Rock Me: Sexy (New Adult Rockstar Romance) (New Adult Rock Star Erotic Romance) (3 page)

Tyler leaned against the desk and smiled.
“Hi.”

The woman stood up. “Hello, Tyler, er…
Mr. Matthews. Can I get you anything?”

Tyler slipped off his shades and flashed
his trademark smile. “Call me Tyler. I guess my disguise didn’t work? You know
who I am?”

The woman giggled. “Um…yeah. And I’m a
huge fan of Cold Fusion. I was at two of your concerts last summer. They were
awesome.”

“That’s great.” It felt good to be
appreciated. The feeling still hadn’t gotten stale for him.

She looked up at him shyly. “Would you
mind…”

Her star struck gaze melted from her face
when she focused slightly over his left shoulder.

Tyler glanced behind him. Two young female
employees were walking through a back set of doors and across the reception
area, over towards the desk.

One of the girls giggled and held up a
stack of papers. “We brought down that urgent report that you needed right
away, Rachel.”

Rachel looked irritated as she muttered,
“It could have waited.”

Tyler suppressed a laugh as the girl
handed over a stack of seemingly blank papers to the annoyed receptionist.

The girl turned to Tyler acting
surprised. “Oh my God! You’re Tyler Matthews from Cold Fusion! Can I get a
picture with you?”

Tyler shrugged. The more girls the
merrier. What did he care?

She thrust her smart phone at her friend
and leaned up close against his body. After the friend snapped the photo, she
asked to switch places with her friend to have a photo taken with her.

As they were taking the second picture, a
stern voice bellowed. “Ladies, what is going on here?”

Tyler turned to see an older woman, who
was all business, scowling at the younger employees. She reminded Tyler of his
elementary school librarian who had always yelled at him.

“Wendy and Jean, back to work. Rachel,
the
Nakamura group will be here any moment. Escort
them to the executive conference room straight away. It’s all set up and
waiting for them. And I will take care of Mr. …”

She turned to him
expectantly. He answered, “Tyler.”

Just then, the elevator
chimed and the door slid open. A group of four Japanese businessmen filed into
the atrium. Rachel quickly approached the men as the older woman steered Tyler
away from the desk and toward the back corner of the room.

Tyler laughed. She had practically
dragged him away by the ear.

“Mr. Tyler. I suppose you’re some sort of
a celebrity that I’m too much of a dinosaur to recognize.”

Tyler slid his thumbs into his jean’s
pockets. “I guess you could say that. Uh, that I’m a celebrity. Not the
dinosaur thing.”

She arched her brow at him. “And who are
you here to see?” She was clearly unimpressed by his status.

Tyler watched Rachel lead the businessmen
down a hall and out of sight. “I’m here with Scott Boyd. I’m part of the band, Cold
Fusion.”

She pressed her lips tightly together. “I
see. We understand that your time is valuable, Mr. Tyler. I apologize for the
wait. I will see what I can do to speed it up. In the meantime, try not to cause
a riot amongst my employees.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Tyler grinned
mischievously.

The elevator chimed again and they both
turned to watch a young woman emerge.

“Ah. This must be Ms. Winston. Please
excuse me for a moment, Mr. Tyler.” She left his side and approached the
newcomer.

This new girl immediately caught Tyler’s
attention. She was stunningly beautiful. Tyler was used to seeing girls dressed
in an overtly provocative fashion, flaunting their curves and highlighting
their assets, so it was surprising that the sight of this girl, in her
conservative business attire, had his blood pumping.

Her dark wavy hair was pulled up loosely
on each side of her face and clipped in the back. Her face was delicate, yet
strong; her impossibly blue eyes were fringed by long, dark lashes, and her
ruby red lips were full and sensuous. When she smiled at the harsh looking
librarian lady, her whole face lit up.

But besides her physical appearance, it
was her demeanor that commanded attention. She looked confident and sure of
herself. So sexy. Tyler couldn’t help but wonder what she would look like in
his bed. Naked. Tousled hair. Limbs entwined in twisted sheets. Or better yet,
entwined in his.

If this girl had been looking up at him
while he performed on stage, he would have pulled her from the crowd and
anticipated fucking her all night long. His cock began to respond to his
naughty thoughts, but the girl hadn’t even looked his way. Strangely, she was
staring at Scott.

Scott had been quite handsome in his day,
but middle age, five years of marriage and two kids had softened him. Now he
had an overhanging gut to go along with his shaved head and tattooed body.

Tyler wanted her to notice him, to see a
flare of interest spark in her eyes, for him, but she was whisked away by the
librarian look-alike before he could make any move to get her attention.

Disappointed, Tyler strolled over to the
couch and sat next to Scott who looked entirely too pleased with himself.

Scott leaned back on the couch smiling. “Looks
like I’ve still got it.”

As soon as I entered the Vibe offices, an
efficient administrator whisked me away. “I’m sorry that the meeting has been
delayed. I’ll set you up in one of our smaller conference rooms so that you can
get some work done while you wait.”

I had to work to keep up with her
surprisingly quick stride. “That’s fine. I understand my assistant will be
meeting me here?”

She nodded as we walked along. “Yes. Mr.
Black has let us know that a Mr. James will be joining you. I will send him in
as soon as he arrives.”

She waved me into a standard, but
elegant, conference room. “Is there anything that you need?”

What was I doing here?
What I needed was a brain transplant. And
food. “If you have anything to eat, that would be great. I missed my lunch. And
coffee. Black. And I could use some notepads and pens.”

“Yes, Ms. Winston. I’ll get that to you
right away.” She turned and left.

I sat in the room empty-handed. Without
my briefcase, I was lost. I dug through my purse. No paper. No pens.

I put my purse aside and picked up my
phone. I should have asked Hugo who this popular rock band was. I had been
expecting it to be some teenybopper heartthrobs, but one eyeful of the sad
middle-aged rock star in the lobby had me worried. It was worse than I thought.

When Hugo didn’t answer his phone, I
texted him. How ridiculous was it that I was heading into this meeting without
even knowing a thing about this rock group? If Hugo texted me back at least I
could scour the internet and find out a bit more about my rock band. I groaned.
Maybe I didn’t want to know
.

Less than five minutes later, a woman
entered the room wheeling a cart. “Ms. Winston? Here are the items you
requested.”

I practically salivated as she unloaded a
platter of cut up fruit, another platter with an assortment of sandwiches, a
cup of coffee, a bottle of water, and an assortment of notepads and pens.

“Thank you.” I dove into the mini
sandwiches before the girl had wheeled the empty cart out of the conference
room. Maybe the prospects for this project wouldn’t seem so dismal on a full
stomach.

I pulled a notepad in front of me and
picked up a pen. I loved organizing my thoughts into lists. It always helped me
to focus, but this time I stared at the blank page while worries swirled around
in my head. I was about to meet with high-level executives, including the president
of a successful TV station and I was so woefully unprepared.
This was a
disaster in the making
. And worst of all, my career depended on it
succeeding.

I threw down my pen in disgust and began attacking
the spread of food with earnest. My mouth was stuffed full of turkey sandwich
when I sensed a presence in the doorway. I looked at the man watching me from
the hall and swallowed hastily.

I waved him into the room while I took a
sip of coffee to wash down the mouthful. “It’s about time you got here. You
must be my assistant. I was beginning to think you’d bailed on me.”

He sauntered into the room and flashed me
a devastating smile. “I’ll give you assistance if you share your food.”

My God
. He was handsome. Turn your insides to jelly handsome. And
cocky. In fact, he looked like trouble with a capital T. But Hugo had said that
he’d shown great promise and I trusted Hugo’s judgment implicitly.

What was up with the jeans, the five
o’clock shadow and the messy hair? Not that it didn’t have my pulse racing, but
it wasn’t exactly professional. “Did Hugo spring this reality show project on
you last minute, too?”

Michael James shrugged. “I just found out
about it an hour ago.”

“Me too! So typical of Hugo to put us in
this awkward position.” I gestured to the food. “They sent in enough food for
five people, so help yourself.”

“Thanks.” He loaded up a plate and sat
next to me.

I had a better chance to look him over
while he was eating. Damn. He was wearing a loose zip-up jacket, but even that
couldn’t hide the fact that he had an athletic body. Trim and muscular. I could
barely look him in the eye for fear of embarrassing myself. He was frightfully
handsome and my stomach was going all squishy inside.

Get a grip, Katie.
I was his boss and I needed to establish
my authority and create a strong working relationship right away. I had to
ignore the x-rated fantasies that were popping into my head, the crazy images
of ripping off his clothes and climbing all over his naked body. I shivered
slightly.

Michael didn’t seem to notice my flushed
face as he polished off two turkey sandwiches in record time. He took a sip
from the water bottle and then turned to me. I felt a tingling of sexual
awareness as he stared at my chest. I knew my shirt was unbuttoned just enough
to show a peek of my cleavage.

My skin burned with desire as he ogled my
cleavage. It wasn’t the first time a man had stared at my chest, Hugo did so
practically every time I saw him, but this time my breath hitched as I felt a
warm heat gathering between my legs. My response to him was electric. There was
no way he couldn’t feel it. It was palpable in the air. I started leaning
forward, unconsciously drawn towards him.

“So … Kaitlyn.” His eyes slid up to my
face. “What do you think of this project?”

I blinked as realization flooded through
me. He wasn’t looking at my cleavage. He was reading my name off the temporary badge.
Disappointment coursed through me as my face started to flame. What the hell
was wrong with me?

I took a sip of water to cover my
confusion. “It’s going to be a challenge, that’s for sure. Like I was telling
Hugo, this is like spinning gold out of crap. And I got a look at our rock star
in the lobby and I didn’t recognize him at all. Plus, he’s not exactly the kind
of material I was hoping for. We’re going to have to find some weird angle to make
people want to watch him, because sex appeal is not going to work.”

Michael’s eyebrows rose, clearly
astonished. “You mean you don’t know anything about the band?”

I shook my head. “I don’t even know the
name of the band. We’re just going to have to go into this meeting cold and
fake it.”

For some reason, Michael looked thoroughly
annoyed, but I didn’t have time to question him about it because a tall, lean
man entered the room. “Ms. Winston?”

I stood. “Yes.”

The man extended his hand to me. “Rob
Forrestor. Director of Programming. Jeff is ready to meet with us. I’ll walk
you to the conference room.”

Michael stood up and popped a strawberry from
the tray into his mouth. “I need to use the restroom. I’ll catch up with you in
the meeting.”

“Okay.” I gathered up my meager supplies
and my purse and followed the programming director to a different bank of
elevators at the back end of the building. We went up several floors and then
exited the elevator.

“We’ve heard nothing but marvelous things
about your work, Ms. Winston. Glad you’re on board with us.” He led me to a
large conference room filled with people milling about.

We entered together and then Rob steered
me over to a heavyset man with a booming voice. “Jeff, this is Kaitlyn Winston.
Our Executive Producer / Director.”

Jeff Thornton, the President of the Vibe
channel, turned to me, and maybe I was being paranoid, but I felt he judged me
lacking. He took one look at my appearance and probably thought I was one of
Hugo’s cast-offs. I was too young and too pretty to have any brains or talent.
It had happened many times before, but it still always burned.
I would show
this chauvinist asshole.