Dirty Rock: A Rock Star Romance

by James, Vicki

  Still…

  I wanted her.

  I’d tasted her.

  I needed more.

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding along. “I think I have.”

  “Rhett?” a feminine voice said, making me look up to my right.

  Charlotte King stood in front of me, her cheeks rosy from the cold, and eyes wide with surprise. The woman had the nerve to wear a smile in my presence, and while she took a step closer, I cast a quick glance at Ollie who stared back at me, stunned.

  Of all the morons to run into.

  “My God, is it really you?” Charlotte asked.

  I inhaled a deep breath and turned back to her with a flat smile of my own. “Yeah. And you are?” I scowled.

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Oh. Maybe. It’s Rachel, right?”

  “No,” she said with a small chuckle, and pressed her palm to her chest. “It’s Charlotte.”

  I pushed down the hatred I’d always held for her. Kill them with indifference. That had always been the rule, and I wasn’t about to change that now.

  “Charlotte King,” she added. “We went to high school together.”

  I frowned harder and shook my head.

  “You don’t remember? I had a crush on you when we were younger.” She laughed, trying to sound cute. I wanted to throw Ollie’s drink over her perfectly styled hair and tell her there were far more hideous memories that stood out rather than that bullshit, but alcohol was precious, and I wasn’t about to waste it on her. “I got Andrew Crawley to tell Ollie that I—”

  “Shit. Crawley. I remember him. That guy knew how to gossip.” Faking my own surprise, I gave a short nod of recognition. “Of course. Charlotte. Right. Hi.”

  She drew nearer, stopping only a foot away. I knew that expression she wore. I’d seen it a thousand times over. Some women thought that if they stood close enough, they were in with a chance. I’d rather eat my own dick than let Charlotte King anywhere near it.

  “So…” she said with a dreamy sigh. “It’s been a while.”

  “Yep.”

  “And you’ve done well for yourself.”

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded.

  “It’s crazy, isn’t it? So crazy how life takes us on a—”

  “Let me stop you right there, Charlotte,” I cut in bluntly and gestured to Ollie. “I’m here having a drink with my friend, so unless there’s something I can help you with, I’d like to get back to that. It’s been a while since I got to hang out with him, and my time is kinda precious.”

  Her face fell—the old high school queen obviously not used to the harsh rejection. Charlotte was still incredibly pretty ten years on, but all I saw when I looked at her was that foul, black heart she tried to hide.

  “I see.” She raised her chin. “You too big for us mere mortals now or something?”

  “Not mortals. Just you.”

  “There’s no need to be rude, Rhett.”

  “Really?” I laughed, raising a brow. “I remember differently. Now, if you don’t mind.” I turned back to Ollie and was about to block Charlotte out completely when another voice from my past cut straight through my plans.

  “Is this punk idiot giving you problems, beautiful?” Liam Montgomery asked her.

  With a groan, I swung my head back around and took them in. Liam hadn’t changed a bit. He carried himself the way he always had done, with an arrogance I wanted to beat out of him with my favourite guitar. He was worth the wreckage and the expense.

  “Fucked your life up yet, Ryan?” Liam asked in that ridiculously deep voice.

  “It looks like you fucked yours up enough for the both of us,” I hit back, gesturing to the woman on his arm.

  Charlotte gasped in disgust, and Liam’s face hardened. “You watch your mouth, arsehole,” he hissed, stepping around her to stand in front of me.

  He was a big, strong man, but the guy had more issues than Charlie Sheen. “Or what?” I challenged calmly.

  “Didn’t you learn from all those years of me kicking your arse?”

  “I learnt your shoe size, and the fact that you hit like a girl, yeah. Didn’t you ever wonder why I never retaliated, Montgomery? It was because my mother always told me to never hit a woman. Now, what else did I miss?”

  His jaw shook as he clenched his teeth together, and it made my smile grow as I stared at him, waiting.

  “You’re such a dick, Rhett Ryan,” Charlotte said from behind Liam.

  “One you wanted to blow three minutes before your lover boy got in the way.” Lifting Ollie’s half-drunk pint to my mouth, I eyed them both with no concern in my heart. With a delicious gasp, I dropped it back to the table and rubbed my lips together. “Get the fuck outta here. You’re boring me already.”

  Liam took a step forward, only for him to be stopped in his tracks as the pub’s landlord grabbed his arm and glared up at him in warning. Mr Thomas was an old boy with greying hair and braces that held his stonewash trousers in place, but he had a face you didn’t mess with, and that had been the law around Cookham for decades.

  “You might want to think twice about that, son,” Mr Thomas warned him sternly. “Whether you like it or not, Rhett’s worth more to me tonight than you. I’m not too proud to admit that I need the money, and I don’t need the scandal. If you can’t handle that, I suggest you leave.”

  Liam shook with anger, and while Mr Thomas began to move him along, I turned back to Ollie to give him my full attention.

  He was staring at me with wide eyes.

  “What?” I asked, taking another sip of his beer.

  “Who the hell are you these days?”

  With a half-hearted shrug, I dropped the pint glass back onto the table and leaned back in my chair. “This life changes you, Ol. When you step into the spotlight, you learn how to fight in ways others can’t.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Presl—” I stumbled over a tree stump, my rough laughter trailing behind me as I wandered to the side only to fall onto Ollie who caught me and set me upright. I’d convinced him to fuck school night, and the two of us had played a game of ‘let’s see how many shots we can down before we die’. Now, neither of us could walk or see two feet in front of us, but we were laughing hard, and that’s all that mattered in life.

  Laughing.

  “Rhett!” Presley called out through the phone. His voice was distant, and I spun around in the darkness, looking for the light of the phone I’d dropped.

  “Ollie. Help me find the fucking thing.”

  Ollie just laughed and perched his arse on the back of a bench in the park. He was gone, with flushed cheeks and eyes that looked like he’d shoved an ecstasy pill down his wiener. “I don’t know who I am. Where do I live? Is tequila vegan?”

  “Dude.”

  “I feel sick.”

  “Useless arsehole,” I spat, finally seeing a tinge of light in the overgrown grass. I dropped down onto all fours and crawled for my phone. Presley was calling out my name, sounding pissed off when I eventually pushed it back to my ear. “Buddy. My old pal. Drummer boy with his very large stick. Wonder thruster.”

  “Where are you?” Presley grunted down the phone, a tired moan falling free.

  “Man, you’re a sexy motherfucker, West. That voice. No wonder Tessa can’t get enough of you. You give me wood.”

  “As flattered as I am, bro… why the fuck are you calling me in the middle of the night?”

  I threw myself back on the grass and looked up at the starry night sky. “You never sleep.”

  “I never used to sleep. Now, I sleep very well.”

  “How does that feel?” I slurred.

  “What?”

  “Being settled.”

  “There’s a reason I put a ring on it, Rhett.” Presley laughed, and I heard a small, feminine, sleepy moan not too far away in the background.

  “Is Tessa with you now? Ask her if Julia has ever hooked up with anyone while on tour with us.”

  There was silence
then, the tension of it obvious. I blinked as the sky above began to spin wildly, and I brought the phone up in front of me to make sure he hadn’t been cut off. When I pushed it back to my ear, I could hear Presley shuffling about before it sounded like a door clicked shut somewhere around him.

  “Rhett, what’s going on?” he asked, sounding more alert now than before.

  “Did you wake Tess?”

  “No, man, and I’m not going to. She’s sleeping. I’ve moved into the other room. Why the fuck are you asking me about Julia in the middle of the night?”

  My smile was massive at the sound of her name. “Why didn’t you tell me how beautiful she was, Pres?”

  “Who?”

  “Julia. Jules.”

  “I didn’t know I had to tell you.”

  “But she is, isn’t she? She’s beautiful.”

  Presley took a few seconds to answer. “Yeah, she’s beautiful.”

  Just the thought of her made me want to palm my dick, and the fresh night air was making the alcohol feel a lot stronger than when I’d been pouring it down my neck.

  “Don’t even go there, Rhett.”

  “Where?” I smirked.

  “Do not fuck with the one person who has always been there for us.”

  “Why not?” I laughed.

  “Mate, if you fuck this up, it could ruin everyth—”

  “Shit, gotta go. I have a… thing. Night, Pres. I love you, brother.”

  I ended the call with a smile on my face, and I tried to focus on finding Julia’s number in my contacts. Every name blurred together to look like hers, but when I was certain I’d found the right one, I opened up a text to her and typed out everything in my muddled heart. All nine words of it.

  Let me have you. One night. You and me.

  Satisfied, I turned my phone off, tossed it in the grass, and I closed my eyes.

  Sometimes you just had to do what you had to do; consequences be damned.

  * * *

  I woke up to cold water being thrown in my face, the harsh shock of it making me sit bolt upright in bed, and my face to scrunch tight as I gasped for air.

  “What in the fresh hell?”

  “Wakey, wakey, lover boy.”

  That voice had me wiping the water away from my face and blinking up to look at the woman above me—my vision blurry, and my nausea gurgling in warning.

  “Jules?”

  She was standing there, smug as shit, wearing a little khaki coloured bomber jacket, a black T-shirt, and a pair of arse-hugging jeans that did nothing to ease my morning glory. Even half-asleep, I appreciated what I saw, and that lack of basic control irritated me. Her hair was growing at the front, sheltering her left eye. She was all pretty, plump pink lips, long, dark lashes, and rosy cheeks I wanted to pinch for days. Julia dropped her empty glass down to the side table by my bed before she stood tall again and folded her arms over her chest.

  “The hell are you doing here?” I croaked, tasting tequila in my throat and feeling the fur on my tongue. I glanced around before I looked down and peeked under my bedsheet. “How did I get home and who got me naked?” Wait. My head shot up. “Did you do this?”

  “You wish.” She smirked. “Apparently your mum found you in the middle of a park with one of your friends. You’d passed out.”

  “Please tell me Ma didn’t undress me.”

  Julia raised a sharp brow, her amusement clear.

  “Fuck,” I hissed, dropping my sheet down and throwing my head back onto the pillow. My head didn’t appreciate that, and I pushed the heels of my fists into my eyes and held my forehead for a moment, releasing a groan. “What time is it?”

  “Three.”

  “In the afternoon?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I lifted a hand and peeked an eye open at Julia. Damn, she looked good. If I thought her little blazers were sexy, they had nothing on this dressed-down, do not fuck with me, Top Gun vibe she had going on.

  “What are you doing here?” I croaked quietly.

  “You mean you don’t remember?” Jules rolled her eyes. “Let me have you. One night. You and me.” Her voice mimicked mine, and she shook her head.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She sighed. “Let’s just say that when your mum turned your phone back on and checked to see who the last person you contacted was, she saw my name and called me.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “She’s worried about you. She was hysterical, actually. She needed to find out if you were okay.”

  “Did you manage to sell the lie?”

  “That’s what I do, Rhett. I sell the lie. It’s what you pay me for.”

  The memory of seeing Julia’s name on my phone floated back to me, but it was foggy and hard to make out until she stepped closer and dropped her tight little arse to the edge of the bed.

  She was here because of me, and she smelt so good and I wanted her and I needed to kiss her and I couldn’t think without taking a mental breath.

  Her perfume floated under my nose, making things come to life beneath the bedsheets. Even with my head pounding and my heart pounding harder, I held her gaze from one puffy, blurry eye, and I studied Jules.

  How hadn’t I seen how fuckable she was before?

  Her arse brushed against my thigh, and I imagined pushing that jacket from her shoulders, trailing my fingers up her bare arms, and placing a soft kiss on her neck, just under her ear. I pictured the small shudder that would run through her, and the goosebumps rising on her perfect skin. I imagined the gentle moans she’d make, and I pictured that smile she was smiling at me being wrapped around my dick.

  All those thoughts made a tent out of my bedsheet. Thankfully, Julia’s eyes were focused on my face and not my raging erection.

  “I’m going to need you to behave while I’m not around,” she said quietly—lightly. She looked like my sassy publicist again today. That little spark was back in her eyes. The sadness had disappeared. I wanted to turn that spark into a raging fire.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” I dropped my elbows to the bed and pushed up on them. I didn’t miss the way her eyes dropped to take in every inch of my body before she swallowed lightly and looked back up into my eyes. “Misbehaving brings you back to me.”

  “You need to stop this.” She didn’t want me to stop shit.

  “If I don’t, you’re not going to be able to say no to me for much longer. That’s the truth of it, isn’t it?”

  Her eyes narrowed, but a small smile tugged on one corner of her mouth.

  “You’re at war with yourself, Jules. Just let it happen.”

  “And what happens once it’s over?”

  “We go back to how it was. You, being a bossy diva, walking in on me being the shitty little rock star you love to loathe, and I’ll go back to finding new ways to piss you off every chance I get.”

  “It’d be that easy?”

  “It can be whatever we want it to be,” I breathed out, my eyes falling to her lips.

  She looked so clean, and I was rough. The untameable rock star she couldn’t manage.

  It felt like forever before she spoke and pressed a hand into the mattress, leaning closer so there were only a few inches between us.

  “You want to play, Rhett? Fine.” Her brows bounced. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Meet me downstairs in ten minutes. Pack a bag. And for the love of God, take a shower and brush your teeth. Don’t keep me waiting.”

  She pushed herself off my bed, and my eyes fell to her tight backside as she made her way to the door and left.

  I glanced down at my dick, suddenly more excited than I could ever remember being for it and for me. But I couldn’t deny the way my heart pounded wildly, and the nerves began to prickle my skin.

  Nerves? Me? Fuck… it had been a long time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  My stepdad Caleb had been sitting with Ma when I went downstairs. After showering and throwing a bag over my shoulder, I had a
pproximately one and a half minutes left to say my goodbyes.

  “Promise me you’ll be safe,” Ma whimpered, visibly upset by my leaving again. I hated hurting her but staying would cripple me. My absence didn’t mean I loved her any less. It meant I loved life enough to take it by the balls and embrace the days ahead.

  “I promise, I’ll be safe. I’m sorry again about last night.”

  Caleb was rubbing his hand over Ma’s back, and I could tell by the tightness of his jaw that he wasn’t all that impressed by my return.

  “Same to you, too, C,” I told him, not wanting to leave on bad terms. “Ollie and I got carried away. It won’t happen again.”

  “Are you coming back?” he asked roughly.

  “Sure.” I had no clue if I was or not. The short time I had been back felt like someone had thrown a plastic bag over my head, tied it around the neck, and was trying to force the life out of me.

  “Stay out of trouble.”

  “Right.”

  Don’t have too much fun. We’re not used to that around here. That’s what he really meant.

  I nodded once and made my way out of the country home I’d grown up in, closing the old red door behind me before I stepped out onto the narrow garden pathway.

  Julia was leaning against the bonnet of a sleek little black Audi, her eyes drifting over the village as though she appreciated everything she saw.

  With my bag slung over my shoulder, I came to a stop in front of her.

  “You’re clean,” she said, taking me in.

  “For now.”

  Her lips grew into a mischievous smile. “For now will do. I’m taking you out.”

  She pulled some sunglasses out from her jacket pocket and pushed them onto her face. I hated that she covered up her eyes. They were the windows to the soul, and I suddenly wanted to see every little inch of hers.

  She made her way into the driver’s seat, leaving me frowning after her. A minute passed before she slid her window down, rested her elbow on the edge of it, and peeked out.