Bad Boy Romance: Nick (Romantic Suspense Alpha Male Romance) (New Adult Rock Star Contemporary Short Stories) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 2) (9 page)

****

The crowd was one of the largest we’d ever played in front
of; the club was packed, even the balcony area stuffed so full of people that
it seemed like a potential fire hazard. I’d stopped even thinking about the
sweat pouring down my body under my clothes twenty minutes into the set;
thinking about it wasn’t going to make it stop. In between one song and
another, as Alex was saying something to the audience, I bent over to grab one
of the open beers from its perch on one of the monitors. I glanced over at the
sidelines; Olivia was there, and I gave her a little smile.

Instead of my original plan—which had been to white knuckle
my way through the set, gritting my teeth and just going through the motions—I
was determined to play as well as I ever had in my entire life. I knew what
Olivia liked; I knew there was a very good reason why she hung out with
musicians that had nothing to do with a love of a good party and fun
companionship. As I set my beer down again, turning to watch Mark sketch out
the beat for the next song on the list, I remembered something from a couple of
weeks before, when Olivia’s scandal hadn’t even been something I considered
possible.

We’d been tangled up in each other, sprawled as much as my
bunk would allow, drenched in sweat. We’d finished fucking for the night—at
least, unless one of us suddenly had a burst of new energy—and were just laying
together, enjoying the afterglow. Olivia had taken one of my hands in both of
hers, and examined it in the overhead light, peering at it until I started to
feel uncomfortable. “What?”

“Your hands fascinate me,” she’d said. She brushed the pads
of her fingers along the calluses at the tips of my left hand fingers, then
slid them along the digits themselves. “Not just because you can get me off
with them in like, three minutes,” she’d added, giving me a little
self-conscious grin.

“What about them?” She’d shrugged, but hadn’t stopped her
examination, making me shiver at the sensation of her fingertip following the
lines on my palm.

“I can see the skill in them,” she had said. “I love
watching you play. I could never do the things you do—it’s like an instinct for
you—but every time I watch you play a song, I feel like I can almost understand
what you’re doing, why it works.” She’d blushed then, letting my hand drop to
the blankets. “Then there’s also the fact that it’s really, really easy to
understand how you can get me off in three minutes, watching you play guitar.”
I’d laughed and somehow managed to get the energy to pull her closer to me, to
get her off with the hands she liked so much, before we finally fell asleep.

I came back to the present just in time to start into the
next song, pretending like I didn’t feel Olivia’s avid gaze watching my every
move. I turned just enough to let her see my hands in the lights flashing their
way across the stage, sweeping one way and then the other. I threw myself into
the melody, nodding my head and tapping my foot in time even as I swayed to the
beat. I opened my eyes once or twice just to meet her gaze, just to let her
know I knew—and then I closed them again, turning more towards the audience, or
towards one of the other guys in the band.

It wasn’t much of a strategy, but by the time we played the
last song, I thought it might be working—at least a little bit. Olivia hadn’t
been able to tear her attention away from me for more than a few seconds at a
time; long enough to grab pictures of the rest of the guys every so often, or
of the crowd, but not so long that she risked forgetting about me, or thinking
about anything other than me.

As we walked offstage, heading for the green room, I made
sure I was in the back. I grabbed Olivia’s hand as I walked past her, pulling
her along with me. When I heard her startled yelp, I turned to grin at her.
“What? Everyone knows, right? What’s there to hide?”

I stopped in the green room long enough to snag a couple of
beers and a fresh pack of cigarettes, never letting go of Olivia’s hand the
entire time. “We’ll be back in a bit,” I told Ron, who hovered around the rest
of the guys, waiting for the party to start so he could monitor it.

“Nick, what are you doing?” I paused for a moment on my way
to the bus outside. I looked around; there were a couple of techs at the far
end of the hallway from us, but no one was really paying attention to me or to
Olivia.

“I get that you’re afraid and you’re worried and there’s
this big scandal,” I said quickly, “but we’ve been seeing each other for two
months steadily, right? I deserve at least to have a part in your decision to
stay or go.” I continued on, and Olivia barely hesitated, following in my wake
as I led her towards the exit and the bus.

We got on and I locked the door behind us—as much as it
could be locked, anyway—and then plunged through the bunks to the lounge. I
propelled Olivia towards a seat at one of the tables and took the chair
opposite her, setting down the beers and my pack of cigarettes. “Okay,” I said,
pulling the tab on the plastic and quickly opening the pack, tugging the foil
free. I pulled a cigarette out and lit it, pushed one of the beers towards
Olivia, and met her gaze. “We need to talk about your choices.”

“My choices?” Olivia laughed bitterly. “My choices are to be
humiliated by people calling me a slut while I’m continuing to cover the tour,
or be humiliated by people calling me a slut and a quitter when my editor fires
me or forces me to resign.”

“He’s not going to fire you,” I said, taking a drag of smoke
into my lungs. I cracked one of the beers and took a sip. “Ron is going to tell
him that if he takes you off this assignment, we’re not working with anyone
else.
Record Spin
is just going to have to eat the scandal and hold its
nose.”

“And then he’ll fire me right after, pretending that it’s
about something else,” Olivia said.

“Open your beer,” I told her. I flicked ash into the ashtray
and took another lungful of smoke. “If
Record Spin
fires you, I’ll get
Ron to hire you as one of our PR people. The point is: I’m not going anywhere.
I’m not going to abandon you. Hell; if it wouldn’t be completely insane, I’d
ask you to move in with me when the tour is over.” Olivia stared at me in
shock, even as her fingers finished the work of opening her beer.

“What?”

“Look,” I said, licking my lips and tasting a mix of my own
sweat, the hoppy beer, and the smoke from my cigarette. “I know you’ve always
had one foot out the door because you think I’m never serious about anyone and
you’re right about that. I’ve never been serious about anything other than my
family, the band, and…” I stopped short. “That’s pretty much it.”

“And having a good time,” Olivia added, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “But I’m serious about you. And until
you tell me that you don’t want to be with me—not because there’s a scandal, or
because you might get fired, or anything other than just
your
feelings
towards me—I’m going to stay serious about you.” I smiled. “Fuck, Olivia—you
know, kind of at least, how many girls I’ve been with. You’re the best damn lay
I’ve ever had. I’d spend time with you even if you never wanted to have sex
with me again. You’re smart and fun and a million fucking other things.”

“Why me?” she held my gaze steadily. “What’s so different
about me? You could feel that way for—dozens of girls.”

“I could, but I never have,” I said with a shrug. “You’re
just…you. You don’t try to ‘tame’ me, you don’t try to be something you aren’t
just to get my attention, you’re genuinely just…” I shrugged again. “I love
being around you. I love talking to you.” I swallowed a gulp of beer. “I think
I might just love
you
.”

Olivia had been in the process of bringing her own beer up
to take a sip; it slipped out of her hand and I barely managed to catch it
before it toppled on the tabletop and spilled everywhere. “Say that again,” she
said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I can’t be completely sure,” I said, licking my lips again.
“But I think I love you.” Olivia stared at me in complete silence for a full
minute. She took the beer from my hand and drank what had to be about half of
it all at once.

“If you ever break my heart, Nick, I am going to kill you
the slowest way I can figure out,” she told me. I smiled slowly.

“You’ve been killing me all day, sweetheart,” I said. “My
cock feels like it’s going to fall off if I ignore it for much longer.” Olivia
snorted, shaking her head.

“The bus is empty,” she said, glancing around.

“It is,” I agreed. “Race you to the bunks?” Olivia’s tongue
darted out between her lips and I shuddered. Feeling her watching me all night
had been such a fucking turn-on; I couldn’t think of anything hotter than
watching her staring at me, knowing that in spite of the fact that she was
thinking of ending things, she wanted me.

Before I could react, she was up, darting towards the bunks.
I abandoned my beer and my cigarette both in pursuit, nearly tangling my legs
in the pole that held the table up as I hurried to catch up to her. I lunged
forward and managed to grab her waist with my outstretched arms, snatching her
back, pulling her body against mine. In minutes we were in my bunk, our clothes
coming off, our hands wandering. “You can’t tell me this doesn’t feel
just…exactly right,” I said, barely breaking away from Olivia’s lips as I
tugged her panties down over her hips and along her legs.

“It—mmm—it feels good,” Olivia murmured, slithering on top
of me and straddling my hips. I cupped her tits in my hands, kneading them. I’d
spent the whole day, ever since she’d sent me out of her bunk, thinking about
her, thinking about what I’d be losing when she made the decision to break up
with me.

“If your editor takes you off the assignment,” I said, my
breath catching in my throat for a moment as Olivia rubbed the hot, wet folds
of her pussy against my cock slowly, “then you should post to our site instead.
I’ll get—I’ll get Ron to give you a log-in.”

“That sounds good,” Olivia murmured. “But let’s…let’s not
even think about that right now.” I nodded my agreement and then I was
thrusting up into her, pushing past the tightening of her muscles to slide
deeper and deeper inside of her body. We fell into a rhythm together in the
span of a few heartbeats, and my hands wandered all over her body, touching and
teasing her. Olivia pulled herself up and began riding me, balancing on her
knees, her hands on the wall over my head, giving me the view of a lifetime. I
lifted myself up to bury my face against her tits as she rose and fell on me; I
reached down between her legs to find her clit with my fingers even as I thrust
up into her, pushing deeper and deeper.

I don’t know how long either of us lasted; I knew from the
beginning that I’d barely be able to hold myself back. It felt like it was only
minutes before I felt every muscle in Olivia’s body starting to tense, little
spasms of her inner walls clenching around me like her pussy itself didn’t want
me out of it. I held back as she started to come, but within seconds I couldn’t
stop myself anymore, and I felt my cock twitching inside of her as white-hot
pleasure lit up my nervous system. We kept moving until we both finished, and
then I wrapped my arms around Olivia and cradled her body against mine as soon
as she collapsed on top of me, panting and gasping and trembling. “You’re still
twitching inside me,” she murmured, giggling.

“Woman, that’s the hardest I’ve come in…days.” I kissed her
sweaty forehead and pressed her body against mine even more firmly. “Feel
better about things?”

“Oh, is that the reason you wanted to fuck me again?” Olivia
pulled herself up enough to look down into my eyes.

“Everything is better when we fuck,” I told her. “I kind of
want the cigarette I left behind though.” Olivia rolled her eyes, shaking her
head.

“It’s a damned good thing you love me,” she told me, looking
around the bunk. She grabbed the throw blanket I kept around in case it got
colder than normal and draped it around herself as she climbed off of me. As
Olivia darted out of the bunk, I thought about what I’d told her; every bit of
it was true. I smiled to myself.
God. Someone should have put money on me
losing my damn mind and falling in love. They’d’ve made a killing on that
betting pool.
The Olivia was climbing back into the bunk with my cigarettes
and the ashtray in hand, and I stopped thinking about anything but having a
cigarette and then convincing her to fuck again. I lit a cigarette and Olivia
cuddled close to me, letting the throw blanket fall away from her sexy little
body, and I smiled to myself.
This time last year I would never have
believed that I’d ditch an after party to have tons of sex with someone I’ve
had tons of sex with at least fifty times.
It felt way, way better than I
would have ever imagined it would. I wanted more—and I was pretty sure Olivia
would oblige.

****

Epilogue

“It’s weird to know I’m getting off of the bus for the last
time,” Olivia told me, slinging her backpack onto her shoulders.

“Well not the
last
last time,” I pointed out,
watching as she checked to make sure she’d taken everything out of her bunk.
“You’re going to be on it again for the next tour.” She rolled her eyes.

“That’s assuming you still want me on tour with you.” She
climbed down and looked up at me, one eyebrow raised in silent challenge.

“You’re our PR person; of course I’m going to want you on
tour.” Olivia’s editor had decided to let her work through the rest of the
tour—but it would be her last assignment for the magazine. Alex and I had
spoken to Ron when the decision came down, and he’d hired her immediately as
our public relations person, offering her a standard salary; it was, Olivia had
told me after accepting the job, a little less than twice what she’d been making
at the magazine.

The fallout wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be.
There were still people who trolled her different social accounts, but for the
most part the industry as a whole didn’t seem to care; I’d told her it happened
all the time, and I was right.

“Hurry your asses up,” Jules called from the front of the
bus. “I want to get back into my own bed and not leave it for three days.”

“That actually sounds like a good plan,” I told Olivia.
“Let’s go back to my place and stay in bed together for the next week.”

“You’d chafe,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Besides,
there’s no food at your place.”

“We can order in,” I insisted. “Besides, now that we’re off
tour, we have to keep it exciting somehow, right?” she rolled her eyes and
started down the aisle to the front of the bus. I grabbed for her hand and she
let me claim it. I looked around, thinking that of all the possible scenarios I
could have imagined, ending the tour with a serious girlfriend was the last of
my ambitions. But I could understand—finally—why Alex had been the first one
off the bus when we’d arrived at the office where our cars were parked, waiting
for us. I might even agree to let him bring Mary on the next tour if she wanted
to come. There’d be no choice for Olivia; I smirked to myself, thinking that
dating our PR person was one way to guarantee as much time with the woman I
loved as possible. It was a new desire for me: but as Olivia always pointed
out, I was all about novelty. I would do everything I had to, to keep things
new between us, if it meant keeping Olivia. I gave her hand a squeeze as we
stepped off the bus together. I knew we were going to be fine.

THE
END