No, she didn’t like it. She didn’t.
When he paused to take a breath, she turned her head toward the window, needing to breathe, to escape—except she was tied and couldn’t, damn it.
For someone so famous, Isaac didn’t have a fragile ego. Rather than be offended, he gently lowered her hands and began to undo the knots. Faint impressions from the cord were left behind, a reminder she needed desperately to ignore as he settled back into his seat. “See? Interesting.”
“No, no it’s not,” she told him, her voice cracking on the last word. “Not interesting at all.”
Chapter Eight
“Pizza is here!”
Instruments dropped and seats squealed as Isaac’s bandmates and crew jumped to their feet and rushed the poor pizza guy, who’d probably thought this was a regular run. Not with these guys—they loved their pizza. Isaac trailed in their wake, slipping the guy a fifty for surviving the swarm of locusts that had just picked him clean. “Thanks, mate.”
The man’s eyes went wide. “Y-you’re h-h-him,” he sputtered.
A selfie and autograph were small prices to pay for fame, especially when someone was as enthusiastic—and polite—as this guy was. A few minutes later Isaac was filling his plate from one of the four extra pizzas he always added to their orders just in case.
Clinton and Tyler congregated in the sound room with their engineer and his assistants. Matt and Jordan began a debate on the commercial viability of the latest boy band that had recently released their first hit single. Isaac set his pizza-filled plate on the small table next to the keyboard in the rehearsal room, his already quarter-empty beer following as he sat behind the instrument. His smashed acoustic guitar had been replaced with his second favorite Taylor, propped on a stand across the room, but it was only one of several instruments he played. He’d had piano lessons as a child, as all his ultra-wealthy peers had, and the rest had come to him simply by picking up whatever he was interested in and starting to tinker. While Oliver had moaned and groaned his way through choir practice from the time they were young boys in primary school, Isaac had excelled at singing and often won lead roles in school musicals and concerts. Sitting at the keyboard felt like coming home; music was his home. Maybe that’s why its absence hurt so much now.
“Hey!” Jordan’s shout broke Isaac out of the dark memories the song always brought back. He glanced across the room to see Jordan frantically wiping pizza grease off his fingers with a wadded-up napkin as he loomed threateningly over Matt. “Get your filthy hands off my bass. You’ll give it an STD, you fucking pervert!”
Matt laughed uproariously at the insult as he passed the bass to his mate. Jordan cradled the instrument lovingly and flipped Matt the bird. Isaac shook his head but couldn’t help grinning. The members of his band were like brothers, and they got along about as well as he imagined brothers did, laughing one minute, punching the fucker beside them the next. Luckily most of them shared the same weird sense of humor and the punches were few—musicians couldn’t afford to screw up their hands. Even better, they performed as well onstage as they did in the rehearsal room.
Eyeing the middle finger directed his way, Matt shot his friend a mock-disgusted look. “No, thanks. You know I don’t swing that way. I’ll keep my fucking and perversion for the ladies.”
Matt was the troublemaker, obviously. And considering what Isaac had seen with the many groupies the man took to bed—or against a wall, a chair, in the greenroom, on the tour bus—pervert was an accurate description. You couldn’t unsee that shit.
“Better watch it,” Clinton warned, wandering through the door to the sound room. Probably scavenging for more pizza given his empty plate. “You don’t want to come back tomorrow and find honey in the case holding your pics.”
It was a valid warning. Matt had coated Tyler’s drumsticks in honey to get back at him for something none of them could even remember anymore. Though really, there didn’t have to be a reason—Matt gave them all equal chances to be punked, just as he gave all female groupies an equal chance to be with him. Their resident man whore and practical joker.
“He ain’t lying,” Matt said, laughing and ducking away from the punch Jordan shot half-heartedly in his direction.
“As long as he keeps the sticky away from my keys,” Clint added, mouth full of pizza. He nodded toward the keyboard where Isaac sat. The instrument was his baby, old and battered but having gone on as many tours as they had. Clinton had been with Isaac the longest, and he was the oldest member of the band, the “wise one” everyone looked up to. As a longtime songwriter, he’d been paired with Isaac when he’d first signed with Strange Eye; they’d gotten along so well that Clint had stayed as a permanent part of the band.
Resting his fingers on the keys, Isaac soaked in the smooth feel of them before beginning the introduction to “Cold Love,” his first number-one single. The song had been written during the period of his life when he’d been homeless. Oh, Grace had let him live on her couch until he’d developed a game plan, cashed in his savings and what he could of his trust, and left for America, but he hadn’t had a true home. And he’d had no way to deal with the losses in his life—his parents, Oliver. So he’d written at least one of those losses into a song.
“Do you ever talk to them?”
Isaac startled. Clint stood in front of him, blocking out the rest of the room, his plate empty of food. He’d been so absorbed in the song, the memories that he hadn’t even heard the other man approach. “Hell, no.”
That was the problem with letting other people close—they knew too much about old wounds. Not that Clint had given him a choice. Like Nick, the man had simply taken his territory in Isaac’s life whether Isaac wanted it or not. And somewhere deep in his soul where he tried not to look, Isaac was glad. Losing people hurt too much, but having no one…that hurt worse.
“Not in five years?” Clint asked.
Longer than that. He dropped his left hand, tapping out the melody line of the chorus to “Cold Love” with his forefinger. “Not since they threw me out.”
As his parents’ only child and heir to the Anschau fortune, he had been groomed to take over the family securities business, to spend his days in boardrooms and offices and hobnobbing with other rich pricks until everything but the mercenary bits of his soul disappeared forever, just like they had with his parents. But Oliver, and later Grace, had kept Isaac’s soul alive.
When Oliver committed suicide, Isaac had made his decision—he would go after his dream, not his parents’. They hadn’t agreed.
And it had been simpler since then to keep everyone at arms’ length.
He glanced up at Clint. The man’s thumb tapped out a rhythm on the table next to the keyboard. “Spit it out, mate,” Isaac said.
A wry smile crossed the older man’s face. “Word has it Tad Dugan came out here to see you.”
Damn the man. Isaac glanced at his empty beer bottle, wishing he had another. “Yeah?”
“He anxious about the new album?”
Who wasn’t at this point? The thought tightened Isaac’s gut, threatening to bring up what little lunch he’d eaten. “He wanted a timeline.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t ready to give him one.”
“You know…” Clint leaned a hip against the table, settling in for what Isaac knew was a round of advice giving he really didn’t want. Clint ignored his groan. “I’ve never seen you like this. I can’t even recall the last time I saw you working on a new song. Something’s up.”
Isaac forced down a swallow of pizza, refusing to choke on it. Their history together made it difficult to hide his total lack of creative inspiration, but that didn’t mean he wanted to talk about it.
“It happens sometimes,” Clint was saying. “All artists have dry spells. And we have been a bit overrun with this tour. Maybe you just need to get laid.”
The pizza lodged in his throat. Tyler walked by with a freshly opened beer, and Clint snagged the bottle from the man’s hand, passing it to
Isaac to guzzle down. His laugh made Isaac want to punch him.
“I do not need to get laid,” he croaked when he could breathe again.
“Not what I’ve heard,” Matt crowed nearby. “Seems there’s this tight redhead that’s—”
He’d thrown the empty bottle toward his guitarist before he’d even thought the action through. Luckily Matt was a good catch.
“Yeah, definitely need to get laid,” Tyler agreed.
“Fuck off, the lot of ya,” Isaac growled.
His bandmates wandered toward the half-empty pizza boxes, their jibes about his sex life drifting his way. Pricks. He didn’t need to get laid.
God, no. What he wanted to do with Kennedy wasn’t nearly that simple. This morning, her kiss—he shifted on the stool, his finger fumbling off the keyboard. Restraining her had left the cool, confident woman off balance, and him drowning in the desire to do it again, over and over until they were both too exhausted to try again. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
He’d had plenty of women, some beneath his ropes, some simply beneath him, but it was never more than that, never because he had to have them. Going to Kennedy after he’d talked to Grace had been a compulsion; kissing her had been a drive he couldn’t ignore. He hadn’t wanted her—he’d needed her. That was dangerous for a lot of reasons, but mostly because he shouldn’t want to let her in. One kiss had told him that. If he took her to bed, he wouldn’t be able to get enough. And outside of bed? She was independent and headstrong, the worst kind of woman for him to be interested in. Needing her would be like trying to control water without a cup.
He didn’t need anyone. Not after losing his brother and his life. He couldn’t risk it.
“Look! Just the thought of gettin’ it on has him playing something new.”
What the— He glared at Matt. “What?”
Clinton stepped up beside their guitarist and nodded at the keyboard where Isaac’s fingers still rested on the keys. “What you were just playing. It’s good. What’s the inspiration?”
“I’m tellin’ you, man,” Matt crowed, “it’s the redhead.”
And fuck if the pain in the ass wasn’t right. If he’d been playing something new, Kennedy was the cause; he’d been thinking about her. And yet now, his mind was blank.
An odd mix of emotions—relief that his mind seemed to have generated a new collections of notes, even if he hadn’t been aware of it; shame that he couldn’t remember what he’d played, that he’d lost the spark he so desperately desired—churned in his stomach. He clenched his jaw against the need to lash out. His mates weren’t responsible for his creative block; he was. And as much as it galled him to accept help… “I—” He shook his head. “I’m not sure what I was playing.”
Matt leaned on the nearby table and began humming. “Like this.”
Jordan picked out a couple of notes on his bass, underscoring his bandmate’s song.
Tyler, wandering into the room, began to bob his head and blow across the lip of his beer bottle, adding the faintest whistles to the melody.
“That’s good, Matt.” He picked out a few notes on the keyboard, mimicking the man’s humming. “Again?”
The next album was their livelihood, and the men in this room deserved to succeed just as much as he did. So he swallowed back his pride and worked what they gave him. And tried to accept the fact that, out of control or not, Kennedy might very well be the key to breaking open whatever was locked up inside him.
Chapter Nine
The corner of her cell clicked against the wood of her desk, click, click, click, as Kennedy turned it restlessly in her hand. The urge to talk to Vincent had been riding her hard since yesterday. She could still feel the ghost of Isaac’s rope on her wrist, but the tingles shooting across her skin at the memory weren’t ghosts—they were all too real, and terrifying. She wasn’t that girl, the one who surrendered, the one who crawled on her knees and let her “master” control her. She wasn’t.
Even the image was rather hypocritical. She knew from talking to Jane that her best friend’s relationship with Vincent wasn’t anything like the humiliation Kennedy pictured whenever BDSM came to mind. They didn’t discuss details, but one thing Jane had been firm on: Vincent treated her with respect and care—anything else would be unacceptable to her friend. And unacceptable to Vincent as well, Kennedy knew.
So why couldn’t she shake her view of submission?
Isaac’s impact was undeniable. Her body tingled in all the right places just thinking about him and his cocky grin, his sexy accent, the view of his wide, muscular back that morning at the spa that she just couldn’t seem to banish. Staying on an even professional keel with that image in her head and the real thing in front of her? Impossible. And as much as she’d like to think she could avoid him, she knew better than to lie to herself. If she couldn’t stop herself from googling him, she couldn’t stop herself from seeking him out. Or saying no when he sought her out.
She needed help, damn it. And only one person that she knew would understand.
“Fuck it.” Righting the phone, she navigated to her brother’s name and clicked Call. Her gaze drifted to the computer screen while she waited, to the close-up of Isaac from his website, his blond good looks almost as powerful in the still photo as they were in person. The details of his career had been even more impressive than she’d known: First hit single four years ago. Nonstop touring and recording since. Six top-ten hits and one platinum and two gold albums. None of it surprised her. No one could look into those eyes and believe Isaac was anything but serious about his career. He carried a driven aura she admired, and yet the peek she’d gotten at the tattoo on his back and his flirting confirmed that there was something of the surfer boy in him as well, didn’t it?
She shouldn’t want to examine the contradictions of the man, but the need to do just that ate at her constantly.
Vincent answered on the fourth ring. “Hey, what’s up, Ken?”
It had been almost eighteen months since Vinny had gotten together with her best friend, Jane James. Every time Kennedy heard the happiness smoothing out his gruff voice, gratitude filled her heart. The two people she loved most in the world had each other, had the kind of home and relationship she and Vinny had dreamed about growing up in boarding schools and constant chaos.
Well, not exactly the kind of relationship they’d dreamed about as children—who knew her brother would grow up to be a Dom? Or that her best friend would become his submissive?
Her amusement at that thought lightened her words. “Hey, big bro! Just calling to check up. How’s Jane?”
“She’s in time-out.” His chuckle told her Jane’s time-out didn’t include a chair in the corner.
“Ew! Stop telling me about your dirty sex games with my best friend, pervert!”
“Hey, if I’m a pervert—”
A squeal of outrage could be heard in the background—Jane protesting Vinny’s choice of topic, maybe?
She rolled her eyes at her brother’s laughter. Siblings and their oversharing… Time for a change of subject.
“So, a friend of yours is staying with us right now.”
Her brother’s voice sharpened, turning from playtime to real time. “Who?”
“Isaac Anschau.”
“Ike?”
Real pleasure filled the name.
Is that how I sounded when I said his name?
Shut up.
“Really.” She picked up a pen from her desk, idly twirling it between her fingers and hoping her voice sounded just as casual when she mentioned, “He’s staying at Sovereign before his Vegas concert late next week.”
“He’s been on a smokin’-hot streak lately. That concert’s been sold out for months.”
“That’s a lot of fans.” As if she didn’t already know how many scantily clad women would kill for the chance to throw themselves at him.
Aren’t you one of them?
For fuck’s sake, shut up!
“Yeah. Work hard
, play hard; that’s Ike’s motto.”
She snorted. “That’s every bad-boy rocker’s motto.”
“Well, not everyone.” Vinny’s tone held the residue of both anger and sadness, tugging at her heart. She knew Weekend Washout had gone through a hard time with their lead singer recently, going off on a world tour of his own with a new boyfriend, leaving the band high and dry in the meantime. Now that Washout was back on an even keel, they were moving forward with a new album, but it had taken time to fix what Chad Rezler had almost destroyed.
“Is Ike giving you the runaround over there then?” Vincent asked.
Kennedy cleared her throat. God, did she even want to open this door? Once on the scent, Vinny could be like a dog with a bone. But…she needed to talk to someone. “No more so than the usual entitled rocker,” she teased, forcing the words out through a tight throat. Her brother’s laugh filled her ears.
She cleared her throat again. “He’s actually been great.”
The pause on the line made her groan inwardly. Dog. Bone.
Hell.
“Great, huh?” The gruff who’s-been-messing-with-my-little-sister tone had her swallowing hard. “He’s not pulling anything with you, is he? Because I can come over there and ki—”
She sputtered. “Vinny…”
“Spill, Ken.”
Grateful they weren’t on video chat, she rolled her eyes. “There’s nothing to spill, really.”
“And that right there tells me there is.”
Her breath huffed out on a laugh. “Is that so?”
“That’s so.”
The trace of amusement in Vincent’s voice soothed her frazzled nerves. “We’ve just been hanging out together, that’s all.”
“Let me guess,” he said. “You found out he’s a little more like me than you were bargaining for, didn’t you?”
She rubbed at the throbbing along her brow.
“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to, Ken, but I’m thinking you called because you want to. And we can. Totally up to you.”
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