He smirked at me – probably because I was blushing furiously.
“Relax… you’ve seen me naked before.”
“Not in quite this much light.”
He broke into a full-on grin. “That is true.”
“Do you… have to do this?” I asked, getting a little angry – if only to camouflage how turned on I was.
“What, talk to you?”
“NO.” I gestured helplessly with my hand, careful not to stretch out my arm too far. “…th-this.”
“Take a shower?” he asked, toying with me.
“Stand here naked,” I snapped.
“That’s usually how I stand around before I go take a shower,” he said, grinning. “I’m not shy – I figure I’ve got nothing to be shy about.”
That much was certainly true.
Then he grew serious, and his tone turned seductive. “Why… does it bother you?”
I swallowed hard. “Yes. It does.”
The naughty trickster smile flashed back onto his face. “Too bad.”
Asshole!
“Oh, I got some new tattoos – I didn’t know if you noticed.”
“Um… no,” I squeaked.
He grinned even harder. He was sooo enjoying this, damn him.
“Remember how I said I was going to get tattoos for every album I did?”
“Yeah…”
I locked onto his eyes, trying not to look anywhere else, holding onto his gaze like a drowning person might onto a piece of wood.
Maybe that’s a bad choice of words – ‘piece of wood.’
Either way, it didn’t work.
He lifted up his arm and pointed to his side, just below his ribcage.
Less than two feet from his crotch.
Unfortunately, I darted another quick look down.
His cock was bigger now.
Thicker.
Standing out slightly from his body – and growing heartbeat by heartbeat.
Not hard yet, not fully erect, but definitely getting there.
He was getting turned on by being naked in front of me.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
“I got this one for the first album,” he said, and pointed to the tattoo.
It was a realistic reproduction of the cover of Bigger Than Yours, which featured a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 29 – the revolver that Clint Eastwood used in the Dirty Harry movies. Opposing it, and shrinking down under the eight-inch barrel, was a tiny little Walther PPK – also known as the gun James Bond uses.
Subtlety was not exactly the band’s strong suit.
Obviously sexual, it seemingly contained other messages, too. Like the guns, conflating them with masculinity – playfully? Or just blatant machismo? Then there was the whole class aspect of the Smith & Wesson versus the snootier Walther. And some music critics had suggested there was some sort of dig in there about Americans versus Brits (Dirty Harry versus James Bond). They spun it into a huge rift between Derek and Killian, about how they had fought during the making of the album – all without a single shred of evidence, since the band never talked to anybody in the press.
That was a good question – I would ask about that, the whole supposed fight with Killian –
But right now I just was trying hard not to look at Derek’s package.
“Um, yeah, nice,” I said, straining to keep my eyes on the tattoo of the revolver and the tinier pistol.
“And then this one for Bigger Is Better,” he said, turning around and pointing over his shoulder.
With his back turned to me, his dick wasn’t visible, which was good.
But now his ass was.
Oh Jesus.
It was gorgeous. It had been gorgeous under his jeans back in Athens, Georgia. It had looked even better naked by candlelight, and now it was absolutely mouth-watering. Smooth, perfect, sculpted, hard, big without being too big, muscular, no tan lines, with streaks of sweat gleaming across his flesh. It looked like he was posing for some sort of hyper-sexualized perfume ad. Obsession by Calvin Klein.
My hands felt magnetically drawn to reach out, to cup it with my palms, to squeeze each cheek and feel that firm, hard, glorious ass –
It took all my willpower to keep my hands by my side and look at the picture on his shoulder blade instead.
DAMN.
Whoever had done it was one of the best tattoo artists in the world.
The band had dumped the sexual imagery of their first album cover and gone with a band portrait for Bigger Is Better – simple, nothing grandiose, just the four of them. If they’d taken a thousand pictures that day, then the one they used for the cover was absolutely the best: a light moment, horsing around and laughing, shot from the waist up. Derek was in the front carrying Riley piggyback, liked she’d just jumped up there and was trying to bite his ear. They were both grinning, though Riley still looked pretty aggressive and definitely seemed intent on pulling a Mike Tyson/Evander Holyfield chompfest.
Derek was in his Maui Jims. Riley’s mohawk was, for once, a solid platinum blonde. Off to the left, Killian and Ryan were both laughing and reacting in shock. It’s obvious the moment was a surprise to them, and that the photographer just happened to snap the picture at exactly the right second – like catching lightning in a bottle. The picture was lighthearted and spontaneous, and captured exactly what I’d seen at the Dubai: the bantering, the camaraderie, the ease and humor of the band. And Riley’s simmering punk menace, of course.
Most bands’ publicity photos show the members being super-serious. They always seem to scream, ‘We are Musicians! We are ARTISTS! WE ARE IMPORTANT!’ And if the band members are instead being lighthearted and playful, it always seems staged and fake. But the cover of Bigger Is Better was effortless, effervescent, and funny. Joyful, even.
And whoever the tattoo artist was, they had captured that perfectly.
It was a black-and-white reproduction of the cover, just the four band members – and it was like someone had somehow printed a hi-def scan directly from a computer onto Derek’s skin, and yet still infused the image with life. Derek already had a black-and-white tattoo of Jim Morrison, the famous pose of him shirtless and staring into the camera; that one was amazing, but this one was flawless. It was beautiful.
And for once, I didn’t have a problem keeping my eyes off his ass.
“Wow,” was all I could say.
“I know, right?” Derek said happily. “The guy who did it is out of New York – he’s a fucking artist. Best in the world, in my opinion. Cost me $20,000 and took 36 hours for that tattoo – nine four-hour sessions – but it was worth every penny. And every second.”
Then he turned back around to face me full-on.
I willed myself – I forced myself – not to look down.
I kind of succeeded. I only dropped my gaze as low as his chest before I snapped back up to his eyes.
But I could still see out of the bottom of my field of vision that his cock had only gotten bigger, and was now jutting out from his body, parallel with the floor – and still growing and angling upwards.
I stared into his eyes like my life depended on it.
He was grinning like he was having the time of his life. “So… you gonna start the interview?”
“Uhhhh… yeah.”
I just stood there stupidly, though, unable to think of a single thing besides Oh my GOD it’s getting BIGGER…
That, and trying to tamp down my overwhelming desire to reach out and touch it.
Derek pointed at the purse slung over my shoulder. “You going to get your little recorder thing?”
“Uhhhh… yeah.” I reached down blindly, fumbling with the clasp, determined not to look away from his eyes. His eyes were dangerous enough as is, but anything else was deadly.
The clasp was snagged or something. But I refused to look at it.
Derek was going to start laughing at any second, I could see it in his face. He took a step forward – Jesus, another few inches and his cock was going to bru
sh up against my leg – and reached down for my purse. “Do you want me to – ”
“NO, I GOT it,” I said, stepped back a good two feet, turned away, and looked down. I opened the purse up, got out the Zoom recorder Ryan had given me, and pressed the button twice until I got the red light.
Then I turned around, careful not to look down, and held out the Zoom so that it blocked my vision of what was between his legs.
Much better.
Well… not really.
Much better at keeping me focused, though.
Derek just grinned and stepped into the pair of flip-flops. “I’m going in. You want to join me?”
“…no. I’ll stay right here,” I said, though my mouth was watering.
“Suit yourself.”
He grabbed some towels and the bag of toiletries and strode off for the showers, giving me a perfect view of that gorgeous, squeezable ass in motion.
God DAMN him…
16
I stood on the outside of the tile shower room and listened as the hiss of water filled the air. Steam started to drift out.
“So, I wanted to ask you about the album cover for Bigger Than – ”
“What?” Derek yelled, his voice sounding hollow from bouncing on the tile.
“I said, I wanted to ask you about – ”
“I can’t hear you over the water – you’re going to have to come in here.”
Asshole.
I was pretty damn sure he could hear me just fine.
But I steeled myself and walked around the corner into the shower room, my heels clicking on the tile.
I almost choked.
He was standing there, outlined against the white tiled wall, soap suds sliding down his body, his hair wet and slick, his skin luscious and shiny under the jet of water.
I recalled a story about some movie studio mogul who wanted to cast an Olympic female swimmer in a movie. In everyday life, she was kind of plain, but put her in a bathing suit and a pool, and she looked amazing. The studio mogul’s comment was, “Dry she ain’t much – but wet, she’s a star.”
Well, Derek Kane dry was damn good-looking… but wet and naked, he was heart-stopping.
His skin shone. Water droplets seemed to dance in the air. His muscles bulged and cast off spray all around him. He was that Obsession ad by Calvin Klein, times ten.
And though his growing erection had seemingly died down a little, it still swayed tantalizingly, with a sluice of water cascading down over it like the most beautiful waterfall you’ve ever seen.
My panties were wetter than the shower tiles, I was certain of that.
He pulled his face out of the jet of water and caught me staring at his crotch.
It immediately started to get bigger again.
FUCK!
I snapped my eyes back up to his face.
He grinned saucily. “… you were saying?”
I blushed again. “Um, the, uh, the cover for your first album – was that a dig at Killian?”
He rolled his eyes. “That fucking story? The one Spin or whoever made up?”
“You heard about it?”
“I didn’t read it, but Ryan told me people kept asking about it on Facebook.”
“…so was it?”
“No, it wasn’t a dig at Killian. I begged Killian to come join the band. He’s like a fuckin’ Mozart on guitar. I know it sounds insane to say it, but I think he’s just as good as Jimmy Page or Hendrix. Why the fuck would I want to insult him?”
“Well, why those guns, then?”
“The real question is, why do guns at all? That’s what you’re really asking. I mean, I’m soooo obsessed with the size of my cock, I just HAD to put it on an album cover, right?” he grinned.
I gritted my teeth. “I guess someone might think that.”
He shook his head, casting water everywhere. “It was all a big joke. Once we had the name, we knew what everybody was going to think it was about, even though it was Riley who came up with it.”
That was another big, contentious debate about the band name – where it had come from. Nobody knew for sure.
“How’d she come up with it?”
“I’ll let her tell you, she tells it better. Anyway, we knew what people were going to think, so we just ran with it. Played it up. ‘Rock out with your cock out.’ ‘Cock rock.’ To tell the truth, for the first cover I think I wanted a Mac truck next to one of those little two-seater electric cars. It was Killian who suggested the guns.”
Derek switched to his hilariously bad English accent.
“‘You yanks are all about your guns, aren’t you? Love your guns, right? We should have guns on the cover. Yeah, guns.’ So I suggested a cannon, but Killian was like, ‘This isn’t the 18th century, mate.’ So we were like, ‘What’s the biggest fucking gun you can have?’ We thought about a machinegun or something, but Riley insisted on the .44 Magnum. She’s a big Clint Eastwood fan.”
I would never have guessed that, but okay.
“And then we needed a dinky gun, and of all the dinky guns out there, James Bond’s gun was the most famous, and it’s small – which, you know, for a spy trying to conceal a firearm is actually a good thing, but whatever. So we did the cover shoot and immediately people start talking shit and saying I was dissing Killian when it was Killian’s idea to use guns in the first place. Fuckin’ idiots.”
“Why didn’t you just set the record straight?”
“Why would I wanna do that? It’s more fun to hear them argue over what we meant. They come up with some pretty hilarious shit. Besides, we don’t talk to the press, remember?”
Unless you’re naked and they’re in the shower with you, apparently.
“Why is that?”
“Because they’re not interested in the truth. They’re not interested in a fair or accurate picture. They’re interested in sensationalism, and shocking headlines, all so they can get the big scoop and advance their careers, or whore themselves out for advertising money.”
“I’m a journalist, and I’m standing right here – you do remember that, right?”
He grinned. “Sorry. Not you, personally. Just your… profession in general. Go listen to the first verse of 99 Problems by Jay-Z. He lays it out pretty well.”
Derek had just dissed me, so I felt like pushing it. “Some people would say that you just have an overly thin skin and can’t handle criticism. Like some of the bad reviews on your first album.”
“Yeah, well, ‘some people’ can go fuck themselves.”
“Saying that doesn’t really help with the ‘thin-skinned’ impression.”
“Yeah? Okay, here it is: did those first reviews hurt? Yeah, of course. It pissed me off royally. Those were songs I wrote about you. About us. And they shat all over them.”
Oh my God… I’d never thought about it like that before.
I felt like I wanted to cry a little, I was so touched.
Derek didn’t notice, just kept talking. “But that was just the final straw. You wanna know where it really started?”
“Of course.”
“Back in Athens, when me and Ryan still had Inward Spiral – you remember Inward Spiral, don’t you?”
“Did you ever write that song, ‘Recipe for Disaster’?”
He laughed. “You do remember. No, that’s still on the docket – same as ‘According to Kaitlyn.’ Actually, ‘According to Kaitlyn’ was my working title for ‘Girl, Please Stay.’ Did you know that?”
A flush of heat went through my chest. I got a little choked up again.
“…no, I didn’t.”
“Well, it was. Anyway, there was some nerdy music guy from the Red & Black, the UGA newspaper, at one of the shows, and he wanted an interview. So we gave him one. And the entire fucking time, he obviously had this huge chip on his shoulder. He was haughty and stuck-up and just loooved him some Velvet Underground, and anybody who wasn’t the Velvet Underground or Lou Reed basically sucked ass. Have you ever noticed that critics – a
t least indie critics and college critics – all fucking hate the stuff they review? They’re so above it all. If it’s a movie critic, they hate 95% of all movies except foreign stuff. If it’s a music critic, they hate everything except one or two ‘cool’ bands from the past and a bunch of obscure shit nobody’s ever heard of. And they sneer at everything else because they’re just too fucking cool. Me? I love everything. I love Chuck Berry, I love Elvis, I love the Beatles, the Stones, Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Prince, Michael Jackson, NWA, Metallica, Tupac, No Doubt – I love fuckin’ Earth Wind and Fire, for God’s sake – ”
“You don’t love Savage Garden,” I said.
He almost bust a gut laughing. “No, that’s true. I don’t love Savage Garden.”
“Or Maroon 5.”
“I gave Maroon 5 a bad rap. They’re okay.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, I met ‘em at a show a year ago.”
Of course you did.
“They’re really good guys. I realized I was just jealous of all the attention that Adam Levine got, so I gave them another listen… and yeah, they’re alright. So there you go – that can be your headline: Derek Kane Loves Maroon 5.”
“But then I’d be a sensationalizing media whore, right?” I asked in a smartass tone of voice.
He grinned. “You said it, not me. Anyway, back to the college music critic. The little prick hated everything. And he obviously hated us. Ryan was being so fucking polite to him, so earnest, so… Ryan. And I just sat there the whole time staring at that punk with his little hipster glasses, thinking, ‘This asshole is just going to write whatever he was going to write anyway, and he’ll cherry-pick everything we say to support whatever shit he’s already decided.’ And did he? Of course he did. He wrote this scathing review, making us sound like dumbshits and calling us a mediocre, derivative rip-off of some band I’d never heard of. And when I went and tracked them down on Youtube, they sounded nothing like us. So I confronted him the next time I saw him at another band’s show.”
“You didn’t,” I said, and laughed in spite of myself.
“I did. He was there with this little jaded alternative chick. I asked him why he’d written all those lies.
“‘They weren’t lies.’
“‘Yes they were. For one, we don’t sound even remotely like My Bloody Valentine.’
Rock All Night (The Rock Star's Seduction #2) Page 7