He’d literally saved her life the first week she’d ditched her first and last foster home. She’d kept her head down as she passed him like she did with everyone, but something made her turn back. He’d stopped and was watching her with a totally blank face. It had scared her, so she’d sped up and dipped into an alley. Worst mistake of her short life.
Three men had been in the alleyway, exchanging something between them, and when they’d seen her, they’d come alive. Without hesitating, they crowded around her, asking her name, touching her hair. She’d closed her eyes, not knowing how she could get away and hoping she would die right then so that she’d never know what those men might do to her. Almost immediately, she heard a grunting sound. Jude was hitting the men. Kicking them and hitting them in moves she’d only ever seen on TV.
“Run,” he’d said as one of the three men made to get up again.
She’d ran but waited at the next corner for him. When he emerged, he’d walked straight past her as if she hadn’t existed. Running to keep up with his long strides, she tried to thank him, but he wouldn’t talk to her. Didn’t even seem to know she was there. Eventually he slowed down and started shaking. Like a fever of 103 shaking.
He’d started rambling and muttering about things she didn’t understand. Feeling responsible for whatever was happening to him, she ushered him into an underground parking lot, where he curled up in a concrete corner. She’d just sat herself down next to him and slept for the first time in two days.
Anya shook herself out of the trip down memory lane. That had been nearly two years ago. He’d shown her how to exist on the streets and never asked her anything about why she was there. She, in turn, didn’t ask anything about him, either, but had found out later from the shelter that he was a veteran. She owed him. Now more than ever. Now she was safe and warm in a bus with endless food and drink. She clenched her fists. She would make this work so she could get both of them off the streets.
The bus doors swooshed and Natasha jumped on. “Made it!” she said, breathing hard.
“Only just,” Anya said in a way that made it sound like Natasha was always there at the last minute. For a second, she worried Natasha would take it the wrong way, but the girl smiled. Maybe Natasha really had meant it when she declared them instant friends.
Natasha threw herself on the seat opposite Anya. “So how goes it?”
“Fine, thank you. Where have you been?”
“My family blew me off, claiming jet lag, so I hung out with Nick. He’s a college boy. And oh man, I love how college boys kiss.” She smiled dreamily.
Anya laughed. “Wow. Do you like him?”
“Sure, today I do. We have tour rules here. What happens on tour, stays on tour. So no forever relationships. Hah! More like relation-ships that pass in the night.”
“How many people have you kissed since the tour started?” Anya asked, genuinely interested in the shenanigans. Maybe she could write about the behind-the-scenes people, too.
“Lost count, sweetie. Let’s see. There was Danny in publicity, I guess”—she counted on her fingers—“three roadies: Steve, Matt, and Ryan, and of course, my first was Will.”
Anya’s spine straightened with a shot of ice.
Natasha continued. “He was so sweet. We were hot and heavy for a few days. Then he hurt his knee, had a week off, and then he kind of pretended he didn’t know me. So I brushed that off and moved on. Don’t look at me like that. I know he’s young. But he was so, so sweet. And besides, we only kissed. Hang on, I need a whizz.”
She disappeared into the tiny bathroom, leaving Anya alone with the image of Will kissing Natasha. And then blanking her. Something cold and hard rose in her stomach, and for a second she thought she was going to be sick. Damn him. And damn her for falling for his kisses. Natasha was right, he was sweet. And she was stupid. Stupid.
A fizzing hit the back of her throat and she knew her body was telling her to cry. She refused. She was not going to cry over some boy band ass when she’d been through everything she had in the past couple of years. No fucking way. So she was being played? She could play him right back. At least she knew what was what now.
She pushed open the small curtain to her bunk and sat on the edge, looking through her bag for her toothbrush and toothpaste. She quickly changed into a tank and shorts, which was all she had to sleep in since the need for nightclothes didn’t really occur on the street.
Natasha was taking her own sweet time in the bathroom, so she cleaned her teeth in the kitchen area and slid into bed. She pulled the curtain and switched on the little light. Out came the notebook again.
Kissed Natasha at the beginning of the tour
There. It was just a fact for a story. She sniffed and stuffed the book back in its hiding place. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to be upset about. Just a fact.
Chapter Eleven
As soon as the drivers pulled over for a bathroom break, Matt slipped out of his bunk. He hesitated for a second, wondering if he had time to make a recording of the snoring that was coming from one of the bunks, but decided that he had more important things to do.
He was on a mission.
He waited for all the drivers to congregate by the hut in the rest area. They called it a bathroom break, but it was more accurately a smoke break.
He slid out of the bus and found Hanging On. He pulled the manual handle on the outside of the bus and sneaked in. He should be a spy. Carefully closing the door, he wondered what his opening should be.
Come here often?
What’s a nice place like you doing in a girl like this?
Maybe he should just kiss her awake. Except that felt a little…wrong.
Besides, he wanted her awake when he kissed her. Wanted to feel her lips meet his, her mouth open for him, her skin as he touched her neck—
Down boy.
There were only two bunks with the curtains closed. Shit. He hadn’t thought this through. What if he woke up Natasha? He’d have to look for a clue. And then someone groaned and turned over, shoving a foot through the curtain. It had scarlet nails, which meant it wasn’t Anya. Phew. God was clearly on his side.
He poked Anya through the curtain. Once, twice, and he was going to poke her a third time, but a hand flew out and grabbed his poking finger. It nearly gave him a heart attack.
“What are you doing?” she hissed at him, yanking as she pulled back the curtain.
“Learning that I would be the first to die in a horror movie. You scared the shit out of me.” He unclenched his fists. Great. Now he looked like a wuss.
“How did you know it was me and not Natasha?” she asked with an accusing tone.
“Look. She shoved her hobbit foot out.” He pointed at her bunk.
Anya slipped out of her bunk and stood in front of him. Shorter now that she didn’t have shoes on, and oh my God, looking effing sexy in a long tank and shorts. He tried to keep his eyes on her face when all his hormones wanted him to do was look at her boobs.
Get a grip, Matt.
“She does not have a hobbit foot. That’s just rude.” She was all but tapping hers on the floor.
“Sorry. It was supposed to be funny. Come with me.” He pointed to the back of the bus and she frowned. To head off an objection, he turned and walked toward the rear. “Jesus. What’s all this crap?” There were boxes and bags in front of the door that most people assumed was where the baggage was stored.
He shoved everything aside and opened the door. Instead of going down, steps went up. He climbed them, risking a tiny glance behind. Good, she was following. Clearly, she wasn’t all sunshine when she’d just been woken up. That was okay. He had a feeling he’d also like grumpy Anya. Not that he was supposed to be liking her. He was supposed to be charming her to keep her distracted. Nothing more, nothing less.
Matt clicked on the light. The room at the top of the stairs wasn’t exactly the same as the one in the band’s bus. It was up a few stairs for one thing—the boys’ just opened ou
t on the same level. It also didn’t have a drinks fridge, and the carpet was kind of a puke-inducing green swirl instead of the posh natural fiber carpet in theirs.
“Wow,” Anya said as she emerged from the narrow stairway. Someone had let go of her grumps.
The room—although it was barely larger than a closet—had two chairs and one small sofa, but the real pull was the tinted rear window that stretched from the floor all the way over their head.
“This is nice. I can’t believe I didn’t know this was here.”
She sat on the sofa, thank God, gazing out of the window at the night sky. She tucked her feet under her and settled her notebook in her lap. He sat next to her, but a respectful distance away. No sense in crowding her. “When did you pick up your notebook?” he asked.
“When you were chucking Natasha’s boxes all over the place.” She looked at him kind of weird, like he’d done something wrong, but he had no idea what. “Anyway, I have a bunch of questions for you that I haven’t had the opportunity to ask yet. I figured this was a good time, since you woke me up quite rudely.” She raised her nose at him, but was kind of smiling, too. Girls were so confusing.
“Ask me anything.” He crossed his arms in front of him and sat back in the sofa, turning so he could see her.
She flipped through her notebook. “You don’t seem at all shy to me. How did you get that nickname?”
“Which nickname? The Stud? That one?” He tried to use the diversion to straighten his answer in his head.
“The Shy Guy. How did you get that if you’re really not that shy?” She cocked her head to one side, and all he could think about was angling his mouth over hers.
“Sorry, what? Oh yeah. Shy guy. Well that’s the media for you. I am much shyer in front of lots of people, crowds, interviews…” He readjusted his posture so he could move an inch closer to her. “I’m just better one-on-one.”
She obviously wasn’t buying his charm. “You had an accident a month or so ago. What happened?”
Dammit. “It was a tragic synchronized dance accident,” he deadpanned. “Very, very tragic.”
She rolled her eyes, but her smile was more genuine than the one before. Shit. Was he really counting and grading her smiles?
“No really. What happened?”
He nodded in acceptance. “Okay. It was nothing. We were practicing the ‘WET’ number without the rubber floor. There was a rubber grid, but one of the bands was loose and my foot got stuck under it and I fell, twisting my knee. It pulled at my ACL, but the doctor said I could wait for surgery. So that’s what I’m doing.” He rubbed his right knee a little for effect.
“But I read a report saying that you’d torn your ACL and had to have emergency surgery in order to be able to make the tour. That wasn’t right?” She took her pen out of the spiral on her book and removed the lid with her mouth. Her soft, sweet mouth. She stood up to look out of the window and all he could see was her long legs in those short shorts.
Get a grip, Matt.
“Media again. You can’t trust them. Present company excepted.”
She turned around and raised her eyebrows. Suddenly the bus lurched as it took off. Her eyes widened as she lost her balance and fell right at him. Instinctively, he reached out to steady her, but he half rose from the sofa and banged his head on the sloping ceiling. He fell back and took her with him.
“Ouch. Are you all right?” she asked, frowning.
Anya was in his lap, virtually astride him. Nothing would ever be better. He leaned in to her, wanting her to want to kiss him, too. She hesitated in a way she hadn’t before. And then she kissed him. For a second it didn’t feel right, and he was going to pull away and ask her what was wrong. But then she kind of sighed and kissed him like last time. Warm, intense, almost urgent. Heat rushed through him like adrenaline.
He gently moved her, so she wasn’t pressing against his…lap, and drew away, running his fingers through her hair again and watching how it fell against her neck. “You’re amazing.”
She moved away a tiny bit and snorted a laugh again. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“What girls? LJ keeps such a tight rein on us I haven’t really seen a girl since I came on tour. Hey, maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m so desperate for female company that I’m not as into you as I think I am.” He smirked. That line had been pretty smooth.
But she sat way too upright.
What the hell…?
“No girls since you’ve been here, huh? I don’t think that’s the truth,” she said. “But okay. If you want to play innocent…”
He frowned at that. What was she saying? “I never said I was innocent. I just said—”
“I know what you said.”
He felt like he’d fallen down a rabbit hole. He pushed both hands through his hair and sat back. “Do you have any more questions for me?”
“Of course I do. Make yourself comfortable.” She smiled naturally at that, and he relaxed a bit. “What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not onstage?”
“I don’t really know anymore. I can’t remember what I used to like to do. Now I’m on tour, I like hanging with the guys, and we’re all pretty masterful at World of Warcraft.”
“What if you were on a date? What’s your favorite first date thing to do?” She was still scribbling down World of Warcraft and he could see that she’d put a question mark next to it in her notes. Weird.
“First date stuff, huh? Is this on or off the record?” He grinned.
“Everything you’ve ever said to me is on the record. Why would you think we were ever off the record?”
His smile faltered as he tried to remember things he’d said to her. He’d been pretty careful, he thought. Oh well, if he kept her on-side, maybe she wouldn’t file her story until Will came back. Then he could deal with her.
A pang of regret pierced his stomach, and in a second, he realized he would effing kill his brother if he laid a hand on Anya. And that made zero sense, because Matt couldn’t have her, either. How would that work out?
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You’re looking like a deer caught in headlights.” She slipped farther away, sitting on the arm of the sofa with her feet on the cushion.
“What? Nothing. First date, huh?” He got up, careful to avoid the curved fiberglass part of the ceiling, and stretched, placing his hands flat on the glass window above them. “I guess I would pick her up in the afternoon, maybe take her out for coffee or an iced tea. Then we’d go for a walk, and after a few minutes I’d take her hand, see if she liked it or not. Then if she seemed to like it, I might try to put my arm around her.” He closed his eyes and imagined an actual first date with Anya. “If she didn’t pull away, it would only be a matter of time before I…took her to dinner. And then maybe on the walk home, I might kiss her. If she let me.”
Silence.
…
Anya knew she was gawking, but she couldn’t help it. His low, hypnotic voice made her think that she was the one on the date with him. She was the one he was kissing. Her pen was poised on the pad, but she just stared at him talking with his eyes closed.
She jumped a mile when he caught her staring. He didn’t move, but his eyes half closed. He reached out his arm to her. “Come here, angel.”
How dare he? She was just another girl to him…another Natasha, another…who knew who. She tried to vibe outrage, but her body betrayed her as she crawled over to him and let him wrap his arm around her, pulling her head against his chest. Safe. Not alone. She held in even the hint of tears. She wouldn’t cry.
He was so big and strong, and she did feel unbelievably safe with him. She felt his heartbeat under her ear. Her hand stretched out over his chest, hesitantly feeling the heat beneath her fingers. She breathed when he did and relaxed as he stroked her back. Maybe she could just enjoy this while he liked her. Until he Natasha’d her.
What was she doing here? She hated that the stupid one hundred dollar per diem had erased some of her h
unger for the scoop. She still hadn’t found a whiff. Except for Alice Singleton and Natasha. She wondered what Alice looked like. Natasha and Anya couldn’t be more different both physically and…well, age-wise for one thing. Yet here she was, and nothing in her would let her move away from him. Not one cell urged her to leave.
His hand slid under her tank at the back. She tensed for a second, and he stopped moving. It was such an intimate touch, but no, she didn’t want to do anything that would take his skin away from hers.
She relaxed again, and he continued stroking her. It was nothing. Nothing compared to what she’d seen people do on the streets when they thought no one was looking.
His hand stayed on the small of her back, just slowly stroking, stroking, until his proximity, his bare hand against her bare skin made her feel as if she was on the slow chug up a rollercoaster. She could hear the blood pumping around her body as she waited for the plunge down to the ground.
Suddenly she didn’t care who he was and what she was doing here. Her whole body was telling her that she wanted to touch him the way he was touching her. For him to feel what she was feeling now. The silence between them only served to enhance every emotion, thought, and sensation that ran through her.
She sat up without saying anything. His eyes followed her as she stood, hesitating for a moment as if her body was complaining about being away from his, then she placed one hand on his shoulder and deliberately placed one knee either side of his lap. His thighs were as hard as his chest. Heat pumped through her again. She took a deep breath. “It seems…all I can think about is kissing you.”
“Jesus,” he whispered.
“No. It’s Anya,” she whispered right back. Why was he so compelling? Why was she so weak like this with him? She felt like a totally different person. Could this be her? The real her that she’d been hiding for years? Or was this some whole other Anya?
Anya and the Shy Guy (Backstage Pass) Page 10