Bad Boy Romance: Nick (Romantic Suspense Alpha Male Romance) (New Adult Rock Star Contemporary Short Stories) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 2) (72 page)

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Damian hesitated before pulling
the royal blue door of the bar open, noticing the strange coolness of the metal
handle as he pressed his palm against it. He could feel all of his nervous
energy getting transferred to the chipped paint, and he wondered if his hand
would come away with blue when he pulled it back, the colors warmed and runny
from his heat.

Just go in,
he told
himself firmly.
You’ve been to bars before. So this one’s sketchy? You’ve
been to sketchy bars before. Just go in, don’t look at anyone, and head toward
the bar.

The gloom upon entering didn’t
surprise Damian. Circular lamps hung from the high ceiling, dangling fifteen
feet above their heads like huge fireflies without wings, punctuating the dark
every ten feet or so with their soft yellow glow. He wasn’t surprised to find
the jukebox playing a country song he couldn’t name or even recognize as five
or six patrons sat in chairs near the center of the room, seated around each
other but not in a way that suggested they were sitting together. Damian was
surprised to find the bar almost completely deserted except for two women and a
man who appeared to be sleeping, unless corpses could snore.

The stool was softer than it looked,
and Damian was only seated for a second before the bartender appeared before
him, the cleanliness of her uniform somewhat ruined by her unkempt
chestnut-colored bun.

“What’ll you have?”

“Uh, Fat Tire, please?”

The bartender nodded and
shuffled away to pull out a glass from under the bar. Now that his eyes had
adjusted, Damian could see that there were a few more people present than he
realized—and more of them were women than he’d first noticed, as well. As the
waitress came back with his beer, he could feel more eyes turning toward him
and climbing the fabric of his slacks and blazer—and doing more than just
studying the carefully muscled body filling out the all-black ensemble; Damian
knew from experience that many women who approached him in bars knew the price
tags of his clothing better than he did.

His eyes turned to the two women
at the other end of the L-shaped bar, giggling together with their heads almost
touching above their drinks. The one with her face turned away from him had
short, curly black hair and a low, sultry laugh, but the one he could see was
laughing loudly and in such a high-pitched tone that it almost seemed like the
call of some jungle bird—sharp and lilting and echoing through your body so as
to almost be alarming, but commanding, so you could do nothing but listen. She
had thick red hair softly curling inward just above her collarbone, and the
deep blue of her collared button-down shirt brought out the warm tones of her
chocolate brown eyes. Her heart-shaped face was alive with delight at something
her friend was saying, and as she lifted her drink, the deep pucker of her lips
sent a violent shiver down his spine.

Damian turned away, suddenly
conscious of his staring. He took a long drink of his beer, uncomfortably aware
of every fiber in his blazer as he fought to sort through the storm of emotions
prohibiting his train of thought.
Drink,
he thought desperately, and his
hand was halfway to his mouth again before he clarified to himself:
Send her
a drink. You should send her a drink.

Damian waved the bartender over
with a twenty between his fingers and noted that she moved much faster this
time. “Would you please send another of what that lovely redhead is drinking
over to her at the end of the bar? And keep them coming. Let her know she
doesn’t owe me a thing.”

He ran a sweaty palm through his
hair and glanced at his reflection in the dusty mirror over the bar. Pushing
his hand through it had given him a pleasant bed-head look, but his eyes were
still worryingly bagged. Should he call it a night after this? Damian looked
over at the young woman, whose eyes were trained on the bartender as she
explained where the new drink had come from. The curly haired woman looked over
at him curiously, but the redhead stared at the martini in shock for a few
moments before looking up and smiling at him—wide enough to show dimples on
both of her cheeks.

She lifted the drink and nodded,
and Damian forced himself to do the same, just to be in motion so the fine
tremble in his body wouldn’t be evident from across the room. A wave of energy
slid across his skin— slow and bone meltingly-hot, like lava—and the burn
lingered even after she finally tore her eyes away from his.

Good job,
Damian
congratulated himself as he drained the last of his beer.
Now don’t screw it
up. You should probably leave ASAP, in fact.

His eyes finally noticed the
television in a high corner near him, and he glued his eyes to the screen as a
slow smile slid across his face. He had no idea what he was looking at, because
the redhead’s dazzling grin was branded into his vision like an afterimage, so
the moving pictures before his eyes might as well have been static. He felt
like a stone had been sitting on his heart, and the lift in her cheeks had
tumbled it over.
You sound like you hit your head,
he told himself
sternly.
It’s definitely time to leave.

Before he could motion to close
his tab, the bartender thunked down another frosty glass of Fat Tire, smiling
faintly at his surprise. “From the… ‘lovely redhead’ drinking martinis. Says
you’re a true gentleman.”

Damian’s gentle smile was
spreading when another voice spoke at his side, “Should have just told you that
myself.”

He turned and had to fight to
hide his surprise to find the redhead standing before him. She laughed, and Damian
realized he hadn’t hid it well at all.

“I’m Rebecca—or Becca, if you
like.” The woman gestured to the empty seat beside him. “May I? My friend has
had enough, and I hate to drink alone.”

He nodded and looked in time to
see her friend stumbling out on coltish legs on the arm of a rotund man he
hadn’t seen at the bar. “I’m Damian...wow. It’s before ten and she’s already
had…
enough
?”

Becca shrugged, and Damian
realized she was nearly a foot shorter than him just before she settled onto
the stool, which made her around five-two. “We’re celebrating. Well,
she
is.”
She wrinkled her nose and shot a dark glance toward the now closed door,
scratched and covered in faded stickers from chain restaurants and now defunct
bands and brands.

Damian didn’t say anything, but
his raised eyebrows provided all the permission Becca needed.

“She got a promotion at work,
but it’s not for a good reason,” she said carefully, sipping her drink as she
paused. “The boss—you saw him with her—did a favor for her once, and now he’s
holding this over her head so she’ll do one back… if you know what I mean.”

Damian was shocked—that it was
happening, and that Becca was telling a man she’d just met. The shock must have
shown clearly on his face, because she laughed again—the same hard, almost
braying laugh that compelled him to lean closer rather than further away from
the noise.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m
screwing with you. It’s her thirtieth and she got a little too saucy on her
birthday shots. Her husband is taking her home.”

Damian laughed, but shock was
still coursing through him, but for a different reason now. “Do you normally
play jokes like that on strangers who buy you drinks? Or just ones who are
clearly stuck-up tech guys like me?”

Becca’s eyes widened with
remorse, and Damian regretted the sharpness of his words. “No, oh god, no! I’m
sorry, I just have this horrible sense of humor—I mean, my friends like it, and
so does my mom, but that doesn’t mean you should, too.” Her cheeks were rapidly
turning from cream to rose quartz to satin red, and Damian took pity on her.
“I’m sorry, I’ll just…I’ll just go—”

“No,” he said, and it cut off
her speech immediately. “No, it’s fine. I can be a little stuffy at times. It
was funny, I’m just…” he trailed off, wondering if he should tell the truth.
Damian looked into Becca’s contrite eyes and saw nothing but warmth in their
depths, so he decided to plunge ahead.

“I kind of hate my job,” he said
at last. “I used to be passionate about it, but now it’s all about the money.
Just money. And now, I’m always bored and angry,” Damian said, taking a swig of
his beer. “It’s terrible. I’m miserable, even though it seems like I have
everything I could ever want.” He paused. “I lost all my friends building this
wall around me until I became…
this
. And I know it probably seems like
I’m some rich jerk feeding you lines so he can get off and put another notch on
his bed post, but that’s not the case.”

Becca’s frown had been
neutralizing as he spoke, and now she smiled at him, her lips curving under her
wonder. “Well, I’m a newspaper journalist who also hates her job, and who took
it because she thought it would lead to nobility and prestige. I do alright for
myself, but I’m certainly not in your tax bracket,” she said, her eyes rolling
at him over the rim of her glass. “So even with all that money, you’re still
not happy, Mr. Silicon Valley Millionaire?”

“That’s right,” he admitted.
“Although technically, I’m a billionaire.”

Becca’s eyebrows shot up, and
she laughed. “Billionaire, then. Gosh. And to think I almost didn’t come over
here and talk to you.”

Damian smiled. “Why did you
decide to?”

Becca leaned in as the bartender
replaced her drink. “This is embarrassing, but my best friend pressured me to
do it.”

He laughed, but kindly. “Peer
pressure?”

“We live thirty miles away, in
Daly City,” Becca explained, her eyes shining. “Her husband wanted us to relive
the nights we used to have in college…and we kind of did,” she said, chuckling.
“Laura always ended up puking, Jeff danced on tables…that’s probably why none
of us drink anymore.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I was always the wild card,
and I’d do anything on a dare. Laura dared me to come over and talk to you, so
I was bound by the laws of best friendship.”

Damian smiled and took a drink
of his beer. “It’s sweet that you still adhere to that code. A lot of people
let that kind of thing go as they get older.”

Becca leaned a little closer to
him and shrugged again. “I’m only twenty-eight. Not old enough to use age as an
excuse to be a bad friend.”

He felt his smile grow sad
before Becca’s frown told him it did. “Sorry,” he said hastily. “You reminded
me that a group of people I used to think were friends did exactly that five
years ago. But don’t let me put a damper on things.”

Becca looked curious now. “No,
tell me about it. I want to know about you.” She smiled, and the heat beneath
it sent a bolt of lust through Damian mid-sip. “That’s the real reason I came
over here, after all.”

So he did. Damian told her all
about how he, Jack Summer, Roger Wolf, and Ian Rivers had all been roommates
throughout college, sharing goals and ideals as well as toothpaste. Then Jack
and Ian started to get money-hungry, buying tiny tech businesses and flipping
them on the side for profit. Then Damian’s company got involved, and when Jack
flipped it, he took credit for the surge in stock while also distancing himself
from both Damian and Ian. Roger assumed they’d all been colluding and pulled
out, forming an angel investment group and spreading dirt about all three of
them so that their reputations were tarnished before they knew it.

He told Becca all of this, and
about his lingering pain over losing his best friends. She told him about
growing up in Maine and nearly drowning in the river because her brother
convinced her that she was a mermaid. They told each other secrets and stories
for hours, until it was past midnight, and both of them were flustered and
giggly from drinking and talking with their dizzy heads close.

“Okay,” Becca said at last.
“Okay…wow, I put away five of these things,” she slurred, leaning a hand on
Damian’s thigh. “I really am reliving those wild college nights.” She giggled
shrilly, and the sound was just as charming as her squawking laugh.

Damian felt an odd tug on his
heart, and he smiled. “I’d be studying if that were true for me,” he said, his
voice louder than he realized. “And a fox like you would have never spoken to
me while I was driving my daddy’s car.”

Becca laughed and leaned against
him harder, her breath smelling of gin and mint. “
Fox?”

Damian blushed, but he met her
eyes, his heart pounding now that he saw how close her lips were to his.
“Yeah,” he said brazenly, covering her hand with his. “Fox. A stone cold one.
What of it?”

When Becca laughed this time,
her breasts brushed across his arm, and he noticed, for the first time, how
full and heavy they seemed against the front of her shirt. Her thighs were
shapely, perfectly filling out her black pencil skirt; he reached under the
table and stroked her knee, slowly inching his hand toward her hip.

To his surprise, Becca leaned
closer, brushing her lips across his jawbone before she spoke. “Are you a lazy
dog, or do you wanna jump this fox?”

Becca turned toward him again,
and Damian leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers as she did. A tide of
last crashed over him, and he felt it roll over her as she shivered and
strained to be nearer to him. He reached out and scooted her stool closer, and
she made a soft moan of surprise, but wrapped her arms around his neck as he
gently nibbled on the flesh of her bottom lip. Becca’s right hand slipped down
his chest and lingered on his belt loop, and Damian’s heart nearly exploded as
it finally drifted south to squeeze on the growing bulge in front of his
slacks. His hands rested on her thighs, then slid slowly up until they forced
up the fabric of her skirt, his fingers digging into her curves until she cried
out into his kiss.