He didn’t have a clue. And with Jamison’s taste still lingering on his lips, it was
hard to think. Hard to breathe.
“It’s not—” He stumbled over the words, forced himself to stop and take a deep breath.
Then he tried again. “I didn’t mean anything—”
“You were practically doing my sister in the hallway and it didn’t mean anything?”
Jared interrupted, pushing him.
It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and this time Ryder shoved back, hard.
He watched with absolutely no satisfaction as Jared stumbled a little at the unexpected
blow. “Stop putting words in my mouth.”
“Well, start coming up with your own, because what I just saw was bullshit, Ryder.
Total bullshit, and if you were sober and thinking clearly, you’d see it, too.”
He
was
sober and he did see it, though he was the first to admit he wasn’t thinking clearly.
That was the problem. He hadn’t been able to think clearly since he’d seen Jamison
in the audience the night before. But how did he explain that to Jared, when he’d
just been caught pawing his sister with all the finesse of a fifteen-year-old with
his first girl?
Head down and gut burning, Ryder turned and headed back toward the living room—and
away from the bedrooms. If they were going to do this, the whole suite didn’t need
to know about it.
He grabbed a couple of bottles of water out of the mini fridge, tossed one at Jared.
For a second it looked like his best friend was going to fire it back at him—straight
at his head—but eventually he uncapped the thing and took a long drink.
Silence hung thick and expectant between them until Ryder finally said, “She came
out here because she couldn’t sleep. I think what happened with Max affected her more
than she wants to admit.”
“So, what? You decided a little time between the sheets with you was what she needed
to stop thinking about what that bastard did to her?” Jared asked calmly. Too calmly.
Sixteen years of friendship and bitter experience had taught him that the quieter
his lead guitarist got, the angrier he was. Judging from just how low his friend’s
voice had become, Ryder figured Jared was pretty damn close to ripping his head off,
even if he
had
stopped trying to shove him around.
Ryder gritted his teeth, hung on to his own temper by his fingertips. “We had waffles,
watched a movie. And then…”
“Yeah, I saw the
and then
,” Jared snarled at him. “Stay the hell away from Jamison, man. She’s off-limits and
you know it.”
There was a part of him that wanted to argue, but he couldn’t. Not really. Jamison
was
off-limits, and kissing her had been all along. Trying to change that now was crazy.
Especially when all he could do was hurt her. “I know she’s off-limits, man. I made
a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“Damn right it won’t. You don’t need to go anywhere near her for the rest of our time
here.”
Normally, he’d be damned offended that his best friend thought he couldn’t be trusted
around his little sister. But seeing as he’d been caught in the middle of stripping
her naked—not to mention the fact that he’d had a raging hard-on for the last twelve
hours, totally courtesy of Jamison—Ryder was having a hard time working up any righteous
indignation. He had no intention of touching Jamison again—ever—but that didn’t mean
he didn’t want to. Which pretty much made this whole damned conversation unbearable.
Jared finished his water. He tossed the bottle into the nearest trashcan, then crossed
the room. He didn’t stop until he was right up in Ryder’s face. “I asked if you heard
me. She’s not one of your legion of groupies. Don’t screw around with her.”
“I’m not.”
“She’s my sister, man.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I don’t know what to think. Hell, most of the time I don’t have a clue what’s going
on in your head. If someone had asked me yesterday if I trusted you with her, I wouldn’t
have thought twice. But after what I just saw…” He shook his head. “We both know Jamison’s
had a thing for you for a decade.”
Jared’s words sent a dark thrill through him, had his dick twitching all over again.
When he was in his early twenties, he’d known she had a crush on him. But she’d been
in high school at the time. The idea that she still felt something for him…it made
him— He put the brakes on, locked that shit down tight. Now was not the time to think
about how easy it would be to get Jamison into bed. “Have I ever done anything about
it?”
“Not until now.”
He growled low in his throat. “How many times do I have to tell you I’m sorry? That
it won’t happen again?”
They stared at each other, stale-mated for long seconds. Then Jared closed his eyes
and took a few deep breaths, and all of the aggression seemed to flow out of him.
“Look, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to bust your balls, Ryder. I’m really not. But, dude,
you go through women like you go through condoms. Like they’re cheap, disposable,
and mean nothing more than your next fuck.
“Which is fine. I get it. I really do. If I had all your shit to deal with, I’d probably
do the same thing. But you know Jamison deserves better than that.”
“Don’t you mean she deserves better than me?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“No, but it’s what you meant. Isn’t it?” He waited for Jared to protest, to tell him
he was being stupid. Taking things out of context. But, in the end, his best friend
didn’t say a word—and Ryder couldn’t blame him. He knew Jared was right, even as he
felt the weight of the other man’s disapproval all the way inside of himself, deep
down in the spots he worked so hard to pretend didn’t exist anymore.
He ignored the twinges of pain, refused to even acknowledge them. Instead, he smiled
the cocky, lead singer grin he was known for all over the world, and said, “You don’t
need to worry about me taking advantage of Jamison. After all, she’s not exactly my
type.”” The implication was that the fault was with her, not him.
Nothing could be further from the truth—he’d always been fascinated by Jamison’s deep
waters, by the complications and contradictions that made her different than the other
women he knew—and he waited for Jared to call him on his bullshit. But before he could,
Jamison walked into the room, shoes and coat on. Shoving her crazy, sexy curls out
of her eyes, she snarled, “And who exactly said that you’re my type?”
Ryder’s stomach sank at the anger Jamison didn’t try to hide. And the hurt that she
did. Once again, he’d screwed up and once again, he had no one to blame but himself.
Chapter Eight
She wanted to hide.
Wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole.
Wanted to crawl under the couch and never, ever come out.
Or, barring any of those scenarios, she at least wanted to bury her face in her hands
and pretend the last hour and a half had never happened.
Why, oh why, hadn’t she stayed in her room? Why had she woken Ryder up? And why had
she stayed with him, pushed at him, when it was obvious that he wasn’t interested
in her? That he would
never
be interested in her?
It had been humiliating to stand there listening to Jared talk about the crush she’d
had on Ryder. Had been even more humiliating to listen to Ryder dismiss that crush—and
her—as nothing. As not being his type—which she knew was just another way of saying
she wasn’t sexy enough for him. Wasn’t pretty or glamorous or skinny enough for the
rock star he was. One would think she’d have learned her lesson by now. It wasn’t
the first time she’d been rejected, after all. She’d thrown herself at Ryder at seventeen
and he’d turned her down. hard. What had made her think that things would have been
any different tonight?
He was talented, smart, gorgeous, rich. And she…she was just the chubby, uptight,
ridiculous younger sister of his best friend.
Ignoring the way they were both watching her—Ryder warily and Jared with remorse—Jamison
crossed the room and picked up her purse. She recognized the looks and she wasn’t
going to fall for them. Not this time. No matter how much she wanted to crawl into
a hole and hide, she was going to see this conversation all the way through. She’d
walked away from more than enough this week.
She started with her brother. “Really, Jared?” she asked, pushing to her feet.
He held his hands up in a very obvious gesture of surrender. “We were just talking,
Jelly Bean.”
“I get it. You live in this weird-ass world where you’re rock gods.” She swept her
gaze over to Ryder, making sure he understood her words were for him as well. “Where
you get anything you want with the lift of a finger. Where women beg you to sign their
breasts or sleep with them or do any manner of sexually deviant things. Which hey,
is great work if you can get it.
“But all that sex and fame and rock and roll has a tendency to skew how you see the
world. It warps you, makes you forget you’re just people like everyone else. People
I knew long before you were rock gods and long before you were—” She popped her fingers
in the air, made air quotes— “two of
People
Magazine’s ‘sexiest men alive.’
“I grew up with the whole group of you. I saw you screw up with girls, crash your
cars, fail tests, get grounded. Hell, I saw both of you cry over guitar lessons and
GI Joe dolls. And now you’re all grown up, bad-ass rockers who can have anything and
anyone they desire. Whoop-de-do. All that means is I spend an inordinate amount of
time worrying you’ll drink yourself to death.” She forced herself to look Ryder over
with distaste. “Or come down with some horrible, untreatable STD. Now why exactly
would I want a piece of that?”
Tossing her hair over her shoulders, she made a grand exit, making sure that she closed
the suite door softly behind her. She wanted to slam it, but there was no way in hell
she was giving either of them that satisfaction. Nothing like giving a speech that
made her knees knock together and then blowing it all by showing them just how much
they’d gotten to her.
She walked swiftly down the hallway to the elevator, determined to get the hell out
of there before Jared came after her. She couldn’t afford it, but she would totally
eat the cab fare back to her apartment if it meant getting out of there with the last
vestiges of her pride intact. She loved her brother and the other guys, but she couldn’t
face Ryder right now. Couldn’t look him in the eye and behave normally when the derision
in his voice was still ringing in her ears.
She’s not exactly my type.
Like his could-be-disease-riddled ass was such a good catch?
She’s a little too much.
Like she needed an announcement to tell her that? It wasn’t like she’d spent the night
trying to get into his pants, for God’s sake. He was the one who had backed her up
against that wall. He was the one who had kissed her.
After you bit him
, her conscience reminded her.
Ryder had made it abundantly clear that he would never be interested in her. She wasn’t
going to waste the next ten years of her life the way she’d wasted the last—pining
away for a man she could never, ever have. It might not have looked like it last night,
or this morning, but she had more self-respect than that.
Determined not to think about it—about him—any more, Jamison punched the down button
and prayed that the elevator would come quickly. It wouldn’t take Jared long to throw
on a T-shirt and come after her. She needed to be gone by then.
She heard a door slam behind her and every hair on her body stood straight up. She
leaned forward, punched at the elevator key like her life depended on it. Logically,
she knew it wouldn’t make the stupid thing come any faster, but it made her feel better.
But it wasn’t Jared’s hand that closed around her arm just as the elevator doors finally
slid open, wasn’t Jared’s thumb that stroked softly over the veins at the underside
of her wrist. “Let go of me,” she said, wrenching her hand out of Ryder’s grasp.
He let go, but stepped into the elevator and hit the stop button.
“You can’t do that!” she growled, as she tried to look anywhere but at him. He hadn’t
bothered to put on a shirt before he came after her and all his glorious skin was
still on display. Not that she was tempted to touch it or anything.
“Why not?”
“Because people need the elevators?”
He waved a hand dismissively. “It’s the middle of the night. No one but you is going
anywhere.”
“It’s nearly seven a.m.! People have to go to work.”
“At this hour?”
“Well, we can’t all be rock stars, Ryder.”
He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Jamison. Don’t run away. I said I was sorry—”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Well, I am. Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“As if.” Tears pressed against the backs of her eyes, but she refused to let them
fall. She hadn’t cried over her car, her boyfriend, or her job. She’d be damned if
she’d cry over him. “Look, I really need to go.”
“Fine.” He shoved a frustrated hand through his hair. “But this isn’t over. We’ll
talk about it when you come to the concert tonight.”
“First of all, there is no this.” She wagged her finger between them. “And secondly,
I’m not coming tonight.”
He looked shocked, and more than a little horrified. “Don’t let what happened between
us chase you away, Jamison. I was an ass. I never should have gotten so upset and
I sure as hell never should have grabbed you like that. I swear, it won’t happen again.”
“You think that’s why I’m upset? Because you ‘grabbed’ me?” She put the elevator back
in service, then hit the button for the lobby. Ryder didn’t move even as the doors
started to close.
“Say you’ll come tonight,” he said as they rode down the twenty-three floors to the
lobby.
She ignored him. It wasn’t easy—rock stars didn’t get to be rock stars because it
was easy to overlook them—but she managed it. At least until the elevator doors slid
open and she started to exit.
He blocked her, standing in the middle and spreading his arms so there was no way
out. For a second she was pressed up against all that hot, hard, male flesh. Her knees
went weak despite her best intentions, but that only made her angrier—and more determined
to get away from him. It was like she was an addict—the longer she was in his presence,
the more she was willing to do to stay there. Her only hope of escape was to go cold
turkey.
Desperate to get away before she started to cry, or gave in, she stepped on his foot.
Hard. Then took advantage of his momentary distraction to twist away from him and
dart from the elevator.
“Jamison!” He trailed her through the busy lobby. “I’ll leave tickets at will call—”
She kept walking. “I already told you I had plans.”
“Break them.” His voice rang through the lobby. She glanced around, realized they
were attracting attention, but for once she didn’t care.
“For whom?” she demanded, whirling on him. “For you?”
He froze, an uncertain look on his face. In that moment, she knew she was—finally—looking
at the real Ryder and not the rock god. The knowledge further weakened her resolve.
Or it would have, if she had let it.
Silence hung in the air between them for one beat, two, as she waited for Ryder to
say something. Anything. But he didn’t—of course he didn’t—so she had to. “I didn’t
think so. Good-bye, Ryder.”
She turned and walked away.
“Jamison!” he called after her.
She wanted desperately to turn around, wanted desperately to run back to him and beg
him to forget about Jared and his past and everything else that he thought was standing
between them. But her days of begging him to notice her, to be with her, were long
gone.
So she kept walking right out the spinning glass doors. And she never looked back.