“‘It’s obvious you do.’
“‘It’s pretty fuckin’ obvious we don’t.’
“‘Well, if you think that, it’s obvious you don’t know the first thing about music.’
“And then I got up in his face and started telling him that what was obvious is that he was a pathetic loser who wanted to be a musician and didn’t have the balls to get up on stage. He got all scared and said he was going to press charges if I touched him, which I wasn’t going to do at all, and then he takes his girl and splits. And THEN – THEN, like the little chickenshit that he is, he runs ANOTHER review of one of our shows, and starts insinuating I’m gay and that Ryan and I are lovers, and then he says how I would be better at giving blowjobs for ten bucks a pop behind the 40 Watt rather than singing inside of it.”
I put my hand to my mouth and had to suppress a laugh. That was just too funny.
Derek laughed, too. “Nothing against gay dudes, but don’t fucking call me gay; I’m not gay. Do you know how many chicks I lost out on ‘cause they read that article?”
I doubted it was that many, but I didn’t like thinking about ‘all the chicks he missed out on,’ so I kept my mouth shut.
“So I see him and his girlfriend again at another band’s show, and as soon as he sees me coming, he runs. Doesn’t even grab his girlfriend, just bugs out for the hills. And I walk over to her, and I say, ‘Do you know who I am?’
“‘Yeah,’ she says. She’s kind of interested in me, I can tell.
“‘I fuckin’ HATE your boyfriend,’ I say.
“‘I figured,’ she says, all cool, like she doesn’t care about him much, either.
“‘You know what he’s been writing about me?’ I say.
“‘Yeah.’
“‘You know it’s all lies, right?’
“‘Yeah.’
“‘He told you it was lies?’
“‘You should have heard him talking about it when he wrote it. He was more worked up than I’ve ever seen him before. Even when we have sex.’
“She kind of looked me up and down when she said that last part about sex, and I knew I had her.
“‘You know how I’m going to get him back?’ I asked her.
“‘How.’
“‘I’m going to take you back to my place and I’m going to fuck your brains out and make you come so many times you won’t be able to remember your own name. You down for that?’”
As soon as Derek said it, my stomach twisted… and jealousy began to gnaw at me again.
“She was totally down. So I took her back to my place and I pulled out all the stops – I mean, I used every trick in the book. Made her come about a dozen times. And, with her full knowledge and consent, mind you, I recorded the whole thing with some of Ryan’s sound equipment that was laying around. It took three hours before we were finished – and then I mailed CD copies to the music critic department at the Red & Black with a note: ‘I respectfully disagree with your critic Bryce Dunkel’s last column. If he doesn’t think much of me as a musician, I at least would be better as a gigolo than what he suggested. You can listen and decide for yourself. Or just ask his former girlfriend. Sincerely, Derek Kane.’”
Now my stomach was churning.
Pulled out all the stops.
Used every trick in the book.
Made her come about a dozen times.
It took three hours before we were finished.
My jealousy was eating me alive.
Along with a certain queasiness at what he had done.
“You didn’t,” I gasped.
“I did,” he grinned. “I heard from some other dude on the newspaper staff that the little shit walked in right in the middle of hour two, and found the entire staff of the newspaper – all 60 of them – gathered around listening to his girlfriend scream my name and tell me about how her boyfriend had never given her an orgasm, and that he liked to wear women’s underwear and screamed out ‘Mommy’ when he came.”
I clapped my hand over my mouth and burst out laughing despite my nausea at the whole story. “OH MY GOD.”
“Yeah. Mr. Bryce Dunkel never showed his face again at the Red & Black, and I pretty much decided after that I was never going to fuckin’ talk to a member of the press, ever.”
“Until now.”
“Until now.”
We just stood there in the shower, the steam rising around us – me standing there with a digital recorder in hand, him standing there naked, soap and water streaming down his perfect body and his long, thick, gorgeous cock –
And then, as I realized I was staring at it, it began to get erect again.
Quickly.
Bigger.
Thicker.
Harder.
“You know… you don’t have to just stand there. You could come over here with me,” he said huskily. “You can even turn off the recorder if you want. Or not. Your choice.”
By the time he finished, his cock was fully erect, pulsing in the stream of water, even more beautiful and amazing than in my dreams from four years ago.
I remembered how I’d fantasized in the dorm shower the morning after. About how I wanted him to come in and pin me against the wall and take me, ravage me, make me come –
And now, I could have it. His body – his muscles – the water – the steam – his thick, gorgeous hard-on – I could have it if I wanted it.
Pulled out all the stops.
Used every trick in the book.
Made her come about a dozen times.
Three hours before we were finished.
But the thought of what he’d done with that music critic’s girlfriend made me stop.
I turned around and walked back into the locker room without saying anything.
17
I composed myself – no mean feat, I can assure you – as I listened to the water turn off. Derek came back into the room with one towel wrapped around his waist, and drying his hair with a second.
As soon as he saw me, he gave me a rueful grin and shook his head. “You are the toughest nut to crack ever, did you know that?”
“I’m just being professional,” I said, my voice shaky.
“Right. We both know you want to, so why don’t you quit using that ‘professionalism’ crap as an excuse?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t tell me stories about how you revenge-fucked some music critic’s girlfriend right before you try to seduce me.”
He squinted at me. “That really bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“What, you using women for your petty little schemes? Yeah.”
“She didn’t have any complaints.”
“How do you know? You probably never saw her again.”
“Sure I did. Two or three more times, as a matter of fact.”
Jealousy bit harder.
“And it was her pursuing me, not the other way around. That’s how I know she didn’t have any complaints: she came back for more.” He gave a smug, self-satisfied smirk. “They always come back for more.”
GOD, he was such a fucking asshole.
A HOT fucking asshole… but still an asshole.
“Well, then, maybe that’s what I don’t like – you using women to feed your monster ego.”
He rolled his eyes as he started to put on his clothes. I tried not to watch, but couldn’t help myself, as his lovely cock disappeared behind the fresh pair of boxers.
“Jesus, Kaitlyn – if I’m happy, and they’re happy, what’s the fucking problem?”
“Oh, I don’t know – pregnancy – disease – ”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, throwing up his hands. “I always use a condom. Always have. And even when I had no money, I always got tested at the free clinic. I get tested now, once a month. And I’m totally clean, by the way. I don’t want to hurt anybody; I just want to have a good time. And so do they. Not everybody’s like you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.
“It means I know you’re good in bed�
�”
My lower extremities almost spontaneously combusted. I was right on the verge of jumping him when he continued.
“…but you have this whole Disney idea of sex, about how it has to be Cinderella and Prince Charming forever and ever, and love, and marriage, and gauzy curtains and shit. Not every woman feels like that. A lot of them want to just have the night of their lives.”
The night of their lives.
My lady parts heated up a little more.
“Oh, and you’re the one to give it to them,” I sneered.
“I sure as hell try,” he grinned.
“The ones I talked to were pissed that you never called.”
He sighed as he continued to get dressed. “They knew the score. They knew what I was when they went home with me. They were pissed because they didn’t get everything they wanted – because what they wanted was a whole lot more than I was willing to give. But they knew that. Anybody who ever got angry at me afterwards knew that going in, and if they say they didn’t, they’re not being honest with themselves. You don’t go home with the hot guy at the bar – the guy with the reputation – an hour after meeting him, and then expect him to be your knight in shining armor the next day. If they want to dress it up with stories about what an asshole I am, and that helps them feel better, then fine. But I never promised them anything except an incredible night. That’s it. I never lied to any of them, I never played any of them – I just gave them everything I had in that moment, but that’s all I ever promised.”
He was fully dressed by now. He looked fantastic…
…although he had looked a whole lot hotter with water and soap coursing down his naked body.
“Well, some of us want a lot more,” I said in anger (and more than a little frustration).
“Yeah, and some of you are just afraid,” he said, going over to the nearest mirror.
“I’m not afraid,” I protested – and it sounded like a lie.
“Yeah you are,” he said, and squeezed out some styling gel into his palm and made a couple of swipes through his still-damp hair. “And that’s fine. It’s cool. I get it.”
“There’s nothing to ‘get,’” I insisted. “I’m not afraid.”
He walked over, his hair now absolutely perfect with just 30 seconds worth of effort. (Men have it so damn easy.) He tossed the tube in the toiletries bag, pocketed the old, sweaty pair of sunglasses, and slipped the new Maui Jims up onto the bridge of his nose. The last thing I saw before he slipped them all the way on were his emerald green eyes twinkling at me mischievously.
“Yeah, you are. But that’s okay… I’m going to keep trying.”
With a grin, he pushed the sunglasses fully into place, walked past me, and exited the locker room, leaving me alone to stew in my annoyance and sexual frustration.
18
I walked out thirty seconds later, expecting him to be gone. But no, he was chatting with the security guys.
“Ready?” he asked me, as though nothing at all had happened inside.
I nodded my head curtly, and off we went.
I’d never been backstage at a show before – much less after a concert by a world-famous band.
It was pretty wild. And not in a way that lessened my jealousy any.
Apparently Security had standing orders to bring the hottest girls possible backstage.
And there were a lot of hot girls.
A line of them snaked through the cement walkways, with a velvet rope keeping them in place. All of them looked college age through mid-20’s. Tall ones, short ones, lithe ones, curvy ones, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, exotic, blonde, brunette, red-haired – you name it, there was some permutation. The only common factor was that they were all really hot, and a good number of them were skimpily dressed. The ones with the most flesh showing tended to get the nastiest looks from the other girls. The vast majority seemed to be in little cliques of two or more, and they would talk and gossip amongst themselves, sometimes throwing disparaging looks at their nearest rivals. They didn’t seem real friendly to strangers – but then, they were direct competitors, right?
It was very, very odd, like seeing a newly discovered indigenous people through the eyes of an anthropologist. I had two X chromosomes just like all of them, and we apparently had all the same working parts – but I could not have felt more different and alien than if I had stepped off a spaceship into the middle of an Amazonian tribe.
Of course, as soon as they saw Derek, they lost their minds.
The screaming began with one or two near the end of the line. Then, as the others looked back and noticed, the screaming doubled and tripled and quadrupled.
“Oh my God, Derek!”
“I love youuuuu!”
“Deeeereeeeeek!”
“I love you, I love you, I love you!”
Not all of them screamed – in fact, only about half did; the non-screamers looked at their noisy counterparts with unrestrained contempt, and then either just beamed silently or played it like they were too cool to give Derek more than passing notice.
Ha! Like he wasn’t the reason every last one of them were here.
The one thing the screamers and non-screamers had in common was that as soon as they saw me walking next to him, they all gave me the Eye of Death. Seriously, Mara had nothing on these bitches. I could feel their hatred raining down on me like scorching heat.
Apparently a few decided to hell with it, they were going for the full tamale. One girl lifted up her silk blouse, exposing her bare breasts, and screamed, “Will you sign them for meeee?”
Derek just grinned and held out his hand to one of the security guards, who slapped a Sharpie pen in his palm. Derek uncapped it, went over, and scrawled out his first name on one breast, then his last name on the other.
Disgusting.
No wonder he treats women like trash, if they throw themselves at him like this.
Meanwhile, the jealousy was eating me alive.
As soon as the first girl got signed, the others around her looked shocked beyond belief – and woman after woman was baring her breasts and screaming to get them signed. Big ones, little ones, fake ones, real ones (although this being LA, there were a lot of big, fake ones). He went down the line, scrawling his name as quickly as he could, occasionally giving them a little squeeze or stroking a nipple.
You would have thought the women had died and gone to heaven.
I was pretty sure I was in hell. Dante must have had a ‘stupid groupies and asshole rock stars’ circle in the Inferno somewhere.
Derek was whipping them all into a frenzy, though, and it was obvious things were on the verge of getting out of hand – the women were pressing up against the barrier and crowding together too much – so security stepped in. One guard said something in Derek’s ear as the other guards moved to contain the crowd. Derek nodded and called out, “I’ll see you inside, ladies – you’ll all get your turn, I promise!” and then he hooked my arm and pulled me past the line.
“What’d you think of that?” he asked me with a massive grin.
“Revolting.”
“You know it’s not me they’re after, right? They’re only acting like this because I’m famous.”
“Yeah, right. Like they didn’t throw themselves at you back in Athens.”
“Well, they did, but nobody asked me to sign their boobs, that’s for sure. Nobody ever acted like this. Whoever said power is the greatest aphrodisiac had it wrong; it’s fame.”
Henry Kissinger, I wanted to tell him, but I didn’t want to sound like a know-it-all, so I just grumped, “Whatever.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll sign whatever part of your body you want me to,” Derek teased.
“Why don’t you sign this?” I asked as I flipped him the bird.
He just laughed and entered the entrance to the backstage area, where the band had hung out before the show.
Except now it was a crowded mass of people, with far more famous faces than before. I s
aw movie stars, rock stars, rap stars, TV stars. I was pretty sure I saw David Bowie and Iman talking to Ryan. Was that Snoop Dog (or Snoop Lion or whatever he called himself now) in the back corner, sparking up a joint with Killian? I couldn’t swear it in court, but maybe that was Katy Perry talking to Ryan’s little sisters in the back. They looked almost as excited to be talking to her as they had been to Derek.
Riley wasn’t talking to anybody famous, per se; she was just macking on every hot girl she could find. For every four or five that looked disgusted or alarmed, another one was giggling uncontrollably as she (half-heartedly) fended off the Mohawked One’s advances.
Maybe fame really IS the biggest aphrodisiac, I mused. Not that some of these girls weren’t gay or bi… but we were talking about Riley here. Stinky, tiny, foul-mouthed Riley. Fame was the biggest card she had in her deck.
That, and her unrelenting persistence and ‘don’t give a fuck’ attitude. No matter how many ‘no’s’ she got, she immediately moved on to the next opportunity.
And then Derek walked in, and the whole place exploded.
Everyone was shouting his name or calling or waving, the ones nearest the door backslapping him or reaching out to touch him. Well, the ‘unknowns’ were doing that; the famous people kind of hung back and just watched and smiled. I’m sure they had been the recipients of the same sort of attention in their own lives, and were just biding their time until proper introductions could be made. Like well-mannered aristocrats waiting to meet the newly crowned king: courteous and reserved, unlike the overly enthusiastic rabble.
Derek loved it all. He raised his arms triumphantly and shouted, “HEY – where’s the fuckin’ PARTY?!” The entire room roared, and then he was slapping backs and doing fist bumps with everyone he passed as he made his way through the crowd.
I followed in his wake, a ghost, completely ignored.
We ended up at the back of the room with Ryan and his family. Security held back a few of the more enthusiastic supplicants while Derek hugged Mara and Casey. Then he turned to Mr. and Mrs. Miller. “Did you enjoy the show?”
“Top notch – great time!” Mr. Miller agreed.
Rock All Night (The Rock Star's Seduction #2) Page 8