Bad Boys After Dark: Mick (18 page)

Chased by Love
(The Ryders)

“I’M GOING OVER. Should I go over? Tell me I shouldn’t. Or should I?” Trish Ryder clutched her cell phone, pacing inside her trailer on the set of her latest film,
No Strings
. She’d been trying to study her lines all night, but her costar, famed rocker Boone Stryker, had a full-blown party going on at his trailer, and she could barely think past the noise.

“It’s midnight and you have to be on set in seven hours,” her best friend, Fiona, reminded her. “
You’re
the star, so yes. Get your ass over there and pull a diva.”

Trish stopped cold. “But I’m
not
a diva!”

“Of course not, but you know that’s what his groupies will think, which you do
not
care about. Right?”

“Right.” She nodded curtly, but she
did
care. She cared a lot, and Fiona knew that about her. She’d worked hard to keep a professional reputation clear of any diva attitude or impressions, and she didn’t want to blow it for a self-centered rock star making his film debut.

Fiona groaned, and Trish heard her friend’s fiancé, Jake Braden, say, “Give me the phone.”

“Do
not
give him the phone.” Trish paced again. She adored Jake. Not only was he an amazing stuntman, but he treated her bestie like a princess. But Jake, like each of Trish’s five brothers, had the protective alpha thing down pat, which meant he’d want to take care of this
for
her.

“Like I have a choice?” Fiona giggled, and Trish heard them struggling over the phone.

“Trish?” Jake’s tone made her name sound like a command she should salute.

Trish Ryder saluted no man. “No, it’s Mary Poppins.”

“Okay. Well, listen, Mary,” Jake said without missing a beat. “March your pretty little ass over there and tell the guy to straighten up. If he gives you any crap, call me back, and I’ll come to the set and knock some sense into him.”

Of course you will
. “Thanks, Jake, but I can handle it. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to stir up trouble. He’s already messed up so badly, the whole crew knows the film’s on thin ice.”

“Even more of a reason for you to set him straight,” Jake said. “You don’t have to be a bitch. Just be your normal, confident self. He’d have to be a real dick not to rectify the situation.”

She sighed, and heard Jake pass the phone back to Fiona. Maybe they were right. She was a well-respected actress, and this
was
Boone’s first film. Maybe he simply wasn’t up to speed on film-set etiquette. Obviously, since in the span of a few weeks he’d missed the preproduction meeting, showed up late to the set, and screwed up too many scenes to count.

“I’m back. You okay?” Fiona asked.

“Yes. No. I don’t know, but I’m going over. You guys are right. If I’m awake all night, I’ll be the one messing up tomorrow, and I don’t need the director upset with me.”

After Trish ended the call, she set her phone down beside a copy of
Rolling Stone
magazine. A picture of Boone, shirtless, graced the cover. She’d read the article. She’d read every article about Boone taking on the role in
No Strings
, and they all said the same thing.
Boone Stryker is everything fantasies are made of: warm brown eyes that say “help me,” “do me and you’ll never forget me,” body ink indicative of a troubled soul, and an insurmountable dedication to his craft.

They left out
self-centered asshole with no respect for anyone but himself
. And based on his behavior, she wasn’t even sure he had that.

Well, guess what? It’s time to grow up
.

Her phone vibrated with a call from her eldest brother, Duke. She groaned.
Damn it, Jake. You’ve got a big freaking mouth
. Sometimes being a little sister sucked—even at almost thirty years old. She let the call go to voicemail. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with her overprotective eldest brother who was ten years her senior. When would he learn that having ovaries didn’t mean she needed looking after?

She stormed out of her trailer, assaulted by the sounds of rock and roll coming from across the lot. Groups of scantily clad women and shirtless men, smoking and drinking, created a buffer between Boone’s trailer and the rest of the world. Trish stood and watched for a moment, trying to spot Boone among the mass of swaying bodies. She couldn’t imagine living with groupies around all the time. It was no wonder he showed up late and was never prepared. How could anyone deal with this and concentrate on anything?

She tossed her hair over her shoulder and lifted her chin, squaring her shoulders like she wasn’t nervous at all. She was an actress. She could do this, and Jake was right. There was no need to be a bitch. She’d act calm and cool, and hopefully Boone would respond reasonably.
Cool. Yeah, right
. She didn’t usually have trouble with confrontations, but the badass rocker struck chords she’d never had tweaked before, and he did it with little more than a glance, which was horribly embarrassing. She couldn’t deny the rush of heat that consumed her every time their eyes connected. Unfortunately, as hot as their chemistry was off set, when she and Boone were acting, he became cold, like he didn’t want to feel the heat. In an effort to keep the situation from becoming even more uncomfortable, she’d kept her distance when they were off set. She hated that this would be their first
real
interaction. But that was on him, she decided, and set out across the lot, hoping to get this over with as quickly as possible.

The smell of cigarettes, weed, sweat, and sex hung heavily in the air. She pulled her arms in close, turning sideways to fit between less-than-accommodating people, and weaved through the drunken mob toward his trailer. She scanned the crowd for Boone, trying to ignore the way men and women were eyeing her up. She was used to being looked at, and she wasn’t generally judgmental, but the groupie vibe and raunchy smell made her feel like she needed a shower. Stat!

“Hey, babe,” a long-haired guy said as she squeezed between him and a busty brunette.

She forced a smile and pushed past, making a beeline for the trailer door. It seemed ridiculous to knock, given the scene she’d just waded through, but she knocked anyway. No one answered. She knocked again, louder, and when no one answered, she tried the knob. Locked.
Perfect
. The asshole was probably passed out naked with a harem of women. An icy chill rushed down her spine.
Yuck
. She pushed her way back through the crowd, determined to give him hell tomorrow, regardless of how it affected the movie. This was bullshit. How could he sleep with all that racket?

“Trish?”

She startled at the sound of Boone’s voice coming from the direction of the parking lot and spun around. He had the most sensual voice she’d ever heard. It didn’t matter if he was singing or acting, it affected her every time. It was deep and rich, and somehow rough, demanding both attention and intimacy. She tried to steady her racing heart with a few deep breaths as she drank him in. He held his guitar case in one hand and sported a half-cocked smile. He had beautiful full lips, and despite everything, the mere sight of his perfectly bowed mouth made hers water. His faded T-shirt clung to every muscle in his insanely defined chest. Lust chased frustration up her body. She had the inside scoop on his selfishness and
still
she wanted to fell him like a tree and devour him limb by perfect limb.

She swallowed a puddle of drool, drew her shoulders back again, and set a hand on her hip, hoping to mask her attraction. His smile turned smug, and his eyes lit with a spark of intel that made her gut twist.
Bastard
.

“Did I wake you?” She might not have been able to mask her attraction, but every word she spoke was laden with sarcasm.

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed, as if he were bored with the conversation. Or maybe with life.

“Wake me?” he said with an arched brow. “I just got here.”

She glanced at the crowd and pointed to her ears, indicating the blaring music there was no way he could miss, and glared at him. “You just let your groupies run wild like this while you’re not even around?”

He strode toward her, his piercing dark eyes sucking her right into his vortex. He stopped when they were toe to toe, filling the air with his confident arrogance and making it hard to breathe, much less concentrate.

“I had no idea they were partying. I’ll shut it down. But for the record, no. I don’t let my
groupies
run wild.” His gaze roved over her face, and she narrowed her eyes, hoping he couldn’t see the way every sweep sent waves of heat to all her best parts. “You went over there?”

“Some of us take this movie seriously. I can’t prepare with that noise going on all night.”

Boone raked his eyes down her body, causing her to nearly combust. A sinful smile curved his lips as his eyes began a slow stroll north, over her hips, lingering on her breasts, and bringing her traitorous nipples to attention, greeting him like a long-lost lover.

“Pretty woman like you shouldn’t scowl so much.” His rich voice slid over her skin like a caress, leaving goose bumps in its wake.

God, she hated herself right now.

Unwilling to give him the upper hand, she flashed a haughty smirk and returned his assessment with a lecherous leer of her own, drinking in every inch of his athletic build, from his bulging biceps to the ripped abs evident beneath his clingy shirt, all the way to the formidable package at the juncture of his powerful thighs. She lingered there, brazenly licking her lips.

He leaned in close—so close she thought he might kiss her. And damn it to hell, she wanted him to. Lust and challenge pulsed between them, thick and alive like a third heart. She shifted her eyes away and noticed a gorgeous platinum blonde standing in the shadows behind him. Embarrassment and something that felt far too similar to the claws of jealousy dug into her.

Her eyes shot to Boone, but before she could say a word, he said, “I’ll take care of the noise,” and stalked away with an arm around the blonde.

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CHASED BY LOVE (The Ryders)

**

Your next book boyfriend

PARKER COLLINS SHOVED a handful of M&M’s in her mouth, eyes glued to
Saw III
. A burst of light illuminated the pitch-black media room, followed by a scream of terror. Christmas, her four-year-old English mastiff, sacked out beside her on the couch, pushed his big head beneath her legs as darkness shrouded them again. Another shrill scream brought her big chicken of a dog deeper into her leg tunnel.

“Whoever said dogs were a
man’s
best friend was an idiot.
My
best friend.”
Especially now that Bert’s gone.
A few tears slipped down her cheek.

Christmas whimpered, pulled his head from beneath her legs, and licked her from chin to eyes, getting every last one of her tears and coming back for more. He’d been lapping up her tears for two weeks, ever since she’d lost her friend, mentor, and the only family she’d ever known. Bert Stein had suffered a massive heart attack while Parker was in Italy filming her latest movie, and she’d been moving on autopilot ever since: picking up Christmas from his housekeeper in Los Angeles because Bert had been watching him while she was away, attending Bert’s funeral,
trying to remember how to breathe
, and finally, coming to her house in Wellfleet to mourn—and, she hoped, to mend a fence Bert was never able to with his estranged brother.

Holing up in the bay-front home she’d built for the Collins Children’s Foundation, where no one would look for her, was the only way she could grieve without negative ramifications. God forbid an A-list actress went out looking like an average woman whose heart had been ripped from her chest. Rag magazines would pay big bucks for pictures of her puffy, tired eyes and I-don’t-give-a-shit tangled hair. She could just imagine the headlines:
Parker Collins’s New Drug Addiction,
or
Unplanned
Pregnancy for Parker,
or anything else that would sell magazines. Nobody cared that she’d never even smoked a cigarette, that she needed to have sex in order to get pregnant, or that she’d gone so long without, she wondered if her best parts even worked anymore.

She pressed her hands to Christmas’s droopy cheeks, kissed her bewildered boy’s snout, and reached for the bottle of tequila she’d been nursing. She’d never had tequila before tonight, but it was the perfect addition to her chocolate–horror movie grief remedy. After pouring herself another shot, she tossed it back in one gulp, savoring the warmth as it slid down her throat and drowned her sadness.

She set the glass beside her on the couch and shoved her hand into the jumbo bag of peanut M&M’s that had consoled her throughout the evening—because a big lazy dog was great for licking tears, but nothing quenched sadness like candy-coated chocolate. And tequila.
Definitely tequila
. Her fingers scraped the bottom of the bag.
Damn it
. She tossed the empty bag to the floor. Christmas hung his head over the side of the couch and whimpered.

“Don’t judge me. It can’t be that bad.” She leaned forward to assess the damage, knocking an empty pizza box to the floor, and reached for the coffee table to stop the room from spinning. “Whoa.”

Another scream brought her eyes to the movie, then toward the movement in her peripheral vision, where a shadowy figure blocked the entrance to the media room. It took her alcohol-drenched mind a minute to realize the tall, broad man filling the doorway wasn’t supposed to be in her house. Panic spread through her veins, catapulting her to her feet. Christmas darted to the stranger with a friendly
woof
.

“Oh God.” She reached for the wall to steady the spinning room, fighting to push through her drunken haze. She’d seen enough movies to know she was going to die in the media room of this lonely house, wearing chocolate-stained sweatpants—or more accurately, ice-cream-, tequila-, pizza-sauce-,
and
chocolate-stained sweatpants—while her dog made a new friend of her killer.

“Stay back. He’s a killer. One command and you’re dead!” Not likely with her loving dog.

The man sank to one knee, his face hidden by her big, traitorous dog.

“Yeah, I can see that,” he said casually, as only a coldhearted psycho killer could.

Searching for a weapon, she grabbed the tequila bottle, only too late realizing it was spilling down her wrist. She flipped it upright, wishing this was a movie and someone would yell,
Cut!

A piercing scream drew their attention to the heart-pounding terror on the projection screen. Suddenly the room was showered in light. Parker’s eyes slammed shut against the sensory invasion, then flew open to get a look at the man who would probably find fame as the
Parker Collins Killer
.

Her breath caught in her throat, and her hand flew to her frantically beating heart, as she took in the Greek god rising to his feet before her. His smoldering dark eyes nearly brought her to her knees.
Grayson Lacroux
.

“Grayson?”
Do I sound scared, drunk, or like I want to jump your bones?
Probably all three, which wasn’t good. Grayson had won a two-year contract in a design competition last summer, and for the past ten months he’d been designing artwork for the Collins Children’s Foundation. As the founder of CCF, Parker headed up the project, and they’d exchanged hundreds of emails—emails that felt intimate and meaningful and had pulled her through too many long, lonely nights to count.

“What are you doing here?” She cringed at how breathless she sounded. Even in her drunken state she knew it had nothing to do with her initial fears and everything to do with the towering male across the room.

His lips curved up as he surveyed the room. She’d come straight down to the media room in full-on holing-up mode after arriving from LA. Her open suitcase lay in the middle of the floor, lace and silk seeping over the sides. The clothes she’d worn on the flight were strewn across the hardwood floor. One pink high heel peeked out from beneath an empty bag of Twizzlers; the other was nowhere in sight. An orgy of fun-size candy bar wrappers and M&M’s littered the floor.

“I might ask you the same thing.” His voice was low and rich and made the room feel fifty degrees hotter.

Maybe that’s the tequila.

“I came to take measurements for the railing and heard a noise. I didn’t know you were here.”

Measurements?
She couldn’t think with his dark, assessing gaze trained on her as he crossed the room. Each step was a declaration of power and control—the same air of confidence he relayed in his emails. Parker was used to beautiful people, but holy mother of hot and sexy men, Grayson brought manliness and sex appeal to a whole new level. An
enticingly tempting
level. She was five nine, and he had several delicious inches on her. His bulbous biceps and massive breadth made her feel more delicate than she was. His tousled, thick dark hair and unwavering air of command made her knees wobble. She took a deep, unsteady breath and backed against the wall to stabilize those wobbly knees, but he stepped closer, assaulting her senses with his musky, and somehow summery, scent.

Nope. Definitely not the tequila.
The man was a walking heat wave.

He eyed the tequila bottle in her hand, and his eyes filled with amusement. “Having a little party?” He plucked a sticky piece of candy from her hair and held it between his large finger and thumb with a cocky grin.

A crazy-hot cocky grin that sent dirty thoughts about his mouth rushing to the front of her mind. “Not exactly,” she mumbled.

“You’ve been avoiding my emails.”

She’d been avoiding email, voicemail, and
life
since Bert’s funeral. Grayson was on her callback list, along with her agent, a few foundation staff members, and about a dozen so-called friends.

“I…Um…”
Can’t really think clearly
. She lifted the tequila bottle. “Care to join me?”

His gaze dragged down her tank top, bringing her nipples to attention and reminding her she’d taken off her bra. As if on cue, Christmas
woofed
, Parker’s pink lace bra dangling from his mouth. Grayson’s eyes brimmed with heat, making her want to put him on a totally different kind of
to-do
list.

He’d been the subject of her late-night fantasies for so many months she felt like she already knew him well enough for him to own that list.

This was bad.

Very, very bad.

Parker didn’t have that kind of
to-do
list. She
did
relationships. Or rather,
didn’t
do them, based on her dating history.

Ugh!
Her head was too fuzzy to try to untangle the web of lust she’d weaved with every email, every intimate glance into his private world of family, friends, and his love of his craft. Grayson worked with heavy metals, as evident from his insanely perfect physique, which no gym in the world could produce, and his designs were excruciatingly unique and beautiful. Parker had probably driven him crazy making changes, but if she had, he’d never let on. She loved reading his descriptions about why he designed certain pieces and how he felt when he was creating them. Sometimes he wrote about missing his family, or about bonfires and outings he’d gone on when he flew home to work with his brother on specific designs for CCF. She’d been careful not to ask personal questions, so she wouldn’t feel inclined to share her personal life, but she had secretly clung to each of his tales, treasuring the emotions he so eloquently shared. She’d made excessive design changes just to keep those intimate glances of him coming.

And now he was here, all six-something feet of him, close enough to see and touch and taste—and between her grief and his godliness, she was clearly losing her mind.

She pushed past him, grabbed the lingerie from Christmas, and tossed it into her suitcase. “Lie down.”

Christmas walked in a circle and plopped onto a pile of clothes with a huff.

Parker grabbed a shot glass from the bar, determined to remain in her inebriated state so she could deal with all the testosterone flinging around the room, and sank down to the couch. “Coming, big guy?”

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SEASIDE LOVERS (Seaside Summers)