, Gibson, you turn me inside out so much.”

  He sucked in a slow breath, his heart wild. “That’s a good thing, right? Please say it is?”

  For an answer, she claimed his lips with hers again.

  He groaned, capturing her arse once more with his hands, bunching the material of her skirt into two balled fists as he pulled her closer to his body.

  Time ceased to exist. He explored her lips, her mouth, holding her to his body, afraid to let her go. But then did when the sound of slamming car doors and pounding feet stabbed at the pleasure consuming his mind.

  He swung his head to the left, his gut dropping. A man ran towards them, camera in hand, pointing at them.

  Shit. Paparazzi.

  Turning back to Lily, he smoothed his hands up her back. “How did you get here today?”

  She frowned. “Taxi.”

  He tossed a look over his shoulder. “We’ve got company. You can give me shit about being famous later, but for now, will you let me be a jerk celebrity?”

  “Samuel Gibson?” a male voice shouted from Samuel’s right, a second before the distinct click of a digital camera filled the air. “Who’s your chickie babe?”

  Samuel held Lily’s gaze, lowering his head closer to hers. “Just remember,” he murmured, his gut clenching at the consternation swimming in her eyes, “I’m not always this guy, okay?”

  Before she could respond—or react—he straightened fully and fixed his stare on Brutal, now running at them both. “Deal with it, Brutal.”

  His bodyguard barreled past them, heading for the two paparazzi.

  The photographers scrambled, hurling abuse at Brutal and Samuel. “Fucking rock star,” one of them snarled, camera still firing.

  Samuel didn’t respond. He snared Lily’s hand and, with a jerk of his head, summoned the limo waiting for him at the front of the rehab clinic.

  The stretched vehicle destroyed the distance between them, its engine a powerful roar, before screeching to a halt right beside them. The driver spilt from behind the wheel and ran around the bonnet to yank open the back door without delay. “Mr. Gibson,” he said.

  Lily gaped up at Samuel.

  He shrugged. “When you’re a world-famous rock star, you never know when you’re going to need a fast getaway.”

  Whatever Lily was going to say next was lost to the sounds of car doors slamming shut.

  Samuel threw a quick look over his shoulder. Damn, the paparazzi were everywhere. Word had obviously gotten out.

  “Samuel!” new voices shouted. “Here, Samuel. Who’s the girl?”

  “Samuel, is this your new woman?”

  “Miss? Miss, are you sleeping with Samuel Gibson? What’s your name? Are you a singer?”

  Samuel turned back to Lily, forcing a grin to his face as he held his hand towards the luxurious interior of the limo. “Your chariot awaits, my lady.”

  A camera was thrust at Lily’s face, the pap shoving at the driver holding the door open.

 
Samuel pulled at Lily’s hand, tugging her away. But not before, with a glare and a snarl, she closed her hand over the lens, yanked the camera towards her—along with the paparazzo attached to it by the strap around his neck—and smacked her forehead against the man’s nose.

  “Fuck!” the paparazzo shouted, stumbling backward, hands pressed to his face. “You cunt!”

  Samuel raised his eyebrows at Lily, his grin stunned. “That’s one way of stopping them.”

  She gave him a puzzled frown. “What? I tripped. It’s these heels. They’re dangerous.” And then, with a sly smirk, she threw herself through the open limo door. Samuel couldn’t help but notice she wore flats.

  With a laugh, he followed her into the limo, giddy with sheer joy.

  Holy crap, when was the last time he’d been happy around paparazzi?

  The door slammed shut behind him just as he tumbled into his seat. A second later, the driver was behind the wheel again. “Where to, Mr. Gibson?”

  Samuel shot the swarming photographers outside the vehicle a quick glance. “Somewhere. Anywhere. The hotel.”

  The thrumming engine roared into furious life and, with all the force of a top-fuel drag racer, pulled away from the curb.

  Twisting in his seat, Samuel pegged Lily with an incredulous stare. “You head-butted a paparazzo?”

  She shrugged, rubbing at a red mark on her forehead. “It was the first thing that popped into my head. Remember, I have a brother. Eugene was a pain in the ass often. Especially when I was trying to take a shower in peace. He kept trying to throw cold water on me. A head butt through the shower curtain was the most effective way of dealing with him.”

  Samuel threw back his head, the euphoric buzz of their escape flowing through his veins. “This…” He laughed again, unable to remove the smile from his face. “This is why I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  The confession burst from him before he could stop it. He stared at her, his blood pounding in his ears.

  She stared back at him, her lips parting slightly.

  “Okay,” he said, holding up a hand. “I wasn’t planning on saying that.”

  “You weren’t?”

  “Not until I made you forgive me for being a tosser.”

  She studied him, unmoving. He had no idea what she was thinking. Her expression was unreadable, her body as still as a statue. “We can talk about that later,” she declared.