Rock Star Romance Ultimate: Volume 1

by Olivia Cunning, Jayne Frost, RB Hilliard, Crystal Kaswell, Michelle Mankin, Emily Snow, Athena Wright

  She was a couple of yards away when he nodded at the nearest security guard so he’d follow her and keep her safe from the drunks in the parking lot. She started when she noticed the yellow shirt trailing behind her, but she offered him a timid smile and continued toward the bus.

  Ensured of Toni’s safety, Logan returned to the bar.

  “About time he ditched the stiff,” Logan heard Steve yell as soon as he got inside. “I thought maybe he was too pussy whipped to have any real fun tonight.”

  Pussy whipped? Please.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Logan said, lifting a hand toward the bar and finding it immediately filled with his usual drink—a Godfather. He chugged it in two gulps and extended his arm for a refill.

  “This is Candace,” Steve introduced the gorgeous blonde on his right. “And Tonya,” He nodded to the equally gorgeous black woman on his left. “Oh, and you met Stacia earlier.” The same brunette Steve had banged backstage. She must be exceptional if he hadn’t ditched her yet.

  “Ladies,” Logan said, lifting his fresh cocktail in their direction.

  After the hi’s and great-to-meet-yous, Stacia moved to stand so close to Logan that her breast was pressed firmly into his arm. “What are you having?” she asked, eyeing his drink. Her perfume assailed his nostrils, and his nose twitched.

  “If he had half a brain, he’d be having you,” Steve said and lifted his glass at her.

  If he hadn’t just finished with Toni, yeah, it probably would have been Stacia. But he felt absolutely no interest in her, and he could only attribute his disinterest to having already had sex a handful of times that day. With the same woman. Which rarely happened.

  “It’s a Godfather,” Logan said. “Scotch and amaretto.”

  “Can I taste it?”

  Knowing he could have as many as he wanted, he handed his drink to Stacia. She lifted it to her ruby lips and sipped, her eyes smoldering into his as she licked the rim of his glass. “Mmm,” she purred.

  Okay, normally if a hot woman pressed her tit into his arm and made out with the glass he’d just sipped from while producing those kinds of sounds and offering him come over here and fuck me glances, his dick would have been bursting through the zipper of his jeans. But he didn’t feel so much as a tingle down below. There was some weird shit going down here. He must be getting old or something.

  “It’s good, right?” Logan said.

  “Strong,” she murmured. She rubbed her boob into his arm as she turned toward him and tried to hand the lowball glass back to him.

  “You keep that one,” he said, extending a hand toward the bar for a fresh drink.

  Reagan appeared unexpectedly beside him and practically shoved Stacia to the floor in her quest to get in next to him. Definitely some weird shit going down here. Reagan had never come on to him before. And it soon became apparent that she wasn’t coming on to him now as she jabbered about the concert and how she’d twisted her ankle in her damned high-heeled boots and how she wasn’t going to wear them anymore. She was going to wear her combat boots. Fuck Sam’s idea of feminine beauty. Blah blah blah. Eventually Stacia got tired of standing behind Reagan and making huffing sounds with her arms crossed. She wandered off to find less annoying company.

  “Cock block,” Reagan whispered in Logan’s ear and then danced away.

  What did she mean by that?

  He glanced over at Steve, who was making out with the two women he’d introduced earlier. Hell if Logan could remember either of their names. Normally Steve’s behavior would have gotten Logan in the mood to one-up his bro and make out with three women at once, but he didn’t see a single woman who interested him, much less three of them.

  Weird, weird shit going down here.

  He begged his leave from the horn dog across from him and sought less promiscuous company. But Dare was with his brother—coming between that pair was an exercise in futility—and Max had disappeared for the evening. Maybe Max had already gone back to the bus. Maybe Logan should go back to the bus as well. Not to be with Toni. Just because this party was kind of dead. He usually had a lot more fun at these things. What the hell was wrong with him tonight? Maybe he was just tired. Or maybe he needed another drink. Or maybe he missed Toni.

  Nah. He just wasn’t drunk yet. Though he usually didn’t drink enough to actually get drunk. He only drank until he mellowed.

  A hush fell over the bar, and Logan turned to see Steve standing on a table and searching the crowd. “Logan!” he yelled. “Where the hell did you run off to, bro?”

  Someone shoved Logan in the back, and he stumbled forward, his movement catching Steve’s attention.

  “There you are. Candice and Tonya have agreed to a little game of double or nothing.”

  “I don’t want to play. Pick someone else.” Why didn’t he want to play? It was his favorite game of all time, and the rewards were guaranteed to blow his mind. Or his load. Mostly his load.

  “Awww, I think someone is pussy whipped,” Steve called to the bar patrons, getting everyone in the place chanting: “Pussy whipped. Pussy whipped. Pussy whipped.”

  “Fuck you,” Logan shouted over the chanting. “You’re going down, Aimes.”

  A knot formed in Logan’s gut as Steve’s two women removed their tops and lay on their backs, head to head across the wooden bar. They were still wearing their bras—which was a bit of a relief—but Toni wouldn’t like him playing this game. And she really wouldn’t like it if he won. The prize was a threesome with the two ladies. Logan wasn’t sure if Steve would purposely throw the game so Logan had to admit he didn’t want to bang the two hot chicks or if Steve honestly wanted a competition. Dude was almost as competitive as Logan was.

  “Logan,” Reagan said, tugging on his arm. “Don’t hurt her. She’s such a sweet girl.”

  He pretended he didn’t know Reagan was talking about Toni. “I’m sure they’re both sweet girls,” Logan said, “which is why they agreed to fuck the winner of this game. They won’t be sweet when I’m finished with them.”

  Many of the male patrons at the bar cheered his boasting.

  Once Trey had collected his cock-blocking pest of a girlfriend and the game had been set up, Logan stood next to the knees of one participant and waited for the festivities to begin. He couldn’t make it obvious that he was losing on purpose; he’d never live it down. At the very least, he had to make it look like he was trying.

  “Go!” Steve shouted.

  Logan leaned over the woman’s crotch, used his teeth to pick up the shot glass balanced on her pelvis, and tilted his head back to pour tequila down his throat. He swallowed, dropped the glass on the floor and bent over the woman again to lick the salt off her belly. He took the next shot glass off her stomach, which was a challenge because she was fighting a case of the giggles. Logan dropped that glass as well and fished the lime from between her tits with his mouth. Good thing she was relatively flat-chested, so it didn’t take too many swipes of his tongue to retrieve the green wedge. He bit into the lime and spit out the rind, wincing at the tartness on his tongue. He then snorted the bump of cocaine off her collarbone. Logan stood abruptly, smacking himself in the eye when the rush went straight to his head. He produced a full-body shudder and peeked at Steve’s progress. Steve was still trying to get the lime out from between his girl’s tits. Probably because he was doing more licking than lime seeking. Damn. Logan rubbed his nose and sniffed, shooting a second rush of exhilaration up into his brain. Whoa! Good shit. He didn’t do coke often—he was hyper enough without it. But how was he going to lose if Steve was so far behind? He had only one task left to complete.

  Carla—was that even her name?—lifted a maraschino cherry toward him with her fingertips. Normally when he played this game, he licked and sucked the woman’s fingers as he attempted to get the cherry in his mouth, but in this case, he went after it with his teeth. He groaned when the first cherry fell to the floor and she had to grab a second cherry out of the bowl near her hip.
He caught a glimpse of Steve snorting his bump of coke—finally—and going after a cherry without pause. That meant they were neck and neck. Logan might not have to throw the game after all. Holding the second cherry between his teeth, he moved to stand over the woman’s face. The idea was to get it from his mouth into hers without touching her lips. Which was way easier if he got up close and personal, but he dropped his cherry from full standing height and cringed as it fell toward her wide open mouth in a perfect trajectory. Shit! Why did this chick have to have a mouth like Steven Tyler? It was like dropping the cherry into a kiddie pool.

  The cherry hit her tooth and for a second he thought it might bounce out of the gaping orifice. But no, in it went. The riveted crowd cheered.

  His stomach dropped into his shoes.

  Well, fuck. Now what was he supposed to do?

  “That was a close one!” Steve said, coming over to pound Logan on the back. “But I won again. You suck at this!”

  Wait? He’d lost? Woo hoo!

  Uh, he meant damn. How had he lost? He’d been so far ahead before that first cherry had gotten away from him.

  “I’ll get you next time,” Logan said, punching Steve in the shoulder several times.

  Steve leaned in close to Logan’s ear. “You would have won this time if you weren’t so pussy whipped.”

  Logan shoved his laughing opponent out of his face. “Whatever.”

  He was relieved when Steve left with his two happy prizes. No one else would bother him about his disinterest in chasing skirts tonight. He thought about going back to the bus and crawling into bed with Toni, but even the small dose of coke he’d snorted made him way too fucking hyper. He’d never be able to sleep and would disturb her rest. So he burned off some of his excess energy by making an ass of himself on the dance floor. And then he burned off some more by talking like an auctioneer to anyone who would listen and to several people who weren’t listening. By the time he finally settled down, the bar was mostly empty and it was well after three a.m. Normally the cops would have come to make everyone go home after two. But police tended to look the other way when Exodus End was out on the town. Unless Steve stirred up a fight or someone was rushed to the hospital with alcohol poisoning or a drug overdose. Such things didn’t happen as much as they used to. The band members were slowing down now that they were all in their thirties.

  “We’re like a bunch of old ladies,” Logan said to a lamp post as he stumbled back toward the bus.

  One of the security team stopped him from walking into a fire hydrant. “I got this,” he assured the guy and patted him on the chest. “Do you think Toni is sleeping?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” the man said. He had a buzz cut and deeply tanned skin. But Logan mostly noticed his yellow shirt. That meant he was one of Logan’s own and he could trust him. “It is very late.”

  “I think I’ll wake her up.” He lifted his T-shirt to his nose and sniffed. “Does this smell like women’s perfume?” He offered the shoulder area of his T-shirt to the security guard, who was now walking beside him with his arms out, as if trying to save a toddler from falling on the cement and cracking open his skull. Perhaps Logan was stumbling to his left. But just a little. “Smell it. Smell it.”

  The guy took a whiff. “Yes, sir. It does smell like perfume.”

  “Shit. She’s going to think I’ve been messing around with other women. I didn’t though.” He patted the guy’s arm. “Why didn’t I?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Fuck it.” Logan stripped his T-shirt off over his head and tossed it on the ground. “Burn that,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Another of the security team that was trailing Logan picked up the discarded shirt.

  “I’m tired.” Logan felt himself fading. He just hoped he blacked out on something softer than the sidewalk.

  “Would you like to go back to the bus, sir?”

  Logan scowled. “Isn’t that where I’m going?”

  The guy somehow managed not to laugh. “No, sir.” He nodded in the opposite direction. “The bus is that way.”

  Logan turned around, squinted down the sidewalk, and recognized the bus almost a block away under a bunch of bright street lamps.

  “So it is.” He turned on his heel and started toward the bus. Again. “I think I might be drunk.”

  “It’s a possibility, sir.” Logan knew they hired a lot of military veterans to serve on their security team, but why did this guy keep calling him sir? It made him feel old.

  Logan ambled toward the bus, his thoughts—as always—on the woman he’d met the night before. “Do you think Toni really is my girlfriend?”

  Enough people had certainly mistaken her as important to him.

  “Who’s that, sir?”

  “Toni.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, sir.”

  Logan sighed. “I’m sure I don’t know either.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  * * *

  “On your feet, soldier!”

  Toni sprang from a dead sleep to her best impersonation of an army private standing at full attention—complete with salute—before she realized she wasn’t dreaming. There really was a blurry drill-sergeant type standing over the sofa.

  “Not you,” the very large, very muscular man said to a half-groggy, half-terrified, completely confused Toni. “I’m going to make bread pudding out of your doughy boyfriend here.”

  Doughy? If Logan was doughy, then Toni was a bag of jumbo marshmallows.

  “Go to hell, Kirk,” Logan muttered before he buried his head under his pillow.

  Toni doubted he’d even been asleep three hours. He apparently thought it was his job to be that last person to leave an after-party. When he’d crawled onto the sofa and passed out next to her, it had been after three.

  “Wrong answer. Everyone else is already in the gym,” Kirk said. “Get your lazy ass out of bed before I embarrass you in front of your girlfriend.”

  Surely he meant Logan’s justfriend.

  It wasn’t even fully light outside yet, Toni realized as she blinked at the open doorway and out the just visible windshield. The bus door stood wide open and a cool breeze blew down the corridor, chilling her bare legs. She tugged on the hem of her sleepshirt, glad she’d decided to pull it on when she’d gone to bed the night before. Otherwise she’d currently be in the buff while she continued to salute Drill Sergeant Kirk. Feeling ridiculous, she dropped her arm, and then she found her glasses on the coffee table. She stuck them on her face and gawked at the giant of a man—he had to be at least six foot eight, with the shoulders of a gorilla and biceps bigger than her head. She was sure he could crush watermelons between his enormous thighs. The giant yanked the blanket off Logan and tossed it on the floor.

  “I’m not embarrassed,” Logan said to Kirk as his pillow was snatched away and thrown across the room. “She’s already seen me naked.”

  “But has she seen you hogtied and physically carried out of the bus before?” Kirk shouted.

  Logan smirked and opened one eye to look up at the man towering over him. “Is that a threat, Captain Kirk?”

  Toni pressed her lips together so she didn’t laugh as she pictured the hulking muscle man in a Starfleet uniform. In her mind’s eye, it was several sizes too small and bursting at the seams.

  “How many times do I have to tell you I was an enlisted man, not an officer?” Kirk asked. Well, he actually yelled it. Toni wondered if the “inside voices” speech she used with Birdie would work on him.

  “Sorry. I keep forgetting,” Logan said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Go back to the gym and torture the other guys. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “If I have to come back to get you, I’m getting out my cattle prod,” Kirk said.

  “Promises, promises.”

  Kirk turned and seemed to actually see Toni for the first time. His scrutinizing gaze traveled down her body and back up again. He frowned an
d offered her a curt nod. “You should come with him.”

  She crossed her arms self-consciously over her not-even-close-to-rock-hard abs. “I was planning on it,” she said, wanting some candid shots for her project. However, she had no plans to work out and make a fool of herself in front of the fine specimen of a man on the sofa who was currently stretching like a sleepy cat and muttering negative slurs against the effects of alcohol.

  “Good.” Kirk left the room, his footsteps surprisingly light as he jogged the length of the bus and down the steps.

  “So that’s the band’s physical trainer, I take it?” Toni said.

  “No,” Logan said, his tone thick with sarcasm. “He bakes us cupcakes.”

  “Mmm, caaaake,” Toni said in the voice of a zombie craving brains. She wished Kirk really did bake cupcakes. Her sweet tooth hadn’t been satisfied once since she’d stepped on the bus. She was surprised by how healthy these guys ate. But then they probably wouldn’t look so fit and delicious if they subsisted on beer and Cheetos.

  “Caaaake,” Logan copied her.

  “Do you guys always exercise and eat well?” she asked as she found a pair of yoga pants in her bag and slid them on over her sleep shorts. She figured she could dress comfortably while following the guys around in the gym and no one would notice. She changed into a clean shirt as well.

  “Only when we’re under Sam’s thumb,” Logan said. “You’ll get to watch me lounge around and binge on junk food tomorrow.”

  His day off. She smiled, looking forward to having his undivided attention and no social engagements. She couldn’t really complain anyway. He’d done a remarkable job of spending time with her, even though he was so incredibly busy with the tour. Well, except for leaving her alone while he’d stayed at the party. She wondered if he’d had fun while she was sleeping like a rock.

  “Assuming I can lift my hands as high as my mouth after Kirk is finished with me,” Logan added.

  With a sigh, he stood and made a pit stop in the bathroom—taking a lengthy pee with the door wide open. The man had no boundaries. He then swallowed a few painkillers with a sports drink he grabbed out of the fridge—still deliciously in the buff—before putting on a pair of tight briefs.