by Selena Kitt
“The battle. Not the war. We’ll get you into Trouble—so to speak.” He chuckled. “Eventually. Watch, you’ll see.”
“So, Arnie’s the man behind Trouble’s success?” All the years I’d been following Trouble and I’d never even heard of the man. Maybe he wanted it that way.
“Arnie created Trouble,” Tyler agreed. “He looked at Rob and saw dollar signs. He knew he couldn’t have him without me. So, he decided to make himself the best band any agent ever repped.”
“How did you guys meet up with Arnie?”
“Rob didn’t tell you that story?” Tyler laughed. “Arnie ‘discovered’ him playing guitar on a street corner for cash.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“We were broke. I was eighteen when he got me out of the foster care system. We moved in together, but we didn’t have anything. We didn’t even have beds. We had a couch and a chair—Rob slept in the chair. Or on the floor. He let me have the couch.”
I smiled. That sounded like Rob.
“I was working the McDonalds drive-thru, midnights, and I got at least one meal a day free—which was good, because it was usually my only meal,” Tyler went on. “Rob was pounding the pavement, trying to get himself an agent, but he couldn’t get a foot in the door. He’d been doing that for two years. He taught guitar lessons for cash. Rich kids—he’d go into the Hollywood hills to teach five-year-olds how to play Ode to Joy. But he was good with the kids. They liked him.”
“I’m sure they did.” I glanced over at my husband, thinking of Esther. He would have been such an amazing father.
“But he wanted what he wanted.” Tyler sighed. “And you know Rob, when he wants something…”
“Yeah.” I laughed. “He’s kind of stubborn.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” Tyler looked over at his bandmate, a mixture of admiration and exasperation on his face. “So, he would take his guitar case and go stand on the corner of Avenue of the Stars and Constellation Boulevard. There was a talent agency right there. They’d turned him away three times. But he wouldn’t give up. He stood on that corner and played and sang and people threw money in his guitar case. And that’s when Arnie walked by.”
“And it was love at first sight?”
“Money at first sight.” Tyler grinned. “Which, for Arnie, is the same thing.”
“How come I’ve never read this story in the press?”
“Because Arnie didn’t want you to read it.” Tyler winked. “When he made Trouble, he made us too. All of us. He used a little bit of the truth, sprinkled it with a lot of glitter to pretty it up, and that’s what he fed to the PR machine. And they ate it up. They always do. It’s always easier to swallow a lie than it is to choke down the truth. No one wants to hear that Trouble was completely fabricated. We were created out of thin air.”
“That’s not true…” I admonished. “You’re an amazing guitar player!”
“Rob taught me.” He gave me a wry smile. “Started teaching me when I was just seven.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “But you can’t teach talent. You’re talented, Tyler. Incredibly talented. So is Rob. You have to know that. Arnie wouldn’t have had anything to work with if you didn’t have that.”
“Arnie wanted Rob.” He shrugged. “The rest of us just came along for the ride.”
“Hey! Tyler!”
“Hey man!” Tyler turned and greeted Jack White from The White Stripes and I gaped as he turned to introduce him to Katie. “Meet my girlfriend.”
“Fiancée,” Katie reminded Tyler with a grin, presenting Jack with her left hand and her giant diamond. It made me think of my own wedding ring, hidden away, unable to be worn. Yet, I kept reminding myself. But when was yet?
“Hey, congratulations!” Jack exclaimed.
“You okay?” Rob cocked his head at me, pulling me up and putting an arm around my waist to drag me a little away from the group.
“Yeah.” I put on a smile. “Katie and Tyler—how about that?”
“You happy for her?” He gave me that little smirky smile, the one that said he knew he was asking a rhetorical question, but he wanted me to answer anyway.
“Of course, I am.”
I looked over at my best friend and her new fiancé, at the shine in her eyes and the sound of her laughter, and I knew I really couldn’t have been happier for her. And I should have been happy for me, too, I reminded myself. I had everything I could have ever wished for—except my daughter. Maybe that was it, the thing Rob was picking up on. Katie and Tyler were just beginning their life together, and me and Rob, we had sort of skipped to the end of everything before we’d even really begun, especially once I’d discovered I was pregnant. It had all happened at once, sometimes I felt as if we’d been living on fast forward.
“She wants to have a double wedding.” I met his eyes, seeing the way his eyebrows went up in surprise at the idea.
“We’re already married.” His hands moved from my waist to my hips and he nuzzled my ear, reminding me with the heat of his breath who I belonged to.
“She doesn’t know that.”
“Ahhh.” He lifted his head to look at me, eyes narrowing slightly. “Now we’re getting to it.”
“Getting to what?” I made a face, wrinkling my nose and changing the subject, hoping to distract him. “Hey, let’s go inside, I can’t wait to get my hands on that piano.”
“Mmmkay,” he readily agreed, his palms moving down from my hips to squeeze my ass. “Then maybe I can get my hands on you.”
“Rob!” I laughed, waggling my fingers at Katie when she glanced over to see us heading toward the house. I mouthed, “Be right back” and saw her nod.
The house wasn’t as big as Rob’s, but it was still huge. We passed through the kitchen, the dining room, went down a hallway that headed into the foyer. I glanced into one of the rooms, a door half-open, and saw a couple making out on a sofa. It reminded me of high school. People everywhere were drunk or high and acting stupid. Of course, in high school, I never snuck off with the cutest boy at the party and no one I knew had a piano like this one.
The baby grand was black and gorgeous. I wanted to lift the huge top and peek inside at the strings, but didn’t want to disrupt anything, so instead I just sat down at the bench and played. Rob smiled, watching me. I’d taken piano lessons since I was seven and could play a myriad of pieces by heart. I played, and we sang together, the sweet music of our voices filling the empty room. I expected someone to hear us and come in, but no one did. It was like we were secreted away, and that reminded me of high school too.
But the truth was, I couldn’t have imagined this, not back in high school. Even if my fantasies had ventured into the realm of meeting Rob Burns, lead singer of Trouble, and doing all sorts of things with him I couldn’t even quite picture back then, even my imagination hadn’t gone so far as this. The man I was sitting next to on the piano bench was now my husband. We’d shared so much together already—so much joy, so much pain—and I couldn’t have anticipated any of it.
“God, I love your voice.” He swept my hair away from my neck, so he could lower his head and kiss me there, halfway between my shoulder and my earlobe, his breath sending shivers and a slow rise of goose flesh down my bare arms.
“You look so delicious in that dress.” His gaze dipped to my cleavage. He had quite a view from his vantage point. My cheeks felt warm, the heat spreading low to my chest, where Rob was feathering kisses. His arm moved around my waist, hand massaging my hip, his words murmured against the tops of my breasts. “I could eat you up.”
“Promises, promises,” I teased, but my fingers trembled over the keys as I glanced toward the door. We’d closed it when we snuck in, like two teenagers sneaking away at a party to have sex. And that, I realized, as Rob dipped his head to capture my nipple through both my dress and bra—perfect aim—was just exactly what might happen tonight if things kept progressing.
“It’s not a promise, it’s a guarantee.”
“Rob!�
�� I gasped when he grabbed me, turning and lifting me onto the piano.
The keys clunked and tinkled as he settled me in front of him, one leg on either side of his as he looked up at me, eyes dark and full of lust. I knew that look. It was the one I couldn’t resist. It was the look that said he wanted me, here, now, in the middle of Katie’s new living room, maybe even on top of Tyler’s baby grand piano.
“Rob… we can’t,” I whispered, my thighs trembling as he kissed the inside of my right one. My legs were bare and there was nothing between the silk of my skin and the press of his lips. My whole body was broken out in goose flesh now, nipples hardening under my dress.
“We are,” he countered, his hands sliding up from my ankles, circled with the straps of the Jimmy Choo heels shoes I was wearing, to my knees, parting them completely.
“Anyone could walk in,” I whispered, glancing once again at the door.
“Let them.” His hands moved over my bare knees, nudging up the hem of my dress.
“Nooo…” I protested, trying to close my legs in one last act of protest, but he wouldn’t let me.
“Yes!” His eyes bore into mine, lighting a fire in my belly, burning away my resistance. “Say it.”
“Yes.” My voice trembled, and I swallowed as I looked down at him, the piano keys playing discordant notes as I braced myself with my hands on the keyboard.
“Yes.” He nodded, gaze dropping to the part of my body now at his eye-level. “Now show me what’s under that dress.”
“You want to see?” I bit my lip, feeling heat spreading further south, clenching my belly, flooding my sex.
“Fuck, don’t tease me.” His voice was low and the way he stared, so intently, filled me with an incredible sense of feminine power. “I’m so hard for you.”
I lifted my dress, sliding the material slowly up my thighs, showing him what was underneath.
“Are those silk?”
“Yes.” I nodded, lifting my dress a little higher still to reveal the black panties I was wearing. “Real silk.”
“Oh God, so soft.” His fingertips brushed the damp crotch of my panties, making me moan softly. Then he pulled my panties aside, leaning in to spread my thighs even wider, and I gasped.
“And so damned smooth!” he marveled, fingers caressing the soft skin of my labia.
“Brazilian wax.” I flushed, remembering my embarrassment when one of Arnie’s team told me I was scheduled for one. I shaved but had never waxed before. I was amazed at how smooth everything was down there, and for so long!
“Sweet little peach.” Rob leaned in, elbows on the piano keys jarring as he nuzzled his way between my legs. I parted them further, panties still pulled aside, watching him rub his stubbly cheek against the smooth, sensitive skin of my sex. His mouth found me, hands pushing my dress up high on my hips, tongue probing deeply.
I moaned and arched, feeling the piano key cover nipping at my lower back, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything anymore—not the fact that we were in Katie and Tyler’s new house, that there were tons of people there and anyone could walk in at any minute. I wasn’t worried about the piano and my weight on the keys, or the way my heels were digging into the edge of the polished, lacquered bench under my feet.
All I could feel was the hurried beat of my heart and the throb of my clit under the probe of Rob’s lapping tongue. I had challenged him—promises, promises—and he had taken me up on it, sitting me right up on the piano and going to work. And he was making a mission of it. He made my whole body burn with need, his fingers, still hooked in the crotch of my silk panties, twisting and thrusting deep inside.
“Oh God, Rob!” I fisted my hands in his hair, his tongue making circles, face buried between my legs. I couldn’t stop it. My climax surprised me, but Rob was ready for it, fingers pumping, tongue flickering against my sensitive clit. “Oh baby, yes! Yes! Now!”
Somehow, he knew. His mouth was fastened to my sex and I arched as I came, my thighs pressing piano keys, making harsh music as he brought me to a quick climax. My body shuddered in his arms—they were wrapped around my hips—and I spread my legs even wider, my high heels digging into the wood of the piano bench.
“Oh my God!” I panted, barely recovered as Rob stood up and kissed me, mouth slanting across mine, the taste of my juices thick on his probing tongue. I felt his erection, hard and insistent, straining against his chinos as he rocked between my thighs.
I didn’t have time to even think before he was unbuttoning and unzipping his pants, his mouth still on mine as he slid quickly inside of me. I gasped in the midst of our kiss, clinging to him as he thrust, rocking us both on the piano. I couldn’t do anything but hang on, my sex still throbbing, swollen and fat around his length.
Rob raked his teeth along my bottom lip, growling low as he grabbed my hips for even more leverage, his pelvis taking over completely, thrusting hard and fast and furious. I heard the music playing in the other room, the sound of people laughing, but it was distant, and I hoped it stayed that way.
But the truth was, I didn’t care. The Queen of England could have walked in at that moment and I wouldn’t have cared. Rob had that effect on me. Whatever it was he wanted—and luckily, that was often me—he went after. There was no arguing with him, and I didn’t want to, even if some part of me worried about Katie or Tyler or one of their guests walking in and discovering us.
“Stand up,” he insisted.
I just blinked at him, clearly not moving fast enough. His hands were rough as he maneuvered me, swinging my ass around and bending me over the piano. He pushed my dress up over my hips, so he could watch himself slide into me from behind. I glanced over my shoulder at the dark look of lust on his face as he slowly filled me again, every sweet inch of him. I bit my lip, trying to keep from crying out as he grabbed my hips and drove in hard, burying himself deep, but it was no use.
“Oh Rob! Oh God, yes!” I cried, giving up on the idea of trying to be quiet. I grabbed onto the edge of the piano, trying to steady myself as he fucked me up against it, the bench tipping onto its edge on the plush, white carpet behind us. Thank God it wasn’t hardwood!
“I want you to come again for me,” he panted into my ear, hands roaming over my dress, freeing my breasts from the low-cut front and my bra simultaneously. They spilled into his hands, his palms grazing my hard nipples, his fingers, calloused from years of guitar playing, playing me as skillfully as any instrument.
“Yes,” I whispered, grinding back against him, deep into the saddle of his hips, my panties still pulled to the side and soaking wet. “Oh yes, yes, fuck me, baby, fuck me until I come for you again!”
Rob groaned, rolling his hips and sinking deep repeatedly, reaching around with one long arm to slide his hand between my legs, palm grinding against my mound. I whimpered and rocked faster, matching his rhythm, lost in the music we were making, the sound of our bodies slapping together, the chime of the piano as we banged against the keys again and again, our breath coming in harsh pants, Rob’s moans and my cries ringing out in sweet harmony.
“Ohhhh fuck! Sabrina!” He rubbed his palm against my crotch, my sex on fire with the friction, building up to a delicious climax. “Ahhh baby, you feel so good. I can’t…”
“I’m going to come!” I panted, my breath fogging the highly polished black surface of the piano in rhythm clouds. “Oh Rob! Now! Now!”
He growled and grabbed me, both hands between my legs, lifting my spasming body fully onto the piano, sliding me across the black expanse of the instrument. My silk dress slid easily across the surface as Rob climbed up onto it with me, rolling me to my back in one swift motion. We were on top of the piano fully now, Rob aiming and finding me again with one deep thrust, making me cry out and cling to him.
“You ready, baby?” he whispered in my ear, grinding, rutting deep, his chinos and boxers down to his knees as he fucked me on top of Tyler’s baby grand piano. “I’m going to come so hard for you.”
I whi
mpered, nodding against the damp skin of his neck, sucking and licking at his bobbing Adam’s apple as he arched against me. Rob let out a loud roar as he came, his hips moving all on their own, driving me even further across the surface of the piano. In the other room, I heard an explosion of laughter, and I hoped it would cover up the noise we were making. I held him close as he gritted his teeth and shuddered between my thighs, his breath sweet with alcohol on my cheek. I held him until his body slowly stopping shaking in my arms, kissing the damp curls over his ear, licking the salt from his sideburns, wanting to keep him here like this, with me, forever.
He was mine, but the rest of the world still didn’t know it, couldn’t know it.
“What is that beeping?” Rob’s head came up and he frowned, looking around the big, empty room.
“My phone.” I laughed, seeing my purse sitting on the edge of the piano. “Can you reach?”
He stretched a long arm out and grabbed the strap, sliding my purse across the surface until it hit my hip. I dug deep, finding my iPhone and lifting it out, squinting at the screen.
“Text,” I informed him with a smile, still reading, my heart hammering in my chest, even harder than it had been just a moment before.
“What it is?” Rob frowned, looking at me with concerned eyes.
“I…” I swallowed, blinking at the screen, then at him, still too stunned to speak. “It’s Arnie.”
“What now?” Rob rolled his eyes. “He wants you to dye your hair blonde and sing country songs?”
“No, he wants me to open for Jimmy Voss.” Saying the words out loud made them real. My stomach did a flip as I looked into my husband’s widening eyes.
“You already opened for Voss,” Rob scowled. I knew he wouldn’t want me to go, not really, no matter what he said.
“On tour.” I shook my head at his misunderstanding. “Jimmy Voss wants me to be his opening act on tour.”
Two months and thirty cities. I saw the realization dawn on Rob’s face, my own conflicting emotions mirrored there. It was an incredible opportunity, an amazing honor, and how in the world would we survive, the two of us, separated so soon after we’d just said, “I do?” This was still so early in our marriage, and besides—I saw the look of anger flash in his eyes—Rob wanted to take me on tour with him, with Trouble. He didn’t want me touring with another man.