Never Leave a Rockstar (Never Trust Book 4)

by Sarah Darlington

  It was all making me nervous. Making me unsure. If we slept together—I think it would help me make sense of whatever sort of relationship thing we had here. But we hadn’t, and I didn’t understand a damn thing.

  “So, the mall? I think we could get the most stuff done at once there.”

  Oh God, I wasn’t a mall type of a person. I was the Target kind. “Sure. Whatever.”

  He stood, and I followed him out of the house. Outside he opened the passenger door to his sporty Mercedes, holding it as I climbed in. I sat down with my heart racing for absolutely no reason at all. He climbed inside, starting the car. It purred like a kitten. No joke—that was how smooth his car sounded. Wasting no time, he shifted and took off speeding down Luke’s curvy driveway. We didn’t speak on the way. I didn’t know what to say or what to expect from this version of Ollie. The real life, outside the island version. The guy in the nicest clothes, with the nicest car, driving like he owned the road.

  We arrived. The mall wasn’t far from Luke’s house. Ollie grabbed a spot in the very last row, about a mile from the mall’s front entrance. He found a beanie in his trunk and pulled in on. It suited him. Then he popped the collar on his leather jacket, as if to hide some of his face. He moved in closer to my space, touching my stomach, making all these shivers shoot through my body. “Just know, ninety percent of things I say and do in public, are fucking bullshit.”

  He started walking.

  I stood frozen for a moment. What did that mean?

  “C’mon, Luce. The faster we move, the faster we can get through all this.”

  I hurried to catch his stride.

  “What do you need?” he asked. “Cell phone? Clothes? Anything else?”

  “Just the basics. Yeah.”

  My mind was still on his words about bullshit. We reached the entrance, stepping into the warmth and hustle of a Sunday morning. There were people, all ages, everywhere. Soft music drowned out by the noise of the conversations. He laced his fingers with mine and started moving through the crowd.

  He was right about moving quickly. As long as he didn’t slow down, he didn’t give people a chance to recognize him. Somehow, we made it into the Apple store without any fuss from anyone. “Can I help you?” asked a person in a collared shirt. Her mouth dropped open as she stared at Ollie. She most definitely recognized him. It was written on her young face. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Do I need one?”

  “Um.” She swallowed.

  “I need two phones. Whatever’s newest. Whatever’s nicest. I’m trying to get out of here as fast as I can. You can help, right? You can do this for me? You know I’d appreciate it.” He dropped my hand to pull out his wallet. He took out a black card and handed it to the women. My cards were presumably in April and her friend’s possession. I’d cancelled them yesterday. The new ones were on their way to my home in Kill Devil Hills. I had a card I’d borrowed from my dad. But I hadn’t planned on going on a shopping spree with it, especially now that I was jobless.

  The girl took Ollie’s card. She stared at it for a moment. “I’ll be right back.” She smiled politely.

  Ollie turned toward me. He touched my arm. He dipped his head close to my neck, inhaling against my skin. I’d been single for way too many years. I wasn’t used to any sort of public affection. Hell, affection in general. “You can’t buy me stuff,” I muttered. “I have my own money.”

  “I’m going to buy you a lot of stuff today,” he said against my ear.

  “I don’t know how I feel about that.”

  “It’s my fault you lost your phone.”

  Well, he had a point.

  “So there are three types of people,” he said, changing the subject. “The first type watches me but is too nervous to do anything. The second type is a little bolder. They try to take secret photos. Maybe even sell them if they can. The third type has no boundaries. They’ll interrupt anything I’m doing. They’ll ask for a photo no matter the circumstances. If it’s a woman around my age, she might ask for a hell of a lot more than a photo. I’m an easy fuck. Girls know it, too. It’s pretty common knowledge. There are forums devoted to it. I’ve read some.”

  He pressed his lips to mine briefly. He’d worked his hands under my shirt in the time it took to explain all that, touching my bare skin. Not sure if I enjoyed hearing how easily he could fuck other women. Especially when he seemed to be trying to get in my pants at the moment. We had a small audience now. Other people had noticed Ollie Mills among them. “Why are you telling me this?” I whispered.

  He moved his hands to my neck, cupping my face. “Because I’m anxious as fuck right now. The whole world is closing in around me.”

  What? It was just a mall. They were just fans. Nobody was a ‘type three’ trying to have sex with him.

  The Apple employee returned. She had two little boxes. “I got you the two phones you wanted, Mr. Mills. I just need you to sign here and you’re all set.”

  Ollie snapped out of whatever strange trance he’d been in. He signed on her little tablet, not looking at the price, before taking his credit card back. Once his card was back in his wallet, he shoved one cellphone box into each front pocket of his jacket, making it bulky and misshapen. Then he took my hand and led me out of the store about as fast as he could.

  This was all strange territory for me. I thought Ollie was an extrovert. I thought he enjoyed his lifestyle. I thought he liked fucking around. I thought he was into sex with multiple partners.

  I wasn’t sure what to think now.

  We went into the next store, a women’s clothing store. He grabbed something off a rack I would never wear. “What size are you?”

  “Um, I’d never wear that.”

  “Oh, sorry.” He placed the grandma sweater back in its spot. “Can you grab some stuff, so we can buy it and be done? I know I’m weird,” he added. “I know I have issues. I know you’re plotting how fast and how far you can get away from me the second you get back to your car.”

  “Actually, I’m not.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No. I’m not.” I noticed a woman not far from us, very attractive, eyeing Ollie. Everything about her screamed ‘number three.’ Ollie hadn’t noticed her, and I didn’t want him to feel even more anxious. I stepped closer to him, locking my arms around his neck. “I like you, Oliver.”

  I stood on my toes, and I kissed his soft, dangerous lips. My heart went wild at the contact like it always did. “You keep surprising me,” I said against his mouth. “And to find out you’re actually human... yeah, it really just makes me like you more. I’m not leaving.”

  “Good. And keep calling me Oliver.”

  He kissed me, gently and soft. I couldn’t help when I melted into him, pressing closer to his body. We made out in the middle of the clothing store, neither of us caring about anything else. When we parted for air, I noticed the woman who’d been watching before was gone.

  ~ CHAPTER 28 ~

  OLIVER

  Normally I was charismatic and friendly in public. Normally I stopped for pictures, let women grope me just a little, and turned any outing into a public appearance. I always felt this obligation to behave a certain way, present a certain image of myself, no matter the personal cost. No matter how much I hated it all or how much anxiety it caused. Not today. I let Luce be my excuse today. I kissed her anytime I felt like someone was watching.

  She started the game.

  And it was a fun game. Because she was effortless to kiss. Easy to fall into a safe little bubble with again and again the second I put my lips on hers. Until I realized we weren’t playing a game at all. That every second was real. The best part, I kept buying her shit and she put up no resistance because I think she was so distracted by me physically.

  I liked it.

  Probably a little too much.

  But now I had more bags than I could carry, was so drunk in lust, and we were in the back of another clothing store making out in the dressing r
oom like horny teenagers. All I wanted was to slip my hand inside her pants, and make her fucking scream my name—the idea of it was fogging my brain and clouding my judgement.

  I took a step back.

  I had to be a gentleman.

  She wasn’t just another quick fuck like all the rest, despite how much I wanted to fuck her. I cleared my throat. “Do you think you have everything you might need? Have we bought enough stuff for you to stay a while?”

  She nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears. Luce wasn’t young; she was eight years older than me. She wasn’t naive or dumb or inexperienced. But every time we kissed, and it was my lead, she followed. Kind of an interesting dynamic I wanted to explore more.

  “Let’s go then.”

  We walked through the mall. I cared less about the people around me than possibly ever before. I didn’t put on my charismatic show that usually helped spike followers the next day on social media. But I didn’t ignore people either. I said hi to anyone who said it first to me. Nothing more.

  At the car, I shoved all Luce’s new stuff into the trunk. I even bought her some underwear from Victoria’s Secret. I smiled thinking about the few extra things I’d snuck in the bag. Then I joined her in the car.

  “Oliver,” she uttered, saying my full name for the second time today. I really liked how it sounded coming from her mouth.

  “Yeah, baby?” I started the car but kept it in park.

  “I, um, where are we heading now?” She shifted in her seat. Her teeth gnawed nervously on her bottom lip.

  “To my brother’s, I guess.”

  “Will he be home?”

  “I have no idea, why?”

  “Well.” She took a breath and inched off her jacket, revealing a white tank top underneath that made her tits look entirely too tempting. “Was everything that happened in the mall, was it all just a show then? Is that what you meant earlier about the ninety percent being bullshit? I was your show?”

  “No. It was real. It wasn’t a show.”

  “I was a distraction then?”

  “Well, sure. From annoying people and my anxiety, yeah. You’re one hell of a distraction.”

  She sighed, frustrated with me for some reason, shifting again in her seat. “I think I’m going to have to spell this out of for you. It’s been quite a while since the last time I was with someone. You’re obviously really good at what you do. And I’m having a hard time...”

  “Cooling down,” I finished. God, she was driving me wild.

  “Something like that.”

  I brushed a hand through my hair. I was trying to be good, but if she needed me to get her off. Then there was no chance I’d ever be able to...

  Something caught my eye in the parking lot. There was a woman several yards away, standing outside of her car, staring straight at us. “That’s my fucking imagination, right?”

  “What?”

  “Twelve o’clock.” I nodded toward the lookalike. “That woman looks way too similar to April. You know, April who stole my fucking boat.”

  Luce touched my arm. “Drive, Ollie,” she muttered. “Drive.”

  She didn’t have to tell me twice. I shifted into first and pressed down on the gas. The car squealed out of the parking lot like this was Talladega Nights and I was Ricky Bobby. And I didn’t slow down, not for a second, as I sped faster and faster.

  “Was it her?” I asked Luce.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m losing my mind, right? She fucked with my mind and now I’m losing it.” I hadn’t thought of April much since I left the Bahamas. I thought all of that was done and over. She was so low on my list of concerns, seeing her in a mall parking lot didn’t seem fathomable.

  “It could have been her,” Luce said softly. “I think it was.”

  ~ CHAPTER 29 ~

  LUCE

  Ollie wasn’t stopping. It had been an hour and he hadn’t quit moving. At least he wasn’t speeding anymore. But honestly, I had no clue where he was taking me. Maybe he didn’t even know.

  “Luke, please trust me,” he said into his new phone. It had taken me several minutes to get it connected to his cell service so that he could finally use it. “This woman is insane. She kidnapped me, left me on an island for dead, kidnapped me again, and then duct tapped me to a bed. Fuck, I think she would have raped me if Luce hadn’t knocked her over the head. No... I’m not joking. This isn’t a joke... I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think it was that big of deal... It happened in another country. I had no idea she’d follow me home.” Ollie breathed in through his nose. “Please, take me seriously. Just take your son and your woman and get in the car. Get away for a few days. Until this gets sorted. Okay... Bye... You be safe, too.”

  Ollie hung up his phone, dropping it in his lap, then he put on his blinker and took the very next exit. Good, at least we were stopping now so we both could think.

  He pulled into a gas station.

  The moment he stopped the car, he dropped his head against the steering wheel. His shoulders slumped with the weight of our situation. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “It’s one-hundred percent my fault. I can’t stop putting you in danger. And that’s the last thing I want. Let me get gas.” He pulled open his door, leaving me alone. Until he tapped on my window. I unbuckled and joined him on the curb. “Do you think she can track my credit card?”

  “No.” I put both hands on his chest, trying to ease the panic I heard in his voice. “No,” I said more firmly. “This woman is a moron, not some expert criminal mastermind.”

  “I’m still going to feel better with more distance between us and Nashville.”

  “Do you even know where you’re going?”

  “Yeah. Do you trust me?”

  I wanted to. More than anything. When he looked at me that way, with that sincerity and determination in his pretty brown eyes, I couldn’t help myself. God, he was starting to get to me. Staring to work his way into my blood stream. “Yeah, I think I do.”

  “You’re good for me, Luce. You’re good for me on a million levels. You calm me. Freezing in the rain, sick as a dog, taped to a bed, and now this—you calm me. You keep me sane. You make the world just a little brighter somehow.”

  Every girl wants to hear they’re special. Especially from a man as talented and as handsome as Ollie. His words warmed me from my chest to my toes. “Yeah,” I said, breaking eye contact, fighting the lump in my throat. If he only knew about the cancer gene that ran in my family. The surgery that would scar me forever. The pieces of uncertainty in my future. Would he want something serious with someone whose whole life was a question mark? Because this was starting to feel very serious.

  “I’m going to go get some food. You want anything in particular? I don’t know all the restrictions of your diet.”

  “I try to avoid meat, sugar, and gluten.”

  He smiled. “Okay. I’ll do my best. That might be impossible here.” He walked off for the gas station convenience store, while tears formed in my eyes.

  ~ CHAPTER 30 ~

  OLIVER

  It began to rain. First, just a few sprinkles. Then it started coming down in sheets, the sound hammering on my car. The sun set. The roads became impossible. I had a plan for a safe place to take Luce. But that went to shit thanks to the rain, at least for the night, and I had to improvise and stop.

  We were just over the border, now in North Carolina, and I took an exit. Asheville was a city we occasionally played concerts in. I turned into the first hotel off the highway. It seemed decent enough. After all the bullshit I’d put Luce through today and during our week on the island, the least she deserved was decent. Actually, she deserved so much more than decent. So, screw April.

  My chest grew hot.

  Seriously, screw this bullshit.

  I sped through the parking lot, taking a lap around the building before I pulled back onto the main road. I knew of a place downtown a hell of a lot nicer. The
perfect place to take the only woman I wanted to focus on tonight.

  “You okay?” Luce asked.

  “No. But I will be soon.”

  A few minutes later, I reached the hotel I knew. I parked behind the building. With the rain still pouring down, sitting in the car on my phone, I found the hotel online and booked us a room. There was no way April was smart enough or had the resources she needed to track my online purchases. No damn way. I took the risk and used my card again.

  “See that back exit,” I mentioned. “Can you go check in, get the key, and then meet me there? I shouldn’t walk through the lobby. People tag me with locations all the time. I’d rather not risk that.”

  “Sure, I can do that. See you in a second.”

  Luce hopped out of the car.

  I watched her hurry through the rain. I waited a full minute before I left the car. Getting poured on, I went to the trunk and gathered all her shopping bags. I took them to the back door, standing under a small ledge that only kept some of the rain off of me.

  I didn’t have a change of clothes like she did in these bags. I probably should have stayed sitting in the dry car just a few more minutes. But my nerves weren’t letting me stay still.

  After a few minutes, the door opened. It was Luce on the other side. Her hair was damp from the rain too. “Hey,” she muttered shyly.

  “Hey,” I returned.

  “Our room is upstairs.”

  “Perfect. After you.”

  I followed her up two flights in the stairwell, my heart pounding with each step. I was having a hard time calming down, thanks to all the adrenaline still pumping in my veins from this mess with April. But additionally, I felt overwhelmed for a whole new reason.

  Luce. Me. This hotel room.

  How much fucking longer did I want to keep trying to deny how badly I wanted her? I was trying to be good and prove something to myself at the same time. But after today—fuck, I think I just needed her.

  She unlocked the door.