Casey and Mara jumped up and down a few feet away from me and screamed along with the words:
Could’ve been
A night of sin
But now you’re gone
I guess you win
But I’m not holding back
You’re the One
You say you’re not
Heart like ice
Body so hot
But I will never hold back
Forgot you were gone
Just for a second
I screamed your name
I never heard nothin’
I screamed again
And I’m still waitin’
For you to scream right back
The familiar words – You’re the One, you say you’re not… I screamed your name, I never heard nothin’ – pricked at my heart like a needle. It was an angry song, a lashing out – a driving, violent, head-banging tune.
It was also one of their more ambiguous songs, in that I had never been totally sure it was about me. Now, in light of my conversation in the bar with Derek, and then in the penthouse with the band, I was almost positive it was.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
Although… if it had been about some other girl, some other woman who had inspired such rage and pain… I think I might have been insanely jealous.
The album version was great.
The live version was unbelievable.
Riley was a force of nature, slamming into the drums with everything she had, eyes closed and face contorted in violent ecstasy.
Killian kept the same notes as the song, but he played with them, throwing in tiny variations, minute changes. Like the Grateful Dead, Bigger allowed – in fact, encouraged – bootlegging at their concerts. And since the set list was never the same, with new covers of songs every night, fans uploaded and spread the music obsessively. There were legions of fans – kind of like Phish’s, or the Grateful Dead’s back in the day – who just followed them around from city to city, because every performance was guaranteed to be composed of at least a third new material.
And Killian was a big part of that. His control was precise – except when he didn’t want it to be. He could be sloppy and ragged when the music demanded it, or razor-sharp or feather-delicate as the situation called for. And right now he was a tornado of sound, the soul of rage itself pulled out of metal guitar strings.
Ryan was a lot less flashy, but powerful nonetheless. That whole special bond between him and Riley? It might have come from their relationship onstage, because he wove the bass in like dark, thick liquid between the solid crashes of her drums. It was a dance between the two of them, and if Riley’s eyes were open, she was looking at Ryan, the two of them communicating in some sort of telepathic fever dream.
The song built to a screaming crescendo, and twenty thousand voices howled the final lines:
I said I forgot
I could never forget
When you left
I will NEVER forget
And then they rode the high directly into another song, a cover of ‘When The Levee Breaks’ – originally a blues song, but made famous by Led Zeppelin on the record Derek had once told me was the greatest rock album of all time.
Riley thrashed away at the drums like she was demon-possessed, her body arching back unnaturally and then propelling her forward as she lashed out with her drumsticks. In Led Zeppelin’s version, there’s a harmonica part – not cutesy, folksy harmonica, but a ragged, blistering wail. Killian mimicked it on his guitar. It didn’t sound like a harmonica anymore, but something supernatural, like a banshee screaming in hell. Mike played the regular guitar part until the harmonica solo let up, and then Killian took back over.
Where Robert Plant’s version was high-pitched, Derek’s was deep and violent, an ugly bare-knuckles brawler of a rendition. And somehow Ryan’s bass tied it all together, giving the song a sludgy, dirty, nasty edge.
The song seemed to puzzle most of the women in the pit, but it got a huge reaction from another core component of the band’s audience: the 70’s and hard-rock freaks, the dude-bros and metalheads. It was weird seeing them out there amongst all the Barbie dolls who had come for their Sex God; there were a few guys in the pit, but mostly they seemed to congregate back on the floor under a hazy cloud of what was probably pot smoke, thrashing their heads in time to Riley’s assault on the drums.
Without pausing, the band launched into another song – one of their own hits, ‘If There’s A Next Time.’ It was a slower ballad, and all the female fans were shrieking again, crying, screaming, as Derek strolled right along the edge of the stage, taunting them with his body, seducing them with his voice.
Only after “Next Time” did they break and speak directly to the audience – the normal “Hello Los Angeles!” patter, though Killian put his own unique spin on it by holding up his lit doobie and saying softly into a microphone, “I must say, your city is lovely, especially its world-class choice of fine herbage.”
The entire crowd roared, although the loudest voices came from the dude-bros in the back.
I glanced over at Casey and Mara. Mara laughed; Casey just seemed confused.
I noticed Ryan looking a little annoyed over by Riley’s drum set.
“Don’t worry, though, police and other assorted authority figures; it’s medicinal,” Killian said quite seriously, which got another roar of laughter.
“What condition are you treating, exactly?” Derek asked him. “Glaucoma?”
“No. Poor dentistry. I am, after all, British,” Killian said with a straight face, which set the crowd off again – and which was its own little joke, since Killian had perfectly fine teeth as far as I could tell.
They launched into song after song, covering all their hits, plus ‘All Day And All Of The Night’ by the Kinks, ‘Been Caught Stealing’ by Jane’s Addiction, and ‘No Leaf Clover’ by Metallica, with Killian somehow subbing in convincingly for half the San Francisco Symphony.
They played Katy Perry’s ‘Roar,’ too, at which point Casey and Mara lost their freakin’ minds – although in Derek’s hands, the girl-power anthem turned into something more like an MMA tournament intro song, dangerous and menacing, as a fighter strode onstage to beat the crap out of his opponent.
They continued on like that, alternating their own songs and those by other bands, putting their own unique spin on other people’s hits. It was an incredible two hours of raw, visceral energy and sexual tension, with Derek teasing and cajoling, taunting and seducing the crowd – especially the women. There used to be a saying about the Rolling Stones, back when they were in their prime and performed to mostly female crowds: ‘not a dry seat in the house.’
Yeah, that was pretty much the case here, too.
They were screaming. They were writhing. Panties would occasionally fly up on stage; bras, too. And at least two dozen times, I saw women flashing their bare breasts from the pit – usually while they were perched on the shoulders of some guy, probably either a very whipped boyfriend or some dude placed perpetually in the Friend Zone.
I’ve never seen such a display of unbridled, lustful longing – or should I say felt, because it was almost like an invisible electrical field, the kind of sensation from power lines that made the hairs on your arm stand up, or something deep inside you buzz. Except the power source was desire and longing and sex.
It was weird. It was hard reconciling the Derek I knew with Derek Kane, Rock God – because I had all the memories of the gyro place after Eastern Promises, of him admitting he cried during Dumbo, of the picnic in my dorm room, of him saying he loved me before I drove away in tears.
I also had the memories of the songs on the radio, the talk show appearances, the pictures on TV and in magazines and on the internet of him playing before tens of thousands of adoring fans.
You know that line, “And never the twain shall meet”? Yeah, well, finally the twain had met, and it was… disconcerting. It was like finding out someone
you knew really well – or thought you knew really well – had a double life. Was a spy, or a gigolo, or had two separate wives and families on opposite sides of the country.
Which is weird, because I knew he was a rock star. It’s not like it was a secret.
It’s just that I knew it the way I know E=MC2, not the way that I know the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Meaning I intellectually knew it, but I didn’t feel it in my bones. Not till I saw him perform.
It’s hard to explain.
It also bothered me to see him the object of so much female adoration – women who would have done anything to spend a night with him. Pay him, debase themselves, fulfill whatever fantasy he commanded them to – just for one night.
I’d had that chance, and I’d thrown it away. Or at least shortchanged it. And for what? For a creep of an ex-boyfriend I’d dumped five months later.
As I watched all those rapt, adoring, beautiful faces out there, the pouty lips shrieking his name, I felt the pain from the photographs on Facebook all those years ago when he and Ryan were just starting out: hotties hanging all over him, women throwing themselves at him…
Jealousy.
Gnawing, biting jealousy, deep in my gut, bitter and acid and relentless.
I’m not a jealous woman by nature. I never was jealous with any of my exes, never asked where they were when they went out with buddies, never worried about them talking to girls.
Of course, none of them were nearly as hot as Derek…
…and I had never wanted any of them as much as I wanted him, either.
And he wanted me, too. He’d made that clear.
But I didn’t want to be a cheap lay, a one-night fuck, a checkmark on a list – Yup, finally banged her. I wanted something more.
At least, my brain wanted something more.
My lady parts were pretty much raring to go.
And my heart… my heart was torn between the two.
Which is why it took me by surprise when he started singing “Still Into You.”
It’s a hit by the band Paramore, which is fronted by a tiny, flame-haired pixie of a woman (although she has a voice that can belt it out with the best of ‘em). Anyway, the song is a fun, energetic romp – but it’s pretty girly, all about butterflies and love and holding hands and still being into her boyfriend of five years.
And here Derek was performing it.
He must have told the band when I wasn’t listening, because it hadn’t been included on the set list they’d decided on in the limo.
He’d planned it, with the sole intention of surprising me.
I was a little amused at how many ‘chick songs’ he had performed tonight – Katy Perry? Hayley from Paramore? (Although Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction has a higher voice than either of them on “Been Caught Stealing.”) A less secure rock dude might not have opened himself up to the snarky comments. But every song originally sung by a woman, Derek turned into something unmistakably masculine – sometimes dark, always driving and aggressive and testosterone-soaked.
And he was singing it to me.
He was gazing right into my eyes as he belted out the chorus.
“Still Into You.”
Like a coded message for me alone.
And then he turned back to his adoring female fans, and jealousy surged up and gnawed at my guts a little more.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one affected by the green-eyed monster, because I looked over and saw Mara looking at me like she wanted to kill me.
Not an attractive look on a 17-year-old… and not attractive on a 23-year-old, either, I told myself.
I went back to watching the show, and tried to tune out all the lithe, nubile female forms out in the audience gyrating to the music and beckoning with their bodies.
But the jealousy was still there.
14
Thirty minutes and two encores later, Derek concluded the show with, “Good night, Los Angeles! Now grab somebody next to you and go get laid!” before he walked offstage to rapturous female screaming.
I guess that’s another reason guys liked Bigger concerts: they had a better chance of scoring afterwards.
As the band walked offstage, they were dripping with sweat. Derek and Riley in particular looked like they’d been dunked in a swimming pool.
On most people it would have looked gross. It certainly did on Riley.
On Derek Kane, it looked like a personal invitation to have your brains fucked out.
And the smell of him – not just the musk of his deodorant, but the testosterone or pheromones he exuded – it was enough to drive me wild. I’d heard about some woman who started a speed dating thing were you had to sleep in a t-shirt for three days, then bring it to the meet-up. The idea was that attraction really is chemical, and you’ll know someone you’re attracted to by the scent they give off. If you can get past the idea of a bunch of strangers smelling each others’ clothes, it’s actually kind of ingenious. She said that she got the idea because even when her boyfriend smelled ‘objectively bad’ – as in, other people would have wrinkled their noses – she still thought he smelled good.
Derek Kane smelled like that.
Like sex.
Like delirious, animalistic sex.
I had to contain myself as he walked up to me, all smiles beneath his sunglasses. “So – did you like the show?”
“It was pretty good,” I said, the Queen of Understatement.
“Pretty good,” he scoffed. “We rocked.”
Then he turned to Mara and Casey. “What did my two girlfriends think?”
“IT WAS AWESOME!” they screeched simultaneously, at a pitch only fully audible by bats and dolphins.
Ryan walked up behind him, a dour look on his face. “I thought you were going to tone it down.”
Derek grinned. “That was me toning it down.” Then he turned to Mara. “You didn’t mind, did you?”
She shook her head ‘no’ and squealed.
“Yeah, well, I’ll let you explain that to my mom,” Ryan said with a dark smile as he walked on past.
“Great,” Derek muttered humorously. “Casey, Mara – you go with Ryan. Kaitlyn… you come with me.”
“What?” Mara asked, crestfallen. “Why can’t we come with you, too?”
“I’ll be along in awhile. But we have to go do an interview.”
“Oh,” Mara said. She shot me an angry look, then followed her brother and her sister backstage.
An interview! The first one with him, one-on-one, just him and me alone.
I didn’t realize it was going to be in a shower, though.
15
We walked down the concrete hallway, sandwiched between two heavy-set security guards, one in front, one in back. As we went, people – stadium employees? Music label people? Band crew? – shouted and smiled their hellos at Derek, with an occasional high five or fist bump on the way. Most of them were men – and most of them took one look at me and then gave Derek a knowing little smirk.
I could tell what they were thinking, and it bothered me.
Not so much that they thought we were going someplace to have sex (although their leering was pretty disgusting)… but that he’d probably done something like this with other girls. Enough of them that it was what everybody expected.
We finally reached a locker room. Derek led the way inside. One guard came in and checked every nook and cranny for stalkers, then went back out to join his partner guarding the door.
I looked around. It was the locker room for the LA Lakers – their purple and yellow colors were everywhere, and I saw some famous last names on the tiny placards adorning the burnished wood lockers. There was a pleasant, minty tang to the air, like sports liniment.
On a nearby bench sat a small pile of plush towels, a pair of designer jeans, sunglasses identical to the ones Derek was wearing, a high-end t-shirt, black boxers, socks, bad-ass black boots, a pair of shower flip-flops, and a bag of toiletries.
I looked down in shock. “Um�
�� what’s this?”
Derek grinned as he pulled off his sunglasses and tossed them on the bench next to the change of clothes. “You don’t expect me to go meet all my adoring fans looking like this, do you?”
Then he lifted his hands up and peeled his sweat-soaked shirt up over his head, just like he had on our night together four years ago.
I froze and watched the wet cloth slide over his bulging muscles, his perfect olive skin, the intricate design of tattoos across his chest.
Jesus.
He was even hotter than I remembered.
He’d gained a little muscle mass over the years. His abs stood out in relief from the rest of his body, and as he turned and threw the t-shirt down, his back flexed like a model’s in a Bowflex commercial.
Unh.
He kicked off his boots (Mark Nason, my favorite for guys), peeled off his socks, unbuckled his belt –
“You’re taking a shower?!” I asked, my panic rising just as fast as my arousal level.
“I get the Lakers locker room – I always have that in the contract. Ryan gets the Clippers, Killian gets the Kings, and Riley gets the women’s. If she actually uses it.”
The pants came off at the same time his boxers did.
Oh my GOD.
He was standing there, five feet away, completely naked, beads of sweat dripping down his perfect body –
I tried not to look, I tried, but I couldn’t help myself: I glanced down at his cock.
UNH.
I’d only seen it by candlelight four years ago. In the bright light of the locker room, I was struck by how big it was, even when soft. Thick and full and heavy, swaying between his legs as he moved. Perfect and hot, framed by a thatch of dark curls, slick and damp from his sweat.
FUCK I wanted to touch it so bad. Like I had four years ago.
Instead I darted my eyes up at his face and tried, tried so hard, not to look down below.
But it loomed quite large in my peripheral vision, that’s for damn sure.
Rock All Night (The Rock Star's Seduction #2) Page 6
