Fighting Ever After (Ever After #3) (2 page)

I shoved my way through
the bar. The place was packed. It always was when we played. Girls eyed me as I
made my way through the crowd. I just grinned, but kept moving. None of them
really caught my eye, at least not enough that it was worth it to stop. I
needed to find Rick, the bar manager and make sure he had our check. We’d made
enough of a name for ourselves that we didn’t play anywhere for free. Most bars
didn’t mind paying either, since we always brought in a crowd. Just looking
around the room I knew this place was making a killing tonight off the cover
charge alone, not to mention the amount of alcohol being consumed.

I spotted Rick over by
the bar, talking to one of the bartenders. Just as I headed that direction,
someone brushed past me, knocking into my shoulder. I started to tell the
asshole to watch where he was going, but then I noticed the curves on the
asshole and suddenly I didn’t mind so much. She wasn’t looking at me, in fact,
unlike most of the girls in this
place,
she didn’t
seem to notice me at all. She appeared distracted, and was looking around the
room like she was searching for someone. I only got a quick glimpse of her face
before she turned her head, but it was enough that I knew she was pretty, maybe
even beautiful. She was small, a lot shorter than my six feet and three inches,
and that hair – it was something, like a silky fucking rainbow I wanted to
tangle my fingers in. She was slender, but looked soft in all the right places,
just how I like ‘
em
, even if she was shorter than my
usual preference. Her ass in those skinny jeans made me want to dig my fingers
into it while I pounded into her.

Shit.
Suddenly I was wishing I was the
lucky fucker she was looking for. I’d make it a point to look for this girl
after our show. Kaylie would be pissed since she was expecting to go home with
me tonight, but I just didn’t give a shit. I wanted to get this girl naked and
underneath me. I was confident that after the show that wouldn’t be a problem.
Once girls knew who I was, they practically
laid
down
and spread their legs. I was confident this one would be no different.

After she finished
looking around, she kept moving toward the opposite end of the bar I was headed
toward, but with that hair, she would be easy to find later. I walked over to
Rick and then followed him back to his office. He wrote me out a check and I
raised my eyebrows when I saw that the amount was more than we had discussed.
“Thanks man. The guys are going to like this,” I told him.

“No, thank you. Have you
seen this place? They’re here for you guys. Our business is good as long as you
guys keep playing,” he said, and then he wanted to talk about setting up more
shows. We were pretty booked up though for the weekends. We didn’t do many week
night shows because we all worked other jobs. Rick was a cool guy though and
this was one of the first places to give us a shot when we started out, so I
pulled up the calendar on my phone and we scheduled a Friday and Saturday night
set for next month.

It was getting close to
time for us to go on; I could hear Kaylie on stage closing out her set, so I
went to make sure the guys were ready and not screwing skirts in the bathrooms.
That could wait until after. A few guys who came to our shows pretty regularly
stopped me and we bullshitted for a minute.  One of their girlfriends kept
eyeing me like she wanted me to take her back to the bathrooms. That shit
pissed me off. How hard is it just to be fucking faithful? If you don’t want to
be, then don’t get a damn relationship.

I only have a few rules
when it comes to the opposite sex: I don’t let them in my bed, I don’t sleep
over, I don’t ever do a girl without a condom, I don’t do girls looking for a
relationship and I don’t mess with other guys’ girls. The relationship ones can
be tricky, because sometimes girls say they’re okay with casual, but really
they think they’re going to be the one to change me, and sometimes a girl lies
about already being in a relationship, but for the most part, following those
rules keeps me out of trouble. There was no avoiding the trouble that was about
to fall into my lap though, I just didn’t know it yet.

I found the guys sitting
at the same table they’d claimed when we first arrived. They’d been joined by a
couple of girls. Chris was the only one missing. Spade had some hot little
blonde on his lap, and a sexy red head was trying to get Ace’s attention, but
they both looked up at me excitedly when I pulled up a stool next to Spade. “You
guys about ready?” I asked. Before they could answer me, I felt someone come up
beside me and then everyone was looking up at whoever it was. I turned and
started to smile when I recognized the girl from earlier standing there next to
Bas, then someone knocked into her from behind and she tumbled right into my
lap. I reached out to catch her, placing one hand on her elbow and the other on
her hip. Her hands landed on my chest, her colorful hair spilling over one
shoulder. I could see a small tattoo peeking out from under all that hair.

Once
Upon A Time.

Huh.
So she was into fairytales and that
shit.
Cute.

Her hands slipped down
my stomach as her head lifted. I bit back a groan, because her little hands
felt good on my body. When I finally got my first real glimpse of her face, I
realized I had been wrong earlier. She wasn’t just pretty. She was gorgeous,
and I almost believed that she could have been a princess straight from a fairy
tale. She wasn’t blatantly hot or
sexy,
her features
were more soft and sweet. She didn’t even look like she could be twenty one.
Her lips were full and a soft pink that didn’t come from a lipstick tube. In
fact she wasn’t wearing much make up at all, but she didn’t need it. I wanted
to pull that bottom lip between my teeth and bite it.

Her eyes traveled up and
down me and I could tell she was checking me out. It made me grin because I
could also tell that she liked what she was seeing. Then her eyes finally met
mine, and if I hadn’t already been sitting, it would have knocked me on my ass.
They were a bright silver color I had never seen before, and I swear they
looked into mine and saw right through me. She was staring at me like she was
searching for something and it made me damn uncomfortable. I didn’t like it one
bit.

“Not that I mind
Princess, but I should probably know your name before you start getting
frisky.” I felt her stiffen and a deep blush tinted her cheeks. Then Spade
interrupted the little moment we were having.

“That’s Sebastian’s
unicorn.
Turns out she’s real.”

Well, well.
So this girl was Bas’ Jaxyn. Not at
all what I had expected, hearing about his childhood friend. The way he talked
about her – more like she was his sister – I’d figured she must be fat, or
unattractive or just plain, because if a guy’s best friend is a girl, and he’s
not screwing her, there’s usually a reason. Only I couldn’t figure out what it
was in this situation, because this girl wasn’t any of those things. Not even
close. I was starting to think Bas was a liar and that the reason we’d never
met this chick was because he wanted to keep her all to himself. I sure as hell
would.

“I am not a unicorn,”
she said, shoving herself up off my lap, trying to cover up her embarrassment with
a huff of indignation. Now that she was standing right in front of me, I was
able to slowly peruse her body up close. She had hips meant for grabbing onto,
her waist small, her chest wasn’t large either, but there was enough to fit in
my hand, and those lips were definitely made for kissing and other more
explicit activities that I hoped we would be engaging in sometime in the near
future.

“Oh I can tell Princess.
I’m very aware of what you are.” She had all the best curves of a woman’s body,
even if they were slighter than I usually preferred. My words only made her
cheeks turn a darker shade of pink and that made me smile even more. She was
blushing like a damn virgin – not that I had much experience with virgins. I
tended to avoid them, since they were usually the type looking for commitment
and all that other shit. I couldn’t believe a girl as cute as this one was
still a virgin though, more likely she was just the shy type.

“My name is Jaxyn, not
Princess,” she glared at me, her lips pulled into a tight line.

“Oh I know your name.
We’ve all been hearing it for the last year. Now I get why Bas was keeping you
hidden. I’d like to take you away and keep you locked up myself.” I was baiting
him more so than I was her, to see how he would react.

“Kyden,” he said in a
low voice, clearly meant to be a warning, but it only made me more curious.
Before I could push either one of them anymore, Chris walked up.

“Hey dickheads, we’re up
in fifteen, so get your asses on stage.” He spotted Jax and grinned wide. “Well
shit. If it isn’t-”

“I swear Christian, if
you use that nickname, they’re gonna need to find a new drummer tonight,” she
cut him off.

“I’d listen to her
Chris. She thinks she’s a bad
ass
now,” Bas chimed in
earning him a dirty look from Jaxyn before she shot it back at his brother. She
was cute when she was trying to be angry and act tough.

“Feisty Princess, I like
it. Are you this . . .
spirited
, in everything you do?” She rounded on me,
and the way she threw back her shoulders and narrowed her eyes at me, indicated
that she had fire in her, probably a lot of it.

“Quit with the
Princess
bit. You can take your charm
and sexual innuendos elsewhere, because I’m not falling for it.”  I wondered
if some of that fire would come out in bed. I hoped so. I couldn’t stop the
smile that split my lips just thinking about how much fun she would be. That
only caused her expression to harden more. Oh yeah, a lot of fun. The fact that
she was trying so hard not to like me would only make it that much better when
I got her naked.

“Damn, what’s with all
this hostility I’m feeling? It’s like you’re not happy to see me. Didn’t you
miss me, Tink?” She let out a frustrated groan and turned her attention back to
Chris.

“Nope, not even a little
bit,” she told him, but clearly didn’t mean it. Unlike when she glared at me,
there was affection in her eyes for Chris. I was curious about the nickname and
why she was so embarrassed by it. I also wanted her attention back on me. I
couldn’t really explain why other than I found this girl really intriguing.

“Why
‘Tink’, Princess?”
I asked, using my own nickname for her, because it was just too much fun
pushing all her little buttons and getting her riled up. She ignored me, but
gave Chris a look that said he better keep his mouth shut. I turned to him
questioningly.

“It’s short for Tinkerbell.

“Don’t you dare
Christian,” she warned.

He just chuckled,
“When she was a freshman, she challenged me and Bas to a race from
the high school back to our house. Girl was too cocky for her own good, and
insisted she could beat us both, even though she was just
 
tiny little freshman and all dressed up from
being at my baseball banquet. She was fast, but it was a close race and we were
closing on her as we approached the house, so she decided just to hop the fence
around our yard instead of opening the gate. Her skirt got caught on the fence.
She ended up face planted in the yard with nothing on below the waist but her
little pink and yellow Tinkerbell panties.”
Everyone laughed and steam was practically coming out her
ears, but all I could think about was stripping her down to nothing but her
panties, although I was hoping for something a little sexier than Tinkerbell.

“Cute
Princess.”
I hadn’t
thought it was possible for her to turn any redder, but she did. I wanted to
feel her heated skin underneath my fingers. I had a feeling her skin would be
gorgeous, flushed pink with nothing covering it but me. Bas was glaring at me
again so I leaned in close enough that only she would hear me. “You really
gotta stop doing that. It makes me want to remove every piece of clothing
you've got on so I can see just how far that blush spreads. I would guess all
the way down.” She gasped and I chuckled at her reaction, standing up and
making my way to the stage.

We got our equipment set
up and ready before doing a couple sound checks and in that short time the bar
became even more crowded as everyone who had been loitering outside filed in. I
looked out at the audience and spotted Princess standing with Bas near the
stage. I was going to enjoy this performance. I loved it every night. There was
nothing better, but tonight I was going to put on a show just for her.

We started playing, and
just like we do every time we step out onto a stage, we made sure to own the
crowd and I made sure that sweet Princess couldn’t take her eyes off me. I put
everything into that first song and the next and the next. My eyes met hers
over and over and I could feel something passing between us like an electrical
current. It was hot, and even when I looked away I could still feel her eyes on
me, following me across that small stage. It charged me up and I poured myself
into every note and word. I worked my fingers over my guitar like I was working
them over her body. It might have been our best performance yet. The crowd was
alive and going crazy, dancing and singing along with the covers we played and
even some of our original stuff.