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  “Then after, we’ll go back to my place. And I’ll get you dirty all over again.”

  My breath flutters in my chest. He’s so intoxicating, so addictive. I’ve had one taste and all it’s done is make me want more.

  But maybe if we really have sex, go back to his house and I feel him inside me, maybe then I can get him out of my system.

  “Okay. Dinner,” I say, a warning already in my tone. “As long as we’re both clear that dinner just means foreplay.”

  “Definitely clear,” he says with a grin.

  Chapter Eight

  Let’s Do This

  Nick

  I feel like a god.

  I always feel like at least a demi-god after a show.

  But tonight I feel it even more, all the way to my bones, as I walk out of my dressing room with Natalia fucking Lowen at my side. I’m all-powerful. We’re cleaned up and fresh, but I swear I can still smell the scent of her in the air. Can still taste her on my tongue.

  And damn, does she taste good.

  Everything about her is good. More than good. Phenomenal. In-fucking-credible.

  I haven’t even been inside her yet, and already I know she’s the best I’ve ever had.

  Yet. I can’t believe I get to say yet with regards to her. By the end of the night, I’m going to have sex with my dream girl.

  It’s the idea of her that’s making me so crazy, I know. Like every other red-blooded man in the country—and probably several others—she’s my ultimate Hollywood bombshell. It doesn’t feel like there was ever a time I didn’t have a celebrity crush on her. Shit, Natalia was the first woman I jerked off to. I won’t tell her that. Or how many times it’s happened since, and not just because I couldn’t come up with a number if I tried. It’s embarrassing to be that guy, the one who’s had her on a pedestal. I feel a bit guilty about it, too, now that I know her.

  It’s not like I enjoy it when my fans hold me to an otherworldly standard.

  Still, I can’t erase the fact that she’s been a part of my sexual awakening. And being with her now, as an adult, with all the pent-up frustration associated with my younger memories, dirty and naughty like she asked for—fuck, I almost came before I had my jeans off. There was no way I would have lasted inside her this time, but now that I’ve had an initial release, I feel a bit more in control.

  That shower we took together was incredible. Tonight, the sex is going to blow her mind.

  We make it down the main corridor without seeing anyone who would make a big deal about her presence. The groupies have been moved outside by now, and most everyone’s gone except the crew taking down the set. Sure, the couple of people we pass seem to pop their eyeballs in recognition when they realize who the woman with me is, but it’s part of their job not to be starstruck. And they definitely aren’t the ones who will be spreading rumors.

  Those people are waiting on the sidewalk.

  We approach the thick double exit doors, and I look to Natalia, wanting to be sure she’s prepared for this. Not for the throng of fans—she’s had to deal with them herself for more years than I have, and she’s definitely used to that.

  No, I want to be sure she’s prepared to be seen walking out with me.

  “It’s fine. They’ll talk about it for a week and then be over it,” she says, as though she’s reassuring herself.

  “A week. We can ignore the rumors for that long,” I say, agreeing with her. Though, I’m strangely disappointed by the idea that we’re something that will fade away into the distant memory of the gossip rags. I know she has a reputation to keep. I know I’m not the type of guy who could fit into her world. I know that I can’t possibly be someone she’d consider anything real with, but . . .

  But nothing. I don’t even know why I’m thinking about this. I’m about to go on tour. That should be the only thing on my mind after tonight’s adventure.

  Tonight, I’m living the dream. The wet dream. Tomorrow can wait ‘til tomorrow.

  “Let’s do this,” she says, already pushing against the lockbar with her upper arm.

  So I follow suit, shoving open the other door with my forearm and following it as it swings open so I’m greeting my fans with the grin that had been meant for Natalia.

  It’s an effort to keep that smile from fading when Nat is no longer the person I’m looking at. Don’t get me wrong—I dig my fans. They put me where I am, and I’ve seen how quickly they can disappear. Just look at Jonas. He went from the oldest, most recognizable Ryder Brother to an anonymous citizen within two years of the band breaking up. He’d wanted to step away from the limelight, but I’d probably have major concerns about my career if there wasn’t a gaggle of teenage girls waiting for me after a show wearing Ryder Die T-shirts and screaming, “I love you,” as the tears roll down their cheeks.

  They don’t really love me. They don’t even know me. Like you don’t know Natalia comes a little voice in the back of my head. I shake it off. I always give listeners my time. Always.

  Just.

  Sometimes . . .

  Like tonight, when I have my mind twisted up and wrapped around someone who might actually have a real chance of knowing me, someone I really want to know too, it’s hard to have the patience for the umpteen selfies that I usually do.

  Fortunately for her, this particular crowd is so wrapped up in me that I’m not sure anyone even spots Natalia before Kirby escorts her discreetly toward the waiting town car. I keep my attention on them in between signing autographs. Kirby talks to her, likely getting an update of what our plans are for the evening. Then he opens the backdoor to the car for her.

  Natalia glances over at me and raises a brow as if questioning if I want her to get in.

  Yes, I want her to get in. And then I want her to get off. I want to find her naked and panting in the backseat, ready for me to show her every dirty, hot trick I know.

  Not going to happen, though. Not with a driver behind the wheel, and Kirby ready to climb into the front passenger seat as soon as I can escape to the car.

  The dirty, hot stuff will have to wait.

  For now, I nod toward her with a tilt of my chin. She blushes. What is she thinking about? The same things as me? I actually think so, which has my pants feeling tight.

  Then she disappears into the back of the car, so I turn my attention to my squealing admirers and try hard as fuck not to get too hard thinking about the gorgeous woman waiting for me only a handful of yards away.

  And once I’m in the car with her, I have to make conversation with everyone as though my head and dick aren’t already planning exactly how to show Natalia what she’s been missing by avoiding me.

  At the restaurant, it’s even harder.

  “Tonight’s show was solid,” Bruno says for at least the sixth time. It’s his thing. He frets. How the show was, whether I’m ready on time, what sponsors or promotions I need to bring up in the interviews he inevitably delivers me to fifteen minutes early.

  I nod as I bring a forkful of rare ribeye to my mouth. I’m sure it’s delicious, but all I want to taste is her.

  I don’t care about this conversation. His thoughts are irrelevant, with all of mine trained on the beauty in the seat next to me. There’s nothing to say, anyway. Bruno always gets worked up before going out on tour, and though I’ve never let him down, he’s typically anxious until the very moment we’re about to leave town. I’d find it more irritating if it wasn’t so routine.

  Right now my head is buzzing with the adrenaline from being on stage, a buzz that has been kicked into overdrive by the woman sitting next to me. I’m dying to pull her arm into my lap, tickle her palm with my fingers, play her like I played the keyboard earlier in the night. If she weren’t a celebrity, if she were any other girl, I’d have my arm draped all over her, claiming her in front of my friends. That’s how I usually roll.

  But I refrain from touching her. Natalia’s worried about the rumors—I get it. It’s against my nature, but I let the simple nearness of
her be enough.

  And it is enough. More than enough. It’s intoxicating and maddening, sitting so close to her without physical contact. I’m going out of my mind. Natalia. Lowen. At my table. With my band. Gesturing with her fork as she tells a story about the filming of Bakery to the guy who tunes my guitar.

  “Do you think ‘You Got Me’ went on a little too long?” Taz, my drummer, asks pulling my focus from Nat’s tale.

  Sure, I milked the song. I didn’t give the cue to end until we’d done the chorus eight more times at the end, much longer than I usually let it go on.

  It’s because she was in the audience, because I was singing it for Natalia. You got me twisted up, turned around, on my knees, by the balls, head fucked, in a daze. You got me. You got me.

  “It was my favorite number of the night,” she says, breaking off her conversation and sneaking a glance at me before she takes a sip of her wine. Can she possibly be as aware of me as I am of her?

  “Totally agree! Best time I’ve seen it done,” one of our superfans affirms, but I wouldn’t care if he hated it. If everyone hated it. Not after hearing Natalia’s praise. I’ll never perform it any other way.

  With her gaze on me, I trail my eyes down her arm, wishing it were my hands stroking down the length of her. A cascade of goosebumps spreads across her skin as though I’ve actually touched her.

  Yeah, this closeness is killing her too. It’s fantastic.

  I know I’ve stared at her too long when she blushes and turns her attention back to her plate, as though afraid everyone else at the table will know what’s happening between us.

  And the thing is, of course they know. The guys know, anyway. It’s my bandmates. My manager. My brother. They know I never bring a chick I’m not planning to bang to our after-show dinner. They know that the distance we’ve put between us is all a ruse. And they all know better than to let on that they know anything.

  I’m grateful for that. Truly. It’s helped put Natalia at ease, even with the four regular groupies who joined us for dinner.

  “Personally, I could do with less of your sweat,” Jake says like a douchebag. “You were drenched before the fourth song.”

  “Because I don’t just stand in one place when I sing,” I say pointedly. That’s Jake’s type of act, standing planted behind his microphone or sitting at the piano. I use the entire stage for my show, running around, giving every number all of my energy.

  Not to be outdone, he retorts, “Or maybe you have a glandular problem.”

  I give him the middle finger. He’s being a dick on purpose. Because I’ve brought Natalia, and he’s dying to know the deets.

  Too bad I’m not telling him shit. Especially not after all his poking.

  Everyone at the table laughs at our banter, and then Stewart, my bass player, starts in on a funny story that I don’t have the patience to listen to. I’m too interested in Natalia, who is picking at her chicken, barely putting a bite into her mouth.

  While the group’s attention is elsewhere, I lean over to whisper in her ear. “Eat up, baby. You’re going to need that fuel.”

  Her eyes widen, and she blushes again, but quickly takes a bite of her meat, which only makes me want to hug her close and devour her while telling her what a good girl she is for complying.

  Jesus, she brings out the primal in me. Maybe because she stood there like a goddess, requesting filthy sex with no strings. Maybe because she’s just so good—tastes so good, feels so good, looks so good, smells so fucking good—that all of my baser instincts are ignited by her presence.

  She really does have me twisted up. In all sorts of fucked-up ways.

  I keep reminding myself that it’s just the surreality of having the face and body I’ve grown up watching onscreen sitting next to me. Crash-landing into my life over and over until it no longer feels like coincidence. What’s that line our mom used to say? Something like, coincidence is what happens when fate tries to stay anonymous.

  So maybe this is it for us. Maybe tonight is all we’ll ever have. But a piece of me can’t help but wonder. Would fate really have gone to all this work just for one night? I mean, sure, I helped out a little with the tickets and the green room. And I’ll work even harder to make sure tonight is unforgettable. Then, I guess, it’s in fate’s hands.

  Or Natalia’s.

  And boy, do I like the way she uses them.

  Natalia has finished most of her chicken breast by the time she pushes her plate away and drops her napkin on the table. The waiter comes to gather our dirty dishes and asks us if we’d like dessert.

  After a show, I always have dessert. It’s my favorite part. Refueling on the sugar that was depleted from a high-energy performance is a must. Or at least that’s what I tell people. Really, I’m just a sugar junkie.

  “Are you going with the chocolate lava cake?” Stewart asks me. He’s that guy. The one who doesn’t order anything for himself, but takes bites of everyone else’s. There’s one of those guys in every group.

  I open my mouth to tell him he’s not fucking getting any of my chocolate tonight, but before I can say anything, Natalia slips her hand in my lap under the table and strums her fingers down the inside of my thigh.

  It’s a message, and I get it clearly.

  “We’re going to take off, actually,” I say, trying to be nonchalant even though my cock is stiffening uncomfortably in my jeans.

  Natalia scoots out of the booth, and I move to follow, dropping a wad of cash on the table once I’ve stood. “This should cover the two of us,” I say.

  “Nick Ryder is skipping dessert?” Jake says in mock surprise. “I’m shocked!”

  I don’t answer, shooting him a glare instead.

  Besides, he’s wrong. I’m not skipping my dessert—I’m just having it to go.

  “Is this your car?” We’ve been driving, getting to know each other as though we’re on a real date, for almost ten minutes before Natalia thinks to ask.

  “It’s Jake’s. I convinced him to let me borrow it while you were in the bathroom.” I turn onto the road leading up to the hills above Sunset Drive. “Besides, Jake isn’t cool enough to pull off this car.” Even though he isn’t here to hear it, I’m pleased with the jab at my brother.

  “It is a nice car,” she coos. “Do you like driving?” Natalia runs her hand across the sleek dashboard of the Aston Martin. It’s irrational to be jealous of an inanimate object, but that doesn’t stop me from gritting my teeth that I’m not the recipient of that velvet touch. I imagine the engine’s purr is one of satisfaction.

  “I love it. Love everything about it.” The speed, the flash, the freedom. The idea of the open road, of something big and amazing just waiting around the next bend, over the next hill. “You know, I got my license late. We were too busy touring for me to take driving lessons, and both Jake and Jonas refused to teach me. Typical older brother bullshit. By the time I convinced my manager to hire an instructor to tour with us, I was almost eighteen. The first time I got on a stretch of highway—after all that stupid practicing in parking lots and dead-end streets—it was like my whole life changed. All this power and velocity, everything under my control . . . It felt a little like being on stage. Except I was the one in the driver’s seat. Literally. For the first time in my life. It felt like escaping. It still does.”

  I glance over at her, worried I’ve disclosed too much personal information, but she’s nodding.

  “I can’t imagine what that would have been like. All the fame and spotlight on every mistake you make while you were still just a kid. I hit LA at nineteen, and even then, I felt like such a naïve child. Fumbling through everything. I pretty much had an arrow pointing at me that said, take advantage.”

  I nod in understanding. “At least you were in charge of your career. You may have felt like you were fumbling, but they were your mistakes to make. You weren’t tied to the whims of a money-hungry father and a manipulative managerial team.”

  Now I’ve definitely said t
oo much. Not because I care that she knows being in a boy band was not all it was cracked up to be, but also because it’s not the direction I want our energy to go tonight. I want to give her a hundred orgasms, want to write songs about this evening, want to soak up every single drop of her attention while I’ve got it, not talk about how I was robbed of a childhood. Bitters belong in a drink, not in casual conversation.

  Besides, it’s not all regret. I love what I’m doing now, and I wouldn’t be this confident if I hadn’t learned so many lessons early on. My past doesn’t define me, but it did make me the man that I am.

  Before she can comment, I change the subject. “The Aston’s great, but I prefer my car. She’s my baby. A Bugatti Veyron.”

  She chuckles. “Of course.”

  “Of course? What’s that supposed to mean?” I’m definitely intrigued as to why she thinks it’s so predictable.

  “It’s just so obvious. I should have guessed.” Her cheeks seem to darken before she’s even finished telling me. “A Bugatti’s basically sex on wheels. What else would you drive?” She flicks her eyes at me long enough to see my grin, then quickly looks out her window.

  She thinks I’m sex on wheels. If I were alone right now, I’d be fist-pumping. She’s just as turned on by me as I am by her, and the confirmation sends an intense hum through my body. Her admission only heightens the tension between us, sends sparks of electricity through the air.

  Silence falls over us, a thick, heavy, desire-filled silence. It grows more heated and more suffocating with every second. Finally, she turns on the radio and flips from station to station, passing several songs that I think are good before landing on a single from Nick Jonas and Tove Lo.

  Yeah. This is the right groove.

  It’s a song about two people coming together, and man, do I feel it. Feel it about me and Natalia. Feel that she feels it too when she turns up the volume, and the car pulses with the seductive beat. She closes her eyes and starts swaying to the rhythm, losing herself the way she did that first night we danced together at the nightclub. The sight of her as she bites her bottom lip is pure erotic art. I nearly have to pull over right now and get close in the front seat of my brother’s car.