He shrugged one strong shoulder. “A bass is easy to play. I’m just messing around with this music.”
“Is it a Killer Valentine song?”
“No.”
“Are you writing songs?”
“No.” He frowned. “Sort of. Not really. I’m just messing around.”
“You should write. You should play your songs for me. We could open a spreadsheet and set some goals for numbers and deadlines and deliverables—”
“Killer Valentine is working on some music for a new album. We’ve got three new songs to cut demos for. Do you want to hear one of the new ones?”
“Sure!”
Peyton set aside his guitar, balancing it on a table beside their pitcher of margaritas. Sunlight fell all around him, turning his hair yet more golden. “After I fuck you.”
“I—what?”
“Come here.” His voice had deepened, and he pointed to the cement balcony floor right beside his chair.
God help her, she set her tablet aside, padded over to him on that bright balcony, and stood where he had indicated.
“Take your swimsuit off.”
Raji looked at the sky around them. No other hotels were as tall as theirs, and a solid wall ringed the balcony. “Someone will see.”
“Take it off.”
Raji untied the top and stepped out of the bottoms, leaving the black bits of cloth lying on the deck.
“Turn around and sit across my legs.”
She did, and she ended up facing away from him while his hands roved her body, caressing her breasts, while his warm mouth traveled up her spine to the back of her neck. The suntan oil that he had rubbed on her back steamed in the sun, faintly coconutty.
His hand dipped into her cleft, touching her until she was whimpering.
He pulled her ass back and stroked into her core, holding her hips and controlling her body as he pounded up into her. His hardness shoved inside her, rubbing. Behind Raji’s back, Peyton growled as he thrust, a primal sound deep in his throat. His strong fingers clutched her hips.
Raji panted, tightening around his cock.
Peyton angled her hips backward, and her clit rubbed across his balls.
Ah, Peyton.
Chapter Seventeen
Xan Forbids
* * *
In a hotel lobby somewhere on the Eastern seaboard, Peyton hauled a guitar case around himself and settled the backpack straps over his shoulders, hitching it up on his back. His tee shirt rode up, baring his flat stomach for a moment, and he hurried to pull the shirt down.
His smaller roller bag stood beside him, packed tightly. He had a couple of days between shows, so he was flying to L.A. to hang out with Raji. The coast-to-coast flights were so long that they would only have thirty-six hours together before he had to turn around and fly back, but she didn’t have time to meet him halfway like she sometimes did.
His computer backpack held his laptop and tablet so he could work on some music on the flights.
Not that his music mattered, anyway. Killer Valentine was glutted with songs now that Xan and Cadell were writing again like a two-headed, twenty-fingered, symbiotic beast. Georgie orchestrated their writing sessions like a lion tamer.
That was how the band had begun, years before Peyton had joined it, with the lead singer and lead guitarist noodling over beers when they had both been sophomores at Juilliard.
Peyton had been writing, though. Being around creativity fomented creativity. He had written art songs and caprices for the piano in college, all highly structured pieces that could have been written in the 1700s or 1800s without the slightest changes.
Rock music was influencing him, just like his friends had warned him when he had announced his decision to chuck it all and fall in with the Killer Valentine guys. His music now had intimations of Led Zepplin and Jimmi Hendrix that mixed with the classical strains of Bach and Liszt.
It was a contemptible, bastardized mess, but it felt more right than anything he had written in his life.
Killer Valentine would never play those little musings. His songs didn’t even have lyrics, for God’s sake, and they were entirely in the wrong style, more sweet ballad than rock anthem.
Peyton got the backpack seated correctly on his shoulders—no use irritating the tendonitis in his elbows from hours of practice and performance with his arms unnaturally cocked around the bass guitar—and grabbed his bags.
Just as Xan fucking Valentine strode out of the elevator.
His blond hair, reverse-highlighted with chunky black strands, blew behind him as he walked with purpose toward the coffee stand. He might as well have been wearing a billowing cape that rode the wind as he walked. His security guy, Paul, strode alongside him, squinting and glaring at the crowd in the lobby.
Why didn’t that guy order room service like a normal celebrity?
A chorus of feminine squeals and a couple of guys’ shouts swelled around Xan as he walked. Xan waved to them, and the coffee stand barista waved him up to the front of the line.
Oh, yeah. Because Xan was an adoration vampire, as Tryp called him.
Even though Xan Valentine had Georgiana Oelrichs in his bed every night and beside him on the stage, even though Xan was the love of her life, even though Xan was a French duke and held a low, single-digit succession number to an actual European throne, that guy still sucked in the attention of anonymous, screaming fans like he would die without it.
That’s why Xan ventured out and created a ruckus wherever he went.
Not that Peyton was usually so sarcastic about him. It was all settled and had been for a long time now. Georgie’s kidnapping had been over a year before. Cadell and Andy had been married for nine months.
Over at the coffee stand, Xan Valentine was signing coffee cups and napkins.
Besides, Peyton was looking forward to seeing Raji. He didn’t pine for Georgie at all anymore.
His chest didn’t hurt when he thought of Georgie anymore. That regretful pang was long gone.
When he thought of Raji, however, late at night when he was alone in his hotel bed, that was when the heaviness settled in again.
Peyton glanced at his feet and tapped his phone app to call his ride. The app said a car would be in front of the hotel within four minutes.
Xan Valentine marched across the hotel lobby toward the elevators, holding a rack of two coffees in one hand and raising his other to respond to the fans screaming at his retreat.
Peyton kept his eyes on his phone, trying to be invisible. Xan was probably preoccupied with the groupies, anyway.
“Oy! Peys!” Xan yelled across the lobby space and chattering voices.
Dammit.
Peyton asked, “Yeah?”
“What’re you doing down here?” He surveyed Peyton’s luggage, and his eyebrows dipped. “Going somewhere?”
Xan’s voice was low, almost menacing.
His mercurial moods dismayed Peyton. “Just visiting friends since we’ve got a few days off.”
“But we don’t,” Xan said. “We’re working on demos for the next album. We’ve got decisions to make before we cut the demos.”
They were always discussing the music, getting ready to cut more demos. It was a ceaseless cycle of demos, recording, and touring. “You don’t need the bass guitarist there to discuss that contribution. I’ll jump in there and bum-bum-bum,” he mimicked the low tones of the bass, “just like always. You need to be there. Cadell needs to be there. Georgie and Tryp, somewhat. But me? You’ll never notice I’m gone.”
“I notice when you’re gone,” Xan said, anger snapping in his dark eyes. “I notice that you’re gone a lot. I notice that any time we have more than two days between shows, you’re running out of the hotel so fast that you leave skid marks. What’s going on?”
Peyton shrugged, keeping his body language thoroughly casual. No need to invite scrutiny. “Just seeing friends.”
“We’re your friends.”
“True, but I have other
friends.”
“What kind of other friends?” Xan asked.
“Musicians. Old friends from school.”
“Do I know them? Would we have friends in common?”
“No.”
Xan grabbed Peyton’s wrist and yanked his arm up.
“What the fuck?” Peyton jerked his arm away.
“Let’s see your veins, Peyton.”
“Why would you—Good God, Xan! I’m not using heroin!”
“Then why are you jetting out of the hotels every chance you get? And if it’s not heroin, what is it? Angel dust? Coke? Meth?”
Peyton slapped his bulging pectoral muscle through his tee shirt. “Do I look like I’m smoking meth?”
“Rade looked great for an addict. Look where that got him.”
“I’m not doing drugs, Xan.”
“All this sneaking around has to be for a reason.”
Peyton’s phone flashed a message on the screen. He grabbed his roller bag and hitched his backpack farther up on his shoulders. “My ride is here. I’m leaving. When I get back, I’ll pee in a cup for Andy, and you can test me for every drug you can think of.”
He started to walk away.
“We need you this week,” Xan called after him.
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re a part of this band. You can’t run off every time we have a pause. We need to rehearse. We need to add songs to the set list.”
“I’ll stick around next week during that lull.” Raji had a conference that week and wouldn’t be able to hang out.
“No more running off!” Xan yelled after him.
Peyton waved at him, walked out the hotel’s doors into the bright summer sunshine, and stepped into the car waiting for him at the curb.
Chapter Eighteen
Los Angeles
* * *
In August, Peyton caught a flight to California to spend three whole days with Raji, cooped up in her apartment.
He’d brought his guitar and notebooks so he could write while she was at the hospital. More music had been coming to him, lately, just a phrase here and a melody line there, sometimes whole verses and sequences, but it was beginning to blossom. Even lyrics were forming in his head.
Mostly when he thought about Raji.
But who wouldn’t be inspired by the industrious, driven Raji Kannan? She was beautiful and intense, and he liked all that about her.
It was reflected in his music, and that was hardly surprising.
Their first day had been mostly spent in bed, her feminine scent of flowers and clean skin filling his head while he ran his hands and his tongue and his cock over every inch and into every place he could on her body.
The second morning he was there, Raji was flitting around, getting ready for work, while he idled at her tiny breakfast table. The long, white tablecloth had snarled around the towel tucked around his waist as he’d sat down, and he’d nearly upended the tiny table. Then, he would have had a mess and probably been naked if the towel had fallen off, too.
Her apartment was built for tiny people, from the queen-sized bed in her bedroom to the nook-sized breakfast table to the loveseat instead of a couch. He wasn’t complaining because it allowed him to spend time with her that he couldn’t otherwise, but everything was so low and narrow.
His feet stretched out on the other side of the table, his ankles and shins peeking out from under the tablecloth, and he wasn’t even stretching. His knees just had nowhere to go.
Beside him, a key turned in the front door’s lock, and it began to open.
In the kitchen, Raji spun, her eyes wide open. She ran for the front door. “Yeah? Who is it?”
Peyton stood, and his hands clenched into fists. He strode behind Raji, ready to yank her aside and pummel whoever was behind the door. He walked on his toes, ready to spin and kick the shit out someone back there.
A woman’s voice sang out, “It’s me!”
Raji turned and shoved Peyton’s chest. “It’s Beth. Hide.”
The door to the bedroom was too far away and in the direct line of sight of the front door. Not possible.
Peyton sprinted and slid under the minuscule breakfast nook table. He batted the tablecloth back into place around himself, wrapping his arms around his knees so that he was practically in the fetal position. He shoved his face between his knees, and the table rested on his broad shoulders.
His towel was gone.
He was naked.
His legs were pulled in so tightly that his thighs were squeezing his nuts, but he didn’t have enough room to reach down there and adjust himself.
Outside the curtain of the tablecloth, he heard Raji say, “Hey! What did I tell you about how that key was only for emergencies?”
“This is an emergency,” the other woman’s voice said. “I have strudel.”
“Oh, awesome,” Raji said. “Hey, I have an idea. Let’s eat it at the tables outside by the gazebo. It’ll be like a picnic.”
“The Santa Ana winds are blowing,” Beth said.
“Even better,” Raji said. “That’ll dry out my sinuses. I’ve had a snot thing lately.”
“It’s a hundred and eight degrees out there!”
Some scuffling. “I said, let’s go. Let’s go eat this outside, now.”
Beth muttered, “At least my coffee won’t get cold. It’ll probably boil dry in the cup.”
A door slammed.
Peyton counted to twenty to make sure they weren’t coming right back in and then gingerly released his hold on his legs to crawl out from under the table.
When he was halfway out, the long tablecloth draped itself over his back while he crept on his hands and knees.
The white towel he had been wearing was on the floor, halfway to the front door.
The door banged open again.
Raji skidded around the door.
A blond woman walked in right behind her.
Raji’s eyes bugged out. “Dammit.”
The blond woman was turning her head toward Peyton when Raji whirled around and shoved her out the door. “Forget it. I don’t need the coffee.”
The door banged shut behind them.
This time, Peyton snagged the towel and skedaddled into Raji’s bedroom, slamming the door shut.
Half an hour later, Raji stumbled in, holding her heart. “Jesus, Ram, and Zeus, Peyton. We need to be a hell of a lot more careful.”
He was wearing jeans and a tee shirt, this time, and had brewed a fresh pot of coffee for her. “More careful than what? Hiding behind locked doors with the curtains drawn?”
“Just more careful. I confiscated Beth’s key. Damn, that was close. This is stupid, isn’t it? We should just stop.”
Peyton’s heart slowed. His voice was measured, calm. “Is that what you want to do?”
“No! I just, if we get caught, what can I do?”
He handed her a cup of coffee. “That’s easy. It’s basic public relations. I’ve been watching Xan Valentine handle reporters for years now. He’s a master at it. Admit nothing. Deny everything. Distract them by jingling your keys, if necessary.”
She scowled at him. “That won’t work.”
He laughed. “Oh, my sweet child. Of course, it does. It works every time. When Rade overdosed and died, Xan put on a tremendous concert as a ‘tribute’ to him, and the newspapers were full of Xan’s triumph, not a rock star’s death by heroin and a band with a drug culture problem.”
Raji frowned. “Yeah, but you could read between the lines to get that.”
“But it wasn’t the headline. When the reporters in Europe got wind that Xan Valentine was the violin prodigy-slash-murderer Alexandre Grimaldi, he held a press conference in the middle of a concert, an insane stunt. The crowd was far more interested in whether his balls were slung in boxers or briefs than who he had been ten years before.”
Her lovely, dark eyes were still wary. “And that works?”
Peyton nodded. “When someone asks you a question you
don’t want to answer, tell them what you want them to hear.”
She shook her head. “That might work with bloggers and entertainment reporters, but I don’t think doctors would fall for it.”
Chapter Nineteen
Eiffel Tower
* * *
Raji wove her fingers in the chain-link fence that surrounded the second observation deck of the Eiffel Tower, pressing against the wire.
The big sunglasses and baseball hats they both wore shielded them from the autumn sun. Far below, scarlet, gold, and green puffs of trees waved along the Parisian streets. The river winding through the city scented the air with water amid the car exhaust.
Peyton stood behind her, his arms wrapped around her shoulders. He had picked her up from the airport and driven straight to the center of Paris to climb the stairs.
“I can’t believe that no one will recognize you just because we’re wearing hats and sunnies,” Raji fretted.
“No one who knows us should be out here,” he whispered in her ear. “Xan has imprisoned the rest of the band in a recording studio for a demo session. There’s no chance they’ll escape. I slipped out because I’m sneaky that way and because no one cares about the bass line. Surely no one from your hospital will be at the top of the Eiffel Tower today.”
“I’ll admit, it’s a slim chance,” she said.
He turned her around and kissed her, his lips softly caressing hers and his dark sunglasses jostling her sunnies. The brims of their baseball hats bonked.
“Up to the top?” Peyton asked.
Raji consulted her phone. “I think I have time. I have to be back at the airport in seven hours.”
He kissed her again, and then said, “Then up to the top, and then back to my hotel for some Parisian afternoon delight before you have to leave again.”
Chapter Twenty
Autumn in Paris
A Billionaire for Christmas Page 9