Groupie/Rock Star Bundle (25 page)

“What?” I exclaimed. “But this is what they
worked so hard for…”

She shook her head. “Things are… complicated
right now.” Then, closer to me, “I’m pregnant,” she
whispered.

I gasped in surprise before I threw my arms
around her for a hug. I knew this was something she had wanted for
a long time. “When?”

She beamed. “November.”

I quickly did the figures in my head. According
to the DIB schedule they would be back on tour to support the
second album by the end of the year. It explained why Iain didn’t
want to keep their breakneck pace. He wanted to be at home with his
new family.

“Nobody knows,” she added. “Not even the
band.”

“My lips are sealed,” I promised. “What are you
going to do?”

She sighed again. “We don’t know. Ideally we’d
go back to London. That’s where we want to raise our child. But
that is impossible with the band. So I guess we’ll stay based in
the States for now. It’d just be nice to be able to see Iain more
than a few months a year. I already told him they need to take it
to one tour a year, but Jasper’s so freaked out he’ll lose Athena
with these Lourdes rumors he’s willing to milk DIB for all they’re
worth.”

I nodded. After Athena, DIB was now Jasper’s
biggest act. “If you need anything, I’m here.”

She smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that. I
need some help running the fan forums that Iris set up. She’s so
wrapped up with her new clients she doesn’t have time to run them,
and naturally I am going to have a very busy schedule the next few
months while I prepare for the baby.”

She looked so serene when she mentioned the
baby. It reminded me briefly of my scare earlier in the year, and
how after the panic subsided I really rather warmed to the idea.
There seemed something almost magical about conceiving a child with
the person you loved.

“You just tell me what to do and
I’ll do it,” I said.

“You’re the best,” she said happily
as she gave me a big hug. “I’ll send you an email with all the
details. Just look it over when you get home.” I nodded and then
she reminded, “Remember, mum’s the word.”

She giggled at her own joke and I couldn’t help
but feel excited for her.

I was still smiling when I went to the bar to
get a refill on my drink. I found myself standing next to the fan
that had become a concern for me, and so I leaned against the bar
and greeted her casually. “Some shindig, huh?”

She glanced over at me, then up and down to
size up the other female encroaching on her territory. “Not bad,”
she finally said. “Not as much fun as the one in Vegas, but then
again few things ever really are.”

“So you’ve been to more than one?” I asked as
if I didn’t know.

Her eyes wandered over to possessively land on
Vanni. “You could say that.”

I had hoped she’d be more
forthcoming with her information but she was too focused on Vanni.
“He’s something,” I mentioned.

She just sent me a knowing look.
“You have no idea,” she purred as she slid away from the bar before
I could pounce all over that remark.

I stood watching her go, thinking she wasn’t an
unattractive woman: average height and weight, with dirty blond
hair and a pleasant face. But there was something about her that
put me off, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

She certainly didn’t see me as any kind of
threat. She dismissed me easily with a simple up-and-down glance I
was used to from high school.

I turned around and faced the crowd again, and
that was when I caught Vanni’s eye. He smiled wide when the
recognition hit his face and he immediately headed my
direction.

My heart still skipped a beat watching him
approach.

“Wow,” he said once he got close enough to
hear. “Look at you.”

I smiled and shrugged, but inside I was
beaming. Mission accomplished. “I thought it was time to try
something new. I get bored with the same old thing,” I added,
wondering to myself if he did too.

He bent toward me. “Well I like it. Give me a
twenty minute head start and I’ll show you how much I like it when
we get home.”

I laughed but my heart pounced all
over the familiarity of his words. “Home,” he had said. “You got
it,” I said and then moved away from the bar so he could finish
mingling with his fans.

Later that night when I let myself
into his apartment I found a trail of petals from the front door. I
followed them to the living room, which was aglow with candlelight.
There Vanni sat on his sofa with just a throw blanket draped across
his naked body. He had two glasses of champagne poured, with the
rest of the bubbly sitting in an ice bucket. The remainder of my
strawberries sat in a bowl on the coffee table in front of
him.

“Here are the rules,” he said in a low, sexy
voice. “Each step you make into the room you have to discard one
piece of clothing.”

I laughed. I was up for that
challenge. I bent down to remove one shoe and then took one step
into the room. He leaned back and rested his head on the back of
the leather sofa as I did likewise with the other shoe.

Discarded next was the corset, then
the skirt, and finally my underwear. I came to stand in front of
him in only my lace stockings. He reached out a hand and pulled me
onto his lap, which I straddled as I faced him.

He traced his fingertips along my
skin, over my shoulders, across my breastbone, down between, under
and around my full breasts. I had been so sexually frustrated since
our unsatisfying quickie the night before I thought I was going to
split in two just from the touch of his hands.

Then his hands slid up around my neck and into
my hair, which fell in a burgundy curtain of curls down my back. “I
love the long hair,” he whispered softly. His hand cupped the back
of my head and he grabbed a handful of hair as he pulled me closer
to him. “Gives me something to hold onto,” he whispered before he
kissed me on the mouth.

I tried not to think about Kat and her long
hair, and wonder if he had said those things to her, in this very
room, under these same circumstances.

I shook my head to rid my head of such
thoughts.

“Is something wrong?” he murmured as
he nuzzled against my neck.

“I just missed you,” I whispered
back.

“I’m here now,” he assured softly
against my skin.

I thought back to our time in
Nashville, and the song he wrote for me. “No one can promise
forever, it’s not our give to give. If only for this moment, I know
this much is true. If only for this moment girl, I’m so in love
with you.” That was the extent of his promise.

If a moment was all I had, then I supposed I
should take advantage of it. I grabbed a handful of his hair and
pulled him up for a scorching kiss that had him shudder against me
with growing need.

I tortured him gleefully as I touched, kissed
and teased him without ever letting him touch me back. My teeth
nipped his sweet smelling skin as I would use my hands to bring him
to the edge, only to back away. My mouth soon followed suit and he
was incoherent with desire when I finally mounted him again, this
time taking him into my body where he begged to be.

He was wild with desire as he clutched me to
him and by this time so was I. When his mouth found my breast I
shuddered all around him with a loud cry. That was all it took, and
Vanni cried out himself as he buried himself as far into me as he
could go.

That night was like a honeymoon. We
barely slept in between the champagne, the strawberries, and his
carrying me to the bedroom without ever breaking our embrace. By
the time dawn peeked into his window that next morning I was
completely satisfied.

So what if I had said, “I love you,” first this
time? He needed to hear it, and I wanted to be the one to tell it
to him.

I ran my fingers through his mussed
hair as he slept peacefully curled up against my breast. It was
Saturday and the boys didn’t have anything planned until the
concert that night. He was all mine until about 6:00
p.m.

I planned to make the most of it.

I dozed briefly myself, only to be
awakened by his mouth and his fingers as they liberally explored my
body. He tasted and tickled until I was a quivering mess underneath
him, then leisurely made love to me until I had climaxed at least
twice more. And just like old times we didn’t even make it out of
the bedroom until close to lunchtime.

It was his idea to head to his favorite pizza
place, which was in walking distance from his apartment. The minute
we walked out the door he stepped away from me and I could feel the
bars come down. The prison of public scrutiny was a lonely one
indeed.

We even sat on opposite sides of the
booth.

Though I kept up the veneer of our “friendship”
I felt the walls of this fishbowl closing in as fans would
recognize him and stop by the table to say hello. He’d scoot out
from the booth to give hugs, take photos, and sign his autograph on
greasy pizza boxes.

None of it bothered him the way it was starting
to bother me.

Girls would give him their phone number right
in front of me, as if I ceased to exist. They would ask for a kiss,
which he’d always deliver on the cheek, but it still rubbed me the
wrong way. Girl Rule #15: If a man is sitting with a woman,
regardless if you know if it is a date or not, you shouldn’t come
onto him.

It really wasn’t that far different
from high school, when the snotty girls would dismiss you just to
get closer to the guy in your study group.

They probably felt they could easily take him
away from me if they wanted, and therefore I was no real
threat.

I wondered briefly what they would do if it
were Kat sitting there instead of me. With a sinking feeling I
realized they’d probably ask for her autograph too.

If he noticed my sullen change in
mood after they left he didn’t say so. He dove back into his
pizza.

I ate silently and tried not to stew. Then his
phone buzzed with an incoming text message. He glanced down at it,
smiled, and then pocketed it.

“Who was that?” I asked, even though I
suspected I didn’t want to know.

“Work related,” he brushed off. “I may have to
leave early.”

I sat back in the booth. After our
magical night together he was still willing to run off
elsewhere?

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“No,” I lied. I wanted to ask him a dozen
questions but none seemed appropriate. We weren’t exclusive, and it
was probably best not to torture myself with questions about his
other exploits.

He put down his slice of pizza and wiped his
hands. “Seriously, Andy. What is it?”

“Nothing,” I lied again. “I just thought we’d
spend more time together, that’s all.”

He just smiled. “Quality over quantity, babe.
That’s the name of this game. You know that.”

I tried to smile. Of course I knew. I just
didn’t like my time being wedged thin by someone who gets to be
with him all the time. Was that really so unreasonable?

He gave me that smirk as he tossed his napkin
on top of the half-eaten pizza. “How about this? Let’s go back to
the apartment and make the most of our time until then?”

I nodded, but my heart wasn’t in
it.

All I could think about as we made that short
trek back to his apartment was how happy he looked with Kat – in
public. I couldn’t even reach for his hand, and suddenly he felt as
far away from me as the moon.

The minute the door closed behind us
he was another man. He swung me up into his arms and carried me to
the bedroom. He kissed me, murmured loving words, and touched me
with gentleness and desire.

But all I could think about was who else he
treated like this.

It made me think about that fan
again, who had obviously followed him from city to city. I knew
what it was like to get Vanni in my blood. Had they had one night
together when he was as attentive and affectionate as he was with
me, and she had decided to follow him to the ends of the world
because of it?

He brushed aside her public displays of
affection but he would likely do the same to me if I
tried.

Exactly how many women were in the running for
Vanni’s heart?

He sensed my souring mood as we lay there on
the bed, side by side. He gently smoothed the long hair down my
back. “What’s wrong, Andy? Is it something I did?”

“I don’t know,” I finally answered, more
honestly than I intended. “Is it?”

He grew really quiet then, and I wondered if he
knew he’d been busted.

“I know you don’t have to go meet
the band,” I told him. I already knew their schedule. It was
unlikely to change. “You’re going to meet someone else.”

His hand fell still. He hadn’t said anything
and I couldn’t help but forge on. “I saw you with Kat in Central
Park yesterday. When you said you were swamped with work and
couldn’t come home for lunch.”