by HELEN HARDT
She pulled away from me, her cheeks pink. She looked…reticent.
“You haven’t changed your mind, have you?” I asked. Because I think I might die a thousand deaths if you have.
“No,” she said shyly. “I haven’t changed my mind.”
“Then what is it?” I touched her cheek, thumbing it gently, her skin so delicate against my fingers.
“Just a few nerves, I guess.”
“Heather, baby, there’s nothing to be nervous about.”
Lars came around and opened the door for us. I stood and helped Heather out.
“Wow!” Her eyes widened.
I did live in a pretty magnificent abode. “Come on.” I took her hand.
She continued to gawk at everything, and I promised myself I’d give her a thorough tour some other time. Right now, she would only get a tour of my bedroom. I pulled her up my spiral staircase and led her down the hallway to my master suite.
Before I opened the door, though, I needed to taste her lips on mine. I cupped her cheeks in both my hands and lowered my mouth to hers. It was a slow kiss this time, not my usual, but it was what we both seemed to need. Our lips and tongues slid together in an unrushed melody.
After a few minutes of passionate necking, I stopped the kiss and gazed into her eyes. “Please don’t tell me you changed your mind.”
Where had that come from? I’d never asked any woman that question, and now I’d asked it twice.
But Heather was different. For some reason it was very important to me that she be all in for this.
“I haven’t changed my mind, Jett.”
The first time she’d used my name. Sounded wonderful coming from her lips, yet it was another name I longed to hear.
I clutched the doorknob to my room and turned it. We walked through a small sitting area and into the room and toward my bed.
Heather let out a gasp.
Chapter Twelve
Heather
“What is it, baby?” Jett asked.
“This is your bedroom, right?”
“Of course. Why would I take you to someone else’s bedroom?”
“Then it might interest you to know that there’s already a woman in your bed.”
I recognized her. She was the black woman from last night, the one who had put on the floorshow with a blonde. She had a smoking-hot body and an even prettier face. Naked and tangled in Jett’s red silk sheets, she made me look like last night’s dog food.
How had I fallen into this stupid trap? Had I been so naïve to think Jett Draconis might actually want me?
Come on, feet. Move. But I stood there, immobile, like a statue.
Jett turned. “Fuck.” He headed to the bed and roused the sleeping woman. “Janet, I told you and Lindy to get out of here.”
Lindy? Two of them had been here? Jett had obviously engaged in an interesting threesome after leaving me.
Still, my feet stayed planted.
“Lindy?” Janet said. “Where is she?”
“She’s gone, like you’re supposed to be,” Jett said. “Get up and get dressed and get out of here.”
“Hey, baby, not so fast.” She sat up and looked over toward me. “I see you brought company. She’s cute, though a little overdressed.” She smiled at me flirtatiously and waggled her tongue. “Ever had a girl go down on you, honey? I’d love to get a taste of your hot pussy. And I know Jett here would love to watch.”
That did it. “I’m so out of here.” I turned toward the door.
Jett ran ahead of me, blocking me. “Please. Don’t go. I thought she’d be gone by now. And nothing—”
“You thought she’d be gone? Plus, another one was here with her?” I shook my head. “What the hell was I thinking?”
But I knew what I had been thinking. I was thinking I wanted one romp with someone as amazingly sexy as Jett Draconis. Just one. I’d known going into this that I was one of many and nothing special to him, despite the words he’d used.
But being slapped in the face with it was a little more than I’d bargained for.
“She doesn’t mean anything to me.”
I turned to look at Janet, who was still sitting on the bed. Jett’s words didn’t seem to faze her, which made me think about the truth of the matter. Jett didn’t mean anything to her, either. She just liked to fuck rock stars. She liked to fuck other women to turn rock stars on. She and Jett were two peas in a pod.
A pod I didn’t belong anywhere near.
I regarded Janet. She was hot, and despite what I’d told Susie, on occasion I’d fantasized about being with a woman. I found black women particularly beautiful. I loved their skin, and they aged so gracefully.
Okay, why was that thought even in my head? This was too weird.
I wasn’t going to hop into bed with Janet just to give Jett a hard-on, no matter how sexy she was. No way. That wasn’t why I’d come here. At the moment, I couldn’t quite remember why I had.
“Goodbye,” I said, leaving the bedroom.
He followed me, grabbing my arm and turning me toward him. “Please.”
One word. Please.
No excuses. No explanations. No promises. Just please.
That one word in his husky, low voice was enough to make me look into his hazel eyes. And what I saw there riveted me.
I saw warmth, sorrow, and of course, lust.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “They were here last night, but I didn’t—”
I placed two fingers on his full lips. “You don’t owe me anything.”
He seemed genuinely surprised at my reaction. “Then you’ll stay?”
I had to laugh at that one. “No. I won’t stay.” Oh, I wanted to. What I was feeling for the man was a mass of physical lust, but something else was edging its way in. Something I had to stop dead in its tracks.
“Please,” he said again.
Didn’t have near the effect on me the second time around. “I knew you were no saint. No virgin. I’m not some innocent who agreed to come up here. But to go into your bedroom and find another woman already there? That’s a little much for me.”
“I want you, Heather. Not Janet. Not anyone else.”
“Yes. I know. You want me. Right now. And after an hour of fucking me, you’ll be done. I get that. I thought I was okay with it, but it turns out I’m not. So I’m leaving.” I grabbed my phone out of my bag to contact Uber.
He pulled it from my hands. “If you’re intent on leaving, Lars will drive you home.”
“No, thank you.” I grabbed my phone back.
Janet bustled out of the room then, as scantily dressed as she’d been at the party last night. “Ta ta,” she said, blowing kisses. “So sorry we didn’t get to know each other better,” she added, eyeing me. She scurried down the stairs.
“See? She’s gone now.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “The moment has passed.”
“But you wanted me, Heather. I felt it. I still feel it.”
“You don’t always get everything you want in this life.” How well I knew that.
“But this is something you can have. I’m right here. And I want you. So much.” He pulled me into his arms.
As in the limo, he didn’t try to kiss me. He just held me close, our bodies touching top to bottom.
How easy it would be to melt into him, to let myself go just this once.
So he had a gorgeous woman in his bed. So he’d fucked someone else mere hours ago. He was a rock star. What else did I expect?
Then it hit me. That was the problem. I did expect more. I expected more from someone who was a true artist. I’d learned a lot about Jett Draconis in the half hour we’d spent together in his limo early this morning. He was educated, intelligent, intuitive.
He was a nice man.
Nice men were hard to find in LA.
If I slept with him, let myself be intimate, I’d want more from this nice man. I’d want things he wasn’t willing to give—things his current lifestyle wouldn’t allow h
im to give.
I pulled away. “No. I’m sorry.”
“Some other time, then?”
I shook my head.
“At least come to my concert tonight. I’ll leave a front-row ticket for you at the door.”
“I was there last night, remember? I’ve seen the show. Besides, I have to work tonight.” I could easily get my shift covered, but he didn’t have to know that.
“I’ll make it worth your while.”
I opened my mouth to respond “no” once more, but—
“Please.”
Front row center. Strangers on each side. And as I looked up into the hazel eyes of the man who had invited me, I felt as though he were singing directly to me.
Seeing Jett perform this close was a new experience—one I couldn’t have begun to imagine.
The content of the concert was identical to the previous night. So what was different?
The way he looked at me, seemingly only at me.
The gentleness in his eyes when he crooned his signature ballad, “My Song is for You.”
He’d written the song two years before. It had climbed the charts and was his second platinum hit after the rock classic “Heat my Blood” that had made him and Emerald Phoenix famous. He hadn’t written the song for me. But as he sang, his eyes the color of a forest at dusk, his perfectly toned body moving in languid time with the smooth melody, his hips gyrating, his fingers making the guitar croon along with him…I almost felt as though the beautiful words beginning in those gifted vocal cords and flowing from his gorgeous full lips had been written not only about me, but because of me.
I stood and swayed slowly, my eyes heavy-lidded, forgetting about the strangers next to me. The concert hall was empty. Only I was in the audience, and only Jett was on stage. Only I could hear his deep voice, his beautiful words.
And only he and I were moved by them—the only two people who mattered in the world.
I floated away on a fantasy.
I lay in a cloud of cotton candy, stretched languidly, my body in zero gravity. In front of me, Jett stood, no shirt on, just his gorgeous rock-hard chest with a smattering of black hairs scattered over it.
He no longer held his vivid green electric guitar, yet the melody from his instrument still floated around us. His hair hung in soft waves around his shoulders as his full lips brought forth the words to his song.
My song is for you. You know who you are,
Heather…
Heather…
Heather…
His green-brown eyes blazed with lust. And beyond the lust, a stronger emotion burned. One I felt burning within me.
Heather… Heather… Hea—
Something jerked me from my dreamy illusion. Strong arms gripped me and pulled me onto the stage against a granite-like chest. I looked up into the wide eyes of Jett Draconis.
“What are you doing? What’s going on?”
He didn’t respond.
The crowd became chaotic, and two armed guards ran toward Jett, forcing him backstage.
Words came over the loudspeaker in the concert hall, but they were jumbled and made no sense to me.
My whole reality was being in Jett’s arms, being whisked away. Where? I didn’t know, and at this moment I didn’t care. My mind told me I should be scared, but with Jett’s strong arms protecting me, I couldn’t bring that emotion to the surface. I shuddered, yes, but was it from fear? No. It was from being close to Jett again, from the energy of his music, from the wildness and chaos of the converging crowd of people.
I was safe. I had no doubt. Whatever was going on…Jett would keep me safe.
Something had happened. That much was clear. But no one was telling me anything.
“Leave the girl,” one of the guards said.
Jett pushed the guard away and continued forward. A moment later we were safely ensconced in his limo.
Noise echoed around us and fans knocked on the windows, demanding to know what was going on. The limousine lurched. Stopped. Then lurched again.
“What’s going on, Lars?” Jett said into his intercom.
“Sorry, sir. They’re all around us. I can’t move without hitting someone.”
“Don’t harm anyone. Let the guards take care of it. We’re safe in here.” Then he looked at me, his eyes ablaze. “You’re safe in here. With me.”
“Why did you—”
He silenced me with a kiss. A firm, sedating kiss, and I surrendered to the moment, letting my tongue duel with his. What had happened didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was that I was here, with Jett, safe in his limo. Safe in his arms. His lips on mine.
The kiss broke when the limousine lurched again, forcing us apart.
“God, Heather,” he said. “All I could think about was getting to you.”
“What happened? Why did you jump down and pull me onstage?”
“Someone called in a bomb threat.”
I gasped.
“We got a message in our headsets while we were on stage to stop playing and exit out the rear of the concert hall. Didn’t you see the rest of them leave?”
I couldn’t tell him that I had been in the midst of a fantasy about him singing only to me when this all occurred. “No,” I said shakily.
“Didn’t you hear the announcement over the speakers? When the crowd went nuts?”
“N-No.” I’d been too engrossed in my fantasy, and then, when Jett grabbed me, I hadn’t been able to think at all.
“This happened once before, at a concert in Philadelphia a year ago. I didn’t waste any time getting off stage that time. This time…”
“Yeah?” I said, still shivering.
“This time…” His silk hair drifted over his shoulders. “This time I couldn’t leave. Not without you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Jett
I reached out to touch her soft cheek, and the limo lurched again, forcing my hand onto her breast. I removed it quickly. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she said.
My heart was beating so quickly. Something was percolating in me, something I had never experienced. Unlike the last time this had happened, when my first thought had been to save my own ass, this time was different.
I had placed Heather at the concert, in the front row. If anything had happened to her…
It would’ve been my fault.
I felt responsible. Nothing more. Still, as she sat next to me in my limo, each lurch bringing her closer to me, I couldn’t shake the feeling of need that was consuming me.
Lars would take us to my place. Heather hadn’t said anything. Was she expecting me to take her home first? I’d had a chance with her this afternoon, but Janet had blown it for me. I couldn’t blame Heather for not believing that I hadn’t touched either of those women last night, even though it was true. Tonight there would be no after-party. The hall would be cleared out and searched by the bomb squad.
No Janet. No Lindy. No groupies. And no bandmates like Zane trying to coerce me into partying harder. No drugs and alcohol flowing.
Tonight…only the beautiful woman next to me.
Surely once I had fucked her, the strange compulsion to have her would dissipate.
Surely…
I couldn’t allow myself to think otherwise. Lars had finally gotten the limo moving, and I knew where we were headed. While I wanted to remain silent, words edged out of my throat.
“Baby, we’re going to my place. Tell me now if you want me to take you home first.”
“I…”
“Yeah?”
“I…don’t know what I want, to be honest. This afternoon, I wanted you so much.”
“I wanted you too, Heather. I still want you.”
“I feel so…” She rubbed her upper arms as a shudder rocked her body.
“Don’t be scared, baby.”
“I didn’t know what was happening.”
“I should’ve explained. I’m sorry I didn’t. I just had to get you out of ther
e. That was the only thought on the surface of my mind. ‘Get Heather out. Keep Heather safe.’”
She gave me a weak smile. “Thank you for that. I’ve heard of things like this. Of people panicking and causing a stampede. People getting trampled…”
“That wasn’t going to happen to you on my watch.”
“What about the others? Thank God Susie didn’t go to the concert tonight.”
“The guards and the cops will take care of the others. There were no casualties in Philly. I have only the best people working for me.”
I hoped I wasn’t feeding her a load of bullshit. There hadn’t been any casualties the last time, but I had no idea what was going on right now. All I knew was I had to protect Heather. Not just from a bomb or stampede, but from any bad thoughts entering her head.
Emotion coiled through me—new emotion I’d never felt before.
Part of it made me want to squirm, stop the car, and get out and run until it went away.
But another part of it…calmed me. Offered me peace.
That part kept me grounded, kept the desire to protect the woman next to me close to my heart.
“I’m glad,” Heather said. “I know you would feel terrible if anything happened to your fans.”
Her attitude shocked me, but only for a moment. Heather was concerned not for herself, not even for me, but for the throngs of people who had been in the concert hall.
“I’ve never met anyone like you before,” I said. And I wasn’t sure I’d ever uttered a truer statement in my life.
That got a cute little chuckle out of her. “I’m nothing special.”
“Baby, all I know is that I was willing to throw myself into a burning fire to get you out of there safely tonight. That has never happened to me.”
Her red lips curved into a beautiful smile. “Thank you again.”
“You don’t have to keep thanking me. That’s not why I told you that.”
“Then why did you tell me? To try to get me into your bed again?”
A spark of emotion coursed through me. Not anger. Not sadness. Perhaps just a little disappointment. Because although I did want to bed her—I could never deny that—the prospect of fucking her tight little body hadn’t entered my mind when I risked my life to save hers.
