Mr. October: A Rock Star Romance (Calendar Boys Book 10)

by Nicole S. Goodin

  It takes me a minute to figure out what she’s talking about and that’s when I remember that not only is this fake, but I’m being paid to do it.

  My stomach twists at the thought but I do my best to settle it. I can’t think about this as anything other than a business deal with a side of red-hot sex.

  Sleeping with Masen is a perk, nothing more.

  I need to remember that.

  “You know, you keep hooking up with Josh and you might find yourself rich and married before you know it.”

  She squeezes my arm and shrieks. “Honestly, B, that boy…” she fans her face, “he is hung, I’ve never seen a pe–”

  “Please stop,” I beg.

  She giggles. “Sorry, but he is just… wow.”

  “So you like him then?” I press, eager to talk about something that isn’t me and Masen.

  “Not as much as you like the rock star.”

  I feel myself blush; so much for not talking about me. She’s probably right, but I deny it anyway.

  She rolls her eyes but allows the lie to slide.

  “Yeah, I like him. He’s sexy and fun, but he’s a player, plain and simple. We’re just having fun…” She half shrugs and it’s obvious to see that she wishes there were a little more to it than that.

  Don’t we all.

  She points to the Gucci sign, but I shake my head rapidly. I’m done with designer labels. I’m going to give a shop attendant a heart attack if I walk into another one of those fancy stores with my beat-up chucks on. I tug her past quickly before she can make it to the door.

  “Hold up, did you just say that Josh is loaded?” she demands.

  I smirk. I was waiting for that.

  “Not that it matters,” she backtracks quickly, “but I was under the impression he just mooches off Masen twenty-four seven.”

  “That’s what he wants people to think.” I pull her in the direction of my favourite discount chain store. “He’s a game designer. He’s killing it with some X-box game or whatever, I dunno… he wouldn’t tell me much, but Morris said he’s got his own mansion about fifteen minutes away from Masen’s.”

  She gapes at me. “You’re shitting me?”

  “I shit you not.”

  “That little asshole! We went out for milkshakes last night and he said he forgot his wallet, made me pay. He slept over at my house, said his house was small!”

  I giggle. That sounds like the Josh I’m coming to know well.

  “Wait, why are we going into this cheap-ass store?” She screws up her face in distaste.

  Classic Avery; one afternoon like a rich bitch with Masen’s credit card and she’s turned into a complete snob.

  “I need some longer shorts.”

  She lets go of my arm and appraises me from head to toe. “What’s wrong with the shorts you’ve got?”

  “Masen kinda went all alpha male on me, told me he didn’t want other guys seeing me in such tiny ones.” I feel my cheeks heating again.

  She gives me a look that says, ‘I told you so’.

  “He doesn’t like me, not like that!” I insist, already knowing where this is heading. “It’s all about appearances.”

  “Mmm hmmm, sure,” she says. “C’mon girl, we’re getting new shorts alright, but I can tell you one thing, they’re only about to get shorter.”

  I groan as I trail in after her, Eric right behind me.

  I should have known better than to tell Avery anything.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Masen

  I hit play on the sound board and sit back, listening as the music she created floats through the air around me.

  It’s good, it’s really fucking good.

  She’s got an ear for it, that’s for sure.

  I’ve been struggling over this song, the melody, for days. That might not seem like a lot, but usually when inspiration hits, it’s down, done and dusted within twenty-four hours and I’m handing over a sample to Chuck the next day.

  But this song, this one isn’t playing ball. Wasn’t, until I heard what she did – watched her doing it.

  I close my eyes and rake my hands over my face.

  It’s all there now, playing out in my head like the next hit single.

  I don’t know how I feel about it. On the one hand, this is the first thing I’ve written since I got out of rehab, and I’m fucking glad I’ve still got it, but on the other hand, inspiration for it hit at two in the morning when Billie was curled into my side, wearing nothing but one of my shirts, and that can’t mean anything good.

  I’ve tried for days to talk myself out of the lyrics, the vibe, but it isn’t working. The words were there whether I liked it or not, and it’s a ballad… a fucking love song.

  I don’t write love songs, I’m not loved, and I don’t love. It’s as simple as that.

  This song, though, fuck… it’s got me all kinds of screwed up.

  I don’t love Billie, I’m not sure I’m capable of such a thing, but my creative brain didn’t get that message.

  I toss the pencil I’ve been furiously scribbling down lyrics and chords with and run my hand through my hair in frustration.

  I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.

  She left for school first thing this morning, and I’ve checked the time every half an hour since.

  It’s fucking quiet here without her. I miss her noise…

  It’s not like when Josh is over, where you just wish he’d fuck off back to his place and give you some peace and quiet. When Billie is here, I can feel it – and I like knowing someone is here.

  I know she’s shopping with Avery now, Eric is keeping me regularly informed, but my fingers keep hovering over the reply button, tempting me to text him and tell him I need her back here for something.

  I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the couch.

  I picture her instantly. I can’t help it; she’s there every time my lids shut, and not even just images of me fucking her either, she’s there in my kitchen, nervously watching and waiting for me to speak, or smiling at me when she doesn’t think I’m paying attention.

  I can picture her lying in the sun next to my pool, I can hear her singing in the shower when she thinks the spray of the water drowns the sound out.

  Fuck.

  I need to get my head on straight before I do something stupid like catch feelings for the girl.

  My girl. My brain corrects me.

  My phone rings and I grab it, seeing Chuck’s name on the screen.

  “Yeah?” I say as I grab the pencil again and start doodling on the sides of the paper.

  “Just checking in.”

  I wait a few beats for him to speak up, tell me whatever the fuck it is he called to say.

  “How’s it going with the girl?”

  I click my tongue. “Billie. Her name is Billie. And good.”

  “Good? That’s high praise from you.”

  “It’s fine, whatever, it’s not like it’s hard to sit around here and do shit all.”

  He’s silent for a moment.

  “You think she’s ready for tomorrow night?”

  Do I think that Billie can act like the doting girlfriend in front of the press? Yeah, yeah I do. The fact that it barely feels like she’s acting is what really concerns me.

  “She’s got it.”

  “You fucked her yet?”

  “No, what the fuck?” I demand too quickly, his question catching me off guard.

  He groans. “You have. Fucking hell, Masen, I gave you one instruction.”

  It’s my turn to be silent now.

  “This isn’t going to end well, I’m telling you, man.”

  “She knows the deal. She’s cool with it.”

  “The fact that you believe that is what shits me the most.”

  “Leave it,” I tell him, my tone final.

  “Fine.” He blows out a breath. “But when it all goes tits up, don’t ask me to fix it for you.”

  I hang up the phone and
toss it onto the seat next to me.

  It’s not until I glance at the sheet of paper in front of me that I realise I’ve named my latest song.

  “Fuck,” I mutter as I look at the word ‘Sugar’ staring back at me.

  Chuck is right. This isn’t going to end well.

  ***

  She shrieks as I step out from the shadows and lift her ass onto the table.

  “Masen, you scared me.”

  I settle between her legs, watching her heaving chest rise and fall.

  “I got Avery’s message,” I rasp.

  She blushes scarlet and tugs her bottom lip into her mouth, nibbling it while she thinks through her response.

  “I told her not to send that,” she finally says, her chin dropping to avoid my eyes. She’s embarrassed by the sexy photo of her wearing sweet fuck all, but she shouldn’t be – half the women in the world would probably kill to look that good doing it.

  I push closer to her and her arms come up to rest around my neck.

  “It was sexy as hell, sugar.”

  She glances back up, her hazel eyes focused on me again. “It was?”

  I growl deep in my throat. “I’ve been going crazy waiting for you to get home ever since she sent it.”

  I hate the way it sounds, home and her in the same sentence, like it’s right.

  She smiles sweetly. “You been waiting on me, Masen Lennox?”

  There’s just the right mix of sass and innocence in her tone.

  “I have,” I answer honestly, for once in my god damn life.

  “I like that.”

  I sure as shit don’t, but it is what it is.

  “What are you going to do with me now that you’ve got me?” Her fingers tease the hair at the back of my head, and I resist the urge to purr like a fucking kitten.

  I chuckle darkly. “You can’t even imagine.”

  She slides forward and I feel her feet cross behind me, at my ass.

  She wants me to carry her, and I’m only too happy to oblige.

  We walk, her in my arms, our eyes locked until I reach the couch, and I drop down, sitting with her nestled in my lap.

  She tips her head, her long dark hair spilling over her shoulder, covering one of her eyes.

  What a fucking sight she is.

  “I finished the song,” I say before I can even think it through.

  She stills, her eyes widening. “You did?” she asks hesitantly.

  I know why she’s treading carefully – this is the first scrap of information about my music that I’ve ever offered her willingly.

  I nod.

  “I bet it’s amazing,” she whispers, and the fact that she doesn’t push me for more, only makes me want to give it to her.

  Silence envelopes us. It’s dark out; the moonlight is reflected on the surface of the pool. Morris has been given the night off, with the intention that Billie and I might want some privacy in not particularly private areas of this house.

  She follows my line of sight out the big, open glass doors and sighs, content.

  “I worked it out with your melody.”

  Her eyes flash back to mine. “Are you serious?”

  “Do I ever joke?”

  She shakes her head, and fuck it pleases me greatly that she felt like she could answer that question this time.

  “No. I think you could though.”

  I tilt my head, studying her face curiously.

  “Joke I mean…” she insists. “I don’t think you want to be so serious all the time. I see that curve in your lips when you don’t think I’m looking. I hear your laughter when you think you’re out of earshot. You don’t fool me, Mase.”

  I both hate and love how well she seems to know me after only such a short time. It feels suspiciously like letting someone get close to me, and that’s not something I’m willing to allow.

  “Mase?” I question, picking up on her casual use of the nickname.

  She pops a shoulder. “I figure if you get to call me sugar all the time, the least I can do is drop a letter from your name.”

  I drop my head back, eyes closed. Shit. Nicknames. Next we’ll have a fucking couple name – if the public haven’t given us one already, and people will be shipping us or whatever the fuck it is they do these days.

  I should call time on this. Chuck is one hundred percent right – it’s not going to end well.

  She weaves her fingers into my hair and tugs my head forward. “Don’t run,” she pleads, her eyes begging. “Not from me.”

  I want to. I’ve got the urge to close off and run further and faster than ever before, but there’s one thing keeping me from doing it and that’s the woman in my arms…

  I can’t leave her. I can’t shut her out. Physically and mentally, I can’t force myself to do it. Not yet anyway.

  “Masen,” she whispers.

  No way can I run out on her now, not with my name falling from her lips.

  So I do the next best thing, one of the things I’m finest at, and I capture her lips with mine.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Billie

  I pad out of the bathroom and slide back into the bed before he can do something stupid like suggest that I go back to my own room.

  I can’t. I won’t.

  Not after what just happened between us, first on the couch downstairs, and then again in his bed.

  We connected.

  That didn’t feel like ‘just sex’, that felt like making love. A stupid thought. Boys like Masen Lennox don’t make love, they fuck, but I don’t know how else to explain the adoring look in his eyes, or the way he handled me with total tenderness.

  I snuggle into his side, wrapping my arm around his toned middle.

  He freezes, and just when I think I’m about to get kicked out, he lifts his arm, allowing me closer before draping it around me.

  “Are you scared?” I ask as he twists a strand of my hair around his finger.

  “About what?” he asks, his voice husky – the way I love it.

  “The premiere tomorrow… seeing everyone after what happened last time?”

  Technically it’s tonight, but that’s not the point.

  I feel him shake his head and I twist, my head on his shoulder so I can see his face.

  “They’re just people, sugar – they’ve all got their dirty little secrets. Most of them are just better at hiding them than I am.”

  “I’m really proud of how you took responsibility for your problems, Masen. It takes a big man to admit when he fucked up.”

  It’s his turn to turn now, so we’re laying side by side, facing one another.

  This is the most open, exposed and vulnerable I’ve ever seen him – it’s like he’s dropped the wall and I’m almost too scared to breathe in case he realises and slaps it back up.

  “You’re proud of me?”

  I nod, my hand snaking up to trace the line of his jaw. “Are you not proud of yourself?”

  He grunts, it’s not a yes or a no.

  “I bet there are a lot of people who are proud of you.”

  He huffs out a disbelieving laugh.

  “Oh c’mon,” I soothe, “what about your family?”

  I watch his jaw tick as he slowly swallows. “I don’t have family.”

  I hear my sharp intake of breath. “What?”

  “I’m a foster kid, sugar. My mumma was a drug addict and she didn’t even know who my dad was. I bounced around from placement to placement, nowhere ever really stuck.”

  That breaks my heart. Damn near tears me in two.

  I can’t imagine not having the support of my parents. They might live on the other side of the country, but they’d do anything for me, including not asking questions when I told them I was dating a recently recovering alcoholic superstar.

  His dark eyes stare at me, hard, willing me to give him the sympathy I’m sure he’s come to expect.

  “You have family, Masen. Maybe not by blood, but you have family.”

  He’s bl
ows out a breath – the same way he does when I’ve watched him smoke a cigarette.

  “Well where the fuck have they been then? Because I haven’t seen anyone.”

  “I see them… I see Chuck making arrangements that go beyond the scope of his job… I see Josh here every second day, sleeping on your couch or in your pool house when he has a perfectly good house of his own to go to.”

  He huffs out another laugh, but the hardness in eyes wavers.

  “You don’t really think he comes over here so often because he has nothing better to do, do you? He’s here for you, Masen, because he’s worried about you – because you’re his family… he loves you.”

  I think I might too. I think it, but I’m in no way brave enough to voice it aloud.

  He doesn’t say a word, just looks into my eyes, his mind ticking over.

  There’s a softness inside of him that he doesn’t let out often, if ever. It’s covered in suspicion and buried in arrogance, but I see it, just a little peek at a time.

  He wants the world – me included – to see him a certain way, but that’s not the real him. The real him is tender, warm, kind and protective. The real him is the man in front of me, reluctant as he is to make an appearance.

  The real him is the man who won’t let me set a foot outside this house without a huge, hulking bodyguard. The real him cares.

  “We should get some sleep,” he says, his voice gravelly and thick.

  I nod, lean forward and press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Goodnight, Mase.”

  I think I see him flash a grin, but it’s gone just as quickly.

  “Goodnight, sugar.”

  ***

  “Sugar,” Masen barks, and both Ange and I jump.

  I look to her, but she’s got her head back in her work before we even make eye contact.

  “What?” I breathe.

  “Stop the knee jiggling,” he demands. “It’s making me nervous.

  My eyes flash to my knee and sure enough, it’s bouncing like crazy.

  I rest my hand on it and it stops.

  “Sorry, I’m kind of freaking out.”