European Tour (Rocking the Pop Star Book 1)

by L. V. Lewis

  To be honest, I’m surprised she has taken this long to ask about it. “Yes, and the person who inspired it. Okay?”

  She smiles. “Okay.”

  I look deep into her eyes. “Do you trust me, Sky? I mean really trust me?”

  She looks thoughtful for a moment, and then her green eyes shine with an emotion that is unmistakable when she answers me. “I know it’s been a short time, Brody, but I do trust you. I trust you with my life.”

  “Good, because I’m going to need you to hold on to your curiosity about me and my past for a little while longer.”

  She nods, her mouth twisted to one side, as if she’s resisting the urge to frown.

  “I’ve met Pit Viper,” I continue. “In fact, he and I were on the same label once upon a time. I don’t look very much like he remembers me and I certainly don’t go by the same name, so I’m going to try and psych him out. Can I trust you to just go with that? Like I said, I’m going to come completely clean with you very soon.”

  “Okay,” she says. “I’ll play along.”

  The car slows and she peers out the window. “Oh look, we’re here.”

  The driver stops the car at the curb.

  Malik jumps out of the front seat to open the door for us.

  An explosion of camera flashes blind us and the paps calling to Sky begin their symphony of photograph taking as we exit.

  Malik positions himself in front of us as sort of a human battering ram, carving us a path through the melee.

  “Skylar! Skylar, look here!” a reporter shouts.

  “Hey Skylar, who’s your boy toy?” another one of them calls.

  This is not a press conference, so we don’t entertain any questions.

  Skylar and I just smile for the cameras and I move her toward the restaurant door.

  Like a linebacker, Malik straight-arms a photographer who gets too close and moves him out of our way.

  Finally, we’re inside. The hostess whisks us to a VIP private dining room. The one and only Pit Viper is already seated, accompanied by a man I assume is his manager.

  Pit looks askance at me.

  The feeling is mutual. Still, I swoop in to shake his hand while Sky checks her wrap with the hostess. “Brody Kent,” I say. “We spoke on the phone.”

  Pit Viper continues to look at me, his brow furrowed. “Pit Viper, aka Max Lachlan. This is my manager, Liam Cooper.”

  His Australian accent is thicker than I remember.

  Sky joins us at the table, so I figure I should make the introductions. “Mr. Lachlan, Mr. Cooper—this is Skylar Samuelson and her security chief, Malik Thompson.”

  They both stand.

  The hostess pulls out a chair for Sky. We all sit.

  As Sky and I planned earlier, I will let her take the lead on negotiating with Pit Viper, who’s squinting at me again.

  He shakes his head. “As you know, Skylar, the elder Mrs. Samuelson called us up a couple of days ago after having heard I was on hiatus and implored me to play for the last three stops on your European tour.”

  “Yes, my mother is a manager’s manager. Always looking for ways to do cutting-edge things for her daughter’s career,” Sky says. “I’d like to thank you for entertaining her offer and coming here to meet with us.”

  “My pleasure, love. I’m not one to big note meself, but I’m no bodgy bloke, neither.”

  “I know you’re not. I’ve heard your music,” Sky says with a polite smile.

  “What’s your endgame? Let’s nut this out so we can eat.”

  “If you can give some of my songs part of your signature sound, I should be able to tap into a new fan base for these last three concerts on the tour.”

  “I promise to give you a fair go. If my fans hear I’ll be playing with you, they’ll come scurrying in like cockies.”

  Sky nods. “Not sure what a cockie is, but I like the sound of them scurrying in.”

  “Ah, it’s just what you Americans call a cockroach.”

  “Okay,” Sky says and sips her water. “What is your fee, Mr. Lachlan?”

  “It’s Max…or Pit when we’re on stage, little lady.”

  “Thank you, Max. I realize that a performer of your stature would demand more than mere double or triple scale. I’d just like to know how much you’re going to hurt my bank account before I sign on the dotted line.”

  “I have a copy of Max’s boilerplate contract for such things,” Max’s manager pipes up for the first time.

  Mr. Cooper removes a one-pager from his briefcase and hands it to Sky. She looks it over and then hands it to me.

  I give it a once-over. Everything looks legit. Of course I knew Pit Viper wouldn’t come cheap, but I’m pleased to see he isn’t gouging Sky. I give Sky my nod of approval.

  “I’m looking forward to us working together, Max.” She offers him her hand to shake, and Pit Viper obliges.

  The waiter hovers at the tableside as we share handshakes all around and Sky signs the document in duplicate.

  I pick up my menu, as does Sky, happy to have that bit of business complete. “What’s good here?” I ask the waiter.

  He goes into his litany of specials and his personal favorites.

  Sky squeezes my thigh under the table to get my attention. “Thank you,” she mouths.

  “Welcome,” I mouth back.

  Although I am not performing, it feels good to be in partnership with someone again, and living vicariously through her experiences.

  We return to the hotel. Sky jumps me as soon as I get her suite door open.

  “What gives?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, I guess negotiations make me horny.”

  “My god, woman, if that’s the case, I’d certainly like to see you negotiate more often.”

  I find the pulse on the column of her throat and suck her supple skin into my mouth, teasing her captured flesh gently with my tongue.

  Sky moans—she always does when I do this.

  My cock is hardening against her belly. She must feel me, because she reaches between us and strokes me as we kiss.

  We stumble to the bed, removing our clothes as we go.

  Together, we unroll a condom onto me.

  Sky pushes me onto the bed and straddles me.

  I love how with my encouragement of her she’s become so bold. She unapologetically takes what she wants in the bedroom now.

  She lowers herself inch by agonizing inch onto my cock until I am buried in her to the hilt. She begins to rock in a sensual, methodical motion, sliding up and down my length. She levers her torso down. With her breasts against my chest, her lips pressed to my throat, and her thighs gripping my sides tightly, she continues her sexy grind.

  I mimic her movements below, meeting her strokes, my muscles contracting as the sensation she’s creating winds me up toward release.

  “You feel so fucking good, Sky,” I mutter.

  Taking my face in her palms, she kisses me, riding me in her slow, sexy roll. She laces her fingers through mine and sits back up again, moving her hips in broad, swerving circles, lifting until only my tip is inside of her, then sitting on me until I’m deep inside her once again.

  I’m shaking all over. She squeezes me in tiny flutters, her muscles pulsing. The feeling is so intense my orgasm detonates, spurting my hot seed into the condom.

  Our bodies are covered in a fine sheen of sweat, but she keeps her rhythm as my waves and shudders continue. I am trembling, but intent on moving until she gets what she needs. She releases my hands and leans back, bracing her hands against my thighs, her hips still writhing, moving relentlessly against mine.

  I put my back into it grinding up, up, up.

  She stiffens, finally.

  “Oh, Brody!” She screams over and over, repeating my name as if in prayer, riding out the throes of her orgasm. She collapses onto my torso, completely spent.

  I roll her onto her side. I pad to the bathroom to dispose of the condom and return with a warm towel. Since she did al
l the work, the least I can do is clean her up.

  Sky shields herself shyly as I stroke her, and I shake my head at her, uncomprehending how the woman who fucked me like that could be bashful.

  “You just rode me like a cowgirl and now you’re shy?”

  “But when I was doing that you weren’t gazing into my…” she trails off as if she can’t say the word.

  “Your p—?”

  She shoves me playfully, effectively stopping me from saying the offending word. “There are no cats in this room, and I can say vagina,” she insists.

  I climb back in bed next to her and pull her close. “Whatever. It was just trembling like a purring cat.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” she says after a short silence.

  Her laughter is contagious and I double over along with her at the humor of the situation.

  Like Kim, she doesn’t take herself too seriously, and I love that about Sky. But unlike Kim, she isn’t afraid to deviate from her natural submissiveness and not allow herself to be manipulated in affairs of the heart. I love that, too.

  How I feel about her mother, however, is another story. I’m proud of the way Sky has committed herself to standing up against her controlling mother despite having spent years under her thumb.

  And I’m pretty sure I love the fuck out of her, but I’m not ready to say it yet—not until I’m really sure. Sky’s Freudian slip earlier had been adorable, but I want us both to be sure we really love each other before we make it official.

  Calm from our fit of laughter, I kiss her on the temple. “Are you ready for the new music Pit Viper’s going to be playing for you?”

  “Yes. I’m looking forward to it, but I still wish you were appearing onstage with me.”

  I shift so we’re at eye level. “Sky, I want nothing more than to be able to share the music world with you, but I left it all behind for very serious reasons.”

  “I know, and I don’t mean to belabor the point. I-I’ve grown to care about you and I know from the one time I’ve seen you play, that music is your passion as much or more than it is mine. There’s a gift within you that I’ve never known anyone else to possess, and you’re allowing it to lie untapped and uncultivated. You’re not sharing it with the world. That is a travesty.”

  “I think you have enough passion for both of us,” I say.

  She says she’s grown to care about me, and I must really love this girl, because I’m not flipping my shit over her bringing up the subject of me performing again.

  “If I could do music the way I’ve done it in the past, don’t you think I would? It’s taken me five long years to come to terms with the fact that I can’t do what I love because of the darkness it brings out in me.”

  “I don’t understand,” she says. “But I will trust that you know yourself better than anyone and that you can’t do it anymore for your own health and wellbeing. If staying away from it will keep you sober, I won’t push you to do it.”

  “Thank you, Sky.”

  I’m this close to telling her everything, but I want her to have the tour out of the way before I do. I want to see if we’re on the same page concerning our relationship.

  The next three and a half weeks are going to be the longest of my life.

  ELEVEN

  SKYLAR

  DAY TWENTY-SIX

  Mother gives my suite a sweeping appraisal. “You’re shacking up with your P.A. now?”

  I purposely hadn’t bothered to remove all of Brody’s things that migrated into my room courtesy of our late night liaisons.

  She stands in front of a pair of his MMA shorts on the ottoman and her lip curls in distaste.

  He’d sparred with Malik last night and ended up in my bed after we showered together.

  “You’re in rare form, Mother.”

  Removing her gloves, she takes a seat in an armchair, and I perch on the edge of the ottoman next to Brody’s shorts.

  Mother is one of the few women in this century who still wears gloves when she travels for no apparent reason other than for them to be an accessory.

  “It isn’t my form that should be called into question,” Mother says. “You do realize that ticket sales are way down while you’re playing footsies with your P.A.?”

  “We are mitigating the losses. In addition to your hiring of Pit Viper, Brody and I have shored up the marketing. Cyndi has re-choreographed several of my songs, and the show tonight should boost ticket sales in the last two venues considerably.”

  “We shall see.” Mother crosses her right leg delicately over her left. “Where is your—boy toy, is it?”

  “He’s not a boy, and definitely not anyone’s toy,” I say through gritted teeth. “He’s a man and a very intelligent and talented one.”

  “Oh? That’s not what the tabloids call him. Or have you even been keeping up with what’s being said about you in the news media?”

  “Is the news media you’re talking about rags like International Inspirer, or the Gossip Maven blog?”

  “You turn up your nose, but people read those rags and make decisions about things like whether to buy tickets to a tarnished pop star’s concerts.”

  Her words cut to the bone, but I am determined not to allow her to reduce me to tears anymore. I stand up. “Are you so hateful that you’d like to see me fail, Mother?”

  Face crumbling, she springs out of her chair and wraps her arms around me. “My darling girl, you are the only daughter I have, and I’ve always cheered you on. In all your endeavors. I’m merely disappointed that you would throw all your hard work away for a man who’s beneath you.”

  Shaking my head, I wrench away from her. “Brody isn’t beneath me! Is there a sincere bone in your body anymore, Mother?”

  She huffs a laborious sigh. “Skylar. Obviously, this man has his claws into you very deeply. Nothing I say will convince you to come to your senses and see him for what he really is.”

  “What is he really, in your opinion, Mother?”

  “He’s a drug addict.”

  “I know all about Brody’s struggles with addiction. He was reluctant to take this job because of it. The question is how do you know this?”

  Mother seems surprised that I already know this about Brody. “It wasn’t hard to figure out. A man his age retires from the business only for a handful of reasons.” She opens her mouth as if she has something more to say. Displaying a look of utter defeat, she closes her mouth and raises both her hands in a conciliatory gesture.

  “He is a smart one,” she says calmly. “Giving you bits and pieces of his past. Reeling you in just as neat as you please. But you mark my words, he’s going to sweep in and lower the boom. That is, if he doesn’t relapse first.”

  She retrieves her purse and gloves from the chair. “I’m going to go to my room to take a shower and get ready for the concert. I suggest you do the same.”

  “Jenny’s on her way here now to do my hair and help me gather all my wardrobe changes. We’ve done three whole other concerts without your direction. I’m sure we can do the next three.”

  Mother opens the door. “I sincerely hope that’s the case, my dear.”

  I knew she couldn’t leave without having the last word.

  I peek out from backstage to take in the epic crowd we have drawn in Madrid. The lights are dramatically low as Alyssa performs “This Song Is For You.” She holds the final note and fireworks explode. The packed audience goes nuts for her finale. Pit Viper’s worth every penny of the investment I made. This crowd is almost double the size of the crowd we had in Berlin.

  “Five minutes until show time,” Brody whispers against my ear.

  I smile and lean back against his solid form.

  Alyssa runs backstage straight into my arms when the fireworks effect dies off and a partition goes up so the set can be changed. Brody and I share a group hug with her. “Sky, the crowd is sick tonight. Go on and kill it, girl.”

  “I will,” I promise.

  She continues in the dir
ection of her dressing room.

  Brody walks me out to the elaborate set where a trapeze is set up for my grand entrance. He gets me seated on the device and fastens the harness. He looks around, and I do, too.

  The crew is busy with last-second preparations and not watching us, so I get a soft kiss on the lips.

  “I’ll be standing in my usual spot,” he says. “Give those gossip rags something to write about this week.”

  I nod and say, “Will do.”

  My band members take their places on stage with Pit Viper waiting in the wings for his cue. He’s supposed to enter stage left and join the band after I’m lowered onto the stage and the dance routine begins.

  The pulleys engage, raising me high into the scaffolding that holds the giant klieg lights, and I look down. My mother is waiting in the wings, her lips pursed in displeasure.

  What else is new? She’d disappeared during Alyssa’s show and I’d thought perhaps she was sitting the show out in the green room. We haven’t spoken since our “Come to Jesus” meeting earlier, and she’d made her own way to the concert, refusing to ride in the limo with Brody, Malik, and me.

  My stomach flutters and fizzes like champagne, and I take a deep breath. Most performers get a little nervous before going on stage, and even being as experienced as I am I know if this didn’t happen, I’d probably turn in a lousy performance.

  The dancers take their places.

  I lower the hands-free mic to my lips and flip the tiny switch on the battery pack strapped under my costume. My heart leaps, but I don’t dare make any sound because the mic could already be live.

  The stage engineer’s voice finally feeds into my earpiece. “Ready, Skylar?”

  “Yes.”

  The lights come up and the music begins to play. The countdown begins in my ear.

  I begin to sing at my cue as I’m lowered onto the stage. The crowd erupts into cheers. I begin the set with “Love Me Now.”

  My feet touch the stage and I release the harness. We’ve rehearsed this to death, so I fall into perfect step with the dancers.

  Pit Viper cuts in with an intricate string of riffs as I complete the first turn with the dancers. The crowd goes wild with the legendary guitarist’s entrance. A spotlight follows him onto his mark on the stage.