Prologue
Jet Keller was all kinds of temptation wrapped up in too-tight pants and with too many personal demons hidden in those dark, golden-rimmed eyes. He was every girl’s rock-and-roll fantasy, with an edge that made him just sharp enough to be hard to handle. And boy, oh boy, did I want to handle him in every way possible.
The trouble was that I was supposed to be making better decisions and walking a clean and much narrower path now. There could be no stops for the kind of things Jet inspired along the way, and no detours for the spontaneous combustion he brought with him. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on who was looking at the situation—it was a two-against-one battle, with my brain coming up short and my body and heart repeatedly overruling my better judgment.
Ayden Cross was a puzzle that, every time I thought I was close to solving, proved to have five extra pieces and no corners. For a long time, I thought she was a Southern belle, complete with mile-long legs in cowboy boots, but then she would turn around and do something that knocked me on my ass.
I had the feeling I didn’t know the real Ayden at all. I would gladly spend the time it took to unravel it all, to undo her in every way I could. But I knew firsthand what happened when two people who had opposite ideas of what a relationship should be tried to force it to work. I wasn’t up for that, even if she made all the parts of me that scorched and blazed manageable in a way no one else ever had.
So It Begins
It was totally against everything I was supposed to be doing in my new life—to ask a really cute boy in a band to take me home. There were rules. There were standards. There were simply things I did now to avoid ever going back to being the way I was—and sticking around to wait for Jet Keller was right on the top of the no-no list. There was just something about him, watching him wail and engage the crowd while he was onstage that turned my normally sensible brain to mush.
I knew better than to ask my bestie what was wrong with me.
She was all about boys covered head-to-toe in ink and littered with jewelry in places the Lord never intended boys to be pierced. She would just say it was the allure of someone so different, someone so obviously not my type, but I knew that wasn’t it.
He was entrancing. Every single person in the packed bar had their eyes on him and couldn’t look away. He was making the crowd feel—I mean really feel—whatever it was he was screeching, and that was amazing.
I hated heavy metal. To me, all it sounded like was yelling and screaming over even louder instruments. But the show, the intensity, and the undeniable vibe of power he was unleashing with just his voice—there was just something about it that drove me to drag Shaw to the front of the stage. I couldn’t look away.
Sure, he was good-looking. All the guys who Shaw’s boyfriend ran around with were. I wasn’t immune to a pretty face and a nice body; in fact, at one point those things had proven to be weaknesses that had gotten me in more trouble than I cared to think about. Now I tended toward guys who I was attracted to on a more intellectual level.
However, one too many shots of Patrón and whatever crazy pheromone this guy was emitting right now had me forgetting all about my new and improved standards in men.
His hair looked like he had just shaken off whatever girl had messed it up. At some point during the set he had peeled off his wife-beater to reveal a lean and tightly muscled torso that was covered from the base of his throat to somewhere below his belt buckle in a giant black and gray tattoo of an angel of death. He had on the tightest black jeans I had ever seen a guy wear, decorated with a variety of chains hanging from his belt to his back pocket, and they left little to the imagination.
That might have been why Shaw and I were nowhere near the only female fans at the front of the stage.
I had seen Jet before, of course. He came into the bar where I worked on a pretty regular basis. I knew that the eyes, now squeezed shut as he bellowed a note that was enough to have the girl to my left spontaneously orgasm, were a dark, deep brown that gleamed with easygoing humor. I knew of his penchant for outrageous flirtation. Jet was the charmer of the group and had no qualms about using that, combined with his heartbreaking grin, to get what he wanted.
I felt a warm hand land on my shoulder and turned to look up at Shaw’s boyfriend, Rule. He towered over the rest of the crowd and I could tell by the twist of his mouth that he was ready to go. Shaw didn’t even wait for him to ask, before turning to me with guileless green eyes.
“I’m going with him. Are you ready?”
Shaw and I had a “leave no man behind” policy, but I was far from ready to call it a night. We had to scream over the blaring guitars and the ear-splitting vocals bombarding us from our prime location, so I bent down to holler in her ear.
“I’m gonna hang out for a bit. I think I’ll see if Rule’s friend can give me a ride.”
I saw her speculative look, but Shaw had her own boy drama to handle, so I knew she wasn’t about to try to tell me any differently. She hooked her hand through Rule’s arm and gave me a rueful grin.
“Call me if you need me.”
“You know it.”
I wasn’t the kind of girl who needed a wingman or wingwoman. I was used to flying solo and I had been taking care of myself for so long it was really second nature. I knew Shaw would swoop in to grab me if I couldn’t get a ride home or if calling a cab took too long, and knowing she was there was enough.
I watched the rest of the show in rapt fascination, and I was pretty sure that when Jet threw the microphone down after his final song, he winked at me before slamming back a shot of Jameson. Even with all of the things I knew I should be doing pounding in my head, that wink sealed the deal.