He was absolutely right and that just made me feel even worse.
I spent the rest of the dinner sulking, and to his credit Adam still offered to pay for the entire bill. I couldn’t let him do that, so I paid for my half and for the tip, to make up for being such a jerk. He drove me to the Fillmore and I had every intention of jumping out of the car and dashing inside, but for some reason when he caught sight of the crowd waiting out front decked out in a whole lot of denim and spikes, he decided that he had to park and walk me in.
I wanted to tell him that it was unnecessary. I had been to plenty of these shows over the past year, and while my fancy dress might garner a few weird looks, most of these guys could care less about me. They were here for the music. But I had already rained on his parade enough for one day, so I let Adam guide me up to the front doors. I didn’t miss the scowl on his face when I told the girl taking tickets I was on the list.
She double-checked my name and wrapped a bracelet around my wrist that said I was over twenty-one. She looked questioningly at Adam, who just shrugged and paid for a ticket. He stood out like a sore thumb amid all the other miscreants milling around, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was going to be even worse when we got inside. We had to wait in a little bit of a line to get to the front doors, and I tried to tell him I was fine, but he kept insisting on at least getting me to my waiting friends. Since Enmity was the headlining band, I knew that Jet would have arranged for them to have one of the VIP tiers up in the balcony by the bar. It took a little work, and a lot of waiting for Adam to stop gaping at barely clothed girls and guys who looked like they ate glass and metal for breakfast, to get to the rest of the group.
Shaw was pressed up against Rule and looked cute in a black dress with pink polka-dot hearts scattered all across it. Rule’s nod to the holiday was to have dyed the front of his dark hair a shocking hot pink. Only a guy like Rule could rock pink hair and not have to give a second thought to getting his ass kicked.
Nash was in a deep conversation with Cora, who looked much better today. Rowdy was saying something to Jet, trying to get his attention. It was to no avail, because as soon as Jet’s gaze locked on Adam and me making our way over, those dark eyes went pitch-black and the gold on the outside started burning like embers. I had to swallow a lump in my throat, because for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why he was so mad. Before I could say anything, he pushed away from the table and stalked away without saying anything to me or anyone else.
I stiffened automatically when Shaw slipped away from Rule to wrap me in a hug. “Hey, girl, you look great.”
I cleared my throat and waved a hand around the table. “Adam, this is everyone, everyone, this is Adam.”
I didn’t wait to see if anyone talked to him. I focused my gaze on Rowdy and moved toward him with purpose. He was staring past me at Adam, and sucking on a Coors Light tall boy. I put myself right in his line of sight and crossed my arms over my chest.
“What’s Jet’s problem?” I was one second from tapping my toe like a disgruntled kid and I think he could tell, because he just smiled at me and tipped the beer up.
“You should probably ask him.”
Annoyed, I poked him in the center of his solid chest. “I’m asking you. He’s been acting pissed off all week. What’s going on with him?”
He moved the beer and narrowed his eyes at me. Rowdy was your typical blond-haired, blue-eyed, perfectly sculpted God’s gift to women, but there was always something lurking just below the surface of that ocean-colored gaze that let people know there was more to him than just an easy smile and a good time. There were depths beyond all that tattooed skin and perfectly coiffed hair. I didn’t know him as well as some of the others, but in him I felt a kindred spirit I didn’t bother to try to define.
“It’s Valentine’s Day, Ayd, and you showed up looking like a goddamn pinup model, on the arm of a guy that dresses like someone’s dad. Like I said, maybe you should go ask him what’s wrong. I think it’s long past time that the two of you have an honest conversation, before one of you—or both of you—end up doing some kind of irreparable damage to the other.”
I sucked in a hard breath between my teeth and put a hand on my racing heart. The opening band was starting their set, so I knew Jet would have gone backstage to make sure the band was getting ready to go. I looked over my shoulder and noticed that Adam was alternately looking at Rule like he was an alien from another planet, and at Shaw like she was crazy for cuddling up to him like he was a giant teddy bear. He just didn’t get it, and even if I had tried to make a relationship with him work, he never would have gotten it.
“Will they let me backstage to talk to him?”
“Sugar, looking the way you look right now, nobody in their right mind would try to stop you.”
I had to give him a smile for that. “Will you keep an eye on Adam? Make sure Rule doesn’t murder him or that Cora doesn’t convince him to do something stupid, like move to Antarctica.”
He nodded briefly and went back to his beer. “I got you covered, Ayd.”
I spun on my heel and dashed down the steps and across the wide general admission floor to the stairs at the side of the stage. The first band was playing and it was getting more crowded, so I had to wiggle and shimmy a little more than I planned. At the top of the stairs, the security guard tried to stop me from going by, but I told him I was with the band. I said that I was with Jet, and like Rowdy had said, the guy did a quick sweep of my outfit (and lingered on my legs) before letting me by. It took me a minute to find the right room, and when I did it, I found only Von and Catcher sitting in big leather chairs messing around with their instruments. They looked up at me in surprise and I felt my heart trip when I didn’t see Jet anywhere.
“Uh, hey.”
“Hey,” they chorused in unison.
“I’m, uh, looking for Jet. Have you seen him?” They shared a look that I didn’t understand, and Catcher cleared his throat. He inclined his head toward the door at the back of the room.
“He came in and smashed a bottle of Jameson against the wall. He went in there a few minutes ago.”
I looked at the door and back at them. If the door was locked and he didn’t let me in, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I stepped gingerly around the piles of cords and switches littering the floor. I was about to try to pull the door open when Von called out, “We sorta need him to get his shit together ASAP, so try not to get him even more riled up than he already is.”
I nodded absently and knocked lightly on the door. “Jet?”
There was no answer, but the knob turned easily under my hand, so I slipped in and silently prayed he wasn’t doing something that would embarrass us both. He had his back to me and was leaning over the sink staring at himself in the dingy mirror. His gaze snapped up to mine in the dirty glass and there was no misreading the hostility stamped on his handsome face or the wildness in those dark eyes. The gold rims were melting and hot, and he looked like he was on the very edge of losing control. His biceps flexed and tensed like he was going to pull the sink off the wall and hurl it.
“What do you want, Ayden?”
That was a loaded question if there ever was one.
“I just wanted to see what was wrong with you. You’ve been acting like you’re mad at me all week and I don’t understand why.”
I saw his hands tighten and his fingers flex. I also noticed that instead of his usual black nail polish, he had painted the middle fingernail on each hand the same bloodred as my dress. That shouldn’t be hot, but on him it just totally was.
“Why did you bring that guy to my show?” The bathroom felt stifling and small. I could sense the intensity of whatever he was feeling, vibrating across my skin. I had never seen him this raw unless he was on stage performing, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it in such close quarters.
“I didn’t bring him. We went to dinner and I was planning on getting dropped off, but he kind of freaked out when he saw everyone running around outside and insisted on coming in with me. What does that have to do with why you’re acting like such a prick toward me? You can’t be mad I’m hanging out with a guy I’ve been seeing for months, when you had a girl leave your room with her panties in her back pocket less than a week ago.” I paused.
“Come on, Jet, what gives?”
I thought maybe he was going to lay into me. I thought maybe he was going to tell me that I had no right to judge him. I thought maybe he was going to yell that I shouldn’t be bringing someone I knew he didn’t like around, when he was getting ready to play a big, important show.
What I wasn’t prepared for was for him to let go of his death grip on the sink and stalk toward me with fire and something else burning in his dark eyes. Or for rough hands heavy with rings pushing me back up against the bathroom door, and then traveling up higher, through my hair. Jet slammed his mouth down hard enough on mine that it made me whimper, and for a second I was so shocked all I could do was stand there and let him devour me with those hands I’d stared at for months and with a tongue that had the glide of metal in it.
By the time my brain reengaged, he was starting to pull away, but now that the seal had been broken there was no stopping the flood. Desire blazed first and foremost, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. keeping him right where he was. He tasted like whiskey and the sweetest kind of temptation there was. Lust had me pressing as close to him as I could and I felt his knee slide up under the skirt of my dress. The shock from the contrast of cold and hot as the barbell he had through his tongue moved back and forth across my own, made me gasp. That only gave him better access to everything he was trying to invade. On my tiptoes now, all of the best parts of him were pressing hard and insistent against all the wanting parts of me, and I couldn’t ever remember a simple kiss being something as powerful as this.
I didn’t want to let him go.
Chapter 4
I was living in a state of perpetual fury. I was still furious that my narcissistic and overbearing father thought he could blackmail me, using my mom. I was livid that my mom would let him use her like that. I was incensed that I couldn’t get Ayden out of my head, and I was just flat-out angry that it mattered to me whether she wanted to spend Valentine’s Day with me or with Mr. Perfect. As a result I was acting like an asshole to anyone and everyone that dared cross my path the past few days. The guys in the band were sick of my shit and if Rowdy told me to just take her to bed and get it over with one more time, I was pretty sure I was going to knock all his front teeth out.
All I wanted to do was get through the show, figure out what I was going to do about my folks, and maybe set up a short tour so I could get out of town and put some distance between me and a certain brunette who was buried under my skin.
But then she had to show up in a bloodred dress, looking like she just stepped off the pages of a hot-rod magazine, with that sweater-vest-wearing douche trailing behind her like a lost dog. She was just too much for me to handle at the moment. Those endless legs and bright-red lips had my head going to all kinds of places it shouldn’t. She was there with a date, so I walked away in the middle of whatever Rowdy was trying to tell me, and headed to the band room backstage. The rest of the guys were warming up and getting ready, but the idea of going onstage while I felt so volatile made something inside me snap. I grabbed the closest thing to me—a bottle of whiskey I had been drinking from earlier—and chucked it against the wall.