One Night with Sole Regret 02 Tempt Me (18 page)

She kissed him gently and stroked his
hair back from his eyes. “You already have. In just three words.
It’s enough.”

He tugged her against him and pulled
the tangled sheets to cover their entwined bodies. She switched off
the lamp on her side of the bed and snuggled closer to his chest.
“I love you,” she whispered in the darkness.

His heart swelled. If only he could
hear those words from her every night before he closed his eyes.
She was right—three words were enough. But as her hand stroked up
and down the bare skin along his spine, he realized he’d hadn’t yet
had enough of her body.

“
That feels nice,” he said.
“I hope you weren’t actually planning on getting any
sleep.”

A loud banging pulled Adam from a deep
sleep.

“
Get the fuck out of bed,”
Shade bellowed from the hallway. “We were supposed to leave an hour
ago. Are you even in there?”

Adam reached for Madison’s
sleeping body and tucked her against his chest.
Nope
, he thought.
No one’s home
.

“
You didn’t have another
fucking overdose, did you? If you don’t open this door, I’m calling
an ambulance.”

“
Go let him know you’re all
right,” Madison murmured. “He’s worried about you.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure
that’s it.”

He stumbled out of bed, his thighs,
buttocks and lower back protesting their strenuous workouts from
the night before. He stretched as he crossed the hotel suite, not
bothering to find clothes on his way to the door.

He yanked it open. “Did you
not see the
do not disturb
sign?”

“
It’s after
noon.”

“
So?”

“
So we’ve all been ready to
leave for hours. Everyone is waiting for
you
. As usual.”

Adam supposed everyone but him was
looking forward to spending a night at home in Austin. “Yeah, all
right. I’ll be right down.” He closed the door and rubbed his face
with both hands. He wasn’t sure what time he’d finally fallen
asleep, but he remembered the orange glow of dawn seeping into the
room from around the edges of the black-out curtains.

“
Did he say it was after
noon?” Madison said, bolting upright in the middle of the bed and
trying to focus on the clock on the nightstand.

Hair tangled, nipples red, lips
swollen, marks on her chest from his sucking kisses, mascara in
dark half-moons beneath each eye, Madison looked positively
well-fucked. Adam was seriously considering adding another layer to
that look.

“
I’m going to be late for
work,” she said as she collapsed in an exhausted sprawl on her
back. Adam stepped on a half-eaten bag of chips. The wrapper
crinkled, and the chips crunched beneath his foot as he returned to
the bed.

“
I’m not sure how my dick
is even functional this morning, but it would very much like to
show you a good morning.”

She groaned and threw a pillow at him.
“I don’t think I can open my legs to accept its good
morning.”

“
I’ll just bend you over
the back of the sofa then.”

She cringed. “We have to
go.”

He knew she was right, but that didn’t
mean he had to accept it was time for his interlude with Madison to
end. He climbed onto the bed beside her and drew her against him.
“Just let me hold you for a few more minutes,” he whispered into
her hair.

She snuggled closer.

His eyes opened and closed
lethargically.

A loud banging started Adam awake some
time later. “What is taking you so long?” Shade yelled from the
hallway. “There are other people on the planet too, you know. The
entire world doesn’t revolve around you.”

“
We fell asleep again?”
Madison said in a slurred voice. “What time is it?”

Adam tilted his head back and squinted
at the glowing numbers of the alarm clock. “One oh
four.”

“
Shit!” Madison struggled
out of the tangle of his arms. He helped her free her legs from the
knotted sheet and watched her stumble around the room looking for
her clothes. He knew the hesitance in her steps was his
doing.
Rock on.

“
Adam, get dressed.” She
threw his jeans at his face.

She fought to get her bra in place and
then slipped her dress over her head. It gaped open in the
back.

“
Where are my panties?” she
said.

He grinned. Right where he’d put
them.

Hands on her hips, challenging glare
on her face, she pursed her lips at him. “I can’t wear this dress
without panties. All it would take is a gust of wind
and . . . ” She lifted her skirt, and he caught
a glimpse of her mound.

His cock twitched to life, drawing her
attention.

“
Don’t you dare get a
hard-on, Adam Taylor. I’m supposed to be at work in forty-five
minutes, and the entire band is waiting for you so they can
leave.”

“
What can I say?” He
shrugged. “You’re a worthy distraction.”

The corner of her mouth twitched with
the hint of a smile, and her cheeks pinked in a most beguiling
blush.

Adam heard the suite’s door
unlock.

“
Thank you,” Shade said to
a harassed-looking maid. “I think he’s dead in here or
something.”

“
I’m not dead,” he assured
the maid, whose eyes widened when she noticed him lounging on the
bed sporting a half a hard-on. “Just naked.”

The maid gasped, hurried from the room
and shut the door.

“
I’m so sorry, Shade,”
Madison said, holding the front of her dress against her chest with
one hand. “We accidentally fell back asleep.”

Adam’s gaze drifted to the tops of
Madison’s thighs and the hint of her luscious bare ass peeking just
beneath the hem of her skirt. She was right about needing her
panties.

He supposed he could no longer avoid
the inevitable. He had to say goodbye to the spot of radiance in
his dark existence, find out what the fuck Shade’s problem was once
and for all and bribe his father into moving to Amsterdam. Or maybe
he’d just sleep on the tour bus tonight and continue to practice
avoidance.

Adam tugged the pair of lavender,
satin panties from the pocket of his jeans.

He held them up with one finger.
“Looking for these, Madi?”

She turned in his direction, her eyes
widening when she saw what he was offering her. Blushing furiously,
she snatched the tiny garment from his hand and rushed into the
bathroom.

“
You know, the only reason
we even stayed in Dallas last night instead of going straight to
Austin is because we all knew how much you need to see that woman,”
Shade said.

Adam’s face fell.
They
knew
? How
could they know? “So you should have just left me here to find my
own way home.”

Shade nodded. “Yeah, I realize that
now. I keep hoping you’ll learn some consideration for others, but
you’re a lost cause.”

Adam didn’t care what Shade thought of
him. “I don’t need a sermon. Thanks.”

“
Julie’s birthday is today.
I missed her party because of you,” Shade said.

Adam’s heart sank into the pit of his
stomach. He knew how much Julie meant to Shade.

“
I didn’t realize,” Adam
said.

Shade didn’t say anything. He just
left Adam sitting in the center of the crumpled bed, feeling like
the most self-centered asshole on the planet.

Adam was sorry. So sorry. Why hadn’t
he told Shade he was sorry before Shade had turned his back on him
again?

Hands trembling, Adam got dressed. He
recognized the craving crawling along his skin. He knew this
feeling. This gnawing hunger. This need for something to numb his
pain, his troubles, his worries. His father would have any
mind-altering substance he wanted waiting for him at home. All he
had to do was ask. Take. And he could create the illusion that
everything was right in his world.

It would be so easy. So
familiar.

Adam took a deep, steadying breath and
sat on the edge of the bed. He clenched his still shaking hands
together and struggled to find air. He recalled the allure of that
illusion so well. Living in a world without problems.

“
Adam?” Madison called from
the bathroom. “Will you zip me?”

A world without light.

He had something better
than illusion now. He remembered the way Madison had looked as she
told him she loved him last night. As she climaxed with him and for
him. As she slept trustingly in the circle of his arms. As he’d
loved her.
That
had been no illusion.

Adam rose from the bed and headed for
the bathroom. Madison stood at the mirror with her back exposed. He
paused in the doorway and watched his world scowl at the smudge
under her eye. She licked her finger and rubbed at it to no avail.
Peace settled over him, spreading out from his chest in soothing
warmth. This feeling wasn’t found in a pill or a powder or a
needle. This feeling was all Madison’s doing.

She noticed him standing there and
smiled at him over her shoulder. Heart in his throat, he smiled
back.

“
Is everything okay?” she
asked.

He stepped up behind her and slowly
zipped her dress. “Yeah, baby. I’ve got this.”

She met his eyes in the mirror and,
for a second, he thought she was going to call him a liar and point
out how easily his resolve could crumble. How easily life could
break him into a thousand jagged pieces and toss him back into the
pit of despair he knew so well. She smiled instead. “I know you
do.”

Her belief in him gave him
strength. He would make amends with Shade and he would deal with
his father and he didn’t need drugs to get him through tough times.
They were no longer necessary to numb his pain. Not when he already
had bliss. Madison Fairbanks was in his life. Not an illusion. His
reality. Everything
was
right in his world as long as he had
her.

“
You’d better hope my car
wasn’t towed last night,” she said. “If I’m late, I’m going to be
fired.”

He hugged her from behind and splayed
his hands over her belly. “You could quit that job and go on tour
with me as my personal sex slave.”

She laughed. “Don’t tempt me, Adam
Taylor. I might just take you up on that offer.”

He grinned. Now there was a challenge
he was up for. So, how did he tempt the master temptress? He’d
think of something before he saw her again. After all, New Orleans
was six very long days away.

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank Beth Hill for her
patient and detailed editing skills. She helped me make this story
sing. This was not an easy book to whip into shape.

I also want to thank all of my fans
for the encouragement and their patience while I edited and
reedited this story. Most of them know by now that I’m an incurable
tease, but even I thought the wait was a touch sadistic. I hope
you’re enjoying this new set of naughty rock stars. Shade’s up
next. Prepare yourself. And since I get this question so often,
YES, Gabe and Melanie from “Try Me” will get another novella. And
so will Adam and Madison.

About the Author

Combining her love for romantic
fiction and rock 'n roll, Olivia Cunning writes erotic romance
centered around rock musicians. Raised on hard rock music from the
cradle, she attended her first Styx concert at age six and fell
instantly in love with live music. She's been known to travel over
a thousand miles just to see a favorite band in concert. As a teen,
she discovered her second love, romantic fiction -- first,
voraciously reading steamy romance novels and then penning her own.
She recently sold her snow shovel and moved from Nebraska to
Galveston, Texas. You might find her on the beach with her feet in
the surf, writing about naughty rock stars.