CHAPTER ONE
Maggie
Two hours earlier…
I stood in the middle of the massive, glittering bathroom, trying not to imagine how much this hotel suite would’ve cost if we had to pay for it. And trying not to think about why we didn’t.
I’d told Coop to go ahead and help himself to the complimentary champagne, because no way I was drinking it. Instead I grabbed one of the little glasses by the sink and fixed myself a vodka cran, pouring from the bottle of Stoli I’d paid for myself. Then I lay my travel case open on the floor and took a breath.
The last hour of my life had been a total gong show, the conversation with my father pretty much the furthest thing from an aphrodisiac. I just needed a few minutes to get my head together and switch gears.
I took a swig of my drink and assessed myself in the mirrored wall. I was still wearing the jeans and midriff-baring jacket I’d worn to dinner with the crew, but I’d already decided the occasion called for something a lot sexier.
I dug through my stuff, unearthing the new lingerie and snapping off the tags. Then I went over my mental checklist as I got undressed.
The band was all settled into the hotel, finished with the promotional interviews I’d set up for them earlier in the day, and they were officially set loose for the night. In Las Vegas. The last I’d seen of each of them, they were off in various directions in search of sex (Zane), booze (Dylan), and/or solitude (Jesse and Elle). Tomorrow night was the final show of the tour and everyone was jacked up on a hazardous cocktail of anticipation, adrenaline and hormones. Not the kind of hazard I could do much about, other than stay out of the way and be on hand for cleanup later. My boss, Brody, and I were band management, which meant we booked gigs, made sure everyone got paid, and generally kept the money flowing in. But it also meant we took it upon ourselves to make sure everyone stayed relatively sane, so the reality was, if anything fell apart between now and tomorrow’s show, my phone was gonna blow up like the Freemont Street light show, and not like I could ignore it.
Story of my life, but at least everything was as it should be on that front.
Security, crew, and gear were all accounted for and everything was set for Dirty, hottest rock band on the planet and my kickass employers—fuck, yeah—to rock the hell out of the new arena on the Vegas Strip. And while I was excited about tomorrow’s show in that bittersweet way that marked the end of each tour, I was really looking forward to a momentary diversion from the madness.
A diversion of the sexual variety. Because the Penny Pushers were also in town for the show, and that meant I was hooking up.
I slipped into the skimpy lace babydoll and matching thong, both a vibrant lime-green that looked amazing against my complexion. Thanks to my mom, I had flawless light-brown skin, which I’d always considered my best feature. Admittedly, because it made me look less like my dad.
Usually when people found out who he was, they assumed I’d want to be associated with him. He was rich and famous, after all.
But those were the people who’d never met him.
I took a couple more swigs of my drink, hiked up my cleavage with the stiff demi cups of the babydoll, and touched up my makeup, letting the liquor and the bizarre, hyper-reality of this moment soak in.
I, Maggie Omura, was about to fuck a rock star.
What would you think of that one, Mom?
She’d laugh, I figured. Hard. Since this went completely against The Rule.
I’d made up The Rule myself when I first came to work for Dirty six years ago. Actually, I’d made up many rules. What the hell did I know? I was a nerdy, idealistic nineteen-year-old with stars in my eyes. But as I’d discovered, in the total shit storm of rock ’n’ roll chaos that soon became my life, there was only one rule that warranted keeping.
No Screwing The Talent.
When I first met Dirty, their debut album had just incinerated the charts and they were coming off their first world tour. I was naive and inexperienced, but I had a head for business and all I’d ever wanted to do was work in the music industry. I managed to get an incredibly tenuous foot in the door merely because of a lucky-horseshoe-up-the-ass situation—I happened to have a class with Dirty guitarist Jesse Mayes’s sister in college, and she and I had become friends. I also had the hugest, stupidest puppy-love crush on Zane Traynor, blond bad boy and lunatic lead singer… and when he set his ice-blue eyes on me, I knew the only way I wouldn’t fuck everything up was by eating, sleeping and breathing The Rule.
Over the years, The Rule had kept me out of trouble. A lot of trouble. However. Sometimes rules became outdated. Needed a little revising. Or strategic bending.
And since I wasn’t about to screw a member of the band I worked for, it didn’t totally count, right?
“Maggie?” Coop tapped on the frosted-glass bathroom door, amusement and a touch of concern in his voice. “You ever coming out?” He also sounded horny, his voice low and a little huskier than usual.
Perfect.
I stood back to check my work and felt ridiculously sexy for about five seconds, knowing he was gonna love it… until it really dawned on me that I’d bought the lingerie for that reason. Because Andy Cooper had mentioned, months ago, that I looked hot in this color. Which meant… yeah. I was putting way too much effort into this.
Kinda like I did with every-fucking-thing.
But this was weird, right? Crossing a line?
Coop was just a hookup, and no sane woman bought hot, expensive lingerie just for some guy she was hooking up with unless she was looking to turn that hookup sex into hang-out-afterward-and-do-it-again sex, followed by wake-up-together-the-next-morning-and-do-it-yet-again sex.
And I definitely wasn’t looking for that.
Was I?
I smoothed my long, dark hair and chewed my lip at my reflection. Hot. But yeah, weird.
“Maggie?” Coop knocked again.
I pounded back the rest of my drink. “Coming.”
Lingerie or no? I could take it off, walk out there naked.
Veto.
Put the jeans back on?
I made an executive decision to go with the lingerie, took a deep breath, and opened the door. Despite the fact that I didn’t feel quite as special about Coop as the lingerie implied, my night had just gone to hell and I really needed this distraction.
I just hoped he had time to help me blow off all this steam; it could take a while.
Coop stood back, his eyebrows raising as he drank me in. He wore a vintage Sex Pistols T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, showing off his incredibly decent arms, with gray jeans and a studded belt. His blond hair was tousled to shit, like it always was, and an impish smile broke out on his face. “Whoa. Maggie… shit.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “I feel kinda underdressed.”
“Then let’s get you undressed,” I said, letting my inner slut take over as I grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him over to the giant bed. I’d claimed the smaller of the two bedrooms in the penthouse suite, yet the bed was king size, which made me wonder what was in the master bedroom. Harem size?
Fitting, given who’d be sleeping in it.
Don’t even go there.
I yanked Coop against me and we came together in a hungry, slightly awkward kiss. He pushed me back onto the bed, his warm weight settling over me. Despite the offer of free champagne, he tasted vaguely like beer, which reminded me of finding him in the hotel bar half an hour ago… which reminded me of running into Zane about half an hour before that—
Do. NOT. Go. There.
Coop’s body was lean and hard as he ground himself against me, his hips dragging over mine, the hard ridge of the unmistakable erection in his jeans setting off sparks of pleasure between my legs, and I gasped.
Oh, hell yes… this was exactly what I needed.
He kissed his way down my neck and I groaned, arching my back, getting into it as he sucked on my throat—
Holy. Shit. I stiffened as joyful screaming and la
ughter erupted in the room next door—the main room of the penthouse suite.
The voices of multiple women.
Coop didn’t seem to notice. Or care. He just ground his hard dick against me and kissed me again. I shut my eyes as his weight pressed me down, his hips moving faster against me, his body heating up. He grabbed my breast, squeezing hard, and sank his tongue deep in my mouth.
Then I heard it. I heard him. My “roommate” for the night. His smoky voice so close outside the bedroom door I cringed.
My eyes flew open. I ripped away, stopping Coop with a hand on his chest, so suddenly I startled us both.
He looked down at my hand as I panted beneath him. “You okay?” he asked, disoriented. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” I managed to choke out, clearing my throat.
Fuck. Me.
My head was spinning, and I could still hear his voice in the other room. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but I knew that cocky timber. I knew the sound of Zane Traynor working his magic on a bunch of women.
“Just… don’t…” I gasped out, shaking my head, “… don’t stop.” Then I grabbed Coop by his neck and smashed my mouth to his as a ridiculous wave of guilt crashed through me.
I didn’t feel guilty about breaking The Rule. I’d been breaking it with Coop on a casual but semi-regular basis for a while now.
I felt guilty I wasn’t breaking it with him.
Yeah. That was the messed-up truth of it. Because I’d always secretly fantasized that if I was ever going to break The Rule I’d do it balls to the wall, in a total blaze of glory, me and the ice-blue-eyed reigning god of rock—and cock—swinging from chandeliers and breaking furniture.
But thank God my mother didn’t raise that kind of fool.
I, Maggie Omura, was never going to let my incredibly misguided lady parts lead me to Zane Traynor’s bed. No matter how much they might want me to.
That way lies madness.
On the other hand, Andy Cooper, wickedly talented bass player for the Penny Pushers and genuinely nice guy, was worth breaking a rule for, right? Besides that, Coop was exactly my type. Which was tall, blond, and rock ’n’ roll.
Also, he’d just torn off his shirt and tossed it on the floor, and the sight of his bare chest helped me to focus.
He yanked the babydoll over my head and tossed it somewhere across the room as I tried really, really hard to block out the sounds of screeches and giggles from next door. I was pretty sure Coop said a bunch of nice things about how sexy I was as he kissed his way down my body, but I didn’t really hear it.
Instead, I heard Zane’s laugh. That potent, sexy-ass, full-on Viking laugh I would know anywhere, had creamed my panties to enough times that I’d never be able to hear it and not get wet. It was like a goddamn Pavlovian response.
I wriggled uncomfortably as Coop ran his fingers down between my legs, skimming the lace of my thong, hyper-aware of the fact that I was more turned on by that laugh than the feel of Coop’s touch on my body. He rubbed me up and down, his hand moving in small, eager circles as he kissed his way down my stomach… and I tried to enjoy it, I really did.
But then the music kicked in.
Loud.
It was Guns N’ Roses, “You’re Crazy,” at top fucking volume. Not the acoustic version. The heavy version, hard and fast, thumping through the wall.
Coop looked up in a lust daze, the corner of his mouth hooking in a slight smile. “Who’s out there?”
“Just… ah… one of the guys…” I said, my brain split between the pleasure of what he was doing to me and the party going on next door. “And… about… half a chorus line… from the sound of it…”
Coop laughed. “Should I go tell them to turn it down?”
Sweet. But no way I would do that to Coop.
“No,” I said, “just keep…” and then my head dropped back on the bed as he increased the urgency of his touch. He swirled his tongue around my navel, letting out a low groan, then kissed his way down. I took a breath and struggled to focus on the sensations of his tongue licking its way along the lacy edge of my thong, his fingers slipping inside to peel back the fabric. Then I felt the caress of his hot breath, just as laughter exploded on the other side of the wall.
His laughter, loud and cocksure.
A chorus of female giggles followed, and a surge of raw jealousy scorched through me.
Worst. Roommate. Ever.
Would it totally kill the mood if I put in earplugs before Coop fucked me?
Yes. Yes, it would.
Maybe we could put on some music of our own? I had a laptop here somewhere… but no way my laptop speakers could compete with the sound system from hell next door.
Zane laughed again, and my nipples pricked.
I clenched my teeth and squirmed in frustration.
Maybe my father was right.
Maybe I was just some glorified groupie.
God knew I’d had it bad for Zane since long before I’d met him in the flesh. And ever since… yeah, I still lusted after him—in secret. Physically speaking, Zane Traynor was a god among men, and I was only human.
But that didn’t mean I’d ever, ever act on it.
Screw him, said the voice of reason in my head, the one that sounded suspiciously like my mom’s. Because what the hell did my dad know about it anyway?
No mere groupie would’ve worked as hard as I had, for as long as I had, and put up with the shit that I had—much less stuck to The Rule for as many years as I did.
And now that I’d chosen to break The Rule? So what? I was a single woman. It was my prerogative if I wanted to screw every rock star I’d ever met. Besides, I was having a great time with Coop, I was ignoring Zane’s inconvenient presence, and I wasn’t at all imagining that it was his face between my legs right now.
Yeah.
I totally was.
Good news, though: I’d completely tensed up and my hand was on Coop’s forehead. I was tongue-blocking him.
Sexy.
He stopped, obviously, and looked up at me. “Uh… are you sure—?”
“Hang on a sec, while I commit a super quick murder.”
He backed off, letting me up.
“You sure you don’t want me to—?”
“Nope.” I rolled over and off the bed in one angry lunge, righting my lime-green thong. “I’ve got this.” I scooped up the first thing I saw—his giant T-shirt—and thrust my almost-naked self into it as I stalked over to the bedroom door.
When I threw it open, the scene that greeted me was pretty much what it sounded like.
The main room of the penthouse suite had been overrun with groupies, bits of their skimpy clothing flung across the gaudy, oversized furniture. There were five of them, and while I doubted they were actual strippers—Zane didn’t tend to hang with women who expected to get more attention than they gave, since he preferred to be the center of attention in any given room—I’d definitely walked in on some kind of amateur revue for their one-man audience.
Two blonds were dancing together on the coffee table, the one with the big fake breasts, already topless, undressing the other.
A chick with jet-black hair, in a metallic shrink-wrap dress, was bent over in the kitchen snorting what I could only assume was cocaine off the glossy countertop, showing off her matching metallic thong while she did it.
The other two were pawing each other on one of the big, plush couches. And there was Zane, front row center. Sprawled back on that same couch, legs spread wide. The girls were kneeling over him, and I really could’ve sworn he looked kinda bored as he watched them make out.
I was already bored, but then again, I didn’t have a penis.
One of the girls in his lap was a redhead. The other looked suspiciously Filipina, and even though she didn’t look much like me, it really fucking irritated me. The man had a serious talent for irritating me—and for sniffing out exactly when he was doing it, like some sadistic bloodhound. I was pretty sure he got off on it.
It didn’t surprise me at all when his ice-blue eyes met mine, though none of the girls even noticed I was there.
He stared at me, his eyes flaring. He looked pretty blown away to see me, actually. Well, no shit.
Not like I wanted to be stuck in the room adjoining his latest orgy.
I pointed one finger at him and rolled it back, in the universal gesture for Get your ass over here. Which he could’ve ignored. He could’ve told me where to go with a finger gesture of his own.
Technically, the man was my employer.
Instead he dumped the girls off his lap, eyes still locked on mine, and adjusted himself in his low-slung jeans. That’s when I made the mistake of glancing down.
The top button of his jeans was undone, showing a triangle of sun-kissed skin and a hint of his golden treasure trail, not to mention the perfect, tight abs that disappeared under his shirt.
The girls kept going at it, oblivious to his departure, as he rose and stalked toward me.
Tall. Blond. And very rock ’n’ roll.
I just watched him, my features carefully arranged in a look of cool, unruffled displeasure as I forced myself to keep breathing so my heart wouldn’t explode in an epic cataclysm of rage and repressed lust. Luckily, I had a lot of practice with this. Still, my traitorous gaze wandered down the thin black T-shirt stretched over his broad, hard chest and the badass black leather vest, the muscles bunching in his sleek, California-tanned arms… the unbuttoned jeans just barely clinging to his hips… and fuck… did it make me a total weirdo that I had a crazy weakness for the man’s bare feet?
It didn’t exactly escape my notice that his dick looked pretty hard, either. Kinda like it was about to punch through his jeans, but Zane’s package pretty much always looked that way.
It wasn’t exactly an industry secret that Zane Traynor was well-hung.
In fact, I’d seen his naked cock with my own eyes, multiple times. Not that that meant anything. Pretty sure everyone and their dog had seen it. Since the man was Adonis incarnate, you couldn’t even blame him for showing it off, though his habit of walking around naked in mixed company—irritating for a multitude of reasons—was the main reason everyone in the band refused to share a suite with him.
A Dirty Wedding Night: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 2.5) Page 18