Delaney
Stay close to me,” Shane ordered as the door to the limousine was pulled open from the outside. It was one of the few sentences that had passed his lips since he’d left me alone in his beach house two days ago. We’d barely spent any time together, at least not alone, since then. During press events I merely had to smile and look adoringly at Shane as he fielded questions. And apparently my presence wasn’t needed when Shane was in the recording studio, which was where he’d spent most of the past forty-eight hours, working on a new song. Or at least that’s what he’d told me. I’d even called Travis to be sure, worried that I wasn’t holding up my end of the deal by reading romance novels on Shane’s deck. He’d said Shane was well taken care of and that I could go back to my books.
Truthfully, I’d been glad. My feelings about him, about what we’d almost done, and those intimate pictures were so conflicted. But my brief break was over. The Nothing but Trouble world tour was kicking off tonight, and getting from the limo into the arena had been an eye-opening experience. By the time we pulled into the underground parking garage, the venue was already overflowing with reporters, paparazzi, overzealous fans, and not enough security to effectively control them all.
I followed Shane out of the car, blinded by camera flashes and hemmed in on all sides. People were touching me, shouting at me. “Shane!” I yelled, as someone came between us. His grip was tight on my hand, not letting go as he pushed the interloper out of our way. A panicked, claustrophobic feeling compressed my chest, and I could barely breathe until we were safely out of the public corridor and ensconced in a private suite.
Shane’s arm wrapped around me as Lynne, the Nothing but Trouble tour coordinator, shut the door behind her and immediately began spewing details of the meet-and-greet Shane was expected at in a few minutes. She’d been waiting in the limo when it arrived to pick us up from Shane’s house and had barely glanced at me since being introduced. No doubt Lynne knew I was just one in a long line of many.
“Delaney?” Shane’s voice cut through the noise cluttering my mind.
“Hmm?” I looked up, surprised to see we were actually alone.
His eyes searched mine, a worried frown twisting his brow. “Sorry about almost losing you back there.”
Every pore in my body was clogged with anxiety. “That was scary, Shane. I didn’t like it.”
Shane’s shoulders lifted in an unrepentant shrug. “Unfortunately, it comes with the territory. You’ll get used to it eventually.”
I shook my head, thinking of everything that came with being thrust into Shane Hawthorne’s world. Sleazy lawyers bearing ridiculous contracts, chasing photo ops yet running from the paparazzi. Private moments exposed for all the world to see. “No,” I snapped. “I don’t want to.”
He curled a hand around my neck, strong fingers kneading the tense sinews connecting my shoulder blades. “Later, I’ll give you a few lessons on dealing with the crowds, teach you some self-defense moves.”
Despite the massage, I pressed my lips together, skepticism rising inside me like an overfilled pot on high heat. “I’m beginning to think you’re the one I need to defend myself against.”
One look at Shane’s face and I wanted to race after my thoughtless words and stuff them back into my mouth, swallow them down like the toxic pills they were. Hurt trekked across his perfect features before he could rearrange his expression into the nonchalant, too-cool rock-star facade he wore too well. “Crap. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
I was being honest. I’d known what I was getting into when I signed on the dotted line. The basics, at least. And I was being well compensated for any inconveniences. My discomfort wasn’t Shane’s fault.
His mouth was a hard line. “You should.”
“I…What?” Was Shane talking about the photos from the beach? We had yet to discuss them. I considered it, but telling Shane how I felt—used, embarrassed, disillusioned—seemed pointless. That’s what I was here for, after all. Public displays of affection.
Those mysterious eyes of his were a roiling sea of turmoil, but the expression on his face was guarded, like he was trying to distance himself but couldn’t quite manage it. “Defend yourself. From me.” Shane’s words were gruff, forced. A warning.
I stepped to the side, frowning up at him. Did he mean physically?
Why would I need to defend myself from a man who hadn’t had sex with me even when I’d begged him to? A man who’d offered to sing me a lullaby, who had tended my cut with the same care my mother had when I was in kindergarten, who had barely touched me since he’d carried me into my own room and walked out the door. What nonexistent attack did I have to guard myself against?
But I knew. The very real danger emanating from Shane wasn’t physical. He had my mind so scattered I risked forgetting why I was here, with him. Forgetting about what I’d done, and the restitution I still owed. I had to keep my wits about me, and not just for my own sake.
I didn’t want to talk about the photos right now, didn’t even want to think about them.
I met Shane’s stare, my lungs tripping over a breath as I sucked in air. There was nothing normal about my life since the accident three years ago, and being with Shane had only compounded my strange reality. He rolled his neck, swallowed hard. That fierce self-confidence of his slipping just a bit. Maybe just for me.
On a sigh, I poked my hand between Shane’s rib cage and the crook of his elbow, sliding against him like it was where I belonged. Breathing him in and remembering the way he’d inserted himself into a situation that could have ended so badly. Feeling safe. “I think I’ll take my chances.”
The tension coiling in his muscles didn’t ease up in the slightest. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“You did, Shane. You warned me.” I rested my head against his biceps. It may as well have been a rock. “I signed on for this. All of it, not just the new wardrobe and free concerts.”
He grunted. “Bet you didn’t plan on the candids from the other night.”
“Ah, no,” I admitted, glad he’d brought them up since I hadn’t had the nerve. “They could have been worse, though.” At least what we’d been doing a few minutes before hadn’t been splashed across every gossip site.
I was trying to ease into asking if they’d been planned, like Piper had suggested, but Shane pulled away, running a hand through his unruly mane. “I’ve got to go. Check in with the guys, do sound check, you know.”
The part of me that had been pressed against Shane’s side stung, like he’d taken the top layer of my skin with him. “I thought you had sound check this morning,” I protested. He wavered, and I knew it was just a ruse. I pressed my small advantage. “Stay, please. What happened that night, not the pictures, what happened with us…” I paused for a moment to gather my pride, then forced myself to go further. “What I wanted to happen with us—”
But I didn’t have a chance to finish my thought before the dressing room door was flung open, thwacking against the wall. “Dude, why have you been hiding? The guys are all—”
Noticing Shane wasn’t alone, the intruder’s eyes flicked over me. “Hey there.”
Face-to-face with Landon Cox, I should have been struggling to pick my jaw up off the floor. I’d only recently grown accustomed to sharing the same air as Shane Hawthorne, and his bandmates were hardly slouches in the sex-appeal department. As drummer for Nothing but Trouble, Landon wasn’t quite as visible as Shane, but he made up for it by going shirtless behind his drum kit, showing off a lecherous smile and inflated biceps that girls drooled over. He was wearing a shirt now, but not a single button had been fastened and little was left to the imagination.
But all I wanted him to do was turn around and leave. I’d finally worked up the courage to be honest with Shane about the crazy feelings that had invaded my body since we’d met, and not even Landon Cox was worth the interruption.
Landon turned back to Shane, not noticing my lack of enthusiasm. “This the new one?”
My spine went rigid. The new one. Heat rose up my chest, racing toward my scalp, burning the tops of my ears.
Shane sighed. “Delaney, this is Landon.”
Landon gave me a more leisurely once-over, a telling smirk lifting the edge of his lips. “I might like her even better than the last one, Shane. More curvy, less attitude, I think.”
I would have given anything to have a snappy retort at the ready, expel a torrent of words that would put Landon firmly in his place. But my throat was dry, my brain too busy trying to process the looks passing between the two men.
“Lay off.” Shane’s voice was a low rumble, possessively marking his territory. The human equivalent of lifting his leg.
I glared at Shane as Landon backed away, stretching a hand toward the door handle. “No worries. Plenty of chicks just down the hall.” And then Landon turned to me. “Be sure to give me a call when you get sick of this brooding ass, yeah? I promise you won’t have to sign a thing.”
Despite his flirtatious tone, a wave of shame crashed into me, and I collapsed onto the nearest piece of furniture, a chesterfield sofa, covered in saddle-brown leather, that had definitely seen better days, feeling like I’d just been sucker punched. All my intentions of opening up to Shane crushed. “Just so we’re clear here, can you please tell me who does and doesn’t know about us?”
Shane flashed a warning look at Landon as he left, but his voice was calm. “Just Travis, my PR people, the members of my band.”
“And Piper,” I added, counting silently. At a minimum, seven people knew the role I was playing in Shane’s life. “And they know…everything?”
A curt nod. “Yes.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, then turned them on the source of my angst. “Why?” I demanded.
Shane’s brows drew together in an irritated frown. “Why what?”
The necklace at my throat was choking me. “Why am I here, pretending to be your adoring girlfriend, if everyone in your inner circle knows I’m just a prop?”
Shane
The hurt bleeding from Delaney’s voice struck a chord. I knew the timbre of disillusionment all too well, and I hated hearing it from her. “You’re more than a prop. If you weren’t here right now, I’d be with Landon and the guys, downing shots of tequila and snorting lines of coke while some chick whose name I don’t know sucks me off.”
I sat down heavily beside Delaney, sliding my arm around her slim shoulders and pulling her in to me. “I don’t want to be that out-of-control asshole musician anymore. I’m lucky to still be here, doing what I’m doing. I need your help to not fuck it up.”
Glancing down at Delaney’s face, I was nearly split in two by a jolt of longing as I watched her nibble at her lower lip. “In a few minutes I have to be at the meet-and-greet and then onstage. I love my fans, but I definitely prefer them at a safe distance. I know my life is crazy and this is all new to you, but I need you by my side, Delaney. Can you do that for me?”
She tilted her face toward mine, her eyes cobalt whorls of doubt. If I had a better answer to her question, I would have given it. But I had my own set of “why’s” crowding my mind. Probably sensing that further prodding was futile, she dropped her cheek to my chest and released a soft sigh, murmuring, “Okay.”
Somehow we managed to get through the backstage bullshit that was a part of touring. Delaney kept me steady when all I wanted to do was leap onstage and wrestle the microphone away from our opening act. It had been nearly a year since I’d rocked out in front of an audience of thousands, and preparing for the sold-out crowd at the Staples Center in Los Angeles reminded me exactly why I had the best fucking job in the world.
I loved everything about music, always had. Playing, singing, recording—no matter how excruciating it was to get things exactly right, every minute was filled with joy for me. But being onstage, in front of a crowd…it was pure magic. Everything came alive. Melodies, harmonies, lyrics—they became living, breathing elements of a whirlwind.
Nothing but Trouble shows were complete chaos, yet in the center of it all, I felt only peace.
The eye of the storm.
Holding Delaney’s hand, I walked from my dressing room to the back of the stage, absorbing an urgency from the crowd that made the ground beneath my feet shake from their energy. My heart tapped a staccato beat against my rib cage. I’m coming. I’m coming.
The guys ran out ahead of me, and the crowd erupted, their noise coming at me like a riptide, sweeping me toward the spotlights. I steered Delaney to a spot at the corner of the stage where I’d be able to see her. “Stay in this exact spot, you hear me?” I said, squeezing her hands. She nodded, and I dropped a kiss on her lips before striding out into the middle of the storm.
“How’s my hometown crowd doin’ tonight?” I yelled into the mic, their answering roar deafening.
When there’s no place you call home, you can call any place home. L.A. was where I came after leaving behind who I’d been and what I’d done. The place I became Shane Hawthorne. It was as good a home as any. But being onstage, any stage, was home for me now, and I practically choked on a wave of gratitude as I shouted a greeting and let myself get swept up in the love and adoration of thousands of screaming strangers. Absorbing every molecule of energy, I swallowed it whole and gave it back in spades. The air was humid and heavy, and I sucked it in, letting it fill me up better than any drug. This was where I belonged. Center stage. Adored, appreciated.
Untouched.
Except that tonight Delaney was here. I felt her presence like the pull of a leash, could only get so far before looking back, seeking her out. And she was always there, the look on her face proving that she felt my songs. That their sweet notes and gritty underbelly were touching her in the same places I’d written them from.
Having Delaney nearby centered me somehow. Knowing that if I wanted to, I could have her in my arms in seconds, gave me a comfort I couldn’t explain. My breaths came more easily, each syllable bleeding smoothly into the mic, cleansing my veins, clearing my head.
Maybe she would stay.
Delaney
The meet-and-greet had been tedious, my tight smile little more than a mask while Shane used my presence as a buffer between him and his overly adoring public. Still smarting from his admission in the dressing room, that Lynne and his bandmates all knew I was just a hired hand, I’d felt like a fraud. Then again, I was a fraud.
But from the moment Nothing but Trouble took the stage, all that fell away.
The four of them sauntered onto the stage one by one, the roar of the crowd going from a summer squall with intermittent low thunder to a roiling, restless storm rising from the floor of the stadium, shaking the foundation and electrifying the air.
Spotlights and pyrotechnics amplified the effect, flashes streaking through the air like lightning, highlighting excited faces and outstretched arms. A savage energy rippled through the thousands of fans, all clamoring for the show to begin.
Nothing but Trouble didn’t disappoint.
Standing at the forefront, in a blaze of light, Shane led their fierce charge. Launching into one of their best-known songs, he commanded the audience’s attention, covering every square inch of the stage and then stomping out onto a platform jutting into the churning sea of people like a boat dock. With the mic in his hands, he wasn’t merely rock ’n’ roll royalty. Shane Hawthorne was a god out there, immortal and larger than life. Mesmerizing.
As my heart beat to a rhythm set by Landon on the drums, my spirit was commanded by Shane’s words and his beautiful, lyrical voice. Passion and emotion swirled and flitted around me, interspersed with sorrow and pain. For a moment I shut my eyes and let everything wash over me as the lights danced against my closed lids. I felt everything. I felt Shane.
Girls were crying, pushing toward the stage, throwing underwear and balled-up scraps of paper bearing phone numbers and erotic invitations at the band like confetti. Shane ignored the occasional fan that made it onto the stage, screaming as they tried to throw themselves at him, only to be caught and hauled off by security.
Shane and his band were on fire, feeding off the energy of the crowd and delivering an explosive set. So many people, so much energy. Every single one of them falling beneath Shane’s spell.
No one more than me.
Nearly two hours later, Shane and his bandmates strutted off the stage, glistening with sweat and enthusiastically nudging each other as their fans erupted, screaming, “Encore, Encore, Encore!”
A roadie handed out bottles of ice-cold water as the collective need of thousands of chanting people pressed against my ribs. The air was so charged, I expected an electrical fire to break out at any moment. Landon grinned at my wide-eyed expression as he unscrewed the top, gulping some and dumping the rest over his head. “Let’s give the people what they want.” Rivulets of water mingled with the sweat on his naked torso as he ran toward the riser lifting his drum kit. A huff of relief shot out of my lungs as the crowd went wild.
Shane took a step toward the stage, but then backtracked, his hand wrapping around my neck, fingers threading into my hair. “I’m so fucking hard for you,” he growled, pushing me up against an unused black speaker. This kiss wasn’t soft or gentle. It was as hard and fierce as the lyrics he’d been belting out all night. Full of passion and rage and need, he stole my breath. My heart leapt into my throat as if it were lunging for Shane, too. Instinctively, my fingers threaded into his sweaty head, holding him to me, knowing there wasn’t a single woman under this roof who didn’t wish she were in my shoes.
Ending as suddenly as it began, Shane’s amber eyes glinted gold as he pulled away and headed back to the stage. Meanwhile, I clung to the waist-high black speaker as if it were a lifeboat. I sure as hell needed one. Working for Shane, this was all supposed to be an act. A lucrative job to get me back into school and my father into a better environment. But there was nothing counterfeit about our chemistry.
Living with Shane Hawthorne was like standing in the path of an incoming storm, gathering force and speed. I was already swept up in his chaotic energy, and there was no escape in sight. Either I could bend and sway, let myself be pulled into Shane’s whirlwind. Or I could stand my ground, dig in my heels—and hope I wouldn’t snap in two.
“Enjoying the show?”
Travis’s voice was an unwelcome distraction from watching Shane. “Are you here to check up on me?”
“Do I need to?” he shot back.
When I didn’t answer, Travis tipped his chin toward Shane. “You keep him happy, I’ll keep up my end. These six months will be over before you know it.”
And there it was. I flinched, recoiling not just from the crude words that made me feel like a whore, but the reminder that my time with Shane was limited, and merely a means to an end.
I folded my arms over my chest. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
His response was forfeit to the thunderous applause coming from thousands of Nothing but Trouble fans as the band finished their final song and, saluting the audience, walked off the stage.
Shane greeted Travis with a slap on the shoulder, but he only had eyes for me. Grabbing my hand, he pulled me into the maze of wires and equipment backstage, glowing with pride and perspiration as we headed for his dressing room.
Nearly tripping as I struggled to keep up with Shane, I cursed Travis for altering my center of gravity. Just as I’d been getting comfortable with Shane and enjoying my place by his side, Travis had stolen my training wheels.