Butch smoothed his mustache down with one hand. “I can only guess he sent me on this ridiculous errand because he’s afraid you’ll reject him.”
Well, duh. Who wouldn’t reject such a pompous, arrogant ass who had only one thing on his mind? She bit her lip. If she were honest, she knew that most women—even her—would have a hard time turning Steve down. He was famous, gorgeous, rich, successful, talented, built like a fitness model, and knew how to have a good time. She’d guess he was a pro between the sheets as well, but that was one skill she’d have to keep guessing at, because there was no way she was stupid enough to fall into bed with the guy.
“I’m afraid he’s right,” she said, glad her head was in control of her mouth rather than her foolish heart leading her words, or worse, being at the whim of her burning desire. “I’m not interested.”
Butch smiled, the tension leaving his shoulders. “I guess you don’t need my advice, then.”
“I’d like to hear it anyway.”
Butch lifted a hand in greeting to someone leaving the party. Over her shoulder she caught sight of Dare pushing the elevator button. Why couldn’t a nice guy like Dare be interested in her? And why didn’t her belly quiver at the mere sight of him the way it did when Steve was near? Stupid abdominal muscles had it all wrong.
“I was going to advise you to take him up on his offer if you wanted him to leave you alone,” Butch said.
Roux crinkled up her face.
“And reject him if you want him to pursue you relentlessly.” Butch grinned. “I guess you already figured that out about him, though.” He patted her arm. “Good luck. He’s a prize if you manage to capture his heart. And I’m not saying that just because he pays me.” He offered her a wink and left her staring after him.
She was still puzzling out Butch’s bizarre advice when Sage came out into the hall. “There you are! I thought maybe you took off with Steve since you both turned up missing all of a sudden.”
“No, I didn’t take off with Steve.” Why did everyone think she wanted him?
“Can you take Azura back to the hotel? She’s feeling a little sick. I warned her to stay away from the tequila.”
“Why should I be the one to take her back to the hotel?” Roux was usually the designated driver, but they didn’t need one tonight with a limo at their disposal.
“Everyone is getting pretty drunk,” Sage said, squeezing Roux’s arm. “I figured it was getting to be around the time you start feeling uncomfortable.”
If Roux paid attention to those around her, she did feel uncomfortable, but she’d been dancing in the middle of a crowd when Butch had interrupted her good time and hadn’t noticed if guests were shouting in slurred voices and swaying drunkenly rather than actually dancing. She recognized the behavior now, though, thanks to Sage’s pointing it out. A familiar feeling of panic made her heart pound, and she clutched the bullet dangling from her bracelet to steady her sudden nerves.
“I guess it is time for me to bail,” Roux said. “Where’s Azura? I’ll take her home.”
“She’s in the bathroom, wishing she could puke.”
So Azura had drunk a lot of tequila. Roux honestly didn’t understand how anyone would willingly poison themselves with alcohol to the point that they wished they could puke. She just prayed Azura’s wish didn’t come true in the limo.
“That Butch guy is supposed to call for the limo when we need it,” Sage said. “Any idea where he is?”
“I was just talking to him.” Having one of the strangest conversations of her life. Steve’s heart a prize? Hardly. His body? Yeah, she could see that being a prize, but his heart? Did he even have one? Out on the balcony when he’d held her, she thought she’d glimpsed it, but she was sure she was mistaken. Less than five minutes later, he’d had his hand on some other woman’s ass.
“Go have him call the limo. I’ll haul Azura away from the toilet she’s hugging and help you get her to the car.”
“Maybe you should call it a night too,” Roux suggested. “Help me get her all the way back to the hotel.”
“And miss out on my first official after-party?”
“Newsflash,” Roux said. “It’s my first after-party too.”
Sage flipped a hand toward the chaos inside the ballroom. “Well, if you really want to spend your night in there—”
At that moment, some guy Roux didn’t recognize emerged from the ballroom, opened his pants, and began to take a piss in the garbage can next to the door.
“What are you ladies doing in the men’s room?” he asked Roux and Sage, who exchanged looks and laughed.
“This isn’t the men’s room,” Sage said. “You’re in the hallway.”
“I was sure this was the men’s room,” he said, turning away from the garbage can. He missed pissing on Roux’s boots by inches. Not cool.
“Go get Azura,” Roux said. “I’ll have Butch call the limo, and I’ll meet you both downstairs.”
“Thank you.” Sage kissed Roux’s cheek. “I knew I could count on you.” To the drunk, she said, “Are you going to clean that up?” and nodded toward the pale yellow puddle on the floor.
He emitted a rather wet-sounding belch and wiped a hand across his mouth. “Is your hair green, or am I hallucinating?”
Sage flipped the green strands of her hair behind her shoulder. “You’re obviously hallucinating. Someone needed to cut you off about five drinks ago.”
“Wanna dance, greenie?”
He followed Sage back into the ballroom, and Roux blew an amused breath out her nose when he continued to follow her straight into the ladies’ room.
It didn’t occur to Roux, until she was standing face-to-mustached-face with Butch, how her sudden request to go to the hotel would sound. She asked him anyway, despite her embarrassment. No doubt he thought she was a lust-crazed groupie who’d decided to take Steve up on his offer after all.
“My friend isn’t feeling well, so we need the limo to take us back to the hotel.”
Butch lifted his eyebrows. “Your friend?”
“Yes, my friend. Azura. She drank too much tequila.”
“And you need to accompany this friend?”
“If you think I’m going to see Aimes—”
Butch lifted a hand and pulled out a cellphone. “I didn’t say that.” He called the driver and assured Roux that the car would be waiting for them outside the building.
“Thank you,” Roux said.
“When you see Steve,” Butch said, “tell him I sent you.”
He laughed, and she resisted the urge to flip him off as she stomped out of the room. She was not going to the hotel to see Steve. She was going to tuck Azura into bed and sit up gossiping with Raven until the rest of the band crawled back to the hotel, probably near dawn.
Azura was leaning heavily on Sage as they exited the elevator in the lobby almost twenty minutes later. Roux had been waiting for them for quite a while, but no matter. The limo had just pulled up outside, and a crowd of interested onlookers surrounded the car, trying to see through the tinted windows.
“You aren’t going to get sick in the limo, are you?” Roux asked.
Azura lifted the empty white plastic bucket dangling from her free hand. “Just in case.”
“Why do you do this to yourself?” Roux didn’t get the appeal of alcohol and not only because her father had been a substance abuser. Was the head-buzz worth the poor decision-making, the potential nausea, and the really bad breath? Roux turned her head to the side to avoid Azura’s undoubtedly flammable breath as she shouldered her weight to help her inebriated sister out to the car.
Exodus End’s well-trained security team led the way, keeping the onlookers at a safe distance, though camera flashes were going off everywhere. Roux was certain few of the gawkers even knew who she and Azura were, but if the two of them were getting into a limo and had security, then they must be important. A tall, well-built security guy with dark skin and a knockout smile opened the limo door.
“Thank you.” Roux practically dumped Azura into the car. The seats formed a U-shape with the door at the opening, so it wasn’t exactly easy to get Azura to a more comfortable place than the floor.
“I was expecting your friend,” a deep voice said from inside the car.
Roux recognized the voice at once, and for a moment considered backing away and allowing Azura to fend for herself, but she took a deep, calming breath and scrambled over her sister, who was currently on her hands and knees with her face planted in the nearest unoccupied leather seat.
“Ah, there’s the one,” Steve said in what Roux considered a rather smug tone.
“Make yourself useful,” Roux snapped. “Can’t you see she needs help?”
“Is she drunk?” Steve asked, shifting out of his relaxed pose against the far window, but not before Roux noticed what she could only describe as his “I’m a male model waiting for you with one foot on the seat and my arm resting seductively on my knee” pose. Who sat in cars in that position? Steve Aimes, that was who.
“Jussssst a little tipsy,” Azura said, her words muffled by the seat against her mouth.
Roux massaged her brow, trying not to laugh at the ridiculous and exasperating situation she found herself in. Steve managed to get Azura into a slumped seated position before returning to his original semi-reclined position. The car started forward, and Roux, who’d been crouching, trying to figure out where she should sit, tumbled back onto Azura’s lap with the momentum.
“Maybe you should try his lap instead,” Azura said in what she probably thought was a whisper. Steve’s smirk made it clear that he’d heard her.
Roux adjusted herself so she was sitting next to Azura instead of on top of her. But that put her closer to Steve’s foot, which was resting on the seat. Again, who the hell sat like that in a limo? Was he anticipating a photographer would show up with a camera and do a fashion shoot?
“I wasn’t expecting you to bring a friend, but I’m game,” Steve said.
Roux’s face went hot. She hoped he took her heightened color for the anger she felt, not the added arousal his innuendo had flushed through her.
“I didn’t know you’d be in here,” she said. “I figured you’d already be at the hotel. Waiting.” She lifted her gaze to meet his. “Alone. As I’d planned to leave you.”
“Roux!” Azura snorted. “You’re joking, I hope. You don’t leave Steve Aimes alone. You just don’t.”
Steve offered Azura a sensual smile that made Roux’s toes curl inside her boots. Now why couldn’t he smile at her like that? Maybe because she was so contrary in his presence. But she couldn’t help it. He pissed her off! No one should be as full of himself as he was. Not even a living legend.
But she had glimpsed a different side of him. A side she was pretty sure he kept hidden from most people. His tender side. There were no signs of it now, however.
“So what do you say?” Steve’s gaze moved from Azura to Roux. There was a question in his exotic brown eyes. “Two’s company, three’s a ménage.”
Before Roux could tell him to fuck off, Azura’s scrambling hands reached for her bucket and she heaved the contents of her stomach, accompanied by a forceful splash, into the plastic container.
Roux cringed, fighting her own waves of nausea, but dutifully held back the hair of Azura’s waist-length blue and black wig as the poor thing found more to throw up. Thank God she’d thought to bring a bucket.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Steve said. “Some other time maybe.”
“Sorry,” Azura said between pants for air. “I thought I could make it home before . . . Before—”
She puked again, and Roux was pretty sure she’d join her if she didn’t soon get away from the stench wafting from the rapidly filling bucket.
The limo pulled to a stop, and a different security guard opened the door. Without so much as a blink, the poor guy accepted the bucket of puke Steve took from Azura and handed to him. Steve exited the car and then reached inside to scoop Azura into his arms.
“I’ve got you,” he said, cradling her against his chest. “Where to?”
As Roux watched him hold her friend in his strong arms, she suddenly understood one reason it might be beneficial to get falling-down, throwing-up drunk. She hurried ahead of them, glancing back every few seconds to make sure Steve was behaving himself around her judgment-impaired sister. Roux probably should have been more worried about Azura making moves on Steve since she breathed him in and murmured, “You smell nice.”
“Better than you do at the moment,” he replied, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement.
Azura was too wasted to be insulted. If she remembered his words in the morning, though, she’d likely be mortified. She had puked her guts out in front of the iconic drummer of Exodus End.
“Tequila is not your friend, Azura,” Roux muttered as she followed security into a waiting elevator car in the hotel lobby.
“But you are, Roooo-zey,” she slurred. “You always take care of us.” She blinked up at Steve. “Who are you?”
“I’m Steve, but some call me Trouble.”
Azura laughed as if he’d said the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard. “Trouble. That’s a funny name.”
And fitting, Roux wagered. Azura went a bit green as the elevator began its climb to their floor. Roux tried to focus on her sister’s well-being instead of the distracting bulging biceps in her peripheral vision, but damn if the man didn’t have the most amazing body she’d ever seen.
“Thanks for helping us get to our room,” Roux said.
“I might have a few ulterior motives.”
“Yeah, Butch told me about those.”
“And?”
She licked her lips and met his gaze steadily, Butch’s advice playing through her ears. “It’s not happening, Aimes. You might as well get the idea out of your head.” She wondered if she meant that, or if she was actually hoping that Butch’s warning about Steve pursuing her relentlessly became her reality. She just wasn’t sure how long she’d keep running.
Was ten minutes long enough?
Six
Steve shifted the drunk girl in his arms and watched Roux fiddle with the velvet stays of her corset. He had a hunch that dear old Butch had told her to play hard to get, the bastard. What neither of them knew was that while that ploy used to work on him, he was wiser and more mature than he’d been when he’d fallen head over ass in love with Bianca. He knew what that level of passion and obsession brought—utter misery and irreparable heartache. He was not looking for a repeat of the anguish his ex-wife had pressed upon him.
The elevator dinged, and he followed Roux down the hall, hoping Miss Too-Much-Tequila didn’t puke all over him before he dropped her off. As far as he could tell, the woman was unconscious. She’d become a complete deadweight in his now-straining arms, but hell if he’d drop her and show an ounce of weakness in front of Roux. Roux used a keycard that had been hiding in her bra—lucky card—to unlock a door and pushed it open. A pretty, dark-haired girl—wearing only a pair of men’s boxers and a black bra—whirled around at their intrusion.
“For fuck’s sake, Roux. What the hell are you doing back so early? Are you ever going to learn to party? It’s not even midnight!”
“Azura hit the tequila a bit too hard,” Roux said. “Is the connecting door unlocked?”
That was when the yet-to-be-introduced woman noticed Steve leaning against the wall to help support Azura’s ever-increasing weight. Miss Wears-Men’s-Underwear gaped at him, her mouth and eyes wide with disbelief.
“Steve Aimes,” he introduced himself. “And you would be?”
“Oh my God, what is he doing here?” the woman shrieked.
He couldn’t tell if hers was a positive or negative reaction. Roux had ventured toward door along one wall, and he shifted Azura more securely in his arms to follow her.
“Her name is Raven,” Roux said.
“Hello, Raven,” he said as he passed her.
“Oh my God, he’s even sexier in person!”
He was glad someone noticed since Roux seemed impervious to his obvious appeal. He placed Azura on one of the beds in the adjoining room, and before Roux could loosen her clothing to make her more comfortable, Raven rushed over and pushed Roux aside.
“Don’t mess up her costume,” Raven said, leaning over Azura with splayed hands, as if protecting a golden shroud. “I’ve got this. And take him with you. You know how Azura is about being naked in front of ridiculously hot guys.”
Based on the confused look on Roux’s face, she had no idea what Raven was talking about. Either that or Roux didn’t think the ridiculously hot description fit him. Steve took Raven’s words as his cue to exit the room, and he tried not to overhear Raven whisper to Roux, “Now’s a good time to loosen up. Here, you might need this.”
“Why would I need a condom?” Roux’s voice got closer as Raven started shoving her from the room.
“Just a hunch,” Raven said.
Raven shut the connecting door in Roux’s face, leaving her alone with Steve. He wasn’t ready to leave—not unless she was coming with him. She glanced at him, her cheeks pink, and tucked the condom into her corset. He hoped that meant she trusted Raven’s hunches.
“Have you had second dinner yet?” he asked.
“Second dinner?”
“I’m starved. After a show I always need second dinner. Usually it consists mostly of alcohol, but—”
“You can drink,” she said. “I never suggested you couldn’t drink.”
He didn’t want a drink. “I think I need to be in full command of my senses when I’m around you.”
Her amazing gold-rimmed green eyes narrowed. “Why?”
He didn’t honestly know, but said, “You’re beguiling enough without the thought-scrambling detriment of whiskey.”
She smiled, and color rose up her throat. His heart skipped a beat. Fuck, she was beautiful when she smiled. And when she didn’t smile. Or when she scowled or produced any expression or none at all. She was beautiful.
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