“And what about all the times before that?”
“Practice,” he shot back, getting to his feet. “Okay, I have to go. I’ll see you there soon.”
“Good luck!” I called after him.
He smiled at me one last time before he headed out the door. Why should I feel down? Not only was going to get to go out tonight, I was going to sneak backstage for the first time in my life. So maybe this evening wasn’t going to be a total write-off.
Then, before I could overthink my good fortune, I resolutely turned my attention back to my new camera equipment.
Chapter 23
Madison
When the knock on the door came, I practically jumped out of my seat. The cab was here for me already. I had had all evening to get ready, but I wasn’t sure I would ever feel totally prepared to lay eyes on Chad again.
I headed out to the cab with confident strides I did not feel. I slipped inside, and the driver took off at once. Closing my eyes, I leaned my head back against the leather seat. God, it felt good to have everything taken care of for me. I felt as though I could just disengage and relax for a change, not having to work myself into a lather about how I was going to get home at the end of the night and how much it was going to cost.
The car slowed in front of a huge theatre, lit up with giant posters of Chad and his team. I stared up at his shirtless image, and remembered the first night when I’d laid eyes on him for the very first time. The way my heart had drummed as though it already sensed: whatever was going to go down was big. Life-changing. The queue snaked out of the lobby and halfway down the street, and I frowned, wondering if I was going to have to wait in line with all the rest of the punters. But the driver continued down the street, turned into a side street, and pulled to a halt outside a nondescript back door.
He glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “This is where I was told to drop you off.”
“Thanks,” I called as I scrambled out of the car. Sure enough, moments later, the door opened and Chad stuck his head out. He glanced around to make sure no-one was on to us, before grabbing my hand and tugging me inside.
“Quickly,” he murmured. “We don’t have much time before I’m meant to go on.”
“What in God’s name are you doing?” I giggled, but he just pulled me down the corridor, his strides long and sure.
He bundled me inside his dressing room, closed the door shut behind me, and locked it quickly. Then he swung me up against the door, and kissed me hard. When he pulled back, my entire body felt as though it was on fire.
“Chad, what in God’s name are you doing?” I demanded, struggling to catch my breath.
His hands moved over my waist and clamped around my hips. “I’m not waiting until after the show,” he muttered.
“But your show starts in…” I trailed off. The way his hands were pulling at my dress was too much for me to keep thinking logically.
“In twenty minutes, yeah,” he finished for me. “So I guess we better be fast, huh?”
“You’re really serious?” I asked stunned. It was just the most unbelievable thing. No-one had ever been that overtaken with desire for me before, and it was almost impossible to get my head around the idea that someone like Chad would be that desperate for me.
“Deadly,” he growled, as his mouth swooped down on mine. I wasn’t about to resist. From the moment we met I was putty in his hands. Whatever he wanted to do to me, I was game. I wrapped my arms around him, our hands grabbing at each other’s bodies, the time pressure burning in the back of my mind. Somehow the urgency made our coupling all the more hotter. I had never been fucked in such a hurry before and it felt amazing. His hand landed on the inside of my thigh. Rough, insistent, desperate
I was so lost in the moment a knock on the door, made me jump and try to pull away from him.
“Chad? Are you in there?” A voice called in. “We need you out now to start set-up.”
“Maybe we should wait till after…” I whispered hoarse with fear and excitement, but Chad bent forward, caught my bottom lip between his teeth, and tugged on it.
“Or we just move this along a little faster,” he muttered.
“Chad,” the voice called.
Unable to move, my eyes widened. In one easy move, he turned me around so that I was facing the door. He picked up my hands and planted them both against the wood.
“Chad,” the voice called again, this time sounding more uncertain.
Pushing my dress up, he pulled my panties down my legs.
I felt my knees start shaking. Was he really going to have sex with me while someone stood just outside the door. “Shouldn’t you answer him first?”
“Why should I? He’ll go away soon enough.” I heard the zip of his jeans slide down, then the rip of the condom packet. I moaned when the tip of his cock pushed at the entrance of my pussy.
‘You still want this right?” he growled close in my ear, as though there was any way in hell that I could have said no given the state he currently had me in.
“Yes,” I panted, trying to keep my voice as quiet as I could. Hell, I couldn’t believe I was doing this while there was someone right on the other side of that door, but it was so hot, knowing that he couldn’t wait till after the show was done – that he had to have me right there, right then, no pauses, no breaks, no waiting. I pressed my hands against the wood, half so I could steady myself, and half so I could make sure that no-one burst in and caught us in the act. My pussy was already wet, my body reacting to the nervousness, the excitement, the arousal, and the desire for him all at once. I couldn’t take this. I arched my back to push my pussy into the air towards him, begging him with every inch of my body to fuck me already.
“Chad, I can hear you in there,” the voice said.
“God, you look beautiful like that,” Cade said as he grabbed my ass and rammed into me in one, sharp motion.
“Oh, fuck,” I gasped, louder than I intended.
The knock came from the other side of the door again. “Chad, is that you? Are you in there? We need you out here right now!”
“Fuck off, Brian,” Chad yelled back, and I could hear that ragged tension in his voice, as he tried to keep his irritation at Brian’s insistence and deal with the fact that he was buried up to the hilt in my pussy. His cock felt so good at that angle, even bigger than it usually did, filling me up, my pussy spread wide trying to take all of him in.
“I’m not fucking leaving until you open this damn door,” Brian said.
“You feel amazing inside me,” I murmured.
“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he groaned, thrusting harder and deeper, reaching parts of me that I didn’t even realize could be explored. He kept on fucking me with those deep, frantic strokes as though this was the only way he could release the tension in himself.
Someone was pounding on the door from the other side as I pushed back against him, teeth gritted. He moved his hand around me, found my clit instantly, and caressed it, his fingers slick from my wetness. He was about to go on stage, and his cock will still be wet from my pussy, and no-one would know a thing about it. The thought hit me like a ton of bricks, and I struggled to keep myself upright, legs trembling as pure lust overtook me. My brain dropped away and all that I could think about was how good he felt, how much I wanted him, how hard, how fast, how…
“Oh!” I gasped as the orgasm began to hit me, and he leaned forward to clap one hand over my mouth, the rest of the noises that I made were lost against his fingers. My pussy clenched around him, my clit pulsing beneath his fingers, as he thrust frantically into me a few more times as another knock came at the door.
“Chad, what the fuck is going on in there?” The voice sounded more agitated this time, but the pleasure had taken control of me. I could barely focus on it, my mind somewhere else entirely. “You need to come out, the show is about to start.”
With a growl that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside of him, Chad exploded, hand still clamped over my mouth t
o keep me quiet – for some weird reason and I’m not in any way into bondage or BDSM, it was unbelievably sexy having him control me like that, even if it was more out of necessity than anything else. He held himself inside me as he finished, cock pushed so deep into me I wasn’t sure the two of us would ever fully come apart again. But after a good long moment he pulled out of me, whipped the condom off, and did up his jeans.
“What do we do now?” I asked as I pulled up my underwear and dragged my dress down over it. My legs were trembling in the dangerously high heels I had picked out for the occasion. Chad wrapped an arm around my waist and kissed me deeply before I could tumble to the ground.
“I’m going to go out there and fucking stare them down and tell them never to bother me like that before a show again,” he said. “And you’re going to come out in five minutes and someone will be waiting outside to take you to your seat.”
“But they’ll all know what happened!” I gasped. Now that the lust had passed I couldn’t imagine anything more mortifying, but he didn’t seem bothered by it at all.
“I’m pretty sure they all already do,” he pointed out. He held me close, as though letting me know that he wasn’t going to let anyone near me or hurt me. “I have to go now, but I’ll see you after the show, okay?”
I nodded.
Planting another quick kiss on my lips he opened for the door and stepped out. “What the fuck is wrong with you, banging on my door like that.” I heard him say aggressively, before their footsteps and voices faded away.
Yeah, sure, this was a little embarrassing, but there was something kind of edgy about just walking out of here with my head held high as though none of this was a big deal, as though I hooked up with sexy male strippers in their dressing rooms all the time.
Chapter 24
Madison
Chad did exactly as he had said he would. I opened the door five minutes later just as a slightly disgruntled-looking stagehand was coming up the corridor towards me.
“Miss Brooks?”
“That’s me,” I said, and to be honest, I didn’t feel even a twinge of embarrassment as he took me on my walk of shame up to my seat. It was totally worth it. My seat was actually a whole box. So I got to look down on the stage in style. I wished I had a pair of those opera glasses, the kind that would let me peer down on him and see him in all his glory through a magnifying glass.
The audience was already in their seats, and I could feel the buzz of excitement radiating off them. I pressed my thighs together as a strange thrill ran through my body. Who would have ever imagined that someone like me would be the reason Subway Chad was late. I fantasized about getting to my feet and telling the audience that Chad had been too busy fucking me against a door to make it to the stage on time. If the show I attended in London was anything to go by, doing something like that would be tantamount to risking my life.
The stage was covered by a huge pair of red velvet curtains, but I could sense Chad down there. If I closed my eyes I could actually feel his energy, or maybe I was just being fanciful, and it was just his smell that had rubbed off on me that I was sensing in the air. Finally, the music changed, the announcer began to introduce the dancers and the curtains were pulled back. A deafening scream went up from the audience as a collection of dancers stepped out on to the stage, followed by Chad. He held his hand up as though acknowledging the attentions of all those women, and then he raised his gaze to meet mine. He flashed me a smile, one that I could tell was meant for me and me alone. My heart skipped a beat and I smiled back. His eyes lingered on me for another second, then he turned away, and they began their first dance routine.
It was easy to get caught up in the propulsive dance beat and pretend, for a little bit, that I wasn’t a teenie-weenie bit jealous as I sat there and watched all those women below me openly lust after my man. Cat-calling, wolf-whistling, throwing their panties at the stage.
It was odd and a bit disconcerting.
I knew that he had sought out the best seat in the whole house for me, but I couldn’t help feeling there was a distance between us that wasn’t there between him and the rest of the audience. I took my eyes off the stage and looked down at the women, reaching out for him desperately, and felt that attack of jealousy once more. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Sure, I was going to have to get used to seeing this kind of thing if we were going to be together, but that didn’t mean it had to be easy straight off the bat, did it?
I sat there and tried to appreciate the way that he danced. He was so good at it, he stood out even amongst the rest of the incredibly talented dancers. I should be happy I was with a guy who was such a success in his field. That was the way I had to look at this.
But it was hard, nearly impossible, given that I could feel the lusty thoughts these women had for him coming off them in waves. How could he go home with me when there were woman in that crowd who looked as though they had been plucked from the pages of a high fashion magazine? I knew the women in a sunshine city like Miami would be tanned and gorgeous, but this was ridiculous. Almost every one of those women would have turned heads back home. My insecurity nagged away at me, convincing me that Chad would prefer one of them more. I might have kicked Eleanor to the curb at last, but that didn’t mean her unkind words and constant snipes hadn’t left some kind of an impression on my psyche.
And then came the part of the show I’d been dreading.
The part where he pulled someone out of the crowd to dance up on. I held my breath as the announcement came. Of course, the crowd went wild and I watched with wide eyes, as he turned his gaze to the ladies in front of him. I knew it was selfish, but I wanted him to want me more than anyone else in the room. I wanted him to look up at me, to let me know with his eyes that he wished he could have had me down there instead, but my head knew it would have ruined the fantasy if he’d been so obviously into one of the women in the crowd.
He needed to make everyone feel as though they had a chance with him. That was the only way a show like this functioned as well as this one did.
Every woman in the audience tried to catch his attention with even more vigor than before. My hands clenched in my lap as I watched him move his finger across the audience. Who was he going to select? He went slow, taking his time, making the temperature in the room rocket, until finally he settled on a woman I couldn’t quite see. I leaned forward to get a look at her, and my heart sank when I saw who he had selected.
He pulled her up on to the stage and started to dance against her. I did my best not to notice how much she looked like Eleanor. That had to be a coincidence. Surely? If he wanted Eleanor he would have picked her. How the hell did he manage to pick the only woman in this place with a passing resemblance to her. It was making my head pound.
I was relieved to note the way he danced against her wasn’t quite as intense as the way he had moved against me, but still… The woman seemed to be loving it. She was touching him, touching his body, running her hands all over him like she owned him, and wanted the whole world to know. I knew I should have looked away, averted my gaze to keep from losing my mind, but I couldn’t. I watched the two of them intently, every second of what they were doing to each other searing itself on to my memory, an ugly gash over the happy memories I had built with Chad so far.
The song came to a close, but the woman wasn’t done with him yet.
She grabbed hold of his head, pulled herself towards him and, to my horror, pressed her lips against him. The world seemed to slow down as the cheer of the crowd dulled in my ears. My fingernails dug into my palm as I tried to keep from screaming, “Get your filthy hands off of my man.” It must have been two seconds before he pulled back, but it felt as though he had been making out with her for a lifetime.
He smiled gamely and waved her offstage, but that surge of jealousy that I had been keeping down overwhelmed me. I got to my feet and turned around blindly. I shouldn’t have come here tonight. I didn’t want to see other women rubbing up against him
, kissing him, touching him, or even wanting him.
I couldn’t handle it. I was not made for this kind of provocation. I just wanted to rush down there and punch that Eleanor lookalike’s face in. I didn’t want to be overdramatic, but I felt a sob rise up in my throat. What we had still seemed so delicate, so easily-broken, and I didn’t like the way that it made me feel to have it ripped out from beneath me with just one woman’s kiss.
I made my way backstage again, and slipped into his dressing room to wait for him. The staff waved me through without question. They must have noticed the look on my face and figured it was more trouble than it was worth to try and stop me. I sat at his dressing table, crossed my legs, and clasped my hands in my lap.
I could still hear the show go on outside, but all I could see in my head was that woman kissing Chad. The time sped by, as I replayed the image of that kiss again and again. I wanted, no, needed to stop myself, but I couldn’t. Not until I had him in front of me again. Not until I could touch him and remind myself that he was mine.
Finally, the show came to an end, and I heard a bubble of voices heading down the corridor towards me as Chad easily chatted with his dancers.
“Good show,” I heard them call out as he pushed the door open. He grinned widely when he saw me sitting at his dressing table. There was a sheen of sweat on his skin and he was breathing heavily.
“I’m so glad to see you,” he said throatily, and pushing the door shut quickly, moved towards me. He kissed me, but I turned my head so that he hit my cheek instead of my lips. I could still see that woman kissing him, and I didn’t even want to consider the fact that he was all hot and bothered because of her, or something else that had happened after I left. He pulled back, a furrow knitting his brow together.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m just tired,” I replied. “The music was giving me a headache.”
Too hot to handle: A curvy girl romance Page 10
