The Girl's Got Secrets (Forbidden Men #7) (21 page)

So when he reluctantly answered, “Mace and a whistle,” I threw my head back and laughed.

Gripping his shoulder, I had to admit, “Man, you crack me up.”

“Hmm. Well, looky there,” he muttered, falling to a stop before we reached our table. “Your harem of sluts was kind enough to wait for you.”

His bitter tone only made me smile. “What? Jealous because there’s no dude in the group for
you
?”

He glowered at me. “Mmm hmm. Yes, that must be it.”

When I shrugged and started back to the table again, he caught my forearm. “I can’t stick around. I’m going to see if I can catch a cab and get a ride back to the hotel. Are you sure your dad won’t come back? I could leave my mace and whistle with you.”

I flipped him off. “I think I can manage without a freaking rape-prevention whistle.”

He shook his head and eyed the women watching and waiting for us to return. “I don’t know, Hart. That one looks like she’s ready to tear your clothes off any second, whether you’re willing or not.”

With a chuckle, I shoved him away. “Whatever. Get lost already. I’ll see you back at the hotel.”

A miserable expression crossed his face, but then he nodded and turned away. I watched him walk off for a second, then I shook my head and turned back to the women.

Fine, yes, I admit it. Seeing that skank crawling all over Asher had turned me into an evil jealous troll bitch. But I couldn’t help it. She just kept touching him. And
I
wanted to touch him.

It was no fair. I couldn’t even freaking put my bid in, since I was pretending to be a dude and all.

Unable to watch her maul him a second longer, I had hightailed it out of there and slumped back to the hotel, miserable, when I should’ve been pumped and happy. We had rocked that performance. It’d been awesome, right up until that slut had crawled into Asher’s lap, and he’d actually wrapped his arm around her waist. Had me so worked up I couldn’t even worry about his dad showing up.

Ugh.

I tried not to wonder what would’ve happened if I’d been in full girl mode, decked out in my makeup and tiny black dress. Could I have competed for his attention, stolen him away from lap slut?

And why did it even matter? I was never going to get that chance. I’d shot myself in the foot the moment I’d stepped into the auditioning room as Sticks.

After taking an extra-long shower, then cleaning and blow-drying my sweaty, sticky mask, I put it back on because I had no idea when Asher planned on returning. I just knew I couldn’t sleep with all my dark long hair spilling out over the sheet.

I reluctantly crawled into bed, flipped off my nightlight, and then tossed and turned for what felt like forever, wondering just what he was doing with that other girl, where he was touching her, where she was kissing him, how many clothes were being removed.

Damn. I punched my pillow. This was stupid. I was his bandmate. That was all. He could do whatever he pleased with whomever he pleased. It shouldn’t be any of my business or concern.

So why the hell did I want to cry so badly?

Finally, what felt like hours later, my consciousness dragged me into a fitful sleep. It felt as if I’d barely drifted off when I was jerked awake by the opening of my room door.

Hoping Asher was alone and hadn’t brought his
friend
back with him, I froze, even tried to stop breathing.

Oh, Dios. What if he had brought her back, though? Would I have to lie here and pretend to sleep while he screwed some other woman only a few feet away?

No way in hell could I handle that.

My face itched like crazy inside my mask, but I refrained from scratching or moving a muscle as quiet footsteps—just one pair,
whew
—shuffled across the floor. Mattress springs shifted behind me as Asher sat on his bed.

My body instantly responded, heating uncontrollably inside my already warm disguise. But then the reek of feminine perfume hit me and I went cold. He’d taken that other girl home then. The blonde.

I really hated that blonde.

Asher let out a long, tired sigh, and I could picture him rubbing his weary face, maybe running his talented fingers through his silky dark hair. Hair I’d had my fingers in and gotten to touch and play with, hair that I wanted to experience again.

He stood. The soft swish of clothing told me he was undressing.

Oh, man. My internal thermometer soared, spiking off the charts with a horny heat.

I shouldn’t look. I shouldn’t look. I totally shouldn’t look.

I really was being a good girl and not looking, but then he walked into the bathroom, and in order to get there, he had to pass my bed and right where I was staring wide-eyed into the darkened room...well, mostly darkened until he turned on the bathroom light and gifted me with a view of his perfectly formed bare ass.

Sweet baby Jesus.

His toned, tanned cheeks were...they were...yeah.

Sweet baby Jesus.

All too soon, he closed the bathroom door, disappearing inside and shrouding me back into the darkness of the hotel room. The shower kicked on and my imagination ran wild, thinking of all the places he had to be touching his wet, naked body right now, running my soap over warm, sculpted skin and slicking a sudsy trail down his taut stomach to between his legs, where he was probably cupping his testicles and palming them clean.

Damn. A shower had never seemed so freaking dirty before.

I wanted to be under that steamy spray with him so bad.

My body ached and my nipples burned with the need to be touched. Closing my eyes, I breathed through my mask’s nose holes, each shallow breath highlighting my arousal as my hand wandered down inside the waistband of my flannel pants and into my panties.

God, how I loved sexy silk panties. They were perfect for self-pleasure, for sliding them against your clit to create friction for a maximum experience.

But tonight, it didn’t matter what I was wearing down there. I could’ve gotten off to the mere sound of Asher Hart singing George Ezra’s “Budapest” in the shower.

I was inches from fondling myself, my hips already straining to lift off the bed, when the water shut off in the bathroom.

Damn it.

Why couldn’t he have dawdled a little longer?

I yanked my hand free of my clothes and squeezed my legs together just as the bathroom door opened. Automatically, my eyes flew open.

Asher stepped out, dripping wet, with a towel slung around his waist. I gaped at the beauty that was his bare chest as he skidded to a surprised halt.

“Shit,” he said, wincing. “Sorry, Rem. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“S’okay,” I slurred, trying to act half awake, when honestly I was freaking
wide
awake. With a yawn, I stretched and rolled to face away from him.

But that actually solved nothing. He strolled to his side of the room, which I was now turned toward.

And then he dropped his towel.

On purpose.

“You been asleep long?” he asked in a conversational manner as if nothing earth-shattering at all was happening. Glancing my way as he dug a pair of his own flannel pants from his duffle bag, he lifted his eyebrows curiously.

“Uh...” My eyes refused to blink as I watched him tug the pants up his legs without putting on any underwear first.

Oh, Christ. Did he always crawl into bed commando? This was not something I should know. Technically, I wasn’t supposed to know how well hung he was either. But, wow,
was he ever
. How could such a slim guy be so thick where it mattered most?

Licking my lips, I had to turn away and roll onto my other side as he pulled back his sheets and crawled into his bed.

“Not long,” I finally answered once I was facing away from him.

Not long?
Whatever
! That was probably one of the longest dicks I’d ever seen. And the girth. Hot damn, it’d take more than one hand for me to wrap my fingers all the way around it.

“Oh, good. Hey, you mind if I turn on my light until I settle down for the night?”

“Knock yourself out,” I grumbled. I certainly wasn’t going to be getting back to sleep any time soon. Too many well-hung dicks floated around the insides of my eyelids every time I tried to close them.

“Thanks.”

I heard shuffling and the sound of paper crinkling, but I refused to look. Not until a certain scent caught my nose, anyway.

“Ugh. What is that gawd-awful smell?” I demanded, rolling back to face him again.

Sitting upright in his bed and bare-chested with his back propped by both of his pillows and his legs stretched out on top of the sheets, he poured a handful of treats into his palm, then popped them into his mouth.

“Corn nuts,” he announced, holding them up for me to see. “Ranch flavored. I saw them in the vending machine in the hall and couldn’t resist. This shit and orange-flavored Tic Tacs are my vice.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Well, I hope to God you bought some of the Tic Tacs too. I bet your breath reeks to high heaven.”

Completely unoffended, Asher laughed. “Whatever, asshole. I was going to ask if you wanted some.”

I immediately held out my hand over the space between our beds. “Hell, yes, I want some. If I’m going to be forced to smell them all night, I may as well eat ’em, too.”

With another chuckle, Asher leaned out to pour a healthy amount into my hand. “You really are funny as shit, Sticks.”

“Yeah, I’m a regular comedian. Don’t be stingy now.”

He wasn’t, which surprised me. He was probably too generous, actually, with something he admitted was his favorite snack, because the mound in my palm grew so tall a couple kernels tumbled off the side and fell onto the carpet.

“Oh, shit.” I let out a cry of dismay. “Corn nut down.”

“Five second rule,” Asher called and dove off the side of his bed.

“Hey, those are my nuts.” Indignant, I jumped off my mattress after him. Shoulder checking him out of my way, I snatched up the three nuts on the floor and shoved them into my mouth.

Then while I was still chewing, I yelled, “Ha!” right in his face, probably fumigating him with my ranch-flavored breath.

Not my most attractive moment, but he thought I was a guy, so...who cared? I’d beaten him to the corn nuts. Boo-yah!

“Fucker.” He jabbed his fist into my calf and I gasped more in surprise than from pain.

Damn, I was really going to have to get used to this guy camaraderie thing of beating the shit out of each other.

“Ow.” Scowling at him, I rubbed the sore spot, even though I was reassured in the fact that yeah, he definitely thought I was male. No way could I picture him doing that to a girl.

I kind of liked it, even though it stung like a son of a bitch. At least I knew he was completely okay with me and relaxed enough to be himself and fool around.

I was seeing the true Asher Hart, his guard completely down.

He narrowed his eyes at me, his sexy lips twitching with mischief. “Watching you eat those makes me wonder exactly what’s happened on this floor. You’re eating all that, you know.”

I paused chewing, then shrugged. And swallowed. It was such a guy thing to do, I was proud of myself, even though I made a mental note to gargle three times as long in the morning and brush twice.

Grumbling aloud, Asher crawled back onto his bed and picked up a notebook he’d been writing in.

“You’re always writing in that thing,” I said, more than curious what he was scrawling away so madly about.

“Hmm? Oh, it’s just lyrics,” he murmured in his distracted, concentrating-hard-on-something-else voice. “I pretty much always have to write something before I go to bed each night, otherwise I can never get to sleep with my brain constantly running.”

“No fucking shit?” I said in surprise, feeling more connected to him than I knew I should. “I do that too.”

He glanced over, surprise making his eyebrows lift. “Really?”

To prove it, I leaned off the other side of the bed where my luggage was and unzipped it before tugging out my notebook. I waved it at him before fluttering the pages open to show him it was three-fourths full.

“No way,” he murmured, reaching out as if he just expected me to hand it over.

With a scowl, I slapped it back to my chest. “I don’t think so, Scooter.” I’d learned the hard way to never show my lyrics to another living soul. After Fisher had stolen my lines and used them to make Fish ’N’ Dicks’s one and only hit song, I was never going down that road again.

But Asher blinked at me as if I was insane.

So I cleared my throat. “I just...they’re all awful. So there’s no point in wasting your time even looking at them.”

“Whatever, man. I’ll be the judge of that. Besides, ninety percent of mine suck ass too. Now...gimme.”

When I merely shook my head stubbornly, he sent me a sexy grin. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

I snorted. “Honey, I just saw yours and let me say...holy fucking wow. You win.”

Asher’s mouth fell open before he shook his head and murmured. “I can’t believe you just admitted that to me.”

I shrugged. “What? That you’re bigger? You’re the one who had no qualms of flashing your junk at me. So I’m just saying that was one impressive cock. Seriously, you should be proud of that monster. I mean, the first moment you came out of the bathroom, swinging it around, I just wanted to...you know,
suck
on it.”