by James, Vicki
Her jaw dropped, and the crowd got louder, earning a hush from me that brought their twittering down to a somewhat moderate level. My eyes searched Julia’s, and I took a step closer, pressing the mic to my mouth so the whole world could hear me.
“There’s a lot of speculation surrounding us both at the moment, and I know that scares the shit out of you, Jules, because you’re the one who’s meant to keep that speculation away—slay it all down then retreat to the shadows. But, sometimes the lady on the sidelines needs to be brought to the front and centre of her own story, and I’m your story, baby. This is it.” I looked all around us, at the stage, the bright lights, and the crowd, before I settled back on her. “We’ll give it a go. See what happens. We’ll make it work. And when it comes to the fucking media… we’ll make our own rules. If there’s anything to tell, we’ll tell it ourselves. Like this. Right now. You and me. Together.”
Julia’s eyes teared up, and her beautiful cheeks flamed to life as she watched me.
“That okay?” I asked, brows raised.
“Perfect,” she mouthed before she bit down on her bottom lip. I loved the way she did that.
“Awesome.” I grinned, laughing lightly before I leaned in to kiss her on the lips and then whisper in her ear, “I have a song for you.”
Before she could protest about me messing with the schedule, I glanced up at Presley, who immediately took my cue and began to do his thing. The guys joined in, and then it was just Jules and me. No one else existed as I sang to her and her alone.
Heard a rumour today.
You thought time had run away.
Slipped through your hand
While you rode off with the band.
Now, I’m looking at you, baby.
I’m staring at your soul.
I’m seeing what you really feel.
Needing some control.
What if I told you…
What if I told you…
You had time?
What if I told you…
What if I told you…
Time by my side?
What if I told you…
What if I told you…
That I’ve never lied?
What if I told you…
What if I told you…
You and I had time?
Chapter Forty-Six
Julia dragged me off the stage when the set was done.
The fans were cheering our names, and Presley had wrapped up the show by thanking the crowds—a thing he’d grown to secretly love in the last few months.
My woman was walking with quick, snappy steps, only occasionally glancing back over her shoulder with heat in her eyes. Whatever I was about to get, it was the good stuff.
This regular sex, being in love, adoring the woman waiting for you shit was proving to be so much more than I ever thought it could be.
We were heading into the back corridor and down some steps when a familiar voice cried out to us both, making us stop on the spot, spin around and search for Tess. She came running towards us with her cherry-red hair fanning behind her, her legs moving quickly, and her eyes wild.
“What’s wrong?” Julia asked, her protective nature shining through.
“Nothing,” Tess panted, coming to a stop on the top step before she bent and placed her hands on her knees. “Wow, I had no idea how unfit I was.”
“You okay?”
Tess stood taller, and just as she pushed her fringe from her face, Presley jogged up behind her, equally as sweaty and equally as erratic.
“I made it,” he panted, grabbing her hips from behind and placing a kiss to her head. “You’re good to go.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Rhett,” Tess started, placing her hand over one of Presley’s. She looked weirdly nervous, which was unsettling because, in my eyes, Tessa had metaphorical big brass balls. She’d sure as shit put me in my place over the last few months on more than one occasion.
With a quick glance at Presley, she took a step closer to me and offered a sincere smile.
“About that favour I had to ask you, Rhett.”
“Sperm donor?”
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “No, idiot. Do you remember what I said to you about that time I saw you singing Wild Horses on TV?”
I frowned. “What about it?”
“Well, I meant what I said. I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget thinking that your voice was made from something pretty special.”
“Jesus, you’re being nice. You’re starting to worry me.”
She took a step down to get closer. “We haven’t told anyone yet, but Presley and I are getting married in June.”
“This June?” I arched a brow.
Tess nodded almost shyly, and Julia’s hand squeezed mine. “This June,” she confirmed. “I don’t care where it is. I don’t care what we dress in. I don’t care about the food or the people or any of it apart from two things. One: Presley being there and saying his vows to my face. And two…” She paused, her smile breaking free. “That you sing that song for me when I walk down the aisle.”
I stared at her as a weird swelling of pride and gratitude gripped my heart. “Me?”
“You.” She nodded.
“But… don’t we hate each other?”
“I didn’t know that. Do you hate me?”
“Not even a little bit,” I found myself admitting through a smile of my own.
“Didn’t think so.” She beamed. “So, will you? Sing for me?”
“Tess… shit… I mean.”
Closing the gap, she broke away from Presley completely and stood right in front of me. “I don’t have a family to invite. Not one made of DNA, anyway. All I have is you guys now, and I’d really like you to be a big part of the day. You mean everything to us, Rhett. Time you realised that and stopped trying to ruin what’s good for you.”
Presley was standing there with his hands tucked in the deep pockets of his jeans, smug as shit.
Julia was waiting for me to answer with hope in her eyes.
Tess was waiting for me to argue, no doubt.
An overwhelming feeling of—what was that? Contentment?—washed over me and nearly choked me the fuck up.
“Will you?” Tess pushed.
“Honestly?” I sighed. “I’d fucking love to.”
* * *
Julia slammed me up against the wall inside the portacabin that was my dressing room. I grunted as I caught her hips just before she kissed me violently. Her hands were soon in my hair, stroking, tugging, her nails digging in.
“Jules… the hell?” I groaned against her lips.
“Stop talking.” Her mouth trailed down my neck, and I somehow stayed quiet as she pulled back to remove my vest as swiftly as she could.
She tossed the material aside, and her fingers trailed over every tattoo I had before she found a small empty space right underneath my heart.
She glanced up through hooded eyes. “Why is this still bare?”
“Saving it.”
“For?”
“Something.”
Her smile was one that had just accepted a challenge I wasn’t aware I’d issued. She stared at me for two seconds before she slammed me back against the wall and dragged her nails down my arms.
“You know, I love this new version of you. The one who cares. The one who says all the right things.” Her eyes fell to my mouth, and she pressed her tits against my chest. “But do you know what I love more?”
“Tell me.”
“I love Dirty Rhett. The guy I used to catch fucking other women. The guy I wanted from a distance, but who I thought would hurt me if I got too close. I love the big bad rock star with the filthy mouth, loose morals, and the tattooed skin I want to taste. I love my soft-hearted rocker, but right now, I want my bad boy. I’m going to do such terrible things to him,” she whispered against my mouth.
I was harder than I’d ever been in my fucking life.
“And after I do those b
ad things, I’m going to build a life for us.” Her hands ran down my wet chest. “One so good, we’ll both wish we’d started it sooner.”
Her words led to a kiss.
That kiss led to the roughest, wildest sex we’d ever had.
If I could have slid beneath her skin and buried myself inside her forever, I would have. There wasn’t anything else left of me that wasn’t totally and utterly obsessed with her.
Chapter Forty-Seven
We’d been on the front page of most newspapers around London for the past week, and on every freshly printed magazine, too. We were currently trending on Twitter after seven consecutive days. I really needed Donald Trump to stir some shit up sometime soon to knock us off the top spot. While it was part of the business, I was getting sick of the conspiracy theories.
It’s a publicity stunt.
Why can’t anybody find any details on Julia Speed’s past?
Rhett will fuck it all up within a month.
That boy can’t keep his dick behind his zipper for too long.
What does he even see in her? He could do so much better.
The crap coming back to me was never-ending, and as hard as I tried to brush it off, I’d contemplated setting up several social media accounts in the last few days, just to combat all the gossip. Tessa had asked me if we wanted her to comment on her channels, but we’d said no. She’d fought her fights—she still did every day thanks to the damn media cretins out there—and this was our battle to win.
“Stay patient. They’ll get bored with our silence,” Julia said as we made our way to the recording studios for the first day of putting our new album together.
We were only laying down one track today, and I was fidgeting in the back of the car that was taking all of us to where we needed to go in central London.
“I’m fine,” I lied. Truth was, I was fucking tired. Exhausted, actually, and we had a long road of work ahead of us. All I wanted to do was head back to Julia’s place, where we’d spent the last few days laughing freely while making the occasional trip to look at The Blue Money Pit I’d invested in, only to laugh harder every time we saw the absolute state it was in.
Jules unclipped her seatbelt and slid across the seat to press herself to me, and I turned my head to take her in.
“You’re tired,” she stated. “You’re grumpy. If you were a woman, and I were a guy, I’d be making some really shitty joke about it being your time of the month. Want to talk about it?”
“It’s pretty self-explanatory. You keep me awake more hours than you let me sleep, hence the exhaustion.”
Her cheeks blushed my favourite shade of pink, and she ran a single finger over the exposed area of my chest where my T-shirt didn’t quite reach.
“I’d say I’m sorry, but that would be a lie,” she whispered.
“I’m not complaining.”
I breathed her in because that’s what you did when you loved someone. You tried to fucking inhale them. Close was never close enough, and too much was never enough. That empty feeling of searching for ‘something’ had disappeared with her in my life, in my bed, in my damn ink-stained heart. There was no question of whether or not this was right, whether I’d come to regret it later, or if this was just a union of circumstance.
She was my girl. My Miss Meant-To-Be.
“You ready for today?” she asked, her eyes focused on the movement of my finger.
“I’m always ready.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Something’s wrong.”
“With…?”
“You.” Her eyes shot up to mine.
I tried to hold her gaze, but it wasn’t long before I was looking away and staring out of the window to say what I had to say. “It just fucks me off.”
“What does?”
My head spun in her direction. “How a person even needs a publicist.”
Julia frowned like I’d slapped her across the cheek.
“What I mean is, I fucking hate this side of the media, Jules. I know, I know. Without them, Youth Gone Wild wouldn’t exist. I’m not saying I hate the messages they put out completely. I’m not saying I hate the fact that they have the power, even. What I am saying is I hate that ninety percent of it is fucking bullshit. It’s not right that supposed journalists can sit there in the stuffy tweed suits, lording their superiority over everyone, and they can just write what the hell they want. If they decide they don’t like a shirt I’m wearing, they can report I stole it. If they see me scratching my nose, they can assume I’m high as a fucking kite off of some drug. These people are allowed to go out there and speculate, manipulate, and abuse their positions, while thinking it’s okay to build someone up to tear them down. I’m over it.”
“We have to take the bad with the good,” she said softly.
“We have to play the game. I know.”
“They haven’t been that scathing about us so far.”
“Yeah, and how long until they are?”
“What are you worried about, Rhett?” Her brows softened, her gaze turning sad.
“You,” I said simply. “Just you. I don’t give a fuck about me. Before you, I didn’t care who wrote what or what lies were told. It was all part of the game. But now there is a you, Jules. There’s someone I care about. They can drag my name through the mud, and no doubt they will. There’s plenty out there for them to find and smear across every printed page in the world. And what happens on the days when you have to pick up the pieces of my past and put them together, huh? You just act like it doesn’t matter if JJ Jones slanders me again? It’s not going to be that easy, is it? Someone like her feels no shame in going into graphic detail about what went on. So, yeah, I worry. For the first time in my life, I’m worrying about someone besides myself, and the weight of that is the kind of weight I don’t want to lose, but also don’t know how to carry.”
“You share the load… with me.”
“I just want to love you and let that be the end of it.”
“Life isn’t that easy, Sinatra.” She smiled flatly. “But don’t worry about things. I know when to make the right moves, and when to stay silent.” Her eyes flickered with something I didn’t quite recognise in its entirety, but there was definitely a sprinkling of mischief there. “I managed to quash all that shit with that stripper Candy and her boyfriend Benji without you knowing.”
My face dropped. “What?”
She smiled smugly. “See. I have tricks of my own.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with. It’s over with now. They’re gone.”
“They had pictures, didn’t they?”
“I took care of it, Rhett.” She leaned closer again. “I’ll always take care of it. Nobody will get to you on my watch. And while I adore the way you want to protect me, you need to learn to let me play a part in all of this, too. I know what I’m doing.”
“I hate you for not pouncing on me three years ago.”
With a huff of laughter, she ran a hand through the side of my hair. “I had to wait for you to grow up a little before I made my move, bad boy of rock.”
“I’m sorry you had to see whatever was on those pictures,” I groaned, imagining how it would have looked to her. The mere thought of seeing Julia drooling over some other guy made my stomach tighten and nausea rise in my throat. Jealousy turned me green and angry, and suddenly, I was mad at everything. Mad at myself for being who I used to be. Mad at this shitty world that offered a reward to people like Candy and Benji if they successfully manipulated someone like me.
But mainly, I was mad that Julia was already having to clean up my shit again.
She deserved better than that. I needed to be better than that.
* * *
The recording session went as smoothly as it could have considering my mood. We’d managed to get most of Filtered laid down the way we needed to. The band, Jules, Tessa, and I been sitting around on the leather sofas talking to the sound technicians abo
ut everything and nothing when I saw one of the guys—a young, good-looking blonde-haired poster boy for a modern-day reality show—giving Julia the eye. He kept glancing down at his phone and looking up at her.
Jules was oblivious to his attention, but it made the back of my neck prickle as he lifted his phone as though he was about to slyly take a picture.
“Hey!” I called over to him from my slouched position on the studio’s sofa. “You. The fuck you taking a picture of?”
Everyone stopped talking, and the young tech sniffed and lowered his phone as he stared at the screen. He looked up slowly, taking a glance at the others in the room before he focused on me.
“Yeah.” I raised my brows. “You. What are you doing on that phone?”
“Nothing, man.” He scowled, immediately looking guilty.
“Were you taking a picture of my girl?”
“What?”
“You heard me.” I pushed myself to the edge of the sofa and dropped my hands between my thighs. I glared at that slimy motherfucker like my eyes could kill him.
The dude straightened his shoulders. “I didn’t mean anything by it—”
“I fucking knew it.” I jumped to my feet, not caring about the rumblings going on behind me, and I sauntered over to the guy. “Hand it over.” I held my hand out.
He frowned. “But… it’s my phone.”
“Yeah. And she’s my woman.”
He looked behind me to where Jules was before he shook his head, and I saw the panic rising. He held his hands up in surrender. “Look, I swear I didn’t mean anything. I was just trying to score cool points with my mates.”
