Seduction by Song (3 page)

I still don’t remember all the words, but I manage to sing along with a few lines. I’m so distracted by trying to focus on staying on key with him that I barely even notice when he slides an arm around my waist, spinning me around in a slow dance across the stage.

It’s been so long since I’ve performed in front of any sort of stage, but memories of starring in talent shows back in high school come back to me in that instant. I find myself moving with him without much trouble at all, my limbs somehow knowing just the right thing to do.

We dance together, one of us moving forward as the other moves back and one of us moving back as the other moves forward. The crowd seems to love it and I couldn’t deny that it was pretty thrilling once I got used to the spotlight on me. Finally, as he croons the last of his lines, he wraps his arm around me again and pulls me in close.

Without thinking, I plant my hands on his chest and push him back before he can put his mouth on mine.

The only time I had heard such a large crowd go so eerily silent was in my freshman year of high school when, during my first performance with the gymnastics team, I slipped on a tricky dismount and sprained my ankle so badly that I thought it was broken. Now, in front of a crowd a thousand times that size, I rejected a kiss from a man literally every other woman in the world seemed to want.

The silence could only be described as deafening.

Romeo himself looked fairly confused, but also amused, as he releases me to let me take a step back. I do exactly that, very quickly, and drop my arms to my side. I try not to frown at him because I’m well aware that our faces are probably plastered up all over those jumbo screens broadcasting the events on stage to the crowd in the back. Even if I wasn’t about to accept a kiss from a total stranger out of the blue just for the sake of going with the flow, I wasn’t looking to cause a scene—all I wanted was to get back to my seat and forget this ever happened.

Of course,
Romeo
wouldn’t be content with such a solution. That smirk, an expression that seems to almost never fall off his face, returns to his lips as he turns back to his audience to announce, “Looks like we’ve got a
feisty
one here.”

On cue, the entire crowd erupts into laughter. I roll my eyes at how thousands of people will react like well-trained dogs to the words of one man—don’t they know this is how mobs begin? Before Romeo can continue joking around, or execute any other plans he might have, I turn to leave the stage.

“
Aww
,” I hear Romeo crooning behind me, still speaking into his microphone and blasting the sound of his voice over the noise of the audience’s mirth. “Leaving so soon, babe?”

I refuse to dignify that with an answer. He seems to realize that he can’t hold up his concert—he’s not doing a stand-up show here, after all—and launches into his next song by the time I’ve returned to my seat.

The girls all peer at me one after another, almost timidly as though they aren’t sure if I’m angry. I straighten my shoulders and offer them each my best smile. Ruining the night was the last thing I wanted. I was still determined to have a good time with my girls even if it
was
at the feet of a cocky rock star who didn’t know the meaning of personal space.

“Is everything okay?” Maddie leans in to ask during a slightly more mellow part of the song where I could hear her without her having to scream. “What happened up there?”

I stretch the corners of my mouth way up to force myself to keep smiling. I didn’t want to wreck all her dreams about this guy, even if they weren’t very healthy dreams at all, by telling her anything negative about him, but—how could I explain that catastrophe up there?

“Oh, you know,” I start slowly, buying myself some time to think. “I just—I’ve never been big on PDA, you know? It was just so sudden!”

Maddie cracks into a grin a second later, apparently satisfied and pleased by this answer. I relax a little, glad that the night still had some life and joy left in it for her.

“Good!” she says during a break between two songs during which Romeo addresses the audience with some generic blah-blah message about loving this town. Maddie seems riveted by his words for a moment before she snaps herself out of it to turn to me again. “Good, because we got backstage passes!
Ahh
! How exciting is
that
?”

“
So
—exciting!” I manage to say without gritting my teeth or cringing.

Of
course
they got backstage passes. They’re all practically glowing with glee and I suppose I can’t deny them the chance to meet the band even if I didn’t think the band was all that. Maybe it would be a good opportunity to give Romeo a piece of my mind in private—I didn’t want to ruin a concert for thousands of people, but I sure as hell wanted to ask him how he came to the conclusion that he could do anything he wanted.

And that was, of course, the
only
reason I would ever want to see him again.

After the show, about a dozen fans are led backstage. We’re left there to wait for a solid fifteen minutes before the band appears, at which point the girls all
instantly
swarm forward in a surge of excitement. I linger behind the group, smiling and moving aside politely for a stagehand passing through (or trying to pass through, at least) with some heavy equipment.

“Well, look at that,” a voice now familiar to my ears says rather suddenly. I roll my eyes as I turn to face Romeo, who’s looking somehow like even
more
of a rock star with a thick leather jacket sitting across his shoulders. “So the ice princess has a smile in her after all. Welcome to my humble abode, Erin.”

“Redefine
humble
,” I say, unable to keep my annoyance in check once I’ve made sure that we’re mostly alone. A few girls are eyeing us like they’re trying to figure out the best way to edge themselves into the conversation, while too timid to actually do so, while the others are distracted getting autographs from the other two guys in the band.

Romeo only laughs, though, apparently finding me more and more amusing. “Not impressed, I gather.”

I take a look around myself. The lights are dimmed, if not completely turned off, to establish a dark mood through lighting—theoretically cool, but they
must
know that this is a working hazard for the stagehands scuttling around packing equipment and whatnot. The couches scattered throughout the area were all somewhat ratty as though they were trying to give off some sort of
poverty is chic
message. Suffice to say, I was not impressed.

I was especially not impressed by Romeo’s newest addition to his attire. The leather jacket he now wore was a tight, tailored fit over his shoulders, showing off his broad frame and the muscles he obviously knew he had. It even sported a fur-lined collar, accentuating his neck and strong jawline. I wouldn’t usually assume the worst—faux leather and faux fur was pretty popular these days, after all—but Romeo was close enough that I could catch the scent of
real
leather on him.

Sure, I wasn’t the most active of animal rights activists out there—I wasn’t even a vegetarian—but I’ve never worn furs in my
life
and I wouldn’t ever think of advocating it.

“Impressed?” I ask, feigning confusion. “By what? The animal carcass around your neck?”

Romeo laughs, shamelessly, and runs his fingers through the fur of his collar. “Ah, you have quite an eye for luxury, don’t you. Want to touch it?”

Before I can tell him I’d sooner
gag
, he reaches out and takes my hand, bringing it up to his shoulder. I’m so shocked at his gall that I don’t even move away for a second. He smirks when he sees that I’m not pulling away and moves to guide my fingers through the fur, the soft sensation of those fine hairs against my skin startling me into action.

I yank my hand back and cross my arms firmly over my chest to keep him from grabbing me again.

“Oh, come now, Erin,” he says, his voice dropping a note into that low, seductive tone again—the exact same tone he takes on stage. “It’s not real fur.”

I open my mouth to call him a liar, but clench my jaw shut and shake my head instead. “That’s none of my concern. Don’t you have fans to entertain?”

“I’m entertaining one right now.”

“You most certainly are not,” I tell him. “Where on
earth
could you possibly have gotten the idea that I was a
fan
?”

He hums, low and thoughtful, as he brings a hand up to brush the backs of his fingers against my cheek. I shiver, but refuse to pull back from the obvious challenge.

“You did turn up at my show,” he says. “In the front row, no less.”

“I was with friends,” I say, tilting my head at the girls in the background. April was flirting away with Dante, having somehow gotten herself right into his lap, and Juliet and Maddie were being showered with merchandise along with the other girls.

“You did come backstage,” he continues.

“I’m
still
with friends.”

He laughs, finally looking behind himself at the other girls. He must smile, or something, because a collective sigh and swoon comes from that area before he turns back to me. “You can’t take your eyes off of me. Are you saying you’re not charmed, Erin?”

I am so not charmed. Even if his smooth baritone voice rolls out my name more beautifully than anyone’s ever said it before, I am
not
charmed. He’s just the same old fame and fortune (and totally fake) story with a shiny paint of coat slapped over him.

“
I have
nothing
to say to you.”

“I doubt that,” he says. “You seem plenty eloquent. I wager you’ve got
loads
to say to me.”

And for the first time that night, he’s absolutely right. I would love to tell him that he’s dead wrong if he thinks he can coast through life on his looks and fame. I would love to tell him that he should stick to chasing tail that actually wants to be chased. I would love to call him something totally nasty, but in the end, I’m the bigger person here.

“Nope, nothing to say,” I tell him confidently. “Though if you wanted to
apologize
—.”

He laughs and reaches out to me again, tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear. I blink, surprised at the gesture. It’s still a complete breach of my personal space, of course, but the gesture is somehow careful, even intimate—like he doesn’t actually want to startle or offend me.

“I’m sorry, Erin,” he says. “I’m sorry for making all your dreams come true. I’m sorry you’re playing hard to get—oh, don’t get me wrong. I
will
enjoy this chase, but I could have shown you the time of your life tonight. You know what? Scratch that—I’m
not
sorry you’re playing hard to get. It’ll make the conquest all the sweeter when you finally succumb to me.”

I feel my eyes growing wider and my cheeks growing hotter, the promise of sex lingering so thickly in the air between us that it was practically palpable. His hand is still settled against my cheek, fingers curled against my skin, and I knock it away when I realize that he must be feeling how warm my cheeks are growing.

“You’ll
conquer
me, huh?” I ask as I shake off the lascivious suggestion and regain my composure. “You can try, buddy, but you’ll be wasting your time.”

“I doubt you could ever be a waste of time,
bonita
,” he says deeply.

The promise of the chase is clear enough. I try not to let it excite me, but when I realize that it
is
hopelessly exciting, I tell myself it’s only anticipation for the thrill of turning him down—
someone
needed to knock this guy down a few pegs, after all.

If he was intent on pursuing me, then that someone would
definitely
—and happily—be me.

Romeo is pulled away to mingle with his fans before long. The girls find me after a few minutes, arms loaded up with
t-shirts and posters, and announce (
finally
!) that we can start making our way home. I try not to look too relieved, but dealing with guys like Romeo was thoroughly exhausting and I couldn’t
wait
to climb into bed and forget all about the fact that people like him actually exist.

Maddie and Juliet sing along to the songs we heard that night on the way home. I had thought that might be annoying, might aggravate this headache I feel sneaking back into my skull, but it has a surprisingly soothing effect on me. I suppose, at the end of it all, I’m just glad the girls had a good time.

Juliet drops April and me off at our apartment first, and we all step outside to exchange hugs and split the loot they got from the friendly merch guy with all the pre-autographed goodies. April takes a couple of posters and a shirt before grabbing my hand and leading me inside.