I didn’t know what to think. I’d expected exclusivity from him, even though we hadn’t talked about it outright, but he appeared to be as honest as he’d ever been when he denied having slept with anyone else.
Watching silently as I tried to work through my confusion, since I’d been right outside of that door and the sounds coming through it had been crystal clear, Jared’s mood was deteriorating as fast as mine had.
“Can you explain the noises then?” I demanded, letting go of the couch and walking right up to him as I tilted my head, my hands on my hips.
Jared closed the few inches that I’d purposely kept between our bodies, lust and irritation both radiating from him. The golden flecks in his dark eyes were more pronounced like this, as was the black ring around them. That familiar electricity sparked the air around us, but I wasn’t giving in. Not this time. I knew what I heard, and I wanted an explanation.
“No, I can’t explain it. I told you, I wasn’t even here. I was with Dom. He wanted to go over the set list one last time with me.”
Jared was exasperated, angry even. Denial and annoyance flashed in his eyes.
“I know what I heard.”
“Well, I don’t. I wasn’t fucking anyone.” His voice wasn’t imploring or pleading, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. This was Jared we were talking about. He never begged, never pleaded. He wouldn’t ever.
No, if anything, he was fully decked out as the Emperor of Rock. Eyebrow raised in a challenge, confidence oozing out of every pore. If it wasn’t for his eyes, I would’ve thought that my Jared had left the building.
There’s no such thing as your Jared, I reminded myself. “If you didn’t want me anymore, you could’ve just told me. That was what we agreed to: fun until it wasn’t.”
“You think I don’t want you anymore, is that it?” he asked harshly.
Without any warning, one of his hands was on the small of my back, pushing the lower halves of our bodies roughly together while the other wound into my hair, gripping at my nape as he mashed his mouth down on mine. We’d kissed before, a lot. But none of our kisses had been like this.
This kiss was fuel and fire. He was throwing down the gauntlet with it, and I knew it.
I love winning, his words from so many weeks before rang out in my mind.
His tongue pushed against my lips, and they opened for him as if on nothing but instinct. The kiss was rough and hard and wet. The usual nips at my lips and jaw and neck were bites now.
I couldn’t breathe properly, and I very much doubted he could, either, but the kiss had taken on a life of its own, and I let it live it. I was so confused, so angry with both of us, and I didn’t want to feel this way anymore.
My head was hostile territory, and I needed to get out of it. Jared could do that for me, and even if he was the cause of it, I let him do it.
The moment I decided to relinquish control, Jared took it from me. Crashing his hips to mine, I felt the press of his hard-on against me as he yanked on my hair, his teeth scraping along the sensitive skin on my neck.
I clawed at his back, my nails biting into his skin through his shirt, and I moaned at the sharp sting of sensation as his teeth sank into my collar bone. Stubble from his goatee scraped along my shoulder as he shoved his hand into my jeans.
My head fell back, and my eyes closed as one finger slid inside me. The sensations were so much more when his hand was being constrained by my pants; his touch was harder. Closer. My knees threatened to buckle, but he held me up with an arm around my waist and moved his thigh between my legs.
His mouth came back to mine as he slid a second finger inside me, stretching me and filling me. Pumping in time with the insistent strokes of his tongue, I let go of everything: my doubts, the last remaining vestiges of control that I’d been trying to cling to, and my thoughts about how I’d heard moans just like the ones coming out of my mouth now just before the show.
I surrendered to sensation and to Jared, allowing him to take control from me, to show me that he still wanted me. Pushing back against his hand, his thumb pressed down on my clit, and I was so close.
As always, Jared knew that I was, but then he did something he’d never done with me before. He stopped.
Fully and completely, and yanked his hand out of my pants. I cried out at the loss of him, my muscles clenching as I trembled, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
“Jared!” I protested, clinging to him and dragging myself over his thigh desperately, shamelessly writhing against it.
He let me ride him until I was right at the brink again, then stopped me by grabbing onto my hips and holding them still. A low growl of frustration ripped from my throat. “Jared, stop.”
The bastard had the nerve to smirk down at me, but his eyes spoke volumes. “I already did. You accused me of doing a pretty shitty thing today, and you still don’t fully believe that I didn’t.”
“So, this is your way of punishing me?” I all but shouted at him, which was a little absurd since our bodies were still pressed together and my hips were still trying to seek out his.
Jared’s eyes narrowed, and he tensed against me. “Punishment isn’t my thing, baby. You know that. It isn’t revenge, either, in case that was going to be your next question.”
Lifting me by the ass, my legs wrapped around his firm butt, and I whimpered from the slight relief of having his firm abs pressed so close to me. He crossed the small space and deposited me on the counter, pushing his ridiculously sexy pants down only enough to free his erection.
Then he went to work on my jeans, undoing them and pulling them down to my ankles in one swift movement. He ducked between my legs, plucked a condom from the gift basket of all places, and lined himself up with my entrance after rolling it on.
“If it’s not punishment or revenge, why are you making me wait?” I grunted, hating the neediness that crept into my voice, but completely powerless to stop it
Jarred’s expression was fierce, his eyes pinned to mine and as serious as I’d ever seen them. “Because I need you too badly to let any of that other shit still be on your mind. I also don’t want you in some kind of post-orgasmic haze, or whatever it’s called. I need you with me, seeing how much I want to come with you, because if you see that, there’s no way you’ll believe that I did it with anyone else.”
Eyes on mine, hands on my thighs, he rammed into me and proceeded to fly me to the stars, but not before letting me see and hear exactly what I needed to.
CHAPTER 21
JARED
“Fuck that was awesome.” Angry sex with Alicia was something that I’d just learned I loved. For someone who always wanted to be in some measure of control, she was a wildcat when she lost it. I was pretty sure the skin on my back was ripped to shreds and that I was going to have permanent marks from her fingernails on my ass, but it was totally worth it.
I’d been completely blindsided by her accusations, unprepared for her tearing into me over something that I didn’t fucking do, and even more so by how quickly that had me crashing down from the high after what had been a pretty spectacular show for a great cause. Nothing usually brought me down after a show like that, especially not bullshit allegations five minutes after I got off stage.
The intensity of my emotions from her calling me out for screwing someone else was also not something I was used to. It should have rolled off my back like water, but it hadn’t. It triggered a severe urge to prove her wrong, to drive her as crazy as she made me feel, and even more strangely, to make her believe me.
I knotted and tossed the condom in a wastebasket underneath the counter, forced my dick back into my pants, and helped Alicia hop off, bending down to pull her pants back up over her shaky legs.
“Yeah, it was awesome,” she admitted, although she wouldn’t meet my eyes for some reason. Grabbing a bottle of water for each of us from the mini fridge, I led her over to the couch and sat down before putting her into my lap and chugging half my water in one go.
Holding
my water in my hand, I brought it down to rest on her thigh. “Talk to me, Alicia.”
A deep sigh rattled from her lungs as she squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them to land on mine. “I need to say a few things, but hear me out before you start freaking out.”
That didn’t sound good. I very much doubted that I was going to like what she was about to say. “I can do that.”
She hesitated, but then the vulnerability in her eyes was gone and replaced with the same resolute determination that I’d seen there when she’d been expecting an argument over something at work. This definitely wasn’t going to be good.
“So here’s the thing. I know that we agreed to just have fun and see where we go, but I need more than that from you.”
Fuck.
More. I could give her so much, but surely, I couldn’t give her that. I didn’t even really know what that meant, but since I promised to hear her out, I nodded for her to continue.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that I love you or anything.”
Thank god for that. The word love wasn’t even on my radar, so if nothing else, we were still on the same page about that.
“I’ve always had to be careful to keep control of my emotions, and I can’t do that if I don’t know what to expect from you. I need commitment.”
Shit. Fuck. Balls. I should’ve known this was coming. I should’ve expected it, and I sure as hell should’ve had something better to say, but I didn’t.
“Oh.”
Alicia held up her hand, which did little to slow my racing thoughts. “I understand that you don’t want to date me, and we don’t need to give whatever this is any specific title. I still don’t know if I believe you about not sleeping with the groupie, but if we’re going to continue to do this, I’m going to need your word that you will be a hundred percent committed to sleeping only with me. If you can’t give me that, then we need to be a hundred percent over.”
Sleeping with only one girl? My skin prickled when I realized that she was suggesting exclusivity. Monogamy, even if we weren’t dating. It wasn’t something that sat right with me, but on the other hand, the thought that another man would be touching her if I didn’t agree to this was even worse. Much worse was never getting to fuck her again.
That same pang of possessiveness, of relentless need that I’d felt before, twisted in my gut. I was in. Whatever the fuck being in was.
“I can live with that,” I told her, surprising myself by agreeing as much as I seemed to have surprised her. I just didn’t know for how long. I’d never been tied to only one pussy before, so I had no way of knowing how long it would take before either of us got bored.
But as long as that one pussy was hers, I was everything but bored right now. Hers was the golden standard of pussies as far as I was concerned. “So long as we’re clear that we are still friends with benefits and nothing more, I can agree to not fuck anyone else while we’re at it.”
A small, but radiant smile started spreading on Alicia’s lips as her hand lifted to my cheek. “Really?”
“Yeah, really,” I said, smirking a little. “I’m not an animal. I can control myself. It’s a two-way street, though, right?”
Alicia nodded and leaned her forehead against mine. “You have my word. If I’m sleeping with someone, I’m only with them. So, I’m only with you.”
Bringing her lips to mine, she slid her tongue over them and kissed me passionately. My hands circled her waist, and I pulled her close to my chest, splaying my fingers across her back as I held her to me.
Christ, she felt so damn good. Her lips were soft and pliant as they moved with mine, and she tasted like spearmint and sunshine. I didn’t care how cheesy that sounded, it was true, and it also wasn’t like I was planning on ever saying it out loud.
As my hands were twisting into her hair and our kiss grew more frenzied, there was a knock on the door, and Nick called out from outside. “Dude, open up.”
I groaned at his interruption, but I also knew Nick well enough to know that he wasn’t leaving until I did. It didn’t hurt to try, though. “Go away. I’m busy.”
“Come on, man. This will only take a second. I’m trying to be decent here.”
Alicia scampered off my lap, smiled, and held her hand out to the door. “Go ahead.”
With a deep sigh, I shook my head at both of them, even though Nick couldn’t see me as I headed for the door. As soon as I opened it, Nick stepped inside and didn’t react to finding us together or to how obvious it was that we’d just fucked.
“Hey, Alicia,” he said, his hazel eyes shining green as they always did when we came offstage. It was Nick’s tell that he was buzzed, excited, and high on adrenaline.
Alicia’s hair was wild from having my hands in them, her lips slightly swollen and pink, and although mine were covered in scruff, I was pretty sure they looked the same. It wasn’t like I was hiding the fact that I was sleeping with Alicia from the band. We were just way past the fuck and tell stage of our lives.
Sure, we still laughed about the crazy chicks and occasionally bragged about an exceptionally good blow job and that kind of thing, but that was it. If we all had to sit down and dissect every sexual experience, we might as well pack it in and spend the rest of our lives gossiping.
“What do you want, Masters?”
He looked sheepish and clasped the back of his neck with his hand, gripping at his black hair. “So, I was making out with this chick earlier, and things got a little heated, so I took her to the nearest dressing room. Turned out that was yours. I was just coming by to say sorry if we knocked anything over and to warn you not to sit on that couch. I told you I was trying to be decent here.”
Nick laughed when Alicia jumped up and looked at the offending couch as if it had bitten her. I caught her eye, and everything suddenly made sense. She had heard someone screwing in my dressing room, it just hadn’t been me.
We burst out laughing at the same time as we figured it out, while a mildly confused expression crossed Nick’s features, and his eyes darted between the two of us.
“Looks like I’m too late. I’m just going to get out of your hair then.”
CHAPTER 22
ALICIA
“Tell me, Jared.” Lesley Ann something or other, the reporter who was busy doing an interview with him, said. “You guys are being so coy about the details of your upcoming album. Only little hints and teases on social media, why take such a different approach on this album than you have previously?”
Jared leaned forward in his chair like he was about to let her in on a secret, his elbows on the arms of the chair as he steepled his fingers in front of him. Light shimmered from his silver rings, three on each hand today.
He looked good. Really good.
Since there wasn’t a photo shoot or anything after the interview, I was selecting and sending over a few options from shoots we’d had done after I proofread and okayed the article, he’d opted for casual rock star instead of his full- on Emperor of Rock garb.
Leather pants were traded for dark wash jeans that hugged his ass like a tender caress, as opposed to the flagrant and shameless parade of it the leather pants put on. The black v- neck shirt he wore showed off the beginnings of the tattoos on his chest I’d become so intimately familiar with and exposed the corded muscles of his forearms.
A thin black leather strap was tied around his neck and matched the wide cuff he wore on one wrist while those silver rings drew my attention every time he moved his hands. Freshly shaven, there was only the vaguest hint of a dark show along his jawline that tapered down to his goatee. His intense eyes were fixed on the reporter’s, but I could perfectly picture what she saw. Down to the last golden fleck, his eyes were permanently imprinted on my brain.
As was the rest of him.
The reporter was looking at him like she was dying to rip off his clothes and discover what said rest of him looked like. While I couldn’t blame the woman, seeing her eye him with such obvious lust ma
de white- hot spikes of jealousy stab me in the gut. If I was any less of a professional, I would’ve demanded that she turn around and finish the interview while looking out at the clear blue ocean on the other side of Gerry’s office windows.
Easy there, tiger. He’s not your boyfriend or anything. I hated that I had to give myself the reminder, but I did. It’d been a week since we’d discussed and agreed on exclusivity, but with the heat simmering about their upcoming album I was inundated with interview requests and I was finding it hard to believe that he was going to stick to our agreement with women who looked like this one drooling all over him all day.
I could see why the magazine who’d sent her would someone like her over. She was gorgeous. If Jared was going to candid and open with anyone, it would be with the raven haired beauty sitting across from him now.
She was tall and willowy, with hair that hung to her well- defined waist, perfectly displayed in a dress I would give my right butt cheek to look as good in, but one of my butt cheeks was also probably all that would fit in it. Her boobs were smaller than mine, but her modest cleavage was attracting even my eyes because of the narrow golden chain that hung between her breasts. The whole picture made me want to vomit.
And drag Jared into a cave somewhere to hide him from women who looked like her.
“We’re not being coy,” he said. “We’re simply taking a more seductive approach with this one.”
What? Seductive? I coughed into my hand to keep from making a very unladylike sound of disbelief. Gerry was standing in the doorway beside me, observing the interview. He shot me a sideways look, but his attention went right back to the reporter when she giggled. A tinkling sound I instantly hated.
“That’s a good way to describe it.” She reached out to rest a hand on his knee as the tinkling continued. “Seductive.”
“Thanks.” He smirked.
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