Rock God (Hearts of Metal Book 3) (19 page)

Dom passed by then, wearing his favorite fishing hat and carrying a tacklebox, clearly having escaped the wedding reception as fast as possible. The fans didn’t spare him a glance as he gave Dante a pitying look and made a beeline for the elevators.

Dante’s fans exchanged wary looks with Shayna, sizing each other up.

A scantily clad drunk girl asked him to sign her chest. Resort security guards were already marching toward the small horde, but Dante broke away from the group and led Shayna toward the elevator.

Upstairs, she fired up her laptop and began typing furiously. Dante relaxed slightly, satisfied that she was working on her book. He’d hoped for something a little more romantic with her after the wedding, but he understood that it had been a trying day in many ways.

He opened his own laptop to see how much hype had resulted from Collette’s stunt. Even though it had only been a few hours, there was already quite a bit. The forums on his website were particularly clogged, and footage of the encounter had gone viral. For the most part, all speculation about any romantic reunion with Collette was discounted due to him kissing Shayna—though a few posters suggested there was a
ménage a trois
going on.

What concerned Dante most was the rabid scrutiny about Shayna. Links to her website were referenced everywhere, and some enterprising individual had dug up her divorce records. People wondered if she’d left her husband for Dante, and one teasing commenter asked if Shayna’s subject matter would change from “dashing dukes” to “rakish rock stars.” Plastered all over the Web were pictures of their kiss, which he didn’t mind, and of her terrified face while they stood next to Collette, which hurt him to look at.

Shayna was uncomfortable because she had gotten to know him as a person, but the events of the day—from Collette’s arrival, to seeing them perform together, to finally the press assault—had slapped her in the face with his celebrity status. That was why she’d been so quiet even after they escaped, and why they weren’t cuddled up together now. Dante cursed himself for not realizing it sooner.

His fame was a curse. Even after their years of marriage, Collette still looked at him with awe and hero-worship, and Dante realized something: He didn’t want Shayna to look at him like that.

He was going to do his best to make Shayna see him not as a rock star but as a man.

Chapter Seventeen

Shayna’s lips still tingled from Dante’s kiss in front of the paparazzi when they arrived back at their suite, no matter that it had happened hours ago. Her mind raced and spots still danced before her eyes from the flashing cameras, and she tried to focus on her manuscript, which seemed odd after the wedding but safer by far. Had Dante kissed her purely for the media’s sake, or did it mean something more?

Crazy. A little over a month ago, she’d been listening to that song Dante and Collette sang on her MP3 player while washing dishes and praying the casserole would be done before Shawn came home. Now…

A sinking feeling engulfed her stomach. A feeling of displacement. This wasn’t her world. She didn’t belong here. She never had.

Her hands shook as she remembered that banzai charge of paparazzi, the assault of flashing cameras, the frantic, hungry, shouted questions. Collette and Dante had handled them with primarily amused professionalism, but Shayna had felt like a terrified rabbit. No, she certainly didn’t belong in this place.

But she did belong in the writing world. Dante had reminded her of that. And it had been a solace and an escape for much longer than she’d realized.

With a resolute breath, she forced all the overwhelming thoughts about the day from her mind and transported herself back in time, with her minstrel duke and her witty heroine who had ten times Shayna’s own spirit. Unfortunately, she’d barely gotten several pages done before her phone buzzed.

It was a text from her editor:
Wow! You’re famous!

What do you mean?
Shayna texted back.

Her phone buzzed again, and Shayna could picture Emma shaking her head, even though they’d only met once at that conference.

Girl, have you checked your social media? Much less your sales rankings?

Hand shaking on the mouse, Shayna clicked on her Facebook author profile. People had tagged her page multiple times with pictures, articles, and even a video of Dante kissing her at Quinn and Kinley’s wedding, and her mind swam with dizziness. It had only been a few hours, and already the incident was going viral?

She skimmed the articles.

Rocker Dante Deity Snubs Pop Idol Collette for Popular Romance Author
, one of the blog links read.

Shayna snorted in disbelief.
Popular?
Her? And Dante hadn’t snubbed his ex-wife. He was too civil, too chivalrous for that. How she loathed clickbait titles.

Rapt, for a while she stared at the picture of herself garbed in her elegant burgundy dress, visibly melting in Dante’s arms as his lips claimed hers. The photo could almost pass for the cover of a romance novel, itself.

Is that really me?

She could barely believe it—until she looked down to assure herself that she was still wearing that gorgeous dress. Honestly, it wasn’t very comfortable to write in, but she’d been too flustered from the wedding to think of changing when she sat down at the desk to try to clear her head by diving into the fictional world of her characters.

Heat crept up her cheeks as she read the comments beneath the shared post. It seemed her readers had bigger imaginations than she did. They all virtually squealed and sighed over a romantic courtship that hadn’t even happened. Of course, what did they truly know about her? She’d been honest to them but not
that
honest. She hadn’t told them about the baby….

She shook off drowning depression at the thought and giggled at one of her readers’ candid observations about Dante’s figure—and at another who asked if he was helping her research her love scenes.

In a way, I suppose
, the imp within compelled her to respond, adding a smiley face and a wink.

Closing her eyes, Shayna allowed herself to imagine her readers’ guesses at her introduction to Dante. Instead of him carrying her out of the hospital, homeless and stinking, he’d swept her off her feet at some gala they were both attending, maybe some charity founded by artists, musicians and writers. They’d danced and talked about books and music as they sipped wine and looked into each other’s eyes with growing heat.

Instead of him caring for her like an invalid and the fact that they may have possibly only started sleeping together due to convenience and proximity, as Shayna’s mom voice occasionally suggested, they’d engaged in a tender courtship, romantic dates, and finally that one magical night where they concluded a romantic evening with a steamy night between his sheets.

Instead of accompanying Dante to this wedding as a burden that he likely just didn’t want to leave behind, as the mom voice suddenly insisted, Shayna had come here with him on equal footing with the women she’d met. A real girlfriend, a partner, one of them.

And instead of their kiss being orchestrated for the media, Dante had pulled her into that passionate embrace because he’d wanted to, and the press had just happened to catch pictures of it.

The what-ifs were making her maudlin, so Shayna did as Emma advised and checked her sales rankings.

Holy wow.
She gaped at the impossibly high spike. That would definitely make for her biggest royalty check yet. Though, part of her wished she could have done something on her own to make this happen. Still, she stared at the graph on the screen as if hypnotized.

She jumped as Dante came out of the bedroom and strode over to the little desk where she wrote. He’d removed his suit jacket and tie, and the cuffs of his dress shirt were unbuttoned.

“I hate to interrupt, but I haven’t heard you typing for some time. Are you okay?” He gave her that impossibly sexy smile, but it seemed something else was there, something new that made her shiver.

“I’m fine,” she said, trying to control her fluttering stomach. “I was done for now, anyway, just answering emails. My editor saw a video of you kissing me,” she added, dropping her gaze.

“Are you in trouble?” Dante asked worriedly.

His concern brought a thrill of warmth to her heart, even as it filled her with amusement. “No, quite the opposite. She’s thrilled. My sales have suddenly skyrocketed.”

“Shayna, that’s great!” Dante said.

It sounded like he meant it. Shayna’s pulse raced even as a twinge of regret intruded. If only things weren’t so confusing; if only she could leap into his arms, confident that he would twirl her romantically in the air and kiss her tenderly. If only their relationship was forever.

He wouldn’t do that,
the mom voice sneered in her head. Even if he was romantically interested in her, no real man would do such a thing as twirl his woman in desperate glee. Gestures like that were reserved for movies and novels like the ones she wrote. She even remembered what Dante had said before they left Sacramento:
“I’m sorry things went that far and complicated our arrangement.”

Those weren’t the words of a man in love—and why should he be? They hadn’t known each other very long, and besides, she was just a project to him. He’d said as much! And men in real life were terrified of commitment.

“However…I can’t say I’m sorry about what happened, and I wouldn’t mind repeating the experience.”

What exactly was she to him? If she didn’t ask him soon, she would go crazy.

“Shayna?” Dante interrupted her thoughts. “It’s getting late. We’re supposed to meet Kat and Klement and the guys at the Dockside Restaurant in the morning, for breakfast and huckleberry milkshakes. With the way they rave about ’em, I’ve been dying to try one.”

Her jaw dropped. “You’ve never had a huckleberry milkshake?” Those were a summer tradition during her Montana childhood. She’d forgotten that it would be the same in northern Idaho.

He shook his head. “No, but your expression makes me even more eager to rectify that. So what do you say? Let’s go to bed.”

Her email dinged, and Shayna saw that her publicist had sent her a notice that they were going to do a promotion on her last book, but she could barely register the details as heat trilled through her body at him saying the word
bed
.

“I’m coming,” she said.
Oh, that sounded dirty.
Her blush deepened.

She swiveled her chair back around to type a reply, and Dante leaned in the doorway, giving her another slow smile. He said, “I’ll wait. I know how I can be when I’m working, so I think I’ll make sure you don’t get sucked back into it.”

She stiffened. It was like he could read her. She still needed to answer her editor’s text too.

With some quick work, she replied to Emma’s text about her sales, hoping she conveyed excitement and didn’t end too curtly. Then she clicked on her Word document to minimize it, darting a furtive glance at Dante to make sure he couldn’t read the screen. In her last scene she’d recreated her memory of their lovemaking almost exactly…too exactly. In the next draft she’d have to do some editing to place it back in the realm of fiction, and certainly before she allowed Dante to read it. Her cheeks burned as she saved the document and pulled free her flash drive.

Stretching, she rose from the chair and walked toward the living room area of the suite. Dante had settled on the couch, taking off his shoes in readiness for bed. Shayna plopped down on the loveseat and followed suit. As her feet throbbed in relief, she wondered why she hadn’t taken the damn things off sooner.

Dante got up and sat next to her, his eyes dark blue and intense. He leaned forward and kissed her neck, and Shayna leapt up from the couch as if burned. Electrical currents darted through her body, but they were anything but unpleasant.

“What are you doing?” she gasped. How was she supposed to muster the nerve to ask him to clarify their relationship when he was making her melt like this? The mere touch of his lips made all coherent thoughts flee her mind.

“Kissing you,” he said with a smile, and he ran his fingers through her hair, making her shiver. “I’ve been waiting to do this since the wedding. Is there something wrong with that?”

“Yes!” Shayna rose from the couch and stepped back, struggling to think. “It’s too confusing. I don’t know what to do about this, or where we stand.” The mom voice in her head had gained volume. “I don’t want to be just a cheap fling to you. You know, just a wh—”

In a flash, he was upright. Before she could back away further, he growled, “Don’t ever say that! It’s not like that at all.”

“What’s it like then?” she asked, unable to hide the desperation in her voice.

He frowned, eyes wide and hurt. “I don’t know why you’re acting like this. I publicly declared that you’re my girlfriend after all. That kiss was—”

“To keep the press off your back about your ex,” she murmured weakly. Was she wrong about that?

He blinked as if startled, and a small, humorless smile curved his lips. It was surprisingly potent nonetheless. “You didn’t believe me?”

She backed up and shook her head, her heart racing. It pounded faster as he slowly stalked toward her, an intent look in his eye. Liquid heat pulsed between her thighs.

With impossible speed, he pulled her into his arms. His lips came down on hers, stealing her breath, and when he broke away he whispered, “How about now? Do you believe me now?”

He kissed her again, and Shayna’s breath fled her body. Shivers ran up and down her spine, and a soft moan was all she could manage. Dante’s hands crept down her legs before sliding up the skirt of her gown, caressing her bare legs. His teeth scraped lightly across her neck.

“How about now?” he said just as his fingers reached her core, stroking her through the satin of her panties.

“Dante,” she gasped, trembling in his arms. “I…”

Her words trailed off as he moved behind her, reaching down the front of her dress with one hand to tease her breasts and cupping her hot center with the other. His hardness ground against her rear. Her knees weakened.