“What are you doing?”
I knew what she was asking, but since I wasn’t really sure myself, I tried to deflect the question. “I’m telling you that it’s okay for you to use me to enact your sexual fantasies and that I have a few of my own that I wouldn’t mind acting out with you.”
Since Alicia was always busting my balls about something, had a take no prisoners attitude in general, and didn’t seem to be afraid to go after what she wanted, in bed or otherwise, it was relatively strange to see her like this. Unsure, her eyes filled with questions as she chewed on her lower lip.
Tugging it free with my thumb, I sighed and arched an eyebrow. “Now is not the time to go shy on me. Give it to me straight.”
“I’m just confused. Last night, you said that this wasn’t the start of anything, and before, when we talked about your… sexual habits, you said that being with you was a one-time thing. Now, you’re talking as if there is going to be a next time, a lot of next times, actually.”
“I know what I said, and I still don’t want a relationship. If we do decide to continue with this, it wouldn’t mean that we were dating or anything.” I should have just pushed her back down onto my dick when she first lifted her head off of it, but now that we were having this conversation, I knew that there was no getting out of it.
“What would this be, then?”
Great fucking question. I had no idea. I just knew that I wanted more sex like we had last night and more mornings waking up with her magic mouth on me. “Does it need a name? Do you want it to have been a one-time only thing?”
I hadn’t considered it might be what she’d wanted. One night with a rock star to tell her friends about. The thought made me form a fist around the sheets with the hand resting there.
“No, I guess it doesn’t need a name. And I definitely didn’t want it to be a one-time thing.” She paused, looking like she was searching for the right words. “Should we just have fun, and see where we go?”
“Sounds like a plan,” I told her. It sounded like a fucking good plan to me. “As long as you understand that we’re not dating.”
Alicia nodded. “I understand. We’re only having fun. When it stops being fun, then we stop.”
Being with her last night was definitely fun. “I can get behind having fun.”
It had been so much fun. The memory of how her inner muscles had gripped me so tightly was suddenly at the forefront of my mind. Now that I knew for sure I was going to have her again and we were on the same page about what we were—and what we weren’t, more specifically—I was raring to go again.
I remembered how silky smooth she was and how hot she was when she sank onto me. How fucking sexy she was when she came for me. My cock hardened until I was throbbing with the need for release.
I needed to come. Badly.
“Are we done with this conversation?” My hand crept up the inside of Alicia’s thigh, my intentions crystal clear. I just hoped she was as ready for this as I was because I needed her to come. Ladies first and all.
And don’t you fucking forget it. I nearly groaned my frustration out loud, but I was a big boy. I could wait my turn, even if I was so hard that I could probably hammer nails into a solid brick wall with this fucking hard-on.
Praying to the gods of horniness that I would find her wet and ready again, my hand continued on its mission, but Alicia stopped me.
Christ. She wanted to carry on talking. Fuck. Her fingers closed around my wrist, and she removed my hand from her leg. Then I noticed that she was wearing a sexy as shit, devilish smile and wagging her finger at me.
“We are done with this conversation, but remember where it started. You gave me the go-ahead to take advantage of you, and I fully intend on taking you up on that.”
This time, I couldn’t hold back my groan. “Are you saying you want to blow me before I get you off?”
Alicia’s teeth sank into the corner of her lower lip. She nodded and let her hair trail down my body as she crawled back into the position that I’d woken up to find her in. The sight itself nearly set me off, but I’ve never been one to pull the trigger early, and I wasn’t about to start now. This was her fantasy, the least I could do was let her play it out.
Lucky bastard.
Excitement was shining in her eyes when she looked up at me and planted her hands on my thighs. “Let me know if I’m doing something wrong. I haven’t really done this much before.”
I was trying to comprehend what the fuck that meant when she leaned over to suck my head gently into her mouth as if she were afraid of hurting me. My hips nearly came off the bed, and a deep groan of satisfaction rumbled from my chest when she started working my length with her fist, sucking and licking and kissing me fervently.
Stroking her cheek, my eyes stayed glued to where my cock was parting her lips, while my other hand tightened on the sheets. I was so hard, I wondered if I was going to explode in the first damn minute.
I couldn’t allow that to happen, even as my cock pulsed and swelled. The pressure made my ears ring, my breathing grow heavy, and my vision go hazy.
I lost all track of time as she worked me over, her hands and mouth never stilling, her tongue flicking and licking me into blissful oblivion. The hand she wasn’t using to drive me fucking insane closed over my balls, warm and small as she played with them. “Oh fuck.”
She moaned right along with me, the vibrations of it making the pleasure even more intense. Clenching my teeth, my muscles flexed as my body took control from my mind. Heat snaked up my shaft, and the pleasure center of my brain would probably have been lit up brighter than Rockefeller Center at Christmas if someone had been scanning me.
“So fucking good,” I bit out. “I’m close, so fucking close.” I grunted and moaned when instead of pulling back, she redoubled her efforts. Her head jumped up and down, and her eyes locked on mine.
My back bowed, and my muscles tightened and locked as heat thundered through me. Then I was coming so hard that I nearly blacked out.
CHAPTER 20
ALICIA
Three weeks after Jared and I came to our agreement, the sun was shining high in the sky, and one of the opening acts for the Veterans’ Benefit that Destitute was throwing on the fourth of July weekend was in full swing. It was a local band that Jared knew of, and they were thrilled when we approached them to join the lineup for the benefit.
They were quite good, and the crowd seemed to be enjoying them, but as much as I wanted to enjoy them, too, I couldn’t join the screaming audience and simply enjoy the show. I was there to work.
Technically, I didn’t have to be at the venue where the benefit was being held, but I’d had enough of only gauging the hype from afar and measuring it based on the screen and print time that the new album was getting in the media and the mentions of it online. It was time for me to get a feel for the fans on the ground, and I couldn’t think of a better opportunity than the first show that the band was playing since arriving home from their tour.
They wouldn’t be playing any of their new songs, but that was okay. It was great, in fact, since it meant that I could get a real indication of how excited the crowd was for the first time they’d be hearing the new songs, without them feeling like they should reserve judgment until after the show.
I’d been grabbing various Destitute fans and asking them a couple of carefully planned questions that wouldn’t keep them too long, while still allowing me to get a proper feel for the local hype surrounding the album. I was immensely pleased with the feedback I’d been getting so far, and I couldn’t wait to share it with Jared.
A private smile curled on my lips as I thought of him. Since we started sleeping together, I was getting to know the man beneath the arrogant shell little by little
Whenever we were out in public together or with other people, he was every bit the rock star I’d gotten to know him as. But when the doors closed and the people left, I was learning that he was intelligent, passionate about his music and
their fans, loved reading as much as I did, and was a thorough, attentive, and enthusiastic lover. He could be playful at times and serious at others. He worked hard and was unapologetic on the occasions that he played harder.
Overall, I was glad that I’d gone on that date, and I was having more fun with him than I’d initially thought I would. He’d shocked my socks off that first morning when he’d told me all those things about his body being at my disposal and how there were so many fantasies that he wanted to act out with me.
Shock, surprise, anticipation, confusion, and apprehension had all rolled through me at the same time, but once I knew what he wanted, there was no possibility that I was going to say no. Being with him was just too good, and as impossible as I would have thought it to be, each time I was with him, it just seemed to get better.
We hadn’t talked more about what we were, or what our expectations of each other were, but that was okay since I was relatively sure we were both clear on the basics. I was about to grab another fan to interview when I decided against it. I could carry on with my interviews later, but thinking about Jared and everything we’d done over the course of the past few weeks was getting me all riled up, and I wondered if we had time to squeeze in a quickie before their show later.
Jared was always ready to go, and he was forever encouraging me to tell him what I wanted, when I wanted it. As I hurried to his dressing room, I felt the warm rush of excitement that I’d come to associate with being with him.
The benefit was being held at an outdoor arena with dressing rooms set up behind the stage in a fenced-off area that you needed a pass to get to. Jared’s dressing room wasn’t far from the stage and sat slightly off to the side.
I flashed my access pass that hung from a red lanyard around my neck at the security guards manning the metal barrier that kept the public away from the performers, and one of the beefy men nodded and moved aside to allow me in.
The backstage area was bustling with activity as the opening act announced that they were about to play their last song. Some of the crowd already started screaming for an encore, but I smiled when I heard the majority of people were already screaming for Destitute to come out.
The hype was definitely working. Pride surged through me, both for myself, for having come up with an effective campaign so soon into my new job, and for Jared and the rest of the band. They’d worked hard over the years to get to the point where they were breaching the stratosphere, but it would certainly appear that they were just about there.
I dodged crew members who were getting things ready to prepare the stage for Destitute, a few fans who’d won backstage passes, and countless other people chattering and hurrying about to do their jobs, and I made my way to Jared’s dressing room.
There was a paper sign affixed to the door with his name on it, and I paused for a second to take in my surroundings, to let it sink in that I was one of the chosen few who could be back here because I’d worked my way up and I was that good at my job. More than anything, though, I paused to revel in the fact that the beautiful man behind that door was mine. At least, for the time being.
A low noise came from inside the dressing room, and at first, I thought that I’d imagined it. But no. There it was again, and it sounded a hell of a lot like… No, it didn’t only sound like it. It was a woman moaning. From the way the moans were reaching a crescendo and becoming louder by the second, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was happening behind that door.
My world didn’t come crashing down at the realization that Jared had found someone else to have a pre-show quickie with. That would have required that I thought we were something more than what we were.
I wasn’t stupid, I knew that he was a player, but perhaps I’d been something of a fool to have believed that there were unspoken rules to this kind of relationship. It hadn’t occurred to me that he wasn’t being exclusive with me. I was certainly being exclusive with him.
It was more like a pane of glass shattered in my head, and the rose tint that I’d been looking through over this whole thing was smashed to pieces. It disappeared as if it’d never existed.
I had to get away from here suddenly. I was such an idiot to have slept with Jared in the first place and to have done it so many more times over the course of the last few weeks. A string of mumbled curses fell from my lips as I marched myself back to the metal barrier and back out to the public to do my damn job. That was all I should have been doing in the first place.
I was annoyed as all hell with Jared, whether it was reasonable or not. Would it absolutely have killed him to have told me that he’d stopped having fun with me, and that he was going back to his former ways? It hurt that he hadn’t, and I hated that it did. I would have to remember my place from now on.
Which was out here. With the fans and the people and learning what I could to do my job better. After that, it was back at my office, incorporating what I’d learned into new and existing strategies. Case closed.
Grabbing the first person wearing a Destitute shirt that I saw on the other side of the barrier, I pasted a fake smile onto my lips, got out my recording device, and conducted my interview somewhat more bluntly and forcefully than the fan might have deserved.
I reminded myself that the poor man in front of me was not the cause of my annoyance, or the reason that I’d made a fool of myself. As soon as Destitute stepped off that stage, I would take my feelings out on the man who did deserve it. Then back to the office, I would go.
The fan begged off as soon as the roar for Destitute started, and I let him go with a much friendlier smile than I’d approached him with. I moved back to the edges of the crowd to settle in for the show and wrestled my heart for control over its beats when Jared stepped onto the stage.
He was wearing one of those pairs of tight leather pants that never failed to make my mouth water, with a T-shirt that paid tribute to an iconic band, and a beanie hat jammed down over his hair.
Looking like the quintessential rock star that I supposed he was, he stepped up to the microphone as the others followed him onto the stage and made their way to their respective places.
“What’s going on, veterans?” he crooned into his mic, and predictably, the audience went wild. Charming them for a few more seconds until the others were settled with their instruments, he waved and winked, moved to the edge of the stage to touch his hands to those who were there, all the while talking to them in a smooth, sure voice.
I hadn’t seen Destitute live in action as of yet, and as supremely irritated as I was with their front man, I had to admit that they all looked like they belonged up there. No one more so than Jared. I snorted, though the noise was drowned out by the music and the fans. Of course, he was relaxed and confident. He’d just fucked a groupie, and her moans would have been enough to make any man think that he could conquer the world.
The knowledge of what he’d done stung more than it had any right to, but I was convinced that it was just my ego that was bruised and stinging. I really thought that I was enough for him, that he was having as much fun as I was, and that he’d have the common decency to tell me that he obviously wasn’t.
The levels of my annoyance, anger, and humiliation were increased with each smirk and every minute of him playing up to the crowd with his suddenly rage-inducing natural charisma. By the time the show was over, I was bubbling like a cauldron of poison just about to simmer over.
Jared was already back in his dressing room when I got there, and he had the audacity to smile like he was happy to see me. “Hey, where were you before the show? I thought you’d be here. You know, to tell me to break a leg or something.”
His tone was light and teasing. Oh, I wanted him to break a leg, alright.
“I was here. I just didn’t come inside, on account of the fact that someone else was already coming.”
If his tone had been light and teasing, mine was the complete opposite of that. It was one that very clearly reflected the poison that was starting to spil
l over. Jared frowned, and his head snapped back, looking confused as he pulled the beanie off. Tossing it aside, his short hair was messy and wild.
Exactly like he’d just been thoroughly fucked. I nearly snorted again.
“What are you talking about? Someone else already coming?”
I can’t believe him. Was he really going to lie to me about this? “Don’t start with me, Jared. I was right outside your door. I heard you going at it with that groupie, or whoever it was. This isn’t exactly a soundproof room.”
Taking a step toward me, the line between his eyebrows deepened, but I stepped back. He stopped his advance on me then, holding up his hands like he was trying to appease an angry puppy.
Asshole.
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. What groupie?”
“How am I supposed to know? I assumed it was a groupie, but I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me if it was some other girl that you were screwing on the side.”
Jared’s dark eyes flew wide open, and his eyebrows shot up. At the same time, he stepped back as if I’d pushed him away. “If you’re assuming that I screwed a groupie before the show, you’re wrong. I didn’t fuck anyone. I wasn’t even in here. And even if I had been, how would it have been ‘on the side’?”
He made air quotes with his fingers around the words “on the side,” dropped his chin to his chest, and stared back at me quizzically. “Correct me if I’m wrong here, but ‘on the side’ would entail that we’d agreed to be exclusive, which I don’t remember doing. I didn’t know whether we were being exclusive or not, but that doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t sleep with anyone earlier.”
Placing my palms on the back of a small blue couch in front of me, I rubbed my skin on the rough material as I broke eye contact with Jared to look anywhere but right at him. The dressing room wasn’t large, though. It wasn’t much more than the small sitting area I was standing behind and a counter in the corner with snacks and a gift basket on top and a mini fridge below, so it was hard to avoid his eyes for too long.
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