by Lisa Suzanne
But it’s not.
I fell in love with a rock star the last time I was here. How the hell was I supposed to know I’d fall in love with his brother next?
sixteen
When Brian pushes open the door, every nuance from the night I last passed through this same door rushes back to me.
Jill pulled out her press pass plus the pass she borrowed from a friend for me after the show, and voila…we were backstage.
She led me through a series of hallways before we landed in front of a door with a temporary sign that read VAIL. She flashed her pass to the guard like she’d done this a million times, and I followed suit. My hands shook as I held up my pass. The guard eyed me for a second as nerves danced around my stomach. I could swear he was studying me, looking at me differently than he looked at Jill. He could tell I wasn’t with the press. I had some look about me that must’ve said what I was doing was wrong.
He was going to confiscate my pass, we were going to get kicked out, and Jill was going to get in big trouble. Oh, fuck, how much trouble? Could she get fired for this, for sharing a press pass with a friend instead of an actual member of the press? He shook his head and chuckled, but then he opened the door that allowed our entry into Vail’s dressing room.
Instead of the nerves subsiding when the door opened, they only grew into waves that darted through my entire body, from the tips of my tingling toes to the tops of my buzzing ears.
The first thing I noticed were the women—mostly blondes. All had hair longer than mine, legs tanner than mine, and breasts bigger and faker than mine. I don’t know what I expected. I don’t even know if I had an expectation in my mind, but this seemed about right.
I glanced around the room, and my eyes landed on him immediately. Mark Ashton, the whole reason I was back here, stood off to one side of the room wearing nothing but a pair of jeans.
My breath left my body and I choked on a gasp.
The body I’d seen so many times in pictures was standing right in front of me. The tattoos I’d easily be able to pick out of a crowd marked his perfect skin. His feet were bare, his dark hair was damp as if he just stepped out of the shower, and his chest and abdomen were a mass of chiseled muscle. He was lean, though—not big and bulky, but limber and perfect. My mouth watered at the same time my throat dried. My face felt all hot, like I was blushing uncontrollably and involuntarily, and the wave of heat traveled through my body and into my blood.
In the periphery, I knew the three other members of the chart topping band were in the room. A party was in full swing; voices hummed around me over blaring rock music. A group of people started chanting as one of the guys from the band chugged a beer—Ethan, the drummer. He slammed the can to the ground as he finished then grabbed the blonde standing next to him to shove his tongue down her throat. But I couldn’t focus on any of that because my entire being was laser-focused on Mark Ashton, as if there was no one and nothing else in the room.
He held his phone to his ear as he spoke to someone—probably the reason he set himself apart from the group that had formed in the room. It was too loud for me to hear his voice. He held a glass tumbler with amber liquid in his other hand, and a blonde woman hung herself around his neck, clinging to him. He was paying her no attention, though.
He glanced in our direction as I followed Jill into the room as if this was all perfectly normal. He said something into the phone and ended the call, sliding his phone into his pocket with his gaze focused on me. He said something to the woman hanging on him, and she stuck out her puffy lower lip in disappointment before she let go of him and headed over toward her friends who were standing by Ethan.
Jill stepped right up to him as if meeting the biggest rock star on the planet was an everyday occurrence. She’d schooled herself to fangirl on the inside because of her position as a reporter. I had no such training.
“Jill Hart from the Sin City Sun,” she said, sticking her hand out to shake his and ignoring the glares from the women across the room. “I just have a few quick questions.” He stepped toward her and shook her hand, and a dart of jealousy passed through me. She got to touch him.
Little did I know what the night had in store for me.
“Who’s your friend?” he asked, his eyes moving over to me. “A colleague?” He let go of Jill’s hand.
“I’m a huge fan,” I blurted, restraining myself from throwing my arms around his neck. Jill shot me a dirty look. The whole agreement we had that I’d keep my cool flew right out the window.
He chuckled. “Oh, I’m a fan of yours, too.” His voice sent a tingle through my chest and my cheeks burned even more than earlier.
“Wha—what?” I stuttered.
“Blue eyes, dark hair.” His eyes trailed from my face to my torso and down my legs, burning me and branding me as they moved. “Long legs…yeah, I’m definitely a fan.”
Jill shot me another dirty look as my cheeks flamed. I wasn’t sure if she was shooting me dirty looks because he was flirting with me and she wanted it to be her or because she was trying to interview him and he was ignoring her.
“Are you with the media, too?” he asked me.
Was he asking me because he planned to kick me out if I wasn’t? I shook my head, suddenly too dumbstruck and mortified to form actual words. Is love at first sight possible? Because I was pretty sure it was love.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
Who was I kidding? I’d been in love with this man for ten years. He was my teenage fantasy come to life right there in the flesh in front of me. And he was talking to me—like his mouth was forming actual words that he wanted me to hear.
Oh, shit. He was talking to me…as in, I was supposed to respond.
“Reese,” I managed to say.
“Like the peanut butter cups?”
I nodded.
“You know what they say about peanut butter cups, don’t you?”
I shook my head.
He grinned, and my heart nearly beat out of my chest. “Sweet on the outside and creamy on the inside.”
My face continued to burn like the fucking moron I am, but words—and my brain—failed me.
“Mm. Isn’t their slogan something about how there’s no wrong way to eat a Reese’s?”
I usually have ten sarcastic comments at the ready for cheesy lines about my name, but somehow coming from Mark Ashton, they didn’t seem so cheesy.
I stood in stunned silence that this rock god was even looking at me, let alone paying attention to me and flirting with me. He kept firing lines at me, but he didn’t need to. He didn’t have to say a word to me—he could’ve just shot me one smoldering glance, and I would’ve dropped my panties for him.
He lifted the amber liquid to his lips, and my wide eyes followed the path of the glass.
Something came over me in that moment—something that told me this was my chance. I couldn’t think of a time I’d wanted something more than I wanted Mark Ashton right then, that night. I wanted an invitation to his place. I wanted to be the woman he brought home with him. I didn’t know how these things worked, though. I saw him with a different woman in every gossip magazine I’d ever picked up, but I wasn’t sure if he approached the women before he brought them home or if they asked.
All I knew was that I couldn’t leave this dressing room backstage at Mandalay Bay with regrets.
So whatever it was that came over me, I went with it.
“I’d love to find somewhere private to let you find out for yourself.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise, and I had a feeling I’d snared his attention. I was proud of myself. This was so far out of my comfort zone that my good sense was practically in another country, but I’d do it for Mark. This was my one shot.
“You want to come back to my place?”
Fuck yes! I almost said that out loud, but I managed to stop myself.
Are you kidding me? An invitation to Mark fucking Ashton’s house?
I drew in a deep breath,
determined not to come off like a total fool. He wanted me to go to his place. That could mean only one thing, and there was no way in hell I was going to deny myself that chance—even if he was basing his invitation on nothing more than me asking. And a physical attraction…but what one-night stand didn’t start because of an instant attraction? “I’d love to.”
“Can I just ask you a few questions, first?” Jill asked him, saving a special glare for me.
He finally pulled his eyes away from me to focus on my friend. “Right. Sure.”
She fired away, and he answered. It all seemed very professional except for the way his eyes kept edging over to me.
“Just one more question,” she finally said, and he nodded for her to continue. “What do you look for in a woman?”
He cleared his throat and ran his eyes slowly from my eyes down to my legs. Heat seared me with every spot his eyes landed on my body. “Blue eyes, long legs, Vail tail.”
Warmth crept up my neck again.
“Vail tail?” Jill asked.
Mark shot her a wicked, flirty grin. “Fangirls. You know, the women who’ll do whatever it takes to get backstage after a show.” He nodded toward my shirt.
“Really?” Jill whined. “That’s what you want me to print in the Sin City Sun?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Sweet on the outside and creamy on the inside. Will that work instead?”
“Not really,” she said.
He shot her a lazy grin, the very epitome of a bad boy. “I’m not real picky when it comes to women, as you may have heard. I like women who look like your friend here. I like women who like to have fun, obviously. You probably don’t want to quote that, but it’s fairly well recorded at this point.” He took another cool and confident sip from his glass. “I like women who are smart and funny. Off the record, I don’t usually get to know much more about them beyond that.”
I should’ve felt insulted with his speech, or at least surprised that he was so blunt. He didn’t know anything about me aside from my name and what I looked like on the outside, yet he was ready to take me back to his place. That was a total cocky douche move, yet it didn’t stop me.
Besides all that, I counted myself lucky that he chose me. I counted myself fortunate that even though there were several other women in Vail’s dressing room, he chose me. He could have his pick of anyone in the world, and he still chose me.
Yes, I should’ve been insulted. But fucking a rock star was a total bucket list item.
And I was about to check that off my list.
A few minutes later, his driver wove through Saturday night traffic on the Strip to get us safely back to his place at the Mandarin Oriental as we talked in the back of the car. We were sitting next to each other in the back of his customized Yukon. The row of seats in front of us was turned to face us. It looked like meetings could take place back there. Mark put his legs up on the seat across from us and closed the black tinted glass separating the backseat from his driver up front. His big hand rested on my leg, inching up my thigh, and I hugged his arm to my chest. It felt comfortable, like we knew each other, like we’d been together a long time and we were just headed home after a day at the office together…or something like that.
“What’s it like being a rock star?” I asked him. I wanted to know every single detail about him. I still felt like I was living inside some crazy fantasy, like I’d wake up at any minute alone in my bed. I wondered when he’d attack—when the making out and all the sex would get underway.
I chewed the inside of my cheek for a second just to see if I could feel the pain, to make sure this was all real.
“It’s pretty fucking awesome,” he answered in that deep timbre that sounded like every favorite song of mine.
“What makes it awesome?”
“Getting paid to do what I love. Traveling the world with my best friends. The rush I get on stage. Looking out over a sold-out venue, watching as people sing along to songs I wrote…there’s nothing like it.” His voice was quiet, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he always spoke so sincerely with every woman he brought back to his place. He seemed genuine in the moment, but I had no basis for comparison.
“I sang along to every song,” I said shyly. I glanced over at him, still trying to figure out if this was really happening.
Tingles prickled through my belly as his eyes met mine and his lips tipped up. “I know. I watched.”
“You did?”
“I was drawn to you over and over. I’m so focused when I’m up on that stage, but every time I looked at you, you threw me off my game a little. Your eyes lit up with every new song we played, glowed up at me from down below. When you walked into the dressing room backstage, it felt a little like destiny.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and didn’t hide the fact that he was writing a note. A Little Like Destiny.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“It’s my list. Lyrics, titles, snippets of conversation. Words that speak to me.”
My stomach twisted violently. That was the first time I knew I was going to have a tough time getting over this night.
“For songwriting?” I asked.
He nodded and tapped out some more words on his phone. “You’re different, Reese. You’re not like the others.” His voice was a murmur as he focused on what he was typing.
“I’m not?” I asked.
He shook his head, and I prayed this wasn’t some line he used on every girl.
“How?” I pressed.
He lifted his shoulder. “Some connection with you I felt even from the stage that felt even stronger when I saw you walk in. You seem like you have substance. You’re interesting.”
“The others aren’t?”
He shrugged. “They’re here because I’m the lead singer of Vail. They’re not here because they care about me.”
“And you think I do?”
“I know you do.” His voice was soft and tender, the tone reminiscent of the one he used when he sang my favorite Vail ballad. A shudder ran through me.
“How do you know?”
“I’ve learned how to read people. Did you know I studied Psychology at Northern?”
I shook my head. As much as I’ve stalked his online biographies over the last ten years, I had no idea.
“I have a Master’s in Psych and I’m a few credits shy of a PhD.”
Was I really sitting in the back of a car discussing degrees with Mark fucking Ashton? What was this life? “When are you planning to finish?”
“I don’t know if I am. I take a class here or there when we’re not on tour, mostly online ones, but the requirements for getting the PhD aren’t feasible with my job.”
“What are the requirements?” I asked.
“Depends. If I want to be a clinical psychologist, there would be labs and practicums. If I want to teach it, I’d need to TA or create a course. And then there’s the dissertation, which takes years of research for anyone, but I don’t have years to dedicate to research.”
“Why psychology?”
“I’ve always been fascinated with human behavior.” His fingertips inched up my thigh a little.
“So what about my behavior tells you I care about you?”
He chuckled. “For starters, you actually asked me when I’m planning to finish my degree and you listened when I answered.”
“What else?”
“The way you’re sitting.”
I glanced down at us. We were both leaning back comfortably—slouching almost. His hand was on my leg, and my arms were looped around his arm, holding it captive, his upper arm embraced tightly against my chest as my hands clasped around his bicep.
“What about this position tells you anything about me?”
“You’re holding my arm. Most women by now have grabbed for my junk, put my hand on their tits, stuck their tongue in my—”
“I don’t need the details,” I interrupted, holding up a hand.
He laughed. �
��You get the idea.”
“Unfortunately, I do.” And that’s what makes this so damn hard. “So why music instead of psychology?”
“Aw, you ask like you care.”
I giggle. “I do care.”
“Told you.”
“Answer the question.”
“I picked up my first guitar when I was seven. It was my uncle’s. He was in a band that was locally successful, and he taught me how to play. I met Ethan in high school and we jammed all the time. We met Steve and James one summer and we just knew that we wanted to play music together. My parents still made me go to college, still made me get a degree, but I had to do a lot of it from the road. My entire Master’s was done on the road. Music was always my first love. Everything else took a backseat to that.”
I imagined that was why Mark was never with one woman for more than a night. No woman could ever hold a candle to his first love. Not only did he not have time for a relationship, but he didn’t have the desire for one, either.
“What’s the worst part of your job?” I asked.
He blew out a chuckle as he looked out the window. “People think they know me.”
“They don’t?”
He shook his head. “Shit in the press is all made up. People think because they read an article in a magazine, they know everything about my life.”
A cloud of guilt swirled around me. I’d done the very thing he was condemning.
“I can’t do shit without someone writing about it, and most of the time they don’t even get the facts right.”
“Like what?”
“The press fabricated an entire relationship between Maggie Westin and me.”
“They fabricated it?”
He nodded. “We hung out a few times at a mutual friend’s house, slept together once, and that was it. The tabloids practically had us married.”
“Do they ever spin stuff in your favor?” I asked.
“A couple years ago, I was hospitalized for exhaustion. Did you see that?”
“Of course. It was everywhere.”
