by Holly Hart
Five million views!
I was beginning to feel unsteady on my feet, like the whole world was shifting beneath me and I was the only thing not moving with it. The only thing I could think to say after the huge revelation the girls had just delivered was, "That's, uh, twenty-five bucks, please."
They looked at each other and giggled. "Sure thing. Can we get a selfie?"
"I guess so," I agreed, not used to random strangers coming up to me and asking me for a photo.
Was this actually happening?
They got their photo and disappeared off into the dimly lit depths of the bar, giggling and high-fiving each other, and I was left on my own in shock. I switched back to autopilot mode – my brain apparently deciding I would have to deal with this unexpected revelation when I got home.
I served the next couple of customers automatically, my body operating as though it was under some kind of mental torpor, like I had been anaesthetized and I was still recovering.
"Alicia Hudson?"
Oh Christ, what now?
"Huh? Who said that?" I asked.
A suavely dressed thin man in his mid-thirties wearing an open-collar midnight blue suit raised his right arm and beckoned me over. "You're Alicia, right?"
"You getting a drink, buddy?" I asked, keeping my voice friendly – but with just enough bite to let him know that, right now, I wasn't the kind of girl he should be messing with. "And how do you know my name?" I asked, finally clocking how creepy that was. "Are you some kind of stalker or something?"
He didn't look like a stalker, but then, I guessed most good stalkers probably didn't. And after the shock I'd already experienced tonight, I wasn't prepared to be friendly on the off chance it was all just a misunderstanding.
"No, no," he looked a little bit affronted, "nothing of the sort."
I stirred, looking sassy with my hands on my hips. To hell with what Tom would think. "Drink?" I asked, cocking my eyebrow dangerously.
"Gin and tonic, please."
Nice and easy, good. At least he wasn't planning on messing me around. I picked up a bottle of Aviation Gin and a bottle of imported British tonic water in either hand and poured them into a chilled highball glass over ice, squeezed a sprig of rosemary in my palm and arranged it delicately on top. I handed it over.
"Thanks," he said, taking a long sip and maintaining eye contact with me.
He didn't look like he was in any hurry to move things along, and I was beginning to feel far too impatient to deal with this guy's nonsense.
"So spit it out," I said. "Why you here?"
"You're not afraid to speak your mind, are you?" he asked, grinning. "I like that."
He reached into his unbuttoned suit jacket, pulling a wallet out of the left inside pocket. It was patently obvious what he was doing – showing off the fact that it was stuffed with bills – but regardless, it did make him seem somewhat more credible in my eyes. He handed over a fifty, then reached into the pocket on the right and pulled out a business card.
I pulled it out of his fingers before he was quite ready to give it over, eager to take a little bit of control back over the situation.
"Mike Riley?" I asked. "Who the hell is Mike Riley?"
"That would be me, Alicia. I'm Mr. Hunt's agent."
"Mr. Hunt?" I laughed. "You're calling him Mister, are you?" The fact that I was apparently standing opposite a platinum selling artist's agent didn't seem to bother me in the slightest, probably because I'd been through so much in the past twenty-four hours that, right now, nothing would. I leaned forward, resting my arms on the mahogany bar between us. "So why are you here, Mr. Riley?"
"Five million views, Alicia. That's the kind of thing a man like me notices. You're a star, you know that?"
"I guessed it had something to do with that," I said deliberately, "but you haven't actually told me why you're here."
"I want to make you an offer…"
6
Clay
I was up at the studio by nine in the morning, stone cold sober and with a clear head. It was probably the earliest I'd been there in months, if not years.
I wasn't there to record, I just needed to see Mike. The moment he appeared around the door, even before he'd had a chance to set his briefcase down on the floor, I shot to my feet and pounced.
"So?"
He looked at me, unwinding an expensive Armani scarf from his neck. "So what?"
"You know exactly what, Mike. Don't play games," I shot back frostily. Usually I enjoyed this little verbal repartee with my manager, but right now all I could think about was the fact that it was getting in the way of me and my cocoa crush.
"Ah, the girl…"
"She's more than a girl, Mike."
"She certainly is," he agreed. "That girl's got something about her. She's smart."
"What happened last night?" I asked, for the first time in years interested in discussing one of Mike's negotiations. Usually, he had to practically rope me to the desk before he got me to talk about business. Today, I was jumping down his throat to hear more.
"I'm not exactly sure," Mike admitted. "We chatted, I basically offered to make her a star, but…"
"She said no?" I asked, incredulous. "Why?"
"Not exactly," Mike said, and my heart leapt with joy. This girl had the organ – both my organs – tied down with bungee cord, and I couldn't take this rollercoaster ride much longer.
"She said she needed some time to think about it."
"What's there to think about?" I asked, surprised. "We're going to make this girl famous. Hell, she's already famous – have you seen, it's up to twenty million? This shit's off the charts!"
"You, Clay. That's what she needs to think about," he said, fixing me with a stern, managerial stare.
"Me?" I said recoiling. "What the hell did I do?"
"She thinks you just want to get into her pants, and judging by the looks you are giving her on that video, I'm not surprised."
"I don't just want to sleep with her," I replied lamely. "I haven't sung like that in years…" It was true, I wanted to feel joy in my music again, instead of feeling like it was just a constant procession of identical commercial tracks designed to make me as much money as possible. I'd done that. I'd played that game for years.
But that didn't mean I didn't also want to fuck her, because I did. I wanted that more than anything in the world. I wanted to see her gorgeous, rich cocoa skin against my sheets, the pink of the slit between her thighs…
I shook my head, my cock stiffening again.
God, what hold has this girl got on me?
And then I heard it, a knocking at the door. I was so horny that it was like all my senses were supercharged, so I wasn't surprised when someone stuck their head around the door, but I sure as hell wasn't prepared for her to appear on the other side.
"You guys busy?" she asked.
"For you? Never," I replied gallantly. The look she shot me in return made me more than aware of how lame my comment had been.
"Miss Hudson, you've decided to join us?" Mike said, leaping to his feet. "I have to say, I'm somewhat surprised…"
Alicia walked around the door and took my breath away. She was even more drop dead gorgeous than I remembered, and I remembered her being a fucking ebony goddess. She wasn't dressed up – far from it – just tight black jeans tucked into calf-high leather boots and a sky blue, floral top, but she still looked better than any woman I'd ever had in my bed. I couldn't keep my eyes off her.
"I thought about it," she said, "and I decided to give it a go."
"Incredible," Mike began – but she cut him off almost immediately.
"I'm glad you agree," she said drily, "but I have some conditions."
"Conditions?" Mike said, looking a little bit less confident. I'd never seen him knocked off his game like this before and I was reassured by the fact that it wasn't just me she had some kind of hold over.
Or was that more worrying? Who was this girl?
"Just
a few. I've had a think about this, and the way I see it, we can both be very useful to each other," she said, looking completely self-assured.
"Miss Hudson," Mike began confidently, "I think you'll find with Mr. Hunt's, sorry – Clay's resources by your side, we'll be rather more useful to you…"
"I don't think so," she said. For many other woman, it would have sounded cocky, almost arrogant, but from Alicia – I savored the way her name sounded – from Alicia it just sounded calm and confident. "I think you and your client," she began, shooting me an almost contemptuous look that made me, if anything, want her more, "need me quite a lot."
"How do you figure?" Mike asked.
"When was the last time Clay here," she looked me up and down, "hit the top ten?"
"That's beside the point…" Mike began, but this time I cut him off.
"Hey, what's your problem?" I asked furiously. "What the hell I have done to you?"
Shit, Clay – that's not the way to get her to like you!
"It's nothing personal," Alicia said calmly, "but my phone has been ringing off the hook for almost a day now, all people offering me different record deals. It's been kinda nuts…" She finally sounded, well, human with her final aside.
"So why are you here?" I asked jealously. "Why not go with one of these other opportunities?"
She shot me a look, but it was one that I couldn't quite figure out. It was almost hungry, but no sooner had I seen it, it was gone – subsumed by her calm, assured demeanor. This girl was driving me wild.
"You, Clay," she said simply. My heart did another fucking backflip, and so did my cock as it dared to believe that she was here for me. It was all I'd wanted for two days now, and I could almost reach out and touch it – touch her.
"Me?" I replied, touching my hand to my broad, thick chest and allowing a self-satisfied, smug smile to reach the corners of my mouth. "I'm glad you think of me so highly—"
"Not like that," she replied haughtily, but this time I certainly didn't miss the rapid flick of her eyes down towards the bulge now clearly visible in my jeans. "We, uh, sing well together, Clay. I'm not cocky enough to ignore that fact."
"Oh, we'd do more than just sing well together," I growled, looking at her meaningfully. I could have sworn she flushed under my hungry, primal stare, but her lustrous cocoa skin hid it well.
"Clay," Mike interjected, "behave yourself." I shot him a filthy look. Why couldn't he understand that I didn't care about my career – all I wanted to do was pin this beauty down and ravage her till she came, calling my name? My cock jerked.
"I don't think so," she said simply, shooting me down. Still, the flush on her cheeks was undeniable now, evidence enough for me that she wasn't entirely resistant to my charms. "I'm here to sing, Clay, not fuck you. Your bedpost has quite enough notches, thank you very much, and I don't want to be one of them."
I growled. "Believe me, baby, you wouldn't just be a notch on my bedpost. I'd give you everything, everything you ever wanted."
"Oh, don't worry," she said. "I’ll get there myself."
7
Alicia
"So, shall we jam?" Clay asked, his rugged and handsome face alive with excitement – which I feared was because of his anticipation of spending the rest of the day buttoned up in a tiny recording studio with me, rather than because he had any great desire to sing for its own sake.
"I guess…"
I was keeping my sentences concise and to the point, mainly because I was stunned how well this crazy little plan of mine had gone. When I walked in here this morning, my phone might have been blowing up, but the calls were mainly from my friends – I didn't have a single offer from another agent, and there certainly weren't hundreds of record producers queueing up to call me…
That was all a bluff.
But it worked. It worked better than I could ever have expected. When Mike, Clay's manager, suggested a seventy-thirty income split, a strong breeze could have knocked me over. I walked in expecting maybe ten percent, if that. I'd never been happier to have been proved wrong. Hell, I didn't understand it – Clay was the big draw, I was just some girl with barely enough money to stay off the streets!
"I'd better get out of here," Mike said. "I'm going to have to run this deal past the label. You guys don't need me here."
"No, we certainly don't," Clay said, looking at me avariciously. I shot him a dirty look, but it did nothing to put him off. The man was shameless! I'd have to watch out around him, that much was clear. I had no idea whether my will power would be enough, because truth be told, I wanted nothing more than to share his bed, to taste his cock, to find out exactly how accurate Clay ‘Hung’ Hunt's nickname was.
Judging by the bulge in his pants, extremely…
"You kids have fun," were Mike's parting words as he spun around the door, briefcase in hand.
"It's just us, then," I said nervously to Clay. "You're going to have to show me the ropes – I've never been in a recording studio before."
"Oh, I'll show you the ropes, alright," he replied, a satisfied smirk filling his face.
"I didn't mean it like that," I replied, horrified at the minor double entendre I'd accidentally inserted into my request. At least, I thought it was accidental, but perhaps it was my brain doing its best to finally get me laid. It had been way, way too long… But I sure as hell couldn't break my dry streak with Clay Hunt – he was my ticket to the big time.
Was it going to be like this all day, I wondered. Hell, was it going to be like this until the record was done? Everything I knew about Clay, which admittedly didn't go much beyond a thorough perusal of a certain celebrity gossip magazine and some Internet searches that morning, suggested that this kind of behavior was exactly his modus operandi.
I knew I was going to have to be careful around him, especially because I wanted to do nothing more than let him have his way with me.
I followed him into the recording booth and was immediately thrust uncomfortably close into his broad, muscular back as he closed the door.
He shot me another one of those panty-dropping smiles. "Sorry," he grinned, "it gets a bit tight in here sometimes…"
"I noticed." I said it coldly, doing my best to throw cold water on his advances to me, but I was struggling to hide the fact that ever since my face grazed his back a few seconds ago, it was like a switch had been flicked in my brain. I didn't know if it was his pheromones, or something else entirely, but all of a sudden, I wanted to jump him – right then and there. It took every ounce of strength I had to control myself, but like a predator sensing prey, I was pretty sure Clay knew exactly what kind of affect he was having on me.
"Anything in particular you want to sing?" he asked.
This, really, was where all of my plans broke down. I'd written some of my own stuff, but it wasn't exactly suitable for a duet – mainly powerful black power ballads, and I couldn't really see Clay Hunt playing the Whitney Houston part.
"Uh, not really…" I confessed. "I didn't come with any lyrics…"
"Don't worry about it. You know how this business works?" he asked, shuffling through a stack of papers on a small table in front of the microphone stand.
"Again, not really." I was beginning to feel like a fish out of water, and Clay was just about the last person I would ever have picked as my mentor. As the other half of a holiday fling, sure, but a musical partner?
"Songwriters send in dozens of these things, and most of them just get stuck in a pile somewhere – never looked at. The best writers might have a few agents on speed dial, but mainly they just send it into a slush pile and hope someone eventually comes across it."
"So that's the slush pile?" I asked, indicating the stack of papers in front of him.
"Exactly."
"Mind if I have a look?" I asked, curious.
"Four eyes are better than two," he agreed, handing me half of the thick stack of sheaves he was leafing through.
I idly flicked through a few pages, with very little idea of what
to expect, but at the same time not really expecting to find much of anything – after all, Clay was the expert in this domain, not me.
I left one eye on what I was doing, and casually studied Clay with the other. He wasn't exactly what I'd expected – at least, not in the booth. Sure, on the one hand, he was clearly a sex-crazed alpha male, struggling desperately to find a place in a world that had more less moved on from the days when it was okay to just drink, fight and fuck, but on the other, it was quickly becoming obvious that Clay loved his work.
Other than with his frequent and obvious attempts to get me into his bed, I hadn't seen him display much enthusiasm for anything. Music, it seemed, was the only thing besides his cock that still managed to light a fire underneath him. He looked single-mindedly focused and dedicated as I watched him flick through the prospective songs.
He seemed a million miles away from the man I'd seen a couple of nights before, drunk, with his lip still bleeding from the fight that had almost ruined my one shot at the big time. The only question I had was – was I somehow responsible for the change, or had he always been this dedicated?
Or perhaps, maybe the truth lay somewhere in the middle.
"What about this one?" he said, offering me a couple of sheets of white paper.
"Doesn't it have a title?" I asked, surprised.
"Nah, the writers don't bother – they know it'll just get changed later on. Hell, unless you're as successful as I am – was," he corrected himself, looking knowingly into my eyes, "even the labels rarely let us singers choose the names of our own songs…"
"Seriously?" I asked, outraged. "How is that fair?"
"Marketing," Clay shrugged. "I wouldn't get too worried about it. It bothered me, too, when I released my first album, but you know what?" He smiled.
"What?" I asked, finding myself leaning in – hanging on his every word.
"By the time you've released your fifth album, you'll be more than happy to leave the marketing department to come up with your song names for you. It's fun doing it once or twice, but twenty times per album?" He jutted his chin out dismissively. "I don't need the hassle in my life."
