Dirty Like Seth: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 3)

by Jaine Diamond

  “You sure about that? First member of your cocksquad could be waiting for you…”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s sleeping. It’s like three in the morning.”

  “Even better. You can slip in and out like a wet dream. He won’t even know you’re there.”

  “That’s… disturbing.”

  “Is Flynn there? What about Flynn?”

  “I’m hanging up.”

  “Fine. But I’m having a party when you get back. I’ll fill it with eligible hot dudes for you.”

  She would, too. Summer was kinda queen of the hot dudes party scene. Went hand-in-hand with being a shit-hot DJ; the girl had never wanted for a cocksquad of her own.

  “Goodnight, party girl.”

  After we’d hung up, my phone jingled with a text message. It was from Summer; a black-and-white photo of Seth she’d obviously snagged from the internet. It was from his later days with Dirty; he was looking all angsty and cool, walking into a bar as people pawed at him. And there I was, in the background, climbing out of a limo.

  Then she texted an emoji: a smiling cat face with hearts for eyes—our personal shorthand for wet pussy.

  I groaned again and stashed the phone away.

  I still couldn’t sleep. The ceiling fan looped lazily overhead and I just stared at it, unable to shut off my brain.

  I was obsessing, yes.

  Not about what Summer had said, exactly. She’d been known to encourage me to have sex with pretty much every semi-attractive male who happened across my path since the day I met her, over five years ago now. Including the ones I was never, ever going to have sex with, such as Zane, Dylan, Brody and Jude, men who were far more family to me than potential fuckmates—no matter how attractive they were.

  It was about the fact that, for once, I actually wanted the man in question.

  Badly.

  And that was a bad idea. Kinda like Ash had been a bad idea… though for different reasons.

  This, in fact, was a worse idea.

  Far, far worse.

  So why wasn’t that stopping me?

  Why was I climbing out of bed, pulling on a T-shirt and panties and creeping down the stairs, as quietly as I could, like some high school girl sneaking out to bone her hot college boyfriend? There wasn’t even anyone in the house.

  I did not yet know what I was doing, other than walking the line… or wobbling over it, half-drunk and horny. I was going to stand in the living room and gaze out the window at the cottage where Seth slept like some fucking lame-ass stalker, and then I was gonna decide what to do.

  And that’s what I did.

  I stood there in the dark, looking out at the lanterns dangling on his patio, aglow in the night. I pictured myself turning around, going right back upstairs, getting into bed and going to sleep. Waking up tomorrow with not one thing changed.

  Instead, I drifted outside. Right through the non-existent wall, where the living room flowed out onto the patio, and down the little stone path that connected the big house to the guest cottages. Hoping and praying the entire way that I didn’t run into Flynn on his nocturnal rounds. He’d probably think I was some paparazzo intruder and brain me with the barrel of his gun.

  I stood in the glow of the lanterns on Seth’s patio and looked around. The doors to Flynn’s cottage and Joanie’s were closed, but they were only screen doors. There was no sound but the wind in the trees, the faint roar of the ocean. At least I was lit up here, my platinum hair a dead giveaway in the lantern light; no way Flynn would accidentally shoot me. Though I would have to explain what I was doing here, stalking Seth.

  No; fuck that. I didn’t have to explain shit to Flynn. He worked for me, right?

  So why was I so fucking nervous about getting caught?

  Because this is wrong.

  Because you shouldn’t be doing this.

  Because fucking around with Seth would be selfish and stupid.

  While I was telling myself all of this, I tried his door. It was a sliding screen with a billowy curtain fluttering on the inside. It was unlocked, but I didn’t slide it open.

  Instead, I hesitated.

  I pictured what would happen if I went inside.

  Seth was of course sleeping; it was the middle of the night. He was lying on his bed, maybe naked, maybe draped in a sheet. As I approached, he woke up. He saw me. Maybe he said my name, with a question mark at the end of it. He watched as I slipped off my shirt. Then I slid into bed with him in my panties.

  And no, he did not kick me out.

  I took a breath. My heart was racing.

  Christ, was there something wrong with me?

  I turned and hightailed it back to the house, ran straight up the stairs, closed myself in my bedroom, and flopped into bed.

  I’d promised myself, after Jesse, I wasn’t going to do this.

  I’d sworn to myself, up and down: No more rock stars.

  Before Jesse, I’d had several other boyfriends—men who were in no way involved with the music industry. Smart, classy, stable men. Men who had money and a life of their own, but who treated me well. Like gold, actually.

  There was Ritchie, the restaurateur.

  There was Martin, the tech consultant.

  There was John, the investor and philanthropist, who’d proposed to me. I’d turned him down.

  And then… there was Jesse Mayes. The bad boy rock star who, for some reason, had become a fantasy that I could not shake. Somewhere toward the end of my relationship with John, the idea of Jesse and I getting together had taken hold, and I could not let it go until I made him mine.

  And make him mine I did.

  I went after him with the force of a small hurricane.

  Then, predictably—or at least, it was predictable to everyone but me—Jesse broke my heart, as bad boys do.

  After that, I spent a year in dating limbo, afraid to open myself up to anyone, to even let anyone get near enough to ask me on a date, much less touch me… And then, at Jesse’s wedding, I ended up fucking the baddest bad boy rock star I knew. The man who arguably surpassed Zane for male slut of the year—which was saying a whole fucking hell of a lot.

  Ashley Player was so not the man for me, and yet I’d fucked my way right over the line with him.

  And now, I was actually thinking about doing it again… with Seth.

  No. Not true. I wasn’t thinking about doing it.

  I was aching to do it.

  I’d already broken my promise to myself with Ash, yes. Not only had I sworn myself off of rock stars, I’d very specifically sworn myself off of anyone like Jesse Mayes. Gorgeous. Famous. Tall, dark and egotistical. That was the recipe for heartbreak. Guitarists, specifically, were to be avoided at all costs. More specifically, if he played guitar and sang—double threat—I was to turn my ass around and run for the fucking hills.

  Ash fit every one of those criteria, but Ash was just for sexy fun times. That’s how I justified it, to make it somehow okay that I’d broken my promise to myself.

  And now… Seth.

  Seth fit every one of those criteria, too.

  But I never saw it coming.

  He was gorgeous, yes. Beautiful; I’d go so far as to say Seth was a beautiful man. Sexy, definitely. Famous, too, in his own way. He was tall, and now, with his sun-lightened locks cut off, he was even dark-ish. Except Seth didn’t have the inflated ego of my last two lovers. He definitely had an ego when it came to his talent; a justifiable one. He had confidence and charisma. He had a certainty about himself, a solidness. There was something incredibly attractive about that ego, and not in the way that Jesse’s was.

  Jesse was flashy and devastating. A woman could feel it across a room—Jesse Mayes was a heartbreaker.

  And Ash… Ash was exactly what his name told you he was. Ashley Player was a player.

  Seth… I really couldn’t say.

  Seth was still a mystery.

  Yet I could not even pretend to myself that somewhere along the way screwing super-hot
rock stars hadn’t become a hot spot for me. Like some nasty addiction I couldn’t shake or deny; I knew it was bad for me. Dangerous. That it would only do me harm.

  And yet… it was like I suddenly understood what all the fangirls were always losing their shit about.

  Maybe because I’d never had sex before like it was with Jesse. So motherfucking hot. I was just so fucking into him. Shitty for me, he didn’t exactly feel the same way. And the flip side of being totally fucking infatuated with him was the devastation I felt when he rejected me—a pain like nothing I’d ever known.

  I’d never had my heart broken before. Not even close.

  And still, here I was, wanting it again; that high of wanting someone that badly.

  If only I could have it without the crushing low of the breakup at the end.

  I wondered… Was this anything close to what Seth experienced when he felt the urge to get high, even though he knew what the aftermath, the flip side of it, would be?

  Even as the heartbreak of the breakup had sent me screaming down a rollercoaster of emotional chaos, I’d managed to resist the urge: there were days I wanted to somehow get Jesse into bed with me, one last time, so I could fuck all my anger and hurt out—as if that would help anything. There were days when all I wanted to do was grab the nearest hot rock star, no matter who he was, and fuck him instead. There were days when I believed no one worthwhile would ever want me again. That I would never feel about anyone the way I felt about him.

  I felt used, damaged and broken. Discarded.

  And then there was Ash.

  With Ash, the sex was scorching hot, but it was empty. A quick fix, meaningless. I didn’t want to own his heart like I’d wanted Jesse’s.

  And in that, there was a different kind of suffering. I was realizing that now.

  There were days, after I’d slept with Ash, that I felt like shit. Like I was only hurting myself.

  And yet… I kept doing it.

  And now here I was… and I had no idea what it would be like if I crossed that line with Seth. How far I might fall for him, or wouldn’t. How badly he might hurt me, or I might hurt him.

  The only thing I knew for sure: if Seth and I had sex, we were both getting hurt.

  Him, because it would only complicate things between him and the rest of the band.

  Me, because my heart hadn’t fully healed. I was over Jesse, but I still wasn’t whole. I’d gotten past the heartbreak, but I hadn’t yet figured out how to put myself back together in the wake of getting smashed apart.

  The fact was, I had no experience with how to do this, and apparently there was a fucking steep learning curve.

  I still did not know when or how I would come out on the other side of this, feeling whole and stable and just fucking normal again.

  I’d finally let go of the past, yet when I thought about getting emotionally involved with anyone again, I still felt broken.

  I was unsure of my readiness to fall in love again.

  And, simply put, I could not predict how my heart would react to having Seth Brothers, naked, in my bed.

  If we had sex and—best case scenario—the sex was amazing… even if I felt wonderful right afterward… I did not know what would happen next.

  I might turn into an ice queen. Freeze up. Become cold and distant.

  I’d done that to men before.

  I could also fall head-over-heels.

  I’d done that before, too.

  I seriously had no idea. And it was scary how out of control this made me feel.

  Scarier still that it wasn’t immediately turning me off of the idea. That it wasn’t making me run for the hills.

  That for some reason, it was just making me want to dive down that rabbit hole even more, and see where it went.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Elle

  “You sure you don’t wanna see these?” Joanie asked me. She was on her laptop, on the other side of the island in Woo’s kitchen, the screen turned away from me. “Are you absolutely sure? I’m telling you… you look good.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  I was hungover, nursing a glass of water and preparing to take my lunch outside. I’d only gotten up half an hour ago. I knew the photos of Seth and I from yesterday were all over the web by now. But I didn’t particularly want to see them.

  If I saw them, it would just beg the question of what everyone else was thinking when they saw them… and I didn’t want to care about that.

  “Seth looks good,” Joanie added, glancing at me.

  I narrowed my eyes at her; I did not appreciate her getting that familiar with me. Joanie had worked for me for several years now. I’d say we were friends. She knew almost every personal detail about my life, and I trusted her with those details. But that didn’t mean I wanted her sticking her nose into my relationships with men.

  She gave me a cheeky look right back and went back to her computer.

  I sighed. “Fine. Turn it here.”

  She dutifully spun her laptop around. On the screen was a webpage open to a photo of me and Seth at the beach. And he did look good.

  He also looked like he was my man.

  We were holding hands, just barely, our fingers touching… and we weren’t even looking at each other. But there was something there, in that touch. In our body language. Something gut-deep, almost tangible.

  I didn’t realize it when it happened. That what I’d been feeling, standing there with Seth, would come pouring through the photo the way it did…

  Chemistry.

  Connection.

  And I had this kind of saucy, Fuck the world look on my face. Because that’s exactly what I’d been thinking when the photographer took that photo.

  Fuck the world if they want to judge me for this.

  I reached out, before I even knew what I was doing, and slammed the laptop shut. Joanie’s eyes met mine. “Do you think there’s any chance in hell that the internet will… I don’t know… go up in smoke or something, before everyone sees that?”

  “I think it’s too late for that,” she said.

  As if on cue, her phone, sitting on the island between us, started to vibrate. It had been doing that a lot. Unable to resist, Joanie swiped it up and hightailed it out of the kitchen to answer the call where I couldn’t hear her.

  I took my lunch out on the back patio, alone. I had my phone with me but the ringer and vibrate mode were turned off. The calls had been coming in all morning; Joanie had told me so.

  I still hadn’t answered one of them.

  And I realized, as I ate: I only actually cared about what one person thought of those photos. But I hadn’t seen Seth yet.

  When I asked Flynn if he’d seen him, he said Seth had gone down to the beach early and he hadn’t come back. I did not know what that meant, if it meant anything.

  When I finished eating, I gathered my courage and checked my texts. There were many, but I only opened one.

  Ash: What the fuck is going on?

  Okay; he was mad.

  Maybe he had a right to be?

  Maybe I’d somehow let him believe he had that right. Which meant I really had to set things straight. I decided to call him, and I really fucking hoped he’d pick up; I just had to get this over with.

  “Elle,” he said when he answered.

  “Hi.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yes.” Why did everyone keep asking me that? Like Seth had abducted me and dragged me off to paradise? “You?”

  “Not really. Just saw pictures of you holding hands with Seth at the fucking beach, so no, I’m not okay.”

  “Why?” I asked him.

  “Because. You fucking know why. Are you fucking him now?”

  I took a deep, slow breath. “Ash, it’s none of your business.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since when do you think it is your business?”

  “I don’t know, Elle. Maybe since you started fucking me?”

  “As frien
ds. You said it yourself. ‘Friends with benefits.’ You made me agree we weren’t gonna mess with our friendship by fucking.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean seven months later, when I’m the only guy you have been fucking, it’s okay for you to run off with someone else without even fucking telling me.”

  “I didn’t run off. And I don’t have to tell you anything, Ash.”

  “So that’s it? You’re just blowing me off?”

  “I’m not blowing you off. We’re friends. That’s all we’ve ever been.”

  “That’s fucking bullshit, Elle.”

  “No. It’s the truth.” And finally, I said it. “There’s nothing between us, Ash. Just… let it go.”

  There was an awful, crushing silence on the other end of the line.

  Then he hung up.

  That was when I felt it; someone standing close behind me.

  I turned to find Seth holding two mugs of coffee. He reached to set one down on the table in front of me.

  “Thanks,” I managed, setting my phone aside.

  Seth stood there looking uncertain, maybe wondering if I wanted to be alone. But right now, the last thing I wanted was to be alone. If I was alone, all I’d hear in my head was that conversation. And that horrible silence.

  The sound of Ash hanging up on me.

  “You can sit down, if you want.”

  Seth sat in the chair opposite me. He didn’t seem to want to look me in the eyes though, his gaze stuck on his mug.

  How much of that conversation had he heard?

  “I’m gonna head up to Vancouver,” he said to his coffee. “You know… I owe Ray that visit.”

  I didn’t know what to say; that was kinda the last thing I expected him to say. “Oh. Okay?”

  “I booked a flight out.” Finally, he looked up at me. “Today.”

  “You booked a flight?” I repeated, stunned. “When?”

  “Last night.”

  “Last night…? Before we went dancing?”

  His eyes slowly darkened, maybe recalling the way we’d steamed up that dance floor. He shook his head a little. “In the middle of the night.”

  “In the middle of the night?” Damn. That came out… bitchy. Weirdly high-pitched.