Rock the City: A Midnight Fate Novel (4 page)

“I can’t help that I have standards. And that you’re a slob.”

“What the fuck ever. All I care about is that our last show is almost here, and then we’re hitting up Lola’s for my birthday after that. Bring on the pussy and beer, gentlemen.”

“Pretty sure you can’t say ‘pussy’ and ‘gentlemen’ in the same sentence and be considered one, asshole,” Easton says as he smacks him on the back of the head.

“It’s my party and I can say whatever the hell I want.”

“Why Lola’s?” I ask them from the opposite side of the elevator. There’s nothing classy about the club that sits just over the line in Jersey. Lola’s pink exterior has stood in the same beat-up town since I was a kid.

Before moving to Manhattan, Sea Port’s where I called home. Up until the band hit it big, the city was nothing more than a dream I could never afford—and one of the few places I was sure happiness existed.

Dom stares at me like I’m crazy for questioning him. “Why
not
Lola’s?”

When I don’t come up with a reason fast enough, something that will keep Sea Port in my distant memory instead of reliving it tomorrow night, the doors open on the tenth floor of The Towers. Easton files out, popping his head back in to ask, “You’re in, right?”

“Don’t think my girl would appreciate that too much.” I leave out the part about not wanting to ever step foot in Jersey again. Lola’s is about as classy as a two-dollar hooker and has enough poles to keep your eyes busy for hours on girls who are only up there dancing because they’ve given up on their own self-worth. Not to mention they have kids to feed while their husbands are in the middle of the ocean trying to make a living to support their habits.

I’m positive that, if those girls could be anywhere else in the world than on that pole, they’d be better off. But not everyone’s lucky enough to escape the way I did. Chances are they’re all serving life sentences in a little pit of Hell.

“Come on, Lane. It won’t be the same without you. Plus, we just worked our asses off for five months. I think we need to give Dom a proper birthday and celebrate. We’ll meet in the lobby tomorrow night at nine. Not that I won’t see your asses before that,” Easton adds before the elevator doors close in his face.

Considering Easton has a wife and Dom has a girlfriend of several years, they’re going to catch so much shit for this. My theory is justified when the doors open again and Gina and Noelle are standing on the other side with smiles big enough to knock a grown man on his ass.

Dom scoops Gina up, pressing her back against the wall and devouring her lips in a kiss better suited for the bedroom. You’d never know they’ve only been apart for a couple days. I’m sure I’d tell them to get a room if I weren’t so focused on Noelle.

Her hair’s a little lighter than the last time I saw her in person, and I wonder how long it’s been like that. When we talk online, we’re usually both in the dark. It pisses me off that I didn’t notice something so simple sooner, but I can’t stay mad long. Not when my eyes drift lower and take in the rest of her. I’ve spent hours memorizing her body so that, no matter when I close my eyes, I’ll still see her. Even if it doesn’t compare to the real thing.

“Just let me know when you’re finished,” she says sarcastically, still standing with her hands clasped behind her back, pushing her chest out farther for me to appreciate.

“I could look at you all day, Noelle.” When I finally finish imagining what she looks like under her tight black dress, I’m reminded how powerful her crystal-blue eyes really are. They’re hypnotizing enough to make me forget my own name.

She hesitates for a split second, like I just might stand here for another twenty-three hours and fifty-six minutes watching her. As soon as I drop my bags on the floor to wrap my arms around her, her body melts into mine. With her wrapped around me, I feel more alive than I have in months. Even though we’re standing in the middle of a hallway on the eleventh floor, I finally feel like I’m home.

“God, I’ve missed you,” I whisper against her forehead, a few pieces of her hair sticking to my lips as I say the words.

She squeezes me so hard my ribs start to scream, but even though we can’t get much closer physically, she still seems so far away. The only way this is going to seem real is to get her in my bed and under me, where I’ve wanted her to be for months.

“At the risk of sounding really needy, can we go to your place now?”

“I didn’t expect you to stand in the hallway all day. Actually, I wasn’t even expecting you for two more days.”

“Well, I’m not the most patient girl in the world, but I didn’t get to the needy part yet.”

I pull away from her, watching her face as she waits to finish her thought. From the way her eyes are sparkling, it’s going to be dirty—and I’m more than okay with that.

Something about the way we’re standing here, still feeling a little like strangers after being apart so long, reminds me of the connection we had the day we met. Only this time, I tell myself she belongs to me. The girl who was so torn about what she wanted and what she thought she needed is finally in my arms again.

Even though we’ve only moved a couple steps closer to my condo, I stop again to kiss her. “Surprise,” she mumbles against my lips.

I don’t stop kissing her long enough to ask her what made her come early, and if it means she’s staying longer, too. The last thing I want to talk about is her leaving again. I plan to give her my undivided attention for as long as I have her.

The longer we stand here kissing, the more desperate she becomes. “Shit, Noelle.”

She looks up at me with worried eyes. “It’s okay that I’m here, right?”

“You’re really asking me that question after a kiss like that?”

“A kiss like what?” she whispers as her hands roam across my ass.

“Baby, I’m glad you’re here and I want lots more of that shit, but we need to get to my place. Preferably fast.”

“Your condo or your bed? Because they’re two totally different things,” she says with a squeal when I smack her ass harder than I should in a public place.

I glance behind us, but Dom must have already pried Gina’s back off the wall because they’re nowhere in sight. After picking up my bags, I give Noelle a look that makes her squirm. “Always my bed, beautiful.”

She nods, waiting for me to pass by her before she turns and follows me to my front door. I try to hold everything and unlock the door at the same time, not wanting to waste a single second with her, but she takes the keys from my hand, laughing as she says, “I sure hope you can get it in faster than that tonight.”

“Tonight? I’m about five seconds away from showing you how it’s done, babe.”

She pushes the door open with wide eyes, my threat making her breathe a little harder than usual. Once we’re inside, she looks around, her jaw dropping. “I thought you lived alone?”

“I do.”

She wanders over to the fireplace, glancing at the pictures on the mantel. “But it’s so clean. And nice.”

“You were expecting a dump?”

Laughing, she shakes her head. “I was picturing more of a bachelor pad. Not wood floors, actual art on the walls, and all this grown-up stuff sitting around.”

I wrap my arms around her from behind and kiss her temple, loving that she still smells like coconut. “I’m pushing thirty, baby. I had to grow up eventually.”

“Even if you’re a rock star?”

“Even then, but I think you should take the full tour, see the bedrooms and all that.”

She turns around in my arms, her face happier than I’ve ever seen it on the computer screen. “You don’t have to sell it to me, Lane. I’m a sure thing.”

“God, I hope you never say those to words to anyone else but me,” I tell her before I hoist her up and over my shoulder, smacking her ass as I hurry down the hallway. It’s never felt this good to be home before.

Even though she’s dangling upside down, she still says, “Can we skip the kissing and all that shit?”

I toss her in the middle of the bed where her long dark hair fans out around her, making her look like the most exotic creature I’ve ever seen. She’s always been beautiful, but today she’s fucking gorgeous. “You’re such a romantic.”

“I don’t need romance, Lane. Right now, I just need you.”

Hovering over her, I tell her, “Then I suggest you get naked.”

“I’m pretty sure my panties just melted right off.”

“Always a smartass.”

“Yes! Touch my ass, too.”

Lane’s pulling his shirt over his head, and while he’s looking at me like he wants to devour me, all I can focus on is the three-inch scar on his chest. I noticed it when we first met, but online, it’s nothing more than a small, slightly blurry spot. Now that his tan has faded and I’m up close, I’m reminded of the way I felt the first time I saw it. And my chest still aches for him.

“Hey,” he whispers when I get caught staring at it. “Don’t worry about it, okay?”

I reach out to touch it while a million scenarios run through my head about the knife that put it there. As much as I want the full story right here and now, I can tell he’s not going to give it to me tonight. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, but don’t get hung up on the little things.”

“It doesn’t seem little.”

“If it were anything you needed to worry about, I’d tell you. I don’t want my past to get in the way tonight or any other night. Okay?”

The last thing I want is to ruin this moment with him. We’ve been apart for so long, talking night after night about what we wanted to do to each other as soon as we had the chance. So far, I’m blowing it. Determined not to mess this up more than I have, I tell him, “Yeah, okay,” as convincingly as I can.

Still, he hesitates. “But?”

“It makes me sad, but if I’m being honest, it also makes me feel safe.”

“How does it make you feel safe?”

“Because, Lane, you’re not an ‘in your face’ kind of guy—at least not from what I’ve seen from you so far. So if you were hurt, you must have been trying to protect someone you really cared about. Maybe even loved.”

I think I might have assumed right when he looks away from me, his eyes zoned in on the wall next to the closet door. “I’ll always protect you, Noelle. Even when you don’t want me to.”

I run my hands up his bare back, his skin still warm from having me in his arms. “I always feel protected,” I tell him. “Even when we’re apart.”

Maybe it’ll stay like this, the two of us in this perfect little bubble where nothing can touch us, and maybe it won’t. No matter what these next two weeks bring, they’ll still mean everything to me.

“I don’t want to be apart anymore. This right now is the way it’s supposed to be.”

“That’s why I came early, so I could see your last show and have some extra time with you.”

He rests his forehead against mine, his hand tangled in the hair at the nape of my neck. “You could have all the time in the world, Noelle. I’d give you every minute.”

I don’t doubt him for a single second. He would give me all his seconds and every one of his minutes if I needed him to. “Lane, this thing we have, it’s not going anywhere. So for today, will you just be with me and leave the hard stuff for tomorrow?”

“Yeah, baby. You’ve got me.”

“If I have you, why are you getting up?”