Dirty Like Brody: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 2)

by Jaine Diamond

  Well… except for when he was fucking me. Hmm. I’d have to make note of that.

  If you want Brody’s undivided attention, just spread your legs.

  I giggled a little to myself, smiling at him as his eyes met mine.

  “Seth show up?” he asked into the phone, and I froze in place. My breath choked in my throat. “Alright, brother. Fill me in tomorrow. I’ll come by in the afternoon.”

  When he hung up, he was still looking at me. “What?”

  “Clean your hands,” I said, whipping the sanitizer at him. I didn’t mean to throw it so hard—but he ducked a bit to avoid the missile, catching it with one hand just before it hit his face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I said, striding back toward the truck, but I was already getting that tunnel vision thing that I got when I couldn’t deal and I just wanted to go.

  Go anywhere.

  Go the fuck away.

  “Jesus,” he said, still standing there, watching me, “are we back here again?”

  I snapped then. I threw my purse at his truck. Yeah; not one of my finer moments. I saw it bounce off the door and splat to the ground before I pivoted and started walking in the other direction. Away from the road.

  Straight off into the dark of some field in the middle of God-knew-where.

  In the tunnel of my thoughts, I was already trying to figure out how to get out of this. My phone was in my purse. So I couldn’t exactly call Piper. But if I kept walking, I’d have to hit some other road, or eventually I’d find his house, or—

  “Jessa.” Brody’s voice, sharp and freaked the fuck out, cut through my thoughts. “What’re you doing?”

  “Nothing,” I said. Which, of course, was all sorts of ridiculous. But I was already in full-on flight mode, which was pretty much akin to a panic attack; kind of overrode logic and rationality.

  “Where the fuck are you going?” He was closer now, his voice in my ear, and I had to resist the urge to run like hell with everything I had. I stopped short as his hand closed on my arm. Then his other arm went around my waist. He held me from behind, his grip like steel, so I couldn’t run if I tried. “Jessa,” he said, his voice dropping, low and soft. “Just stop, okay? Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said, but my breathing was all choked up and I was sniffling a bit. The feel of him, warm and strong and unyielding, wrapped around me, had jolted me out of flight mode and into something else.

  Fall-the-fuck-apart mode.

  “I’m taking you to my place,” he said, his voice still soft, but firm. “You’re staying with me.”

  I didn’t answer, but I also didn’t argue.

  I let him guide me back to the truck as tears slid down my face. I didn’t even breathe as he picked up my purse. He opened the door and I got inside. Then he did up my seatbelt and put my purse in my lap.

  “Thank you,” I managed to whisper.

  Brody’s eyes met mine. He nodded and shut the door, but I’d seen it clearly on his face—how much my falling apart bothered him.

  No; it didn’t bother him. It hurt him. It pained him and it worried him.

  It scared the shit out of him.

  It scared the shit out of me, too.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Brody

  Jessa got back from her shoot late. Really late. I’d told her she didn’t even have to come back to my place that night if she didn’t want to, if she was too tired, but that was just bullshit to see what she’d say. At least she’d texted to tell me she was going for drinks with the client afterward; a good-looking dude, as it turned out.

  Yeah. I’d done a Google search on him. Because I was jealous like that. According to the web he was also gay, but somehow that didn’t help.

  I’d never felt so insecure with a woman as I did with Jessa. Like I had no fucking clue where I stood with her—unless we were fused together, my dick deep inside her as she purred my name.

  When she got back to my place, smelling of booze, she showered and went straight to bed before me, even though I’d waited up for her. She barely paused long enough to give me a kiss. It wasn’t like she’d had time to fall in love with someone else in the hours she’d been away from me, but still.

  It was pretty clear to me by now what she’d been up to, in terms of men, all those years we’d been apart. I’d done my best to keep tabs on her in any way I could; I wasn’t gonna put Jude up to spying on her—whether he’d even do it for me or not was debatable—so that meant piecing together scraps of info gleaned from other people talking about her, mainly her brother or Maggie, and no one had ever mentioned any kind of serious relationship in her life. You only had to look at Jessa once to know she must’ve had a hell of a lot of offers, though, and obviously, she’d had lovers. She’d told me herself, more or less, about the guys she’d slept with… and what it was like.

  When she was with me, she came like a fucking rocket. Over and over… But she’d never come before, ever, with a man? Not once?

  So maybe, just maybe this was a woman who’d become accustomed to using sex, and men, when it suited her—and not to get off. And when she was done with those men, with taking whatever it was she got from that kind of sex, no doubt she tossed them aside just as fast.

  No fucking way I was gonna be one of those guys. If I had to keep making her come until she got that through her head, I’d do it.

  When I slipped into bed with her she was still awake, but she didn’t say anything. I reached out to her. She wasn’t naked under the sheet; she had on my Zeppelin T, which she liked to sleep in, and her panties. I got close, spooning her, gently kissing her neck, and she stirred, breathing softly. I slid my hand down the curve of her waist. I slipped my fingers inside the edge of her panties, pulling them down over her hip.

  Her hand found mine and stopped me.

  “I’m so tired,” she said sleepily. Then she rolled slightly away, so we weren’t even touching.

  So fucking much for spooning.

  I let it go. But I wasn’t gonna kid myself this was just about being tired.

  After the Dirty show, we’d fucked all night and pretty much all the next day. Since her little freak-out on our date? She’d barely touched me. Ever since that phone call. Ever since she’d found out Seth had gotten together with the band to jam… she’d barely looked me in the eye.

  Obviously, something was bothering her.

  Seth coming back on the scene, apparently.

  I flopped back on my pillow and tried to relax, but what the fuck? Was she upset he was playing with the band?

  She said she didn’t want the guitarist gig. Was pretty vehement about it, actually.

  The other possibility swirled in my brain like it had all fucking day, as much as I tried to ignore it and just chill the fuck out, not jump to conclusions.

  Maybe she still has feelings for him.

  Yeah. Fucking maybe.

  Who the fuck knew?

  I never really knew for sure what was going on between her and Seth in the first place. Whatever it was, maybe she’d never gotten past it.

  Maybe that’s what this was about? But how the hell would I know.

  Not like she was saying shit all to me about it.

  I woke up with my guts all tied in knots, feeling like I was a hundred years old, so bent out of shape and brittle, and ready to snap. Over breakfast Jessa was foggy and distant, which was maybe due to her late night, but I wasn’t gonna risk it.

  “So what’s the problem?” I asked her. “Are we ever gonna talk about it?”

  She looked up at me, all distracted, over her tea. “Talk about what?”

  “You tell me. Seth’s back on the scene and you’re walking around like the sky’s about to fall.”

  She blinked at me, slowly shaking her head. “No, I’m not.”

  I tossed my fork down on my plate, the eggs she’d made for me only partly eaten, whatever appetite I’d had gone. I sat there fuming as she stared at me, re
sisting the urge to upend the entire table, which seemed like it’d be pretty fucking satisfying right about now.

  So yeah, maybe I had some anger management issues to deal with. I’d file that away for later introspection. But it’s not like I went around all my life wanting to flip dining room tables.

  It was just this. This bullshit. With her.

  Never-fucking-ending.

  “No?” I said.

  She shook her head slowly, her big brown eyes watching me—kinda like a skittish deer about to bolt into the woods, never to be seen again.

  And yeah, I realized that coming at her like this was probably the last way I should go about it if all I really wanted was to get her to open up and talk to me, but fuck it. I was pissed, and fuck, no—I didn’t want to hear about it. I didn’t want to hear about how uncomfortable she felt because her old boyfriend was back and how that’d brought up old feelings or whatever.

  I thought we were done with this shit.

  She’d said it was me—always me; not him. That I was the one she’d always wanted. So what was the fucking problem?

  “Seth’s not after you anymore, is that it?” Her eyes got bigger and I could tell I’d struck a nerve. “You know, he used to follow you around like a fucking puppy. Maybe you miss that.”

  “I miss a lot of things, Brody,” she said. “I don’t miss that.” Tears had started to gleam in her eyes, but fuck that. She wasn’t getting out of this by crying.

  “If you want me to come crawling after you,” I told her, “that’s never gonna happen. I’m never gonna be your lapdog. So you can cry all you want. It’s not gonna change a thing.”

  She didn’t even respond to that, just looked away. She sniffed like she was trying really hard not to cry, but I was getting really sick of her crying… crying and not letting me in so I could just help fix whatever the fuck was wrong.

  “You know why I kept messaging you?” I asked her. “All those years… even when you never responded?” She looked at me through her tears, which had started to fall. “After a while… I pretty much did it to torture myself.”

  “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t say that.”

  “I did it to remind myself why I should stop. Because every time I messaged you to tell you I was thinking about you, or I wanted to talk to you, or I was sorry for how things went down, and you didn’t answer, it was another stab to my fucking heart. But I’m done being a masochist, Jessa. You want to leave me hanging again, I’m not gonna be waiting around when you get back. You want to go out and party with your friends and fuck your way around the globe, never letting anyone in, including the guys you fuck, you do what you’ve gotta do but I am not chasing after you.”

  Jessa got up and left the room. I didn’t follow, though everything in me kicked and screamed at my ass to go after her.

  Because what if I didn’t and she walked out?

  Fuck it. If all she was ever gonna do was run away, I was in for a world of hurt anyway. Might as well get it over with.

  So I cleaned up our breakfast plates like everything was normal, when it totally fucking wasn’t. Then I just stood there in the kitchen staring at the wall.

  Then I broke. It didn’t take long.

  I went around the house, checking every room, panicking that I’d let her go—and what if I found her packing? What if she was getting the fuck out, for good?

  I didn’t find her until I walked into my office. She was sitting back in the chair behind my desk, staring at the wall in front of it, where her portrait hung. The giant one Katie had painted… the one I’d had delivered to my house while she was at her shoot yesterday.

  “You have my painting,” she said softly. She’d stopped crying, and looked from the painting to me in wet-eyed wonder.

  “I thought you were leaving,” I said flatly.

  “You have my painting,” she repeated.

  “Yeah. Well… we’re kind of done with them now. They’ve been scanned for all the stuff we need to make. The album and shirts and whatever. I figured Katie didn’t need to store them all at her studio. You know, she probably needs the space…”

  Yeah, right. That was the reason I took it. To help Katie with her storage issues.

  Jessa stood and came around the desk, stopping a couple of feet from me.

  “I’m not leaving,” she said, her voice soft but certain. “You can try to drive me away, if you need to. If you need to test me on it. I understand why you would. You can try. But I’m not going. Not without saying goodbye. I’d never leave again without saying goodbye. And I don’t want to say goodbye.” She took another step toward me, tentatively. “If that’s okay with you.”

  Was she serious?

  She seriously didn’t know if I wanted her to stay?

  I closed the space between us, sliding my hand under her hair to cup her head, and pulled her to me. “Jessa,” I said, my lips brushing hers. “It’s more than okay.”

  My other hand found her hip and I pulled her against me as I kissed her, slow and deep. Her arms went around my neck as she arched against me.

  Within seconds, I had her on the desk. Her legs were around my waist, her hands in my hair, and she was shoving down my sweats. We were clawing at each other, grabbing and clutching and desperate to get closer. She grabbed my cock, squeezing, and pumped me a few times, tight and fast. I yanked the crotch of her panties aside. When she whimpered, biting down on my bottom lip, I filled her.

  A few more deep, hard thrusts and I was all the way in… smothered in all her hot, tight, and wet. My heart was racing, my breathing ragged. I wanted to fuck her to pieces, just slam all my anger and frustration into her as she begged me for more.

  Instead, I put my forehead against hers and breathed her in. I breathed with Jessa until everything slowed right down.

  Then I fucked her, deep and slow, saying a whole lot of stupid, fucking risky things.

  Don’t ever leave me…

  I can’t fucking breathe without you…

  And when she came, gasping and clawing at my back, she whispered in my ear, “I love you, Brody. I love you so much… sometimes… it scares me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Brody

  I spent the next few days, on and off, popping into the church. Jessa hadn’t been back to jam with the band since the show at the Back Door. Basically, since Seth started coming down to play. And I didn’t love it. I definitely wanted her to be here. The band did, too. But I was willing to give her some space on this.

  Some.

  Not the kind of space I’d given her back then—miles of it, until I totally fucking lost her.

  But I could give her some.

  She’d told me she loved me. Repeatedly. So yeah, in truth, I’d tear down the fucking moon and give it to her if I thought that was what she needed.

  Eventually, maybe whatever was bothering her would fade. Maybe she’d feel comfortable enough to talk to me about it. Maybe with my support she could deal with it, or let it go, or whatever she needed to do to walk back in here again.

  Seth wasn’t here every day anyway, but he’d been to a few sessions. I’d sat in so I could gauge the vibe, and it was good. Really good. I could tell everyone had their guard up, but the fact was, Seth fit into the mix just like he always had. Like he did from the very first day Zane dragged him home to jam at nineteen… to the day we had to kick him out because he’d gone so far off the rails with his drug addiction.

  By that time, he was shooting heroin, and lots of it, acting totally erratically and completely falling the fuck apart.

  But that was then.

  Right now, he showed no signs of that fucked up-junkie. He was just Seth Brothers, brilliant guitarist… cool, somewhat mysterious, and likable as all hell. A man born to be a rock star.

  We’d just had a particularly incredible day. Maggie had brought food by and the band had been here for ten hours. Seth had just left, and just the band and Jude and I remained. Jude locked the doors and I headed up to the stage w
here everyone was sitting around. I could feel the excitement, the exhaustion and giddiness, dampened only slightly by that ever-present caution.

  I knew what they were thinking. It wasn’t like we hadn’t all been thinking it for a while now.

  “I think we should bring him in, formally,” Zane said, straight-up. “So he knows we’re all taking this shit seriously. We’re taking him seriously, and we give him a real chance. Do up a couple of songs for the album, see how it feels.”

  “He’s clean?” Dylan asked. “For real?”

  “So he says,” Zane said. “Sure looks that way to me.”

  “When I had dinner with him, he seemed clean,” I told them. “And he definitely wants to come back.”

  They all looked to me. I knew my opinion held a lot of weight, and I took that shit seriously. I wanted to be honest but fair. To Seth. But mostly, to the band.

  I knew they were worried about trusting him again. We all were.

  “You think we should do it?” Jesse asked me. “Ask him to come back?”

  “Seth never had a talent problem. And he’s as good now as he ever was. Better, I’d say.”

  “Yeah, he’s way the fuck better,” Jesse agreed. “Which is saying a lot. Can’t say I wouldn’t love a really strong guitarist to join the lineup. And what he brings in writing… damn, that’d be sweet.”

  “You sure you wanna share the spotlight?” Zane asked with a grin. “Got room onstage for two of you cocky guitarist pricks?”

  “There’s room for your inflated ego, we’ll fucking manage,” Jesse replied.

  “I’ll admit,” I told them, “I would’ve loved to see Jessa in the role. I think she’s a great fit. She’s family, and she’s got this thing… would’ve been killer to see where we could take it. But second to that, if we can work with Seth, it would make for a hell of a tenth anniversary. If we can keep Jessa in the mix too, writing, we’ve got it fucking made.”

  “Yeah,” Elle said, “we don’t want to lose Jessa.” She gave me a loaded look. “So whatever we can do to keep her around, we should be doing it.”