ROMANCE: Bear Naked Passion (Billionaire Bear Trio Book 2) (51 page)

Rowdy

Rowdy

Chapter 1

Allison Burgess had a smile on her lips as she watched the final song in The Maniacs’ set. The band was amazing in a word but the person who really caught her attention in the band was the lead singer, Noah Zimmerman. She just could not seem to get her eyes off him. She was not sure whether it was the way she had managed to connect with him on a personal level throughout his tour. When he was off that stage, when he was talking to her, he was not just another member of the band. With her, he was not a Maniac but plain old Noah Zimmerman. The man who opened up to her about all his insecurities. She shook her head when she heard the familiar piercing noise when Noah dropped the microphone as he always did at the end of every performance.

She was clapping as the band walked by her to the backstage.

“How was that?” Noah asked when he got to where she was.

“Honestly, I liked tonight’s rendition better than the set at Madison Square Garden.” He looked at her and smiled.

“Yeah, stop gloating,” he said and she shrugged.

“What do you mean gloating?” she asked as one of the production assistants came to get his earpiece and clip-on microphone.

“You think I don’t know that you were the one who suggested an acoustic set going upbeat?” He asked and she smiled. “Starting off soft and finishing with a bang has always been your idea.”

She nodded. He was right. She had been trying to get him to try softer versions of his music ever since she met him especially after hearing a cover version of his hit single
Poison Romance
from a couple of kids on YouTube. She thought that performing cover versions of some of his music would put him more in touch with a different kind of crowd and judging by the crowd that had turned up at his last concert in Nashville, a place his Noah’s entire PR team thought would be a bust. To think that Noah Zimmerman had actually managed to get a following with the country loving public of America was actually amazing. She looked away when she felt her cheeks flushing. It had been happening a lot lately.

“I should get going…create a buzz about the last concert and everything,” Allison said and he shrugged.

“Right now?” he asked.

“Yeah, the iron is still hot. I should probably strike it right now.”

He looked around and a smile played on his perfect lips. Everyone was busy…with something, the perfect situation he needed to take her away from there. He suddenly took her hand in his and before she could say anything in protest.

“What are you doing?” she finally managed to say when he walked her to his dressing room. He looked into her eyes as she leaned against the door before he put a hand on the door.

“You know exactly what I’m doing,” Noah said in a whisper as he out his other hand on the other side of her head, literally trapping her. He took a step forward and pinned her against the door with his body making her gasp.

“Noah …” she started before he brought his head down. His lips were so close to her chin that she could feel his warm breath on her skin.

“What? What do you want?” he asked in a whisper.

“I want to go,” she whispered, her eyes closed. “I need to go.”

“No you don’t,” he said in a whisper. “You know exactly what you need and it is not leaving this place.”

She took a long deep breath and opened her eyes. But even then, she could not bring herself to look into his eyes. Her eyes were fixed on the floor and he pressed his lips to her chin. She whimpered softly and felt a tingle down her spine.

“Look at me, Allison,” he said in a commanding tone. The way he said it made her obey him almost a little too fast. She looked into his almost cold grey eyes and a smile played on his lips again. Her heart was racing and her hands were shaking almost too violently she was scared she was going to drop the iPad she had in her hand. She knew he wanted to kiss her and she would have wanted nothing less at that moment.

“I need to go, Noah,” she said again, this time looking right into his eyes. What he didn’t know was that she was trying as hard as she could to maintain eye contact. He looked at her as she fumbled with her backstage pass hanging from her neck. She was not very sure if he had noticed but she always did that when she was nervous. But then again, he had only known her for a couple of months…so far.

“Okay, Burgess,” he said as his eyes ran down her curvy body. “Go strike that iron then.”

Her fingers tightened around the edges of her iPad as she turned around and began walking away from Noah. She could feel his eyes on her as she turned the corner and stepped out of the Nashville concert hall. Her heart was pounding almost as fast as she was walking…probably faster. The cool evening breeze on her bare arms was not helping the fact that she could feel a cold bead of sweat slowly running down her spine. She walked to the parking lot and smiled at a cab driver who had just dropped off a customer.

“Homeland Suites, please,” Allison said when she climbed into the back of the cab. She noticed the driver smile at her on the rearview mirror as she strapped herself in. She leaned back and closed her eyes, sighing loudly.

“What are you doing, Allison?”
she wondered as the cab began driving out of the parking lot. She knew that the warm fuzzy feeling she had been having lately any time she was around him was not just about being in the company of a handsome rock star. And judging by how friendly the two had become while on tour, she knew she was in trouble. The last time she had felt this way was back in college when Andrew Lancer, the quarterback first talked to her. But what he felt for Noah was a whole lot more than what she once felt for Andrew. To make matters worse, the two had come dangerously close on a number of occasions lately. Two weeks earlier in Arizona, and then a week later at the Staples Center, four days before then in the Oracle Arena as he did his sound check and most recently, at Madison Square Garden. But the incident at Madison Square Garden was the one that really freaked her out.

After The Maniacs were done with their set, Allison had gone ahead to post all the information needed to create the necessary buzz needed for their next performance. As a music journalist with Lyrically Sound magazine, she had so much more work to do as far as Noah Zimmerman was concerned. Being the best journalist in her genre had her in Phillip Keene’s sight. Phillip Keene was The Maniacs’ manager and after the band’s first successful album, a worldwide tour was imminent but not before they toured the Americas to find out just how a world tour would have worked out. Phillip’s plan was to have the best people in PR to get the world talking about The Maniacs and as far as Allison was concerned, she had done her part. It was not just people in the Americas talking about the world’s newest and most rocking band but her work had every country on the globe demanding for a tour date. Audiences as far as Johannesburg, Manila and Hong Kong had started a #
BringTheManiacsOver
following on every social media site…That had been her job description, to make the band the next big thing but she had done more than that. She had made them the biggest thing in the world of music but in the process, she had connected with Noah in a way she had never thought possible. She had always seen him on tabloid photos with the who’s who in the fashion and film industry. There was no way she could have ever thought that he could ever be interested in someone like her…a plump woman who had to count calories rather than a skinny model, or maybe actress.

When she got to her hotel room, she tossed her purse on the bed and walked over to the full length mirror. She sighed as she looked at her reflection.

“Plus size my foot…I’m just fat. Not big boned, not full figured…fat.”
She held her dress top at the back tightening it so that her folds showed through the fabric.

She exhaled loudly as she closed her eyes picturing Noah. He was every woman’s ideal man: tall, lean, muscular with shoulder length hair that Allison thought made him look a little like Avery Barkley from
Nashville
which was a little ironic considering where they were. She sighed and walked back to the bed. She grabbed her laptop and turned it on. Even though she was looking at the blank screen, she could not really bring herself to typing anything. She pulled up the photos from the concert and scrolled through wondering which pictures would inspire her work more. She was not sure how long she had been staring at her computer when she heard a knock on her door. She looked at the bottom right hand corner of her screen and frowned.

“Whoever it is, I hope they brought me a couple of cans of Red Bull,”
she thought as she walked to the door.

“Noah,” she said in a gasp when she opened the door. “What are you…when…” she shook her head and then looked down the hall to see if his security detail was around.

“So are you going to let me in or are you just going to stand there looking at me saying nothing?” he asked as she looked into his eyes. She took a long minute before she stepped aside so that he could walk in. She could tell that he had not gone back to his suite because he was in the same blue jeans and white graffiti T-shirt he had been in when he was performing earlier that night. She closed the door and looked at him as he walked over to the bed. Her mind was a maze of wild thoughts. She could not help but wonder why he was in her room instead of at the after party with the rest of the band.

“What are you doing here, Noah?” she asked as she looked at him.

“If I have to tell you why I am here then maybe you are a little more in denial than I initially thought,” he said as he walked up to where she was. She bit her lower lip as she felt him slip an arm around her waist and pulled her towards him. She was breathing hard and heavy as she smelt his musky scent all around her.

“Noah,” she said in a whisper.

“Arizona, California, New York.” He slipped a hand under her thick red hair and gently held her neck. “You know exactly what I am doing here.”

“It can’t happen….it just can’t.” She looked at him as he gently pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “I am not your type. I am not the kind of woman that you…” she never got a chance to finish what she was saying.

“Would you just shut up for one second?” he asked before he brought his head down and claimed her lips in one long passionate kiss. His kiss was everything she had imagined: wild, deep and passionate. His tongue was on hers caressing and massaging, and his hand was pressed hard against her back holding her body against him. She was almost breathless by the time he finally pulled away. “Did anyone ever tell you, you talk too much,” he said in a whisper.

Allison looked up at him and her were slightly lips parted. She wanted to talk, say something…anything really. But she was dumbfounded.

“You can’t just do that, Noah,” she finally said in a soft voice. He shrugged.

“And why not?” he interlaced his fingers with hers and raised her hands above her head pinning them against the wooden door. “Did I maybe do something you didn’t want?”

She didn’t answer. She actually couldn’t answer.

“I want you, Allison,” he said in a soft voice. “And you want me. I can feel it in the way you kissed me back, and I can see it in the way you are looking at me.” He reached behind her and locked the door before he began pulling her towards the bed. She did not know what he had in mind but she didn’t have the willpower to just push him off or something of the sort. When they got to the bed, he stopped and looked at her, his hands on her waist. He gently pulled away from her and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Take off your clothes,” he said and she raised an eyebrow over the other.

“What?” she asked in surprise.

“Take your clothes off,” he said again without batting an eyelid. The tone in his voice made her realize that he meant business.

“Noah, I don’t know how this usually works for you and the other women you are used to…” she started before he stood up and pulled down the zipper on the back of her dress top.

“Just do it, Allison,” he said in a soft voice. “I don’t care about those other women. You are the one I want.”

“But...” she started before he pressed a finger on her lips.

“I have my own skeletons too…and I want to share my secrets with you, Alison,” he said in a low voice.

Allison could feel the fabric of her dress slipping off her shoulders but she held the top against her breasts preventing it from slipping off. She took a step back and her gaze fell to the floor. She could feel her heart racing as she stood in front of him, her top almost coming off.

“I might be what you want for right now but you are…
you
and I am…well
me.”
She shook her head. “You and I both know that this will not work.” She shrugged. “Just leave before we make a mistake.” Her last sentence was barely toned out well enough for him to hear her. But that didn’t matter. He pulled her hands away from her chest and in one swift move pulled the two sides of her top apart leaving her in her bra and panties. She looked at him, a little surprised as he put his hands on her waist.

“I know exactly what I want, Allison.” He gently pushed off her tights and looked into her eyes as he slowly got on his knees. He pulled her tights all the way down and gently kissed her upper thigh. “This is what I want.”

He brought himself back up and held the side of her face.