“Of course you get a say.” Lacey’s stomach was tight, but she couldn’t back down now. Dante was talking to her—really talking to her. Really wanting to hear what she said. Don’t do this, her mind warned, even as she drew in an unsteady breath. Don’t do this, you’ll just fall harder. But Harry had trusted her with this peek into Dante’s true music, his true world, and she’d seen a part of Dante’s true self last night, too. Just thinking about that—and about her reaction to what they’d done—made the blush crawl up her cheeks again. “And I’m sorry about last night. I just—I got a little carried away, I guess,” she said, lifting her chin. “But I’m fine now, really.”
Dante lifted his brows, his gaze roaming over her face. The tenderness in his expression made Lacey’s heart hurt, but “tender” wasn’t the way she wanted him to look at her, she’d decided. And that decision was becoming more firm with each passing second. “You sure?” he asked.
“I’m sure,” Lacey said, gritting her teeth even as she gave him a sunny smile. See? This was exactly the problem with letting her emotions get involved. She’d just spent an entire day feeling miserable and depressed, lonely for Dante’s touch, believing that she’d lost even the possibility of seeing him again, talking to him like this. And now here he was, and they were actually alone—only he was treating her like she might break. Which, again, was very sweet, but it was so not what she wanted from Dante Falcone. She knew that now. She knew it more than anything.
“If you say so, Lacey,” Dante said, giving her a little smile. “I just want you to be good with all of this—with me. I want you to be okay.”
“I’m more than good with you,” Lacey said firmly. And she was. After everything Harry had told her and everything she’d seen tonight, she knew she didn’t want to let this chance pass her by. She didn’t want Dante to be worried over her. She wanted him to be hungry for her. To think of her not as some starry-eyed girl who could barely speak to him for the emotions roiling up inside her, but as a strong, capable woman. Someone who could be everything he needed, and everything he wanted, too. Not for forever, of course. She wasn’t stupid, and she knew this couldn’t last.
“But Dante …” Lacey smiled as he swiveled his gaze around to her. “I would like to keep spending time with you—if that’s all right with you, that is.”
Dante’s return smile was slow, with just a touch of heat. “Well, I think we can arrange that,” he said, and Lacey felt an answering heat flicker within her at the way his gaze drifted over his face with pure male satisfaction. Yes. This is what I wanted, this is what is good.
For the next few days—weeks—as long as this lasted, she wanted to have it all. But Dante still had the image of her running away imprinted in his brain, she knew that. So how could she get him to see her differently? How could she …
Instantly, the image of the enormous glass-surfaced stage came to her mind. Beneath that thick, transparent glass every night, groupies put on a show in a brightly lit room for the guys rocking out up top. The band members could see everything that went on down there—and everyone. She knew that Dante watched that show every bit as much as the rest of the guys when he had the chance, when he was the one on stage and groupies were dancing around down there for him.
Well, if she really wanted him to want her, then she had the perfect opportunity, right beneath Dante’s feet. Maybe she could be the next girl to give him the show of his life.
Tomorrow night, she’d have her chance.
Chapter Sixteen
As he closed out his guitar solo to the roar of an approving crowd, Dante grit his teeth against his own raging erection. He was already hard as a pole, and if what he’d just glimpsed below the stage was any indication, it wasn’t going to get any better. Resolutely, he kept his gaze up and away from his feet.
Because Lacey was down there. Beneath the stage. Dancing.
And she was going to be the death of him.
He’d known something was up when the band had been preparing to go out on stage tonight. Lacey had come bouncing up to him and at first glance, all he’d noticed was the wig. She claimed she’d borrowed it for fun from one of the groupies, and the tumbling pile of bright red curls was just the beginning of what he realized was a much more glammed up style, very different than her usual appearance. Everything about Lacey had seemed to glitter and glow, in fact, and he’d grinned to watch her roam around with confidence in her new look, the roadies responding to her with more warmth and affection than they had since the tour started. Though—admittedly, Lacey looked hot as hell. Who wouldn’t respond with affection to that?
Then they’d gone on stage, and he’d gotten caught up in the performance. Dante had looked down halfway through the first set, and only then had he seen the real reason why Lacey had opted for a big wig and heavy makeup. And he’d gone from zero to ready to burst out of his leathers in just about three-point-six seconds.
Lacey had joined the groupie crew below the stage with a vengeance. The dress had been slicked off, revealing a toned body that still had plenty of curves to spare poured into an electric blue bra and boyshorts that shimmered and twitched with every move. Lacey wasn’t a dancer by any means, but she’d clearly done enough time in fitness classes that she could follow a beat and entwine herself around the writhing, giggling mass of tits and ass that was gyrating to the music of Paradiso.
The trouble, however, was that she wasn’t just stopping at the dance part. Two of the other girls had latched on to her, and once they’d caught the band members watching, they had grown bolder and bolder with each other, stroking, petting, and now—
Dante swallowed, forcing himself to sling his guitar lower to mask his heavy cock as he let his gaze sweep back over the scene below. Lacey was making out with a barely clad blonde bombshell, the movement not frantic or intense or even overtly sexual, but slow, languorous, and almost exploratory. Like she wasn’t just doing it for show, like she was having a damn fine time devouring the mouth of another woman.
Christ.
They were coming up on the set break, and if he didn’t get off this stage and into someplace private, he was going to explode. Of course, once he got there, if Lacey was anywhere near him, he was going to probably explode anyway, but with any luck at least he wouldn’t be on camera. Or, you know, in front of fifty thousand screaming fans.
And what was Lacey thinking anyway, especially with all of the YouTube cameras trained on her? The camera guys had already shot countless rolls of B-video of the den of iniquity underneath the stage. It didn’t seem to matter that they could only show the bare minimum of what they’d shot during the webisodes, given the tour’s slate of sponsors. They recorded it anyway. For their own edification, for selling on eBay—he didn’t know. But he did know that there was a damned good chance that one of those camera guys now had a record of Lacey making out with another chick, the two of them hot enough to set the world on fire. He was going to find that video—and buy it. Anything for another glimpse of Lacey showing off for him, Lacey making him so hard he thought he was going to die.
The music wound down and Dante shoved his guitar to one of the crew almost before the closing strains ended, waving to the crowd as he strode off the stage. Play it cool, play it cool. He could feel Lacey’s eyes on him as she looked up through the thick glass—her ceiling, his floor—and he practically stormed away, her crazy mix of curiosity and desire and confusion punching him in the gut. But still, he had to get away. If she kept looking at him like that, in the jacked-up state he was now, he was seriously going to lose it.
Dante turned left, away from the zoo cage beneath the stage and into the first door he could find, some dimly lit storeroom crammed full of props and stage equipment from a million different bands. He placed his hands on the cool concrete walls, dragging in a heavy breath. He felt rather than heard the door open behind him, and he sagged a little against the wall. He didn’t have the strength—he couldn’t—
“Dante?”
La
cey smoothed her dress back into place as she shut the door behind her. She’d felt so gloriously on display in that room beneath the stage. Knowing Dante was watching her through the glass floor, knowing the whole band was watching her, and feeling more alive and powerful in her own skin than she ever had before. But now she didn’t know how to act—how to be. She knew her Victoria’s Secret getup was tame compared to what everyone else had been wearing below the stage … or not wearing, actually—half the women parading around with their full, perfect breasts bared for everyone’s roaming eyes and hands.
But the roadies and groupies had been nothing but supportive for Lacey’s first time in the glass cage, and her impromptu make-out session with two of the regular groupies had met with enthusiastic applause and hoots of encouragement. Even the cameramen had been on her side, though she hoped—prayed—that none of them had figured out yet who she was beneath her costume. She’d felt so ridiculously sensual and unfettered that she’d looked up with an almost feline excitement to see if Dante had been watching her, too.
He had, but the look on his face hadn’t been one of pleasure, exactly. He’d looked like he was being tortured.
Once he’d stalked offstage, Lacey had gotten out of the room beneath the stage as quickly as her platform heels had allowed her, only to see Dante heading in entirely the wrong direction. Before she’d even given herself time to think, she’d followed him, all the way into this storage room of long forgotten banquet tables and supplies.
But now, standing in the half-light as Dante just breathed across the floor from her, she suddenly felt out of place, awkward. Like she was back to being a sixteen-year-old, fumbling and bumbling and uncertain in her own skin. She’d hated that feeling then, but now, it was almost insulting. He’d enjoyed watching her dance, hadn’t he? Surely she hadn’t been imagining that!
She swallowed and tried again. “Dante,” she asked, hating the tremor in her voice. “Did I—did I do something wrong?”
The harsh, half-strangled laugh that Dante exhaled overrode her fear. He sounded bad—more than bad, he sounded terrible. Like he was sick. Forgetting all of her own surging doubts, Lacey walked the few short paces to reach him and put her hand on his shoulder, feeling the adrenaline and heat rolling off of him. “Dante—what’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?”
“Oh, Christ, Lacey,” Dante turned to her and the force of his movement pushed her against the concrete wall, half-lifting her off the floor. He crushed his mouth against hers before she could draw her next breath, and she thrilled to feel the power of him, the intensity of his emotion, pouring over her so suddenly. Then he dragged his mouth away, sucking in a ragged breath, and dropped his forehead against hers, still holding her up. “You’re so fucking beautiful, and to see you like that—”
“So you did like it?” she asked. “Those girls—”
“You were lucky it was only girls,” he growled. “If one of those guys had put his hands on you I would have smashed right through that glass. But even the women—” He closed his eyes, shaking his head. “I can’t even tell you what I’m thinking right now. I just want you, so bad I can’t even stand it.”
“Then take me,” Lacey urged him, shocked at her own words but feeling that nothing had ever been more right, more real, than Dante being with her right this second. “Take me now—why not? You have time, unless you think it will take too long?” She twisted around, looking for a suitable place amid the piles of cloth and stacked chairs.
Dante’s laugh was low and pained. “It will take all of thirty seconds at this rate, sweetheart. Oh, God.” He groaned as Lacey stepped away from him and pulled off her dress, and his hands were everywhere, skimming her shoulders, her arms, drifting over her breasts that even now were straining against her push-up bra. “Lacey, I can’t do this now—”
“Why not?” Lacey pleaded. “You want me, don’t you? I know you do.” She let her hand drop to graze his erection, heartened by its intensity. He was interested. He had enjoyed her show.
“Honey.” Dante breathed against her. “That’s not the problem.” He fought and failed to suppress a shudder. “I don’t suppose you brought protection with you?”
That stopped Lacey cold. Back in the glass cage, there were bowls of multicolored condoms just sitting around like party favors, ready and waiting for anyone’s pleasure. But she hadn’t thought to grab any, and right now they seemed impossibly far away. “You don’t—?”
“I don’t have enough room in these jeans for a guitar pick,” Dante said shakily. “There’s no way.”
“But I—I can’t—you can’t,” Lacey said miserably, then an idea occurred to her, and her mouth curved into a smile even as Dante was shaking his head.
“Oh no, Lacey. I don’t know what’s going on in your pretty little mind, but it’s not happening. Not here. Not now. I’m not going to let you touch me.”
“Then maybe you could do something else for me,” she said before she could think better of it, the excitement building inside her. She reached up to kiss him lightly on the lips even as she unzipped his leather pants, letting his erection spring free to her greedy fingers. Dante reached down to push her away, and instead she guided his hand to his own hard length. “I let you watch, all during the first set,” she said, shocked at what she was asking him, shocked at how Dante’s eyes were dark and hot, watching her even as he wrapped his fingers tight. “Let me watch, Dante,” she whispered. “Let me watch you do it.”
“Lacey, I—”
“C’mon.” She smiled, feeling delicious and wicked, even as he began working his cock. “You said yourself—it should only take a second or two.” She drew her hands down the outside of her breasts, then curved her fingers into the edge of her silken bra, pulling the material down and away. As her breasts spilled out, the nipples already hard and tight, Dante drew in a hissing breath, his eyes focused on her as she palmed her own soft skin and squeezed the tips of her breasts between her fingers. The play between them stretched out, his eyes raking over her body as he brought himself closer and closer to the edge. She shimmied toward him, unable to stay so far away and his eyes widened, his mouth tightening into a sheer rictus of pleasure and pain and heat and—then his gaze locked on her face and he groaned with such exquisite agony that her insides melted.
“So—goddamned—beautiful,” he moaned.
When Dante came apart right in front of her, Lacey reveled in the power she had over him even three feet away. His gaze was still heavy and hot on hers, neither of them able to look away, and she was right there to towel off his hands, his body, getting him prepped to go out and put on another performance of his life.
But she had logged another performance now, too, one for her own private memories. An image of herself powerful, sensual, and bold. An image she would never forget.
Dante strode back on stage a few minutes later, and Lacey thrilled to see him delight the crowd with his music and energy. By then, she’d also stripped off her costume and had returned to the world as Lacey Dawes, junior agent. The role suited her, but so did her other role. Her new role. The Lacey Dawes she was becoming, every minute she spent with Dante—strong and assured, confident in her own newly sexy skin.
The two hours remaining in the show flew by, and Lacey finally strode out of the building still riding high on adrenaline and excitement. Her little impromptu session with Dante had been amazing, and it had done what she’d hoped it would. Something had changed between them, she was sure of it. Another barrier broken. And as to what would happen next between them, she couldn’t begin to imagine … and she couldn’t wait to find out.
A commotion at the front of the parking lot dragged Lacey’s attention away from his scrambling roadies. A limo had pulled up in front of the buses, and from the irritated scowl on Harry’s face, he hadn’t been expecting company.
Then she saw who got out of the limo, and flinched.
To her credit, it took her only 1.7 seconds to force her face into the rigid lines of a smile.
“Brenda!” Lacey shouted, striding toward the car. “How amazing that you’re here! But it’s so late!” She leaned in to give the Barracuda a completely fake hug, knowing she needed to keep her boss off balance for as long as she possibly could. “What brings you all the way to Baltimore?”
“From things that I was hearing, it sounded like you were enjoying yourself a little too much,” Brenda said, her eyes shrewd as she took in Lacey’s getup. Lacey thanked herself a hundred times over for having changed her outfit. Had her little show below the stage been caught on video somewhere? Had someone ratted her out already? But there was no way Brenda could have reacted so fast to someone spilling her secret. Had she already been en route to Baltimore? But if so, why?
“Oh, my gosh, yes! It’s been an amazing experience! I can’t thank you enough for making it all possible!” Lacey gushed as convincingly as she could as Dante exited the stadium, complete with his entourage. She turned with bright eyes and a hopeful grin to him, all junior agent eager to make her boss happy. “Dante, look who’s here!”
Dante checked his stride, and then, mercifully, smiled wide and sauntered over. “Brenda,” he said amiably. “What a surprise.”
Between them, Brenda blinked first at her and then again at Dante, her bitch act already cracking in the face of attention. Lacey leapt into the silence, not wanting Brenda to get her bearings. “Are you with us for the next show? We’re here one more night—I can get everything set up for you!”
Brenda nodded. “Yes. Do that. I have other meetings I have to manage but …” She tossed her hair, looking at Dante appraisingly. “Not tonight. Dante, you have a few minutes?” At his shrug, Brenda gave Lacey a dismissive wave. “Okay, run along to the hotel, Lacey. I’ll be spending some much needed catch-up time with IMO’s number one client.”
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