“Those flowers were tossed onstage for you. Not me.”
“Which made them my flowers. Is it a crime to give away something that belongs to me?”
“Not a crime. No. And as I said, your intentions were thoughtful and complimentary. But those roses…they were meant for you. They were given to you.”
His response perplexed her. First he raised an eyebrow in surprise, then he gave a confused shake of his head and finally he stuck out his hand, not to take the roses but in introduction. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet. I’m Jonah Speed.”
She eyed his palm warily as her fingers feathered once again over her left cheek, a nervous habit she wished she could break but knew she never would.
There was no way Jonah could know it, but a handshake was something Eve avoided whenever possible. Instinct, and a slight tingle in her palm, told her this shake would reveal more about Jonah than he’d be willing to share.
Besides, she didn’t want to shake Jonah’s hand, she wanted to clutch it and press it to her breast. And her ass. And her…
Behave.
“It’s nice to meet you, Jonah.” Instead of shaking his extended hand, she placed the roses into it, making good and sure she didn’t touch his skin in the process. She strongly suspected if her hand so much as grazed his she’d be forced to grab great big handfuls of the man, see whatever she was meant to see and never let go again.
His fingers wrapped around the stems and he looked at them curiously, as though not sure how to respond. Then he dipped his head in acceptance and pulled his arm back. “You’re right. It never occurred to me that you’d view these flowers as secondhand, or that I was giving away something meant expressly for me. My apologies. It must seem incredibly rude.”
He sounded both surprised and sincere, making Eve wonder if anyone had ever rejected a gift from Jonah Speed before her.
Her smile was as gentle and forgiving as her tone. “No apologies necessary. It was a lovely gesture.” She tried. God help her, she tried, but she just couldn’t help herself. Eve had to touch him. She grazed her hand gently over his biceps, just below the edge of his sleeve, so she met bare skin. Sparks shot through her hand straight up her arm.
With that, and before she did something stupid—like rip off that irksome top of hers and jump him—she turned back around and, tugging her makeup case behind her, continued down the tunnel until she entered the arena and dressing rooms.
She felt Jonah’s gaze on her back the entire way. It drilled into her like a million sharp darts of awareness.
Eve was only too relieved to shut herself in Delilah and Devine’s change room. Her heart pounded, a million beats a minute for sure. Jonah’s drums probably couldn’t hammer louder.
Never had anyone affected her so. Never had she desperately wanted to shove herself in a man’s embrace like she did with Jonah. Put herself at his mercy and beg him to do anything and everything to her body. He’d handed her half-dead, used roses, and all she could think now was how damn much she wanted to sleep with him.
No. Not sleep. Fuck him—all the way through the night and long into the next morning.
But then, who didn’t want to fuck him? He was Jonah Speed—rock legend, drummer extraordinaire and lethal to women.
Eve breathed deeply, calming herself while she waited for Delilah and Devine to shower before she fixed their hair and makeup, preparing them for the after party.
It was well past midnight by the time the crew arrived back at the hotel. Too tired to even contemplate a party—the third one in less than a week—no matter how much the back-up singers insisted she join them, and perhaps too scared to contemplate coming face to face with Jonah again, she ignored the party suite—jam-packed and writhing with people—and made her way to her own room.
The first thing that caught her eye as she opened the door was a massive bouquet of stunning blood-red roses, centered on the small table beneath the window. There must have been fifty long-stemmed flowers in the glass vase, each one fresher and more dazzling than the next. Their fragrance filled the room, making Eve dizzy.
She threw her key card and bag on the bed, set her makeup kit against the wall and trudged over to read the card attached.
Not secondhand, I promise.
These are meant only for you.
J
Chapter Two
With his customary bottle of beer in hand, Zachary slipped through the crowded suite, searching for Luke. He had to thank the guy for cutting short the interview he’d just been subjected to. Although the TV anchorwoman had behaved like the ultimate professional, her cameraman had openly propositioned him, painting an explicit picture of what Zachary could do to him and the interviewer, given the opportunity.
He shuddered. His days of sex for the sake of sex were over.
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
T-shirts, he amended silently. Zachary had collected a sickening number of them, each one representative of his various degrees of debauchery. If it was doable, he’d done it, and the memories did not always make him proud.
Zachary never found Luke. Instead he was waylaid by a group of teenage girls. With their long hair, skinny jeans, skimpy shirts and impossibly high heels, they all looked the same. Zachary had long since stopped trying to differentiate one face from another. He’d become too accustomed to the clusters of females who swarmed him.
Not groupies. No, groupies were another kettle of fish. A kettle that shared most of his been-there-done-that T-shirts.
These were fans. Adoring girls who’d be content with a smile or an autograph or a high-five.
At first, when fame had struck so fast, he’d tried to talk to them all, tried to offer them each a real smile and a heartfelt word. But that had soon become impossible. When hundreds, sometimes thousands, of fans flocked to him, it was unfeasible to give each of them his individual attention.
He’d since mastered the art of singling out one admirer while tackling some of the hundreds of questions that were tossed his way.
Zachary smiled patiently and handled the girls. As he spoke, he eyed the quietest one, a plain redhead. Yeah, so sue him. He had a soft spot for redheads. Especially redheads with green eyes. This one was shyer than the rest of her friends and not trying to get his attention. Instead she seemed content to stand aside while her companions flirted shamelessly.
He grinned at her and almost laughed at her responding look of bewilderment. As a black marker was handed to him and he signed his name to someone’s shirt, he winked at the redhead.
Her eyes widened and her cheeks turned pink. She smiled back.
Zachary answered questions as he always did—mostly with non-answers or by deflecting the questions back to the girls.
“Do you have a girlfriend, Jonah?”
“A pretty girl like you asking me that?” Said with a winning smile. “I bet you’re trying to make your boyfriend jealous.”
“What’s your star sign, Jonah?”
“Well, now, I’m guessing you must be a Libra.” Libra. The first star sign he could think of. “It’s funny, you know. Libras ask that question a lot.”
And so the conversation went, with Zachary charming the young women and signing his name at least five more times. The girls grew bolder, and by the time he penned his last autograph, it was to bare flesh, just above firm breasts.
He refused to sign the bare breasts themselves. The girls were just too young for that to sit comfortably with him.