European Tour (Rocking the Pop Star Book 1) (6 page)

SKYLAR

DAY EIGHT

I’m so ready for the man on the other side of my bedroom door, I’m trembling like a vibrator on its highest speed. I pause, take a deep breath, and enter.

My gaze locks on him immediately. He’s shucked down to his skivvies and is lounging on my neatly turned down bed. I’m struck by how appropriate Brody looks in my bedroom. He’s been in here before, but not in his current state of undress.

I lock the door, step out of my heels, and leave them where they fall. I begin a slow traverse toward him, removing the rest of my clothes and studying his physique. He’s got that wiry rock star body, except with generously toned muscles, courtesy of his MMA activities, I’m sure. His boxer briefs are tented with something else that is generous and which I’m very anxious to sample.

I struggle with the zipper on my dress.

“Let me help.” He leaps off the bed and meets me in the middle of the floor, wrapping me in an embrace and claiming my lips before he does the honor of unzipping me.

There’s so much damn furniture in this room we could be occupying, but we kiss, grind, and make out in the middle of the floor as if it’s been too long since either of us had a good fuck and we’re afraid that lying on the bed might make the lust go away.

I love that he isn’t gentle, treating me as if I’m some kind of porcelain doll like Connor did in the beginning. Turns out Connor wasn’t so gentle after all in the end. Annoyed, I push thoughts of the past away.

Brody tugs my hair and that helps me to focus on the here and now. With my head back, he has easy access to my throat. He sucks the delicate flesh on my neck like a starved man. I may need concealer tomorrow, but it’s a small price to pay. I’m thrumming between my legs as if his lips are there instead.

He raises his head and his eyes lock on the location of the bed. He backs me there and devours my mouth with his own again. I taste him and the faint flavor of beer on his tongue.

My lips are swollen from his ravaging, but I don’t care. I’ve needed this since Connor’s last tentative attempt at making love to me seven months ago.

My legs touch the bed and there is nowhere left to go.

Brody peels off my bra. I wriggle my panties down seductively. Together, we remove his briefs.

We’re a mass of naked limbs on my bed, licking, sucking, and causing a riot of sexual havoc on each other.

He likes to bite. He nips me with lips covering the sting of his teeth in places I never expected. My chin. My nipples. My elbows. My sex.

His tongue soothes every bite. His mouth works me with the fervor of a man confident in his sexual abilities. I grasp Brody’s head, my lower body rolling to meet his mouth, because I need the orgasm that’s zipping through me like I need air to keep breathing.

I go limp.

He raises his head and grins down at me. “Got any new adjectives for me, Ms. Samuelson?”

“Fuck.” I say it like it has two syllables.

“Close enough.” He rolls a condom onto his spectacular erection and impales me before I can complete another thought, let alone utter any additional words. When did he secure that prophylactic?

I manage to mutter a surprised, “Oh!”

Brody stops moving. His brow is furrowed. “You have done this before, right?”

Being so enthralled by how he’s filled me, I have trouble choosing words. “I…
Yes
. Of course.”

He pierces me with his blue eyes. “Are you sure?”

“My ex and I didn’t get together much. We both traveled. A lot. Can we not talk about this now?” I say with not even a modicum of patience. I need him to get down to business. Also, I’m not comfortable having a conversation during sex, especially not those that include talk about whether or not I’ve really had sex before, and explanations about my ex’s inability to take care of business.

Brody looks uncertain, but there is no reluctance as he begins to move again. “More thrusting, less talking. Gotcha, birthday girl.”

“You really thought I was underage?” I laugh so hard, I almost swallow a grape whole. Della left us a fruit and cheese tray from the party in the fridge, which Brody retrieved after we took another leisurely stroll over each other’s bodies. We’ve achieved some kind of record on my part concerning numbers of orgasms had in one night.

Brody is drawing lazy circles around my breasts after having eaten grapes and bits of cheese off them.

“Have you seen yourself, Sky? Without any makeup, you really look like a child.” He declares.

“That’s because I’m naturally a ginger,” I say matter-of-factly. “The paleness distracts you.”

He props himself up on one elbow. “You colored your hair black?”

“Technically, it’s dark brown.”

“Either way, why?”

“Skylar the pop star was supposed to be goth, but my label thought that would be too severe, especially since my songs tested better with pop fans.”

“So now you color it to keep the Skylar persona alive for your fan base?”

“Pretty much.”

Brody shakes his head. “The shit artists do for fans.”

“Didn’t you ever do anything to please your fans?”

He stiffens and starts to pull away, but I move closer and don’t allow him to leave.

“I don’t mean to pry,” I say. “If you’re ever inclined to tell me more about your musical past I’ll listen. And I won’t judge.” I lean in and kiss his lips, because they are full and sexy like a young Mick Jagger’s. Brody’s got better skin, though, and of course is generally more handsome all around.

Work is going to be so much more pleasant now that I get to put teeth to the fantasies I’ve been having about Brody. I feel like a kid in a candy shop and I’m well on my way to having multiple cavities.

“How did you know that I would like it rough?” I ask. Connor never had a clue, but Brody moved right on after that first hesitation and fucked me like he meant it. Both times.

“I was observant, and you spoke Friday night about debauchery and shame.”

“I’m so glad you knew, because it’s embarrassing to have to ask for something like that.”

He tips my chin up, raising my eyes to his. “You should never be afraid to ask your lover for what you want.”

“Some men are strange. They want The Madonna for their significant other and Mary Magdalene as their mistress.”

“Is that what Connor wanted?”

I nod, suddenly shy that we’re actually having this conversation, but Brody doesn’t let me hide. He maneuvers until he’s looking into my eyes again and holds me there.

“You’re a Catholic girl, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Guilt will eat you alive. Let that shit go, baby.”

“Easier said than done. I think it’s ingrained in you at baptism. The moment they make that cross on your head as an infant.” I frown.

“I’ll bet your mother even sent you to a Catholic school when you were young. Yeah?”

“Yes, and when my career got too busy for me to attend, she hired one of the nuns to homeschool me.”

“We have religious-based backgrounds in common. My grandparents did the same thing to me. My dad taught me to play guitar the same way he was taught by my grandfather. In church. My grandparents wanted me to use my”—he makes air quotes— “
gift
only in the church.”

“And you rebelled against that.” A statement more than question.

“Yep. A few of us from the neighborhood formed an underground rock band. We practiced in the basements of my friends’ homes whose parents didn’t have a fundamental problem with rock and roll.”

“How did your grandparents find out you were a rocker?” I’m fascinated by his story now, and I need to know more.”

His features darken like they do when he shares any reference to his past. It makes me sad that he had to go through so much as a child, but not sad enough not to be curious.

“Our high school had an annual battle of the bands contest to pick an amateur band to play at prom. My friends and I were cocky little shits, even as sophomores, so we knew we could take any other band for the title.”

My eyes are riveted on his face as he recounts the story.

“We went up against six other bands and won. As is customary for the winning band, our names and a group photo went into all the local papers, radio, and TV.”

“And your grandfather found out?” I say with a sigh.

Nodding, Brody sits up on the bed and brings me with him, holding me in the crook of his arm. “My grandfather was furious. He bullied me for a solid hour, trying to get me to quit the band. ‘Come before the church,’ he said. ‘Confess your sins. Tell them how you were tempted, but you have no intentions of playing the devil’s music at that dance.’”

“The devil’s music?”

“You have to understand, my grandparents were part of an uber-conservative Protestant denomination. Everything normal teenagers did was of the devil. The prom, he said, was an opportunity for young people to sin under the guise of socialization. ‘That dancing you do,’ he would say, ‘is pure fornication with clothes on.’”

Brody laughs, but my throat feels like it’s about to close.

I thought I’d been served up a healthy dose of Catholic guilt at a young age, but he’d been choked on the protestant variety. I swallow convulsively, trying not to allow the tears welling in my eyes to fall.

“After he finished his tirade, I went to my room, packed a bag, grabbed my guitar, and left. My bandmates were great. The ones whose parents were cool with us playing allowed me to couch surf, stay in their guest rooms until they were needed, or sometimes grab a floor in one of their homes until my grandparents reported me to social services. But I refused to go home with them, so I took my savings from working at a burger joint that summer and bought a bus ticket to LA.”

I clear my throat in an attempt to speak without giving my emotions away. “H-how did you survive?”

“I had enough money to stay at the YMCA at first. When that ran out, I slept in parks, in abandoned buildings, cars left open by their owners…anywhere I could. I got a job at a restaurant shortly after my money ran out, and I began to frequent the bars with live music on Sunset Strip. Once I played, most bands would give me a shot playing regional gigs with them.

“Two years later, a couple of my bandmates joined me after they graduated. We quickly made a name for ourselves at the local clubs. Then a music producer heard us one night in a Seattle club, and within six months and a few days shy of my eighteenth birthday, we had a contract, a following, and the rest—as they say—is history.”

“But something else happened to bring that all crashing down?”

“Yes, something else happened,” he says.

His blue eyes are shiny with tears, which gives them a Photoshopped 3D effect.

I realize, sexual attraction aside, I could fall for this guy. Maybe I’m a quarter of the way there already because of everything he is above and beyond hot and exceptionally good in bed. He’s kind, sensitive, has a passion for music—which he’s currently quashing for some yet-to-be-divulged reason—and he isn’t intimidated by my mother. I find that one reason alone to be chief among my reasons to elevate him from P.A. and current crush—in my mother’s eyes—to significant other.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

He hasn’t given me any indication that he’s looking for anything lasting. And I’ve just plunged myself headlong into a casual sexual relationship with my employee.

What the hell have I done?