"This here is where the musicians keep their personal things," he informed her, sweeping his arm toward a row of lockers.
Bingo. Saves me the trouble of asking.
"None of them are locked?" She didn't bother keeping the surprise out of her voice. Will this really be that easy?
"We usually keep security pretty tight around here," Andre said with a smirk and a wink. "Nobody gets back here unless they're with the band or one of us."
Now or never.
She glanced at him bashfully. "I really hate to ask, but my sister is a huge fan and she'd be jealous of me for life. Do you care if I just take a peek, and maybe some pictures?"
Andre hesitated again before answering, this time for several long seconds and her heart began to sink.
"Tell you what," he said, rubbing his jaw. "Since we're friends, I'm going to take a piss and come right back. If anything happens between now and then, I didn't see it."
Her eyes widened. This was better than she could ever ask for. "Andre, you're my best friend and absolutely nothing will happen." She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
With a chuckle, Andre strutted down the hallway to the restroom. The moment he turned the corner, she tore open the first locker.
She didn't know exactly what she looking for, essentially anything incriminating like hard drugs, but the lockers contained nothing but jackets and extra clothes. Some stank of weed or cigarettes. The third locker just straight up stank and she shut it immediately, trying not to gag. Forget washing their clothes, someone needed to set theirs on fire.
The fourth locker she opened actually smelled pleasant. It was a clean smell, but slightly musky and masculine. A worn leather jacket hung inside and she leaned in closer. The rich leather smelled slightly oily, as if it were new, mixed with a light woodsy smell of cologne still on the collar. Someone took great care of this jacket.
You've reached a new level of complete weirdo: snooping in someone's locker and smelling their jacket.
With a frustrated sigh, Helena began to shut the locker door when something in the jacket pocket caught her eye. She pulled it out to see it was a wallet, a typical men's bifold. Her breath nearly caught in her throat when she opened it to see Torsten's picture staring back at her.
He looked younger in the ID photo with a clean shaven face and shorter hair, but no less sexy. Rather than a metalhead, he looked like he belonged in a boy band. She imagined strong, tattooed arms wrapping around her waist, that woodsy smell surrounding her as she breathed it in. The roughness of his beard against her neck, the heat of his mouth on her skin...
Oh, my god you've got to get a grip.
Absentmindedly, she ran a fingertip across young Torsten's face. In doing so, the ID slot flipped up and a small, white envelope was tucked behind it. The envelope read Rasmussen Hotel Room 216. Sure enough, opening it up revealed two card keys inside.
Heavy footsteps and a cheerful whistle echoing down the long hallway jolted her into action. Andre!
Helena slid one card key into the cup of her bra, shoved the wallet back into Torsten's jacket pocket, and slammed the locker shut. As Andre's footsteps grew closer, she speed walked in the opposite direction toward the exit. If she was really going to do this, she had to do it while Torsten was still occupied.
As she shoved the heavy door open and stepped into the chilly night air, she thought, I'm sorry Andre. I hope we can still be friends.
Chapter 3
Torsten
A soft groan of pleasure escaped Torsten's lips just after the smoke did. The first nicotine buzz from a deep cigarette drag was like post-orgasmic bliss right after a show. His pulse still hammered in his veins and the adrenaline surged through him, heightening his senses. The thrill of the stage was almost as good as sex. Almost.
He was pleased with the turnout of tonight's show. Kicking off the tour in their hometown and giving their local fans two chances to see them did just as he hoped. Back-to-back sold out shows would have the venue begging them to return. Maybe they could play here twice a year if they could negotiate a lower rate. If they did that, he could pay the band members and their employees even more.
He sipped a beer thoughtfully as he listened to the mewling pleas of female fans outside the door of the backstage lounge, bargaining and begging with the security guards. Maybe he would spend tonight with one or two. Preparing for this tour kept him so busy he hadn't gotten laid in nearly a month. He could afford to relieve some stress.
His mind flashed to that woman who stood out like a sore thumb near the start of the show. As the crowd moved in unison, she stood against the flow like a tree standing in a river. Those pale, green eyes trained on him like a scope on a sniper rifle, a completely different look than from the female fans begging to fuck him. He locked eyes with her for only a second before she disappeared, but the pained look on her face burned into his memory. Those lovely eyes told a story of sadness, hurt, and pure loathing.
What was up with that? Maybe I fucked her sister or her friend? Nah, she would undoubtedly be the hotter choice. She also looked extremely familiar and I know I haven't fucked her.
He thought back to the party where he first met Helena. Her features were strikingly like that woman, but she avoided his gaze so insistently back then, he never did get a clear look at her face.
No reason for Helena to be here anyway. I'm sure she's got her hands full.
Markus, the new drummer, sauntered up to Torsten and swiped the lighter on the coffee table for his own cigarette.
"How'd I do tonight, boss?"
"Good." Torsten downed the rest of his beer and lit a second cigarette. He didn't care to elaborate. Gold stars and glowing performance reviews were not his forte as an employer.
Markus smiled and stood a bit straighter as if a weight lifted from his shoulders. "Thanks, boss. I know I had big shoes to fill, so I didn't want to disappoint."
Torsten dragged on his cigarette slowly. He didn't want to be reminded of Lars tonight, nor did he want that fucker's spirit haunting him.
"Markus, there's a reason you're here and your predecessor is not." He exhaled a thick plume of smoke. "I don't ask for much. Keep showing up and doing your job and you'll have a bright future here. The moment you drop the ball, though," he paused to inhale another long drag. "I'm dropping you."
The rookie drummer nodded with much less bravado than moments earlier. Torsten could smell his nervousness like a shark smelling blood.
"I won't let you down, boss." He turned and left Torsten to stew in his thoughts on the couch again.
We'll see. I learned two lessons in the last year: no second chances and no trusting people at their word.
His bassist, Anders, sauntered up to him next. Nearly as tall as Torsten, he fit the heavy metal profile to a T with his long dark hair and beard down to the center of his chest. He was the first band member recruited by Torsten and Lars, who jokingly called him Rasputin when he showed up to audition. The nickname stuck ever since.
"New kid's alright." Like Torsten, Anders used relatively few words.
"He'll be fine. As long as he knows not to fuck it up."
"Right. We gonna let these bitches in or let 'em scratch at the door all night?" Anders jerked his head toward the door, where the high-pitched begging and pleading of female fans rose to a new, more insistent volume.
"Down boy. You'll sound exactly like them in a minute," Torsten jeered. “Alright, let them in.”
Anders and Stig raced to the door, shoving and tripping each other to reach it while Torsten nearly choked on his beer as he guffawed at the scene.
Ah, the power of the pussy. Men will kill each other for it.
Anders, the bigger of the two, made it to the door first. By the time the fans trickled in, the band and their staff had already smoked approximately half a carton of cigarettes and half a dozen bowls of weed.
Four young women stepped timidly inside the hotboxed lounge. Two immediately started coughing, which the band members
found hilarious.
“Oh no, virgin lungs! We’ll have to do something about that,” laughed Stig.
Reluctantly, Torsten lifted himself off the couch and strode leisurely over to greet and introduce himself to their fans. It probably wasn't necessary, considering they knew exactly who he was, but a stuck-up celebrity was the last person he wanted to be. At one time he, too, was a starstruck fan.
His eyes roamed over the group of shy, giggling women, briefly hoping that his angry, green-eyed beauty was with them. Alas, she was not.
Torsten didn't fuck groupies as often as some of the other band members, not necessarily out of any moral obligation, but because it simply bored him. He knew he was the most attractive one in the band, which added a bonus for the women, but he knew they still only hopped into bed with him because he was rich and famous. He'd never admit it but he missed being with someone who felt a genuine interest in him aside from his money and fame.
He approached the shyest girl in the group, looking embarrassed by her louder, drunker friends.
“Have a seat.” Torsten gestured toward the sofa, eager to get off his feet and relax again. “I don’t bite unless you want me to.” He smirked and offer the girl a cigarette as she sat down. She accepted with a shy smile. She was cute enough.
“You played amazingly tonight,” she breathed as if she had practiced saying that all night.
“Thank you, love.” He certainly had plenty of practice saying that.
“I started learning guitar because of you. I’m not very good, though. I’ve just been watching some Youtube videos,” she told him nervously.
“That’s fantastic. What chords have you learned?” Torsten tried to make his enthusiasm sound sincere. He had this conversation with many fans before, both male and female. Sure, he knew the guitar like the back of his own hand but would it kill anybody to talk about something different for once?
As usual, Torsten found himself doing most of the talking while the girl gazed at him with longing and admiration. In his boredom, his mind kept wandering to the green-eyed woman in the audience. He wished it was her next to him, telling him why she looked at him with such scorn. It would at least be a more entertaining conversation.
The girl sitting next to him was perfectly lovely, but he couldn't even bring himself to focus on a conversation with her. He decided to change his approach.
In the middle of her telling some story, his hand wrapped firmly around the back of her head as he kissed her solidly on the mouth. She let out a small squeal, almost too stunned to kiss back. He pulled back, looked at her briefly and kissed her again more gently this time. She returned it eagerly. They were always so eager.
Her body melted ardently into his as they made out for several more minutes, but Torsten still felt distracted. His cock refused to get hard unless those green eyes floated through his mind. The moment he tried focusing on the girl right in front of him, his erection went away.
"Would you like to go back to my hotel room?" he asked. Maybe a change of scenery would serve me better.
The girl looked at him as though he just proposed with the biggest diamond ring known to man. She nodded fervently and shot a glance to her friends who had coupled up with Stig, Markus, and Anders. As Torsten stood and led her by the hand, all three of her friends stopped and stared agape at her. She wore a shit-eating grin as Torsten grabbed his jacket from his locker and led her outside to the chilly Nordic air.
"Are your friends jealous?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"Oh, they'll hate me! But they'll never stop asking for details."
"Are you going to tell them everything?" He considered telling her he had a tiny dick, just to see how she'd react.
She giggled. "I don't kiss and tell."
"I'll tell you right now, we'll do more than kissing, love."
***
Outside his room, Torsten slid his card key into the slot of the door. The other hand snaked up to the girl’s breast and ran his thumb across her firm, budding nipple. His teeth grazed her ear as he pushed the door open and she gasped. He didn’t look up but responded by biting harder on her earlobe.
“Um, who is she?” asked the girl nervously.
Torsten looked up to see a blonde woman standing in the middle of his hotel room, glaring daggers at him with the most stunning pale green eyes.
Chapter 4
Torsten
Before anyone could react, the woman held up her cell phone. Without removing her eyes from Torsten, she pressed the camera button and snapped a picture of him and his conquest for the night.
She was every bit as stunning as his brief glimpse of her remembered. Those pale green eyes zeroed in on him like lasers as that delicate hand held up her phone. Her hand connected to a slender arm, which attached to a softly sloping shoulder under a clingy black dress. The dress didn’t reveal too much, but it clung just enough to her curves to make his cock jump in this awkward situation.
He untangled himself from his fan and stepped forward. “Can I help you find something in my room?” he asked nonchalantly.
“No,” she replied curtly. Her voice was sharp but high and feminine like a songbird. “I found plenty without your help.”
“And who are you?” Torsten asked, unfazed.
She narrowed her eyes and pressed her kissable, pillowy lips into a thin line. She was pissed off and looked damn sexy.
“I’m your ex-drummer’s ex-wife.”
Ex-wife? Really? Torsten stroked his beard, allowing a smile to pull at the corners of his lips.
“I thought that was you, Helena.”
“Um, should I go?” The voice of the girl piped up nervously like a mouse.
“Yes, let the adults talk. And look for your picture in The Gossip Queen tomorrow,” Helena said, waving her phone at her. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it a good story.”
With a final glance at Torsten, the wide-eyed fan pulled away from him. He shot her an apologetic glance as she speed walked down the hall, but he wasn’t entirely sorry. His evening was about to become a lot more interesting.
He crossed his forearms in front of his chest while shamelessly drinking in Helena’s curvaceous form before him. Her wide hips and stacked chest made an hourglass figure that made his cock throb insatiably. That sexy, pissed off expression of hers was just the cherry on top. What he would do to see that beautiful face pant and beg and moan his name.
“So you cut off the dead weight and decided to pursue your dream of being a tabloid reporter? Breaking into hotel rooms is ambitious, evening for a paparazzi.”
“I’m not a reporter, but I will sell this picture with a story,” she shot back.
“I’ll save you the trouble,” he scoffed. “A musician bringing a fan to his hotel room isn’t exactly newsworthy. They will laugh you out of the building.”
“Whatever, Torsten. I’m done here.”
She tried to walk past him to the door, but he blocked the way with a long, muscular arm. “Not so fast, love. I think you owe me an apology, at least.”
“Oh, isn’t that rich!” she snapped. “You should be apologizing to me!” Her face turned a deep shade of red and Torsten could practically see the smoke coming out of her ears.
He couldn’t stop the amusement from spreading across his face. This chick fit the very definition of hot and crazy and he enjoyed it immensely. Watching her get all hot and bothered made him want to shove her against that wall, hike that dress up and make her beg his forgiveness. He wasn’t even angry that she broke into his room, he just wanted control of that tight, curvy body.
“Okay,” he relented, playing along with her nonsense claim. “I should apologize to you for what, exactly?”
“For Lars.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What about your junkie ex?”
“You made him a junkie! You killed my marriage!” She hissed the words with such venom, her lips trembled and her eyes brimmed with tears. Suddenly, Torsten wasn’t amused by her emotions anymore but
saddened. He saw from the expression written on her face that she believed the words she spoke with all her heart.
He narrowed his eyes. This was the reason she looked at him so virulently from the audience. Lars’ lies really had cemented into her brain for a long time. Lies upon lies. She was in deep and he had to be careful with his words.
“I would argue your ex-husband shoulders that responsibility,” he replied.
So much for being careful with words.
“You poisoned him! You took him away from me and got him addicted and told him to cheat on me!” Helena exploded into a sad but beautiful mess. “Everything was perfect between us until you came along! You killed him! You ruined my life and I swear to fucking God, I’ll ruin yours!”
Torsten stood stunned as the distraught woman crumpled into a heap of tears. She must have held those emotions in her chest since she learned Lars got fired.
Normally, he didn’t deal with crying women, but he wanted to set things right. It wasn’t her fault she got her heart broken by a master manipulator. The urge to comfort her was almost as strong as his desire to fuck her. He didn’t even blame her for believing Lars’ lies about him. She was just another victim of his mind games.
Slowly, he knelt down next to her and placed his hands gently on her shaking shoulders. The warmth of her bare arms traveled through his fingertips and body all the way to his cock, which pressed insistently against his jeans. He hadn’t touched a woman in nearly a month but even so, no woman had an instant effect on him like this.
She lifted her head to look at him, and he wondered if she felt that same warmth in her body too. Their eyes stared into each other as if pulled in by magnets and Torsten found himself feeling uneasy. No woman had ever had this pull on him, especially one who apparently hated him more than anything else.
Heavy Metal Heart: A Bad Boy Rock Star Romance Page 3
