Badass In My Bed: Badass #2 Page 3

  He takes the stage, and as one, the crowd surges to our feet, staring up at the perfect man in the spotlight.

  I’m too affected to cheer. The only time I’ve seen him move so sensuously was when he was inside me. Every step is measured and intense. He’s a panther about to claim everyone in the audience, and instead of running away like we all should, we’re all breathless with anticipation for his first note. He’s the focal point of the band as well, and they wait for his cue, holding steady while he makes his way to the microphone, unhurriedly, like there’s all the time in the world.

  It’s the same way he moved in bed, and I can’t breathe for wanting him again.

  Paul shifts beside me, bumping my shoulder with his, bringing my awareness back to myself, and I both hate him and am inordinately grateful. I’m drowning in Dylan. My body’s gone rigid with awareness of the man who played my body better than I play my cello. It’s only been a couple weeks, but he looks leaner, more dangerous. Maybe it’s the lighting or the angle, or maybe my memories were faulty. He steps closer wearing, black jeans snug to the thighs that were between my own only two weeks ago, and a black and red tank top showing off that arm tattoo.

  Those arms were around me.

  He’s just as sexy as I remember, maybe sexier.

  He raises a clenched fist, and the band’s first notes roar over us. We roar back, the tension holding in our silence torn to pieces now that he’s broken it.

  His singing covers us in a deluge of perfect, soaring notes that live inside beautiful words. No greetings. No introductions. None are needed. It’s rock star arrogance. It’s badass.

  I hate myself for lapping it up with the rest of the crowd, but he’s a meteor on stage, burning up, taking us along in the gravity of his wake. Instead of joining us together, his singing forms a cocoon of melancholy that makes him seem remote and untouchable.

  I’d heard his voice live before, but the quick ditty he jokingly sang in my apartment is nothing compared to this. Shivers crawl up my spine and over my scalp. I want to jump on stage and scream at him for not telling me who he was, for not telling me he’d be in Boston so soon when he knew I’d be here too. He hid himself on purpose.

  Maybe he didn’t trust me.

  He wrenches notes from his soul, so sad and filled with regret it reminds me of the look in his eyes when he asked for my number and I refused to give it. How I hate myself for doing that.

  He paces the stage, voice pure and true, but I can barely focus on the music, too tense. First I’m waiting for him to see me, then I’m praying he doesn’t because I’m so fucking pathetically turned on, so close to losing it I don’t want him to see me now. I savor his voice instead of focusing on his hands and the slim lines of his torso and what I know is beneath his clothes.

  He grips the microphone the same way he grabbed my ponytail. My mouth goes dry. My knees go weak at the memories, at the way his lips curl into a sexy smirking grin. Sweat starts to glisten on his chest, and I’m gone, not here, but back in my apartment with him…

  He kicked my feet apart and nearly split me in two with the depth of his first thrust. I cried out and pulled on the scarf, wanting desperately to brace my hands on either side of the window, to push back against him to better feel every inch of his cock plunging inside, unable to do more than spread wider and moan, taking what he gave me.

  He hits a high note, and I feel it everywhere, arching into the note with a shudder.

  Along with most of the audience.

  I close my eyes. Grow up, Rachel. I was a notch. A fling on the tour. Just another in a long line of women. Nothing more than that. Yeah, he asked for my email, but probably only because he thought I was about to ask and didn’t want me to have his personal information. Come to think of it, he didn’t protest too much or push back at me like he would have if he really wanted to keep in touch.

  And why would he want to stay in touch with someone like me? A nobody, really. Another conquest in a sea of bodies who’d do almost anything to be with him. I should feel grateful I got to taste what it’s really like to touch a star.

  Instead I feel burned. Burned and hungry for more.

  No amount of pillow talk fixes things. Nothing’s different. We still can’t be together. At the end of the day, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, where I’ve fought hard to be. No hot, tattooed rocker’s going to change that. No matter how much I want him to. It was only ever going to be a fling.

  The band finishes the song, and I open my eyes.

  “Here’s a little something no one’s heard before from our new album…” Dylan waits as the crowd cheers, and I’m unable to squeak out a sound. “It releases next month.”

  Paul throws his arm around me.

  I’m about to shake it off and explain that this isn’t a real date when Dylan growls into the mic, “This song’s called, Tilted.”

  The minor chords swell and strain, filling my chest with disbelief. The flood of memories from our tryst at Tilt overwhelm me. Surely it’s not about that? About me?

  “Glass above, glass below.

  I wanted to break through with you.

  As above, so below.

  You smiled at me like you knew

  How to trust. I could be myself.

  But you wouldn’t let me steal you.”

  His eyes meet mine, there’s no doubting he sees me, and I fucking die. Dylan bares his teeth, runs his hand through his hair. The frustration he exudes is mirrored by the lyrics he is growling.

  “What’s enough? Money’s not wealth.

  I hope that I’ve corrupted you

  The way you’ve tainted me.”

  It’s my imagination of course. It’s got to be. There’s no way he can see me with the lights in his eyes, but he’s looking right at me and I want it to be real. He could step offstage, the crowd parting for him, and take me by the hand.

  Or he could gesture for me, I’d run to him. I’d step up onstage, and he’d serenade me while every other woman in the crowd is caught in the throes of jealousy. Then he’d whisk me away after the show. We’d go to his hotel room and…

  Hot breath hit my inner thigh as he threw one of my legs over his shoulder and tugged my panties to the side. “You’re killing me with this little sweater and sensible shoes and soaking wet pussy. Such a contradiction.” With an agonizingly light touch, he stroked my cleft. “But you taste so fucking good, Rachel.” He swirled his tongue around my clit. “Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop.”

  Dylan slowly walks down the stage, arm stretched out to someone in the balcony, singing to her like his heart is broken. Part of me crumbles inside, despite my now drenched panties. It’s his job to make everyone feel like he’s singing directly to them. It’s a performance, not reality. He wasn’t singing to me, wasn’t going to whisk me away anywhere. I’m not special.

  I never was.

  The rest of the songs, to me, are tinged with sadness and pass far too quickly. It really is goodbye for us. Maybe a stupid little secret part of me came here for, I don’t know, some kind of validation. I take a deep, cleansing breath, and exhale the last regrets. Knowing is better than dreaming. Dreams are usually lies.

  The music remains just as beautiful, though. At the very least, I’ve got another band’s music to cherish and enjoy. Or, I could, if it isn’t for the bitter taste in my mouth and the strange empty feeling filling my chest at the thought of never seeing Dylan again.

  “Thank you, Boston! You’ve been amazing!” Dylan gives us the rock horns, and the band leaves. There will be no encores. Fallen Angels don’t do encores. They leave it all on the stage and there’s no coming back when the music stops.

  The fact that it’s a perfect metaphor for us doesn’t escape me.

  Still, we clap and cheer our appreciation until our hands hurt and our ears ring.

  Paul’s grin is huge. “That was awesome!”

  I read his lips more than hear him, but I nod and grin back because it really was something special, and i
t’s easier than explaining why I’m sad the lead singer of a famous band wasn’t singing directly to me. Wasn’t validating these lingering feelings. Wasn’t reciprocating these sleepless nights and distracted days.

  I’m wrung out and just want to go home and change into dry panties and sleep without dreaming.

  “Can I give you a ride home?” Paul leans closer than necessary. His cologne smells like something artificial pretending to be fresh. Green tea or fresh laundry or something that should be pleasant, but I’m overstimulated right now and need fresh air.

  I should take a cab, but with everyone leaving at once, I likely won’t get one for an hour, if I manage to get one at all, so I nod.

  “I have to use the restroom before we go.” I don’t, but I need a moment to process the evening. The loss I didn’t realize I was mourning, because it took until now to understand the finality.

  “Okay. I’ll walk you so we don’t get split up.”

  “Sounds good.”

  We veer off down an aisle, following the signs in silence. I don’t know what’s going through Paul’s mind, but I’m too exhausted to make small talk.

  “Third row?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  Paul’s words raise my eyes from the floor.

  A staff member, a twenty-something woman with short brunette hair and huge, green eyes, holds her hand out to us. Her hand to her Bluetooth earpiece, she eyes my scarf. “The band has requested you come backstage.”

  Paul keeps up a stream of excited, semi-smug chatter, implying he had something to do with this. He thinks we were chosen because of our seats, or the way we look, and he’s way too pleased about that. Keeping pace, I nod and smile and try my best not to freak out.

  None of the other band members know who the hell I am, so the chances of one of them choosing me is next to impossible. There’s no way this is random. The woman on staff looked at my scarf. My stomach is one giant knot, and I can’t feel my legs.

  Dylan saw me. Dylan wants to see me backstage.

  Why does he want to see me? Excitement buzzes beneath my skin.

  “This is so awesome,” Paul says again in a low voice.

  His hand bumps against mine, and I tuck it into my back pockets, hoping it looks natural. He might not have been about to take my hand, but the last thing I need is to be touched right now. I’d give my kingdom for a sensory deprivation tank and a week to mull things over.

  Is Dylan going to think Paul and I are a couple? That would ruin everything. Of all the secrets I kept from Dylan, Paul is not one of them. I’m taken with the urge to shove him forward like a human sacrifice and run out of the building as fast as I can, but I’m unable to think of a reason why I don’t want a free meet-and-greet with the band I told him I love. We quoted lyrics back and forth. There’s no way he’ll believe any flimsy excuses I give him now. So far, the best I can come up with are gastrointestinal, and I can’t bring myself to go there.

  The long hallways backstage are surprisingly empty until we turn a corner. The corridor is clogged with fans—long-haired rock guys and heavily made-up women, most looking like they’re trying too hard.

  I don’t feel better when I realize I fit in with them with my clothes and hair.

  The air is warm and thick with the smell of bodies and incompatible body sprays and perfumes. Paul, who’s taken his elastic out from his jean pocket, scrapes his hair back into a fresh ponytail. Even he’s acting like a groupie.

  I don’t want to be here. The times I imagined Dylan and I meeting again, we were always alone. I don’t want to do this in front of a crowd. I’m not ready. I’m not dressed properly. In my fantasies, we meet alone. Nothing comes between us, it’s as intimate as the bar booth we met in, I’m wearing something less revealing, more me.. Despite the heat, I wish Paul had a sweater I could borrow to cover up with. The scarf burns the skin of my throat.

  Why did I wear this thing? As soon as he sees it… My clutch is too tiny, but I want to tear off the scarf and hide it. It makes me seem like just another groupie with a trophy.

  The edgy brunette in front of us turns with a grin. “Hey! You guys win the radio contest too?”

  I shake my head. “We were chosen.”

  The guy ahead of her with a huge beard turns and smiles. “My ticket got picked at the door too! Awesome luck. The meet-and-greet packages sold out in less than three minutes. You won the radio contest?” He nods at the brunette.

  She turns to him, and they strike up a conversation, so I don’t bother correcting him about our “in.” Neither does Paul.

  He leans closer. “It’s weird how we got chosen for this if it was sold out all over—not that I’m complaining. It’ll be awesome to hang out with real rockers like them, though. You know, ones who can actually play their instruments. I bet they get up to all kinds of crazy things we can’t even imagine.”

  Oh, I could imagine all right.

  I lick my dry lips. “We’re probably not going to be hanging out. It’s more likely going to be a quick photo op and a handshake.”

  He tucks a flyaway piece of hair back behind his ear. “I know, but it’s still awesome.”

  “I didn’t know you thought so highly of them, Paul. You seem a little more starstruck than I expected. It’s not like we’re strangers to the stage.”

  He shrugs. “It’s different. We’re from opposite worlds. People like them don’t hang out with people like us.”

  I lean weakly against the wall. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they take over your world for a couple days, obliterating things you thought you knew about your life and yourself. But it’s never for long. Memories slide back in like quicksand.

  “Okay, you are trouble.” He shook his head and bit his lip.

  That last soft kiss he gave me almost changed my mind about giving him my contact information. If he’d asked me again…

  But he hadn’t.

  He’d slid his shades onto my face and walked out of my life.

  Was I something more to him than a one-night stand? Did I matter? With the way he’s haunting me, I have to know if I affected him too, or if he behaves this way with everyone—a repertoire of ‘adventure’ and ‘emotion’ he feeds everyone.

  “What did you think of that new song? Tilted? Tilt?” Paul leans against the wall, mirroring my posture.

  I think the lead singer took our very public sex act and made it into a very public song, exploiting what happened between us. Maybe I should be offended, but it feels like a gloriously inappropriate secret between Dylan and me. Thinking about talking to you about it makes me want to die a little. “It was good. Different.” It was mine.

  “Definitely.” He prattles on more about signatures and progressions.

  I can’t concentrate on what he’s saying. Dylan wrote a song about me. About me. Every girl in North America would kill for this. And in a couple minutes, I’ll see him and he’s going to smile that cocky grin at me, and I’ll shake my head and act scandalized, and then I’ll get him alone and find out every detail I can about the song.

  Or maybe not talk at all.

  “Right?” Paul nudges my shoulder. “You noticed that too, right?”

  I blink hard and focus on his face, but I have no idea what he’s just said, so the safest course of action is a small nod and enthusiastic smile.

  The band exits the door into the hallway to much fanfare from the thirty or so people ahead of us in the line.

  A tall man in jeans and a suit jacket, probably their manager, steps forward with his hands up to shush us. “Okay, everyone, listen up. Photos are allowed. One item per person for signing. You know the drill.”

  I turn to Paul. “Do you know the drill?”

  His expression is perplexed.

  The brunette turns back and rolls her eyes. “The line moves fast, so have your things ready if you want something signed. It’s meet and greet, not hang and share life stories. There are, what, thirty of us? If we only get a minute each with them, that’s half an hour the band
’s standing around after they’ve just performed a full set. The band can touch you, but you can’t touch them. Not that I’m going to listen to that,” she whispers with a lecherous wink. “You’d be surprised what you can ‘accidentally’ get away with. First chance I get, I’m grabbing a handful of Dylan.”

  “Thanks for filling us in,” Paul says.

  I want to slap her eyeliner off her face. Dylan’s not hers, he’s a human being, and she’s plotting to invade his personal space like he’s an object for her personal pleasure. Outrage on his behalf surges through me before I sag against the wall, deflating.

  He’s not mine either. God, what is wrong with me?

  He’s getting closer.

  Dylan hasn’t had time to change. He’s a bit sweaty. It only makes him look more badass and sexy. Grungy and taboo. I remember the way his male scent mingled with his citrusy cologne, and it makes my mouth water. The band members make their way down the line fairly quickly, but I only have eyes for Dylan. I try not to stare, but I’m dying to see his reaction to me.

  Will he be happy I’m here? He did ask for me specifically. Will he hug me, kiss me in front of Paul? Shit. I keep forgetting about Paul. How the hell will I explain a kiss away? I’ll be casual and play it off like I planned it all along to surprise Paul because Dylan and I are old friends and isn’t it funny, haha.

  Derek is the first band member to reach us. He smiles shyly, shakes our hands, and moves on. Sutter saunters up, one nostril still sporting a tell-tale white smear. I’m not certain he really sees us as he leans in for a selfie with Paul.

  Too many frantic heartbeats later, I smile nervously at Dylan, now only a couple feet away and moving closer.

  “I’m Dylan.” He holds out his hand to Paul, who takes it and vigorously shakes it.

  “I’m Paul, Paul Sullivan. So good to meet you, man. I’m a huge fan.”

  Dylan smiles. “Nice to meet you.” He turns to me and holds out his hand. “Dylan.”

  I take it, startled at the jolt of electricity that shoots up my arm at the contact, startled more that there’s not even a glimmer of recognition in Dylan’s eyes. “Rachel Simmons.”