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

by Jaine Diamond

  She didn’t message me.

  I didn’t message her.

  I wondered if she wanted me to give chase.

  I wondered if I would.

  Soon after I met her, Roni had told me, casually, that she never went back for seconds. She told me that many times. Just one of those flirtatious, ridiculous things she used to say.

  She told me the same thing, again, the third time I’d fucked her—the night of Jesse’s wedding.

  But then she went and got herself a boyfriend.

  I said I didn’t want a relationship with her. Told her that. Told myself that. But now here I was, home alone in bed, without her—wanting more. I was thinking about how to seduce her when I told myself, long ago, I’d never do this.

  Veronica Webber hurt me. More than once.

  I swore I’d never look back.

  But now I was looking back. Trying to see things as they were. Through mature eyes, rather than the limited vision I had back then.

  How fucking little I understood about women then.

  But I always knew myself.

  Over the years, I’d had my share of women, but I’d always cared. No matter how little I knew them, no matter what strangers they were to me in that moment, I always had to care. Couldn’t turn that part of myself off like some guys could. Had to look a woman in the eye and give a shit how she felt about it during, afterward.

  Had to look Roni in the face ten months ago, right after we’d fucked, stare straight down the barrels of those two jade-green eyes of hers and ask her, You feelin’ me, V?

  Because I didn’t mislead women. I didn’t lie to them to get them into bed or afterward. I was straight with her, just like I was with every woman I’d ever been involved with, however casually.

  You and me, darlin’, we’re not goin’ down that road.

  I’d meant it when I said it.

  At least, I sure fucking thought I did.

  But the truth was I wasn’t done with her. I knew that about two seconds after she walked out of that lodge, and in the days and weeks and months that followed, when I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  Wondering about her.

  I wanted to fuck her again. Obviously.

  I’d always wanted to fuck her.

  But I was not sure where this road went, and that made me incredibly fucking uncomfortable. With her, I’d never been sure.

  And I wasn’t sure I liked that feeling. At all.

  Fact was, I had always dated women who made me feel powerful.

  And never had a woman brought me to my fucking knees the way she did.

  I was nineteen when I met her.

  In my apartment.

  I’d just walked in the door, and the Doors were playing over Brody’s stereo. “Love Her Madly.” She was lying sprawled on my bed in the living room, her legs tossed up against the wall, her too-small plaid skirt up around her hips, and I could pretty much see her pussy, covered only by a thin strip of baby-blue lace panties.

  Wasn’t exactly an unusual scenario to walk into in this apartment, which I shared with Jesse, Brody and Zane.

  She was looking at a copy of Zane’s Penthouse, so I couldn’t see her face.

  “Wrong bed, darlin’,” I told her.

  It was a one-bedroom apartment and I shared the living room with Zane, mainly because I was the only one who could handle sleeping a few feet from Zane. Though I didn’t love it when his sexual conquests spilled over onto my futon.

  Which they did, regularly.

  She lowered the magazine. Pretty. Little upturned nose, black hair in two long pig tails and a thick fringe of bangs over jade-green eyes with too much black eyeliner. And she was sucking on a lollipop.

  “Who are you?” she said, looking me over, slowly, from head-to-toe and right back up again. She made absolutely no move to adjust her skirt or cover her barely-lace-covered pussy.

  “Jude!” Jessa came out of the bathroom, surprising me. She was all bedazzled in a sparkly pink tank top and jeans—both way too tight. The girl had a generous rack since she was about twelve, and Jesse would’ve flipped if he saw her in that shirt. “Hi!” She gave me a hug and I hugged her back.

  “Hey, bratface,” I greeted her. “Where’s your brother?”

  “Don’t know. We’re going shopping.” She motioned for the other girl to get the hell up, at which point it dawned on me that the chick spread out on my bed was not some random piece one of the guys had dragged home, but a friend of Jessa’s—Jesse’s fifteen-year-old sister.

  A high school girl?

  I watched the girl ditch the Penthouse and get up, smoothing her pig tails, her black-rimmed eyes on me the entire time, even as I noted the definite smell of booze Jessa had tried to hide with perfume and mouthwash. Was no secret to me that Jessa often swung by her brother’s apartment when he wasn’t home because four men shared it and there was always booze to be found.

  “Shopping,” I said as I watched them pull on their shoes. “At eight o’clock on a Wednesday?”

  “The mall’s open for another hour,” Jessa said, grabbing her friend by the elbow and yanking her past me, out the door.

  “Nice to meet you, Jude,” the girl said, licking her lollipop and really working the Lolita vibe.

  I didn’t even know her name.

  Three days later, when I saw Jessa at a band rehearsal, I asked her, “Who was that girl with you at the apartment the other night?”

  “That was Roni,” she said.

  “You mean Wild Card,” Zane said. “That’s Jessa’s new friend from school.” His eyebrow arched in a way that told me he’d met her, too.

  Jessa rolled her eyes. “Her name’s Roni.”

  Zane mouthed at me: Wild Card.

  Within a week, I’d found out all kinds of shit about Veronica Webber.

  First of all, the “Wild Card” thing: Zane’s invention. And unfortunately, it caught on. Even though she was new to Jessa’s school, Roni Webber was already making something of a reputation for herself around the neighborhood. She was a junior, a year ahead of Jessa—and obviously, lightyears more sexually mature.

  I found out she lived with her mom and her mom’s boyfriend in a crappy old house about ten blocks from the house where Jesse and Jessa had grown up, where Jessa now lived with their mom. I also found out that Roni used her mom’s piece-of-shit car to go to parties. And that she was starting to take Jessa to those parties with her.

  Parties neither of them should’ve been at.

  Jessa seemed to like her, was always hanging out with her.

  Jesse didn’t love her. Definitely didn’t want any of her “wild card” ways rubbing off on his baby sister.

  I was reserving judgment.

  I didn’t dislike her, that was for sure.

  The Lolita thing didn’t really do it for me, but something about her did.

  I’d always been pretty selective with girls. Usually, I was attracted to older women. Maybe it was my own insecurity, or maybe I was just wired that way. But I’d never understood my brother’s fascination with club sluts. I was never drawn to the fangirls who hung out like flies around my dad’s motorcycle club, now also my brother’s motorcycle club, or around the band.

  I preferred women who offered a little challenge. Smart. Classy. Maybe a little mysterious.

  Women who wouldn’t touch men like my brother with a very long and sterile pole.

  I wasn’t usually drawn to younger girls, in general. When I was sixteen, I was already sleeping with twenty-year-olds.

  But I was curious about Roni.

  And the few times I crossed paths with her, when she was with Jessa, she kinda stared at me. She flirted a little. She asked me about my name.

  “Jude,” she said, the third time I met her, stressing the U sound. “Juuude. I’ve never met a guy named Jude. Is that like the Beatles song?”

  “It’s not unlike the Beatles song,” I said.

  She smiled. She had round, pouty lips, and she definitely knew how
to work them when a guy was looking at her. It was the first time she’d smiled at me, and I liked it.

  Then she showed up at a band rehearsal with Jessa, literally the next day—and flirted up a pheromone storm with Zane, right in front of me.

  And with Dylan.

  At that point, I pegged her as a groupie. Disappointing, sort of. But it wasn’t like I was surprised. I was so familiar with the routine that it had already become numbingly boring. The way some girls looked right past me to my brother, or Zane, or Jesse, or whoever.

  I knew the type.

  Call me crazy, but I preferred women who actually saw me. Who actually gave a fuck about me.

  Who were drawn to me and only me, despite all the other available dick in the room.

  I figured I knew everything I ever needed to know about Roni “Wild Card” Webber, right then.

  But then a few weeks later, Jesse asked me to pick Jessa up one evening. Not unusual. As it turned out, though, she was at Roni’s place.

  I happened to get there a few minutes early, parked on the road in front of the house, and when I got out of my car, I saw something I shouldn’t have. Something neither Roni or Jessa ever knew that I saw.

  I saw Roni standing in the front door of the house, which was open, talking to her mom’s boyfriend, who was standing just inside. Arguing with him, maybe.

  Then I saw him push her right out the door.

  She stumbled and fell, and once she was already off her feet, he shoved her right down the stairs and shut the door.

  Right in front of Jessa, who was standing at the bottom of the stairs.

  It happened so fast, it was over before I could react. I couldn’t do anything about it.

  But I saw Roni, from that moment on, in a totally different light.

  That brief glimpse into her life would shape how I would always view her—as a girl who’d been pushed around but worked so hard to show the world she was anything but a pushover. A girl who took what she wanted and moved on—before she could get hurt.

  And it didn’t take a degree in psychology to realize why she sought out the attention from men that she did.

  It bothered me, long afterward.

  I didn’t say anything to Roni or Jessa when they got in my car that day. They both acted like nothing had happened. They didn’t know I saw.

  But seeing Roni treated like that hit me deep. It tweaked every protective urge I had, and I had a major protective streak.

  I’d always been that way.

  I’d been in way too many fights in my life, sometimes fights I had no business being in, because I felt like I had to protect my brother. Never mind that Piper was bigger than me, five years older than me, had always been a better fighter, and our dad was a biker. It was my nature. I looked out for my own. For anyone I gave a damn about.

  Hell, I looked out for anyone who needed it, if I could.

  It bothered me enough that a few nights later, I jumped a guy coming out of a convenience store. Not just any guy; Roni’s mom’s boyfriend.

  His name was Jed. Fucking Jed.

  Just sounded like the name of an asshole who shoved his girlfriend’s teenage daughter literally on her ass.

  I shoved a knife up next to his ribs under my jacket and told him, “Walk.”

  He walked. I took him around behind the store where my brother, Piper, and a friend of ours was waiting. They were both Kings, but they didn’t wear their colors. Neither of them knew who this guy was or why we were here, but they stood by, stood watch, as I beat the crap out of him. Piper would’ve done anything for me; he didn’t ask. He had his piece in the front of his jeans, shoved into his waistband, and the guy on the ground saw it. The gun was never drawn. It didn’t need to be.

  I left him lying there, bruised to hell and no doubt scared as shit, drooling blood, and whispered in his ear, “You leave Roni the fuck alone.”

  He had no idea who I was, but that message got through.

  Within a week, Jed had broken up with Roni’s mom and taken the hell off.

  Good riddance.

  One afternoon, not long after that, I was with Jesse at his mom’s place. We were down in the basement, picking up some of his things; he still stored some music equipment there. I heard Jessa come home, and the sound of Roni’s voice.

  And I felt a nervous stab of guilt.

  Obviously, she needed that guy out of her life. But I hadn’t seen her yet, since what I did. I wasn’t super proud of it. I wasn’t really a violent person. At least, I never thought I was.

  I’d seen plenty of violence growing up.

  As a man, I rarely resorted to it myself. But some situations, maybe they just called for it. I’d no more let that asshole hurt Roni and be able to sleep at night than I’d be able to hurt her myself.

  That was how I stomached it.

  After a few minutes, I made some excuse to slip upstairs. I wanted to say hi to Roni, but they were in Jessa’s bedroom. The door was open and I heard them talking. I didn’t exactly hover outside like a creeper, but I stopped in the living room. They were talking loud enough I could hear every word.

  Obviously they had no idea I was there, because Jessa was talking about some guy she liked, and she never talked about that shit in front of me or Jesse.

  “Just tell me who it is,” Roni was urging her. “You know I’m gonna find out anyway.”

  “No,” Jessa said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Are you gonna fuck him?”

  “Ew. No. I mean… not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, we’re not there yet. I don’t even know if he likes me that way.”

  “Of course he does. If I were you, I’d hit that before some other girl gets her claws into him.”

  Jessa sort of sighed and laughed uncomfortably. “It’s not that easy.”

  “I never said it was easy. You know I’ve got my own personal sexual bucket list. It’s okay to have goals. But not every guy is a sure thing from moment one, no matter how hot you are.”

  Jessa snorted. “You and your sexual bucket list.”

  “I mean, just because Piper is at the top of the list, doesn’t mean I’m gonna screw him, like, tomorrow.”

  A bolt of discomfort stabbed through me as I heard Roni’s words. I heard them, but it was like I was in shock.

  “Believe me,” she went on, “I would screw him tomorrow, if I could. But sometimes, when the guy’s really worth it, you have to wait it out. Which is why you’re going to introduce me to him the first chance you get, and then I’ll start working my charms…”

  After that, I took off. I didn’t want to hear more. I headed back downstairs to help Jesse, then got the fuck out of there.

  But it really fucking floored me.

  Maybe I’d really started to feel something for this girl? Because I was not taking this whole sexual bucket list thing too well—especially when I found out my older brother was at the top of her list of sexual goals.

  Fucking ironic or something.

  Roni had no idea I’d driven off her mom’s boyfriend. No one did. Even Piper didn’t know or care who the fuck Jed was. Which meant Roni didn’t know Piper had helped me do it, either; he hadn’t even done anything to win her over. It didn’t even sound like she’d met him yet.

  And now she had a thing for him?

  Fucking typical.

  It was that day that I told myself to forget about Roni Webber.

  For the first time of many.

  And just like all the other times, it wouldn’t stick.

  I didn’t see her until a few weeks later, at a party Dirty was playing outside of town, at Shady’s place. The party was in the big barn in the side lot, it was pretty packed, and I was talking to Brody near the small stage in back when he fucking freaked out. His eyes locked on something across the barn. “Fuck, no,” he growled, and then he bolted through the crowd.

  I went after him.

  It was Jessa, and she was there with R
oni. And I knew why Brody was flipping out. For one, he had a massive hard-on for Jessa Mayes, which he tried to hide from Jesse and me. But since I was pretty sure he was also head-over-heels in love with her, would never actually touch her and would probably die before hurting her, I let it slide. I didn’t tattle on him to Jesse. But I did help him bounce her ass out of parties like this one—which was filled with bikers and other people none of us wanted Jessa anywhere near.

  I followed Brody right up behind her.

  “What. The. Fuck,” was all he said, loud enough for her to hear it over the band; Dirty was onstage, and hopefully Jesse would never have to know his little sister was here.

  She turned around and put on a forced half-smile. She wasn’t any happier to see us than we were to see her.

  “Hey, Brody,” she said.

  “The fuck are you doing here?” he growled.

  “You’ve got five minutes,” I said, looming over her. The quickest way to diffuse the situation—and Brody’s ticking time-bomb temper—was to get her the fuck out of here.

  “Five minutes until what?” she asked, as if she didn’t fucking know.

  “’Til I bounce your ass out of here,” I said. “Say your hellos and goodbyes and let’s get going.”

  Roni had lingered, listening in, but now she flipped her hair, giving me a bored look. “I’m gone,” she told Jessa. “Call you later, ’kay?” Then she smiled at me. “Later, jailor.”

  “Keep an eye on that one,” Brody said, bumping my arm as Roni headed off through the crowd.

  “Why?”

  “’Cause she’s sixteen. She gets to drinking, bounce her ass home.”

  I snarled my irritation and glared at Jessa so she knew I was pissed—though that never did much to scare her away, anyway—then stalked off after Roni.

  “Good luck with that!” I heard Jessa call after me. Whatever. Forget minutes; five seconds and Brody was gonna have her out the door.

  I didn’t love it, but I did what he asked me to. Because he was right. Roni was Jessa’s friend, and Jesse was gonna lose it if she got shit-faced at this party and ended up underneath some asshole. He was already worried enough about Jessa. None of us needed her or her underage friends at these parties. Least of all me.