I want to fuck.
And most of all, I want someone else to hurt as badly as I do.
My phone rings and it feels like the universe has sent me an answer.
“Hey, Mandy. I was just about to call you.”
Mandy’s room is only a few down from mine. I pace the hallway twice before knocking on her door.
This is stupid.
She’s my manager.
But she has made it abundantly clear what she wants so maybe I should give it to her. This is all I’m ever going to get, right? Meaningless fucks and empty orgasms. Plus, at least I know she won’t go to the media. My career is just as important to her as her own.
Once I’ve made my mind up and worked myself up good by imagining bending her tight, bare ass over her bed and fucking her hard and fast, I rap hard on her door.
“It’s me,” I say.
“Well, hello there, me,” a man’s voice says when the door opens. Jase Wade smirks at me. He’s naked except a pair of black boxer shorts.
The image of him with Robyn in Nashville, side by side, heads bent together in intimate conversation, fills my mind until I see bright blinding red.
He’s got to be the someone else. He’s the only other man I’ve ever seen her so much as speak to. I’ve seen him whispering things to her that made her blush. And here he is fucking my manager on the side.
I swing before deciding to, connecting with the left side of his face, and he staggers back before coming at me full force.
He can bring it. I’m ready for the impact. Hell, I’m craving it.
The crack of his fist into my jaw is welcome relief from the pain I’d felt when Robyn told me she had someone else. I shove hard in hopes of backing him up enough to give me room to swing, but the motherfucker wraps me in a bear hug and slams me against the wall.
He hits me again and I laugh when I taste the blood.
“The fuck is wrong with you, man?”
He’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have.
“Dallas? Jesus Christ!” Mandy calls out, stepping out of her room in a black silk negligée that barely covers anything. “What in the world are you doing?”
“You’re a fucking piece of shit,” I say to Jase Wade. “Do you just fuck everyone in your damn path?” I shake my head in disgust, which makes me feel slightly dizzy.
“I never knew you cared so much,” Mandy says, stepping around him.
I spit out a mouthful of blood, causing her to jump back. “I don’t.”
“You need to get out of here. There’s paparazzi up my ass everywhere I go,” Wade tells me. The concern in his voice is genuine. And confusing. “Go get cleaned up and meet me down in the bar in ten.”
“Go to hell.”
“You need to chill the fuck out, man. And we need to get some shit straight before I end up dumping your body in a deserted alley in another country. Bar. Meet me. Ten minutes.” He points a finger at me before going back into Mandy’s room.
I right myself against the wall and ride out a wave of debilitating nausea. I’ll give him this much, dude hits like a fucking freight train.
“I really hope this isn’t about the scrawny redhead,” Mandy sneers at me. “Seriously, Dallas. I thought you were smarter than this.”
“She’s twice the woman you are. And probably a hell of a better lay. Maybe we should ask Wade.”
The slap comes, sending my ears ringing so hard I don’t hear her comeback.
“Let’s go, Casanova,” Wade says, charging out of the room and dragging me down the hall by my shoulders.
“Get your damn hands off me.” I shrug out of his grasp and he glares at me.
“You can wear my fist print on your face every day of this tour for all I fucking care. But we’re going downstairs and you’re going to hear me out. Like it or not.”
I get more than a few strange looks when we exit the elevator. I’m bruised, battered and bloody, but I don’t care.