Rock Star Romance: Dan (Contemporary New Adult Rockstar Bad Boy Romance) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 4) (6 page)

****

A week after Mark had told me to fuck off, instead
of meeting with me, I found myself at Respects again. Once more, I had
cigarettes, lighter, ashtray, and a beer in front of me; but I was by myself. I
lit up and looked around the bar, trying not to be the morose asshole I felt
like. It was eleven, so people were starting to come in, but I didn’t think
there would be that many; according to Sophie the place was almost never super
packed on a Wednesday. Thursdays--for Flaunt--it would get busy, and then on
Friday, and almost always on Saturday, but unless there was an actual event,
Wednesdays mostly only managed to bring out the diehards.

I flicked the tip of my cig in the ashtray and
looked behind the bar. Sophie was in perpetual motion, taking stock of her
supplies, closing out tabs, opening tabs, going into the back for whatever it
was anyone needed. Queens of The Stone Age, “No One Knows” came on through the
system and I saw her hips beginning to move in time, as she scribbled something
down on a pad. I wasn’t sure if it was just me, but it seemed like she got
hotter every time I saw her; when I’d picked her up to drive her to work about
an hour and a half before, it’d been all I could do not to drag her back into
her apartment and convince her to let me make her late. She’d pulled her hair
back into the spiky, small pigtails I’d liked so much the first night I’d seen
her, but she was wearing a pair of shorts that barely covered her ass, along
with a thin, almost transparent shirt that draped across her shoulders and
clung to her tits.

“Want another shot?” Sophie leaned in closer to me
over the bar, and I shrugged.

“Might as well,” I replied. “Not like I have
anywhere to be.” It had been a week--and none of us had gone back into the
studio, because Mark refused to respond to anyone. Either he told them to fuck
off, same as he had me, or he just didn’t answer. Things were starting to get
desperate; the record label wasn’t happy with the fact that we were stalled out
on the album, especially since they’d given us the biggest budget we’d ever
had. We were going to have to come up with something soon, but no one in the
band seemed to have an idea of how to move forward.

I couldn’t help but feel more than a little guilty
about it; I couldn’t make myself believe that Mark’s tantrum was all about
Sophie, but obviously that had been the straw that had broken the camel’s back.
If we couldn’t figure out how to move forward, then it was going to be bad for
all of us.
Not that Jules won’t just bounce back. He’s already got that side
project. Alex could go solo. Nick…
I sighed, pushing the thought out of my
head before I’d even finished it. In a certain light, I could understand where
Mark was coming from; at least, where he’d been coming from before, the night
we’d met Sophie.

But knowing where he was coming from didn’t really
seem to help all that much. I still didn’t have an answer for what to do about
the situation. My phone buzzed on the bar top and I turned it over to see the
screen flashing. I had a text. I unlocked my phone and stubbed out my
cigarette, taking the shot from Sophie without even looking.
Meeting
tomorrow. Ron’s office. Mark won’t be there.
It was from Nick. I knocked
back the shot and considered the message.

Is Ron going to be there? What’s the deal?
I took a sip of my beer and lit another cigarette. This was certainly getting
interesting--I knew that it would eventually come to some kind of meeting, some
kind of sit-down. The fact that it was Nick messaging me about it instead of
Alex was a little unusual.

I had to wonder if the rest of the band thought it
was my fault that Mark was throwing such an epic tantrum. After all, the spark
for this had been him finding out about me and Sophie.
You have to admit
that you were pretty pissed about the fact that he and Sophie were supposed to
go out after she’d already said yes to you,
I reminded myself. And it was
true--and Nick had pointed out how stupid it was for me to be so touchy about
it.
And then, too, it’s not like he knew. Obviously.
I finished off my
beer and signaled to Sophie. At least for a little while, I had enough money
not to worry too much about running up a huge tab, and how I’d pay for it. We
were still getting quarterly royalties from the first few albums, and since
things had gotten so good with everyone else in the band drawing more and more
attention to us, those checks were bigger.

Ron’s not going to be there. He’s letting us
figure this shit out. But the label is pretty...the polite way they put it was
‘concerned’.
I almost laughed out loud at Nick’s understatement. The label
was pissed. They’d dropped money on the studio of our choice, and they were
bleeding that money for however long we went without working, since--unless we
contacted them and told them to suspend the album--they couldn’t just quit the
lease on the place. My phone buzzed again.
Noon, Alex says. You going to be
there?
Sophie cracked another beer and slid it in front of me.

I sighed. I knew I didn’t really have a whole hell
of a lot of choice.
I’ll bring pizza,
I texted back. There was no real
getting around it--I’d need to be there. Especially since Mark apparently
wasn’t going to attend, it was a good idea. There was no doubting what we’d be
discussing: the future of the band, and how we were going to deal with the
situation.

“What’s up?” I looked up and saw Sophie standing
across the bar from me, hands resting on the bar top. I shrugged.

“Meeting tomorrow with the boys--except Mark, who
apparently won’t talk to anyone,” I told her. “At our manager’s office, but he
won’t be there.”

“I assume you’ll hash everything out?” Sophie
looked doubtful.

“Jules will bring some dope, I’ll bring some
pizza, we’ll talk about whatever everyone wants to talk about,” I said,
shrugging. Sophie stepped back and grabbed her pack of cigarettes from where
she’d left it, next to the register.

“What do you think the outcome is going to be?” I
wasn’t the only one who felt guilty about the situation between Mark, the band
and me. Sophie had admitted that she hadn’t quite known how to say no to Mark’s
date invite; she also hadn’t known how seriously I’d meant it when I’d asked
her out first. But at this point, none of that even completely mattered. It was
obvious to me at least that Mark wouldn’t throw such an epic tantrum without
there being more at stake than a girl.

“No idea,” I said. Sophie lit her cigarette and
took a drag. “That depends on what they’re thinking.”

“Do you think they think it’s your fault?” I
shrugged again and drank down some of my beer.

“Nick doesn’t seem to, but it’s hard to say for
sure what Jules and Alex have concluded,” I told her. “Even though he’s got a
girlfriend now, Jules is still a morose bastard--so he’s probably likely to
think it’s fucking everyone’s fault. Alex just wants things to keep trucking,
as far as I can tell.”

“So it might come to an argument?” I pressed my
lips together. Sophie held her cigarette between her lips and poured me another
shot of Jameson with a wink. I always made sure to pay my tabs, and after her
comments about dating guys in the local scene I had made sure not to even think
about asking her to comp me anything, but sometimes she tossed me a shot for
free.

“It might,” I said, gesturing for her to pour
herself a shot as well. “I’m paying for these--period.” Sophie shrugged and
poured herself a shot from the bottle before putting it away. We both knocked
back our alcohol; I chased mine with a gulp of beer and Sophie chased hers with
a mouthful of some cocktail she’d mixed for herself. “Anyway, if it comes to a
fight, at least it’ll be a change.” Sophie laughed.

“Change is better than nothing at all, right?” I
nodded.

“I don’t think it’ll be a fight,” I admitted. “I
think it’ll be...tense, but I think that we’ll figure something out. I sure
fucking hope that we do.” I scrubbed at my face. I hadn’t realized how much it
would bug me to be out of the studio for a week straight, with the record label
breathing down our necks. I’d never had an argument with Mark that had lasted
longer than maybe a couple of days, at the most. Usually by the day after, we’d
more or less forgotten what we were mad about.

“Here’s hoping, right?” I raised my beer and
Sophie raised her cocktail and I hoped that I wouldn’t massively regret
agreeing to go to the meeting.

****

“You’re sure you’re going to that meeting
tomorrow?” Sophie glanced at me from the driver’s seat; I’d somehow managed to
get too tipsy to drive back to her place between getting the messages from Nick
and the time Respects closed down for the night at four.

“Sure I’m sure,” I said with a shrug. “Why
wouldn’t I go?” Sophie reached over and grabbed her pack of cigarettes out of
the center console. She turned onto the entrance ramp for I-95 headed south and
kept one hand on the wheel, her palm controlling the turn while her other hand
tugged a cig free of the pack. I watched with fuzzy-headed wonder as she lit up
with one hand and maneuvered the looping ramp effortlessly, merging into the
almost-nonexistent traffic.

“You’re drunk right now and it’s eight hours
away,” Sophie pointed out.

“I’m not
that
drunk,” I countered. “Just
drunk enough that it’s better that you drive us than that I do.” Sophie gave me
that knowing little grin, the one that drove me crazy, that had made me
determined to win her over.

“You’re going to be hungover,” she pointed out.
“Is that the best frame of mind to talk about the future of the band in?” I
laughed.

“It’s the absolute best frame of mind to do it
in,” I told her. “If I can’t manage to support the continued existence of the
band when I’m hungover, then it’s not worth keeping the band together.” But the
thought of the band breaking up--and over some stupid bullshit problem that
Mark was having about me ending up with a girl he wanted at that--sent an
irrational surge of anger through me. “I’ll be fine by the time I have to be at
Ron’s office.”

Sophie raised an eyebrow with more than a little
doubt in her eyes, but didn’t try and argue with me about it. I took control of
the stereo, hooking my phone up to it and pulling up an old Silverchair album:
Freak
Show
. I started it on the first track, “Slave,” and glanced at Sophie; we’d
talked about music a few different times, and of course since I was a musician,
it was important to me that someone I wanted to date more seriously had decent
taste in music.

“Oh, god,” Sophie said, shaking her head and
grinning.

“What?” I looked at her with interest even as I
lit a cigarette.

“Fucking eighth grade of middle school,” Sophie
told me cryptically.

“What about eighth grade?” Sophie’s cheeks lit up
in the orangey glow of the safety lights on the highway as we passed under
them.

“That’s when I listened to this album for the
first time,” she said, sighing. She flicked the butt of her cigarette through
the crack in the window and shook her head again. “I used to have
such
a
crush on Daniel Johns.” I laughed.

“Is the only reason you dated me because I’m a
fellow Daniel?” Sophie rolled her eyes.

“You play a different instrument,” she said
tartly. I snickered.

“I can play guitar too, you know,” I pointed out.
“One of these days I’ll serenade you with ‘Ana’s Song’.”

“No!” Sophie shook her head. “No--that’s all about
mental illness. Do ‘My Favourite Thing’ instead.” I grinned and took a drag of
my cigarette.

“I might at that,” I told her. Sophie gave me a
look through her eyelashes and we continued on the highway as one song changed
to another. I’d spent the whole night watching her work, enjoying the curves of
her body, all but staring at her whenever I wasn’t forced to talk to someone
else. I wasn’t sure whether Sophie had chosen her outfit because it was
comfortable or because she knew it made her look like a little sexpot--but I
didn’t care.

We’d made an agreement, after our second date:
while we’d wandered around the Norton, we’d talked about the fact that with me
being a musician and her being a bartender, we’d have to either be okay with each
other flirting or just never, ever let the relationship get serious. I wasn’t
even sure just yet that I wanted it to be serious, but I knew that I wanted
Sophie in a way I hadn’t wanted very many other women I’d met in my life.
Pretty soon, we’d have to make some kind of decision about whether or not we
were going to be an actual “thing”--but with the band in such a weird place, I
didn’t want to make more drama in my life, and Sophie had told me flat out that
she wasn’t interested in jumping the gun. So for the moment, we were just
seeing each other. Of course, the date at the Norton had ended up with me at
her place, ordering pizza from an Italian place up the street just before it
closed for the night, and us racing to see if we could fit in one more orgasm
before the delivery guy got to her apartment.

By the time Sophie pulled into the guest spot next
to her building, I’d sobered up a little bit; enough that I was sure I could
get it up, at least. I climbed out of the passenger seat and hurried around to
where Sophie emerged from my car, taking my keys from her hand and wrapping my
arms around her waist. “I have been waiting all night to have the chance to
actually do this,” I murmured, kissing her on the lips.

“You--mm--you could have done it before,” Sophie
replied, bringing her arms up and wrapping them around my shoulders. I pressed
her against the side of the car, feeling the heat of her body through her
clothes. All night, I’d watched the filmy, almost transparent material of her
shirt sliding and shifting on her body, occasionally slipping off of her
shoulder, hitching up to reveal a flash of one of her tattoos just above her
hip, or otherwise showing tantalizing glimpses of her body. Then there were the
shorts: the sight of her ass in them whenever she turned around, or walked past
and away from me to take care of another customer or to get something from the
back, was almost more than I could take. I’d stayed until closing not just
because I’d given her a ride in and didn’t want her to have to catch a ride
from one of the other members of the staff, but because I couldn’t stand the
thought of not having sex with her after all that buildup.

I rocked my hips against Sophie’s, rubbing up
against her, and she moaned against my mouth, holding me tighter. The next
minute though, she was pulling back, breaking away from my lips, panting but
definitely not lulled. “Something wrong?” Sophie gave me a sharp look--not the
dreamy expression she got whenever she was seriously turned on, but the
knowing, penetrating look that made any thought of how cute she was almost a
lie.

“We are not going to have sex in the parking lot,”
she told me. I frowned, wondering where she could have gotten the idea that I
wanted to, and then realized that I’d been trying to get my hand down her
shorts; I hadn’t even thought about it, I’d been so lost in the moment.

“Sorry,” I said, giving her a quick kiss on the
lips again. “Inside?” Sophie nodded. I took a deep, shaking breath and stepped
back. My knees felt rubbery; all I wanted was to get all Sophie’s clothes
off--and mine too--and just keep at it until neither of us could stay awake for
even a moment longer. I took her hand and we walked across the parking lot to
her unit. I held myself back, even though I was already hard enough that my
cock was starting to throb, and waited for Sophie to get her door unlocked.

Drogon came out of the bedroom as soon as we
stepped into the apartment, and I made myself wait patiently while Sophie
greeted the black cat and checked on his food and water. It should have been a
total buzzkill, but watching her kick off her shoes, hearing her murmur to the
cat, somehow made the whole situation that much hotter. Sophie looked up at me
from where she crouched and raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t we start in the
shower?”

I nodded, already starting to reach for the bottom
of my tee shirt to take it off. “I’m game,” I told her. She laughed and opened
the sliding glass door to her porch just enough for the cat to be able to come
and go as he pleased, before turning towards her bedroom. I stripped off my
shirt and followed her into the bedroom, straight to the bathroom.

Sophie hauled her shirt over her head and the
sight of her full, heavy tits, barely covered by the lacy bra she wore, was
enough to bring me back to fully hard. I stopped her hands, leaning in to kiss
her on the lips. I found the fly of her shorts by touch and unbuttoned and
unzipped it, and Sophie followed my lead; she began working on my jeans. We
stripped each other naked bit by bit, and I let my hands wander wherever they
wanted to go on her body, touching and teasing her. I cupped her tits as soon
as I got her bra off, teasing her nipples until they hardened into firm little
nubs between my fingers, and Sophie moaned, reaching down and wrapping her hand
around my cock, stroking me up and down slowly.

We stumbled into the shower and I turned the water
on, pulling Sophie out of the path of the first cold burst to press her up
against the wall, to kiss her again and again while my hand slipped down between
her legs. She was already wet, the heat of her coating my fingers, slick like
silk, and I grinned, pulling back from the kiss. “What do you want to bet we
end up wasting all the hot water?” Sophie snorted, giving my cock a lingering
stroke before disentangling one of her arms to check the water flowing through
the shower head.

“I’m betting nothing on it, because I’m going to
at least get clean first,” she told me tartly. I snickered and watched her step
under the torrent of water, tugging the hair ties out of her hair and tossing
them blindly into a caddy on the showerhead. In an instant, she was drenched,
and I couldn’t resist the temptation to step up behind her, to let my hands
slide over her slick body and touch her everywhere. Sophie turned around in my
arms to face me and I kissed her, pressing my body against hers so she could
feel how hard I was, how much I wanted her.

She broke away from my lips after a few moments
and looked up at me through her eyelashes. “The sooner I get clean, the sooner
we can get to the main event,” she murmured, raising an eyebrow. “Want to help
out with that?”

I grabbed a bottle of shampoo and held it up to
confirm that it was what Sophie wanted me to use. She nodded and I got to work,
lathering up her hair and then scrubbing her down, making sure to soap up every
inch of her body--especially her tits--while she worked conditioner through her
hair. “Fuck,” I said, shaking my head as I watched her rinse off, the water
gliding over her body, glittering in the soft yellow light of the bathroom. It
was all I could do not to pin her to the wall and take her right then and
there.

“You’re more patient than I would have thought
you’d be,” Sophie said, grinning at me as she stepped out from under the shower
head.

“Are you done?” I could hear the heaviness of my
own voice; my cock was throbbing, aching from how turned on I was. Sophie
giggled, reaching out and wrapping her hand around my cock even as she looked
up at me through her wet hair and eyelashes.

“I am,” she admitted. I groaned as she stroked me,
but I made myself push her hand away. I wasn’t interested in her getting me off
with a quick handy--I wanted the real deal. I wrapped my arms around her waist
and lifted her up carefully; we were both--obviously--incredibly slippery from
the shower, but I didn’t even want to wait long enough to dry off. I carried
her carefully into the bedroom and spilled her onto the bed without giving her
a chance to get dry, and immediately slithered on top of her. I kissed her
again and again, rocking my hips against hers, slipping down between her legs.
“What were you saying about patience?” Sophie laughed breathlessly as I guided
myself up against her soaking wet folds.

“I take it back,” she replied, pushing her hips
down against mine, rubbing the slick, wet heat of her pussy against me.

“Good. Good,” I said. I dipped down to her throat
and licked at the shower water still there on her skin; I nibbled at the spot
just below her ear and Sophie moaned out, twisting underneath me. I slid into
her as slowly as I could, holding back as much as possible--I was too fucking
hungry for the feeling of her wrapped around me to hold back that much--and
started to move almost immediately. I kissed Sophie over and over again,
swallowing down her moans, pushing deeper and deeper inside her body.
“God--fuck, Sophie...you feel way, way too good,” I told her.

“Better--better every time,” Sophie agreed,
half-moaning as she moved with me. We fell into a rhythm together, and our
hands slipped and stuttered on each other’s bodies, touching everywhere. I
kissed Sophie’s lips, her throat, down to her tits. I teased her nipples with
my mouth, worshipping her with my lips and tongue, looking up into her eyes as
I thrust deeper inside of her, rubbing along her tight, hot inner walls.

I lost myself in the moment, pounding into her
faster and faster; I reached down between our bodies and found Sophie’s clit by
touch, and began to stroke and rub her, trying to keep time with our movements,
trying to bring her to climax before I totally lost control. The last thing I
wanted was to come and get sleepy before she got off--I wanted the
gratification of making her come first, the relief of knowing I didn’t need to
do anything else. I read Sophie’s body like braille, feeling the tension in her
muscles, listening to her moans turn into little gasps and shuddering cries as
she got closer and closer.

All at once I felt her whole body tighten around
me. I heard the sharp little breathy gasp and then she exhaled on a long, low
moan, and her muscles fluttered around my cock, tightening in erratic little
spasms. I tried to hold out for just a minute longer, to ride through her
climax for as long as possible, but I felt the tension snap deep down between
my hips, and I came less than a moment after her, groaning against her neck,
barely able to hold myself up to keep thrusting as my cock twitched and
throbbed inside of her.

I collapsed onto the bed next to Sophie, gasping
and panting for breath, still dripping wet, and turned to look at her as we
both struggled to recover. “Jesus, I think it’s like--what, five-thirty in the
morning?” Sophie giggled and shook her head.