Taking the Lead (Secrets of a Rock Star #1) Read online

  But it hadn’t been. I could feel the upset pecking away at the bubble of satisfaction that the sex had left me with. What was upsetting me so much?

  Was it that I’d just let a rock star fuck me like a groupie in the back of a limo? And it wasn’t just that. I’d debased myself in front of him, begged, obeyed, acted … submissive. The public didn’t know about it, but I knew. My body hadn’t felt this good, well, ever. I should have been chilly and sore and rug-burned but I felt like I’d had the first truly nourishing meal of my life and the fact that it had come from a near-total stranger in questionable circumstances left me feeling conflicted. Confused.

  I didn’t like being confused. I looked at Axel. A few minutes ago in the middle of the act I’d convinced myself he was some kind of soul mate, but now that I was thinking about it, how could that be? We didn’t even know each other. I scolded myself: Just because a guy’s cock fits your cooch doesn’t make him a soul mate.

  “Ricki?” He looked concerned. “Shower at Sakura’s?”

  Maybe I’d had more champagne than I’d realized. How else could I explain the temporary insanity that had taken over? I didn’t like being bossed around by men! It was the worst thing about working in the entertainment industry. How could that be the thing that made me melt inside? It had made me forget all my responsibilities! That was a terrifying thought, that there was anything that could make me forget my responsibilities. I’m not one of those flirts, frivolous girls, or a fuck-up, I tried to tell myself. I’m not.

  “Ricki,” he tried again. “Earth to Ricki. Do you want to stop at Sakura’s and have a shower?”

  Time to go into crisis management mode. I was always cool under pressure, it’s just that this time the crisis was raging inside my own skin. I waved my hand. “No. We’d better get to the Governor’s Mansion.” I just wanted to go home. Where I could be sure there were no snooping cell phone cameras and where we could go in the private entrance. “Where’s my phone?”

  He shrugged sheepishly. Adorably, damn him—he still looked gorgeous enough to eat, even if my ire was starting to grow as I thought of more and more reasons why this had been a terrible idea. He’d kidnapped me without my clutch purse. Or shoes. (They weren’t even my shoes!) The phone, though—I felt naked without it, ironic as that might have been given the circumstances.

  “Do you have yours?”

  He shook his head, a grin spreading across his face.

  For fuck’s sake. “Does the driver at least have a cell phone?”

  “I’m sure he does.”

  “Fine. Get on the horn. Have him call Sakura to meet us at the mansion, and then have him call my security department to get directions to bring us to the back gate. Relay him the number I give you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a chuckle and a mock salute.

  “Sorry,” I said when he was done with the phone call, when it occurred to me maybe it was a little rude to just boss a person around like that. “I’m … used to being in charge.”

  “Obviously,” he said. He sighed and opened a storage compartment. “I guess I should make myself presentable.”

  I watched, somewhat fascinated, while he cleaned himself up with baby wipes and then put on a pair of jeans and an artfully torn T-shirt that he’d clearly stashed in the car earlier in the evening. They’d clearly planned out the whole stunt well in advance.

  I looked at my own clothes. There was no way I was getting the upper part of the gown back on at this point. The entire thing was wrinkled beyond recognition and the zipper must have caught on something during the action because it was hanging loose. I picked up the strip of loose fabric from the floor.

  “You ripped my actual bodice,” I said, incredulous.

  He looked me over with a possessive, appraising look. “So I did.”

  To think that even though I was getting angrier at him by the second, I felt a flutter of desire as his eyes traveled up and down my skin. “What are you going to do about it?” I snapped.

  I wasn’t expecting him to have a practical answer. “Wear this,” he said, and handed me a black, button-down shirt.

  He helped me to put it on and I wasn’t sure if the delicious scent of him that wafted through me was from the shirt or the fact that he was now so close to me once again. His fingers came to rest lightly on the back of my hand …

  The only way to fight the seductive pull of him was to let my anger loose. “So. Were you planning to have sex with Sakura in here tonight?”

  “No, nothing like that. I knew I was going to want a costume change, though.” He looked slightly puzzled but not defensive.

  I pressed him. “Which is why you had a straight razor and a condom?”

  His eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Okay, first of all, the straight razor is for this ‘bad boy’ stubble I planned to get rid of before hitting parties tonight. And any smart guy keeps condoms in his shaving kit.”

  It didn’t feel like he was lying, but I was in attack mode. “I want to see you shave with that straight razor. When we get to the mansion.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “As you wish, Your Highness. After all, it’s your castle.”

  We rode in silence for a while.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m fine,” I insisted. In my mind other protests rose, but I kept my lips pressed firmly together. I’m an adult and I can handle my emotions, thank you. I’m not some schoolgirl who just lost her virginity. He gave a skeptical twitch of his eyebrow.

  I picked up his hand very deliberately by the wrist and moved it over to his own leg, then moved over on the seat so that there was a good gap between us.

  He folded his hands in his lap and looked away.

  AXEL

  Well, that was the fastest cold shoulder I’d ever experienced. I tried to play it cool, like it was no big deal that the woman I didn’t want to stop touching was now acting like I wasn’t fit to scrape the gunk off the bottom of her Gucci shoe.

  Who was I kidding? She was Hollywood royalty. Which I guess made me the equivalent of a stable boy.

  Christina had told me the first time I’d flown into Hollywood that this town was set up to do two things: inflate egos and batter them. I had no illusions about that, I thought. But a few minutes ago I’d been this woman’s god. Now she was acting like I wasn’t even there.

  Ricki was twirling a lock of her hair beside her neck, looking at the window as if she could see anything through the blackout tinting. The sun had set and you couldn’t make out much. Besides, we were on the freeway.

  I stretched to see if she would glance my way. Nope. Not even a flicker.

  The one good thing about being ignored was I could look at her all I wanted. If I had thought she looked great when she was all made up perfectly, sitting in the audience of the theater, now she was positively ravishing. Her skin glowed, her hair was a sexy mess, and her lips were still plump from being kissed.

  I felt a growl of desire deep in my groin, despite the fact I’d just come. Sitting there with her neck perfectly straight and her knees together only made me dream of having her under me again. Was that intense connection I’d felt just my imagination? I couldn’t separate the sexual lust I felt from the desire to feel her whole self melded with mine. When I took control—no, when she’d surrendered to it—it had felt so real, so special, so unlike the kinky sex games I’d played with my old roommate Roë or with the occasional adventurous groupie. They had been fun. But none of them had felt like mine.

  She was curling that lock of hair right by the erogenous zone in her neck. I’m sure she didn’t notice. I indulged in the fantasy that I was giving her a hickey right in that spot that would be visible for weeks. I wasn’t stupid: I’d been careful not to leave marks. But a man can dream, can’t he? I longed suddenly for the freedom to mark her as my own, to show the entire world exactly who she belonged to …

  I was startled from
my reverie by the limo phone ringing. I picked it up. “Hello?”

  “It’s Felipe.” The driver. “Sakura just called. You won.”

  “I what?”

  “Won. The Grammy Award. For Best New Artist. She thought you’d want to know.”

  “Yes! Yes, thank you!” I punched my fist in the air as I hung up the phone. I hadn’t dared to imagine we might actually win! I felt suddenly dizzy, like I’d downed a bottle of champagne. We won? We really won? Maybe that would be enough to get us that British deal now.

  I turned to Ricki gleefully. She at least looked mildly curious.

  “Sakura called to say we won the Grammy for Best New Artist!”

  She tipped her head toward me with a smile and said, “How nice for you,” in a perfect performance of polite acknowledgment. No real emotion. I’m not even sure she was really paying attention to what I said by that point.

  This town does two things to egos: inflates them, and batters them. I sat back in my seat and tapped my fingers on my knee like I was too cool to care, like I was already hearing the next hit song I was going to write in my head, like I wasn’t being ripped apart inside by emotional whiplash.

  Ricki Hamilton wasn’t what I’d expected an heiress to be like. Well, until a couple of minutes ago. I wondered who or what could have hurt her so badly to make her that cold, when I knew I had reached a molten core of passion underneath.

  We were pulling up to a gate. Ricki pressed the button to lower her window a crack and said a few words to a dark-suited security guard. Next thing I knew we were sailing up a private road into the hills. How big was this estate? It felt like we were driving for a while. And then a garage door opened and let us into a private parking garage built into the side of a hill.

  A member of her staff opened her door while I got out myself, wondering if that was even allowed. She was off like a shot toward the door into the mansion. I followed close on her heels, a member of her staff following me just as closely. I got a distinct vibe of security guard from him.

  A few steps beyond the door she stopped and turned sharply. “Reeve.”

  “Yes, Ms. Hamilton.”

  “Speak to the driver. His name is Felipe. Tell him to contact Sakura and let her know that Riggs will drive her here so she can meet up with Mr. Hawke. Make sure they’re both on tonight’s guest list, and be sure to add the rest of Mr. Hawke’s bandmates if they’re not already on the list.”

  “Done,” Reeve said with a nod. If he even noticed the state of her clothes—rumpled evening gown from the waist down and man’s shirt from the waist up—he didn’t let it show. Her feet were bare. I wanted to carry her, to sweep her up in my arms, but I worried if I did that would Reeve beat my face into the floor?

  “Good. And then direct the driver where he can park for the evening. Mr. Hawke will be coming with me.”

  “If you’d like me to give Mr. Hawke the orientation—” Reeve began.

  “No. I’ll handle it. Thank you, Reeve.”

  The tall man gave a nod of his head and went back into the garage.

  She really was used to being in charge. I had to take a couple of longer strides to catch up with her again. “You’re in a hurry,” I said.

  “If they announced Best New Artist fifteen minutes ago, the ceremony is close to over,” she said. “And the party will start here not long after that.”

  She led me through parts of what was obviously a huge, sprawling mansion, with high ceilings and mirrors bigger than Buicks. We went up a set of stairs.

  “Orientation?” I asked.

  She pressed a key code on an ornate door and led me through it, then shut it firmly behind me. Now we were in another hallway, this one with thick carpeting, a lower ceiling, and a few small paintings on the walls.

  “This is my wing,” she said, gesturing up the hallway. “This is a private area of the house. The private areas are strictly off limits to guests without an explicit invitation from me or my sister.”

  “Ah.” I gave her my best bad-boy smile. “Since I’m here, I assume this means you’re ex-pli-cit-ly inviting me …?”

  Her finger came up in warning, pointing at me. I raised my hands as if it were a loaded gun. So much for her brusqueness merely being for show for her staff or something.

  “If you think I brought you back here for … shenanigans, you’ve got another think coming. We’re here so we can have a private conversation where prying ears can’t hear it.” She looked at the locked door and frowned. “Come on.”

  She marched deeper into her domain and I followed. She led me to a bathroom bigger than my apartment in San Francisco had been. The entire thing was done in slabs of expensive marble—or maybe it was granite?—with a tub large enough for two, a shower big enough to wash a horse, and his-and-hers sinks. There was an orange-blossom scent in the air that matched what her hair had smelled like and I guessed it was her shampoo or conditioner.

  She pulled a towel from a cabinet and placed it precisely on the edge of the counter beside the sink, as if by being very dainty, very neat, she was making up for being a sex-smeared disheveled mess. At least she didn’t throw the towel at me. “You will wash. You will remove any … evidence of the activities that took place en route.”

  I held in a chuckle. I didn’t think she’d appreciate me laughing, even if her reaction was ridiculous. “Ricki,” I said, trying to sound as down-to-earth as I could, hoping to get past the walls she was putting up. “We’re adults. We’re allowed to have a little fun.”

  Her hands balled into fists. “Maybe you are. Rock star.” She said it like a slur.

  “It was just a little kinky sex.”

  Wrong thing to say. Mount Hamilton blew her top at that one. “Exactly! Just what the hell kind of cheap, disgusting whore do you think I am? I don’t sleep with any guy who whips his dick out and tells me to suck it! What the fucking fuck possessed you to … to … argh!” She lost coherence and gave a strangled roar of frustration.

  “Okay back up, hang on. I don’t think you’re cheap and I don’t think you’re disgusting. I was under the impression you were a willing participant in what we did, you know.” Well, except for the part where I carried you off. But that was theater. That was an act. I was sure she knew the difference. “You think I carry women off and fuck them in the back of a limo all the time?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No!” My protest came out a little more forceful than I expected. It was really starting to worry me that she was still in freak-out mode, and I was starting to fear that I really wasn’t going to be able to get through to her. Was I wrong about her? Was I wrong about what I’d felt? She hadn’t been play-acting. In fact, when I’d first carried her out of the auditorium I didn’t think it would actually lead where it did. You’re in over your head, Ax. “Why the hell did you kiss me if you … you …”

  She was livid. “Do not try to cook up some bullshit story, mister, about how I led you on. Not for the fucking tabloids and not in your own fucking head, you get me?”

  If she had some actual reasons for being upset, maybe I could talk my way through this, though. “Is that what’s bothering you? That this might get out? I know how to keep my mouth shut. For fuck’s sake, Ricki, the playboy image is exactly that. An image. I don’t fuck everything that moves and I don’t blab to the press about it. That wouldn’t be responsible.”

  “Responsible.” She crossed her arms but I felt like I was starting to get through, at least a little. It was better when she was angry and responding to me than when she was cold and ignoring me.

  “Yeah. Responsible. And right now I’m feeling very responsible for the fact that you are having a Threat-Level Orange freak-out. If we’re going to talk, could we sit down?”

  Nope, she shut me down again. “There’s no time for that.” She looked in the mirror and shimmied the dress off her hips, leaving it in a pooled heap on the handwoven bath mat. Now all she was wearing was my black button-down shirt and it was the sexiest thing I�
�d ever seen. I tried to take a picture in my mind so I could treasure the memory, since if things continued to unravel I wasn’t going to ever see that again. I tried not to dwell on that thought. There had to be a way to get through to her. She turned the hot tap on the sink and waited for the water to warm up.

  “Now you’re the one being irresponsible,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I know you’ve got people to meet and things to do tonight, but stop for one second and take care of your own stuff. You’re freaking out. I get it.” I had a strong suspicion that maybe what was upsetting her so much was not that she didn’t like the sex, but that she did. That made it difficult to apologize for, but no less my responsibility to try to talk her down. “What I did made you feel shitty. Let me help you feel better.”

  “What would make me feel better is if you would do as I say.”

  Maybe it was also the whole being-in-charge/not-being-in-charge thing that got to her. Maybe letting someone else have control had been too scary. I decided to go along with her for a bit while waiting for my next opening. I looked down at myself and then at my reflection in the huge mirror behind the sinks. “You want me to remove the evidence? I’m almost in party shape.” I rubbed my hand over my jaw where there was that patch Tashonda had left as stubble for the sake of creating a rugged look for television. What had she said in the car?

  I caught her eye in the mirror. “You want me to prove I didn’t have this in the car for the sake of kink?” I put my kit down on top of the towel, took out the razor, and flipped it open with one hand.

  This was a nice one, a gift from Sakura, with a shiny blade and a lovely, old-style handle. I caught the flicker of interest in Ricki’s eyes before she snuffed it.

  I waved the blade in my hand, letting the bright jewel-lights glint off the steel. “I won’t lie, Ricki. Cutting your underwear off was one of the hottest things I’ve ever done. But I wish I hadn’t if it messed with your head too much.”

  She blew a breath out through her nose and I imagined steam curling from her nostrils. But my being honest worked: she cooled down a bit. “Underwear can be replaced.” Only a bit, though: “Reputation can’t.”