“I want her on tour with me and on the next album,” I say, arms crossed, trying to keep calm.

“We don’t have room for anyone else, Scarlett,” Susan grinds out. “You have exactly what you need. You don’t need anyone else on the team. We have an adequate and talented amount of people already.”

She’s not hearing me.

She never hears me.

She wants all this music. They all do. This perfect persona. The perfect country music star. The perfect songs. They expect all this out of me, yet none of them are willing to give me one single thing I need to make that happen. They want magic at their very fingertips without even having to wave a wand. I need Amalie on my team, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get her there, even if it makes them incredibly unhappy.

“I want her on, Susan. I don’t ask for anything. Not a single thing. I do everything you tell me to do. There isn’t long left on my tour, and then we’ll be returning home to make another album. I don’t see how she’s going to interfere with any of that.”

“She’s deaf, Scarlett.”

That makes me irrationally angry. Why are people so quick to jump to conclusions? So quick to assume that because someone is a little different to the rest of us, that they’re not able to do and achieve the same things. I’m rarely disappointed in Susan, but right now, I am. Deeply, deeply disappointed.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” I say softly, making sure she can see the disgust over those words in my eyes.

“Listen, Scarlett, I understand you’re feeling lost right now. We can all see it. But this is your career. We can’t put anything in the way of that. I don’t feel like this girl will enhance anything. In fact, if I’m being truthful, I think she’ll be nothing but a distraction.”

“I need this,” I urge. “Susan, I don’t ask for a single damned thing. I need this. You want me to stay at my best, you’ll let me have it. I won’t stop until you do. In the end, it really isn’t your choice.”

Her face goes a little red. “I’ve sacrificed a lot for your career and you, Scarlett. Now is not the time to throw down with me. You will not win.”

Now I’m seeing red. Nobody around here takes me seriously, and I’m tired of it. So fucking sick of having a voice that simply is not heard.

“I respect you,” I say carefully. “I don’t ever go against anything you say. But in this, I will. I want her on my team. I want her playing in my next album. I need her. I wasn’t asking for permission.”

Susan is going to pop a top, I can see it in the way her eyes flare and her face gets red. I’m fairly certain she’s holding her breath. I need fresh air and to get out of this damned place with all these controlling people.

“I’m going out for a bit. It’s late. I need space.”

“Scarlett!” Susan barks. “You’re not to go out on your own.”

I keep walking.

I shouldn’t, I hate myself for it. I don’t like upsetting people.

But I honestly don’t know how much more they expect me to take.

I walk outside of the hotel and onto the sidewalk. I’m wearing a hat that covers most of my face. If I keep my head down, nobody will recognize me, not at this time of the night. I need to take a walk, clear my head, figure out the right way to do this that isn’t going to cause World War III to begin. I move down the sidewalk, focusing on the way the gravel crunches beneath my shoes.

Music can be heard from a few blocks down, coming from a bar, I’d guess. I gravitate closer to the sound, listening as a funky R’n’B song comes on the loud speakers. Laughter trails out, and as the place comes into sight, I smile. These people, dancing, laughing, drinking, doing whatever the hell they want, look happy. Not one of them isn’t smiling or bright.

A longing in my heart, a deep ache, reminds me that I no longer have that feeling.

And I’d do anything to get it back.

Keeping my head low, I walk past the bar but stop when a loud but husky laugh travels in my direction. It’s not aimed at me, but it stands out from the rest of the chatter around me. It’s familiar in some way. I tilt my head to the side and listen as I pair up a voice to match that laughter. It’s a deep, throaty voice. I’d know it anywhere. It’s the same voice I heard at the fountain. It was the man who spoke to me.

I turn quickly, lifting my head and looking over to where the sound is coming from and my eyes fall on the most gorgeous, rugged, familiar biker I’ve ever seen. It’s him. The man from my show. The man who was following my bus. The man who spoke to me. Maverick is the biker who has been following me? I’m so lost, so caught up in staring at the gorgeous, mesmerizing man, that I don’t realize my face is now in full view.

“Scarlett Belle?” a female says, and then her screech can be heard through the entire bar. “Oh, my god, it’s Scarlett Belle!!!”

I take a shaky step back as heads start swiveling in my direction. Maverick’s head jerks up, and his eyes lock on mine. Those incredible green eyes pierce through me, and I can’t move. A group of girls start throwing back their chairs as they stand up. They’re going to rush me, and I literally have nowhere to go. This is bad. I’m not supposed to be out here.

I’m frozen in the spot.

I should not have come out alone.

Before my brain can process what to do, Maverick walks over to the low brick wall topped with a garden that separates the bar from the sidewalk, puts one hand on it, and swings over top of it as if he jumps things like that for a living. His boots hit the ground with a thud, and then he’s striding toward me. He’s a whole lot bigger when he’s walking at me like that and, suddenly, I’m a little concerned.

I don’t know him.

What if he’s a stalker? A killer? A rapist? God. I didn’t think this one through.

I take a step back and go to raise a hand, but he reaches me just before the girls hit the sidewalk, drops his shoulder into my belly, and launches me into the air, then he moves with quick strides toward the dark road. I’m in complete shock and am unable to do or say anything. Is he carrying me? Oh, God. He’s carrying me. I squirm, but it makes little difference to him. He reaches his bike, tosses me onto my feet, throws a leg over it, and barks, “Get on.”

I open my mouth, close it, then open it again.

“No,” I screech.

He gives me a narrow-eyed look. “I’m not a rapist, a killer, or a stalker. You either get on the bike with me and I’ll take you back to where ever you came from, or you go and face them.”

He jabs a thumb toward the massive group of people rushing toward us.

God dammit. He knows I don’t really have a choice. Facing a group of people like that on my own would end so badly. Probably worse than getting on this bike with a stranger. At least he’s only one person. I can run away from him. Them, on the other hand, not so much.

I throw my leg over the bike, and he starts it up. It roars to life with an angry growl that I can feel travel right from my tip toes to the top of my head.

“Hang on, darlin’,” he barks. “I don’t ride softly.”

Shit.

I wrap my arms around the big, strong biker and he spins out onto the road with an angry roar. I scream, pressing my face into his back and clenching my eyes shut. I can smell the leather of his jacket and feel the strong ridges of his body beneath my fingertips. But I don’t open my eyes. Not right away. For a while, I just hang on, terrified, worried about falling off, going over every horrific scenario that could possibly happen right now.

Then something happens.

We’re on the road. The wind is ripping through my hair, trailing it back behind me. The bike is rumbling beneath my body. And I lift my head from the stranger’s back and breathe in the crisp night air that fills my lungs. I feel the way it tickles my skin. I feel his leather jacket beneath my fingers. I feel ... free.

So. Incredibly. Free.

~*~*~*~

I don’t know how long we ride. It isn’t long, or maybe it just feels like it isn’t because of the rush coursing through my body. But, eventually, we come to a stop at a beach. It’s dark out, only the streetlights shining down over the well-worn pathway running along the soft sand. I can hear the waves crashing against the shore as soon as the bike stops.

And when the big man in front of me moves, I go still.

Oh, shit.

What the hell am I doing?

Is he going to rape me? Kill me? Film me and make a big scene? What the hell was I thinking getting on a bike with a complete stranger and riding off into the night? I’ve lost my mind.

“Calm down, sweetheart,” he murmurs, peeling my fingers off his jacket and throwing his leg over the bike, getting off. “I’m not here to do any of the horrible shit you’re thinkin’ right now.”

I glance at him, looking up from under my lashes at the massive biker staring down at me. He really is bigger up close. God. So big. So beautiful. His face takes my breath away—it’s the nicest, most dangerous face I’ve ever encountered on a male. It makes my heart do funny things and my stomach clench in a way I’ve never felt before. I won’t get started on the tingle between my legs.

“Why did you help me then?” I say, my voice small. “And why have you been following me?”

“I helped you because it was me or that group of drunk bitches with phones. Pretty sure you don’t want your face all over the internet by tomorrow morning. Not to mention you’re about five foot nothing. They’d carry you off without even making an effort.”

He makes a valid point.

“And the following me part?”

“You told me your name at the fountain. I was curious.”

I blink.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it, darlin’. Now get off the bike.”

I do as he asks, climbing off the bike and rubbing my arms. It’s cool out with the wind whipping in from the ocean. Maverick nods his heads toward a park bench underneath one of the street lights. “You want to sit?”

I study him. His explanations were so simple. So straight to the point. That either means he’s telling me what I want to hear to lure me to some sort of trap, or he’s telling me the truth. Something about the way his eyes hold mine, without hesitation, tells me he’s telling the truth. After all, he could just throw me over his shoulder and take me anywhere he wanted, and I’d not be able to fight him off.

So, I walk toward the park bench and put my bottom down onto it, turning to face the mysterious stranger, just slightly. He places his big, ringed hands onto his faded-out jeans and stares straight ahead.

“Want to tell me what you were doin’ walkin’ around so late at night all by yourself? Isn’t a girl like you supposed to have bodyguards?”

A girl like me. I bristle at that but don’t say anything. Because I know he doesn’t mean it the way it sounds. They never do. It’s just a common observation, and one I have no right getting angry at him over.

“I am, yes. But I’m still a person, you know? I don’t have to live every second of my life being followed.”

That comes out a little snippier than I’d like, and I feel bad about it right away. He was only asking a question.

He looks over at me, and cocks a brow. “Calm down, darlin’. I wasn’t saying that.”

“Sorry,” I murmur, staring down at my hands. “It’s hard, you know? Not being able to have a life. I forget what it’s like to just walk out my front door and go to a store, or walk down a street without being noticed. It’s hard for me to find any time alone. Right now, I can promise you my manager is losing her mind. She probably has dogs out, sniffing me down.”

He chuckles, low and sexy, and I feel it right in my core. I cross my legs, flushing.

“I can imagine that wouldn’t be a whole lot of fun.”

“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”

“Why tonight? What made you venture out so late on your own?”

I shrug. “I got into a disagreement with my manager. I wanted something, she didn’t want to give it to me. I know that sounds bratty, but I don’t ask for much. I do as I’m told, I sing what I’m told, I give every single piece of me to this life. So, when I ask for something, it’s important. It matters. She can’t seem to see that.”

“Might need a new manager,” he murmurs, studying me, his eyes dropping to my lips. God. My heart. “What did you ask for?”

His voice is husky.

Being so close to him, it’s making me body feel some strange things. The urge to shuffle closer, to feel what it would feel like to be wrapped up in him, is intense. So intense I shuffle a little further away.

“I don’t bite, sweetheart.”

He looks amused.

I flush. “I’m not convinced of that.”

He laughs.

It’s a perfect sound.

Dammit.

Damn him.

I don’t even know him!

I nervously continue by answering the question he asked. “I wanted a girl in my band. She doesn’t want to allow it. I’ve got enough people already, granted, but this girl ... I can’t explain it. She’s incredible. She’s partially deaf, but she feels the music, and she plays the piano unlike anyone I’ve ever known.”

“Does sound incredible. What makes you want her so badly?”

I shrug.

“Truth, sweetheart.”

Damn. He’s good. It’s as if I’m a book, blown wide open, pages flapping in the breeze, and he can read every single one of them.

“She made me feel some sort of ... spark. Inspiration, maybe. Passion, perhaps. Something. Something I hadn’t felt around music in a long time. She made me want to write songs again, to sing them, to put heart back into them. I’ve lost myself, she made me feel like maybe I could find myself again.”

He stares at me for a moment, then in a husky voice he says, “Then it sounds like she’s worth fighting for.”

I nod. “Try telling my manager that.”

“Maybe instead of telling her, you should show her.”

I glance at him. Why didn’t I think of that? Susan might not want to listen to what I have to say when it comes to Amalie, but if she heard her play, if she heard us play, she might just change his mind.

“I’d say you’re a genius,” I say, my voice soft. “But I don’t know you and so that would be creepy.”

A low chuckle. “There’s somethin’ about you, Scarlett Belle. Somethin’ I feel around you, that makes me feel the same way your friend makes you feel.”

My cheeks get warm and my heart races. I swear little butterflies are dancing in my belly.

“I’m sure a biker like you can find that anywhere, I mean, you’re so free. There are no barriers for you.”

He falls silent for a moment, then says in a low, almost broken tone. “Barriers don’t have to be objects, darlin’. Barriers can be simply your own heart. No matter how far you travel, or how many people you meet, none of it can penetrate if the barrier is around your soul.”

God.

Damn.

My heart clenches.

“Maverick?”

“Hmmm?”

“Can I use that in a song?”

He looks to me. “Whatever you want, darlin’.”

“Maverick?”

He chuckles. “Yeah?”

“Why are you following me?”

He glances at me, his eyes hold mine and I can feel his words, long before they penetrate. “Because your eyes are the same as mine. Your voice speaks the same pain. I’m drawn to you. I don’t know why, but I can’t seem to be able to back off.”

Something warm washes over me. “I don’t mind.”

“No?” he says, one side of his mouth lifting in a smile.

“No. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a friend. So, if you want to follow me and talk to me, I won’t say no. But don’t go coming up with some elaborate plan to kidnap me for money. I might be small, but I can fight. I promise.”

His eyes flash and he laughs, low and deep. “Noted, darlin’. How about we just stick to friends?”

I smile and nod, his eyes drop to my lips again.

“How come you’re not riding with your club? Not that I know much about that, but aren’t you supposed to travel in big groups or something?”

His eyes skitter away and his jaw goes tight. “I’m on my own right now. A nomad, I guess. Needed ... time.”

The way he says that sparks my curiosity. But I don’t know him, and it isn’t my place to ask a perfect stranger to feed me his deepest, darkest secrets. God knows I wouldn’t want to share mine.

“Are you still friends with your club?”

At that, he grins. “Friends. That’s a way I’ve never heard it put.”

I blush. “Well, I don’t really know what exactly you are.”

He keeps the grin. “I’m still part of the club, yeah. I’m just takin’ some time out. No bad blood there. I’ll go home one day.”

“And where is home?” I ask.

“Denver.”

My eyes get big. “Me too.”

His eyes hold mine, and something passes between us.

“Guess we might just be able to be friends after all, hey?”

There goes my heart again.

And my stomach.

And my stupid brain.

This stranger is captivating me. Little by little.

And I know nothing about him.