The boys all began to laugh, except for Trick, who stared at Talia with open admiration.
“Come on, assholes,” she yelled. “Let’s get moving. Time’s a ticking.”
Jacob walked up beside me. “You ready?”
I nodded, smiling, still warmed by the way he had my back. “Yeah. Just need to get my purse. It’s in the sound room.”
“I’ll grab it,” he offered, giving his team chin lifts as they shouted out their goodbyes.
The second everyone had left, Talia sidled up to me. “Dunno what’s going on with Iceman, babe, but he’s acting like a man on a mission. I think we chosecorrectly when we picked SDSS to look after you all. For a hot minute there, I thought he was going to rip Jonny’s head off.”
“I know,” I murmured, biting my lip thoughtfully.
“It gave me cunt flutters,” she added, staring in the direction Jacob had disappeared to.
“I know,” I repeated, turning to her and making an ‘eek’ face.
“You’re gonna have to jump on that D soon, babe,” she warned. ‘Cause if you don’t, I will.”
I sighed wistfully. “He’s married, remember?”
Talia actually looked crestfallen. “I forgot about that.”
“Lucky you,” I drawled. “It’s all I’ve thought about for the last two years.”
Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “At least tonight you can make the fucker jealous.”
My eyebrows pulled together. “How am I going to do that?”
“Spoke to Hunter just before I arrived here,” she announced. “He’s going to the party with you. I explained how Jacob ‘Iceman’ Irons fucked you over. He’s on board to make some memories with his beautiful singer-songwriter girlfriend and in full view of her bodyguard, too.” Her lips twisted in amusement. “I’ve arranged to get some outfits sent over to your place in an hour, so you better hurry home.”
Slowly, I closed my eyes, and my heart sank. “Tally,” I wailed softly. “What did you do?”
“You can thank me later, sweet Saint,” she crowed. “Because by the end of tonight, Jacob Irons will know exactly what he’s missing, and he won’t be able to stand it.” An evil grin spread across her face. “Hunter’s going to make sure of that.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
ICEMAN
Somewhere between getting pissy with Saint for making me want her so fucking much that my wayward dick kept hardening whenever she threw a smile my way and pinning Jonny ‘fuckwit’ Jansen up against the wall by the throat, I’d decided that me and the sexy little rock star needed to have a talk.
My aim was to do that on the way home from the studios, but Colt had other ideas when he called me to discuss the profile the FBI had put together on Saint’s stalker.
Colt was right; it was a straight male, aged between thirty and forty, and he had money. He was successful, confident, entitled, and thought the world owed him something.
Basically, the majority of the male population of Hollywood.
By the time Colt hung up, we were already at Saint’s beach house, and she’d wandered upstairs to get ready. While she was out of the way, I checked the alarms and cameras and made sure the motion sensors were all working as they should be. Then I took in a delivery of a fuck ton of dresses for her before hustling to my room to grab a shower.
I stepped under the hot spray, the water cascading over my tense muscles and washing away the day’s frustration. The second I heard Jonny J call Saint a cunt, I saw red. I didn’t remember how I got to him. All I recalled was how the devil himself couldn’t have held me back.
I was nowhere near over Saint, but that wasn’t exactly a shocker. If I were honest with myself, I was aware of my lingering feelings even before yesterday when I stepped foot in her house and saw her again for the first time in two years.
Her vibrancy and energy had stayed with me over the time we were apart. I knew exactly how Jonny J must have felt an hour before with my hand wrapped around his neck, because Saint had me in the exact same chokehold, though mine was emotional.
I struggled to think straight whenever she was around me, but the irony was that I also struggled to think straight when she wasn’t.
As the steam filled the bathroom, I couldn’t shake the image of her face from my mind. Her azure blue eyes and pretty pillowy lips, her clear, olive skin, and the intelligence behind her eyes. But more than anything, her vulnerable heart and her poet’s soul affected me in ways that sent me off-kilter.
