by James, Vicki
“What kind of problems?”
“Alcohol. Booze. Men.” Jules looked down again, focusing on her finger as it trailed circles on my tattooed chest. “Too many men. Anyone who would show her some attention.”
I swallowed as carefully as I could. “Was the baby with a boyfriend, or…”
“It was a random. It’s always a random. I thought it might tame her a little. Settle her down. The baby gave me hope, but most importantly, it gave her hope, too.”
“Hope for what?”
Her eyes shot up to mine. “A love that would never leave her at the side of the road again.”
“You’ve been saving her your whole life, haven’t you?”
Her finger stilled for several heartbeats before it began moving again. “I guess so.”
“And you were saving the guys from Bobby’s band while on tour, learning the ropes of the business, becoming PA, manager, publicist, all that shit rolled into one, too.”
“Pretty much.”
“Then you found us. Youth Gone Wild.”
“And I’ve been saving your arses ever since.” Her smile, although beautiful, was weak.
I pinched her chin between my finger and thumb. “And who’s been saving you?”
“I’m not the kind of girl who needs to be rescued.”
“Bullshit.”
Jules pushed up onto her elbow, shifting so she was leaning over me. I brushed her soft, silky hair out of her face. “I don’t need another hero. I grew up with a bunch of them. What I need is someone to know I’ve got this, but to be standing by my side anyway, reading to grab my hand and squeeze it tight in case I let the fear win every now and again.”
“You keep saying you’re scared of loving me. I want to know why.”
“Because you can’t love a frontman for long.”
I scowled. “Says who?”
“Experience, Rhett. The intrusion and jealousy always turn that love to hate somewhere down the line. I’ve watched women come and go since I was six years old. That’s twenty-six years—your whole life. I sat back and observed every hook-up Bobby and the guys had. I watched them get married, become fathers, get divorced, and then repeat the process all over again another four times until their lawyers are basically just employed to write up prenuptial agreements, and negotiate nasty settlements when it’s all over. And do you know who, out of all of them, always struggled to stay in one place?” She leaned down, her lips only a breath away from mine. “The singer. The frontman is loved by millions, so getting him to love a single soul for more than a couple of years is almost impossible. Eventually, they wander. It’s inevitable.” She smiled sadly.
“No,” I croaked.
“But do you know what?” She brushed her nose against mine. “It’s going to have to happen when it happens now because I love you, and I can’t go back from that. So, like a fool who never learns, I’m going to enjoy the time we have, and I’m going to worry about all the other shit when I have to.”
Time.
That fucking word again.
Time.
Four letters. Nothing more. Yet they made me angry. The heat rose in my toes and had my jaw twitching as I stared up at her.
“No,” was all I breathed out before I grabbed her arms, spun her over, and pinned her body down.
Her dark hair fanned out to a short little halo above her, and her lips parted.
“Baby, you’re not listening to me. This thing we have is one of those cheesy arsed, corny love songs old men like Bobby used to sing. Life, however long that may be, is going to be lived with you. By your side. On the road. In the air. At sea. On the front of every fucking newspaper that exists. We’ll own every headline. We’ll smirk at every scandal. We’ll face the dead fathers we never knew and the shitty mothers who dared to leave us by the roadside, and we’ll face them together. And I swear, if you don’t hear the truth in those words, I’m just going to have to fuck the pessimism right out of you until you do.” I squeezed her arms in my grip, desperate, pleading with her to hear me. “Because the only way you’re getting out of this is if you’re the one to run. And even then, I’m that fucking arrogant, I’d chase you to the darkest horizon until your breaths ran out, and you had no choice but to collapse in my arms. Do you hear me? You can love a frontman for a long time. You’re gonna, and it will always be me.”
Three seconds was all it took for her to reach up and pull my mouth down to hers.
Julia kissed me like she’d never kissed me before, her tongue desperate to conquer mine, her lips hungry from everything I had to offer. Her hands clawed at me, bringing me closer and down onto her bare chest. Her breaths were ragged, and I gave all I had to give to her, enjoying her sweet taste in my mouth and her flawlessly smooth skin beneath my hands.
“Tell me you hear me,” I growled.
“I hear you,” she answered, her voice filled with emotion.
I knew enough about deflection to understand what she was doing, but I gave it to her anyway. I gave her my mind, my body, and my shitty heart right there on that bed. When I slipped inside her, I was suffocated with an overwhelming feeling of everything being fucking right. This wasn’t screwing. This was aggressive lovemaking, and every time Julia let me in, another piece of who I really was as a man began to unfold.
All the other women drifted away like space dust into the back of my mind. The pitch-black part. The part we didn’t have a name for. The part we never wanted or needed to travel to. The part you locked up and forgot about.
As I gripped her throat with one hand and pushed my other into the thick, heavenly parts of her hair, I ground into her slowly, not looking away from her eyes as I took my time making hard, heavy love to her.
We didn’t need to say a damn thing.
Our actions were doing the talking for us because this… this right here… was rock ‘n’ roll love.
Chapter Forty-Three
“I have to get that,” Julia groaned the next morning as her phone rang on an endless loop, waking us from our sleep.
I turned to look at her through a barely open eye. Her neck was marred with little pink marks from making love last night. Julia’s perfect, pouty mouth was parted as she scrolled through her phone. She must have felt my ogling because eventually she turned to me with flushed cheeks and freshly fucked hair.
“I could eat you the hell up right now.” I moved as quickly as my tired body would allow, slipping under the bedsheets until I was on top of her, nudging my way up her body as she held her phone above her head with both hands. She giggled as she tried to focus, leaving me to trail morning kisses over her tight stomach and the curves of her waist before I reached high enough to brush my mouth on the underside of her tits.
“You’re incredibly distracting,” she whispered. “I’m trying to work here.”
“Me, too. Shh.” I grinned against her skin as her phone rang again, making my tongue pause over her nipple. “Let it ring out.”
“This is my job.”
“When in my bed, you’re not my publicist. In here, you’re my girlfriend.”
The phone rang out, and I smiled around her tit in victory. I was about to go to town on her body when the phone started ringing again.
“Goddamn,” I growled, snapping my head up.
“It’s Dicky.” Her face paled. Before I could stop her, she’d pushed me off and shuffled to the edge of the bed, dragging the sheet up against her chest as she answered the call.
“Hey,” she greeted him.
I could hear Dicky’s voice down the phone—he’d never been the quiet kind of manager—but his words were muffled.
“Yeah, he’s here, why?” Julia swallowed, and her back stiffened. “Erm. Okay. Sure.”
I sat up and raised a brow as she turned around and dropped the phone on the bed in between us, hitting the speaker button before looking up at me.
“You’re on speaker, Dicky. Fire away.”
Dicky’s sigh sounded like a thunderstorm. “Rhett?”
>
“Yo,” I croaked, still sounding sleepy.
“I’m coming straight to you with this because you’re shit at lying and this is the only way to get the truth.” He sighed again. “I can’t believe I’m having to ask this question, but… are you fucking Julia?”
My eyes shot up to Julia’s, and I couldn’t think of a single lie that could get us out of this.
“Rhett…?” Dicky pushed.
“I… I mean… No?” I made it sound like a question. “At least not right now.” I winced.
“Jesus Christ!” The sound of Dicky’s fist slamming against a desk was unmistakable.
“Rhett!” Julia mouthed, her brows pinching together. “What the hell?”
I shrugged at her and mouthed a weak, “Sorry,” in response. Even though I wasn’t. Not at all. I didn’t care who knew anymore. I wanted everyone to see what we had.
“Dicky, listen—” Julia started, her concentration dropping down to the phone.
“No!” Dicky shouted, cutting her off. “The lead singer, Julia? Really? Of all the people for you to choose to crawl into bed with.”
“Hey, wait a minute—” I tried.
“And you, you little piss ant, can suck my dick before you even dare to think I’m interested in what you have to say. I expect you to fuck up. It’s a daily occurrence. But to drag Jules down with you? This isn’t a game, you moron, this is the band’s future! And that future involves—”
“Julia! That future… my future involves Julia.”
“Not on my watch,” Dicky growled. “Whatever’s gone on between you two, it’s over. It’ll be over by the time the rest of the guys next stand in front of you. It’ll stay over until the day I’m six feet underground. Do you understand?”
“That’s not going to work for me,” I told him with all the conviction in my heart as I took him off speaker and pressed the phone to my ear.
“If you know what’s good for you, Rhett, you’ll stop this right now.”
“I do know what’s good for me, and it’s her. You’ve seen me spiral these last few months, boss, and you’ve been okay with that. You’ve watched me slip into a dark headspace, use drugs as an escape, drink my own body weight in whiskey, and you’ve been happy to let me slide away with several strangers just to get laid, and none of that has bothered you. But this? Me being happy. Me turning to a mirror and seeing a reflection that no longer repulses me… that bothers you? It’s fucked up. All of it.”
Julia looked up at me with sad eyes and an obviously heavy heart. I imagined Bobby Hart standing beside that beat-up, old car and seeing the same face staring back at him, only younger. I imagined how different things would have been if he turned and walked away. Would it have been an easier life for Jules without the music, the secrecy, the road, and all that came with it? Would it have been better if she’d have been picked up by a regular guy from a normal family with a simple job?
It may have been safer, sure, but it would have been a hell of a lot more boring, and my girl deserved a life of epic colours.
“Ask me to give up anything else, Dicky, and I’ll do it. The booze, the drugs, smart mouth, attitude, and my need to constantly mock the media… fine. No problem. I’ll give it all up and play ball the way you want me to. But if you ask me to give up Jules.” I sighed. “I can’t do that for any of you, man. Not you. Not the boys.”
Julia’s cheeks flushed, and I had no idea how she remained so calm while someone was trying to come between us. All I wanted to do was tear down walls, set shit on fire, and roar to the world that nothing could stop this thing we’d started.
“I love her, Dicky, and not just in some mushy, bullshit way. I mean, I am as high as a fucking kite in love with her. And she loves me, too. There’s nothing more to say. You either handle it, or you don’t.”
I ended the call and threw the phone on the bed as I blew all the air out of my cheeks.
Jules held the bedsheet to her chest and stared down at the phone as though it was going to blow up in both our faces.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” she whispered. Her eyes eventually rose to meet mine. “Before you, every love I’ve ever had has been unbearable or disposable, but I have a feeling you’re not going anywhere soon, are you?” She smirked shyly.
With a shake of my head and a smile on my face, I held out my hand and beckoned her to me. I wasn’t going anywhere, and the sooner everyone, including Jules, realised that, the better it would be.
We spent some time talking to each other after that until her phone pulled her attention away from me, forcing her to scroll through email after endless email. The two of us were leaning back against the headboard when I heard her sigh, and she flipped her phone around for me to take a look at.
“Well, I guess that answers the question of how Dicky found out about us.”
There, right in front of me, was a picture of Julia and I kissing at the after-party, with JJ Jones’s face in the bottom corner of the selfie. The attention-seeking little princess had uploaded it to her Instagram account with the caption: When it’s obvious a certain someone is the favourite of the band. Got a whole lot of love for this after-party and all its secrets.
My top lip curled as I stared at it. “Good to know she isn’t too butthurt about being rejected,” I said sarcastically.
“She was pretty upset.”
“That woman is all face, no shame.” Grabbing the phone from Jules, I pulled it closer and took a look at the picture of us kissing. “Damn, though. We do look good together. Holding on kinda tight there, baby.”
Her cheeks flushed pink again, and she rolled her eyes as she fell into my body so she could rest her head on my chest. “It’s about to get crazy out there, Rhett.”
“I’m ready. Let the world take us on. I finally have something worth fighting for.”
Chapter Forty-Four
JJ Jones has set the Youth Gone Wild Fandom alight with her recent Instagram post, which shows the lead singer and notoriously naughty Rhett Ryan cosying up with none other than the band’s very own squeaky-clean publicist, Julia Speed. While Youth Gone Wild’s team have remained tight-lipped about the apparent relationship so far, many are speculating that Rhett Ryan is, indeed, trying to break away from the band and move to a solo career without the other four members. A source close to the band reports that Presley West’s relationship and quick engagement with Instagram It Girl Tessa Lisbon has put a serious strain on the band members and their friendships.
Rhett performed his first solo event live on American TV only last week, where he blew the music world apart with his raspy, seductive rendition of Hallelujah.
And we’ll give you one guess who his one and only travel partner was on that trip.
That’s right. Sneaky little Julia Speed herself.
Which begs the question… Is Rhett screwing around with the publicist to get his solo career off to a good start, or is this just another media stunt to get the spotlight on him and away from the band?
Stay tuned for more news on the hour, every hour.
“Should we be worried about this solo talk?” Big D asked me from the other side of the bus. Each member of the band was sitting around two tables. Hawk, Coops, Julia, and Presley on one side. Me, Dicky, Big D on another. A week had passed since the scandal had broken out, and we were back in England with the boys. “You would tell us first, right?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I answered. “I’m not quitting shit.”
The band and all its crew were heading from London to Edinburgh to perform in Scotland’s first outdoor festival of the year. U2 were headlining—something Presley had a serious issue with for some reason none of us could figure out—while we, alongside a whole load of other current bands, were joining them.
“It’s kind of ironic, though.” Big D grinned. “The publicist is now the one in the centre of the scandal.”
I narrowed my eyes on him in warning. Julia shuffled in her seat, while Dicky’s hands clenched into fis
ts on top of the table we were sitting around.
Since arriving back from America, we’d barely spoken to any of them about what had gone on. The guys of the band already knew, and Dicky was quite clearly pissed, but none of their opinions were going to change my mind on the way I felt. And if they knew anything about me, it was that I always went after who and what I wanted. If someone told me they were off-limits, I went at it harder.
But the tension between us was ridiculous. The silence and unspoken words were creating an atmosphere nobody wanted to be in the middle of—least of all Tessa Lisbon, who had taken herself into the back of the bus where the beds were so she could lay down and read.
“It’s hardly scandal.” Hawk slopped, tucking his Double Decker wrapper back to reveal more chocolate. “So, two consenting adults are fucking…”
I pressed my palm to my forehead and closed my eyes, the muscles in my jaw twitching.
“Big deal,” he finished.
“Everything’s a big deal when you’re in the music industry,” Coops butted in. “Rhett’s hot property. Always has been. The fans are obviously going to be interested when he settles down.”
“Yeah, but this media bullshit is too much. I don’t get it. Maybe I live in a different world to everyone else. I just can’t imagine being so invested in who was fucking who when there’s so much life out there to be lived for myself.”
“Have you always been so stupid, Hawk?” Dicky snapped, making my eyes spring open at him from under my hand. He was glaring at Hawk like he wanted to eat him alive. The veins in his neck were popping, his face turning red. “Your entire livelihood—this band’s career—has all been based on us counting on those fans being ‘So fucking invested’,” he mocked. “We’ve spent years making sure they want to know everything about you so that when the next record drops, they download or buy it before they’ve remembered to breathe, just so they can hear Rhett’s voice. And you’re sitting here wondering how people can give a shit?”
