Dirty Like Jude: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 5)

by Jaine Diamond

  Well, there was some imagery.

  “Or,” I said, as she touched up her lip gloss, “I get a hot electronic rock band to open, warm up the crowd. Then Dirty takes the stage in all their rock star glory. They play from say, ten, ten-thirty, whatever they like, until midnight. At midnight, they count in the New Year. Everyone’s happy. Everyone’s half-trashed. The venue is open until three on a special license and the bar pours until two. After the New Year countdown, Dirty heads offstage to drink champagne and fuck or whatever rock stars do after midnight on New Year’s, and DJ Summer takes over, presiding over the party until the wee hours. Just the way, I assume, she likes it.”

  Summer quirked an eyebrow at me but said nothing. I knew I had her interest, so I went on.

  “You want to play for three hours straight, you can. You want to switch out with another DJ, bring in some friends to spin with you, special guests, whatever. It’s all on the table. They don’t even have to be on the bill. We can work it out.”

  “You’re offering me top billing?”

  “No. You know there’s no way in hell I can do that. But I am promising you equal billing with Dirty.”

  At that, she looked doubtful again. “With an equal cut of ticket sales?”

  “Equal. Your set is twice as long, but you get equal. This is Dirty we’re talking about. If I were you, I’d take the offer and run.”

  “You’re not me,” she reminded me, turning to face me again. “And I will take the offer. If you can get Dirty on board with that plan.” She looked at me like she wasn’t yet sure what to make of me. If she trusted me. If she even liked me or not. “I’m assuming you haven’t spoken with them yet, or I would’ve heard something from Elle.”

  “I’ll get them on board.”

  “I’d love to see it.”

  So would I.

  “If you don’t mind though, hon, I have people waiting.” She picked up a glass that was sitting on the counter, a cocktail I hadn’t even noticed, and took a sip.

  “Oh. Of course.” I shifted out of her way as she moved toward the door.

  I took a breath and tried not to dance around. Because shit, yes. I’d convinced her. More or less.

  I was so pulling this off.

  When her hand landed on the door handle, she glanced back at me. “Are you coming?”

  I blinked at her. It took a mere half-second to dawn on me that DJ Summer, party queen, was inviting me to party with her.

  And there was only one response to an invitation like that.

  “Absolutely.”

  Chapter Six

  Jude

  12:04 am.

  The Artemis Club was packed, and I didn’t exactly have a ticket or a pair of tits, but I did know one of the bouncers, so getting in wasn’t a problem.

  Blending in was a little more of an issue. Which was why surveillance was never gonna be a realistic career fallback for me. I wasn’t exactly a dude who could blend into a crowd. Any crowd.

  Not like Lex could.

  So I just stood back in the darkest corner I could find, and watched. I watched Roni watch the show.

  I’d let Lex go for the night when I arrived, taking over for him. When he’d texted me that Roni was here, I’d removed my Kings cut, tucked it away in a saddlebag on my bike, hopped on and drove for an hour, all the way into downtown Vancouver, and walked straight into this club.

  Why? Fuck if I’d totally figured that out yet.

  All I knew was Roni was here and now, so was I.

  And Taze wasn’t.

  Lex had made that clear; Roni had gone out, on a Saturday night, to a club—alone.

  Without her degenerate boyfriend in tow.

  Which meant—yeah, maybe I was optimistic as fuck, but just fucking maybe it meant that even though she’d kept him around for the last ten months she was finally getting tired of him.

  Just fucking maybe this was my opening.

  My chance to drive a wedge between the two of them—somehow.

  I’d already tried to warn her off Taze, twice. And failed. She’d seemed to take my words of warning about Taze as seriously as shit-all nothing. I could’ve coughed up evidence; something to show her rather than tell her what a piece of garbage her Sinner boyfriend was. Undoubtedly, that would’ve gotten my point across.

  But going that route would’ve endangered Roni, so it was never happening.

  Which meant I really only had one other card to play. The only real leverage I’d ever had with Roni.

  That fucking combustible spark between us.

  I knew for a fact—an uncomfortable, painful fact—that, despite what a “Wild Card” so many of my friends insisted on labeling her, Roni Webber was not the type of woman who would cheat on her boyfriend. No matter what a piece of shit he was.

  But maybe she’d seriously consider ridding herself of him if a better option came along.

  Obviously, I was that better option.

  It wasn’t like I was gonna offer to be her boyfriend. I’d made it pretty clear to her the last time we fucked that that was never gonna happen.

  But I could definitely fuck her better than Taze could.

  I could be fuck buddy of the century, if that’s what she needed to rid her mind and body of any fucking memory of Taze Murphy.

  The more I thought about it, the more my instincts told me that if I walked right up to Roni in this crowd, got close, put my hand on the small of her back or on her hip as she danced, put my lips to her ear to tell her how fucking sexy she looked in those leather pants, how fucking good she smelled—fuck, that goddam sex kitten smell of hers, I could almost smell it from way over here… Yeah. She’d be leaving here with me tonight.

  And the more I thought about it, the more it gave me a raging fucking hard-on.

  But my instincts also told me to stand back and watch. So that was what I did. I watched Roni watch the end of the show, dancing all the while, just like she did when she was sixteen—slow, sexy and free, like she didn’t care who was watching—her attention locked on the stage.

  And then I watched Ashley Player walk right up to her.

  My chest tightened until I could barely fucking breathe… as I watched him kiss her, then hug her—for way too fucking long.

  And I remembered…

  I remembered how Roni flirted with Ash at Jesse’s wedding. How she made out with him at Katie’s stagette party; how she danced with him on the coffee table in her bikini. How she wore that hot-as-hell red dress to the wedding reception, looking for his attention. How she’d sat next to him at the fire pit afterwards—and I’d gotten the fuck up and left. And when I’d seen her later that night, how she’d acted like she didn’t even care he’d blown her off.

  I remembered how she chased after Ash the entire wedding, but late that night she’d ended up with me instead.

  So, what? Did she really want Ash this whole time?

  Was she fucking him now?

  Or all along?

  Jesus. And fuck.

  I watched Ash take her hand and drag her off backstage, my jaw so fucking tight I couldn’t believe I didn’t break any teeth.

  And I decided, right here and now, that I did not fucking need this.

  This fucking stupid-ass pet project of mine, this misguided-as-fuck mission to save Roni Webber from Taze—or from her fucking self—was a surefire one-way ticket to Crazy Town, population fucking me.

  12:16 am.

  I walked out the door of the nightclub wanting to kick my own ass. Made my way back to my bike, got on, and rode.

  I rode through the city, right through my neighborhood and just kept going. Headed back out of town. To Piper’s place, maybe, back to the clubhouse, wherever. I just needed to ride.

  Because what the fuck was it about this woman, this one woman, that had burrowed its way the fuck under my skin when I was nineteen and never left?

  And now had me acting like some obsessed teenager?

  I’d raced to that nightclub in the middle of the night,
at a moment’s notice, to seize some imagined opportunity to rescue her from her boyfriend?

  Riiiiight.

  Who the fuck did I think I was kidding, and when, exactly, had I started lying to myself about my feelings for Roni Webber?

  Today? This year?

  Fucking years ago?

  And when was I gonna get it through my damn head that she wasn’t mine to protect?

  12:50 am.

  Or something…

  In retrospect, there was no fucking way, if I didn’t have my head so far up my own ass over a woman I was stupidly obsessed with, who was fucking every dude I’d ever met—other than, you know, me—I never, ever would’ve pulled into that fucking gas station lot.

  For a cream soda.

  All I wanted was a cream soda.

  Ninety-nine percent of the time I ate well, treated my body as something of a temple, avoided junk food. I didn’t drink to excess or smoke pot to excess or use other drugs.

  But when I was alone and I was agitated about something—like really fucking agitated—cream soda was my vice. I tried not to let my brother or Jesse or anyone else who knew me too well see me drinking it, because that meant they knew I was in a weak state.

  And I was in a weak-ass state.

  I never should’ve been so distracted, over a woman who wasn’t mine and a fucking cream soda craving, of all things, that I didn’t even notice the sketchy-as-fuck van pulling into the lot right behind me—until it was too late. Until it had pulled up alongside me, blocking me from the rest of the gas station, and the first guy had already walked right the fuck up to me.

  And another one shoved something hard and cold into my left kidney.

  If it was a gun, it was totally fucking unnecessary. Especially since there were three of them and the dude standing right in front of me was none other than Taze.

  Roni’s boyfriend.

  Pretty fucking obvious this wasn’t a friendly social call.

  The third guy had already joined the party by the time I’d done a mental inventory of every weapon or weapon-like object on my bike. I had nothing on my body, wouldn’t have risked it at the door of the club, but I had what I needed in a hidden compartment on my bike.

  No chance of reaching it, though.

  The four of us took a stroll around the backside of the building, away from the security cams. Which would’ve looked suspicious as fuck—if anyone was actually around to notice it. The whole way, the prick behind me kept his weapon jabbed firmly into my back.

  I went along, cooperative as fuck. I was not getting my internal organs blown out behind a gas station off the Trans-Canada highway in the middle of the night by some dumb fuck who hadn’t graduated middle school.

  I got a look at him, and I knew who he was.

  The Sinners called him Brag, and of all his shitty qualities, my least favorite of Brag’s personality flaws was how cozy he was with Taze. Cozy enough that Taze shared his brand new girlfriend with him at a Sinner’s party in a romantic little threesome I was lucky enough to witness.

  “On your knees,” he said, “and hands behind your head.” Clearly he’d watched too many episodes of Law & Order while chain-smoking weed and studying to be a badass.

  I complied.

  The other kid stood in front of me. I knew him only as Topper. He was a bruiser, one of those guys that the other guys kept around mostly because he was handy in a fight. But when I looked in his eyes, he looked fucking nervous.

  I was on my knees, and he looked scared.

  As he fucking should.

  The three of them were crossing an ugly line right now.

  At least they weren’t so stupid they didn’t know it.

  “Fool me once, shame on you, huh, Jude?” Taze started talking. “Fool me twice… shame on me, right?” When I looked up into his face, he was standing over me, off to my right side, watching me carefully. “Took me fuckin’ long enough, huh? But I figured you out. I got you. You got a thing for my girl, is that it? That’s why you keep showing up uninvited. When I’m fucking her. When we’re meeting her friends’ babies. And you keep giving her that fuckin’ look. Lemme guess. She turn you down, you can’t take no for an answer, something like that?”

  Topper shifted, and I glanced at him.

  “I’m asking you a fucking question. You got a thing for Roni?”

  I looked at Taze again and said nothing.

  Honestly, he looked scared, too. That fucking vein in the middle of his forehead. He looked pissed, but backed-into-a-corner pissed. Impotent pissed, like a dude who’d just had his dick cut off and handed to him.

  Yeah, he was scared.

  And he was jealous. Threatened. Not sure what my relationship with Roni really was.

  Trying to look tougher than he was for his brothers.

  I wondered whose idea this was.

  Theirs?

  His?

  He lowered himself down on his haunches and looked into my face.

  “I get it. You’re Mr. Protector. The security guy, right? Bodyguard to your best friend, the rock star… what’s his name? Jesse.”

  Jesus. Christ. Was he seriously threatening Jesse to me?

  This kid was way the fuck stupider than I took him for.

  Then he leaned closer to me and said, “I know about the dude with the pretty teeth. Lex, right? Had my boys follow him home from the club tonight. Know who he is. Know where he lives. Know he’s been watching Roni. Know you’re the one who put him there, watching her, that right?”

  He waited, but I didn’t answer.

  He knew I was never gonna answer a question like that, right?

  “Good looking guy,” he went on. “Probably not so much, though, after Topper plucks out all those pretty white teeth. Those silver fangs, I’d definitely have to keep those. Make myself a necklace or something. Trophy kill, right?”

  Right. So maybe he wasn’t that stupid.

  He was sharp enough to figure out that a death threat to one of my club brothers, or anyone else I cared about, was the surest way to get my attention.

  But the kid definitely had some kind of death wish, pulling what he was trying to pull right now.

  Did they teach him nothing in that joke MC of his?

  I glanced at Topper again. There were huge sweat stains under his armpits.

  None of them were wearing their Sinners shit.

  There was a thick, nervous energy crackling in the air between them. They felt to me like three yahoos who’d cornered a lion on a safari to take selfies and didn’t know at what point the lion was gonna turn around and bite their faces off. Just knew it was gonna happen, if they didn’t work quick.

  Then Taze’s gaze shifted to Brag, behind me—and something hit me, hard, in the lower back. Fucking kidney shot.

  Left side, up under my ribs.

  I went down like I’d been struck by lightning, the pain shooting through my body. I was already on the ground and curling up like a snail when I saw the weapon; not a gun but a tire iron, in Brag’s fist. He was standing over me, but I couldn’t pull my shit together to get up. Pain was spreading through my body again in a residual wave of fire. I couldn’t find air in my lungs.

  Fortunately for me, he didn’t take another shot.

  Taze hit me once, in the face, with a closed fist.

  “Forget. About. Her.” Close to my ear, his voice. But I couldn’t quite see through the haze of pain.

  Then he kicked me in the side with his booted foot, hard.

  Then they were gone.

  Forget.

  About.

  Her.

  It took a while, but I managed to get myself upright and around to the front of the building, moving kinda like an extra from The Walking Dead. Luckily there was no one around, but the lights were blazing over the gas station. I sat down on the curb in the shadow of my bike.

  I searched for blood, but other than a shallow scrape on my cheekbone from Taze’s pussy-assed punch, I seemed to be in one non-bloody piece. I wa
s aching and queasy, and my kidney still felt like someone had shoved a rusty steak knife through it.

  1:19 am.

  I called Brody.

  “Roni’s at the Artemis Club,” I told him as soon as he picked up. My voice sounded gruff and weird, even to me.

  “Okay?”

  “I need you to go get her.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes. Now.” I knew I’d woken him up. I knew he had a new baby. I also knew he’d do what I asked. “Try her phone. If she’s not there, she might be with Ash.”

  “Ash?”

  “Yeah,” I growled, “Ash.” The image of Ash pulling Roni into that hall behind the stage was burned uncomfortably into my brain. “Just find out where she is and go get her. And don’t say I asked you to. If you can’t find her, get Bishop to help you, but be discreet about it. Bring her back to your place, keep her there overnight and tomorrow morning until I can get there. Tell her Jessa needs help with the baby, whatever you’ve gotta say to keep her there.”

  I heard the sound of shuffling as he got up. “Can I get a fucking ‘please’ on that?” He was talking quietly, probably trying not to wake up Jessa and/or the baby.

  “Fucking please.”

  “Is everything okay?” Clearly he knew it wasn’t.

  “It’s fucking fine. Just get her there.”

  “Alright, brother.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I hung up, then called Lex and filled him in. I told him Taze had made him, knew he’d been tailing Roni. “Watch your back,” I told him. “And stay the hell away from Roni.”

  “Right. You good?”

  “Yeah.” I realized I probably didn’t sound so good. “Not a word to anyone.”

  I hung up and got to my feet. I got onto my bike, with difficulty, my lower back fucking screaming at me, and eased slowly out of the gas station lot.

  1:42 am.

  I pulled off onto a quiet road about twenty minutes from my house, in front of a fenced school yard.