Tate
She’s a pretty fuckin’ firecracker all wrapped up with a demure little bow.
One minute she’s wiping her sweaty, trembling hands on her legs, and the next she’s staring me down and twisting my balls so tightly with her words that they’ve turned blue from blood loss. And, sweet fucking Jesus, where the hell did it come from?
Shoulda leaned over the damn seat and kissed her when she dared me to.
To hell with being her boss. To hell with Sofie’s damn stupid-ass rules. To hell with Ella’s sassy little smart mouth.
Next time she so much as glances at me with a hint of her sass, I’m gonna kiss it right out of her. It ain’t my fault she’s got pretty, pouty pink lips just begging for it.
She goes from shy to confident faster than a damn yo-yo spins on its string. And I don’t understand it. Or her. A single fucking bit.
I shouldn’t want to, but I do. From the point of view of her employer. If she’s gonna be all bipolaresque on our asses we should know.
I roll my shoulders, ignoring the screaming coming from the front of the stage. Yeah. As an employer. That’s why I wanna know.
“Five minutes,” Carla says, a headset on her ear and a tablet in her hand. “And—”
“Don’t fuck up,” we all say, our voices echoing.
“We know, Carla. We know,” Aidan adds.
She frowns for a second. “Be ready. They’re screaming out there.”
“We got ears, ya know.” I lean back. “Pretty sure I’ve heard them chantin’ my name more than once tonight.”
Carla’s lips curl in both annoyance and amusement. “One day, Tate Burke, you’re gonna find yourself a girl that’ll rip you off your pretty little pedestal. I for one cannot wait. Three minutes.” She casts her eyes over us before disappearing again.
Conner chuckles. I look over at him. “What?”
He smirks. “She’s right. ’Cept I think I know that girl.”
“Bro, Sofie’s got attitude, but not that much attitude.” I snort.
“Ella, dumbass,” Kye interjects.
“Right. The fancy-ass New Yorker that has to organize our shit. Yeah, that’s the one, man. She’s the girl that’s gonna bring me to my fuckin’ knees.” I shake my head and lean back in the chair. “Can’t you see? I attached my Chucks to my knees already so I’m prepared for the fall.”
“Attached them where?” Sofie asks, walking in. “To another girl’s bedpost? I wouldn’t be surprised.”
I snap my eyes to the door where she’s standing, Ella at her side. “Yeah,” I respond, looking at Sofie. “That’s exactly where they are. Ready for tonight.”
“Well, be back in time to take your niece to McDonald’s for breakfast like you promised.” She purses her lips. “Because I’m not taking her in place of your lazy ass.”
Conner nods in agreement, and I glance between them. Holding my hands up, I say, “Y’all think I’m gonna let my Mimi down? Hell no. She got her mama’s attitude already, and I ain’t that fuckin’ dumb.”
“Makes a change,” Kye retorts, grinning.
I stare at him flatly. Yeah, I’m an asshole. I’m a fucking prick, a heartless dick, a love ’em and leave ’em guy. I don’t even love them. I fuck and leave. Simple. But letting Mila down is out of the question.
The first time she grabbed at me, squealing “Tay,” she wrapped me around her chubby little finger. If that baby girl needs me, you bet your ass I’m gonna be there. And fuck it—if I promised her a McDonald’s breakfast behind her mama’s back, she’s gonna get it.
“Two minutes,” Ella says softly from behind Sofie. “You guys needs to move.”
I look at her, breathing heavily but slowly as the rush of adrenaline builds inside me. It’s always the same. Until the last call, until the moment we have to get off our asses, I’m cool. We all are. Then we’re called for two minutes, and we have to move into the wings, and it gets real.
There’re more name-screams; the excited kind that tingle across my skin, and soon, there’ll be more echoing and deafening yells of our lyrics. Our damn lyrics. The ones we wrote over breakfast at the kitchen table, at family parties in the corner, and even the ones we wrote at Mom and Dad’s wedding anniversary dinner.
It’s another stage. Another concert. Another fucking sellout. Another dream come true.
“Now,” Ella adds, her eyes barely lingering on mine for a second before they drop to the floor.
Another moment of staring at her passes before I get up and turn away. Shit, I fucking hate it when people don’t look at me when they’re talking to me. This chick only does it when she’s pissed at me with some bullshit adrenaline-induced bravado.
I slam the dressing room door open and walk the halls until we reach the wings.
“Thirty seconds,” Carla whispers.
Her eyes fall on each of us, one after the other, her gaze full of apprehension and confidence. A crazy mix, one that should make no fucking sense but does. It’s the feeling I have swirling in my stomach right now. I’m nauseated yet excited as hell. Ten steps and I’ll meet my Kryptonite, my dream, my happily fucking ever after.
My guitar.
“And . . . go.”
Conner steps past me and leads us out the way he always does. The youngest leading the oldest—get a fucking load of that.
But it doesn’t matter.
Because the crowd screams. Conner grabs his mic. Me and Kye grab our guitars. Aidan spins his drumsticks.
And the music is all that matters.
I down the bottle of water Ella hands to me and drop it into the trash. She nods softly, stepping back as we make our way back out for the second half of the show.
There are the screams—always the screams. Shouts and yells and the damn screams that make my ears ring.
I adjust my earpiece until the backing track starts playing. We fall into the music, Conner’s words unknown to us. All that matters here is hitting the notes and getting it right.
Our names are screamed, we’ve hit the billboards and are on the verge of a platinum album—but we’re still teenage boys in our parents’ garage. We’ll never fucking forget that.
I never will.
Our priorities are what they were then—getting it right.
The song peters out and Conner rests his mic in the stand. “Phew,” he says, wiping his brow. “Hey, can I get a towel here? I’m doin’ an Olaf and meltin’!”
Cries ring out as a towel comes flying and lands by his feet. Conner bends down, grabs it, and wipes it across his forehead.
“Damn,” he drawls, throwing his towel into the darkness of the wings. “It’s a good thing y’all are worth meltin’ for. Am I right?”
My lips twitch up. Fucking crowd-pleaser. That’s why he’s the front man—he makes them swoon even when he ain’t singing.
“All right, ladies, keep them panties on,” Conner teases, laughing. “Y’all can form an orderly queue to give ’em to Tate after the show. There are even Sharpies provided for your number-writin’ convenience.”
He turns back and winks at me dramatically.
“You know I ain’t turnin’ that down, baby brother,” I answer, just like they expect me to. Same shit, different concert. “Back door, ladies,” I cast my eyes over the crowd, “I’ll make sure security pass ’em on.”
Aidan adds a drum roll for good measure. Quietly, he laughs, then smirks at me.
They all know I don’t call those fuckin’ numbers. If you’ve got the balls to walk up to me and be honest, I’m on that shit like a whore in a brothel. Hand your scribbled-on panties to my security and they end up in the trash.
“All right, all right,” Conner interjects to the swoony-screamy thing going on. “Y’all want some music or are you here to see my brother?”
There’s a mixture of “music” and “brother,” and I chuckle. Grabbing my mic, I say, “How about I sing y’all a little somethin’? Yeah?”
The four of us meet eyes as they scream. It’s for sure. Every time. Conner might make them swoon, but I make them melt. Their panties, that is. End of story.
“Okay, ladies. Y’all ready? Grab those panties,” Kye says, strumming on his guitar. “Shit’s about to get real.”
I look down at my guitar and run my fingers across the strings. Aidan counts us in, and I close my eyes, the music humming across my skin.
Word after word, the lyrics fall from my mouth, giving them something to dream of, to believe in, although it’ll never be theirs. They hope anyway, grasping onto my words until everything is gone.
One night only,
Grasping sheets,
A crinkled quilt,
The rising sun,
One last good-bye, baby,
I sing. The beat picks up, and . . .
The butterflies, they’re nothin’,
The heart pounds, mean nothin’.
One night, that’s all you get,
It’s all we got, take it now,
One last good-bye,
I’ll give to you,
One last good-bye, baby.
I strum the last chords of the song, the final words crushing everything the song built it up to be. But—hey, if they’re gonna make me sing a fuckin’ song, don’t expect it to be a love ballad. It’ll be the damn truth.
I’m too focused on the band for something more than one night.
Aidan smiles at me from his perch on his stool and I glare back at him. He’s as bad as I fucking am. His longest fuck lasted a week—mine was Nina, before she sold my family out for her own ass. Even then, she was lucky to get ten days of my time.
I look back at my guitar and let the next song flow over me. The music, the lyrics—they’re second nature, even our newest single is. They’re all buried under my damn skin, pounding with every beat of our collaboration.
My fingers tease the guitar strings endlessly. The music flows through my veins, a rush and comfort. An exhilaration and a soother. A total contradiction, but one that makes sense nonetheless.
Song after song it goes, one after another, beat after chord, chord after lyric, lyric after scream, scream after blackout.
We set our instruments down softly and walk back into the wings. Ella is standing in mine, clasping a bottle of water. I close my fingers around the neck of the bottle, my pinkie barely an inch from hers, and pause.
“You did good,” she says softly, swallowing before she looks up and meets my eyes.
I stare into her dark eyes, the color of dark chocolate, of a black coffee after a night of no sleep, and I reply, “I know.”
I take the bottle from her, unscrew the cap, and tip it up, walking past her. I don’t need my cute-as-fuck assistant getting into my head tonight.
No, I need some fangirling, groupie-ass bitch to bend over for me so I can relieve this stress.
Stress? What fucking stress? From the stuck-up assistant? I’m done.
I give the fuck up.
I throw the empty bottle in the trash and walk outside before my brothers do. Sofie and Ella will get my shit—it’s their damn job. It’s what I pay their asses for. I don’t pay Sofie to fuck my brother, and I don’t pay Ella to get me wound tighter than my mom’s cross-stitch panels.
I pay to make sure I get out of the stadium, get a girl, get off, then get her gone.
Simple as fuck.
I run my hand through my hair and shove the back doors open. There are a few VIP fans there waiting for us, and thankfully, my brothers are out right after me. We scrawl on sheets of paper, on books, on photos, and pose for endless smartphone pictures.
A blond chick approaches and slinks up beside me, her arm wrapping around my waist as her friend takes our photo. I glance down—her tits are popping, and that’s all the encouragement I need.
“The Viscount,” I murmur in her ear. “Room 445.”
Her fingers stroke my side. I smile for one more fake photo and break away from her. I head for the SUV without waiting for anyone else and direct the driver back to the hotel. The drive is quick and easy, our route to the hotel unencumbered by anyone else.
I get out of the car and stop to scrawl on sheets of paper and postcards. Carlos, one of our guards, flanks me, making sure the fans don’t take things too far. I work my way down the line to the lobby door and, at the last minute, dart inside.
This bitch better turn up.
I ride the elevator up to my floor and walk the length of the corridor to my room. No sooner have I shut the door behind me than I hear a knock. It’s the blonde—tipsy and grinning, her tits even more on show than before.
I tug her through the door and slam against her. My lips push hers harshly, and the taste of vodka makes me feel sick.
“Don’t you want to know my name?”
I squeeze her ass tightly. “I don’t fuckin’ need it.”
She moves with me to the sofa as I wrench her purse and phone from her hand. They land on the floor as I cup her pantie-covered pussy. I pop her tits from their concealment with my other hand and rub them, giving them a cursory nipple-lick, but I don’t give a shit about this chick’s pleasure.
I rub her clit for a minute, then roll a condom on and shove myself inside her. She cries out but she grabs at me. Her nails dig at my back as I drive myself into her in the most selfish way I can imagine. Still, her pussy tightens, and with a few short pumps, she cries her release around me.
I groan.
It’s fake.
I’m as fucking hard as I was when she walked in the door.
I fake a couple harsh breaths then pull out of her. “I’m going to clean up. Leave by the time I get back.”
Leaving her lying on the sofa with her legs open, I stroll into the bedroom and lock the bathroom door. I shower quickly, washing every inch of that easy whore from me, wishing I could scrub my fuckin’ mind clean of Ella Dawson.
I walk out with a towel around my waist. Blondie is still on the sofa with her skirt around her hips, but at least her bra is covering her obviously fake tits.
“I thought I said leave.”
“Tate,” she whimpers. “I thought it was all night.”
I stare at her. Is she fucking serious? I grab my phone and dial Ella’s number.
“Y-yes?”
“I have a situation that needs taking care of.”
She pauses. “You mean you have a girl that needs removing from your room.”
“Aren’t you a modern-day fuckin’ Einstein?” I snipe, each word a sharp snap, because this bitch isn’t the brunette that’s been dominating my thoughts for the last couple days.
“Five minutes, asshole,” Ella responds. She hangs up before I can reply.
Asshole? Who the fuck is she talking to?
There’s knocking at my door, finally, after many protestations from Barbie. I open the door to Ella, looking tired yet fresh, and Carlos. I meet his eyes. “Get her out.” I nod toward Blondie.
“Tate? What?” she says.
I stare at Ella as the blond chick is removed. Clingy bitches. Rolling my shoulders, I rest my hands on either side of the doorframe and ask Ella, “How’d you find tonight?”
She steps back. “It was awesome until you called me to clean up your mess.”
“It’s in your contract, darlin’.”
Her eyes spark with annoyance. “Actually, it says nothing about removing your entertainment.”
I lean forward. “Then I’ll make a note to amend it in the mornin’. And, for what it’s worth, that wasn’t cleaning up my mess. If I wanted you to do that I woulda called you five minutes earlier and had you in the fuckin’ shower with me, Els.” My eyes ghost down her body, lingering at her full breasts and toned thighs.
Thinking of her in the shower, naked and wet, is doing fuck all for the erection I can’t get rid of. In fact, it’s downright painful right now.
She stares at me stonily, that annoyed spark flaring into full-fledged anger. “Believe me, Mr. Burke, if the impossible happens and you somehow get me in a shower with you, I’d probably drown you, not clean you.”
“Tate. My name is Tate.”
“And mine is Ella.” With one last harsh look, she turns.
I step into the hall and watch her walk to her room. Fuck. She really does have a gorgeous ass.
“Oh—be ready for eight a.m.,” she adds, pausing with her hand on her door.
“Gonna give me a wake-up call?”
She glances at me. “With a rock? Sure. Otherwise, no. You have a cell phone with an alarm function, Mr. Burke, use it.”
I laugh as she disappears into her room. Damn. I don’t have a chance in hell at working this chick out, much less her behavior, but it’s a fun fuckin’ ride.