Bad Boy Romance: Nick (Romantic Suspense Alpha Male Romance) (New Adult Rock Star Contemporary Short Stories) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 2) (5 page)

****

On a whim, I went back to Lost Weekend as soon as it opened
up. People I’d seen there the day before had recognized Olivia; which told me
that she went there often. Maybe I’d get lucky and run into her. I found a
table and ordered myself a beer, looking at the early birds starting to filter
in. I thought about the tactic I’d gotten Alex to help me with. Would Olivia be
pissed at me interfering in her career? Or the fact that I was essentially
putting her in a position where she had to choose to spend time around me to
get ahead or avoid me and risk looking bad.
It is kind of a dick move,
I
thought to myself, nursing a PBR. I didn’t want to get drunk before Olivia even
showed up—if she was going to show up at all.

A few girls gave me looks, and I thought about what Dan had
said. If I got Olivia on tour with us, I’d have to keep away from any other
pretty faces or hot bodies I saw.
That one looks like she’d be a lot of fun.
Lots of moaning; probably loves to take it from behind…that one in the skirt,
she’s all hot and heavy in the flirting but probably pouts if you want her
mouth on your cock.
My gaze lit on each of the women in the thinly
populated club in turn.
She’s into a guy going down on her. Not super good
for the actual deed.
Would I miss it, if I had to spend four months not
even thinking about what it would take to sweet-talk some little minx of a girl
onto the bus with me?

I thought about the night before with Olivia and a jolt of
heat shot through me, straight to my groin. I closed my eyes for a second,
taking a sip of my beer to try and cool myself off a bit. At least at the
moment, I couldn’t imagine possibly missing the potential partners for the
guarantee of an incredibly good lay.
But you don’t know that she’ll ever
have sex with you again; that’s kind of the point. What if you get her on the
tour, and she goes frigid on you?
I shook my head at my own thought,
opening my eyes and blinking a few times to adjust. Olivia Grant didn’t have a
frigid bone in her body—that much I knew. I’d have to handle her carefully, I’d
have to prove I wasn’t just going to drop her as soon as another pretty face
showed up, but just from one night with her it was obvious that she was the
hottest fuck I’d find in months.

I caught sight of Olivia right about when I had finished my
beer and was deciding whether to move on—go home, or meet up with one of the
guys wherever they’d gone. She definitely wasn’t working; I grinned to myself
at the sight of her in a short skirt and a pair of boots, with a filmy,
thin-strapped blouse over it. The skirt wasn’t so short that she couldn’t bend
over, but it definitely showed off her legs, and made me remember just what she
looked like naked.

I watched her for a little while, working out my approach in
my mind. Normally I almost never had to really even think about how to approach
a girl; normally just walking up to them and making a little conversation was
enough. But after the way she’d left me in the morning, and the way she’d responded
to my text, I had to give it a little thought.

I saw her heading for the bar and started in that direction
myself, moving from my table and walking up so that I’d arrive at just about
the same moment she did, almost right next to her. Olivia looked a little
distracted—which was to my benefit. I got to the bar next to her, and
barely—barely—brushed up against her, while I leaned against the bar, my
attention on the bartenders. “Nick?” I looked at her and grinned slightly.

“Fancy meeting you here,” I said. I held up one hand to
indicate I was ready to order.

“Are you stalking me or something?” Olivia pressed her lips
together, looking anything but pleased to see me.

“I’m here a few times a week, at least,” I said, shrugging.
One of the bartenders, Rachel, came up to me. “Isn’t that right, Rachel?”

“You haven’t seen him here before, Liv?” Rachel shook her
head. “Although I have to say usually Nicky either hangs out at the arcade
machines or finds someone to go home with about twenty minutes after he walks in
the door.” Not the best thing for Rachel to have mentioned just then.

“I hang out plenty,” I countered. “Just not on the nights
you work.”

“My editor said that he got a call from your manager,”
Olivia said, still halfway scowling at me. “You didn’t bitch about me, did
you?”

“Nope,” I told her, shaking my head. Rachel put a PBR down
in front of me and I picked it up. “In fact, you should meet with your editor
as soon as possible.”

“Why is that?” Olivia crossed her arms over her chest.
Rachel asked her what she wanted, interrupting our conversation. “Jack and
Coke, please,” Olivia said absently.

“Because you might just have an interesting opportunity in
front of you. Not one you’re obligated to take, but one that would put you in a
very good position in your career,” I told Olivia. I grinned again; I’d already
decided that I wasn’t going to try and talk my way into her bed—or talk my way
into getting
her
into
my
bed—that night. “I’d be curious to hear
your thoughts about it.” I raised my PBR and took a step back from the bar.
“Think I’ll drink this and then meet up with Jules wherever he’s landed for the
night.” I felt Olivia watching me as I left the bar to wander around the room;
I made sure that as long as I knew we were both still in the building, I only talked
to guys. I needed to make a good impression, after all.

****

“What did you do?” I’d picked up my phone the moment I saw
Olivia’s contact information on the screen.

“Huh?” It was ten in the morning—practically the crack of
dawn by my normal standards. I’d ended up hanging out with Jules, who always
seemed to manage to stay up until about four or five—sometimes until the actual
crack of dawn.

“My editor told me that if I want the assignment, I could be
your embedded journalist for the tour,” Olivia said, her voice tight and almost
harsh. “What did you do?” I came fully awake and grinned to myself.

“I just suggested it would be a good idea to Alex,” I told
her. “He’s the one who made the call.”

“Is this—is this some kind of blackmail, or something?” I
almost laughed; thankfully I was just awake enough to know it would be a
terrible idea.

“How the fuck would it be blackmail?” I shook my head,
pulling the sheet over me and closing my eyes, barely holding the phone to my
ear. “What am I threatening you with?” There was a long silence on the other
end of the line.

“I told you that I don’t want to get all invested in you
because…I know how you are.” I could hear the desperate self-control in
Olivia’s voice. There was a gust of wind over the mic on her phone—or maybe she
was sighing. “Is this your way of forcing me to get to know you better?”

“I’m not
forcing
you to do anything,” I pointed out.
“You were the best interviewer we dealt with, and everyone in the band agreed
that if we had to have someone on the bus with us—and the magazine had already
convinced Ron to do that—then we’d prefer it was you.”

“You’re going to let me do my job, right?” Now instead of
self-control, there was anxiety in her voice. “Nick, please—if you care about
me at all as a human being…”

“I like you a hell of a lot,” I told her. “I care about you
as way more than just a human being.” I paused.
I should never answer the
phone until I’m fully awake.
“I’ll let you do your job.”

“If you swear to me that you’re not going to like—sabotage
me, or something, then…”

“Then what?” I smiled a bit to myself.

“Then I’ll do it,” Olivia said with a sigh—I knew it was a
sigh that time.

“You want me to give you some advice on packing?” I opened
my eyes under the sheet and stared at the blue and white stripes of the fabric.

“I think I can manage. Besides, it’s still a couple of weeks
away.”

“Pack light,” I suggested. “Get used to the idea that you’re
going to be wearing dirty clothes pretty often.” Olivia chuckled, and I felt
more relief than I would have liked to admit to.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Olivia said.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I was in the middle of a
fantastic dream about being blown while I played the best solo of my life.”
Olivia laughed again.

“Go back to sleep then. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”

“Not before then? Tease.”

“I never promised to have sex with you again, Nick.”

“You also didn’t promise
not
to have sex with me
again.”

“Go back to sleep.” The phone beeped to tell me the call had
ended. I closed my eyes again and let the phone fall onto the pillow behind me
as I fell back to sleep.

****

The two weeks flew by for me—like they always did before we
left on tour. I went to rehearsals and hung out with the guys and specifically
didn’t text Olivia; I knew better than to push my luck with her just then.

“Fuck,” I muttered as I strode up to the tour bus. It was
eight in the morning.

“Have a hard night, Nicky?” I glared at Mark, who was
practically swinging around a street lamp pole.

“Shut the fuck up. It’s too bright.”

“No wonder I was able to slip out on you.” I looked up and
saw Olivia standing a few feet away, a Cafesito Express cup in her hand. I
heard Jules and Dan snickering but I couldn’t make myself look at them; I was
too busy taking in the sight of Olivia. She had either taken my advice or knew
well enough to pack light on her own: I saw a backpack and a carry-on sized
rolling bag at her feet. Her magenta hair was tousled, and I thought she might
be wearing a little makeup, but not very much. She was wearing jeans and a
Raggy Monster tee shirt, with a pair of beat-up Docs, reminding me of my first
glimpse of her. She looked a little sleepy, but way more chipper than I felt.

“You’re way too awake for this time of the morning,” I
informed her, rubbing at my face.

“Lucky for you that I am,” Olivia said. She bent over and
picked something up from off the ground: a takeout tray with paper coffee cups.
“The other tray’s in the bus already,” she told me with a shrug.

“Ah, sweet!” Mark lunged forward and claimed one of the
cups, returning to his apelike swinging.

“I’m already really liking this ‘embedded journalist’
thing,” Dan said, plucking another one of the cups.

“Alex is on board saying goodbye to Mary,” Olivia said. She
held out the tray to me.

“I thought you hated me,” I pointed out, grabbing for one of
the last two coffees on the tray. “Black?” Olivia nodded. I took a careful sip
from the hole in the plastic top; the coffee flowed into me like fucking manna
from heaven.

“I have never said that I hate you,” Olivia countered. “Just
that I’m not interested in trying for a relationship with someone who sleeps
around.”

“Technically you sleep around too,” I said, pointing at her
with the hand holding the coffee cup. “You had a one-night stand with me.”
Olivia’s cheeks flushed pink-red. I saw her look at Mark and Dan and then scowl
at me. “Oh please.” I gestured to Mark and Dan. “You didn’t think they’d know?”

“Naïve, I guess,” Olivia said, rolling her eyes. “Sleeping
with you was a mistake.”

“Was Nicky that bad?” Mark smirked at me.

“Get on the fucking bus,” I told him. Mark shrugged and he
and Dan gathered up their things and jogged around to the entrance of the tour
bus. “Sleeping with me was a mistake? Are you sure about that?” Olivia
shrugged.

“I don’t regret the actual sex itself,” she said slowly. “I
regret the fact that I threw caution to the wind and had sex with you because I
knew it would be great sex. I compromised on my principles.”

“And now you’ve got a juicy assignment following a band on
tour, which will look great in your portfolio.” Olivia’s eyes glinted in the
morning light as she glared at me.

“Yeah, and now also everyone is going to figure out that the
reason I got this assignment was because I slept with you and you wanted to toy
with me some more and probably get in my pants again. Really fantastic for my
career there, Nicky.” I laughed.

“Did you really just call me Nicky?” Olivia’s cheeks lit up
with an even deeper blush than before.

“Do you have a problem with me calling you that?” Olivia
raised an eyebrow in challenge, and I grinned.
Fuck she looks so cute like
that. So goddamn cute trying not to smile, trying to look tough.

“Nope,” I said. I shifted my backpack straps on my
shoulders. “I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t a
mistake
.” I saw the
blood leave her face and then return in a flush that crept up all the way to
the roots of her hair. I took another sip of my coffee and walked past her,
heading towards the entrance of the tour bus. I grinned to myself as I climbed
up the stairs, picturing the look on Olivia’s face. It probably wasn’t the best
thing I could have said in the moment, but I couldn’t help myself.
Oh yeah.
Whether or not she ever has sex with me again, this is going to be a fun tour.

I threw my stuff onto one of the bunks and carried my coffee
into the lounge. “Alex, the longer you take to say goodbye to her, the longer
it is before you get back,” I said, throwing myself onto the couch carefully.

“How does that math work out?” I shrugged at Dan’s question.
“You didn’t already scare Olivia off, did you? Dude—she brought coffee!”

“Yeah, and she’s never going to have sex with you again.
It’ll be nice to watch Nicky actually have to
try
to get in a girl’s
pants.” I rolled my eyes.

“I didn’t scare her off,” I said. “If she scares off that easy
she wouldn’t last a week on tour no matter what I did.”

“Oh, are there wagers on how long I’ll last on tour?” Olivia
appeared at the entrance to the lounge.

“Who told her?”

“I did,” Jules said, coming in behind her. “It only seemed
fair, man.”

“Can I get in on the betting pool? It’d be a nice bonus.”

“Nicky isn’t in the pool,” Mark said. “Is it fair for you to
be in it?”

“You didn’t bet?” Olivia looked at me sharply. I took my
pack of cigarettes out of my pocket and lit one.

“Didn’t seem like the right thing to do,” I said. “Besides,
if it ever got back to you, no matter what I bet it’d make me look bad.” Olivia
continued to stare at me for a moment longer.

“What did everyone else bet?” she asked, looking around the
lounge.

“One month for Mark, two weeks for Jules, the whole tour for
Dan, and six months for Alex,” I told her. “Alex thinks that you’ll fall in
love with me and we’ll last for two months after the end of the tour.”

“Dan’s going to get the money,” Olivia said. She glanced at
everyone else in the lounge and then looked at me. “Which bunks are open?”