I didn’t have such an easy time of it. The longer I lay there in Rhett’s arms listening tosomeonein his band put on one hell of a performance, the more turned on I was getting. It was one step away from voyeurism, and I clenched my jaw to keep from making a move on my White Knight.
Eventually, though, the couple in the living room must have run out of energy—or cum—and gone to bed. It was my best opportunity to leave… to slip out unseen and fade back into the night. But Rhett’s heartbeat under my cheek pulsed in such a slow, steady rhythm that I drifted back to sleep in no time.
Screw it. I’d deal with the consequences in the morning.
six
GRAYSON
The groupie I’d brought back to the hotel was a stage-five clinger. Bringing her here was a rookie mistake, and I paid for it when I tried to politely send her on her way after we were done fucking. She wanted tocuddle. I didn’t fucking cuddle. But I was too tired to deal with a whole scene from calling security, so I just let her pass out in my bed. Besides, Jace was busy trying to prove something out on the sofa and didn’t sound like he was stopping any time soon.
I couldn’t sleep, though. Not with a snoring girl in my bed. Fuck, what was her name? Tracey? Stacey?
As soon as the sun came up, I made a whole show of getting up to shower. She tried to join me, but I wasn’t interested in revisiting that pussy. So I made excuses about an early rehearsal for tonight’s show and handed her off to one of our bodyguards to escort downstairs. Thisgrassroots tourmeant we were more accessible in some ways, in smaller–albeit as sold out as ever–stadiums and venues, but that didn’t mean we relaxed the rules.
I ran into Jace on my way back to my room. He had his girl up on the dining table, his tongue halfway down her throat while her hand worked furiously between them, jerking him off. He stopped kissing her long enough to give me a curious glance, then whispered some encouragement to the girl before blowing his load on her tits.
“I’m ordering coffee,” I rumbled, not even blinking at the scene. Jace’d done worse over the years. We all had. This kind of shit… we were all just numb to it now. “You want?”
At this time of morning, it was entirely possible Jace was on his waytobed, not out of it.
“Yeah, order some food too,” he replied, his signature melodic voice in full effect. The girl gave a cringeworthy moan, licking her lips and spreading her knees like she expected Jace to actually reciprocate. Poor fool. Jace just frowned at her in confusion. “You’re still here? You can go now.”
The girl’s face crumpled into a pissed-off, hurt expression, and her gaze darted to me. “Where’s Crystal? Did she already leave?”
I glanced at Jace, then back to the girl. “Who?”
She gaped at me in shock, then slid off the table to grab her purse off the floor, where she must have dropped it when Jace decided to get a farewell hand job. “I guess I shouldn’t expect anything better,” she muttered bitterly. “FuckingBellerose. The rumors are dead true.”
She stormed out of the suite without a backward glance, and I quirked a brow at Jace. “The fuck?”
He just shrugged back. “Don’t know, don’t care. Get me a burger or something.” He sniffed his armpit and grimaced. He only wore a pair of loose sweatpants as it was, probably having just rolled out of bed with that chick. “I need a fucking shower. Do me a favor and wake Rhett up. Make sure he’s alone.”
Why the fuck would he care if Rhett was alone? Jace had already gone back to his room, so I just shrugged it off and flopped down on the sofa to call our order through to room service. Tom—our bass player’s boyfriend and our temporary tour manager—came yawning out of their shared room.
“Why are we all up so early?” he asked me with his face all screwed up in annoyance.
I hated Tom. He gave me bad vibes. But he was tied to Flo, so we were stuck with him for now. “Because we fucking feel like it, Tucker. No one said you needed to get up too.”
Tom’s eyes flashed with anger for a moment, then a slick smile crossed his lips as he gave a forced chuckle. Like I wasjoking. “Hey, did you see that chick Rhett picked up last night? The one that Jace got his panties in a bunch about?” He sat down on the sofa like we were buddies. We were not.
But I frowned at his question. “What chick?” I hadn’t seen Rhett with any groupies. Last I’d seen him, he was sneaking away from the twins to have a smoke somewhere.
Tom leered. What the fuck did Florence see in this sleaze? “Oh, shit, that’s right, you had that chick Crystal practically riding your dick in VIP when that shit went down. No wonder you didn’t notice.”
Who thefuckwas Crystal? The groupie I’d brought back was Tracey. Wasn’t she? Shit, maybe itwasCrystal.
“She was this tiny thing, not even hot, but Rhett and Jace looked like they were going to come to blows over her. It wasweird, Gray. They’ve both pulled girls ten times hotter than this bitch.” Tom pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and sparked up right there on the sofa.
“Take that shit outside, Tucker,” I snarled, glaring in disgust at the smoke. “And don’t fucking call me Gray.” I’d told him this a thousand times; it just wasn’t sticking. Sooner or later, he’d end up eating my fist, and then I’d have Flo all over me about making her boyfriend bleed.
At least he took his nicotine cloud out to the balcony, even if he did leave the doors open to try and continue our conversation. I tuned him out as I submitted another room service order, getting coffee for Flo and Rhett. They’d be awake soon enough, given we weren’t being especially quiet.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, our magenta-haired bassist flopped onto the sofa beside me.
“’Sup, Gray?” she muttered with a sleepy yawn.
“He doesn’t like being called Gray,” Tucker called out from the balcony.
