Unplugged: A Bad Boy Rockstar Romance (6 page)

~ SEVEN ~

Laurel

Noah
and I hadn’t exchanged numbers, so I had no idea what time he might expect me
at the Graveyard Club. To play it safe, I went with the fashionably late
option, showing up just as the first band was ending their set. Tonight clearly
wasn’t a hardcore showcase. Instead I watched a beautiful young woman and her
long-haired male partner arrange a modest acoustic setup with guitars, a bucket
drum, and a cello. The music was mellow and lovely, her voice a deep, jazzy
timbre, but it concerned me that maybe Noah wouldn’t be showing up for a show
like this. Maybe he had just been paying lip service in automatic reflex to
what he figured was a groupie.

Panic hit my chest. For the first time, I considered
that eventuality: what if he doesn’t come back? I’d been so caught up in last
night’s success—and its dirtier memories—that it didn’t even hit me for a
moment that Noah might just flat out disappear on me. After all, if he was the
womanizing bad boy he had the reputation for, what would keep him from finding
an easier, better piece of ass for the night?

The thoughts started to drag me down a bit. I mumbled
a curse to myself under my breath as I took the shot of Jameson that Kevin put
down in front of me.

“What’s that, darlin’?” he said.

“Oh.” I coughed a little. “Sorry, I was just talking
to myself.” Wait, what was I thinking? This was perfect. I wasn’t going to let
Noah not showing up stop me from getting my shit done, and Kevin was probably a
gold mine of a source. “Actually, I wanted to say this is a nice setup you’ve
got out here.”

Kevin beamed. “You’re a pretty little flatterer! I
know she’s a shithole. But she’s
my
shithole.” He laughed.

I laughed with him. “I just mean it’s nice to see an
independent place with some roots still fighting the good fight around here. I
can’t believe how much the city has changed.”

Kevin put down the glass he was drying and leaned on
the counter toward me. “Oh, that it has.” He shook his head ruefully. “It’s
tough out there. But whatever voodoo’s out in these woods, it keeps us going,
and I’m gonna be here until it stops.”

I smiled. “I like the way you think.”

“So, you waiting for Noah?” He didn’t even try to hide
the sly smile on his face.

My cheeks flushed red for reasons I didn’t quite
understand. “Yeah. I mean, I guess. I can’t get a hold of him if he decides to
flake out on me, so it might just be you and me tonight, Kev.”

Kevin laughed at that. “Oh, that ain’t gonna happen.
Him, flake out on a girl like you? Nah. He wouldn’t have invited you back here
if he was gonna flake out.”

“What makes you say that?”

Kevin waved his hands around, like he was showing off
the bar at an open house. “This place is practically his second home, so he’s
not gonna ask the D-squad to keep showing up, if you know what I mean,” he said
with a wink.

The thought of Noah trying to keep me hanging around
his second home warmed me up inside. “He’s been coming here for a long time,
huh?”

“A long time!” said Kevin. “He was just a skinny,
pissed-off fifteen-year-old sneaking into shows when I first met him.”

I laughed. “Now
that
is hard to picture.”

“Couldn’t keep the little fucker out of here. But he
wasn’t like some of the little punks sneaking in, trying to get wasted. He
didn’t care less about the booze. He just wanted to see the shows. So I stopped
trying to keep him out after a while, and wouldn’t you know it, he just… never
really left.”

The memory was overwhelmingly adorable, and it began
doing heavy battle with the idea of Noah I already had planted in my head—mean,
selfish, murderous Noah Hardy, always looking for a fight until the day he
finally went too far. Could that really be the same scrawny Noah sneaking into
hardcore shows? Had his love for the music turned into something so twisted and
upsetting that he would lash out at an innocent person? I couldn’t reconcile
the ideas. Especially not after last night.

Or was I just making the same mistake I made before,
and getting too close?

“It’s clear he really loves this place, and you,” I
said. “It’s nice to see that kind of loyalty nowadays.”

Kevin’s expression turned serious. “There’s not a
goddamn person out there as loyal as Noah Hardy. That kid would run into a
burning building to get someone out of it and then pay their medical bills. The
only reason this place isn’t
more
of a shithole is all because of him.”

“What do you mean?”

“All I ever have to do is call Noah if something
around here needs fixing, and bam—he’s got it taken care of the next day. Two
years ago, he gave our sound system a complete overhaul. He was on leave from
tour once when I threw my back out, and he spent his vacation runnin’ the place
himself until I was back on my feet. That couch you guys…” Kevin suddenly
stopped, and gave an embarrassed, but sly, cough. “That couch in the green
room? Noah bought it for us.”

I was legitimately blown away by what Kevin was
saying. Plenty of huge rock stars took care of their families and things, and
some made big spectacles of giving to charity. But even as one of the industry’s
more high-tier journalists, I had never heard a single peep about Noah Hardy
ever taking care of anyone. He never talked about Kevin or the Graveyard Club
in any interview I ever read, and that was after three solid days of
archive-digging and research until my eyes were so dry they hurt. But clearly,
this place was Noah’s soul.

It hit me in that moment that Noah was protecting it.
He didn’t talk about the Graveyard Club because he knew what happened when fame
hit a little place like this. It didn’t always go the way of iconic clubs like
the Viper Room. Sometimes fame destroyed things, and it was clear Noah never
wanted to take that risk with this second home of his.

All of a sudden, the image of Noah Hardy in my mind
seemed a lot blurrier.

“He really does sound like a special guy,” I said to
Kevin. The words from my own mouth surprised me, but there was no lie in them.

“He is,” said Kevin. “And I’m lucky to have him
around.”

I smiled at Kevin. “I’m glad you do.”

“So, what brings you out this way? I don’t think I’ve
ever seen you in here before.”

Kevin’s question froze me up for just a minute, but I
was practiced at this. I took a sip of beer before I answered. “I just moved
here about a month ago, trying to get in on the local scene. One of the dudes
at Silver Spoons Records told me to check you out.”

“Ah, Brad, that son of a bitch,” said Kevin with a
grin. He slapped his dish towel on the counter. “Always lookin’ out. I’m glad
you found the place. You need another shot? Noah’s tab never closes.”

I laughed and nodded, “Hell, in that case, bring me
two.”

Kevin walked away to fulfill my request. Over the
sound of the gentle folksy music coming from the stage, the door to the club
swung open and closed hard on the jam. A few seconds later, there was a warm
presence at my back, leaning on me gently.

Noah’s musk washed over my senses and I closed my
eyes, breathing it in. My heart jumped in my chest, and the electric sensation
shot down my spine and between my legs. I could feel my pussy getting wet
already as he pressed his handsome face next to mine, leaning over my shoulder.

His beard tickled the sensitive skin at my neck and I
shivered.

With hot breath, he said, “I’m glad to see you sitting
here.”

It wasn’t the line I expected, but nonetheless, the
words brought with them a severe happiness that washed over my brain like a
tidal wave. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pressed his hips against
my back. His hardening dick pulsed against the top of my ass.

“I was starting to think you weren’t coming,” I teased.

Noah grunted softly under his breath and pulled me
closer, until my back pressed hard against his muscled chest. I could feel his
heart beating against my ribs. “I’m not, but we could change that very
quickly.”

Fuck, he was dirty. I loved the way he talked to me.
My clit pulsed in my jeans, aching to feel the strength of his dexterous hands.
I bit my lip. “I’m all for that.”

Kevin came back over with the two shots and put them
in front of me. Noah barely seemed to notice the man’s presence. He kept his
face pressed against the side of mine, breathing against me, one hand laying on
my flat tummy dangerously close to my pussy. It took all my composure to turn
away from him enough to take one of the shots. He watched me take it, and then
took the second one himself.

Noah unwrapped himself from around my body and took
the stool next to me. Kevin set us both up with another round and then, as if
through some unspoken communication, left us alone after exchanging a greeting
with Noah. When I saw the heaviness in Noah’s eyes, I knew why. Despite the
welcome warmth of his greeting, there was a storm raging inside him.

Noah took the next shot and drank half his beer before
he looked back at me again. The quiet, sad tone of the indie music playing
tonight only made him seem more melancholy.

Obviously, it didn’t take an investigative journalist
to know that he was probably rotting from hearing about Duke’s bullshit
interview. All the chatter online, both in the journalist circles and in the
general public, agreed that what Duke was doing was cold as ice. Of course,
there was no agreement on whether he was a giant asshole for doing it. Some
defended his ruthless, capitalistic business sense, and others wanted to see
him burned at the stake for betraying his artistic brothers. It was that kind
of divisiveness that kept people glued to the story.

But what they didn’t see—and what I, until that
moment, hadn’t really considered—was how that same divisiveness cut Noah to his
core. To have someone betray you like that is horrible enough; to have a chorus
of people not just forgiving, but cheering it on? That was a whole different
hell. Just one look at Noah made that clear.

I hoped inside that Noah had stayed away from the
chatter. It would only make him feel worse. Even still, part of keeping up this
cover meant I had to seem convincing, and there was just no realistic way a
girl sleeping with Noah Hardy was going to
not
ask him something about
what was happening. I had to bring it up; my job depended on it.

“Hey,” I said softly. I waited until he looked at me. “Look,
I know this…” It was not hard to act uncomfortable at that moment. “I saw the
thing with Duke.”

Noah’s expression darkened, but he said nothing.

Quickly, I continued. “I just wanted to say—if you
want to talk about it, I’m a good listener. But I get it if you don’t want to.”

Noah watched me, blinking slowly, thinking. I held his
gaze for a second, but soon it just became too intense. There was so much
raging behind his eyes. I turned back to my beer and hoped I hadn’t struck a
nerve with him.

His voice came quiet. “Thanks.”

I nodded, turning to look at him just for a flash of a
second as I did.

He said, “I really don’t want to even think about it.”

“I understand that,” I said. “You don’t have to.”

His laugh was more sour than genuine. “I wish that was
true.”

“I just meant… I meant we can try and get your mind
off it,” I said. I turned to look at him. Lust lit up in the depths of his
gaze.

Noah licked his lips and looked at mine. “I think we
should.” He leaned forward and took my face in his hands with one fluid motion.
His kiss was deep, and there was a quiet need in the way his hands held my face
next to his. When his tongue swept around my mouth, I couldn’t help but let out
a little sigh against his lips.

Something stirred in my chest, and it wasn’t just
arousal.

Noah pulled away and met my gaze with his big blue
eyes. “You wanna get out of here?”

“Yeah,” I said without missing a beat. “Like crazy.”

~ EIGHT ~

Noah

I
loved the feel of Laurel next to me in my truck as I drove us back to my place.
She pressed her sweet body up against mine and tangled up our arms and fingers
like she’d been doing it for years. I had almost considered cancelling my night
out, bailing on her like she was afraid I would… like I had done to many, many
other women over the years, truth be told. My reputation wasn’t fake.

She was right to be afraid. But then, I couldn’t
actually imagine doing it to her.

I pulled into the garage and led her in through the
kitchen. As she looked around like the curious little kitten she clearly was,
she made some joke about getting a tour, but all I could do was stand against
the closed garage door and watch her move. The entire drive back I’d been
half-hard, ecstatic to have another adventure in the wonderland of her body.
Now, I was so hard I could barely stand it.

When she leaned against the counter near the sink to
get a good look outside the kitchen window and into the backyard, I finally
gave in to my impulses. I came up behind her and pressed against her hard, my
dick twitching at the little cry of surprise that escaped her lips.

Laurel shivered and melted at my touch. I pushed
myself against her like I could meld us together, and she responded by writhing
her ass against the bulge in my jeans and leaning her beautiful neck back to
meet my face.

“I want you so fucking bad,” I growled against her
skin. My hands roamed her body, squeezing her cute little tits and rubbing her
pussy outside her jeans until her knees started shaking and she had to lean
against me to stand upright.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you last night,” she
gasped, leaning back to kiss me hard. She wrapped a backwards hand around my
head and pulled me close. Her kisses, sweet and devouring, made me ache.

“Oh, yeah?” I couldn’t even wait to get her to the
bedroom. My hands slid around her hips and undid the buttons on her jeans,
yanking them down, along with her panties, until they were around her knees.
With one arm I bent her over the sink, and with the other, I ran two fingers up
and down her slit. With special pressure on her clit, I could see her wetness
already growing.

“Fuck, Noah,” she whimpered.

My fingers found her delicate warm hole and pushed
inside deeply, drawing a cry of pleasure and quiver from deep within her core.
“Have you been thinking about my cock as much as I’ve been thinking about this
pussy?”

“Oh, God,” she said. “I dreamt about your cock all
night.”

Reaching underneath her to grope her tits, I pumped my
fingers in and out of her once more, slowly but deeply. “Did you dream about
fucking it again?”

“Yes,” she said, grasping at my arms.

I pushed even deeper and her begging became more
desperate.

“Did you dream about sucking it?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said without hesitation, and I leaned down
to bite her neck, fingers still buried deep inside her. She pushed against my
hand until I withdrew and turned her to face me. After smothering her mouth
with hungry kisses, I undid my jeans and pulled out my erection.

“I want to see this cock in your mouth,” I said as I
pulled my shirt over my head. Laurel’s eyes devoured the view in front of her,
hands running up and down my chest.

My dick only got harder when she sank down to her
knees on my kitchen floor, stopping only when she was eye-level with its pink,
oozing head. A flick of her tongue stole the drop of pre-cum from my tip as if
it was a piece of candy, and the feel of her hot mouth on me was almost too
much to take.

Taking as much of its length in her mouth as she could
while stroking the rest with her hands, Laurel didn’t show an ounce of
apprehension at the size of the cock in her mouth; in fact, she almost seemed
eager to take it. Worked it like it was a challenge. I ran my hands through her
hair and pushed it out of her face so I could watch my hardness disappear
between her red lips. When she looked up at me with those big, blue eyes, I
almost came right there in her mouth, but that wasn’t how I wanted this to end.

I wasn’t about to cum until I fucked her again. I
pulled my cock out of her mouth, wet with spit, and brought Laurel to her feet.
In one quick motion I had her bent over the sink again, and made her wait there
while I fished a condom out of my wallet.

Instead of my cock, first Laurel’s pussy felt my
fingers again. I pumped them hard and fast until she was crying out, and then
swiftly replaced them with my shaft. Laurel’s cry of pleasure echoed against
the kitchen window, and it was erotic music to my ears. In fact, I got off on
the sound so much that I didn’t last long after that, but I didn’t give a fuck.
I slammed my dick into her quickly, and as soon as I felt her pussy squeezing
me as she came, I let my own orgasm loose.

We panted against each other as our euphoria subsided,
kissing deeply between hard breaths. Laurel’s wet tongue danced in my mouth and
threatened to harden me all over again.

“Hope you had a good meal today,” I said as I turned
her around to face me and wrapped one hand around her ass. “Because I am
nowhere near finished with you.”

Laurel smiled, skin bright and flushed. “Promises,
promises,” she said with a smirk. But she could only cry out and laugh when I
picked her up and threw her naked body over my shoulder and took her, playfully
kicking, to the bedroom.

We fucked twice more before the both of us were
finally ready for a break. She wiggled her sexy ass into the kitchen to gather
us up a couple beers while I carefully rolled a fat joint on a copy of
Planet
Guitar
magazine that was balanced precariously on the mattress. I was
already leaning back on the bed and puffing smoke into the air when Laurel
returned. She immediately cuddled back up into my side with her beer and took
the joint for a few hits.

After a few quiet minutes, I realized I didn’t have a
thought in my head. Everything just felt… right. Was this what peace felt like?

“Is it bad that I didn’t expect you to be so good in
bed?” she asked with a giggle.

I grinned down at her and pinched her ass. “I would
say yes, but you’re not an idiot. Lots of dudes talk big without being able to
back it up.”

“You’re not kidding,” she said, glancing at my dick
that was finally getting a rest.

“You’re dirty,” I said. “I like it.”

“I’ve always been kind of a perv. I can’t help it.”

“Are you from Seattle?”

Laurel shook her head. “Nah, I’m a band photographer.
I’m here for work. I’ve been here before, though. I always did like it up here.
It feels….” She took a deep breath. “It feels homey.”

“I obviously tend to agree. Where did you grow up?”

“I was actually born in Texas, and my family moved to
the East Coast when I was just a kid. Did most of my growing up outside of
Boston.”

“Fuck, now there’s a scene to grow up in,” I groaned
jealously.

“It was pretty goddamn sweet,” she said with a nod.

A memory jumped up and I couldn’t stop myself from
sharing. “Oh, man, did you know the band Bleeding Bones? I think they were from
Boston…”

With wide eyes, Laurel sat up and playfully slapped my
abs. “Shut
up.
You’ve heard of Bleeding Bones?”

“I
love
Bleeding Bones! Their pit was the first
one I ever got seriously injured in!” I turned my right forearm over where she
could see it, and traced the scar line beneath my colorful tattoos. “Compound
fracture, baby. I could not keep the pussy off of me for two weeks after that.”

Laurel’s fingers followed the line of the scar, her
mouth a surprised open O. “You are not going to believe this,” she said,
staring at my arm. “Did you break this at El Corazon?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s where they played on their
2003 tour. How did you know that?”

“Noah, I was at that show!” She grinned. “That was the
tour I went on with the band!”

This was unreal. Her smile beamed at me and there
wasn’t anything bragging or bullshit about the look in her eyes. “No fucking
way.”

“Seriously! Their merch guy was one of my best friends
in junior high, and he convinced them to bring me on as the tour photographer.
That Seattle show, it wasn’t supposed to go down at El Corazon, I remember—the
show got moved there last minute from a bigger venue.”

“Yes!” I said, sitting up to face her. “Fuck, Quinn
called me at seven in the goddamn morning and I had the biggest hangover, and
he was losing his shit because we had to go exchange our tickets before the
space at the smaller venue sold out.” I started laughing as the memory rose
fresh in my mind. “We waited in the rain for six goddamn hours that day just to
make sure we got in.”

“That place smelled
horrible
,” laughed Laurel.
“Remember that? You fuckers waiting in the rain in your cotton jackets, and
then getting all packed together in that tiny room like a bunch of mean, wet
dogs. Ugh, it was such a shit show!” She hunched over, giggling at the story.

“Fuck, that is unbelievable,” I said, pushing her hair
out of her face. “What are the odds of that?”

“Pretty fucking small,” said Laurel. “Though I don’t
remember seeing you break your arm in the pit—I just heard about it from the
band afterwards. Ugh, their drummer was such a puss about blood… he would
not
shut up about how gross it was.” She ran her hand down the scar on my arm
again. “I can’t believe that was you.”

“And here you are, back again in my fair city to watch
me suffer a different kind of injury,” I said. I meant it as a joke, and it
even came out lightly with a laugh, but the words cut deep through the mood
like I had dropped a rock into a lake. Laurel looked uncomfortable.

“Sorry,” I said. “Forget it; that was a bad joke.”

“We can talk about it, if you want,” she offered.

“I don’t,” I said. Part of me meant it.

“Okay,” said Laurel. She paused for a moment, and then
asked with a big grin, “Can I tell you something weird?”

I laughed. “Sure.”

She ran a teasing fingertip over the inked muscles of
my chest. “Licking your tattoos reminds me of that scene in Willy Wonka where
they lick the wallpaper.” She licked my chest. “Is this what snozberries taste
like?”

Maybe I was just way too stoned, but I couldn’t stop
laughing. “You
are
a fucking weirdo.” Laurel lost it with me and I
wrapped her in playful roughhouse hug until she squealed against my skin. She
threw a leg over me and sidled up against my side again.

“Speaking of tats, I wanted to ask you about that,” I
said. My left arm was wrapped around her beautiful body, and I stretched the
hand out to rub softly on the delicate script tattoo on her upper thigh. It was
so close to her hipbone that unless she was near-naked, the ink would stay
hidden—so much different from my approach to body art, but I liked it. Finding
it, touching it, and even licking it felt like I had found a secret treasure.
“What does it say?”

Laurel stretched her leg out and immediately I could
see why I couldn’t read the ink before—she had had it done in such a way that
only
she
could read it from her angle. “It’s lyrics. Tracy Chapman.”

I smiled. “No shit?”

“Yeah,” said Laurel. She seemed a little
self-conscious as she talked. “
We gotta make a decision: leave tonight, or
live and die this way.
”

Chills ran down my body. I lay my face against Laurel’s
head. “Why did you get it?”

Laurel paused. Her breathing slowed down a little,
like she was doing it on purpose to stay calm. “I grew up in a family
completely different from me. Conservative… religious…
boring,
” she said
with a self-effacing laugh. “I was the black sheep. We didn’t hate each other,
but I just never belonged. And I always promised myself I would get out and
make something of myself on my own terms. I got this tattoo to make myself
remember… so that when things got dark and I got scared, I’d remember…”

“Remember what?”

“Remember that as complicated as things seem, there’s
only ever really two choices. Leave what you’re doing if it’s wrong, or live
and die with it.”

My heart actually ached, listening to her talk. She
understood so much of the isolation I had felt in my life.

“I love that,” I told her. “That’s really fucking
beautiful, Laurel.”

She shrugged and took a drink of beer. “Yeah, everyone
says that.”

I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She looked up at me with worried eyes. “I just mean… I
don’t know. I don’t want to offend you.”

“Try me,” I said.

“I’ve just heard that a lot before,” she said, the
exhaustion in her voice more than apparent. “Guys are always very impressed
with my… fire. My drive. My ambition. At least, impressed enough to flirt and
fuck me. It doesn’t seem to impress them very long, though.”