by Zoey Derrick
“Hi Addison. Good to see you again. You look well.”
“Thank you,” she says then she nods to Tori. “How was your flight?”
I chuckle. “Long.”
“I’ve taken that flight more than a few times. Have you met Talon and Kyle?”
“Not formally, no.”
She laughs. “Nothing formal about these two,” she says turning toward them. Talon and Kyle stand up like dutiful men and come towards us. Each of them wraps an arm around Addison’s back and holds her to them. “Talon, Raine.” She gestures between Talon and me. I take his hand.
“Nice to finally meet you, Talon.” No need to mention that his overwhelming good looks and celebrity persona is making my breathing ragged.
“Likewise. This meathead,” he pokes Kyle in the ribs, and he jumps, “is Kyle.” He has to remove his arm from Addison’s back in order to shake my hand.
“Don’t listen to him. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Thank you, you too.”
I’m surprised that my voice doesn’t sound like the crazed lunatic I feel like on the inside. I don’t know how she does it. I can’t even think straight with these two looking at me, let alone function.
“We’ll leave you two to talk,” Kyle says and both he and Talon kiss Addison on the cheek simultaneously and she flushes. They both leave the room, heading for the bedroom, maybe.
“Come, sit down,” Addison says to me.
I follow her toward the couch and we both sit down on opposite sides. “I’m not sure how you do it,” I say while fanning myself and surreptitiously looking at the door they just went through. The words tumbled out so fast, I blush like an idiot.
“Sometimes I have a hard time with it.” Her smile is warm, comforting. “But the bottom line, they’re both amazing and I love them dearly.” My heart melts at her declaration. “Let’s talk shop for a minute,” she says and we launch effortlessly into a conversation about business, but the attitude between the two of us is like we’re best friends.
We discuss the schedule for the next few days, she lets me know what she wants me to take care of and take over completely and I have no problem with any of it.
“Next week is going to be the real madhouse,” she says with a smile. “We have several appearances and the schedule is really tight. I’m going to need your help with making sure the guys get where they need to be. In some cases, Talon and Kyle will need to stay back, but the rest of the band will need to go on ahead. I will handle Talon, if you can manage the other three?”
“That won’t be a problem. So long as they don’t give me a hard time.”
“Don’t worry about them. They all try to act like a bunch of ball busters, but in reality, what they do is really important to them and that drives their willingness to listen and do what they’re told.” She smiles.
“Good.” I laugh.
“Now, for the last bit of news I’ll leave you with for tonight.” I cock my head at her. “It’s still new, and still setting in and only a handful of people know. I am going to tell you because it may or may not affect certain things.” She starts wringing her fingers.
“Whatever it is, Addison, you can tell me.”
“Well, honestly, you’re the first person I’ve told straight out.” She gives me a smirk. “I’m pregnant.”
Whoa, jeez. “Congratulations.” I beam at her. “That’s awesome, Addison.”
She lights up and smiles wide. “Thank you. I haven’t told Cami yet. In fact, it scares me.”
I chuckle. “I wouldn’t worry about her. Tell her in your own time. You’d be amazed at what she’ll have to say about it.” Addison looks nervous all of a sudden and as if sensing her distress over something, the guys come out of the bedroom. I reach out and pat her worrying hands, gripping them slightly so that she stops and looks at me. “Honestly, do not fret about it.”
She grins and mouths a thank you as the guys come up. I pull my hand back. “Everything okay?” Kyle says looking between the two of us.
“It’s perfect. Thanks for letting me borrow her.” I smile at her and the guys as I stand up. “I’m going to go grab a bite to eat and get settled in, I’ll see you guys in the morning?”
“Absolutely,” Addison says, the worry about telling Cami is gone from her eyes.
“Wonderful. Enjoy your evening.” I tell them and take my leave.
When I exit the suite another guy is standing guard. This one is taller with a severe expression on his face. Jesus, he’s gorgeous with broad shoulders, thick-corded muscles rippling under his tight black t-shirt. I can see his nipples because the shirt is so tight. He straightens a little more as I rake my eyes over him and I can see a smile tugging at his lips. Finally the awkwardness, though only two seconds, breaks when the door shuts behind me. I yelp and he laughs. “You must be Raine?”
I can’t help but laugh. “That would be me. And you are?” I take a step toward him and watch as he looks me up and down. I feel my nerves flash and that little ball of nerves that is my clit throbs. My nipples tighten.
“Beck.” He extends his hand to me and there is a fire that ignites with the contact. It’s not lightning, but the slow burn of lust. Beck’s body screams sex and my body is betraying me.
“Nice to meet you.” My voice comes out a little softer than I intended which of course causes him to smirk at me.
Just then a door opens and slams shut. I peer around the man standing in front of me and into the steel grey eyes of none other than Dex Harris.
Who the hell is that?
Ice blue eyes stare back at me from around Beck’s body. Looking into her eyes has my dick twitching to life in my jeans and all I can see is her forehead, her black and pink hair and her eyes, those eyes. Those fuck me eyes. I see Beck turn toward me then back to the woman, who straightens. I can’t see her anymore. Thank god. “Let’s go,” I say sharply.
“See you later,” I hear Beck tell her, quietly. I turn toward the elevator and I feel Beck fall in behind me. I don’t turn back, despite the need to see what else comes with those eyes. While standing there waiting for the elevator, I hear the familiar beep and click of a door.
So she’s staying on this floor.
The elevator arrives and I step in, turning to push the button and the door just beyond Talon and Kyle’s suite swings closed. Great, now I know what room she’s in.
“Who the hell was that?” I say to Beck who is standing stiff as a board next to me. He doesn’t answer. “Oh, come off it. She’s obviously now one of us. Kate’s replacement?”
“Addison’s assistant.” His voice is steel.
I shoulder check it. “Come off it. She’s just a chick.”
“That’s precisely my problem. To you she’s just a chick, just a receptacle.”
“What the fuck has gotten into you?”
He shakes his head and loosens up. “Nothing.”
“Yeah, right.”
What the fuckity fuck just happened? I fall back against the closed door.
Beck? Dex? Beck… I look at my hand, almost as if I’m going to see it on fire from his touch, but it’s the same bland hand that I always have. I rub it on my thigh, trying to squash the burn. Beck is definitely more my speed. I mean, come on, Dex is a fucking playboy. He treats women like shit and he’s a fucking celebrity and I’m, what? A broke assistant?
Though taking this position has increased my salary by more than double what I was making as an assistant, I’ve yet to see that reward. My first paycheck doesn’t come until Friday.
I push myself away from the door and the motion reminds me of the tightly bound nerves in my clit. I groan as I grab my suitcase. Hoisting it onto the bed, I go digging for a change of clothes, my bathroom supplies and… my vibrator.
I don’t think I’ve ever stripped out of my clothes faster than I just did. The chill in the room making my nipples hard and my clit throb, as I lie sprawled out on the bed, naked, vibrator plugged into the wall. Drifting into fantasy land is e
asy. What surprises me most is that Dex isn’t the only star of my fantasy. Beck and Dex…together are the stars in my private show.
“Have you seen Addison’s assistant yet?” Mouse asks all of us.
“She’s fucking hot,” Peacock replies back. For some reason, irritation ripples through me. What the fuck?
“Yeah, she is. But she’s off limits.” Mouse takes a drink of his beer.
“Says who?” I counter.
“Says anyone. She’s Addison’s assistant for one, for two, she’s only with us while we’re in New York,” Peacock tells all of us.
“All the better for her to be in limits,” Mouse retorts. “She’ll be gone and back to wherever it is she came from before we’re back on the road. Another notch, right Dex?”
“Mmm.” I nod and drink my beer.
“What about her?” Mouse nods his head toward the bar. Our eyes travel to a group of women sitting across the bar from us. They’re giggling like idiots but they keep looking this way. There are three of them. A blonde, an unnatural redhead, and a brunette.
“Not bad. Three for three,” I grumble and go back to my beer. Beck’s attitude in the elevator has me on edge. He’s actually staking a claim and bent over the fact that I just might be interested, but the fucked up part about that is her eyes are the only part of her body I’ve seen.
“Yo. Dex?”
“Hmm.” I look up to Mouse.
“Where the hell are you? This bar is crawling with chicks and you’re all…” he waves his hand at me, “whatever you are.”
“Just thinking. When did you guys see Addison’s assistant?” I ask, curious as to when they may have seen her.
“She was in the hallway when we first came down here, talking to Tori,” Peacock says behind his beer. “She’s also Cami’s assistant.” I raise an eyebrow in question. “Bold? Our representation. Jesus, you mean to tell me you didn’t notice her all those times we were there?”
Peacock is not known for being subtle. “Um, should I have?”
“How could you not?”
“That’s easy, I wasn’t trolling.”
Mouse shrugs. “Neither was I, but I fucking noticed,” Mouse says, and now all of sudden I feel like I have three times the amount of competition. Beck, Mouse, okay two times. Peacock just needs to come out and get over it. I drop the subject and go back to brooding.
A couple minutes later, the waitress returns with a tray full of beers. I grab one and offer it to Beck who turns it down. “You guys going out tonight?” he asks me with a raised eyebrow.
“Probably,” Mouse answers him.
“Then no.” He pushes the beer back at me. He’s standing behind me, Troy is behind Mouse and Casey is behind Peacock, which is rather odd because Peacock is bigger than Casey is. Troy and Casey joined us when Addison’s personal bodyguard, Tori, showed up in Des Moines after Addison was nearly attacked for the second time by the same man. There’s another guy, Bruce, but I haven’t seen him since Philly. They overloaded us with bodyguards, if you ask me. Now we all pretty much have our own. Peacock and Casey hit it off pretty quickly, making me wonder if there could potentially be more between them than just something professional, but meh, not my deal. Leroy and Troy take turns around Mouse. My guess is because they have nothing better to do. I have a feeling sometime in the coming days, with Victoria around for Addison, that one or two of these guys may be shipped back home.
I hear someone whistle and I look up. Peacock and Mouse are both looking off in the same direction. Then I feel Beck nudge my shoulder. I look toward him and his eyes too are in the same direction as the other fuckknuckles. I follow their gaze and my eyes land on a pair of delectably shaped hips, thighs and quite possibly the best bubble butt I have ever seen in my life. Her waist is narrow, leading toward the top of the most perfect hourglass shape I’ve ever seen.
Her hips are clad in a pair of jeans that I’m immediately envious of. How I’d love to be wrapped that tightly around that body. She’s wearing a couple of tank tops and her jet black hair is pulled up into a messy pony tail. There is something peeking out from under her tanks, thick black lines extending up and wrapping her shoulders. There isn’t enough to be able to tell just what she might have there. The tanks are more like colored A-shirts men wear than spaghetti straps. I watch her as she leans against the bar; she’s talking to the bartender who is flirtatiously smiling at her while he makes her a drink. Then she shifts her weight to one foot and kicks up the other. That’s when I see a pair of cowboy boots and I nearly want to look away. I’m more of a slutty heels kind of guy. But then she turns her head.
Cowboy boots be damned…
All it takes is a tiny glimpse of the bright pink in the front and I know immediately that I am admiring the backside of Addison’s assistant. “Fuck,” I exclaim in a rush and look away. Jesus, she’s fucking gorgeous and like a moth to a fucking flame, I look again, but before I can turn my head I feel three sets of eyes on me. “What?” Nobody says anything to me. “Oh, come off it. She’s fucking gorgeous.”
“That’s her assistant?” Mouse says, and it’s a question not a statement of fact.
“Yes,” Beck says behind me. “Her name is Raine.”
My dick twitches in my jeans.
I make my best attempt to keep looking at her, but it’s hard. I’m watching from the corner of my eye because my line of sight to her is ridiculously bad and would give it away that I was still looking.
Finally I can’t take it so I look up. Apparently at just the right time, or maybe it is the wrong time, either works for me because when I do, she turns around and my jaw, I swear to god, falls on the floor.
“Jesus,” I hear Beck and Mouse say at the same time as I think it.
Her tank top is low cut in the front accentuating the upper swell of her breasts; she’s at least a C cup. She has to be. Her nipples are hard and I shiver, causing my dick to stir even more. When my eyes finally meet hers, she stops mid-stride and then smiles. But she isn’t smiling at me. No, her eyes are over my head, she’s smiling at Beck; of course she’d smile at him. I growl under my breath. Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with me?
I watch as she starts walking again, coming closer to us with her girlie drink in hand. I can hear Mouse and Peacock saying something but they’re not talking loud enough for me to make it out over the dull roar of the bar.
I think she’s going to talk to Beck but instead she comes up, stands next to me and I’m assaulted with the glorious scent of something that is distinctly her. A cherry chocolate scent that makes my mouth water. “We didn’t get a chance to meet earlier. I’m Raine.” She extends her hand to me and I stand, all gentlemen like. I tower over her and her eyes flare slightly at my height. I take her tiny hand in mine.
“Dex.” There is a lightning spark that tingles in my hand the moment they meet and my heart is pounding in my chest. What the fuck? It’s like I’ve gone from one night stand to love struck puppy. Nope, so not going to happen. “Have you met the rest of the guys?” I manage to ask.
She shakes her head. “Not yet.”
“Let me introduce you.” Hoping against hope that I can set her sights on someone else. It’s almost as if somewhere in the back of my mind, I know that I cannot simply fuck this girl. Oh, who the hell am I kidding?
I introduce her to Mouse and Peacock. Mouse does a great job of capturing her attention and before I know it, Raine is sitting between Mouse and myself, only closer to Mouse.
I suddenly feel like I need a cigarette. Without a word, I get up and leave the three of them to their conversation.
“You all right?” Beck asks me as I step out into the chilly New York evening.
“No,” I say sharply and light a cigarette.
“She’s fucking gorgeous,” Beck says.
“Too fucking gorgeous. I’d fuck that girl up.” I lean against the building, propping my foot against the wall and pull a long drag off my smoke.
“Can I have one?” I raise my eyebro
w at him.
“She got you that bad too?” I suddenly start to understand what Talon and Kyle went through when they both met Addison. I look at Beck… yeah, no, there ain’t nothing there. But Raine certainly wouldn’t be the first woman we’ve shared.
“Something like that. Did you see that ink?” He smirks like he has a secret. The fucker.
“What little I could, yeah, I saw it. I’d love to find out what’s really under that tank top.”
“See you later, Raine,” Mouse says as he and Peacock take off, their guards in tow. Dex took off like a bat out of hell. I knew it was foolish of me to think that I could honest to god turn his head. I down the rest of my drink just as the waitress comes over to clear off the guys’ beer bottles.
“Can I get you something?” she asks with a smile and I smile back.
“Yes, please, another Cosmo? Actually, keep ‘em coming,” I tell her.
“Room number?”
I give her my room number and her eyes flare slightly. No doubt she knows full well who her previous patrons were and who is actually on the seventeenth floor of the hotel.
“What’s the name on the room?”
I roll my eyes, give her my name and hand over my license.
“Sorry, we just have to be sure.” She hands me back my license.
“I understand.” With that, she takes her full tray and returns to the bar. I watch her, just because I have nothing else to do, as she puts in my information. No doubt seeing the previous Cosmo on the bill and realizing that I wasn’t kidding her. The seventeenth floor is completely off limits to the public. Requiring a keycard in the elevator and no other guests are allowed to rent the rooms on the floor. Though I think between the band members, the guards, and me, it’s full anyway.
My phone chimes. I pull it out and look at the information that’s coming from Cami, followed by a text.
Cami: Hope you made it safe, hope all is well.
