by Amber Lin
She gave a watery laugh. “Oh, Krist.”
“Ask me.”
“Is that what you really want? Or should I make you?”
His heart gave a hard kick. “Yes, princess.”
Her eyes darkened. She reached for him and stroked his cheek, his temple, his hair. His scalp tingled as she dug her fingers into his hair—and pushed his face into her lap.
“God, yes.” His cock throbbed in his jeans, but he ignored it and let her guide his face to the wet heat of her cunt. “Please.”
“Come with me.” God, yes, to that too. He reached for the fly of his pants, but she stopped him. “No, I mean come with me to Japan.”
“You want me to go on tour with you?” He darted his tongue between her folds, gathering her moisture on the tip of his tongue and swallowing it down.
“Yesss.” She hissed. “For as long as you can. As often as you can. I’ll be everywhere over the next two years. Some places twice.”
“I don’t think I can make a five a.m. flight.” He slipped a finger inside her and pressed a soft kiss to her clit.
“A later one then? I don’t think”—she bucked against his mouth, and he flattened his tongue, lapping the length of her, sucking her labia—“I can either.”
“Good. Now stop talking and let me take care of you.” He forced his shoulders under her legs and gripped her ass, pulling her to his mouth. “If you can still talk, I’m doing it wrong.”
“Just the tip.”
He smiled, remembering her dirty commands in the alley and the way she’d come all over his tongue. He’d make her come harder now that he didn’t have to worry about keeping her up in the air. He flicked her clit with the tip of his tongue again and again, slowly working three fingers inside her. Her inner muscles clenched around them. So tight. So hot. Impossibly wet. He lapped and lapped and still her juices ran down his hand, smeared everywhere. He couldn’t keep up, didn’t want to keep up. He just spread them around and sucked and sucked. Desperate and aching and so fucking sweet.
This was messy and wonderful, like both of them, like their lives separately, and how their life would be together.
“Oh, God. Krist? Krist. Yes.” She came, riding his face and his fingers, bucking and writhing, with his name—a question and a statement—on her lips.
While she shivered—coming back to herself, coming back to him—he kissed her where she was soft, sweet and open. “I love you, Madeline Fox.”
Epilogue
Krist tugged a thread free from a rip in his jeans and dangled it for Number Seven to bat around. His fat paws were like tiny catchers’ mitts compared to his skinny body, and the vet said he might never grow into them. But stunted growth due to malnutrition didn’t affect his ability to play.
“Feisty little shit.” Krist scratched Seven’s belly until the kitten wrapped his little legs around his arm and gnawed on the back of his hand. He couldn’t contain his grin, even with tiny kitten fangs, sharp as razors, sinking into his palm. Better he got clawed than the backseat of the limo.
He stroked just above Seven’s nose until the kitten settled down in his lap. He barely weighed anything, but he made up for his lack of size with volume. He purred like the diesel engine on a tour bus and had a mew that could break glass. “We’ll get you a better name soon. Maybe Amp.”
He checked his list again. Litter box, litter, kitty kibble, bowl for kibble, water dish, dewormer, treats, toys, more toys, a safety collar, a carrier. Check. Check. Double check. Jesus. “You’re an expensive piece of fluff, aren’t you?”
It was amazing how fast he’d gone from never-owned-a-pet-before to carrying on one-sided conversations. He checked the time on his phone. Three hours. That was probably a record. Due in no small part to the unbearable cuteness of Seven himself. He scrolled the texts he’d missed while shopping for cat contraband.
What time zone am I in? Jet lag is a bitch. No delay. Home soon.
You better be naked in the limo when I hit the tarmac.
He hated to disappoint her, but nudity and kitten claws weren’t a match made in heaven and the driver probably wouldn’t take kindly to being asked to cat sit so soon.
The limo came to a stop, and Krist heard the driver get out.
Krist’s stomach knotted with nervous anticipation. He hadn’t seen Maddy in five weeks, not since he’d flown back from Japan to clock some studio hours. His home videos had been fun, but it was time to start laying down some professional tracks. But every second apart from her had felt like agony—and not the good kind.
He scooted across the bench seat until he was sitting all the way over on the driver’s side and tucked Seven into his jacket. The door handle clicked and then opened, flooding half the backseat in afternoon light. Then Maddy burst in like a ball of sunshine herself. “God, I missed you.”
“Oof.” He grunted as she landed on him like a lioness taking down a gazelle. “I missed you too.”
“Why aren’t you naked? I asked for naked, didn’t I? I’ve been thinking about you naked my whole flight. Do you know how long that was?” She kissed as punctuation. Just lips at first but deepening with each question until they were all tongues and teeth. Desperate and hungry. He almost couldn’t remember why he wasn’t naked.
Mew. Mew. Mew.
Oh yeah.
“What. Is. That?” Maddy shrieked, pulling back. “Oh my God.”
Seven poked his nose out of Krist’s jacket and mewed some more. Expressing his righteous indignation at nearly being crushed by the force of her love.
“This is Number Seven.”
Carefully, reverently, she peeled the tiny furnace-slash-freight train off Krist’s shirt. One by one, the little dagger claws sprang free. Her eyes were so wide; his heart could hardly stand it. This was better than Christmas. “He’s so cute. Is he ours? Please say yes.”
Krist nodded.
She snuggled him under her neck, and Seven burrowed into her hair. “Like forever ours? Not a foster?”
“We just need to give him a real name. I was thinking maybe Amp because he’s so loud.”
“Amp is a perfect name.” She tugged her dangly earring out of Amp’s mouth and grabbed hold of Krist’s shirt. “Come here.”
He slid over until their legs were pressed together and their lips were only a breath apart. Amp purred a bass line between them. Their eyes locked, and Maddy licked her lips. “Will you sing me a song?”
“Yes, princess. Yes. Always yes.”
The End
Thank you!
Thank you for reading One Kiss with a Rock Star. We hope you enjoyed the ride. We appreciate anything you do to help spread the word about the Half-Life series, including leaving a review or recommending it to a friend.
The next book in the series, Second Chance with a Rock Star, will feature drummer Moe and someone from his past—in a place he least expects. If you’d like to get notified when it comes out, sign up for Amber’s newsletter and Shari’s newsletter!
The first book in the series, Three Nights with a Rock Star, is available now. Turn the page to read an excerpt…
Excerpt from Three Nights with a Rock Star
Twenty dollars for parking? Per night. And the garage was the budget-friendly option. Valet didn’t even have the price listed. Resigned, Hailey dug in her purse for a twenty and handed it over. The booth attendant raised his eyebrow, giving her car a once-over. Well, okay. Message received. She clearly didn’t belong at the ritzy hotel, even as a visitor.
It was true. She normally spent less than twenty dollars a day on food. And her old Toyota had broken down twice on the drive into Chicago. Heck, the booth attendant probably made more than she did. But if she was going to be stuck here for a few days, she’d have to adjust her standards a little bit. It was for a good cause.
A necessary cause.
The garage was filled to the brim, a gleaming array of BMWs, Porsches, and other brands she couldn’t name. They looked like jewels on a velvet display case, her rusty
hunk of steel an unseemly contrast.
She traveled lower, into the bowels of the hotel, and found an open space hiding in a corner. Her coupe managed to squeeze between the painted concrete wall and the metal Dumpster. She wrinkled her nose at the smell already seeping inside the car.
Holding her breath, she peeked at herself in the rearview mirror.
A stranger stared back at her. A stranger with heavy eyeliner and blue shadow. And glitter all over her face. The eye makeup had been on purpose. The glitter had been an unfortunate accident with the shimmer powder and a stuck lid.
She hadn’t bothered to wash it off, though. It made her look fun and zany, like the kind of person who would take a dare and up the stakes. The kind of person who would crash a major label band’s after-party. It made her look like a different person, and for the next few days that was who she would be.
Focus. She could do this. She had to do this.
The car door clattered against the metal wall of the Dumpster, leaving only a sliver of space. She sucked in her stomach and squeezed through—and heard an unfortunate rip. Damn. She glanced down. She’d torn her stockings. Her sister’s stockings, technically.
Hailey was used to getting runs in her stockings at work. Chubby little hands with razor-sharp nails made it common. But this was more than a small run. This was a gaping hole right at her left ankle. Hazards of wearing fishnets, she supposed.
It seemed colder here even though the temperature shouldn’t be much different than Lake Elkhart. Maybe it was the lack of blood circulation after driving for hours. Or maybe it was nerves. Either way, she felt chilled to the bone. She reached inside for the cardigan she always left stashed in her backseat. It never hurt to be prepared.
She followed the signs to the elevator bay, breathing a sigh of relief as she cleared the Dumpster’s smelly radius. The button lit red while she waited.
Ding.
She wobbled as she moved in front of the elevator about to open. How did her sister wear these shoes, anyway? Reflective gold doors slid apart, revealing a couple. Having sex. Or almost having sex? She wasn’t sure. But the rhythmic motions and clothes shoved aside certainly indicated…good Lord.
Their harsh breathing echoed in the elevator. They were moving, rubbing, grinding. A flash of pink skin. Hailey definitely shouldn’t have seen anything pink, but she couldn’t stop looking. Couldn’t stop staring. Her eyelids were frozen, her whole body clamped into place, pinned under the weight of her own naïveté.
The guy looked up from the elevator floor. His heated gaze ran down her body and up again, and unlike the booth attendant, this guy seemed pleased with what he saw.
Her mouth hung open. She snapped it shut.
“Pardon me,” she said inanely. As if she had been the one to interrupt them. Which, in a way, she had been.
His grin was feral. “Come on in. Water’s fine.”
Oh my God. “No, thank you. I’ll catch the next one.”
Of its own volition, her gaze wandered down the slope of his back to the guy’s exposed ass, clenching and thrusting. She wasn’t about to join in, but in some distant, terrifying way, the scene tugged at her.
The girl beneath him giggled as she watched Hailey from beneath heavy lids. “He calls it a joyride.”
“I can see why,” Hailey said faintly.
The elevator doors closed on their laughter. She stared at her own reflection once again. The elevator bay echoed silent, absent of gasped breaths and fabric rubbing against fabric.
So, that was different.
She took a deep breath of cool, stale air.
On the upside, she now felt totally awake after her long, drowsy drive. Way more effective than a jolt of caffeine could have been. Half-naked people rutting on the elevator floor were her own personal splash of water in the face.
On the downside, she wasn’t sure she could pull off her plan anymore. She wasn’t cut out for this. This was Chloe’s scene. Chloe wouldn’t have been freaked out by a couple having a good time. Though Hailey had no desire to imagine her sister going on a joyride.
Remembering her reaction, her stomach sank. No, thank you. Ugh. Could she be any more prim? She’d just been…shocked. Had she ever seen two other people having sex before? No. In real life, no. There had been a few wayward Internet searches she wasn’t entirely sure were proper.
She stood in the musty alcove, torn by indecision. Should she still go up? What choice did she have?
Her phone beeped. She glanced at the screen to see a text from Chloe.
Pineapple and canadian bacon?
Her heart panged. It was a peace offering, that text. Things had been strained between them the past few days, after her sister’s revelation. They had always been best friends or mortal enemies, constantly teasing or at each other’s throats, so the quiet politeness had been unnerving.
The text also meant her sister hadn’t found the quickly scrawled note letting her know that Hailey would be gone for a few days. The pizza delivery and C-rated movie would have to wait until she got back.
One good thing: the exchange steeled her resolve. Her spine straightened. She pressed the elevator button again and texted back for Chloe to eat without her.
She was doing this for her sister. Her only family. She needed to do it, or everything she’d worked toward in taking care of Chloe, in building a better life for them, would be for nothing. She had to, or history would repeat itself.
So when the reflective doors opened again, she stepped into the elevator. Stepped through the looking glass, where everything was upside-down and inside out, and so was she.
What she found was…disaster.
Hailey had imagined her arrival in the hotel several times during the long drive over. In her mind it would be more like storming a castle than pushing through heavy glass doors. In every fantasy she had been tough. Even fierce.
In none of them had she stumbled over a stranger who was halfway to puking into a lobby fern. And then he was puking. There were a few other people sprawled on couches or just right on the floor, but no one looked conscious. And certainly no one looked concerned by the sick man at her feet.
She knelt and awkwardly patted his back. He listed to the side and landed with his head in her lap.
Ugh. She fished in her purse for a wet wipe and pressed it into his hand. Those wipes always came in handy for runny noses or sticky hands. With a sleepy burp the man in her arms closed his eyes and appeared to fall asleep.
Should she…just leave him here?
That seemed wrong. But then again, he was hardly alone. There were a multitude of sleeping—or stoned?—bodies strewn around the sleek, modern lobby. It seemed a little early to have partied and collapsed by seven p.m., like they were her preschoolers who were wild all day and then crashed at a reasonable bedtime.
Despite the hefty price tag that surely accompanied such a place, no attendant stood behind the glass-paneled counter. A swanky hotel like this one would have someone stationed all night long. Maybe they had fled the scene.
Maybe Hailey would be smart to follow suit.
But she couldn’t leave. She hadn’t spent the last ten years taking care of her sister only to mess it up now. Arguably she already had messed it up, but she was going to fix it. She wouldn’t leave until it was fixed. She just had to find the lead singer—he went by the name of Lock—and appeal to his better nature…but first she had to figure out what to do with the passed-out guy in her lap.
From the wispy shadows down a corridor came the squeak of steps. At least someone here was awake and upright. And tall, she realized, listening to the slow, casual pace. Hopefully he would know where she could find Lock.
*
Lock stormed into the lobby. Moe had ganked his lucky guitar pick—again—and he was going to get it back. Even if it meant wading through the pile of half-naked bodies spread before him. The air was thick with sweat, bong water, bourbon, and vomit. His stomach should turn, but all he wanted to do was roll around in it
. Like a stray dog.
No. He might be dirty, but he’d been sober for 372 days. Screwing that up was not an option.
His career—his life—depended on it. He knew too well how one misstep could destroy everything. He had the sex tape, the canceled tour dates and now the record label’s sword of Damocles hanging over his head to prove it.
He tripped over Krist, who was sprawled on the floor in front of an empty upholstered chair, like he’d shot for the seat and given up a few steps short. His face pressed into the hotel lobby carpet, muffling his words. “The fuck, man?”
“Looking for Moe. You know where he landed?”
“Up some redhead’s skirt.” Krist rolled onto his back, exposing his inked stomach—the cover art from their first album—and the top of his junk. His pants were still open.
Lock nudged him in the ribs with his boot. “Zip it, man. And roll over. We don’t need you pulling a Hendrix.”
“Whatever, bro. You flashed your shit all over the Internet.”
He winced. Bro was a reference to the weeklong hookup between Lock’s mother and Krist’s father in the endless ’80s rock-star sex parade. They weren’t really siblings—in fact, far from it. But they used the name as a reminder of their shared past. They’d both been castoffs on tour. Too young to party but old enough to want to. They’d picked up guitars and taught themselves—taught each other—to play. Screwing around with instruments they had no business touching. Some things never change. Krist hadn’t called him bro in a long time. Not since before Lock had started fucking everything up, long before he’d flashed his shit. He hadn’t chosen to do that. Someone had done it for him. But he’d owned it like it was all part of his master plan. What else was he supposed to do? Bro. It was a stalemate. The cold war within the Half-Life band.
He nudged Krist again. “I mean it, bro.”
Krist flipped him off but rolled over anyway. Lock wasn’t in charge, but people usually did what he said. Usually. Since he’d—what did his agent call it?—embraced sobriety. Not fucking Moe. Where was that sneaky bastard? Lock wanted to embrace his balls with a vise.
