How to Catch a (Rock) Star (The Dead Hour #1) (11 page)

‘Yeah, a bit,’ Lillie said, getting up to look in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy and bright red and there were thick black tracks running down her cheeks. She grabbed a tissue and wiped the mascara and eyeliner from her face. She watched in the mirror as Jed came up behind her, putting his arms around her and resting his chin on top of her head. They stared at each other in the mirror until Jed started laughing again. Lillie turned around and pushed him away from her, laughing too.

‘It’s not funny. I bet Johnny will never let me live this down,’ she said.

‘Probably not,’ Jed agreed. ‘But you just need to say Hoboken to him and he’ll shut up.’

‘Really?’

Jed nodded, a big grin on his face.

‘Well, you have to tell me the story behind that now,’ she said.

‘I’ll tell you the moment he teases you,’ he said.

Lillie looked at him sternly.

‘I promise. Now, why don’t we go back to the hotel and watch some expensive hotel rental chick flicks with hot chocolates?’

Lillie smiled and hugged him.

‘I want a big bar of chocolate too,’ she said.

‘Well, that’s a given,’ he said. ‘Let’s go,’ he said as he led her out of the room and towards the back doors. ‘I’ll text Johnny and let him know we’ve left.’

Lillie had an entire family bar of Dairy Milk to herself and a huge hot chocolate with whipped cream, marshmallows and a flake as Jed patiently sat through two chick flicks. She finally fell asleep with her head on Jed’s chest whilst he watched a ‘50s B movie about zombies.

It was the perfect end to a horrific night and she couldn’t have felt more loved, comforted and safe in Jed’s arms. In fact, she didn’t think she had ever felt more secure in her life.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Lillie woke up with Jed curled into her so tightly, she could hardly breathe. She stayed in his arms for a while, thinking about the last two gigs they’d done.

The Winchester gig had been much better than anyone had expected. It hadn’t been her best but she sang all three songs without collapsing like the night before in London, so she thought of it as a victory.

Last night had been their very last UK gig at The Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth, which had been weird for Lillie. So far, it had all felt like she could give it up whenever she wanted. At least she would be in the same country. But tonight they were going to France and it would be much less easy to quit when she was no longer in the UK.

She tried to extricate herself from Jed’s death hug but only succeeded in waking him up.

‘What are you doing?’ he murmured into her shoulder, pressing himself against her, his chest hot against her back. ‘Don’t get up yet, Lil.’

His hand wandered down her side, sweeping over her leg and back up her stomach to cup her breast. He skimmed his fingers over her nipple, already hard in anticipation of his touch, and trailed his fingertips across her collar bone and down to her other breast, thumb circling round and round her nipple as he kissed her neck. Lillie let out a soft moan when he bit her shoulder, pushing her arse into his groin. He tweaked her nipple hard before sliding his hand down her stomach to find her ready for him. She parted her legs and he rolled over to get a condom, ripping open the packet and rolling it on. He played with her clitoris again, his fingers applying more pressure as she reached behind her to guide him into her. He moved languorously at first, slowly building up to a more intense rhythm. His hand cupped her breast again, his fingers rolling her nipple and she felt the crescendo of her climax moving through her body.

She moved with him in perfect rhythm as he kissed her neck, gently biting her shoulder, harder now as his fingers moved back down to her clit, teasing her with light circles until she was begging him to make her come. He slowed the motion of his hips, refusing to fuck her quickly, increasing the pressure and speed of his fingertip on her clitoris. He caressed her to an intense orgasm, her hands grabbing at the sheets as her body stiffened with an intensity of pleasure that she had never experienced with anyone else before.

Her body relaxed and she moaned and pushed herself back towards Jed as he thrust into her, harder and harder, only pausing his rhythm to lift her to her knees. He held her hips as he pounded into her and she looked over her shoulder, the sight of him turning her on even more. His muscled chest was glistening with sweat, his head thrown back in ecstasy as he fucked her harder than he ever had before, pushing her flat onto the bed with the force of his thrusts.

He grabbed her hips and pulled her to him and she pushed herself against him, pleading for more, until he finally came with a load groan.

Lillie’s eyes flew open as the palm of his hand connected with her arse and she gasped and stifled a giggle.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Got carried away.’

Lillie laughed and rolled over to face him, her chest heaving as she tried to get her breath back.

‘I didn’t know you were into spanking,’ she joked.

‘Well, I guess there’s quite a lot you don’t know about me,’ he replied, placing his arms either side of her head and lowering himself down to kiss her. He grinned, his breathing laboured.

‘That’s true,’ Lillie said, growing serious. ‘Sometimes I feel like I don’t really know you at all,’ she continued, her eyes lowering to focus on his chest.

‘Well, it has only been, what? Two weeks? We don’t need to know everything about each other right away. Do we?’

Lillie looked up again and shook her head.

‘I suppose not.’

Jed stared at her for a long minute.

‘What do you want to know, Lil? I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.’

‘Well, I don’t know really. Just stuff,’ she said, feeling defensive.

Jed sighed heavily and moved to lay on his back, hands behind his head.

‘Can’t we just take this as it comes? You know, find out stuff,’ he stressed the last word, ‘as we go along. Like normal people do. I don’t understand this weird need of yours to know every single damn thing straight away.’ He glared up at the ceiling and Lillie stared at him for a minute before getting out of bed and stalking into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

She locked the door, listening to the silence in the bedroom for a minute before turning the taps on to run a bath. Uuugh. He could be so… touchy.

She lowered herself into the hot water slowly. Well, she thought, she knew that much about him at least. She washed her hair and lay in the bath until it was tepid. After she had moisturised her entire body, combed out her hair and put on her make up, Lillie sat wrapped in her towel for a while, delaying facing him again.

When she was thoroughly bored of her own thoughts, she took a deep breath and opened the door. The room was empty. Great. She got dressed and decided to call Kate and Chris’s room, noticing a messily written note by the phone. At least he had the decency to leave a note before skulking off she thought to herself.

He was with Johnny and would be back at ten to go to her parent’s house to see Tess. She wasn’t really in the mood to see Tess now but a promise was a promise.

The phone rang, making her jump. She picked it up.

‘Hey.’ It was Jed. ‘Are you dressed?’

‘Yes.’ She heard Jed sigh softly at her terse response.

‘I thought you might like to join me for breakfast but I can tell you’re still mad at me. I ordered you pancakes - ’

‘I thought you were with Johnny.’

‘Well, it seems he has company this morning so I’m on my own.’

‘Okay, I’m coming down now.’

‘Good. Oh, and Lil? I’m sorry about earlier. Really.’

‘Me too,’ her voice softened slightly although she was still cross with him.

‘Ok, now hurry up or your pancakes will be cold.’ He rang off and Lillie put the phone down before grabbing the key card and going down to the dining room.

She noticed him straight away, tucked away in a quiet corner of the room, looking moodily sexy. His dark hair was sticking up a little where he hadn’t tamed it with a shower and he had two days worth of stubble lining his strong jaw. Even though she was still upset with him, Lillie felt a tug in her groin as she watched him. She wanted to fly across the room and take him where he sat. He was perfect. Apart from his reluctance to talk about his past.

Lillie walked towards him as he turned his head to look for her, his eyes lighting up when he realised she was there.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘They just arrived.’ He gestured towards a massive stack of pancakes and two jugs of maple syrup. ‘I got extra syrup.’

‘Thanks.’ Lillie sat down and poured the first jug over the steaming pancakes. She didn’t know what to say so she remained silent, eating her pancakes whilst Jed watched and sipped from a mug of coffee. She was halfway through and pouring over the second jug of syrup when he finally caved and spoke.

‘Lil. Are you going to talk to me at all?

‘I’m not not talking to you,’ she said.

‘Right. Sure.’ He fiddled with his glass, moving it around so that sunlight sparked off the glass. Lillie had never seen him so anxious.

‘I really am sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to upset you.’ He put the glass down and looked at her.

She carried on eating, avoiding his eyes and he carried on waiting for her to say something.

‘S’okay,’ she muttered, shoving another massive forkful of maple syrup sodden pancakes into her mouth. She was completely full but if she stopped eating she would have to look at him.

Jed reached across the table and put his hand on hers, preventing another heaped forkful from reaching her mouth. Inwardly, Lillie thanked him for it, her stomach was in agony. She dragged her eyes up to make contact with his and flinched at the look in his eyes, her gaze instinctively skittering away from his. He squeezed her fingers gently, pulling her eyes back to his.

‘I don’t want to fight with you, Lillie, I just don’t understand why you need to know everything straight away. I can’t cram my whole life story into two weeks.’

‘I know that but I’m fed up with finding out things from Kate. She and Chris talk all the time - ’ she trailed off, embarrassed to reveal her jealousy of Kate and Chris’s close relationship.

‘Lil.’ Jed got up and came to kneel beside her. ‘Are you serious?’

She nodded.

‘I don’t know what to say to that. Maybe they’re not as good in bed as we are.’

She rolled her eyes as Jed grinned.

‘Ok, ok. Look, they have more time to talk than we do. You’re busy learning songs, I’m busy writing them, we’re both up on that stage every night – it’s tiring being the entertaining front man and lady. Besides, has Chris written a song for Kate? Has he made sure that she can be with him for the whole tour and beyond?’

He searched Lillie’s eyes intently as she shook her head.

‘Because I made sure that you would be in my life by making you a part of the band and insisting that you tour with us. I write songs about you, about us. I’m doing everything I can to make you happy and that includes trying to get Steve to let Kate tour with us, which is something that Chris doesn’t seem that bothered about.’

‘Really?’ Lillie said, worried for Kate. She hadn’t even considered the idea that Chris might not feel the same way for Kate as she did for him.

‘Well, I’m sure he is,’ Jed backtracked, ‘but he hasn’t been very proactive about getting anything done about it.’ He lifted her hands to his mouth and kissed her fingers.

‘Lil, we don’t need to know everything about each other straight away. Besides, what will we have to talk about when the sex goes?’ he laughed and she smiled.

‘That’s better,’ he said, leaning forwards to kiss her. ‘Are we okay now?’

She nodded, whispering she was sorry too and kissed him properly, her arms sliding around his neck, pulling him to her. He broke it off before it became indecent and grinned lopsidedly at her, winking.

‘Now then,’ he admonished, ‘wouldn’t you rather have a nice long chat about how I hated school and used to skip it to read comics in the park?’

Lillie told him to shut up before grabbing his t-shirt and pulling him in for another long kiss.

‘Okay, let’s get upstairs. Now,’ Jed said, pulling her up and leading her to the lifts. He jabbed the up button impatiently, tapping his foot loudly. When the doors opened, he pulled her inside, pushing her against the wall and kissing her, his hands all over her body. They made it back to the room just about fully clothed and fell onto the bed, desperate to make skin-to-skin contact.

It was the first time Lillie had experienced make-up sex and now she knew exactly what everyone was going on about. Afterwards, Jed lay heavy on her, a dead weight, crushing her chest so that she couldn’t breathe. She pushed at him and he rolled off with a contented sigh, pulling her with him and kissing her bruised mouth softly.

‘Talking’s over-rated anyway,’ he said with a grin.

Lillie laughed and got off the bed, taking her top off and removing her other leg from her jeans. Jed’s eyes lit up as he pushed himself upright.

‘Maybe,’ she half agreed. ‘But at least it doesn’t require showering afterwards.’

‘You tease. I thought you were getting ready for round two,’ he said, reaching for her. She jumped out of his grasp and looked at her watch.

‘We don’t have time. I told Tess we’d be at the house for midday and it’s half ten now.’

Jed groaned and flopped back onto the bed.

‘Jed, you promised.’

‘I know, I know. We’ll be quicker if you go first. If I come in there with you, I won’t be able to stop myself from ravishing you.’ He waved his hand towards the bathroom. ‘Go on. I’ll call Johnny, make sure he’s up. Is it okay if Eddie stays behind? It’s not really his thing.’

Lillie said that was fine, as she didn’t want to overwhelm Tess anyway and went into the bathroom. She was just finishing her make up when someone knocked on the door.

‘Lil! You’re not packed yet!’ Kate looked around the room at her clothes flung all over the place. Lillie started gathering everything up and shoving it all into her too small suitcase.

‘It’s fine, I don’t have much anyway.’

Jed quirked an eyebrow as she tried to close the lid and zip it up. Kate came over to lean on the case as she forced the zip shut.

‘Done!’ Lillie gasped, standing up with a flourish.

‘Alright, I’ll get these downstairs and you get Johnny,’ Jed said, picking up his duffel bag and grabbing her suitcase. Lillie did a quick final check around the room before they left and went down the corridor to knock on Johnny’s door. It remained closed and she knocked louder.

‘I’m coming, just a sec,’ Johnny shouted.

The door opened and Johnny squinted at her from under serious bed hair. Lillie supposed she should have counted herself lucky that he had boxers on as she noticed a naked girl slip out of the bed and nonchalantly walk across the room.

‘What’s up, babe?’ Johnny asked, running a hand through his hair.

Lillie noticed his muscular chest and arms were almost completely covered in tattoos and concentrated on looking at his face.

‘Ummm. We’re supposed to be checking out and going to see my sister.’ She looked over his shoulder at the girl who was now shimmying into a tiny minidress.

‘Will you be long? It’s just I said we’d be there at midday.’ Johnny opened the door wide and gestured her inside.

‘I’ll be ready in two minutes, I just need to get dressed.’ He rummaged through a pile of clothes, picking out a t-shirt and smelling it. Evidently, it passed the sniff test and he pulled it over his head, picking his jeans up from the floor.

‘God, I feel like I haven’t seen you properly in days, What have you been up to?’ He looked at her as the girl hovered, fully dressed now. ‘Oh, wait. I think I can guess,’ he winled at her. ‘I’m surprised you can –’

‘I’ve been learning songs,’ Lillie said, looking pointedly at the girl standing behind him.