Consumed (19 page)

As I pass the door to the bedroom, I freeze up because of the noise coming from inside.

It’s the sound of “All Over You” being strummed painstakingly on an acoustic guitar. I open the door carefully to find her naked. She’s sitting up against the headboard with the guitar in her lap, covering her beautiful body. She doesn’t realize that I’m standing here, and I’m not ready to let her know that I am just yet. 

So I watch her. The way she grinds her teeth in irritation when she tries to pick a difficult chord. How her long red hair falls over her face and the front of the Gibson when she manages to play for longer than fifteen seconds without making a mistake. And the way she sighs and closes her blue eyes right before she does it all over again.

I watch her, and I feel my cock harden at the sight of this incredibly sexy creature naked in my temporary bed, playing the guitar that I had given her. 

“Did you know,” I start, and her head flies up. Her eyes widen with surprise that morphs into shyness only a moment later. She lifts her hand to the side of her face and brushes it back through her hair self-consciously. “That I could have the shittiest day and then I come within a hundred feet of you, and the only thing that matters is you?”

She flicks the tip of her tongue over her pink lips. “You’re having a bad day? Is everything alright?”

“It’s perfect now.” Relaxing my shoulders, I pace over to the bed where she presses her hand to my chest, scraping her fingernails softly over the tattoo in the center. “Wyatt wants to hit a city that’s not on the tour.”

She lays her red guitar pick on the nightstand next to a half-eaten tray of food. “And you don’t want to go to . . .”

“Louisville,” I growl, even though she’s the last person I want to bring it up to. The only reason I tell her now is because she can easily ask Cal or Wyatt or even Sinjin, and they would gladly tell her that I’ve been avoiding that place like the plague since we toured their several years ago. “And I abso-fucking-lutely won’t go.”

Dipping her head down, she seems to digest this for a moment, and then she flings her hair back so that I can clearly see her questioning stare. “Why not? I love Louisville.”

“Because we’ve already got enough cities planned.” My voice is harsher than I intend for it to be, and she recoils sharply. “The tour is getting to me, I don’t want to add more stress to it,” I reply, my tone softer. 

Sitting next to her, I run my gaze up her long, bare legs as she plays with the neck of the guitar. “What about the tour is getting to you?” she finally asks hesitantly.

I cup her cheek, and she rubs her face back and forth across the heel of my palm, her slight movement causing a jolt in my arm. “Not getting to do what we did last night.” A flush warms up her breasts, and I take the guitar and put it aside. I allow myself to drink in the sight of her delicious body before I say, “Being on that damn bus.”

“The bus is like a luxury home on wheels,” she reminds me.

“A luxury home on wheels we have to share with someone who drums on everything he passes by,” I add. “Then there’s the shit food.”

She turns her head to the side. “Most of the venues serve you guys amazing food.” When I give her a skeptical look, she shrugs. “I didn’t say all, just most.” Pushing her body closer to mine so that I’m able to smell the sweet scent of the soap she used, her eyes search mine. “Is that it?”

“Yeah, that’s all.”

It’s almost like she wants to say something herself, and I feel a sharp pain in my chest because I think I know what it is. Sinjin had pulled me aside the other day about some of the shit being written about her online. More than anything, I want to shield her from it and all of the other negativity that comes with what I do. 

What I’ve done.

But when she speaks, her voice has dropped an octave and it’s seductive, teasing. “Then let me love you, Lucas.”

After our show that night, Sinjin’s new record of being on time is shot all to hell when he fails to show up at the backstage party that Tyler and the publicity director for the venue are co-hosting for his birthday. Just about everyone is here—both bands and most of the crew—and Tyler’s went all out with one of those big ass cakes that make me think a stripper is going to pop out at any second.

Knowing Sin, a stripper probably will.

“Should you call him?” Sienna asks nervously after she comes back from the restroom. I know she’s been out looking for him, and I’ve got to admit it’s a relief she gets along with him. He’s been treating her with the same protective ferocity that he shows to my sister since after the first week, and I don’t think it has anything to do with me threatening him anymore. “Should I call him?”

“It’s Sin,” I tell her, pulling her onto my lap. Her face reddens, and she glances around to see if anyone is looking at us on the couch. I touch her chin to turn her gaze back to mine. “Relax. They all know you’re with me, and I don’t give a fuck what any of these people think. About what
anyone
thinks. Let them talk.”

“
We
were talking about Sinjin,” she points out.

“He’ll show,” I promise.

When Sin does come in a half an hour later—after Tyler sends him numerous text messages—he’s got a short, cute blonde on his arm whose brown eyes are darting around anxiously. She looks familiar, though I can’t place her, and when Sienna asks me if it’s one of the women he was talking about taking to his hotel last night, I shrug. 

“I think things went to shit with them, but this wouldn’t be the first time he changed his mind.”

He makes the rounds of the room to talk to everyone. When he gets to Cilla and Brody, who are a few feet away from us talking to Maggie in wardrobe, Cilla stops her conversation. Holding up her hand, she blurts, “So which one is this?”

Realizing his mistake, Sin attempts to lead the blonde away from the situation. She shrugs out of his grip and faces Cilla. “I’m sorry, what?”

Cilla cocks her head to the side, sizing the other woman up. “I met you and your roommate in the lobby last night, right?” She snorts. “Did not think you’d be around tonight.”

“I don’t think we’ve met,” the blonde states in a cool voice. Her chest is rising and falling quickly, and beside of her, Sin’s face is unreadable. He’s about to lose it. “I’m Zoe Whitlow—one of Sinjin’s friends from back home.”

Sienna sucks in a sharp intake of air just as I get up from my seat. 

“Give me a sec,” I tell Sienna. She’s nodding as I take off toward Sinjin, and when I reach them, instead of speaking to him or Zoe, I place my hand on the middle of Cilla’s back.

“What are you doing?” she demands as I lead her from the room and into the hallway.

“Keeping you from making a bigger ass of yourself.”

She struggles to lean against me, and I’m surprised when I don’t smell any alcohol on her breath. And I’m disappointed too. She knew exactly what she was doing back in there with Sin. “Ask Pepper to leave yet?” she asks as I grip her shoulders to hold her at bay.

“Afraid not.”

“Then what the hell do you want?” she shouts.

I lean back angrily. Cilla wasn’t always like this, but the last several years she’s gotten worse. Bitter. When I speak, I grind the words out, “Stay the fuck away from Sinjin tonight.”

She’s mastered the art of bullshitting so well that she’s able to quickly slap a blank look on her face—from her vacant bluish-green eyes to her parted lips. “What?” She blinks a few times. 

I don’t have the patience to do this shit with her today.

“I’m done with you,” I say.

I drop my hands away from her shoulders and turn to leave, but she digs her fingers into my shirt. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Removing her hand, I sneer at her. “I don’t know how to make it any more clear. Personally. Professionally. I can’t do this shit with you.”

She swallows hard and rakes her hands over her face. “All because I made a little joke and screwed around with Sinjin’s little girlfriend?”

“Because if not every man in the room that you’ve ever fucked doesn’t throw themselves at your feet, you get all butt hurt. Because you enjoy misery. I think that’s the worse part because it reminds me of my ex-wife.”

Tears pool at the inside corners of her eyes, but I don’t buy her act for a second. “Look, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t tell me that.” I jab my finger toward the entrance of the room. Even from out here, I can see that Zoe’s not standing as close to Sinjin. That he looks like he’s just a moment away from a breakdown that would set him back months, years. “Take your destructive ass in there and tell it to him or her.” 

She gives me that skittish look she gets whenever she’s confronted, and I almost think she’s going to do the right thing and speak to Sinjin to make everything right. But instead, she spins around on her heels and stalks off in the other direction toward the dressing room she used earlier tonight.

“Tell Tyler to text me when my bus is ready to roll out,” she shouts.

Sienna

“Okay, spill, how much of that shit have you done already?” My friend Ashley demands as she pops open a beer with the bottle opener on her keychain.

It’s Saturday night, and I’ve been back in Nashville since yesterday afternoon. Ashley had texted me right at 10:30—while I was in the shower—to ask if I wanted to come to karaoke night at her parents downtown bar, The Beacon. Since Gram had gone to bed an hour before, and I haven’t seen Ashley in a few weeks, I immediately accepted the invitation. After the day I’ve had, I needed to do this. 

I had worked for twelve hours only to come home and find that not only had Lucas’s ex sent me a one-worded letter to my house, but I also had an email from one of my clients asking me to cancel all of her upcoming appointments indefinitely. 

“Sienna?” Ashley says, bringing my thoughts away from the note and back into the crowded bar. 

“How much of what shit?” I ask, mustering a teasing grin.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.” When I say nothing, she groans and rests her chin on her fist. “Oh come on, don’t tell me you haven’t done any of them.”

I think of the list she gave to me before I left Nashville a few weeks ago and how many items I’ve scratched off so far. “I have about four or five to go—and no, I’m not doing a body shot off of Cal.” When Ashley’s lips purse into a thin, disappointed line, I hold out my hands in defense. “I
think
I’ll get through them before the tour is over. I mean, there are three weeks left. And don’t forget, they’ll be here in twelve days.”

Just as I hope, mentioning Your Toxic Sequel’s upcoming show in Nashville shifts the conversation. Ashley casts me an excited grin. “I have a countdown on my phone.” She shakes her head. “Ugh, I know. Pathetic.”

 “And while they’re here, maybe you can finish up your own damn bucket list,” I add in a low voice. 

Running her hands through her multi-colored hair, she rolls her eyes dramatically. “Where’s the fun in that.”

My phone buzzes in the center of the table. I flip it over to reveal a text from Lucas. I’ve been waiting for him to message me since I came home from my job, and my smile must give me away as I open it. Ashley lets out a low whistle. 

“I could ask you so many questions, but you’re already bright red, so I’ll bug you more about your job today. Inquiring minds want to know, will this new reality show be worth watching? Is it the Jersey Shore of Music City?”

“It was . . . boring. Well, the job was. I’m not sure about what the show will be like.” I don’t say anything about my other client’s cancellation. I’ve been working with this woman, a politician’s wife, since I started doing wardrobe consulting here. Her email had been two lines, mostly stating that with my “other work in the public eye,” she saw it fit to discontinue her association with me.

It stung enough for me to sit staring at my computer screen for several minutes afterward. 

I had started to message her back to ask if it was because of the hundreds of pictures of Lucas and me circulating the Internet, or if she took a peek into the various YTS fan sites that have smeared my name with every lie imaginable. 

Like an idiot, I had taken a look at one of the websites after dinner tonight to discover that I was pregnant. I’m positive that by tomorrow morning, that will have changed, and I’ll have betrayed Lucas with a secret abortion. Or maybe the baby will turn out to be Cal’s or Sin’s.