The Chase

by Lauren Hawkeye

  Christ on a cracker, Trystan Scott just sat down next to me.

  “Hello.” Leaning forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, he pins me with the full attention of the stare that has captivated millions. “I haven’t seen you around here before.”

  His smile is pure sex, and I’d have to be dead not to feel a little thrill.

  “You haven’t, no. I mean, I haven’t. Been here. Before.” Dude. Why am I babbling? Trystan Scott isn’t any more famous than Adam, and yet around Adam I’ve never really been affected by all that is rock star about him.

  “I’m Trystan.” He smiles easily and gives me his hand, which I set down my knitting to take. It’s warm, and the corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiles.

  “Yes. You are. I mean, I know.” Stuck, I laugh at myself. “Sorry. I’m not used to hanging out with the rich and famous.”

  “We’re no different than anyone else.” He winks at me and takes a bottle of water from a man standing behind him, a man I haven’t noticed yet... though how I missed him, I’m not sure, because his biceps are the size of my head. “Thanks, Bob.”

  Bob—seriously, this giant is named Bob—grunts. “Stage time, kid.”

  “Don’t call me that.” Trystan rolls his eyes, getting to his feet. “Sorry... duty calls. But it was lovely to meet you...”

  “Carly.” I can’t stop the grin as he theatrically pulls my hand to his mouth and places a kiss to it. Our eyes meet, a pleasant frisson shooting through me, and a realization hits me.

  He’s flirting with me, trying to see if a spark will ignite between one reasonably attractive woman and a screaming hot rock god of approximately the same age. He’s looking to connect with someone... just like Adam. Just like me.

  There’s a mild pulse of attraction between us, for sure. Something I might once have pursued. But it’s so pale with even the memory of Adam’s lips on my own.

  “Carly.” My head jolts up—that’s not Trystan repeating my name. No, this voice I would know anywhere.

  “Adam. I—” What I am about to say dies in my throat when I find Adam standing in front of me, dressed in full costume, a deep scowl forming a vee between his eyebrows.

  Daaaammnn.

  Gone are the sexy suit pants, replaced by even sexier leather pants that are so tight I don’t know how he can possibly move. Like Trystan, Adam’s chest is completely bare, but while Trystan is long and lean, Adam shows the few years he has on the other rocker in the thickness of his absolutely lickable chest.

  His eyeliner is thicker and more dramatic than usual, and accented with something dark and purple. His nails are glittery black.

  And to top off the look, he’s wearing a black leather shrug that clings to his wide shoulders and comes to dramatic points on his wrists. It’s studded with metal and three feet of leather fringe dangles from each arm.

  He should look absolutely ridiculous.

  Instead I almost swallow my tongue. The look is a little Freddie Mercury, a little Adam Levine, and a lot Adam Kincaid. And I don’t know if he pulls on a different persona with his stage clothes, but the man standing here, glaring down at me impatiently, sends my hormones firing like cannonballs that blast through my veins.

  You’ve got to respect a man who can pull off a spangled shrug. He looks fucking hot.

  “I see.” I look up to find Trystan regarding Adam and I thoughtfully. I might be flattering myself, but I think he looks just the tiniest bit disappointed.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’m on. See you on the other side, Carly.” Trystan grins and salutes. Within an instant he’s surrounded by dancers clad in black mesh body stockings, tendrils of stage smoke clinging to their legs. And then he’s onstage, greeted by screams so thunderous I wince at the sudden uptick in the noise level.

  “What are you doing?” Adam glares after Trystan and I’m suddenly irritated, thinking he’s referring to the innocent flirtation that just passed... and if he dares push, I’ve got a choice word or twenty about him and Miss Amy.

  Or him and the fact that he was at Miss Black’s in the first place, something that lodges in my gut like a shard of rock.

  But then I realize that it’s my knitting he referring to. He cocks his head to examine it where it’s sitting on my lap. Smugly pleased that I’ve puzzled him, I pick it up and show him.

  “I’m knitting.” With the yarn in my hands, my fingers start to move almost of their own accord, the repetitive movement soothing the lust that has flared to life under Adam’s watchful eyes.

  Looking at me as though I’ve grown a second head, he sits next to me on the couch, his stare fixed on my hands. “I can see that. What, exactly, are you knitting?”

  “A sock.” I spare him a glance, enjoying the look of puzzlement on his face. Good. Let him try to figure me out for a change.

  “You know you can buy those at Walmart for two dollars, right?” Arching an eyebrow, his hand finds one of my legs, which are crossed beneath me. He absently rubs his thumb over my inner ankle, and I melt.

  “As if you buy anything at Walmart,” I shoot back, to cover how much he’s turning me on with that tiny little touch. After the way he left things earlier, I want to... well, I want to punish him a bit. The damn man has turned my life upside down in less than forty-eight hours.

  Rather than pissing him off, he throws his head back and laughs. I blink at the intensity of his reaction.

  “You are so fucking interesting.” Shaking his head, he leans forward and runs a finger over the violet purple yarn that Amy fetched for me.

  I’m taken aback. I’ve been called a lot of things, but interesting isn’t usually one of them.

  “Oh, come now.” Noting my expression, Adam leans forward, teasing me with that whiskey and sex voice of his. “You’re a very expensive call girl. You knit socks. You’ve had poetry published in a small circulation magazine under a pseudonym.”

  He’d been building me up with his sweet talk; his last comment makes me sputter. “How the hell did you find out about that?”

  He grins, and in that moment the awkwardness between us from that afternoon is gone, and it’s just the two of us, flirting. “Richer than the little baby Jesus, remember? Money buys a lot of things.”

  Yeah, things like me. But I don’t have to say that—it hangs between us regardless, a hurdle I don’t quite know how to clear.

  But... I’m sick of sacrificing today to pave the way for tomorrow. Just once, I want to have what I want, when I want it.

  If only it was that easy.

  “Why did you bother looking me up?” He’s paid for me; I’m his. He doesn’t need to go to any more trouble than that.

  He shakes his head as though he can’t understand why I need to ask.

  “What if you could go back to your life, the way it was before Miss Black? Would you do it?” He catches me off guard. I consider, my hands starting again to knit, but more slowly.

  “I can’t answer that.” My words are hesitant. “Things can never go back to the way they were.” And the way they were before... they weren’t all that great.

  “So you’ll go back to Miss Black?” Adam doesn’t look happy.

  “I don’t have a choice.” I wince as the enormity of my financial state hits me. So much has been going on that I’ve been able to push it to the back of my mind. “I need the money.”

  “Why?” Leaning forward, Adam catches my hands in his. He plays with my fingers as he studies my face intently.

  It’s so tempting to tell him, to share this burden that is my life with someone who cares.

  But it’s so hard to believe, all the way believe, that he really does. After all, my mom was supposed to be there for me no matter what... and instead her actions led me into a job that put my life in danger.

  Until you fully grasp that, there’s not much more to say to one another.

  I can try... but I need him to try too.

  “A question for a question.” I bargain, setting my knitting down in my lap. His lips pre
ss together at the challenge—I wonder if anyone at all said no to him before I came along. Finally, finally he nods.

  “All right.” Needing something to do with my hands now that I’ve set my knitting aside, I rub my damp palms over the thighs of my too tight jeans. Given how much he’s surely paid for me to be here, it’s only fair that I go first. Plus it means something that he’s asking me, rather than just paying someone to look it up.

  “I was raised just by my mom. No brothers or sisters. When I was a kid she did... I think she did her best, but we never had any cash. I grew up in a trailer park, and she always had a new boyfriend. Which was fine, except I had to learn to be tough early on.” I glance at Adam; he’s listening intently, showing no signs of even noticing the screams from the crowd that signal that Trystan’s set is about to come to a close.

  His expression changes. “What do you mean, you had to be tough early on?” He narrows his eyes; I hesitate.

  “My mom works as a cashier at a grocery store, and she doesn’t make much, so those boyfriends helped keep a roof over our heads and food in our mouths.” My own mouth is suddenly dry. “But once in a while one would drink a bit too much and decide that he wanted a taste of me too. Or one of the other kids in the park would strike out. Or a bunch of rich assholes would come slumming, and decide that a teenage girl in the slums would be delighted to give them a Saturday night blow job.”

  I thought that it would be hard to shock a rock star, who has probably seen and done it all. But Adam looks like he’s swallowed a lemon whole.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” He spits out, reaching for my arm then drawing back as he seems to realize that I might not want to be touched while telling this story. “I—”

  I wish I could find humor in making Adam Kincaid speechless, but I’m having a hard enough time just getting the words out. I don’t sit around wallowing in my somewhat crappy upbringing—there’s no point, plus lots of kids had it way worse than I did, even kids right in Green Acres.

  But I don’t want him to see me any differently. And yet, if I want to know Adam inside and out, then I know I have to share.

  “I wanted out, so I clawed my way to a college scholarship. I didn’t really care where I went; I just wanted to go. Nothing fancy; I just wanted enough education to get a decent job. An office manager or admin assistant or something.” My voice sounds strange even to my own ears, empty, hollow. “I’ve lived on that scholarship money for the last four years, that and a bunch of part time jobs. My mom’s always had access to my bank account, because she helped me to set it up when I was a kid and I just never got around to changing it. Over the last year or so I’ve noticed that she’s withdrawn a twenty here and there, but I figured she really needed it, you know?”

  “But a few weeks ago I went to the bank to check that my scholarship money for my final year had been deposited. It had... but it had also been withdrawn. All of my money had.”

  Spitting out that last bit feels like ripping a scab off of a fresh wound. But it’s off... the only thing to do now is clean the wound and staunch the flow of blood.

  If Mom had needed the money for an operation or something I could get over it. But knowing that she took it to fund her hobby...

  I know she’s got a serious problem. But still, right now I don’t have it in me to forgive.

  “The older she gets, the less able she’s been to find one of those boyfriends willing to help with the bills. So the attention she’s missing from that... she’s filling that hole with something else.”

  I don’t dare look at Adam. I’ll never be able to finish if it do.

  “My mom has a gambling problem. She’s not so different from me, really, hoping for a quick fix to the problems she’s had all her life.” Except gambling money that wasn’t hers was, in my eyes at least, a little different than making a distasteful moral decision in order to live. “She needs help that I can’t afford, and I need to eat. And that’s why I need the job with Miss Black.”

  Plus I don’t ever, ever want to turn into my mom. Now that I’m in the job, I want a sizeable nest egg to fall back on when the going gets rough. But I keep that to myself.

  Adam opens his mouth to ask me something, but I hold up my hand to stop him. “That’s more than I’ve ever told anyone. It’s your turn.”

  He regards me for a long moment, his sense of entitlement warring with the bargain we made. Finally he nods. “Fair enough. What do you want to know?”

  “Same thing as earlier.” I point to the tattoo on his arm. He shied away from the question when I asked earlier, and I want to know. “Why did you get that tattoo?” I know I should ask him something more important, like what the hell a man who could roll around all day and night in any kind of sex he wants was doing buying a call girl... but the fact that he’s refused to answer this question is sticking in my craw, and I’m dying to know.

  “I—” He’s clearly taken aback that I’m pressing the subject, looking from the dark ink to me and back to the tattoo. Red suffuses his cheeks; at first I think it’s embarrassment, but when he turns that intense stare on me again I realize that it’s anger.

  I don’t think it’s directed at me, not exactly, but it still makes my heart skip a beat.

  “I was raised in a nice, upper middle class suburb of Chicago. I have two great parents who are still alive, and an older sister. A completely normal upbringing. But,” he grinds his teeth together, “all of that normal couldn’t erase the darkness that’s in me, that’s in my very soul. And you, who had a shitty time of it—you’re so fresh and pure.”

  He traces a single finger over the line of my jaw; I close my eyes as I shiver.

  “I won’t taint you with that darkness, not even to play fair. Don’t ask again.”

  Abruptly he stands, shaking his head like he can shake off our argument. I’m steaming mad, and fling my knitting to the side, getting in his face.

  “You say I have to let go of my fears to be with you. But then you have to give me a little more to go on.” I gesture at his tattoo. He grabs my upper arms and squeezes.

  “You might have had a shitty life as a kid but you’re still pure somehow... even with that little mean streak you’ve got.” The ghost of a smile plays over the corners of his lips. “I’m not as shiny as everyone wants to believe. And one way to make amends is to keep that darkness from spreading.”

  “Bullshit.” I refrain from stomping my foot, afraid it will look childish. “And don’t fucking move. You owe me the answer to a question.”

  His fingers squeeze just a little tighter, then he releases me. He’s clearly pissed off, but he stays put.

  “Why were you at Miss Black’s?” I demand, still furious that he refused to answer my other question after prying my innermost secrets out of me.

  Adam tilts his head, and between the costume, the stage makeup, and the darkness backstage, he looks like a dark, avenging angel, someone not to mess with.

  But he answers. And I hate what he has to say.

  “I visited Miss Black because I have needs, Carly.” He smiles, but the expression is emotionless.

  I feel like a fist is squeezing my heart.

  “You could indulge those... needs... in an easier way.” I can’t help but look across the room to where Amy is lecturing some hapless man wearing a gigantic headset. “You know you could.”

  “I could.” He agrees, tilting his head to the side to study me. “But it’s easier this way. Money for sex. Nobody expects anything that can’t happen.”

  If he punched me in the chest, it couldn’t have hurt more. I blink furiously, because I refuse to cry—I hate crying. I’m stronger than that.

  But hey, I’ve already made an ass of myself this week. I might as well go for broke. “Can’t happen at all?”

  Adam exhales on a sigh of pure frustration, and the dark angel is gone, replaced by the man that has intrigued me so much in the last two days. He rakes a hand through his perfectly spiked hair, probably to the dismay of his s
tylist, then casts me a look of genuine regret.

  “I don’t know, Carly. I truly don’t.” With a little shake, he presses one quick, hard kiss to my lips. Snarls, then releases me, stalking away toward the stage, leaving me standing there, absolutely stupefied.

  I press my hands to my lips, the flesh there burning from his touch. I’m vaguely aware of the last minute flurry of roadies, switching out Trystan’s stage set for Adam’s, of Trystan himself, sweaty and exhilarated after his set. He stops to chat with me for another moment, but he clearly picked up on the undercurrents running between Adam and I, because the hint of flirtation is gone. And it doesn’t matter.

  I only care about Adam. What on earth could he be hiding that’s so bad? And, even more than what I want and I need... can he get past it to find happiness?

  How can he ask me to give him everything if he won’t give me anything in return? If he wants my body, I have to give it to him. Even if he hadn’t bought me, I feel certain that that’s where we’re headed.

  But I’ll keep a vicious hold over my heart, because it’s becoming patently clear that when it comes to an emotional connection, he can’t or won’t play fair.

  Can’t. Won’t. I laugh to myself dryly. In the end, it doesn’t really matter

  Chapter Eight

  The next hour gives me a crash course in Adam Kincaid, the rock star. Even furious with him, I can’t tear my eyes away. I stand in the wings of the stage, every bit as mesmerized as each of the twenty thousand fans jammed into the stadium, screaming out his name.

  His style is theatrical, operatic, and entirely his own. He’s at times flamboyant, overtly sexual, soulful and wicked, and I’m swept away in his performance just like everyone else there.

  And more even than the way he commands the stage—holy shit, his voice. I remember catching a few episodes of the reality show that gave him his start, and absently thinking when he didn’t win that it was a shame. And hearing him on the radio, it was clear that he had talent to spare.