“So, how did I do? Am I hired?” I set my empty wine glass on the table and looked straight in his green-gold eyes. “In case no one’s told you this lately, you’re a pig, Dylan Cope, and so is your best friend or your boyfriend or whatever the hell he is. Find another girl to scratch your kinky itch. I’m not ‘his’ and I’m not going to be yours.”
With that, I stormed off, my body vibrating with anger and my eyes pricking with embarrassing tears.
And what made me most angry wasn’t Dylan. It wasn’t what he’d said about me being Ashley’s, or about sharing me.
It was the thing about leaving me.
Like it would be so fucking easy to do, he just put it right up front, before anything else.
Before he’d even kissed me.
Before he’d even undressed me.
Before he’d gotten intimate with me at all, he’d already planned when, why and how he was going to leave me.
As I rushed through the restaurant, I passed Con, sitting up at the bar. His eyes followed me, but he didn’t.
Near the front entrance, I passed the piano player. He was playing some Adele song I didn’t know the words to. He was really good, and without even thinking about it, I pulled out one of the twenties Laura had put in my/her purse and stuffed it into his tip bowl. Because I’d meant everything I just said; I was going to make something of myself, my work was going to matter, and I believed in that, in following my life’s passion. You didn’t get to be as good as Dylan Cope on the drums or this guy on the piano if you didn’t have a passion for it. And I believed in supporting other artists in the pursuit of their dreams.
Plus, I believed in good karma and good intentions.
And I was a good person.
I deserved more than a meaningless fling or some weird sex role in the lives of a couple of spoiled-ass rock stars who thought they could snap their fingers and make any woman they wanted just bend over.
Fuck that.
I pushed through the front door of the restaurant, shuddering as I sucked in a breath of cool night air, tainted with cigarette smoke and car exhaust and the faint stench of piss. Even right in front of a classy restaurant with a valet stand in downtown Vancouver, the sidewalk smelled of piss and people had to pollute the air by smoking.
I loved this city, and sometimes I hated it, too.
I strode past the valet who offered to get me a cab. I didn’t know where I was going except that I was walking there. I’d walk through downtown and across the Cambie Bridge and all the way to my sister’s house if I had to. By then, maybe I’d have cooled off.
Maybe I’d have stopped crying.
I was breathing shakily as I fought to hold the tears back, to keep them from cascading down my face. I wasn’t crying. I was just angry. I was just gonna be angry and walk until I wasn’t angry anymore.
Shitty plan, since I’d forgotten to grab my jacket on the way out of the restaurant and it was pretty cold out.
Why the fuck did this bother me so much?
I was leaving for Thailand soon anyway. With the money in my back pocket, I could leave tomorrow if I wanted to.
Dylan caught up with me at the street corner. I was waiting for the light to change, feeling cold and directionless and ridiculous, when I felt him towering over me.
“Hey,” he said, gently draping my jacket over my shoulders. “You forgot this.”
I looked up at him, carefully blinking back the tears.
“Sorry,” I said, trying my best to chill the fuck out. “I guess I was trying to make a point.”
“I think you made it.” He hooked his strong hand around my upper arm. “Come here.” He drew me off the sidewalk into a half-empty parking lot, then released me. No one was around, but I saw Con leaning on the wall across the alley. At least he was out of earshot.
Dylan stood in front of me, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans as he watching me slip on my jacket. He hadn’t even grabbed his own jacket before he’d chased me out of the restaurant.
“So… you want me to fuck off?”
I said nothing. I just concentrated on breathing like a normal, non-crazy person, while I hugged myself and looked somewhere over his shoulder.
“You wouldn’t be the first woman to tell me to fuck off, Amber. So don’t feel too bad if you need to let it out.”
“Okay,” I said. “Fuck off.” Then I glanced at him. When I met his bright eyes, I actually had to try really hard not to crack a smile. But I forced myself to frown instead. “I think you’ve got the wrong idea about me.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.” At least, I think so.
But now Ashley’s words to me replayed in the back of my mind…
I knew you were kinky.
I knew it the moment I saw you.
And then those four other words…
Do you want him?
I was looking at him now. And yes, I wanted him.
I’d had sex with Ashley just last night, and I still wanted Dylan.
But.
“I’m just not used to this,” I told him. I could feel the tears coming, quivering, tickling my eyelashes and threatening to betray me, to streak down my face. I couldn’t blink for fear that they’d fall, so I turned away and dabbed at my eyes.
Dylan moved in behind me. I felt him there, so crazy-tall and imposing, but so cool about everything when I was so freaked out; it made me want to reach out and close the gap between us. Yank him to me. Hug him. Actually, right now, it kinda made me want to throttle him.
He’s used to women pursuing him.
The pussy just magically materializes in his presence…
Right. Well, maybe I just wasn’t that kind of pussy.
“I’m not… that kinky,” I confessed, and he laughed.
I turned to face him, too pissed to care that he could now tell I was crying.
“What’s so damn funny?” I demanded.
His smile fell, and he shook his head a little. “You.”
“Why?”
“I don’t care how kinky you are or aren’t, Amber. All I care about is you, wanting to be here right now, with me.”
Shit. How much I would’ve loved to hear those words… like yesterday.
I took a breath and looked up at the sky. At the sparkle of stars that could barely be seen beyond the glow of the skyscrapers towering around us. And I felt weirdly trapped, the way I always felt when I was in a city too long. Did I want to be here? “Yeah. I love having emotional conversations in random parking lots with the smell of piss in the air.”
He said nothing, and when I looked at him again, he was smiling.
And for some reason, I wanted to make him stop smiling.
“I took some photos of you yesterday. On the deck, by the pool,” I said. “Ashley wanted me to take them. It was his idea.”
Not that the thought hadn’t occurred to me, but I never would’ve done it if Ashley hadn’t suggested it.
Probably.
“So…?” I prompted when he offered nothing. No look of surprise. No request for an explanation, and none given.
“So.” He just shrugged a little, his hands never leaving his pockets. “Ash likes to look at me.” He said this like it was perfectly natural and no big deal at all.
“Yeah. So he told me. And he told me you like being looked at.”
“I do.”
A silence stretched between us as that statement clung in the air.
And I wondered, what the hell was I really getting into here?
You like Dylan, Ashley had said. It turns me on.
And Dylan knew it turned Ashley on?
But he wanted me.
With both of them.
“Would you want him to look?” he asked me. “If we had sex?”
I shook my head, but said, “I don’t know.”
The thought of it, though? It was already turning me on. I could feel the responses in my body. Excitement. Desire. Curiosity. The blood rushing between my legs, making me thr
ob all over again.
The whole idea was getting me hot.
I had no idea, though, how the reality of it might feel.
But something told me, as Dylan took a step closer and reached for me, that I was about to find out. If I wanted to.
“This isn’t a job offer,” he said as his hands landed, lightly, on my waist. “There’s no contract to sign, Amber. I’m not the boss of you. You’re free to leave anytime you want. You could leave me here right now and never see me again, and there’s not much I could do about it. I didn’t mean for it to come across like that.”
“Right,” I said. “You’re not the boss of me and neither is he. But he’s just called first dibs.”
He grinned a little. “You make it sound so childish.”
“Because it is.”
“It’s also reality.” His smile faded as he drew even closer to me. “You think I’d do my best friend like that? Move in on a girl he wanted, behind his back?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t know you very well.”
“I’ll admit,” he said, “I was trying to flirt with you. Test the waters a bit. But I guess I’m kind of off my game tonight.”
“Maybe you’re just out of practice. Word is you don’t usually have to work so hard.”
He raised an eyebrow a little, but didn’t touch that. “Truth is,” he said, “you make me a little nervous.”
“Nervous?”
“Yeah,” he said, his fingers tightening on my waist a bit and that crooked smile pulling at his full lips. “Nervous.” His gaze drifted down over my face. “You make me nervous, Amber Malone.”
Oh, Jesus. Was I buying this? That I made him nervous?
A man who’d played concerts for tens of thousands of people? Who’d been on countless magazine covers, some in little more than his underwear? Who’d been famous for pretty much his entire adult life?
I turned away, and his hands fell away. I just needed a moment to absorb all of this. Without him touching me. Without his gorgeous face and his sparkling eyes so close to mine.
And as I did, his fame slapped me right in the face—right along with his flaming hair and his washboard abs.
Unbelievable…
There was a giant billboard on top of a nearby building, all lit up in the night—a photo of Dylan, his muscular bod leisurely stretched out in a pair of skin-tight Underlayer briefs.
I turned back to him, shutting my eyes. I didn’t want his beautiful face or his adorable crooked smile confusing me. I jabbed a thumb at the billboard over my shoulder. “Did you bring me to that restaurant because you knew that was there?”
I heard him sigh softly. “No, Amber. I brought you to that restaurant because I thought you’d like the food. And I was hoping to show you that I have some class.” I peered at him and he smiled again. “Guess that’s blown, huh?”
As I forced myself to meet his eyes, I felt the smile pulling at my own lips. This time, I couldn’t even hold it back.
Maybe because, womb-fluttering aside, the truth was that I felt something for Dylan Cope. I felt how much I liked him, already. How drawn to him I was. How intrigued I was by him; by everything about him, and not just because he was so damn sexy.
How much I’d been trying to convince myself I shouldn’t be attracted to him, because I thought he was gay.
Or maybe… I’d just wanted to believe he was gay because it made it easier to leave.
Yeah. Unfortunately, that sounded about right.
Which meant… shit.
Ugly truth time…
I’d liked Dylan first… but I’d had sex with Ashley. Because deep down, just maybe, I wanted to ruin this before it had any possible chance of getting started.
Well, that fucking backfired.
Because it didn’t even bother Dylan. At all.
And now, if I was really being honest with myself, I not only liked both of them… I wanted to have sex with both of them.
And they were best friends.
And they possibly wanted to share me.
This was definitely outside of my wheelhouse. Maybe that was why I was so freaked out, so scared to take a chance on this? To try?
Because I really had no idea what I was doing. Or who I was doing it with.
This tall, gorgeous and seemingly-uncomplicated man in front of me was a complete mystery to me. I’d thought he was uncomplicated. You know, just your run-of-the-mill gorgeous, rich, gay rock star. But I was wrong. Way wrong. Like he’s-actually-straight-but-willing-to-share-me-with-his-BFF wrong. Now, his washboard abs and green-gold eyes and kinky mind seemed like incredibly uncharted territory.
But his kindness was, too.
And that made me more than nervous. The reality was, it was easier to handle Ashley with all his thorns than it was to look into the compassion in Dylan’s eyes right now and not squirm.
God, I had so many layers of fucked up.
I knew I’d been scared Dylan wouldn’t like me. But I was more scared, maybe, that he would—and I’d screw it up.
I took a deep, deep breath. “I’m sorry I called you a pig. You’re not a pig.”
“Apology accepted,” he said. “And I’ll try to live up to that pronouncement.”
“Just tell me one thing. Why do I make you nervous?”
“Because, Amber,” he said, his voice low and gentle as he shifted closer to me. So close, his heat poured over me and his body brushed mine. “You act like you don’t need me. And that puts me in a weird place. If I have nothing you need, why would you stick around?”
“Sorry,” I replied softly, not sorry at all. “That’s just how it is.” My hands went up, landing on his biceps, and squeezed. Kind of holding him off, when I really wanted to pull him closer. “I don’t need a man, Dylan Cope.”
I didn’t. I didn’t need one at all.
“No?” He tipped his face down close to mine, drifting his lips over the corner of my mouth. He hesitated there as I sucked in a breath, then whispered in my ear, “How about two?”
Chapter Sixteen
Amber
Ashley was already waiting for us when we walked into the Back Door, a little dive bar on the edge of Gastown, which we entered by way of a dark, sketchy alley. And by dive bar, I meant dive bar. The crowd was half bikers and bangers (I didn’t even know any headbangers had actually survived the eighties, but here they all were, a little older, with slightly better haircuts, their old band T-shirts dredged up from the depths of their closets) and, like any bar in Vancouver, half hipsters. It was a rock bar with black walls, dingy lighting, and the stench of beer and sweat in the air—and an incredibly enthusiastic crowd smashed up against the small stage, rocking out to the live band.
I gave Dylan’s hand a squeeze as he led me through the crowd, or rather, Con led us both through. When Dylan looked down at me over his shoulder, I cocked an eyebrow at him as if to say, Nice place to bring a girl, and he smirked back as if to say, You’re welcome.
We’d returned to the restaurant to eat our dinner before heading over to the bar, which was a good thing. The food was fantastic, and the company was even better. And the drive to Liv’s place to get my stuff, then to drop off Dylan’s truck at Ashley’s condo building before catching a cab to the bar, gave me a little time to adjust to this whole idea.
Time to digest the fact that not only was I definitely on a date, but that the date I was on was about to include two men. One of whom I’d already had sex with, and one of whom I wanted to have sex with… and who wanted to have sex with me—with the other guy.
Nothing unusual about that, right?
As we approached Ashley’s table at the back of the bar, he rose to his feet. If I wasn’t mistaken, he looked relieved to see me. He pulled me in close, gave me a kiss on the cheek and a hug. Then he gave Dylan a quick hug and we all sat down. Dylan stashed my backpack under the table. Con stood back against the nearby wall, leaving the three of us alone.
We were all on one side of the table, fac
ing the stage. Dylan had already told me that some young up-and-coming band that Jesse had produced an album for was playing tonight, and he’d promised Jesse he’d make an appearance. The band was playing their asses off, but I really couldn’t say if they were good. They were loud, for sure, but I really couldn’t hear the music at all. My heart was hammering too hard and my head was too preoccupied with the men on either side of me, my senses overrun by their nearness, their warmth.
I’d never sat so close to either of them, but now both of them were right up against me; so close that our thighs pressed together under the table and Ashley’s arm kept brushing me whenever he lifted his beer to drink. After a few minutes, Dylan slung his arm around the back of my chair and left it there.
Meanwhile, I was just trying not to hyperventilate. I would’ve ordered a glass of wine, or maybe a bottle, to take the edge off, but this didn’t seem like that kind of place, so I had a beer with the guys instead.
Ashley’s eyes met mine, once; his teeth dragged over his lower lip, briefly, before his attention returned to the band. Surely he saw Dylan’s arm around me, and now knew that I was open to this.
When did I become open to this?
By now, I was pretty fucking sure that I wanted this to happen. Honestly, my pussy was sure from approximately the first nanosecond Dylan proposed the idea.
The rest of me had just taken a wee bit longer to catch up.
As the band rocked out, it was too loud to chat, which was a relief, at first. I was too nervous to say anything intelligible anyway.
But toward the end of their set, I was getting antsy.
Then Katie’s hot husband, Jesse, appeared with Jude, the giant alpha security dude, and Brody, Dirty’s handsome manager. They didn’t sit down, but Dylan stood to greet them, while Ashley draped his arm around my shoulders. The musky-manly, clean-laundry smell of him shot straight to my clit, as vivid flashbacks of last night assailed my mind and body.
Apparently, I was now hardwired to get wet at the smell of Ashley Player. Instantaneously.
I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
After Dylan sat back down, the other guys all stood back with Con to watch the band play their final song. But I could’ve sworn everyone had an eye on me, sitting here wedged between Dylan and Ashley.
Dirty Like Dylan: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 4) Page 19
