Dirty Rock: A Rock Star Romance

by James, Vicki

  “Not yet, but she’s at the airport now and she’s not going to be with us for the rest of the tour. She said something’s come up, Dicky. It sounds serious. She’ll explain it once she’s back in England. She also said that I have to tell you all that she’s sorry, she didn’t mean to let you down, but if she stayed another day…” Tessa’s eyes found mine, and she held my gaze. “She may have done something she’d come to regret.”

  * * *

  “That’s the best you have ever played, rock star!” Tessa cried out right before she ran towards Presley, jumped up in his sweaty arms, wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed him. He caught her easily as he walked off the stage.

  I rolled my eyes and looked away from their sickening happiness.

  The crowd of Staples were chanting for more, unwilling to step outside of the bubble we’d created for them. They didn’t want to walk away from Youth Gone Wild. They wanted to stay in the midst of it all—for their bodies to be pressed together as they looked up at the stage, bounced under the lights, and listened to lyrics that meant something to them.

  Concerts were the greatest of escapes. Not even your own mind can outperform the artists on stage. Every worry you have is silenced by loud, soul-inspiring music, and the audience we’d just walked away from were desperate to stay trouble-free for a few minutes more.

  Their cheers should have made me feel a buzz.

  The fact the guys had brought their A-Game to the gig should have made me high.

  The realisation that there were literally thousands of women willing to throw themselves at my feet out there should have made me feel powerful.

  Instead, I couldn’t shift the nausea in my stomach.

  The note I didn’t hit during Project Halo was plaguing me, pissing me off so much, it was all I could focus on. Not that the crowd or band had even heard it.

  I heard it.

  Julia would have heard it, too.

  My mind had been filled with flashbacks of things that didn’t make sense. The night before with her. Knowing she was on a flight back to London, upset. The look on her face when I’d warned her that, next time, I’d fill her completely, not giving her a chance to back out.

  Had I acted like a big enough dick to drive her away? Had I upset someone who I actually… respected?

  “Well done, Rhett,” Tess sang, dropping her hand to my shoulder and squeezing it. “You did it. You blew the roof off. Best performance ever.”

  “Fuck off, Tess,” I grumbled back, stomping past all of them as I headed straight for the woman wearing a white shirt and black tie, holding a tray of champagne. I grabbed a glass, threw the contents down my neck, and then I did the same with two more.

  When I turned back around, the other four band members and Tessa were looking at me.

  Hawk stepped forward. “You okay, dude?”

  “Peachy.”

  “You sure?”

  “Said so, didn’t I?”

  “But—”

  “Look, don’t start with me. Not tonight.” I glanced around the backstage area filled with people I’d spent a hell of a lot of fucking time with. People I admired. People I’d have given anything to work with only years ago.

  All I could see was the one person who wasn’t there.

  The one person I wanted to see how I’d done out there on the stage.

  She was on her way to London.

  She wasn’t where she was meant to be. Here… with us.

  "Just... let me get fucked up a little bit, yeah? There's a cute redhead in the crowd. Let me get security to bring her backstage, and let me revel in what we've just done."

  “Made our dreams come true?” Big D smirked.

  “Dreams.” I nodded. “Yeah.” Reaching back for another glass, I held it in the air. “Here’s to the fucking dream, boys. Isn’t it everything we thought it would be?”

  * * *

  Slipknot’s Dead Memories filled the dressing room as I waited, slumped down on the black leather sofa. Sweat still trickled down my back from the performance. If I’d been a gentleman, I would have showered, but I wasn’t that guy, and the women who came backstage wanted to taste the salt on my skin as much as they wanted to feel me inside them.

  My eyes were trained on the door as I kept the bottle of beer pressed to my lips, too lethargic to keep lifting it up and down. What a sorry little black prince I’d somehow become.

  There was a knock at the door, which soon opened to reveal a security guy dressed in black. He offered me a nod of acknowledgement just before a long, bare-legged beauty appeared behind him and sauntered into the room. She wore tight, black shorts that barely covered her perky arse cheeks, and her midriff was on show thanks to the way she’d tied a knot in her Youth Gone Wild T-shirt and tucked it under her boobs.

  What a treat.

  With a raise of my chin, I dismissed the security guy, and Little Miss Redhead and I were left alone. When she came to a stop, she let one leg drift out to the side like she was posing at the end of a runway. Her hands hung limp by her side, commanding my attention.

  This one had nothing to hide. Those were always better than the mousy girls who wasted time by pretending they had morals.

  I didn’t take my eyes off her, and I didn’t offer a welcome speech. I wanted to see how long it would take for me to break her with my stare. I also wanted to wait to feel something inside myself. Something like excitement or curiosity, but my mind was a clusterfuck, and it was affecting everything within.

  Especially the guy down south.

  Red looked around the room, and she ran her fleshy pink tongue over her plump bottom lip.

  I took a moment to think about how I’d take her.

  Up against a wall? Bent over the sofa? With my arm pushed against her throat? Or would I lay there and let her do all the work from on top? I tried to get the imagination going—to see myself pulling her G-string off with my teeth, or to think about the taste she’d provide when I ran my silky tongue up her damp neck.

  My eyes were narrowed as I studied her, trying to conjure… something—anything—but my skin was lifeless, my dick asleep, my stomach devoid of excited flutters.

  Red started to look a little uncomfortable, the slight rocking of her body as she began to break under the weight of my stare telling me so.

  “Did you enjoy the show?” I asked, low and rough as I pushed myself to the edge of the sofa and cupped my beer between parted legs.

  Her face lit up at the sound of my voice. “I thought you were incredible.”

  “And now you’re here…”

  Red smiled seductively as she rocked her pert arse from side to side. I dropped my empty beer bottle to the floor, and then beckoned her closer with a single crook of my finger. Maybe if I got a better look, I’d find some damn enthusiasm and get into this.

  The track switched to Slipknot’s Snuff, and as Red sauntered closer, I let my eyes drift all over her body.

  Sex and Slipknot, man. I should have been as high as the sky, ready to rock inside her and show her how I saved my best performances for my dressing room.

  Get it the fuck together, Rhett.

  This one didn’t need any instructions, and she sank her knees into the sofa on either side of my waist, straddling me until her tits were an inch away from my face. I grabbed her hips, breathing in the sweet scent of too much perfume mingled with the smell of the crowd. Her skin was warm, and when she ran her fingers through my hair and forced my attention up to her face, I waited for the excitement to kick in.

  Her green eyes were sparkling gems.

  Her lips were shaped like a bow, perfectly pink and waiting to be bruised.

  Her toned thighs clenched around me, and she rolled her body in a seductive wave to begin her tease.

  Some women knew what they were doing, and this one was willing to give me a night I’d never forget.

  But nothing was happening for me. Not a single fucking thing. I couldn’t get excited because there was no thrill in it tonight. N
o one was there to catch me out and force me to stop with this charade.

  I waited for the door to burst open, and for Jules to groan before she threatened my would-be-lover to get out. I waited for Julia’s voice to make me smirk against Red’s skin, and for me to look up and see her standing there, staring at me with loving judgement.

  As Red began to breathe heavily, sensing that her victory was only an orgasm away, my body deflated, and my grip on her hips loosened.

  There was no Julia to stop me tonight.

  I had to stop myself.

  “What’s wrong?” Red asked as I sank back, my body slumping against the sofa. I looked up at her with an empty stare.

  “You should go,” I said quietly.

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No.” I swallowed, as Corey Taylor sang about some unjust love of his. “But still… you should go. Do it now before I hate myself for using you. You’re better than this. Don’t let an arsehole like me make you feel shitty for being beautiful.”

  Chapter Ten

  When I opened my eyes, Tessa was smiling at me from the cream leather chair opposite mine on our private plane back to England. She must have switched places with Hawk while I’d been napping.

  Wearing a grey Def Leppard T-shirt, bright red lipstick, and a chequered bandana around her cherry-red hair, she should have looked ridiculous, but her style was something she owned and conquered. I had to give her that.

  “What do you want, Tess?” I grunted.

  “Thought I’d come over here and check how you’re doing.”

  “I’m doing great. Cheers. Thanks. Bye.”

  She raised a brow and gave me an unimpressed glare. It reminded me of something Julia would have done. “You’re not fooling anyone.”

  “Didn’t realise I was trying to.”

  “It’s okay to feel like you’ve had enough. You’re not the only one to burnout on tour.”

  “I haven’t burnt out.”

  Tessa’s eyes searched mine, and it was pretty obvious that I wasn’t going to escape her anytime soon. As my mother always said, sometimes you can't avoid the storm. You just have to go straight through it.

  “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told you before,” she began, whether I wanted to hear it or not. “The first time I saw you talking on The Graham Norton Show, eighteen months ago, after you’d finished singing that cover of The Rolling Stones’ acoustic version of Wild Horses, do you know what I thought to myself? I thought… there’s a guy who was born to do what he does. Of course, I was mainly pining for Presley at the time, because, you know…”

  “Desperate, horny, and bathing in self-loathing because you let him get away?”

  “Something like that.” She smirked. “But you were unmissable, Rhett. You had this spark in your eyes—more than any of the other guys, actually. The minute you sat on that sofa and Graham started asking you questions, you shone. There wasn’t anything about you that made me think that guy is going to struggle with this life.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that since I came along, I haven’t really seen that spark from you.”

  “That’s quite the coincidence.” I smirked back. When in doubt, aim for humour. That old deflection tactic usually worked, but this was Tessa, and she’d gotten quite good at seeing through the masks of rock stars like me.

  “You can pretend to hate me all you want. I know you don’t. You just don’t know how to handle being close to a woman without expecting to see them on all fours in front of you at the end of it.”

  “I haven’t closed the door to the idea of that happening with you yet, Tess.”

  “I would.” She chuckled back. “Presley would kill us both with his bare hands.”

  “Sometimes you’ve got to go out in style, baby.”

  Her smile was there, but the weighty breath she released told me she was getting frustrated. I was about to open my mouth to speak again when she delivered her ultimate strike in this battle of wits.

  “Julia told me what she almost let happen between the two of you.”

  All trace of humour fell from my face, leaving my jaw to tighten and my nostrils to flare.

  “What did she say?” I forced out through gritted teeth.

  “She said enough. Despite her running away from all this, she’s grateful you didn’t let it happen.”

  “Grateful?” I frowned. Fucking grateful. Like she thought I would have been a mistake.

  “You didn’t want anything to happen between the two of you, right?”

  “Fuck, no.” I shuffled in my seat and sat up straighter, gripping the armrests tightly as I glanced out of the small window that looked out onto nothing but clouds. “Not a damn thing. Julia is… she’s…”

  “Your publicist?”

  “And, like, what? Thirty-five?”

  “Thirty-two,” Tessa answered in a whisper.

  “Right.” I scratched my eyebrow. “Anyway, it’s Julia, you know. Fucking Julia. She’s… she’s nothing to me. Good for her for being grateful I put an end to it before it started. Good for her for being glad nothing happened. She was lucky I wasn’t pissed up or high enough to not care who she was. She was lucky I gave a shit and thought enough of her to say no. Good for her. Yeah. Good.”

  A long, lingering silence floated between the two of us as Tessa held my gaze.

  I couldn’t look away now—couldn’t fidget or move in case she saw things in me I hadn’t even seen for myself yet—so I sat there, my chest bouncing high and hard as I struggled for breath while images of Julia sitting over me floated through my mind.

  Julia and her quirky little blazers.

  Julia and her sharp cheekbones.

  Julia and those beautiful pools of perfect brown eyes.

  Julia and that mouth that felt so good.

  Julia and all the dirty, dirty things I could have done with her.

  “Shit,” Tessa eventually whispered.

  Goosebumps rose on the back of my neck, and the whole fucking mess of it all made me angry.

  “You can go now, Tess,” I growled.

  “You want Ju—”

  “I said go!”

  Tessa flinched, and I saw Presley turn instantly, his frown and protective glare aimed right at me from the other end of the plane.

  Tessa looked at me like she pitied me, and it made my heart beat faster in my chest.

  I hated pity.

  “If you ever want to talk about it, Rhett, I’m willing to listen. I won’t tell a soul,” she whispered. “If anyone understands, I do.”

  Before I could respond, she’d walked away and was in Presley’s arms, her head resting against his chest as he pulled her to him and glared at me over her shoulder.

  I closed my eyes on all of them.

  But when I did… I saw Julia again.

  Maybe I should have scratched that itch, after all.

  Chapter Eleven

  When you’ve seen the bright lights of every city, flown over every piece of barren land, and visited places you hadn’t even known existed, everything about home feels incredibly small.

  The world I’d grown up in was now too narrow. Too straight.

  The streets I drove through to get back to my parents’ home were bleak, filled with dark brick, miserable concrete, and cloudy skies. I arrogantly felt too big for this place now.

  As picturesque as Cookham could be, it wasn’t the stage. This wasn’t a tour bus or a private jet. It wasn’t London at its worst. It was the British countryside at its best.

  I just had no idea if that’s where I belonged anymore.

  My feet had barely crossed the threshold of my parents’ home when my mother threw her arms around me and squealed in my ear, “My baby!”

  “Hey, Ma,” I pushed out, a small smile breaking free.

  “Oh, you sound dreadful.” She pulled back, held my cheeks in her hands and studied my face. Patty Ryan, to me, was beautiful, with her already greying hair, her li
ttle gold-glasses, and her perfect complexion. She didn’t look her age. She sure as hell acted it, though, and I was about three seconds away from her giving me a full diagnosis, which would no doubt include exhaustion, malnutrition, and me being in need of a good…

  “God, you need a haircut.”

  There it was. She tugged at the ends of it, which were, admittedly, a little overgrown.

  “And a shave.”

  “You don’t like the stubble?”

  “No. It hides your handsome face too much. Gosh, your skin is pale, Rhett. Your eyes…” Her thumbs pulled down on the bags. “Look up for me.”

  “Jesus, Ma.”

  “I said look up.”

  I glanced up at the ceiling, sighing heavily.

  “They’re so bloodshot, and you smell like an ashtray. Your lungs will be rotten if you keep that up. Have you been smoking all tour?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And drinking, too?”

  “It’s tour, Ma. I did a lot of things.” I smirked, wiggling my eyebrows.

  She let me go instantly and covered her ears. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. The papers make enough stuff up as it is. Those horrible, horrible women, always telling lies about you to get on the front page of the newspapers.”

  I didn’t want to tell her they weren’t all lies.

  “Those women are the worst.” I huffed out a small laugh and finally shrugged off the backpack to drop it on the floor. “Want to give your son a real hug now? Or am I too diseased and tainted for you to bear holding?” I held my arms out and watched as my mum’s worry drifted away and her shoulders softened.

  “You could be a thief and a murderer, son, and I’d still love every rotten inch of you.” She stepped into my arms and pressed her head to my chest.

  “Thanks, Ma.”

  “You need a bath,” she muttered weakly. “You absolutely stink.”

  I laughed again—a throaty laugh that time. Maybe being back home for a few days wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it would clear my head and make me forget the things I couldn’t seem to rid myself of, no matter how hard I tried.