by Tracy Wolff
In that moment, it sure as shit felt like it did.
So he played, and as the song drew to an end, he threw in an angry, extended drum fill that rocked the club like an explosion and had his bandmates turning to stare at him with wide eyes and raised brows. They were smiling though, so he kept at it, building and building and building the line until he was going so fast his hands were a blur even to him. And then he held it—held the beat, held the rhythm—for nearly three minutes as the crowd roared and Ryder and Jared egged him on.
Only the knowledge that he had a whole show to play—and that the last thing he needed to be doing right now was showboating—had him bringing it down. It just felt so goddamn good to be back the fuck where he belonged.
From that moment on, the night was magic. Or, more accurately, the night was music, pure and simple. Music flowing through him. Music washing over him. Music getting inside of him. Pulling him under. Pulling him deeper, deeper, deeper, until all he could feel was the rhythm.
Until all he could feel was the beat.
It was in his veins, in his blood, in the crazy wild pounding of his heart.
Fuck, he’d missed this shit. It felt like so much longer than ten weeks since he’d played. It felt like forever.
Maybe because it had been such a long time since he’d done this stone-cold sober. So long, in fact, that he’d almost forgotten what it felt like when there was nothing to come between him and the beat.
Nothing to mute the thrum in his veins.
The vibration in his fingers.
The sweet burn in his shoulders that only came when he wailed away, full-throttle, on his kit.
It was the best feeling in the fucking world.
Better than nodding out.
Better than flying.
Better, even, than sex, though there was a tiny, distracted part of him that wondered if that would still hold true if he’d had the time to get that cute little brunette he’d met in back of the club into bed. Eating her out had been one of the hottest things he’d ever done, and something told him it wasn’t just because he’d gone two and a half months with only his hand to get him off.
No, there was something about the way she’d felt under his fingers, the noises she’d made as he’d taken her higher and higher, that was sticking with him way longer than an anonymous encounter before a show warranted. Hell, her gasps and whimpers were still playing in the back of his head, adding a sexy-as-fuck baseline to the music he was playing. Each pump of the bass drum, each crash of the ride cymbals, sounded like her in his head. And it made the playing so much sweeter.
In between songs, Jared and Ryder pandered to the ever-growing crowd. Asking them how Li was doing, which they answered with whistles and shouts. Teasing them. Working them up even higher so that they were in a frenzy by the time they were winding up for the last couple of songs. Every time he had a break, he searched the crowd for the brunette, wondering if she was still around. Hoping she was. It was hard to see past the first few rows because of the lights, but he kept looking anyway. Ending the night inside her seemed like a pretty good finish to him.
But the movement of the now-capacity crowd made it impossible for him to focus on any one face. They were so into the music, clapping and stomping and singing along like this was a stadium show instead of a cramped club on Fifth Street. It reminded him of the early days, before things had gotten so fucked up. Before the drugs took hold of him and he ruined everything.
So he played. He played and played and played, going so hard that sweat was dripping off of him and pooling on the floor at his feet.
So hard that his shoulders and back and arms screamed at him to stop.
So hard that he broke half a dozen drumsticks before the show hit the three-quarters mark.
And he loved every fucking second of it.
More than once, he caught Jared or Quinn or Ryder looking at him, eyes wide and mouths open. He didn’t care, wouldn’t let himself get bogged down in worrying about what was wrong. He knew he was playing well, knew he was on point, and whatever it was that had them looking at him like that could wait ’til they were off-stage. This feeling was too fucking good to waste.
He was riding it all the way home.
Chapter Four
He was on fire. There was no other way to describe it, no other words to do justice to what she was seeing. What she was hearing. Wyatt was in the back right corner of the stage, but it was like he was the only one out there. Like there was a giant spotlight focused right on him while everyone else was just standing around in the dark.
Obviously, that wasn’t true. The whole band sounded amazing. Ryder’s vocals were right on, Jared’s guitar playing was phenomenal as usual, and Quinn was as close to perfect on the keyboards as a human could get. It was crazy.
More, it was like it had been two days since they’d played together instead of two months. That’s how well they blended together, how well their styles meshed. Sure, Li was a little off, just as she’d known he would be—he was good, but his skills weren’t up to their level and his style was too removed to work with what the others were throwing out. Plus, he wasn’t coming close to keeping up with the drum line Wyatt was laying down, which was a problem considering bass and drums worked hand in hand in most Shaken Dirty songs.
But then again, it wasn’t like keeping up with Wyatt was easy at the best of times. And now, when he was mounting a full-on assault on those drums? Even Jared and Quinn were struggling to stay with him and this was their music. He was their drummer.
But hell, she didn’t think any musician in the world could be on that stage tonight and be anything but overshadowed by what Wyatt was doing. His stick work was so fast, so precise, so fucking brilliant, she wouldn’t be surprised if his whole kit burst into flames right in front of him. There was a part of her that wondered how it hadn’t already.
Music was her life, and rock was the genre she was most passionate about. She could name every member of every halfway decent rock group in the world, could list off the best singers, best guitarists, best drummers and bassists and keyboardists to ever live, along with their best performances. And she would swear that at this moment, no drummer she’d ever heard—not Keith Moon, not Dave Grohl, not Josh Freese, not even Charlie Watts—could hold a candle to Wyatt Jennings. He’d always been amazing, had always been brilliant at making the drums the creative backbone of every Shaken Dirty song, but right now, in this club after two and a half months of rehab, stone-cold sober and wailing away on the tom-toms, he was the best she’d ever seen. The best she’d ever heard.
And she wasn’t just thinking that because it had only been an hour since he’d given her the two most intense orgasms of her life…
Which she still couldn’t believe she’d let happen.
Not with Wyatt.
Not when she had a job to do that so specifically revolved around him.
Not when she’d worked so hard and for so long to prove her father wrong…one slipup, one moment of giving in to the fire she worked so hard to keep tamped down, and she might have fucked it all up.
If her dad found out what she’d done, it was more than enough ammunition for him to cut her out of this side of the business once and for all. More than enough ammunition to make him think that his archaic views about her had been right all along.
Then again, maybe he had been right. Not about women and rock stars in general, but about her. About her response. Because, God knew, her panties hadn’t stood a chance against Wyatt’s charisma, and neither had the rest of her. The fact that she hadn’t known it was him at the time didn’t make her feel any better about the whole situation. She’d still let the man she was here to babysit go down on her behind a Fifth Street bar. She’d still clutched his shoulders and begged him to make her come.
There was no getting around that, no pretending it hadn’t happened. And if she didn’t have a clue what she was going to do about it now, then it was nobody’s fault but her own.
B
esides, that wasn’t strictly true. She knew what she should do. After forty-five minutes of trying to wrap her head around the fact that she’d just let Wyatt Jennings get her off behind a bar, she knew she should call her brother back and come clean. Tell him everything and convince him to hightail his ass down here to Austin before things got any worse. Hopefully he’d have better luck keeping his jeans on around Wyatt than she had…
But knowing it and doing it were two different things, because no matter how many times she’d told herself to make the call, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Couldn’t even bring herself to text him that there was a problem.
And it wasn’t just because she didn’t want to blow this chance—though she’d be lying if she said that didn’t play a small part in it. But the real truth was—orgasms notwithstanding—she really was the best person for this job.
Besides the four men on stage, nobody knew this band better than she did. Not their management, not her brother, definitely not her father. From the moment Caleb had convinced her dad to sign them at her behest, she’d been there, behind the scenes. Listening, watching, learning all she could about them. Strategizing about how best to break them out in today’s pop-heavy market.
Their dad thought Caleb was behind the bold publicity and social media moves Shaken Dirty had made over the last few years, thought her brother was the one who’d finalized the song choices for the album. But the truth was, it was all her. She’d spent weeks, months, years of her life figuring out a plan to blow Shaken Dirty up, and when it had succeeded—when they’d broken wide open and started selling out stadiums—she’d sat down in the middle of her office and cried with joy.
She’d tried her hardest to help this band get what they deserved that the idea of backing away now, of trusting anyone else—even Caleb—to make sure that they held together, was anathema to her. At the moment, things were so delicate with them, the line they were walking between being rock gods or screw-ups who were just a footnote in rock and roll history was so thin that they couldn’t afford to blow this chance. The next steps they made didn’t just have to be right. They had to be perfect. Now that she knew they weren’t just laying low for the next couple of months, she wasn’t ready to trust Caleb or their management with them. Not when so many mistakes had already been made.
No, she was sticking around. Sticking this out. There was no other option. Not when she was standing here in the audience of this too-small club watching every single person in the room melt for them. Not when she was watching the show of a lifetime unfold right in front of her eyes. Shaken Dirty was on the brink of making history—she could feel it in her bones—and there was no way she was going to miss it. No way she wasn’t going to do everything in her power to make that happen.
And so she didn’t call her brother, even though her phone was burning a hole in her pocket. She didn’t mosey over to the bar where Richard and Gus from their management team were currently watching the show with eagle eyes. She didn’t even strategize about what to do to keep the post-show meet-and-greet from becoming one big humiliation for her.
Instead, she said to hell with all of it and settled back to finish the best club show she’d ever seen. And if at the end of Shaken Dirty’s set, she snuck out of the club without ever introducing herself to the guys, well then, there was no one but herself around to blame her. Besides, tomorrow morning was soon enough to start fixing the mess she’d made with Wyatt. Or at least, that was her story and she was sticking to it.
…
Of course, as it turned out, the next morning she was no more ready to deal with the mess she’d made than she’d been the night before. The only difference was, today she didn’t have a choice. Not if she was going to do the job Caleb had entrusted her with.
As her alarm went off for the third time that morning, Poppy threw back the luxurious duvet she was cowering under and crawled out of bed. According to the schedule Caleb had given her, the guys of Shaken Dirty were meeting at Quinn’s house at noon today to write on the new album. And, she assumed, to discuss the bassist they’d auditioned the night before.
There was no way she was going to miss that, no matter how embarrassed she was. Not when Li had been so wrong for the group. On the off chance that they didn’t recognize how bad a fit he was, she wanted to be there to steer the conversation. Or more likely—since she was going to be undercover as the new social media consultant—to call Caleb and demand he refuse to accept the former Firestarter bassist as the new fifth member of Shaken Dirty.
The fact that she still didn’t know what she was going to do about the whole alley/losing her panties thing from last night was something she refused to dwell on. At least until two hours later, after she’d spent the morning drowning in work emails, and she was standing under a hot shower with nothing else to think about.
How the hell was she going to pull this off? How the hell was she going to face Wyatt after she’d let him do all those wicked things to her in that alley? Or Jared, for that matter, when he’d seen her pressed up against that wall, jeans unbuttoned and Wyatt on his knees in front of her.
She could just brazen it out, could pretend that this was something she did all the time. The only problem was, she didn’t think she was a good enough liar to carry it off. The vibes she normally gave off didn’t exactly scream groupie…
Then again, they were rock stars. They probably did do this kind of thing all the time. What were the odds that they’d even remember it today—or, at least, remember her?
The alley had been dark, so dark that she hadn’t recognized Wyatt even when he was on his knees in front of her. Admittedly, he’d cut his hair and grown a short beard while in rehab, plus his trademark tattoos had been covered up by the long-sleeve black T-shirt he’d been wearing. Not to mention the fact that he’d stuck to the shadows while she hadn’t bothered to.
But still, it had been dark. And it wasn’t like she’d introduced herself. Maybe if she wore her hair differently and acted uber-professional, they wouldn’t put today’s Poppy together with the girl who had let Wyatt do whatever he wanted to her last night.
She figured it was the best bet she had. Was it perfect? Not even close. Was it better than going in there and admitting she’d behaved completely unprofessionally? Abso-fucking-lutely. She would if she had to, but if she didn’t…well, what was one more lie at this point? She was already screwed …
After finishing her shower, she dried her hair and straightened it to within an inch of its life. Then she wound it into a super tight, super high bun that was about as far from the loose curls she’d worn last night as she could get. A quick stop at the mall yielded a gypsy-looking maxi skirt and peasant blouse that were so not her normal style, and a pair of glasses distinctive enough that she hoped they’d keep the attention off her features.
Which left her just enough time to stop by a local bakery for a dozen cupcakes—she was a big believer in never approaching a band empty handed—before driving to the Island, the small, exclusive peninsula where Quinn Bradford and Ryder Montgomery owned houses.
Caleb, genius planner that he was, had left her credentials at the gatehouse to the exclusive neighborhood, and then it was just a matter of following the trails around until she found Quinn’s house.
She pulled up his long, winding driveway slowly, promising herself that everything was going to be fine. Telling herself that her “disguise” would totally work. Reminding herself to breathe.
She’d brought cupcakes, after all. They’d probably be so blinded by the chocolate frosting that they’d barely even look at her.
After pulling into one of the guest parking spaces to the left of the main house, she gathered her cupcakes and her courage and made her way to the small guesthouse (and by small she meant a couple thousand square feet) that Caleb had told her served as Quinn’s recording studio. If she was lucky, maybe they’d already be hard at work and have no time to deal with her at all right now.
Except no one answered her fi
rst knock or her second or even her third. She was about to try the door—maybe they were all in headphones or something—when a hot pink, totally bedazzled Harley Davidson pulled up the driveway and stopped right in front of the door to the main house.
A woman wearing tight jeans and a leather jacket the same color as the Harley slowly climbed down. As she pulled her helmet off, she stared straight at Poppy, her long dark hair flying in the breeze behind her. She was wearing motorcycle gloves, but as she took them off, Poppy saw that one of her wrists was tightly wrapped in an ace bandage.
So this was Elise McKinney, piano maestro and Quinn’s fiancée. She had to admit, the pink Harley and leather jacket were so not what she’d been expecting of the former child prodigy. Then again, she’d lost nearly everything a couple of months ago in the car crash that had left her wrist damaged and her unable to perform. Maybe all these changes were part of learning to live with the nightmare of that.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Elise asked, and Poppy couldn’t help but notice she kept the motorcycle between them. Not that she blamed her—fans could be crazy, especially when you reached the status Shaken Dirty had.
“My name is Poppy G—” She froze right before she blurted out her last name and ruined all of the morning’s hard work before she even had a chance to test out her disguise. In her defense, she’d warned her brother she was a terrible liar. Not that that would matter. He’d still kill her.
She gave a quick cough to cover, then cleared her throat. “The label and management sent me. I’m the new social media person. I was supposed to stop by today and meet the guys.”
“Oh, right.” Elise’s whole face relaxed when she smiled, her reserve melting into a quiet friendliness that was hard not to respond to. “I don’t think they’ve started yet. Come on in the house.”
