Manhandled: A Rockstar Romantic Comedy (Hammered Book 2) (12 page)

W
e went right
from the airport to the venue. There was no show tonight, but the band wanted time to rehearse. New songs and some sort of addition to the stage. They’d had a band meeting during the last hour of the flight.

Patrick had requested some research help while we were at the amphitheater. With the sudden influx of issues thanks to Faith’s stalker, Ripper Records was getting more diligent about security with their artists.

We sat at the sound board and poured over the names of people who had been offered up to head security.

Patrick ran a hand over his buzzed head. “I hate asking for help, but I don’t trust the rental services we use for security anymore. Not even just because of the shit stain who tried to kidnap Keys, but the ticket sales alone warrant more security.”

I nodded. “Agreed.” I tapped the short list of names he had. “I’ve worked with Gabe Matthews before. He’s my number one pick.”

Patrick pulled out a stapled packet. His eyes raced over the background I pulled from Roth. “Yeah, he was one of my top two. I’ll have him come in for an interview.”

“Sounds good.”

He tucked the sheaf of papers into his back pocket. “Backstage is a shitshow. This place may have changed its name, but it’s still the Woods.”

I raised a brow in question.

He shrugged. “I’ve been their security since the first tour. Hammered has been coming to this venue for ten years. Sells great tickets, but man, they don’t put any money into the back of the house.” He tapped the sound board. “Here, yes.” He nodded at the stage and the huge setup of screens. “You can watch from space, for fuck’s sake.”

“I wasn’t a big concert guy, but I think we were lucky to see a projector screen at SPAC.”

Patrick laughed. “Saratoga? We’ll be going there too.”

I nodded. I’d remembered seeing it on the list of venues. At least I knew those stomping grounds. “Show me the back.”

He nodded curtly. We walked down the main aisle. When the handful of venue security barely looked at us, I seethed. Lanyards and personnel should be checked every fucking time.

I kept a mental tally of each weakness. When I got to the side stage, I paused as Patrick spoke to Hunter.

“Hi.”

I turned at Faith’s voice. I was used to the girl that ran around in shorts and T-shirts, not this one. Her eyes were smudged with dark makeup making her blue eyes glow. A trio of crystals sparkled on the apple of her cheek, and her lips were slick with a frosty pink gloss. She wore purple plaid pants that hugged every goddamn curve and a short pink shirt with a purple skull across her distracting breasts. She sawed her fingers up and down a pair of improbably glittery suspenders.

She snapped a piece of gum. “You’re staring.”

“You’re different.”

She dug out a pack of gum from her pocket and folded another piece into her mouth. “I did a YouTube video for the fans. Want?” She held out a silver wrapped stick.

I wanted every fucking inch.

Because my mouth was dry, I accepted the gum. I was normally a spearmint guy, so the cinnamon bite on my tongue didn’t do anything to cool me down.

Now all I could imagine was how I’d like to suck that taste off of her tongue.

Yeah, it was time to go backstage with Patrick. I was turning into a sex obsessed idiot. Part of me wondered if I got her out of my system, then maybe we could go back to normal.

That, however, was me thinking with the wrong part of my anatomy. If I had a taste of her, I was pretty sure the opposite would occur. I just needed to focus on my job and get through the next few days.

Once I figured out her rhythm then I could establish a schedule.

She tilted her head and looked up at me. “Are you craving cookies?”

I crossed my arms. “Pardon?”

She stepped forward, dropping her voice to a purr. “I’m suddenly craving cookies.”

The stage was alive with technicians, roadies, and her fellow band members. There wasn’t a quiet pocket to be found on the expansive design of ramps and lighting rigs, but still it felt like she was shouting.

Or maybe it was just my brain screaming, “Get out of there, idiot”.

“We’re not going there again. No cookies.”

She snapped her gum. “I think you’re craving my cookies again.”

“We’re not having this conversation.”

“You didn’t know that oatmeal chocolate chip was going to be your favorite, but now that you had a taste…”

My gaze dropped to her mouth. I wanted to wipe off that glossy artifice and taste her. I didn’t give a shit about cookies. I couldn’t even pretend to play along with her winding euphemism. I wanted to drag her into a corner and lay her on one of the dozens of trunks littered around the space, peel off her pants, and see if her pussy matched her naked lips.

That’s what I wanted.

She sighed. “You’re back on salad, huh?”

“You do have the strangest way of asking me questions.”

She went up on her tip toes and pitched her voice lower. “I didn’t think you’d appreciate me actually spelling out the fact that I haven’t stopped thinking about that kiss. That I’d still be kissing you until my freaking lips were chapped if we hadn’t been interrupted.”

I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “Five minutes more and I’d have been kissing you somewhere else, Faith.”

She dropped back down onto her heels. “Oh.”

“Yeah. I don’t play games. I don’t have a sweet side. You’d have gotten fucked.”

Her lips parted and instead of horror, like I’d hoped to see, her pupils dilated.

Dammit.

I stepped back and walked around her. What the fuck was I supposed to say after that? I wasn’t going to lie. I did want to sink into her until there was nothing left of us except sweat and spent flesh.

I didn’t want her to romanticize what this was. It was pure chemistry and forced proximity. Any other time she would have dismissed me as an asshole who didn’t fit in her world.

She didn’t seem the type to give into the animal side of sex. She deserved a guy that treated her like gold, and would be there the next morning to make her breakfast for the next fifty years.

Faith Keystone wasn’t one night stand material.

“I told you it was a security nightmare back here.”

I snapped back into my surroundings as Patrick’s voice intruded. The narrow corridors had a dozen doorways leading into a labyrinth of closet sized rooms. Some were obviously set up for dressing rooms, others were storage, and still more should have been closed off and condemned.

There were tons of spaces to sneak off with a groupie, or, in my nightmares, places for a stalker to hide.

“Are all the venues like this?”

“Most of them,” Patrick answered.

“Perfect,” I growled.

Hunter’s voice crackled over the speakers and bounced around the empty amphitheater. A few minutes later drums and guitars made it impossible to talk.

Patrick motioned for me to follow him out the side door. I didn’t want to leave Faith alone, but if she wasn’t safe with a room full of her crew, then when would she actually be safe?

I closed the heavy steel door and leaned on the brick side of the building. “Did you notice that we walked by seven security guards and no one asked to see our lanyards?”

Patrick frowned. He flicked his on his hip. “Mine was showing.”

I dug mine out of my pocket. “Mine wasn’t. They don’t know me from Adam. Anyone could have walked in.”

“They couldn’t get through the park security.”

“Sure they could. Walk in the middle of a group of roadies wearing black, they wouldn’t have noticed a damn thing.”

He opened his mouth to argue, then shut it. “No, I don’t suppose so.”

“I need to talk to the security manager. We need to have a little meeting before tomorrow night.”

He dug out his phone. “You got it.”

The rest of the afternoon consisted of me pulling apart the security measures that Hammered had in place. As far as I was concerned, there simply was no security.

A woman with curly blonde hair came down at the last half of rehearsal with a dozen people. I met her at the top of the pavilion. “And you are?”

She stopped. “Jess.”

I glanced down at her lanyard. It had the album cover on it, with the words “fan club” scrawled under it. Anyone could have made it on a printer and used a laminating machine.

“I run Hammered’s fan club.” She whipped off her designer sunglasses and got into my space. “Look, I’m with the band. You need to back off. Who do you think you are?”

“Jess,” Patrick called from behind me. “Hang on.”

She put her hands on her hips. “We’ve got a fan club event today. What gives, Patrick?”

“Sorry, Quinn. I forgot to merge the fan club calendar with the tour schedule for you. We have a lot of these events.”

Nightmare number eleven today. Fucking wonderful.

He scrubbed the heel of his palm over the back of his head. “Jessica Travers, meet Quinn Alexander, our new security coordinator.”

“I don’t care if he’s the secret service. I’ve got twenty-five fan club people coming in to listen to rehearsal.”

“No, you do not,” I said. There was no way to vet that many people right now. Especially when the twelve who were behind her right now were women. And three of them looked like Faith clones.

Any one of them could be the stalker. They might just be fans, but I didn’t know that. And there was no way I was taking any goddamn chances.

“I’m doing my job.” Jess’s voice rose. “I’ve been the coordinator for the Hammered fan club for three years now. I’m not some noob, here with a God complex.”

“All right, chill out Jess.”

“I’m not going to chill.”

“Problem?” Hunter asked from the stage.

I turned around. Great. This so wasn’t happening.

The dozen girls behind Jess started waving and jumping. Evidently I was getting an up close and personal introduction to fangirls in action. They screeched Hunter’s name, as well as Reed’s and Zach’s since they were the only other two on stage.

I tried to stop the forward momentum, but the crowd of women ran around me like water. I had less than zero control. I ran after them and waved to the security to stop them.

“I need your badges, ladies.”

Purple lanyards with the fan club symbol and a number were waved in my face.

Jess huffed. “I already checked them in. I know my job.”

I crossed my arms. “Well, things are changing. We’ll be having a meeting after rehearsal. Welcome to the new security enhancements, Miss Travers.”

“We’ll see.” She brushed by me.

Patrick hung his head. “I’ll talk to her. Her sense of entitlement has been…a sore spot with a lot of us.”

“Well, if she needs some enlightenment to go with that, I shall provide it.”

“I just bet you will. Things are definitely going to be changing.”

“Indeed.”

I climbed back up to the top of the pavilion to meet the next group of fan club members. I tried on a smile.

Let’s try it with honey this time.
“Welcome, ladies and gentleman.”

I
wasn’t going
to let Quinn’s little bomb ruin my first show. How he thought he could tell me he’d have fucked me if we hadn’t been interrupted, and expect me not to follow that up with a little q and a, I didn’t know.

Of course that would require me getting a moment alone with him.

He made sure that didn’t happen for the rest of our rehearsal.

Then he proceeded to explain his new style of security to the entire team—including roadies, techs, and staff. I was pretty sure Indie was apoplectic by the end of his list of rules.

I was used to his lists.

I didn’t like the new list any more than the one at home, but I was fresh out of outrage. Bats, Hunter, and Indie had enough for the rest of us.

Jess, the head of our fan club, was still screeching three hours later at dinner. If Quinn came up to me right now and told me he was going to bring me back to the hotel and fuck me brainless, I would have said no.

I had a headache.

Okay, no. I would get over it—maybe.

But that would require him actually speaking to me, and he was in full on avoidance mode. Instead, my babysitters were Indie, Patrick, and Owen.

By the time ten o’clock rolled around I’d had enough of people. Which wasn’t like me at all. I’d been begging to get back on the road for the last two weeks, but everyone kept staring at me like I was going to have a breakdown.

I was so done with people.

We shared three suites most of the time on tour—two people per suite. I shared mine with Owen most of the time, but now that I had Quinn in tow, we’d messed up the status quo.

Owen was pouting about having to play pass-the-roommate with the rest of the band. Bats was still acting weird, demanding a room to himself for this leg of the tour.

On stage, we were tighter than ever. The minute we put our instruments down—or in my case, stepped back from the keyboard—things seemed to get weird. Bats kept disappearing, his phone either at his ear, or fingers flying over the keys in rapid fire texts.

Hunter had dreamy eyes and was FaceTiming with his wife whenever possible. Wyatt was giving him shit about it all the time, even though I was pretty sure the jealousy card was actually in play there. He wasn’t used to sharing his best friend with a woman.

And because Bats was acting weird, his better half, Zach, was at loose ends.

Did I mention that I couldn’t adult any more today?

I left Owen and Zach deep in discussion about the differences between a Taylor acoustic, and a Gibson. Since I didn’t care, it was easy enough to walk away.

I took a shower and de-staged myself. I loved dealing with fans, and usually ran point on most of the fan interactions, but now I had Quinn hulking over me. He was definitely killing my tour buzz.

All I wanted to do was sleep off my mood and start over again tomorrow. I heard the door open as I was climbing into bed. My heart rate tripled.

“Faith?” I jumped when he knocked on my bedroom door.

I collapsed back on my pillows for a second. Holy cow I needed to get a grip. There hadn’t been a peep out of my attacker, but everyone was treating me as if the moment I was alone, I was doomed to be abducted.

I was starting to believe the damn hype.

“Yes, warden?”

He cracked open the door. “You heading to bed?”

“It’s been a long day.”

His eyes swept over me and I pulled the sheet up to shield the instant response from him being in my space. It was getting ridiculous. I was going to need to wear my padded Vicky Secret bras if this kept up for God’s sake.

“Sorry, I wasn’t around tonight. Your tour schedule is far more complicated than I thought it was going to be.”

“Are you mentally compromised because of the chaos?”

He leaned against the doorjamb. “Very funny.”

“Are you going to stroke out before the show starts tomorrow.”

“Patrick and I have devised a better schedule, and possibly hired a new head of security. Tomorrow will be better.”

“Oh, boy. More rules, the guys will be ecstatic.”

“Regardless of your unique situation, the band itself needs a better security setup. Hammered has coasted on luck for a long time.”

“We’ve had a few run ins over the years, but nothing that required a huge security team.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “As I said, lucky.”

“You’re used to ambassadors and senators. We’re just rock stars.”

“You attract just as many scary fans as the harmless ones. Patrick is good at keeping most of them at bay, but all it takes is one.”

I understood where he was coming from, but I also hated the idea of living that way. We got where we were because of our openness with fans and the way we connected to people through our music. If we were looking for shadows and specters in every corner wouldn’t that ruin everything we’d created?

“I’m trying my best to look through your lenses, but I really don’t like them.”

He sighed. “I know you don’t. It’s one of the most beautiful parts of you, Faith. It’s just not realistic.”

A basic difference between us. I loved the fantasy. I lived the fantasy through my music, and through the magic on the stage. I wasn’t sure I could live with his reality intruding on that.

“Well, it got me this far.”

He flicked off the light switch on the wall. “I’ll be here to keep it that way.”

I slid under the covers. “Night, Warden.”

“Night, Faith.”

He shut the door. I reached for my headphones, but decided I wanted a little silence for once. I heard him moving around, the light click of his keyboard, and the way he filled the space.

At my house he’d been there, but separate. Here, it was like living with a man minus the benefits. My pulse spiked at the memory of his words.

I don’t have a sweet side. You’d have gotten fucked.

That side of Quinn thrilled me as much as it scared the crap out of me. I may have had a thing for bad boy rock stars when I was a teenager, but I’d never really acted on it after Brody. I was too worried about playing music to want to jump into a relationship with someone in the business.

And as much as the media outlets had wanted to create romance in the band, it had never happened. The guys were my brothers, not lover material.

I’d had a fling with a photographer on our first tour, a summer romance with a guitar tech for one of our opening acts, and had almost fallen in love with the soundboard engineer for our second album. But in the end no man had ever captured my attention for more than a few months.

And none of them had ever made my pulse pound between my thighs without a helluva lot of foreplay and help from a toy or two. Why did it have to be this contrary man with all his rules that got me so wound up

I reached out for my iPod and headphones on the bedside table.

Screw silence.

I needed music induced sleep.

Morning came with an evil amount of sunshine. But after my initial hatred, my mood lightened considerably. We had our first show today. I was starving for the stage, for my keys under my fingers, and the vibration of Wyatt’s drums behind me.

I took a shower and dressed in street clothes for soundcheck. My costume trunk was already at the venue. I think I was going for a little vintage Gwen Stefani and her ska days tonight. I pulled my hair into tight twists along the side and a sectioned off a mohawk French braid down the center of my head.

I finished the look with liquid liner for my eyes and extreme red lips. Quinn was on the phone and on his computer when I came into the main living space.

He glanced at me and gave me a distracted nod, then did a double take. “I’ll call you back,” he said into his phone.

“Too Gwen?”

He frowned. “The woman from The Voice?”

I grinned. Look at Mr. Warden knowing something of pop culture. Maybe there was hope for him yet. “Impressive, but I was thinking more along the lines of her early No Doubt days.” I knew he wasn’t exactly a music guy, but I saw him trying to piece together the look. He was delightfully confused.

“Your stage look takes some getting used to.”

“It’s still me.”

His gaze drifted to my jeans and Frank Turner shirt, then the little jaw tick happened again. “Ready to go?”

Interesting.

I wasn’t sure what I thought about Mr. Repressed. I’m not sure if he was worse than the warden, or better. They both kept telling me no with a side of, “It’s for your own good.”

I pretty much disliked both.

“Absolutely. Saint promised our favorite start the tour meal.”

He gathered his laptop and tucked it into his messenger bag. “Which is?”

“Family style Italian.”

“Before a show?”

The horror in his voice made me laugh. “Yes.”

“That’s like eating baked ziti and going for a run.”

I grabbed my phone off the charger station. “That’s why we’re going now and eating at two in the afternoon.”

He shook his head. “If you say so.”

We met Bats and Zach in the hallway. I grinned at them. “You jonesing for Saint’s start of the tour meal too?”

“You know it.” Bats rubbed his rock hard belly. “I’m not even going to bitch about how much cardio I’m going to have to do to make up for it.”

I linked my arm through his. “Yes, you will.”

“You’re right.”

Zach ran by us and walked backward with Lorraine strapped to his back. “Is it wrong that I dreamed about Saint’s garlic bread last night.”

“You should have been dreaming about the woman I heard you banging through the wall, son.”

I punched Bats. “Rude.”

“Why were you listening? Needed the extra help for your hand?” Zach asked.

“I didn’t have a choice. You brought home a howler.” Bats made a crude gesture. “Or she had to fake it really loud to make you feel better.”

I held up a hand. “All right, all right. You’re both pretty.”

“No, they aren’t. Why you lyin’?” Wyatt called from the end of the hall. He leaned against the wall near the elevator.

“You only look good because you pay a seamstress, Giorgio.”

Wyatt straightened. “If you bought your suits with me, then maybe you’d have better women surrounding you, Reed.”

Laughter fell off. I resisted the urge to sigh. Wyatt had to go there. We couldn’t have one good day without drama about this particular subject. Bats wouldn’t talk about his relationship with Hunter’s ex-fiancée. He wouldn’t define it, nor would he discuss any aspect of why Victoria Sheer was in our lives.

She was a viper. A beautiful one, but a snake nonetheless.

But it was a bone of contention between Wyatt and Bats. Hunter had let it go. Deciding to trust his friend, but Wyatt only saw disloyalty. And for him, that was the worst offense.

I was hoping since we were all laughing that maybe, just maybe we could start off this leg of the tour with a clean slate.

Evidently not.

I hung back, choosing to stand with Quinn instead of walking into a fight.

But in a surprising turn of events, Bats grinned. “I’m an equal opportunity bachelor. I don’t discriminate.” He turned and spread his arms along the bar at the back of the elevator. “It’s going to be a very good show today.”

I smiled back at him. “I think you’re right.” I turned and met Quinn’s frown. “Come on, Warden. It’s a good day to be a good day.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Not even you can dim my fabulous mood.” I pulled out my phone and opened up SnapChat and set it to create a story. “Hey guys, we’re getting ready to rock your face off tonight. Any requests, hit us in Twitterlandia or use hashtag HammeredX and I’ll be checking all over.” I panned around the elevator. “Say hi everyone.”

“Hi everyone,” all the males said in unison. Well, except Quinn. I skipped him thanks to the death stare.

“It’s a good day to be a good day,” I said again.

I was determined to believe it.