Praise for the Dirty Series
“It hooked me from the very first chapter … a charming, entertaining, sexy and fun read. I’m definitely on board for the next book.” — A Dear Author Recommended Read
“Diamond (DEEP) crafts a spicy, sassy, sexy romance with likable characters who share intense chemistry, and populates it with a memorable, entertaining supporting cast.” — Publishers Weekly
“… blends humor and horniness into one hell of a wild ride. I absolutely could not put this book down and I cannot wait to see what’s next in the Dirty series.” — Hines & Bigham’s Literary Tryst
“A fun sexy whirlwind of a rocker romance book…” “… love, lust and passion has never burned so hot.” — Read Between The Lines
“Jaine Diamond is new to me and I believe she will be taking the romance world by storm. Her writing gives you all the feels and pulls you in.” — Jo & Isa Love Books
“Jaine Diamond is quickly becoming one of my favorite contemporary romance authors. … the perfect balance of romance and raunchy.” — Author Unpublished Reviews
“Without a doubt a 5 star book. There’s heat and angst in spades!” “… a fantastically fun page turner…” — Liz Ellyn Reviews
“… red hot chemistry … his love for her jumps off the page.” “Jaine Diamond is now on my must-read list.” — Badass Bloggettes
“… deliciously angsty…” “Maggie and Zane have delicious push-pull … I want more Zaggie and I want them now!” — Smexy Books
“Oh, Zane and Maggie! These two ... I can’t wait for them to get it together but it’s a process and one I am addicted to.” — Two Book Pushers
“Sweet and sinful, like erotic icing on a cake … Jaine Diamond’s ability to convey the inner thoughts of a man on a mission is a true gift.” — AddictedToHotLove, Amazon review
“This series is so good. … Fantastic. Sexy. Angsty. Dramatic. Hilarious. Sexy. Loving. Loyal. Sexy.” — Backstage Books
“The banter between Zane and Maggs have propelled them to my Top Couples List. Ms Diamond I do hope you write really fast.” — Kathy, Goodreads review
“She writes with such passion for her characters.” “Be prepared for a bad boy who will turn your life inside out!” — iScream Books
“… a first rate rock romance that gives you everything you would want; super-hot rocker who does not do girlfriends, a ‘normal’ girl with a chance of a lifetime, a connection between these two that everyone around them sees, and sexual chemistry that is off the charts. …this one hit for me and I am an avid rock romance fan.” — The Book Enthusiast
“If rockstar romances are your thing then you’ll definitely need to add this series to your TBR pile!” — Wicked Reads
“… sucks you right in and doesn’t loosen its grip until you read the last word.” — Bookgasms
Dirty Like Seth
A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty #3)
Jaine Diamond
Copyright © 2018 Jaine Diamond
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, uploaded or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
The publisher and author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks, and word marks mentioned in this book.
Published By DreamWarp Books
First edition: May 2018
Published in print and electronic formats.
ISBN: 9781981067664
ASIN: B07CRWLDDM
V_1
Cover design: DreamWarp Books
Jaine Diamond Online
www.jainediamond.com
For all of you who believed;
there are two sides to every rock ’n’ roll story.
Contents
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Bonus Epilogue
Books by Jaine Diamond
Enjoy This Book?
Playlist
Acknowledgments
Sneak Peek: Dirty Like Me
Sneak Peek: Dirty Like Us
Sneak Peek: Dirty Like Brody
Sneak Peek: A Dirty Wedding Night
Coming Soon: Dirty Like Dylan
Sneak Peek: DEEP
Sneak Peek: DEEPER
About the Author
Author’s Note
This book, Dirty Like Seth (Dirty #3), is the third full-length novel in the Dirty rockstar romance series, and the fifth book in the series overall.
The characters featured in this book were introduced in the earlier books, and if you’d like every detail of their stories so far, you’ll want to read the previous books first.
Each novel in the Dirty series will focus on the love story of a different couple in the larger world of the series. I consider the novels in the series interconnected standalones, meaning you could pick and choose which ones you read, in any order, but you will definitely get the most out of the series, the individual books and the relationships within if you read the books consecutively.
I would always recommend starting with Dirty Like Me (Dirty #1). It is probably the best entry point to the series, as it gives a broad introduction to the world of the series and the various characters.
Dirty series reading order so far:
Dirty Like Me (Dirty #1)
Dirty Like Us (Dirty #0.5) - Free
Dirty Like Brody (Dirty #2)
A Dirty Wedding Night (Dirty #2.5)
Dirty Like Seth (Dirty #3)
From beautiful Vancouver (the home of Dirty!),
Jaine
Chapter One
Seth
I’d done some dangerous shit in my life. Stupid-dangerous shit.
Getting hooked on heroin.
Overdosing.
Almost dying at the age of twenty-two.
Yeah; those were definitely top three.
But this, right now, had to rank right up there on the stupid-dangerous list.
For one thing, I was trespassing on private property, on the lot outside a bar owned by a member of my former band, Dirty. The entire band was inside the bar, and while they had no idea I was here, they were about to find out. And I really wasn’t sure how they were going to react.
But no doubt, they probably weren’t going to roll out the red carpet for me.
For another thing, the bar was crawling with security, and the security guys who shadowed Dirty these days were mostly of the ex-military or biker variety. Which meant a wh
ole lot of dudes who knew how to draw blood.
And last but not least, I was leaning on a motorcycle parked at the back of the parking lot behind the bar. A Harley. A bike that didn’t belong to me but clearly belonged to a serious biker—one of the West Coast Kings, according to the skeletal black King of Spades insignia painted over the gas tank.
It was Jude Grayson’s bike. Head of Dirty’s security team. At least, I was banking on that being the case.
If it wasn’t Jude’s, I was banking on, at the very least, that it was the bike of someone he knew, and therefore I was not about to get murdered the instant the biker in question stepped out the back door of the building.
I was doing what I always did when I was nervous: playing guitar. But my mind was on that door. It was painted red, with a security cam on the wall above, pointing straight down. It wasn’t pointed at me, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some other one that was.
It was early evening and the lot was deserted. There were a few big trucks, the kind that hauled band gear and film equipment and stage shit, and several other vehicles jammed into the narrow parking spaces. But there was a high fence around the lot with a locked gate, and apparently no one in Los Angeles was stupid enough to climb that fence to get in.
No one but me.
I was halfway through Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” when the red door cracked open and some dude’s head popped out. He kicked the door wide and stepped outside; he walked right over to me, winding his way through the parked cars as the heavy door swung shut behind him. And yeah, he was a biker. A baby biker. Couldn’t be more than nineteen. He had an overstuffed taco in one hand, half-eaten, so I must’ve interrupted his dinner.
Could’ve been the dude with the earpiece who’d materialized on the sidewalk shortly after I’d scaled the fence; could’ve been someone on the security cams. But someone had tipped him off that I was out here. And since it wasn’t Jude himself who’d come outside, whoever it was probably didn’t recognize me.
Someone new to the team.
This kid, wearing a black leather Kings cut over his T-shirt, a badge stitched to the chest that read Prospect, looked more stunned with my idiocy than pissed off. I didn’t know him, and whether he recognized me or not seemed beside the point. Either way, his eyes were stabbing out of his head in the direction of my ass, which was resting on the bike seat.
Maybe if I was really lucky he was also stunned by my musical skills, because his eyes kept darting from the bike to my guitar to my face.
“Do you know whose bike that is?” he said, his mouth open and full of taco meat he’d forgotten to finish chewing. Apparently, he was more concerned with my ass trespassing on the bike than with the rest of me in the lot.
I kept playing, looking him steady in the eyes, and said, “I know whose bike it is. You can tell him Todd Becker’s here to see him.”
The kid shut his mouth, chewed slowly for a bit, and stared at me like he was deciding whether I was dangerous, stupid, or just plain crazy. Apparently landing on the latter, he shook his head. He glanced at the plainclothes security dude on the sidewalk, who was pretending not to eavesdrop. Then he tossed me a biker-brat glare that said Your funeral and stalked back inside.
And for the first time today, I actually wondered if this was a giant fucking mistake.
Last thing I wanted to do was get Jude in any kind of shit.
When I first found out about the auditions for Dirty’s new rhythm guitarist, I’d planned to head straight up to Vancouver to try out. But then I changed my mind. The auditions were only starting in Vancouver, but ending in L.A. the following week. And the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to wait.
Then I’d called Jude and found out he wasn’t even in Vancouver. He was already in L.A.. And that sealed it for me.
I told him I was coming.
He laughed.
Truth was, I didn’t think he really believed me.
But here I was.
All week, I’d hung out at the taco dive across the street. Each morning, I watched the lineup of hopefuls grow, winding down the sidewalk behind the velvet rope and around the block. Each afternoon, I watched the crowd dwindle until the last guitarist left the building. Most of the time I’d sat on the sidewalk, playing my acoustic, and even though I wasn’t intentionally busking, people had tossed me cash.
That was weird.
I once had a number-one album. Now I had crumpled bills in my guitar case.
The end of each day, I’d bought three tacos and a juice. I’d given them to the old guy who lived out behind the taco place, along with all the leftover cash. Maybe that was just sponsoring an addiction, and maybe after all I’d been through with my own addiction I should’ve been wary of that. But the dude was seventy-six years old and living in an alley; if he wanted whiskey for breakfast, you asked me, that was his prerogative.
It was several days before I even glimpsed any members of the band.
On Thursday, just as the sun was starting to set, Dylan Cope strode out onto the sidewalk from the gated lot behind the bar—his bar—with a few other guys. The dude was crazy tall, plus his unruly auburn hair was aflame in the evening sun, so there was no mistaking him. He was smiling. Laughing.
Dirty’s drummer was definitely the most easygoing of all the band members, and it’s not like it had never occurred to me to appeal to his chill nature for forgiveness. Problem was, it would never be that easy. Dylan was a team player almost to a fault; the guy wouldn’t change his socks without the approval of the other band members first.
Especially Elle’s.
I’d seen her, too, that same evening. Elle Delacroix, Dirty’s bassist. Also unmistakable with her long, platinum-blonde hair smoothed back in a high ponytail, her slim, tanned figure poured into a skimpy white dress and tall boots. She’d come outside with a small entourage—her assistant, Joanie, a stiff-looking dude in black who was probably security, and a couple of other women. I didn’t even get a look at her face. She’d spoken with the guys, mainly Dylan, and after giving him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, she disappeared behind the building.
Were they dating now? I had no idea.
I wasn’t exactly in the loop.
I knew Elle had dated Jesse Mayes, Dirty’s lead guitarist, a while back; everyone knew that. So maybe anything was possible. But Dylan remained on the sidewalk with a bunch of guys, talking, some of them smoking, long after the SUV with tinted windows rolled away with Elle.
Today, the very last day of auditions, I’d waited across the street until the end of the day. Until every last one of the hopefuls had been dismissed and wandered away, guitar in hand. I could remember that feeling, vividly. Playing your ass off in hopes of getting noticed, of getting invited back, no idea if that was gonna happen or not.
I’d been in that position several times in my life. None more nerve-racking than when I’d first met Dirty at age nineteen. When their lead singer, Zane Traynor, took me home with him, to his grandma’s garage, to meet the band. Once I met them and heard them play, I knew I had to do whatever it took so they’d let me stick around. I’d played with garage bands before. But these guys were something else. And they already had a killer guitarist in Jesse.
So I knew I had to bring something different to the mix.
I spent the next three years of my life hellbent on doing just that.
From that first informal audition, to the last show I ever played as a member of Dirty—the night they fired me from the band—I knew I had to kill it. To work my ass off to earn the chance they’d given me. I had to give them something back that they’d never seen before, never heard… something they couldn’t stand to be without.
Just like I had to do now.
And to that end, I’d decided I had to be the very last person they saw today. The last person they heard. The very last guitarist to audition for the spot. My old spot.
So that no matter what came before, there was no way they could forget my performance in
the onslaught of others.
Save the best for last.
That’s what I was thinking, what I kept telling myself, as I sat here on the outside, looking in. Just waiting for Jude to come outside and let me in.
But I was no stranger to waiting.
I’d waited for seven long years for Dirty to come around, to ask me to rejoin the band. I’d listened to album after album, watched them tour the world, playing my songs, with guitarist after guitarist who wasn’t me.
Then that day last year when I saw Zane at the beach… He asked me to come jam with him, just like he did so many years ago. And that jam turned into a meeting with him and Jesse, and that turned into a reunion show in Vancouver, at a dive bar called the Back Door, where we used to play. That was just over six months ago now. Me, up onstage with all four founding members of Dirty—Zane, Jesse, Dylan and Elle—for one song. Our biggest song. “Dirty Like Me.”
Dirty Like Seth: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 3) Page 1
