Concierge stops me in the lobby to inform me that I’ve missed checkout, so I sign the paperwork to authorize another night’s stay on my credit card (and sign an autograph for the attendant’s son) before taking the penthouse elevator up to the top floor.
“I’m back,” I yell out when I walk to the room, but she doesn’t respond. Dragging my tee shirt over my head, I toss it on the top of the bar along with the keys to my rental car. “Sienna?” When she still doesn’t say anything, I figure she’s still asleep. I make my way across the penthouse quietly, hoping I won’t disturb her.
As I pass the door to the bedroom, I freeze up because of the noise coming from inside.
It’s the sound of “All Over You” being strummed painstakingly on an acoustic guitar. I open the door carefully to find her naked. She’s sitting up against the headboard with the guitar in her lap, covering her beautiful body. She doesn’t realize that I’m standing here, and I’m not ready to let her know that I am just yet.
So I watch her. The way she grinds her teeth in irritation when she tries to pick a difficult chord. How her long red hair falls over her face and the front of the Gibson when she manages to play for longer than fifteen seconds without making a mistake. And the way she sighs and closes her blue eyes right before she does it all over again.
I watch her, and I feel my cock harden at the sight of this incredibly sexy creature naked in my temporary bed, playing the guitar that I had given her.
“Did you know,” I start, and her head flies up. Her eyes widen with surprise that morphs into shyness only a moment later. She lifts her hand to the side of her face and brushes it back through her hair self-consciously. “That I could have the shittiest day and then I come within a hundred feet of you, and the only thing that matters is you?”
She flicks the tip of her tongue over her pink lips. “You’re having a bad day? Is everything alright?”
“It’s perfect now.” Relaxing my shoulders, I pace over to the bed where she presses her hand to my chest, scraping her fingernails softly over the tattoo in the center. “Wyatt wants to hit a city that’s not on the tour.”
She lays her red guitar pick on the nightstand next to a half-eaten tray of food. “And you don’t want to go to . . .”
“Louisville,” I growl, even though she’s the last person I want to bring it up to. The only reason I tell her now is because she can easily ask Cal or Wyatt or even Sinjin, and they would gladly tell her that I’ve been avoiding that place like the plague since we toured their several years ago. “And I abso-fucking-lutely won’t go.”
Dipping her head down, she seems to digest this for a moment, and then she flings her hair back so that I can clearly see her questioning stare. “Why not? I love Louisville.”
“Because we’ve already got enough cities planned.” My voice is harsher than I intend for it to be, and she recoils sharply. “The tour is getting to me, I don’t want to add more stress to it,” I reply, my tone softer.
Sitting next to her, I run my gaze up her long, bare legs as she plays with the neck of the guitar. “What about the tour is getting to you?” she finally asks hesitantly.
I cup her cheek, and she rubs her face back and forth across the heel of my palm, her slight movement causing a jolt in my arm. “Not getting to do what we did last night.” A flush warms up her breasts, and I take the guitar and put it aside. I allow myself to drink in the sight of her delicious body before I say, “Being on that damn bus.”
“The bus is like a luxury home on wheels,” she reminds me.
“A luxury home on wheels we have to share with someone who drums on everything he passes by,” I add. “Then there’s the shit food.”
She turns her head to the side. “Most of the venues serve you guys amazing food.” When I give her a skeptical look, she shrugs. “I didn’t say all, just most.” Pushing her body closer to mine so that I’m able to smell the sweet scent of the soap she used, her eyes search mine. “Is that it?”
“Yeah, that’s all.”
It’s almost like she wants to say something herself, and I feel a sharp pain in my chest because I think I know what it is. Sinjin had pulled me aside the other day about some of the shit being written about her online. More than anything, I want to shield her from it and all of the other negativity that comes with what I do.
What I’ve done.
But when she speaks, her voice has dropped an octave and it’s seductive, teasing. “Then let me love you, Lucas.”
After our show that night, Sinjin’s new record of being on time is shot all to hell when he fails to show up at the backstage party that Tyler and the publicity director for the venue are co-hosting for his birthday. Just about everyone is here—both bands and most of the crew—and Tyler’s went all out with one of those big ass cakes that make me think a stripper is going to pop out at any second.
Knowing Sin, a stripper probably will.
“Should you call him?” Sienna asks nervously after she comes back from the restroom. I know she’s been out looking for him, and I’ve got to admit it’s a relief she gets along with him. He’s been treating her with the same protective ferocity that he shows to my sister since after the first week, and I don’t think it has anything to do with me threatening him anymore. “Should I call him?”
“It’s Sin,” I tell her, pulling her onto my lap. Her face reddens, and she glances around to see if anyone is looking at us on the couch. I touch her chin to turn her gaze back to mine. “Relax. They all know you’re with me, and I don’t give a fuck what any of these people think. About what anyone thinks. Let them talk.”
“We were talking about Sinjin,” she points out.
“He’ll show,” I promise.
When Sin does come in a half an hour later—after Tyler sends him numerous text messages—he’s got a short, cute blonde on his arm whose brown eyes are darting around anxiously. She looks familiar, though I can’t place her, and when Sienna asks me if it’s one of the women he was talking about taking to his hotel last night, I shrug.
“I think things went to shit with them, but this wouldn’t be the first time he changed his mind.”
He makes the rounds of the room to talk to everyone. When he gets to Cilla and Brody, who are a few feet away from us talking to Maggie in wardrobe, Cilla stops her conversation. Holding up her hand, she blurts, “So which one is this?”
Realizing his mistake, Sin attempts to lead the blonde away from the situation. She shrugs out of his grip and faces Cilla. “I’m sorry, what?”
Cilla cocks her head to the side, sizing the other woman up. “I met you and your roommate in the lobby last night, right?” She snorts. “Did not think you’d be around tonight.”
“I don’t think we’ve met,” the blonde states in a cool voice. Her chest is rising and falling quickly, and beside of her, Sin’s face is unreadable. He’s about to lose it. “I’m Zoe Whitlow—one of Sinjin’s friends from back home.”
Sienna sucks in a sharp intake of air just as I get up from my seat.
“Give me a sec,” I tell Sienna. She’s nodding as I take off toward Sinjin, and when I reach them, instead of speaking to him or Zoe, I place my hand on the middle of Cilla’s back.
“What are you doing?” she demands as I lead her from the room and into the hallway.
“Keeping you from making a bigger ass of yourself.”
She struggles to lean against me, and I’m surprised when I don’t smell any alcohol on her breath. And I’m disappointed too. She knew exactly what she was doing back in there with Sin. “Ask Pepper to leave yet?” she asks as I grip her shoulders to hold her at bay.
“Afraid not.”
“Then what the hell do you want?” she shouts.
I lean back angrily. Cilla wasn’t always like this, but the last several years she’s gotten worse. Bitter. When I speak, I grind the words out, “Stay the fuck away from Sinjin tonight.”