“Damn, you’re good!” Ash marveled as I played. I smiled and almost stopped. I didn’t want him to think I was showing off. But this piano was too amazing, perfectly tuned, each key responding so perfectly, even the acoustics in the room made each note ring out clear and celebratory. I didn’t know how they’d designed that in what essentially was an underground bunker, but I guessed with the right amount of millions you could do anything.
“I love this piano!” I beamed at him.
“I love how you play!” He smiled right back, then joined me on the keys playing something I didn’t recognize, yet haunting and lovely. A melody that would stay with me, I could already tell.
“What is that?” I asked, my fingers instinctively finding notes down a few octaves to compliment and underscore his own.
“Something I’ve been messing around with.” He closed his eyes, building the melody, deepening it into something more mellow and gorgeous.
“For The Blacklist?” I asked. It didn’t seem like the type of music they usually played.
He shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
“I didn’t even know you played piano.” I’d seen a glimpse of a gorgeous piano in the living room of his house right in front of an amazing view of the Golden Gate Bridge, so I guessed I could have assumed. But a lot of people had pianos just for show, and he always played guitar with his band.
“I don’t on stage,” he agreed. “I like to be able to move around when I perform.”
He did put on quite a show. I had to admit, I felt a flutter low in my belly at the thought of getting to watch him again tonight, so close, right backstage. But it didn’t help matters to feel star struck about Ash. That wouldn’t help me preserve my businesslike demeanor.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” He stood up and went over to the corner of the room and rummaged behind a few things. When he returned, he had a bouquet of red roses. “I’m so sorry about what happened back at my place.” He handed them to me.
Oh no, this wasn’t good. They were gorgeous, about two dozen. They smelled divine. I loved roses.
“Thanks, Ash. I, um…” I didn’t know what to say about what had happened with Connor. I guessed this was my cue to say it was all OK, but really it wasn’t.
“He’s an ass,” Ash agreed with my unspoken words. “I’ve known him since we were both 13, and we’ve been through a lot so he’s like a brother to me. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s an ass.”
I shrugged. “I guess we just live in different worlds. And I’m only visiting yours for a few weeks. So, it’s not like it matters.” I thought I did a pretty good job of playing it cool, sounding neutral and aloof.
“Ana, I want you to know, I’m really sorry.” He brought his hand to my shoulder, caressing a strand of my hair between his fingers. That small touch alone sent tingles down my spine. “I won’t let him treat you that way again.”
I nodded, swallowing. This close, I could smell his masculine scent, raw and potent and intoxicating. I rested the flowers down gently to the floor and turned back to the piano keys. Those I could touch.
“Play me that melody again?” I asked, looking down at the keyboard, not at him.
After a brief pause, he dropped my hair and returned his fingers to the keys. Better, but not much. I could still feel the heat of his thigh, acutely aware of the strength of him as we sat, starting to play together. I closed my eyes, focusing on the music, the notes we blended together. There, right there I could feel where he needed to make it go deeper, take it down a bit with a minor key, add some tension. I played it the way I heard it, in my head, a variation on his theme, and he picked right up on it, playing it along with me, then taking it off in his own new direction.
“That’s so much better,” he marveled as we played, looking at me like I was a genius. “How did you just do that?”
I smiled at him. He had to know how, he was a musician, too. Music was a language all its own and here we were speaking it together. I had to admit, it felt fun to play free like this, letting the feelings of the notes govern the music we made instead of reading off a sheet. All of my training had been so strictly classical. This type of creative play still felt vaguely naughty to me.
“What’s that smile on your face?” he asked, catching my chin with his thumb. “You look like you’re up to something.”
Blushing, I guessed I’d shown my feelings on my face. Figured. “I’m used to playing classical music,” I confessed. “This feels much more…”
“Free?” He dipped his mouth down as he spoke, kissing me gently at the side of my neck, just underneath my ear. My breath hitched at the feel of his lips, so soft and yet so masculine. “Like you’re letting go?” His tongue swept up and found my ear, licking along the edge, catching my sensitive lobe between his teeth to lick and suck. My hands pressed into the piano keys. I couldn’t make myself break away. It felt so good, but I shouldn’t touch him. That would be the end of me.
“Like you’re letting yourself feel instead of think too much?” His voice whispered, husky and seductive as his hands traveled down my shoulders, down to my waist and slowly made their way along my legs. Traveling the length of my jeans, he stroked my thighs, parting my legs. The heat built within me almost instantly, my body responding, wanting, instantly aflame for him.
“Ash,” I murmured, tilting my head toward him and meeting his lips with mine. His kisses felt like nothing I’d ever experienced. I could drown in them and never have a moment’s doubt, like fire and rain all together, consuming and delicious and never enough. I kept kissing, drinking him in, our tongues tangling, stroking, meeting, teasing, my hands intertwined in his hair, his now at my waistband.
“Ana, I need…” He brought his finger right up to my sex, pressing against the seam of my jeans, giving me a taste of what he could do. I hissed, half-closing my eyes, my clit already so swollen, my sex slippery with need. He’d already showed me how good he could make me feel with his finger on me, up inside of me. I knew he could have me coming in seconds, flat.
He unbuttoned the top of my jeans, unzipped my fly. “Let me make you feel good, Ana.” He kissed my throat, licking me and gently easing me back onto the padded piano bench. I rested on my elbows, drunk on his kisses, his touch. He kneeled at the edge of the bench, bringing his hands to the waistband of my jeans and pulling them down my hips. Bringing his fingers directly to my soaked panties, he pressed the silky fabric against my sex.
“Ah!” I cried out, sinking back onto my elbows, tipping my head back, my chin up as sensation engulfed me.
“Let me taste you, Ana,” he murmured to me, easing my panties down my hips as he kept stroking, circling, first through the fabric then directly against my needy pussy. “So wet for me, baby,” he whispered as he saw me, “so perfect.”
I couldn’t form even the beginning of a thought as he brought his mouth to my sex, tasting me for the first time with a long, slow lick. He groaned, deep in his chest and wrapped his large hands around my ass, gathering me closer, as if he couldn’t get enough.
“So fucking sweet.” He brought his head down again and began feasting on me like a starving man, licking and sucking and eating me like he’d never tasted anything he craved more. He growled as he sucked my clit, making me buck with pleasure against him.
“Yeah, you like that?” He sucked me again, right where I was most sensitive, and I screamed out, bringing a hand down to clasp the leg of the piano stool. I felt like I was going crazy, splitting apart with desire as he began to tongue-fuck me, his thick, strong tongue plunging into my wet hole, flicking up to my clit, then deep inside of me again.
“Ash!” I screamed out, not caring if anyone heard, not wondering if anyone might walk in, just wanting more, more of his tongue, his mouth, his teeth as he teased my swollen bud, making me pant and gasp.
“What do you want, Ana?” He teased me, his tongue now out of me, licking light and sweet along my edges.
I groaned, so close, my legs quivering in h
is grasp. He held me firm and wide, his fingers pressing into my butt cheeks, his thumbs spreading the inside of my thighs wide.
“Please,” I pleaded. I needed to come, needed it so badly. He’d brought me so close. I could feel the shudders building in my core, the pulsing pressure deep inside of me ready to break up and wash over all of my being.
“Please what?” he asked, tongue up to flick my clit, giving it a spasm of pleasure, but then pulling away. “You need to tell me what you want, Ana. I want to hear you say it.”
“Please make me come, Ash! Please.”
“That’s a good girl.” He rewarded me with his full mouth all over my sex, a long, strong lick down my center and up inside of me.
“Ash!” I screamed, so close, feeling it build up inside of me. I clutched the leg of the bench with one hand, but the other I fisted in his thick, black hair, pushing his face into my pussy. “I’m, I’m—”
“Come for me!” he growled into my pussy, then sucked my clit hard and full into his wicked lips.
“Ah!” I screamed and came, engulfed in waves of pleasure, pounding through me, lifting my hips right off the bench. He milked every last drop of orgasm out of me, drinking it down like he’d never get enough, licking and sucking and savoring every quiver, every shudder.
A knock sounded on the door. “It’s time!” A loud, male voice sounded from out in the hallway.
Whoops. He’d probably heard the whole thing.
Ash sat up between my knees, a triumphant grin on his gorgeous face. “That’s going to happen again. The second I get you alone after this show.”
Laughing, I sank back against the bench, completely spent. He might kill me if he did that to me again. “I don’t think I can take it, Ash.”
“Oh, we’re going to push all your boundaries, Ana.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me up to sitting, then standing, and helped me get dressed. “This is just the beginning.”
Fully clothed but in a daze, he led me down where the rest of the band was waiting.
“Where you been, old man?” Connor looked at Ash, then at me and his gaze turned accusatory. “Got it.” He nodded, tight-lipped.
“We ready?” Ash asked the group and the other two answered with fist-bumps and ‘hell-yeah!’ Two out of three wasn’t bad, I guessed.
Up, back stage, a couple of photographers were waiting for us. Right, the reason I was there tonight. It wasn’t to black out from the most intense orgasm of my life. It was to mug for the cameras.
“Give her a kiss!” One of them called out to us. Ash looked down at me, devilishly handsome. His hair rakishly messed up, I knew I’d done that to him, fisting his locks as he’d eaten me out. It only made him look more rock ‘n’ roll.
One arm along the small of my back, the other along my shoulders, Ash swept me into a classic romantic movie kiss, leaning me back and bringing his lips to mine in a cherished caress. I forgot we were backstage at a sold-out show, 75,000 people screaming his name. I forgot men were there with cameras clicking away, capturing every second. I even forgot his band mates were standing there watching us with a spectrum of disinterest (keyboard), amusement (drums), and thinly-veiled anger (Connor on bass). All I knew was I felt like I was in Gone with the Wind or Casablanca, the timeless heroine swept away in the arms of her hero and true love.
Then it was all over and Ash was ushered away with the rest of the band to make their grand entrance.
“Nice job. You’re good at this.” Lola came up by my side, tugging on the string that held my helium balloon of joy. “You two almost make it look real.” Pop, there she’d done it. I came crashing back to reality.
“Can we share him after the show?” A girl came up to my side in a tube top and mini skirt. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen someone in an honest-to-god tube top. I’d watched that movie Boogie Nights a few months ago. She looked like she’d raided the wardrobe of the actresses playing 70s porn stars. “I want to suck his face off.”
“I’m just going to…get a bottle of water.” I excused myself, finding a quieter, darker spot from which to watch the show.
The man knew how to perform. From the opening chords to the ending number, Ash had what looked like every single member of the audience on their feet screaming and clapping and shouting along with every word. I did it too, from the sidelines, basking in the adrenaline, almost pinching myself to prove I was really there, really the VIP guest of this band I’d been listening to and loving since I was a teenager.
“I’m outta here!” I sang along with him, enjoying belting out the words I knew by heart. Everyone did, it was the ultimate fuck-you anthem, perfect for breaking up or quitting a job or basically any scenario in which you wanted to exit to rubble with your middle finger held high and proud. “You never even knew my name!” I yelled.
Ash strutted on stage, thrusting that pelvis of his. The cameras zoomed in on it again and again on the jumbotron and every time it happened the arena erupted in high-pitched screams. The man was sex incarnate. And he wanted me.
After the last song, a throng of people rushed toward him, surrounding Ash like an amoeba. “Have to do an interview!” he called out to me above their heads. “Meet me after?”
“OK,” I called out after him, breathless, wondering where? When? But he was already out of sight.
“Come on.” Seventies porn star girl took my arm and led me through a dark passageway with a couple other women, then out a side entrance and into a waiting limo.
“Wait, where are we going?”
“After-party,” she explained, pulling me with her into the limo. “He’ll be there.”
We ended up at another fancy hotel nearby. They were already starting to blend together to me. I had no idea how Ash made sense of it all, so many hotels, so many shows. In a cloud of perfume and hair spray, we clustered into the elevator, several of them already holding drinks they’d fixed in the limo.
Somehow, I knew back home my mother’s spidey-sense was tingling. I didn’t know how she’d know, but I knew she would. She probably had a control panel in her bedroom, right next to all of her religious icons praying for my swift marriage and ensuing fertility. Right now, the panic button was flashing red for High Alert. DEFCON 10: daughter with drunk groupies heading to hotel suite for band after-party.
Stepping out of the elevator, I told my mother in my head to shush. I was 24. I’d been a good girl all my life, and right now this good girl wanted to go hang out with her rock star boyfriend. Or pretend boyfriend. Whatever, I wanted to not think so much!
“Have a shot!” tube top girl shouted at me and I did it, swallowing down the burning liquid in one fell swoop. I grimaced and she laughed.
“Another!” she declared.
“Give me a second.” I retreated to a couch in the corner. Another woman joined me while a few more cranked up some music—The Blacklist, of course—and started dancing around the hotel room. One took off her top, then another, and another carload of women arrived with a few more guys I didn’t recognize and soon there was a hotel room full of about twenty people dancing and talking and making out and drinking. No sign of Ash, though.
“Let the games begin!” The door burst open and Connor stood there, declaring the official start of the festivities like a Roman emperor. “You!” he roared to a man standing behind the bar with some vodka in his hand. “Bottle, now.”
While the bottle got hustled over to him, he pointed to two women standing in front of him, both of them topless. “You two! Let me see some action.” On command, they wrapped their arms around each other and started making out, their tongues slipping and sliding together in a messy, open-mouthed display. The room exploded in a cheer, a circle forming around them, a few people clapping and cat-calling.
“Grab her tits!” Connor yelled, tipping back the vodka bottle and emptying what seemed to be half of it down his throat. The women complied, starting to play with each other’s breasts. “Give her a good suck!” Connor called out. One of them dipp
ed her head down and made a big show of it, grabbing the other woman’s large, fake breast and taking her nipple into her mouth, licking, then sucking. The crowd went wild, yelling, egging them on.
“Where’s Ana?” Connor roared, his eyes roaming the crowd for me. Oh shit. He hadn’t found me yet. I stood up and inched my way toward the door, hoping I was hidden. But his eyes lit up with a ferocious gleam when he spotted me.
“There she is!” He pointed at me and I froze like a prisoner caught in a searchlight. “Come on over, luv!” Someone pulled at me and others pushed at me until I found myself right up next to Connor’s leering, drunk face. “Want to get the party started, Ana?”
He trailed a finger along the side of my face. I looked over toward the door, only a few feet away but he stood between me and it. The crowd seemed to close in on us, pressing forward, watching, waiting to see what would happen. They seemed to know Connor liked to put on a show.
Connor brought his hand down to his belt buckle. “You’ve seen Ash. Now you want to see how a real man is built?” He started to undo his belt.
“Why do you get all the fun?” Porn star girl to the rescue! Angry, pushy and no longer in her tube top, the woman who’d dragged me into this mess now shoved me out of it. “I want to suck your cock!” she yelled, dropping down to her knees in front of Connor and taking over where he’d started.
“Yeah! That’s it!” He brought his hands to her head. I saw my opening and took it, literally running out the door.
The car ride home seemed to take forever, the stretch between Santa Clara and San Francisco oozing slowly out mile after mile. Shaken, I took the time to sober up and calm down in the back seat. My phone buzzed a few times but I needed some time to just breathe and feel grateful I’d been able to slip out of that party.
Thank God I wasn’t likely to see much more of Connor. The Blacklist only had one more show on my PR Romance agenda, on New Year’s Eve. After that, there would be no reason to spend time with that creep ever again. This whole deal was hard enough without him harassing me. The library, I reminded myself. If I kept this up for a month Ash would fund the library for the next twenty years. I could do this. It was worth it. I just needed to avoid Connor.
Undone: A Fake Fiancé Rockstar Romance Page 15