by Elle Greco
At this point, my body was on fire.
So I untied my robe.
“Fuck,” Dion muttered when the flimsy fabric opened just enough to hint at what was underneath: nothing but a pair of undies. Cotton bikinis. Not exactly sexy, but based on Dion’s expression, he didn’t seem to care.
His hand reached into my open robe and caressed me from my hip to the curve of my waist.
“Dion,” I said again, this time breathless. My resolve weakened with each stroke of his hand as it moved further up my rib cage.
“You feel it too, don’t you?” he whispered. His warm breath tickled my ear, and my self-control disappeared. I gave into him.
My robe landed on the floor in a heap. I guided his left hand to my breast, where his fingers teased my nipple into a rigid peak before moving down my rib cage and around to my back. He gripped my ass and lifted me onto the counter. The cold marble was a pleasant shock against my overheated body, and I gave a small moan.
The sound wasn’t lost on Dion. He leaned into me, his hardness pressing into me further when he stretched to reach the ice bin. Cubes spilled and shattered on the floor at the force of his hand rooting around inside it.
One cube in hand, he drew a wet line from my clavicle to my breast, circling it before gliding the ice over my nipple, which hardened instantly. I drew in a shaky breath when his hot mouth wrapped around its rigid tip and his tongue flicked back and forth. He repeated this on my other nipple, going back and forth until the ice melted and my ass squirmed against the marble, my inner thighs wet with need.
He placed more ice in his mouth and pushed my legs apart. His fingers pushed aside my panties then brushed along my labia, teasing it into bloom. His head dipped down, and his ice-cold tongue pressed against my clit. I wrapped my fingers around his curls, holding his head to me as his tongue heated against my nub. A finger separated my outer lips as he began sliding it in and out. The slow, shallow movement made me ache for more, for him to probe further. My breath was ragged as he curled a second finger into me, plunging deeper. His mouth worked faster against my clitoris, edging me closer to climax. I bore down on his fingers as he nipped at my hooded nub with his front teeth. A wave of pleasure washed over me as I came hard against his mouth.
Dion slid his fingers out and licked each one in slow motion. It was dirty. It was sexy. Desire stirred in me again, my appetite for him insatiable. I wanted more. I needed to feel him inside me.
He leaned into me, and my body spasmed at the press of his erection against my sensitive clit. His voice was husky in my ear. “I don’t get why you bother to play when you make a perfectly fuckable groupie.”
He pulled away, his hooded eyes taking in my near nakedness on the counter. My face burned from the heat of the orgasm and from my own embarrassment at allowing myself to—yet again—get wound up in the Dion who understood me, who was kind, who made me feel like the only woman who mattered to him. Because as soon as I let my guard down, that Dion vanished. Every. Single. Time.
His eyes flickered with what, if I were more naïve, I’d say looked like regret for one fleeting moment. But this was Dion, and I wasn’t stupid.
“I’m an asshole, Nik. Remember that.”
He turned his back, and tears stung my eyes. Of course it wasn’t regret. The only thing he regretted was that Kyle overdosed, and I was his dead brother’s replacement. I scrambled off the counter and pulled my robe tightly around me.
“So, you still want to tour with me?” he asked, gulping down the rest of his wine.
“I’m on this tour, Dion,” I said, biting back my rage. “Hell, I am saving your ass by going on this tour. Don’t you forget that.”
“I’ll make your life hell every day we are on the road,” he promised. “Every. Fucking. Day.”
He turned and stormed toward the exit. I threw my wineglass at him, just missing his head as he slammed the door. The glass shattered against the wood instead.
I stood in the middle of my overheated apartment, the spilled ice cubes turning into a large puddle on the hardwood. Shards of glass littered the entryway. The room reeked of wine and arousal.
As usual, I had to clean up the chaos Dion left in his wake.
5
“You’ve got to be shitting me.” Presley’s shriek came from inside the luxury tour bus.
“That cool?” I called to her from just outside the door, bouncing on the balls of my feet. Jolts of excitement thrilled through my body. Presley was standing just inside the door, so I could not see for myself.
She descended the steps to the parking lot. Her face was twisted. “I’m not sleeping in there. Hell no.”
“What’s wrong with it?” I asked, trying to angle my way past her. She was in four-inch stiletto heels, so she was moving tortoise slow.
“It’s a bus,” she hissed.
Once I climbed aboard, I surveyed the scene. The bus was tricked out with plush carpeting, leather-bound club chairs, and mahogany wood accents. And it was a comfortable climate-controlled seventy-two degrees. It was nicer than my Venice Beach apartment.
“Pres,” I said, climbing back down the stairs. “That bus is amazing.”
She sniffed. “Didn’t you see the beds?”
“What about them?”
“They are bunks,” she replied. “B-U-N-K-S. What are we, Girl Scouts? Is this camp?”
“All tour buses have bunks,” Jett chimed in. She was sitting on one of her suitcases, her nose in a book.
“That’s a tour,” I said. “Gold Dust has the same setup. Probably.”
“Gold Dust flies,” she said. “First class. There’s none of this bus-and-truck bullshit.”
“Bands should never fly,” Jett replied, flipping a page.
Presley kicked at the pavement. “That’s superstitious bullshit.”
“Randy Rhoads, Otis Redding.” Jett began to list the musical artists who’d died in plane crashes.
“Patsy Cline,” I added. “Aaliyah.”
“Both of you are ridiculous,” Presley argued. “It’s safer to fly than drive.”
“Well, I like the bus,” I said, ignoring her negativity. “It’s old-school.”
“Where’s Vince?” she huffed. “He’ll get what I mean.”
“Anthem didn’t fly either, remember?”
“How can I forget?” she said with a shudder. “The sounds of him and Mom in those stupid bunks. I was in the one below them, you know.”
Jett peeled her eyes away from the book to roll them. “So your issue with the bus is PTSD. Clearly.”
“I don’t have ESP,” Presley huffed.
“PTSD,” I said, biting my lip to keep from laughing at her. “Post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“More like post-traumatic sex disorder,” Jett corrected me, and we both exploded in laughter.
Even Presley grinned a little. “Listening to Mom and Vince? You’d have it too!”
“I don’t think Grimm is going to okay any flights,” I said. “The label is shelling out for this tour, and I doubt airline tickets are a line item in the budget.”
“This sucks already,” she groaned.
“Better than playing second fiddle to Stacy Mills,” I reminded her.
“Third fiddle,” Jett reminded us. “Christine McCourt is touring with them this year.”
I nodded. “See? Third fiddle.”
“I guess,” she grumbled just as the gates to the parking lot of Grimm Records opened and a convoy of black SUVs roared through. Four pulled up to the bus, and one went to the far end of the lot where roadies were loading up a semi-truck with our gear.
Dion’s long legs came out of the back of one SUV, his dad out of another, and Rafe from the third.
“Don’t they all live in the same house?” I muttered. Jett snorted.
Dion locked eyes with me. It was the first time we’d seen each other since the ice cube incident. His lips tugged up into a small, devilish grin. My back stiffened as a flush swept over me. My brain and my bo
dy were waging a full-on war over Dion.
Jett closed her book on her finger to hold her place and squinted between me and Dion. “What’s going on, Nik?”
“What? You forget to put in your contacts?” I broke my eye contact with Dion to snap at her.
“Okay, I’ll rephrase,” she said. One brow arched up. “What is going on between you and Dion?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.
“Oh, fabulous,” Presley said. Jett’s attention turned to her instead of me. “Look who came with them.”
Vince held out his arm, and my mom’s legs swung out of his SUV. She clutched his hand and tumbled out, unsteady on her high heels and pencil-thin miniskirt. Cleavage spilled from her one-size-too-small top.
“My babies! On tour!” Mom called out, the words kind of slurred together.
“Oh man, and she’s lit up,” Jett grumbled. “Can you believe this?”
“It wouldn’t be Mom without a big send-off,” I said, pasting on a smile.
She tottered over to us, and we feigned enthusiasm.
“Thanks for seeing us off, Mom,” Jett said. She was always the sweetest out of the three of us, so her appreciative tone wasn’t quite false.
“Yeah, thanks so much,” Presley echoed. Her tone, however, betrayed her true feelings.
My mother pursed her lips and looked each of us over from head to toe. “Is this what the three of you are really wearing on your first tour?”
I shrugged. “We’ll be on the bus for hours, Mom.”
“That’s no reason to dress like a boy,” she said, pointing at my baggy sweatpants. “Not that Jett looks much better. What are you wearing, honey? Pajamas? I know Johnny what’s-his-name dumped you last night, but you should really try harder if you want to catch another man.”
My head swiveled to my sister. “Johnny broke up with you?” I asked.
She hiked a shoulder in response. Her face was crestfallen.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Presley’s at least dressed for this,” Mom continued. “Although those jeans look a little…” Her expensive nose wrinkled. “Are you gaining weight?”
Presley let out a loud, dramatic sigh, and then she and Mom started their usual bickering.
I ignored both of them. “Jett?”
“It’s nothing,” she said. “It pissed him off that they passed him over for you. Then I told him that Satan’s Sisters was opening on the tour, and…” Another shoulder hike.
“So he dumped you?” I whispered. What. An. Ass.
Jett’s chin wobbled. “I mean, he should have been happy for me, right?”
“Damn straight,” I said. “He’s being selfish.”
“That’s what he said I was being.” She lifted her eyes from her book to me. “I’m not being selfish, am I?”
“Are you kidding me? You didn’t even want to tour. We are pretty much forcing you.” I gave her a small smile. “You’re not selfish, Jett. He’s an asshole. You deserve better.”
She sniffled. “Yeah, right. Better.”
“Seriously,” I said. “You. Deserve. Better.”
She sighed. “I know you keep saying it.”
“And I’ll keep saying it until you believe it.”
Jett’s eyes dropped back to her book, telling me our conversation was over.
“Okay. We’re done here,” Presley snapped at our mother. She flipped her hair in my direction. “I need to talk to Vince about this bus. Now.” She turned on her heel and proceeded to run-walk to get far away from our mother fast. Jett buried her face back in her book. Mom looked at me and smiled.
“I need to check on my kit,” I said. I jerked my head to the truck on the opposite side of the lot where my drum kit was in pieces on the pavement.
She took a few wobbly steps in that direction. “You go ahead. I’ll catch up.”
I practically sprinted across the parking lot to get free of her.
I caught my breath while examining my kit. All the pieces were there, and the roadies had a handle on what they were doing. I was happy that they were all veterans of the rock and roll tour circuit. Some of them I recognized from Anthem’s most recent farewell tour—most had gained a few pounds and lost some hair in the five years since.
“Well, look-it, my little girl, all grown up!” a familiar voice boomed at me from behind.
I turned and braced myself for a hug. Devlin Mayhem, all smiles under his gray handlebar mustache, scooped me up and lifted me off my feet.
“So proud of you, Nik! So proud,” he said when my feet hit the ground again.
“Are you on the tour?” I asked.
“Came out of retirement for you and the boys,” he said. “Can’t send you out there without old Devlin keeping sight of you. Kept an eye on you when you were all gangly arms and legs, had to beat those older boys off your sister. Hell, they couldn’t send my girls out on tour without me.”
He tucked me under his thick arm, and we turned to face the bus.
“Besides,” he added, nodding toward Dion and Rafe, who huddled by the side of the bus, “you three and your stepbrothers are liable to kill each other.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said. I grabbed his hand, which was hanging by my shoulder, and gave it a squeeze.
“Devlin, you old devil!” my mother yelled, waving as she wobbled over.
He squinted at her and waved back. She was still a football field length away. “I see your mom hasn’t changed much.”
“Nope, not at all.”
Devlin squeezed my shoulder, and I lost his arm as he crossed both of them in front of his chest. “I think I remember that outfit from the Warped tour, going on eight years now.”
I giggled at his knowing headshake. He’d seen an awful lot between Vince and Pamela.
We were so intent on watching my mother (and taking friendly bets about whether she would fall over on those heels before making it to the truck) that we didn’t notice Dion sneak up behind us.
“That’s what you’re wearing on the bus?” he asked, looking me up and down. I glared at him. “What happened to the eye candy, Nik?”
“Are you drunk, Dion?” Devlin asked.
“Yeah, drunk with worry about the rhythm section on this tour,” he said.
“Boy, you watch your step,” Devlin warned.
“What?” he asked, feigning innocence. “She’s never played with us before.”
“I’m drumming on your entire album,” I snapped back without thinking.
Dion’s face turned stormy. “You and my dad concocted this bullshit story to get me to agree to you coming on tour with us. Those are Kyle’s drums on that album. I will not let you steal from a dead man.”
“Boy, what the hell is wrong with you?” Devlin asked, his hands on his hips. “Kyle was too far gone to keep a steady beat. You were in the damn studio. You saw. Half the time he was nodding out behind his damn kit.”
“Album’s cut. Kyle’s beats are solid,” Dion said, doubling down on his defense of his brother. “They are beyond solid. Best drumming he ever did.”
Devlin narrowed his eyes. “He sound like that in the studio?”
“He went back, redid them on his own time,” Dion said, faltering, eyes darting between Devlin and me, his expression dour.
We were heading into the Dion danger zone. And Devlin realized this. “You’ll come to terms with Kyle in your own time. But Nik’s a hell of a drummer. Even better than Ace, and he was considered one of the best in his day.”
He was referring to Anthem’s drummer, one of the top five rock drummers of all time. That Devlin thought I was better than Ace made my stomach flutter with pride and, to be honest, nerves. This tour was a massive proving ground, the reality of that finally hitting me straight in the gut.
“She is not better than Ace,” Dion scoffed.
“Ace’ll tell you that himself,” Devlin insisted. “He’s the one who taught her, for fuck’s sake.”
That
caught Dion off guard. “Ace? Ace taught you?”
I just shrugged in response.
But Devlin answered for me. “How the hell did you think she learned, with her mom dragging them girls along on the road? They had to do something for entertainment.”
Dion’s face got even stormier. “Ace refused to work with Kyle.”
“Kyle was drugging, that’s why,” Devlin said. “Ace wasn’t down with that shit.”
“Hello, boys!” My mother, blissfully unaware of the turn in conversation, had finally hobbled her way over to us.
Dion ignored her, but Devlin gave her a polite nod. “Pamela.”
“Devlin, you’re looking sexy as hell,” she flirted. “Retirement’s been good to you.” She squeezed his bicep for good measure.
“Aw, no need to sweet-talk me, Pam,” he said, rubbing at the shock of overgrown white hair on his head. “I’ll look after your girls.”
“They’re old enough, they don’t need looking after,” she said, beaming him a megawatt smile. “Me, on the other hand? I’m getting too old and could use a strong hand or two.”
Dion glared at her. “Classy,” he mumbled under his breath. He pushed past me and stalked back to Rafe, who, from the look of things, was annoying Jett. She slammed her book shut and smacked him on the arm with it.
“The bus may be a little too cramped on the way up north,” Devlin said, his eyes following Dion and Rafe as they huddled by the bus door.
“These kids,” my mother hooted a little too long. “They’ll never get along.”
“Maybe someday they’ll surprise you,” Devlin said with a wink. “Now, Pam, you are a lovely distraction, but I’ve got to get these kids on the road.”
“You were always a workhorse,” she said, pushing her chest out. The buttons on her top strained against her implants. “Such a shame. Oh, the fun we could have had, Devlin.”
That’s when I had to walk away. My mother was pushing her behavior beyond mild flirtation, and I did not want to get caught in any crossfire if Vince noticed.
