Lead Me On

by Lexxie Couper

  After some serious head-banging and some equally serious finger-plucking Mason dropped to his knees, worked the imaginary strings of his guitar with frenzied strumming and then threw back his arms and head.

  His performance complete.

  Samuel let out a whoop of approval and clapped with wild abandon. “All right, Mason!”

  The rest of the restaurant erupted in cheers and thunderous applause.

  Samuel held out his arm towards the young boy now gaping at the crowd. “Mason Moore, everyone. The best guitarist in the world.”

  The crowd clapped louder. Mason laughed, his cheeks red, his smile so wide it made Samuel’s heart clench.

  “Thank you, Mr. Gibson,” his mother said a few moments later, leaning over Mason to grasp Samuel’s hand. “He will remember this forever.” She smirked. “And my husband will be insanely jealous.”

  Samuel chuckled. “No thanks necessary. It’s not often I get to jam with a true virtuoso. Sorry your husband missed it.”

  It wasn’t until a thoroughly happy Mason and his mother left the restaurant and the remaining diners returned to their own meals and conversation that Samuel allowed himself to return to his seat and look at Lily.

  For some reason, he was nervous about what she would think.

  A small smile pulled at her lips as their gaze connected, an unreadable emotion shining in her eyes as she studied him from her seat. “Never try and pretend you are normal with me again, Samuel Gibson,” she murmured. “That was the most incredible thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

  He scooped a spoonful of melting ice cream from his plate, her comment sending a wonderful sensation of joy through his soul. “That’s one kid who will follow his dream,” he said, desperate to appear unaffected by her compliment. “Who’ll rock the world because he loves music, not because he wants to play a role.”

  “Is that what you do? Play a role?”

  Curiosity filled her question.

  Samuel lowered his head, studying his melting dessert. “It’s always been the love of the music for me, the rawness of the notes vibrating through my body, the honesty of the sound I create that blocks out all the other shit. If you don’t let all that, the music, its impact, become a part of you, then it doesn’t matter how good you are, how successful. I don’t care who you are, if you don’t surrender to the power of the music, you are just playing a role.”

  Silence stretched across the table.

  He lifted his head and looked at her, his pulse pounding. “I love music, Lily. When I’m playing I’m as honest as I can be. No role, no façade. Just me, the music and what’s in my soul.”

  She drew a slow breath and caught her bottom lip with her teeth. “Wow.”

  Prickling heat razed over Samuel’s scalp. He hadn’t intended to get quite so deep. It wasn’t like him. Not aloud. Not in public. He forced a shrug, twisting his lips into a mocking smirk. “Not bad for an arrogant, brooding, narcissistic rock star, eh?”

  Lily’s eyebrows knotted in a frown. “That’s the second time you’ve called yourself that since I’ve known you. Why do you do that? Say that about yourself?”

  Samuel pushed the remainder of his ice cream around with the back of his spoon. “It’s what I’m known for.”

  “Maybe it shouldn’t be.”

  Her suggestion, spoken in a calm voice, sent tight heat straight through Samuel’s chest. He swallowed, unable to tear his gaze from her face.

  Christ, he wanted her. Not just on a sexual level, not just as a challenge because she didn’t like him, but because she made his blood roar through his veins. Because she stirred in him something deep and bottomless and incomprehensible. The desire to be more than the façade.

  He wanted to pull her into his arms and slowly explore every sweet, lush inch of her lips, her chin, her jaw.

  He wanted to show her how much she affected him.

  Instead, he dropped his spoon onto his plate, stretched back in his seat and scratched his stomach. “I think I’ll give you the afternoon off. I suspect you’re getting sick of me by now. How ’bout I collect you tonight for dinner and Ripley’s at seven?”

  Confusion flickered across Lily’s face. And something else. Disappointment?

  Samuel’s chest tightened. Was she disappointed they weren’t going to be spending the afternoon together? Or was it just his over-inflated ego?

  Or his hope for something he’d never wanted before?

  “Okay,” she said, picking her napkin from her lap and patting at her lips.

  Samuel had to look away. Fuck, the urge to stand up, walk around to her side of the table, drop to his knees at her feet and capture her lips with his grew more powerful and commanding with every second. If he didn’t put some distance between them for a while, he’d do something stupid. Like try and kiss her again.

  And despite the fact he’d made her laugh, despite the fact she’d called him good-looking and told him never to try and be normal with her again, he doubted she wanted him to kiss her.

  If he did try, he’d be destroying any ground he’d made.

  Perhaps, if he holed up in his suite for a few hours alone, he’d find the strength to spend the evening with her without making a bloody fool of himself.

  And Samuel Gibson, legendary rock guitarist, didn’t make a fool of himself.

  But what about Sam Gibson, the bloke who likes a girl who may not like him back? Does he make a fool of himself?

  Samuel didn’t have the answer to that question.

  But deep within his soul, he heard a whisper.

  And a rhythm…

  Chapter Five

  “I hate San Francisco weather sometimes.” Lily scrubbed her palms up and down her arms, the chilly wind blasting at them sinking into her body. Her hips bumped against the railing of the motor yacht they travelled on, knocking her off balance a little.

  “Good weather for black leather, wouldn’t you say?”

  She shot Samuel, leaning on the railing beside her, a pointed glare. “You weren’t saying that in the diner.”

  He chuckled, shifting his position until he leant the small of his back against the railing and rested his elbows on the stainless steel. “True. It was hot, wasn’t it? Who would have thought the air-con would die right in the middle of the second course?”

  Lily let out a short snort. Four days ago, Samuel told her he was planning a big night out for them. Tonight had been that night. Dinner first, followed by, “a touristy event not to be missed”, as he’d put it.

  For the last four days, she’d dutifully accompanied him all around San Francisco, taking him to all the tourist attractions she could think of. They’d spent most of them shadowed by Brutal, who rarely said a word but watched Lily—and the star-struck gawkers who recognized Samuel wherever they were—like a hawk.

  She’d done her utmost to maintain her level of dislike for the rock star, but it was damn near impossible. Completely ignoring his sexy accent that still made her belly flip-flop every time he said her name, she enjoyed being in his company. It didn’t help that she only had to look at him in his sexy black leather with his wicked smile and mesmerizing eyes for her pussy to contract and her body to ache for something down right carnal and wanton.

  If it weren’t for the fans, the constant stalking by paparazzi and the omniscient presence of the tattooed bodyguard, she could easily let herself believe Samuel was just a normal guy.

  Of course, the fans and the paparazzi mocked that notion thoroughly. And every time Lily caught a glance of the menacing, sweatpants-wearing walking office block who followed Samuel no matter where he went, she couldn’t help but feel unsettled. She knew Brutal wasn’t here for her, but what he stood for—the protection against physical threat—made her tummy churn.

  She might like being with Samuel, but she didn’t like that.

  The trouble was four days of Samuel’s charm was difficult to fight against.

  So when he’d offered to arrange their night’s meal and touristy event, she
’d agreed. It was hard not to. He’d asked her while they’d been aboard a crowded tram, a little old lady who looked about ninety perched on his lap singing Nick Blackthorne songs at the top of her wavering voice.

  He’d booked the restaurant there and then, telling her he knew the owner a second before bestowing the serenading granny a kiss on the cheek.

  Lily hadn’t expected a tiny diner way off the main restaurant drag in the Mission District. Nor had she expected Samuel to leave his bodyguard behind.

  But he had. She’d worried about it for the entire drive to their destination, wondering how she would deal with any rabid fan who may try to attack him.

  The worry was annoying but also helpful. As long as she was picturing scene after scene of some crazy woman throwing herself at Samuel, it meant she wasn’t picturing herself doing the same thing. Which was how she’d spent the last four goddamn days.

  During the days since his air-guitar performance with Mason Moore at Pier 39 and him arriving that evening in a sleek, black limo, she’d done little but picture him walking towards her, sliding his hands around her hips, cupping her ass cheeks and yanking her to his body as his mouth claimed hers in a kiss that no one could ever confuse for chaste or uncertain.

  Every damn time she’d closed her eyes an image of Samuel kissing her had filled her head. Kissing her, undressing her, closing his hands around her breasts as his lips closed around her—

  “To me?”

  She blinked, Samuel’s laughing voice piercing the unsettling memory of her afternoon’s preoccupation. Swallowing at the sudden lump in her throat and pressing her thighs together at the equally sudden warm throb in her sex, she glared up at him. “Of course I am,” she answered, despite the fact she had no real clue what he’d asked. Damned if she was going to let him see her so off-guard.

  He threw back his head and laughed. “You weren’t, were you? Listening to me, that is. I asked if you were listening to me after you didn’t answer me the first time.”

  Lily frowned. What had he said?

  He grinned, twisting back to lean on the rail, his shoulder nudging hers. “I said, I know you’re not a fan of the whole rock-star uniform, but I wondered if you wanted my jacket? To keep warm? You didn’t answer. You did, however, have a definite off-with-the-fairies expression on your face.”

  She scowled. “What exactly does an off-with-the-fairies expression look like?”

  “This.” He pulled a face—part dazed and vacant, part euphoric smile.

  Lily let out a huff, mainly to hide her laugh. Damn him, why did he make it so damn tricky to despise him?

  He grinned. “So? Do you want my jacket?”

  Turning back to the distant view of San Francisco, she shook her head even as the wind bit into her bones. “I’m okay, thank you.”

  She’d been so frazzled with her unnerving and—God help her—increasing sexual fantasies of the man, she’d run out of time to plan her attire for the evening. When Samuel had knocked on her door at six-thirty, she’d still been wrapped in a towel, the flush of a rather…stimulating shower warming her lower body, the image of Samuel’s head buried between her thighs still vivid in her mind.

  She’d grabbed the first thing she could from her closet—a black cotton capped-sleeved shirt and her favourite Levis.

  Another gust of icy wind streamed over her and, unable to stop herself, she shivered.

  Beside her, Samuel tsked. “You’re just going to have to deal with wearing the uniform, Ms. Pearce.” He shucked his arms out of his jacket and draped it over her shoulders before she could say a word. “Besides, it looks good on you.”

  Instantly, Samuel’s heat seeped into Lily’s chilled upper body. It wrapped around her, enveloped her. Hugged her. The distinct scent of him threaded through her every breath—a combination of sandalwood soap, cologne and him. She’d been aware of it since she first saw him walk into the visiting room at rehab and, no matter how much she tried not to, she couldn’t help but want to draw more and more of it into her being.

  She still didn’t like him. She was adamant about that. Had given herself a damn good lecture about it every damn day and night, but that didn’t stop her responding to him sexually.

  She just had to figure out how to ignore it.

  Which was goddamn getting more and more tricky.

  Especially after the completely wonderful two hours they’d just spent exploring Alcatraz by night.

  As he had with dinner, Samuel had organized the trip to the famous island jail. After they’d finished at the diner, they’d caught a taxi to the Alcatraz tours jetty and then boarded a crowded ferry headed to the landmark. He hadn’t booked out the tour, as she’d expected him to. Instead, he’d wandered around the eerie prison along with a group of Japanese tourists and their guide, an older gentleman with half-rim glasses and silver-white hair, who had no idea who Samuel was.

  In fact, no one on the tour seemed to know who Samuel was except Lily. It unsettled her. She kept waiting for one of their fellow tourists to recognize him. To clamber all over him.

  For the first fifteen minutes of the tour, she’d found herself walking about with her fists balled, just in case she had to swing a punch at someone.

  She’d refused to acknowledge the hot finger of jealousy the thought of another woman pawing at Samuel awoke in her.

  There was no reason to be jealous of a groupie when she didn’t even like the guy, right?

  It wasn’t until a good fifteen minutes after Samuel had snagged her hand and tugged her closer to the cell that had once housed Al Capone with marvel on his way-too-handsome face that she’d realized he hadn’t let her hand go. They’d been walking the corridors of the famous prison with their fingers laced, their palms pressed together for the entire time. Fifteen minutes of handholding with a world-famous rock star.

  Lily didn’t know what to do about it. Because, truth be known, she liked it.

  Damn it.

  Thankfully, a young Japanese tourist had let out a squeal and pointed at something at the other end of the cellblock’s corridor, telling everyone she’d seen a ghost.

  Samuel had released Lily’s hand, slapped his palms to his cheeks and murmured, “Who ya gonna call?”

  She’d laughed. And hadn’t stopped enjoying herself after that.

  Damn it. Again.

  Now here they were, on their way back to the mainland aboard the private motor yacht that had collected them from the island. When Lily had enquired why they weren’t going back on the ferry with the rest of the tourists, Samuel told her the boat that transported the Alcatraz janitorial staff had been delayed and he’d given up his and Lily’s place on the ferry so the staff didn’t have to wait too long to get home. Besides, he’d said with a grin, the ferry didn’t come with chilled champagne. She’d rolled her eyes, even as she’d been unable to stop her smile. Damn it.

  A glass of the most delicious champagne later, Lily wondered if the yacht came with hot chocolate as well.

  Why hot chocolate? Wouldn’t you prefer Samuel’s lips on yours again?

  Lily’s heart thumped fast into her throat.

  She blinked, the inescapable realization like a hard smack to the belly.

  Oh crap, she wanted him to kiss her.

  She’d enjoyed herself so much. As much as she tried to tell herself otherwise, Samuel Gibson was a nice guy who just so happened to be a famous rock musician. She’d seen so little evidence of the conceited carry-on she’d expected.

  She’d laughed. She’d enjoyed his quick wit.

  She’d enjoyed him being with her.

  Scrunching up her face, she lowered her head against the wind, pressed her chin to her chest and drew a deep, slow breath.

  Samuel’s scent flowed into her lungs, subtle and spicy and wonderful.

  “Do you know the story of Cassiopeia?”

  His relaxed question raised her gaze to his face. He smiled down at her, the wind tousling his dark blond hair in playful whips. “The princess? Or th
e constellation?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “Okay, you know both.”

  She smirked. “I’ve seen the movie, The Sure Thing a few times. It’s up there with The Princess Bride as one of my favourites.”

  “Ah, John Cusack at his finest.”

  Lily gasped. “No. Say Anything was John Cusack at his finest.”

  Samuel shook his head. “Not even close. That hitchhiker scene in The Sure Thing instantly elevates it to his best work.” He crossed one of his eyes and lowered his head closer to Lily’s. “‘Don’t you want to give me a ride?’” he rasped, mimicking the line from the movie with perfection.

  Lily laughed, giving his chest a soft shove. “I prefer a boom box and a trench coat, thank you.”

  He chortled, returning his elbows to the bow’s railing. “I knew there was a romantic deep within that prickly exterior of yours.”

  Lily rolled her eyes even as her belly clenched. “Yeah, well, for John Cusack I’d tolerate rock music.”

  Samuel’s answering sigh was drawn-out and dramatic. “Curse you, Cusack. You get all the girls.”

  Another cold blast of wind lashed at Lily. She shifted inside the warmth of Samuel’s jacket, hugged herself for a silent second before giving up her ridiculous struggle. Who was she kidding?

  With a wry snort, she shoved her arms into the jacket’s sleeves, surrendering completely to Samuel’s residue warmth.

  His triumphant chuckle beside her told Lily he hadn’t missed the significance of her actions.

  Quiet moments passed. Neither said a word. The soft lapping of water on the yacht’s bow punctuated the thrum of the craft’s engine.

  Lily watched San Francisco draw closer, a melancholy state falling over her.

  The soft sound of Samuel humming caressed her senses and she turned her head, gazing up at his profile. “What’s that?” she asked, the rhythm tickling something inside her.

  He flicked her a sideways glance. “Something that came into my head a few days ago. I’ve been playing around with it ever since.”

  “It’s nice. Is there more?”

  He shifted against the rail, his stare roaming her face. “She turns from me and my heart aches,” he sang, his voice deep and smooth. “She moves beyond and my soul weeps. She smiles and life is born anew. And hope becomes fate and fate becomes her.”