“Dude…this isn’t home; this is just where we landed ‘cause the rent was cheap,” he replied, biting into a wing with a grin on his face. “You made the big time. By the time you come off tour, you’ll be able to afford a real home in a neighborhood where you don’t have to dodge broken glass and junkies on your way to get the mail.”
As his words washed over me, I felt the first stirring of something that wasn’t anxious, desperate panic. Hope. The future I’d always dreamed of was finally in my grasp, and I wasn’t about to let it slip through my fingers.
“Just make sure you set a guest room aside for me, fucker,” Brady remarked, a smear of sauce clinging to the corner of his lips.
“Bet.”
Chapter 4
(Rebel)
"Dammit, put your seatbelt back on and keep it on until we get back to the hotel!” Steel snapped. “I can’t think with your head in my lap.”
“When my heads in your lap, you’re not supposed to be thinking,” I muttered.
“And that will be fine when we’re stationary, not in a moving vehicle where a hard stop will get you flung into the back of a seat,” he grumbled. “Don’t get me started on what could happen to you if we got in an accident.”
Groaning, I sat up and glared at the man who both infuriated and frustrated the hell out of me in every way imaginable. How and why that had equated to attraction, I didn’t have a clue. He glared right back until I put my seatback on, with a fierceness that was impossible to ignore. There was no winning a stare-down contest with him, that was for damn sure, but instead of being bitter about it, I was mildly amused. As well as seriously turned on, which wasn’t fun with the tight-ass jeans I had on and at least a fifteen-minute ride until we got where we were going.
“Anyone ever tell you what a buzzkill you are?” I grumbled as I slouched against the door, hair still a bit damp from the showerI’d taken after the show.
Another city, another screaming bunch of fans. In the morning we’d load up on the buses and do it again. It was the life I’d always dreamed of, and yet, there was a hollowness inside of me that even performing couldn’t fully fill.
“You, several times in the last three days, at least,” he replied without a hint of amusement in his voice.
Why’d he have to be such a damned bodyguard twenty-four seven?
Well, maybe not twenty-four seven. When his clothes hit the floor, he turned into a major freak in the sheets, with just enough of a Daddy vibe that it tripped every switch I had, though I wouldn’t dare call him that when he was inside of me. Fear that he’d get up, leave, and avoid the hell out of my kinky ass kept my tongue in check. Funny, but few things ever did aside from that. That I could have damn near everything else I wanted wasn’t lost on me, but fame had stolen my anonymity, so sneaking into clubs for a dose of what I longed for just wouldn’t cut it anymore.
Sad.
By the time we pulled up to the hotel, I was pouting, but at least brooding had an ice water effect on my libido. Not only was I no longer aroused, but I was also no longer certain that I wanted to do anything more tonight beside fling myself across the bed, put on a trashy reality show, and brood.
“Wait here until I check that the path to the elevator is clear,” Steel said as we pulled up to the side entrance of the building.
That was yet another change that I was still getting used to. Couldn’t go through lobbies anymore without the risk of being recognized. Couldn’t just get out of a car and go in the side door, either. I was beginning to feel like I was living in a gilded cage of my own making, only able to step out with an escort, and rarely go where I truly wanted to go. Most of my time was scheduled and accounted for these days, which was fine, sort of, in the daytime anyway. But I was a notorious night owl, and these days, the only glimpses I saw of it were through the window of somehotel.
“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill.”
“Don’t be a brat,” he said as he stepped out. “It’s not a good look on you.”
Glowering, I crossed my arms and turned my head away from him. The bastard just chuckled and shut the door, leaving me with the driver.
“If it’s any consolation, I wouldn’t have been thinking about seatbelts with your head in my lap,” the driver remarked.
Our eyes met in the rearview, and I could see the appreciation in them when he stared at me. Any other night and I’d have been all over that, but when my traitorous mouth opened, the only words that spilled out were ones defending Steel.
“He’s just making sure I stay in one piece,” I remarked. “It’s bad for business if one of the moneymakers gets bruised.”
“Maybe, but it sure seems like a wasted possibility,” he replied. “At least for me. That was the closest to excitement I’ve gotten all day.”
His words washed over me along with the realization that Steel might have just saved me from more than just a bruising. With how interested the driver was, chances were I’d have ended up slashed all over social media. That or the driver would have ended up with a broken phone if he’d attempted to take any photos or videos of what I’d wanted to get up to in the back of that car. Guess a bit of restraint might have been a good thing, not that I intended to admit to it or the somewhat inappropriate conversation the driver and I were engaging in.
“Sorry to be a tease,” I muttered as Steel opened my door for me.
I caught a whiff of his body spray as I climbed out of the car and stepped past him, waiting before I headed for the door so he wouldn’t have to rush to catch up, which would certainly kick off another of his safety lectures. I got it, I did, even if it irked me that he was probably right when he said that I needed to tone it down some and learn a bit of patience instead of rushing off half-cocked.
Or rappelling down a balcony. To say that he was pissed when he finally pried it out of me how I’d gotten to the lobby of the last hotel was an understatement. He’d called it a flimsy excuse when I’d renewed my protests about how hard it was to pick up someone, or get picked up, when you had an escort.