CHAPTER 20

ALICIA

Three weeks after Jared and I came to our agreement, the sun was shining high in the sky, and one of the opening acts for the Veterans’ Benefit that Destitute was throwing on the fourth of July weekend was in full swing. It was a local band that Jared knew of, and they were thrilled when we approached them to join the lineup for the benefit.

They were quite good, and the crowd seemed to be enjoying them, but as much as I wanted to enjoy them, too, I couldn’t join the screaming audience and simply enjoy the show. I was there to work.

Technically, I didn’t have to be at the venue where the benefit was being held, but I’d had enough of only gauging the hype from afar and measuring it based on the screen and print time that the new album was getting in the media and the mentions of it online. It was time for me to get a feel for the fans on the ground, and I couldn’t think of a better opportunity than the first show that the band was playing since arriving home from their tour.

They wouldn’t be playing any of their new songs, but that was okay. It was great, in fact, since it meant that I could get a real indication of how excited the crowd was for the first time they’d be hearing the new songs, without them feeling like they should reserve judgment until after the show.

I’d been grabbing various Destitute fans and asking them a couple of carefully planned questions that wouldn’t keep them too long, while still allowing me to get a proper feel for the local hype surrounding the album. I was immensely pleased with the feedback I’d been getting so far, and I couldn’t wait to share it with Jared.

A private smile curled on my lips as I thought of him. Since we started sleeping together, I was getting to know the man beneath the arrogant shell little by little

Whenever we were out in public together or with other people, he was every bit the rock star I’d gotten to know him as. But when the doors closed and the people left, I was learning that he was intelligent, passionate about his music and their fans, loved reading as much as I did, and was a thorough, attentive, and enthusiastic lover. He could be playful at times and serious at others. He worked hard and was unapologetic on the occasions that he played harder.

Overall, I was glad that I’d gone on that date, and I was having more fun with him than I’d initially thought I would. He’d shocked my socks off that first morning when he’d told me all those things about his body being at my disposal and how there were so many fantasies that he wanted to act out with me.

Shock, surprise, anticipation, confusion, and apprehension had all rolled through me at the same time, but once I knew what he wanted, there was no possibility that I was going to say no. Being with him was just too good, and as impossible as I would have thought it to be, each time I was with him, it just seemed to get better.

We hadn’t talked more about what we were, or what our expectations of each other were, but that was okay since I was relatively sure we were both clear on the basics. I was about to grab another fan to interview when I decided against it. I could carry on with my interviews later, but thinking about Jared and everything we’d done over the course of the past few weeks was getting me all riled up, and I wondered if we had time to squeeze in a quickie before their show later.

Jared was always ready to go, and he was forever encouraging me to tell him what I wanted, when I wanted it. As I hurried to his dressing room, I felt the warm rush of excitement that I’d come to associate with being with him.

The benefit was being held at an outdoor arena with dressing rooms set up behind the stage in a fenced-off area that you needed a pass to get to. Jared’s dressing room wasn’t far from the stage and sat slightly off to the side.

I flashed my access pass that hung from a red lanyard around my neck at the security guards manning the metal barrier that kept the public away from the performers, and one of the beefy men nodded and moved aside to allow me in.

The backstage area was bustling with activity as the opening act announced that they were about to play their last song. Some of the crowd already started screaming for an encore, but I smiled when I heard the majority of people were already screaming for Destitute to come out.

The hype was definitely working. Pride surged through me, both for myself, for having come up with an effective campaign so soon into my new job, and for Jared and the rest of the band. They’d worked hard over the years to get to the point where they were breaching the stratosphere, but it would certainly appear that they were just about there.

I dodged crew members who were getting things ready to prepare the stage for Destitute, a few fans who’d won backstage passes, and countless other people chattering and hurrying about to do their jobs, and I made my way to Jared’s dressing room.

There was a paper sign affixed to the door with his name on it, and I paused for a second to take in my surroundings, to let it sink in that I was one of the chosen few who could be back here because I’d worked my way up and I was that good at my job. More than anything, though, I paused to revel in the fact that the beautiful man behind that door was mine. At least, for the time being.

A low noise came from inside the dressing room, and at first, I thought that I’d imagined it. But no. There it was again, and it sounded a hell of a lot like… No, it didn’t only sound like it. It was a woman moaning. From the way the moans were reaching a crescendo and becoming louder by the second, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was happening behind that door.

My world didn’t come crashing down at the realization that Jared had found someone else to have a pre-show quickie with. That would have required that I thought we were something more than what we were.

I wasn’t stupid, I knew that he was a player, but perhaps I’d been something of a fool to have believed that there were unspoken rules to this kind of relationship. It hadn’t occurred to me that he wasn’t being exclusive with me. I was certainly being exclusive with him.

It was more like a pane of glass shattered in my head, and the rose tint that I’d been looking through over this whole thing was smashed to pieces. It disappeared as if it’d never existed.

I had to get away from here suddenly. I was such an idiot to have slept with Jared in the first place and to have done it so many more times over the course of the last few weeks. A string of mumbled curses fell from my lips as I marched myself back to the metal barrier and back out to the public to do my damn job. That was all I should have been doing in the first place.

I was annoyed as all hell with Jared, whether it was reasonable or not. Would it absolutely have killed him to have told me that he’d stopped having fun with me, and that he was going back to his former ways? It hurt that he hadn’t, and I hated that it did. I would have to remember my place from now on.

Which was out here. With the fans and the people and learning what I could to do my job better. After that, it was back at my office, incorporating what I’d learned into new and existing strategies. Case closed.

Grabbing the first person wearing a Destitute shirt that I saw on the other side of the barrier, I pasted a fake smile onto my lips, got out my recording device, and conducted my interview somewhat more bluntly and forcefully than the fan might have deserved.

I reminded myself that the poor man in front of me was not the cause of my annoyance, or the reason that I’d made a fool of myself. As soon as Destitute stepped off that stage, I would take my feelings out on the man who did deserve it. Then back to the office, I would go.

The fan begged off as soon as the roar for Destitute started, and I let him go with a much friendlier smile than I’d approached him with. I moved back to the edges of the crowd to settle in for the show and wrestled my heart for control over its beats when Jared stepped onto the stage.

He was wearing one of those pairs of tight leather pants that never failed to make my mouth water, with a T-shirt that paid tribute to an iconic band, and a beanie hat jammed down over his hair.

Looking like the quintessential rock star that I supposed he was, he stepped up to the microphone as the others followed him onto the stage and made their way to their respective places.

“What’s going on, veterans?” he crooned into his mic, and predictably, the audience went wild. Charming them for a few more seconds until the others were settled with their instruments, he waved and winked, moved to the edge of the stage to touch his hands to those who were there, all the while talking to them in a smooth, sure voice.

I hadn’t seen Destitute live in action as of yet, and as supremely irritated as I was with their front man, I had to admit that they all looked like they belonged up there. No one more so than Jared. I snorted, though the noise was drowned out by the music and the fans. Of course, he was relaxed and confident. He’d just fucked a groupie, and her moans would have been enough to make any man think that he could conquer the world.

The knowledge of what he’d done stung more than it had any right to, but I was convinced that it was just my ego that was bruised and stinging. I really thought that I was enough for him, that he was having as much fun as I was, and that he’d have the common decency to tell me that he obviously wasn’t.

The levels of my annoyance, anger, and humiliation were increased with each smirk and every minute of him playing up to the crowd with his suddenly rage-inducing natural charisma. By the time the show was over, I was bubbling like a cauldron of poison just about to simmer over.

Jared was already back in his dressing room when I got there, and he had the audacity to smile like he was happy to see me. “Hey, where were you before the show? I thought you’d be here. You know, to tell me to break a leg or something.”

His tone was light and teasing. Oh, I wanted him to break a leg, alright.

“I was here. I just didn’t come inside, on account of the fact that someone else was already coming.”

If his tone had been light and teasing, mine was the complete opposite of that. It was one that very clearly reflected the poison that was starting to spill over. Jared frowned, and his head snapped back, looking confused as he pulled the beanie off. Tossing it aside, his short hair was messy and wild.

Exactly like he’d just been thoroughly fucked. I nearly snorted again.

“What are you talking about? Someone else already coming?”

I can’t believe him. Was he really going to lie to me about this? “Don’t start with me, Jared. I was right outside your door. I heard you going at it with that groupie, or whoever it was. This isn’t exactly a soundproof room.”

Taking a step toward me, the line between his eyebrows deepened, but I stepped back. He stopped his advance on me then, holding up his hands like he was trying to appease an angry puppy.

Asshole.

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. What groupie?”

“How am I supposed to know? I assumed it was a groupie, but I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me if it was some other girl that you were screwing on the side.”

Jared’s dark eyes flew wide open, and his eyebrows shot up. At the same time, he stepped back as if I’d pushed him away. “If you’re assuming that I screwed a groupie before the show, you’re wrong. I didn’t fuck anyone. I wasn’t even in here. And even if I had been, how would it have been ‘on the side’?”

He made air quotes with his fingers around the words “on the side,” dropped his chin to his chest, and stared back at me quizzically. “Correct me if I’m wrong here, but ‘on the side’ would entail that we’d agreed to be exclusive, which I don’t remember doing. I didn’t know whether we were being exclusive or not, but that doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t sleep with anyone earlier.”

Placing my palms on the back of a small blue couch in front of me, I rubbed my skin on the rough material as I broke eye contact with Jared to look anywhere but right at him. The dressing room wasn’t large, though. It wasn’t much more than the small sitting area I was standing behind and a counter in the corner with snacks and a gift basket on top and a mini fridge below, so it was hard to avoid his eyes for too long.

I didn’t know what to think. I’d expected exclusivity from him, even though we hadn’t talked about it outright, but he appeared to be as honest as he’d ever been when he denied having slept with anyone else.

Watching silently as I tried to work through my confusion, since I’d been right outside of that door and the sounds coming through it had been crystal clear, Jared’s mood was deteriorating as fast as mine had.

“Can you explain the noises then?” I demanded, letting go of the couch and walking right up to him as I tilted my head, my hands on my hips.

Jared closed the few inches that I’d purposely kept between our bodies, lust and irritation both radiating from him. The golden flecks in his dark eyes were more pronounced like this, as was the black ring around them. That familiar electricity sparked the air around us, but I wasn’t giving in. Not this time. I knew what I heard, and I wanted an explanation.

“No, I can’t explain it. I told you, I wasn’t even here. I was with Dom. He wanted to go over the set list one last time with me.”

Jared was exasperated, angry even. Denial and annoyance flashed in his eyes.

“I know what I heard.”

“Well, I don’t. I wasn’t fucking anyone.” His voice wasn’t imploring or pleading, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. This was Jared we were talking about. He never begged, never pleaded. He wouldn’t ever.

No, if anything, he was fully decked out as the Emperor of Rock. Eyebrow raised in a challenge, confidence oozing out of every pore. If it wasn’t for his eyes, I would’ve thought that my Jared had left the building.

There’s no such thing as your Jared, I reminded myself. “If you didn’t want me anymore, you could’ve just told me. That was what we agreed to: fun until it wasn’t.”

“You think I don’t want you anymore, is that it?” he asked harshly.

Without any warning, one of his hands was on the small of my back, pushing the lower halves of our bodies roughly together while the other wound into my hair, gripping at my nape as he mashed his mouth down on mine. We’d kissed before, a lot. But none of our kisses had been like this.

This kiss was fuel and fire. He was throwing down the gauntlet with it, and I knew it.

I love winning, his words from so many weeks before rang out in my mind.

His tongue pushed against my lips, and they opened for him as if on nothing but instinct. The kiss was rough and hard and wet. The usual nips at my lips and jaw and neck were bites now.

I couldn’t breathe properly, and I very much doubted he could, either, but the kiss had taken on a life of its own, and I let it live it. I was so confused, so angry with both of us, and I didn’t want to feel this way anymore.

My head was hostile territory, and I needed to get out of it. Jared could do that for me, and even if he was the cause of it, I let him do it.

The moment I decided to relinquish control, Jared took it from me. Crashing his hips to mine, I felt the press of his hard-on against me as he yanked on my hair, his teeth scraping along the sensitive skin on my neck.

I clawed at his back, my nails biting into his skin through his shirt, and I moaned at the sharp sting of sensation as his teeth sank into my collar bone. Stubble from his goatee scraped along my shoulder as he shoved his hand into my jeans.

My head fell back, and my eyes closed as one finger slid inside me. The sensations were so much more when his hand was being constrained by my pants; his touch was harder. Closer. My knees threatened to buckle, but he held me up with an arm around my waist and moved his thigh between my legs.

His mouth came back to mine as he slid a second finger inside me, stretching me and filling me. Pumping in time with the insistent strokes of his tongue, I let go of everything: my doubts, the last remaining vestiges of control that I’d been trying to cling to, and my thoughts about how I’d heard moans just like the ones coming out of my mouth now just before the show.

I surrendered to sensation and to Jared, allowing him to take control from me, to show me that he still wanted me. Pushing back against his hand, his thumb pressed down on my clit, and I was so close.

As always, Jared knew that I was, but then he did something he’d never done with me before. He stopped.

Fully and completely, and yanked his hand out of my pants. I cried out at the loss of him, my muscles clenching as I trembled, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

“Jared!” I protested, clinging to him and dragging myself over his thigh desperately, shamelessly writhing against it.

He let me ride him until I was right at the brink again, then stopped me by grabbing onto my hips and holding them still. A low growl of frustration ripped from my throat. “Jared, stop.”

The bastard had the nerve to smirk down at me, but his eyes spoke volumes. “I already did. You accused me of doing a pretty shitty thing today, and you still don’t fully believe that I didn’t.”

“So, this is your way of punishing me?” I all but shouted at him, which was a little absurd since our bodies were still pressed together and my hips were still trying to seek out his.

Jared’s eyes narrowed, and he tensed against me. “Punishment isn’t my thing, baby. You know that. It isn’t revenge, either, in case that was going to be your next question.”

Lifting me by the ass, my legs wrapped around his firm butt, and I whimpered from the slight relief of having his firm abs pressed so close to me. He crossed the small space and deposited me on the counter, pushing his ridiculously sexy pants down only enough to free his erection.

Then he went to work on my jeans, undoing them and pulling them down to my ankles in one swift movement. He ducked between my legs, plucked a condom from the gift basket of all places, and lined himself up with my entrance after rolling it on.

“If it’s not punishment or revenge, why are you making me wait?” I grunted, hating the neediness that crept into my voice, but completely powerless to stop it

Jarred’s expression was fierce, his eyes pinned to mine and as serious as I’d ever seen them. “Because I need you too badly to let any of that other shit still be on your mind. I also don’t want you in some kind of post-orgasmic haze, or whatever it’s called. I need you with me, seeing how much I want to come with you, because if you see that, there’s no way you’ll believe that I did it with anyone else.”

Eyes on mine, hands on my thighs, he rammed into me and proceeded to fly me to the stars, but not before letting me see and hear exactly what I needed to.