“Nothing saying they can’t look and admire from afar,”Johnny pointed out. “Besides, that just leaves more of the action for you.”
“Thanks for that, seriously, but I’m not sure I’m in the mood tonight,” I admitted, still conflicted, because my first thought when I’d come down off that stage was to go find Steel and see if room service and a ride on his cock were in the cards for me tonight.
“Okay, spill. What's been going on with you lately?” Johnny said. “I’ve never known you to turn down three after-parties in a row.”
“I just haven’t been in the mood to be fawned over and have people try to get me to pick them up,” I admitted.
Johnny fanned himself with his wet hair and studied me with a shrewdness most people didn’t realize he possessed. I liked to think of it as his superpower, because people rarely looked past the seductive allure of his packaging to see the verbose man behind many of our most successful songs. Hell, I’d witnessed people speaking patronizingly to him, spitting out ten-dollar words I knew they didn’t think he’d understand, only to be absolutely shredded when he flipped the script on them by eloquently telling them off, and at times, correcting their usage of a term. The hilarity of it alone, along with the possibility of it happening again tonight, was almost enough to get me to change my mind about going to the after-party.
Almost.
“You want to be the one being picked up by someone, not the other way around,” Johnny said after he’d studied me so long I began to squirm beneath his scrutiny.
Grumbling, I decided to skip the sandwiches and opt out of the rest of this conversation by shrugging and turning to head for the shower. Instead, I found my wrist ensnared in a tight grip as Johnny stared up at me.
“So what?” I snapped. “It never happens, and I’m not in the mood to spend half the night turning down offers that are just gonna leave me horny and frustrated by the time I get the hell out of there.”
“You know you don’t have to hide that from me, right?” Johnny asked. “You don’t have to hide that from any of us. No one is going to judge you for what you enjoy.”
I started to say that I wasn’t worried about being judged, only I didn’t lie to my bandmates, and that would be a lie. I did worry about what other people would think if they saw me staring starry-eyed at some massive wall of muscle I knew could manhandle me.
Like Steel had every night we’d been together.
Dammit, my mind was constantly on the man these days. Hell, I’d even written a song about that moment of longing I’d had in the hotel bar and how he’d come along and turned wishes and desires into one of the hottest nights of my life.
“I’m gonna grab a shower and get the fuck out of here,” I declared, tugging until Johnny finally got the hint and let go of my wrist.
“Yeah, okay. You know where to find me if you ever want to talk,” Johnny said, “or just slam back a couple to blow off steam.”
“I might take you up on that last one.”
“Anytime.”
I scurried away while the getting was good, happy to step beneath the hot spray and wash the sweat and grime from my body. By the time I was dry and dressed, with my hair tucked beneath the hood of my hoodie, I no longer questioned my decision not to go to the after-party. There was only one place I wanted to go tonight, and that was back to my hotel room.
And I didn’t intend to head there alone.
Finding Steel among the cluttered backstage area was easier than I expected. He was posted outside Jagger’s hotel room and judging from the sounds drifting from behind the door, Jagger and his men were going to be busy for quite a while.
“Why are you wandering around alone?” Steel asked when he saw that none of the other guards were with me.
“I’m not alone; I’m with you,” I pointed out, going for an equal mix of sassy and flirty.
“Only I’m not assigned to you, and right now, I’m on duty,”Steel declared. “Which means that I don’t have time for whatever shenanigans you’re cooking up in your head.”
I just winked and cocked my hip, grinning up at him. “You like my shenanigans.”
“At the appropriate time and place, yes, I do. But not at times like this when you’re distracting me from what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“Dude, no one is coming out of that room anytime soon.”
“Maybe not, but I’m not just posted here waiting for someone to exit, as you well know,” Steel declared. “The last thing anyone needs is some overzealous groupie sneaking in and trying to get in on the action going on in there, or worse, taking pictures and spreading them all over social media, so get moving. I’ve got a job to do.”
“You really need to learn to relax a little!” I snapped.
“And you need to learn to take things more seriously,” he replied, lowering his shades so there was no chance of me missing the look of displeasure in his eyes. “I’d better not hear about you slipping away from here without a guard tonight, either. I’m already pissed to see you wandering around alone.”
“No one’s so much as run up on me looking for an autograph,” I said, because with my hoodie pulled low, hiding my wild mane and a good chunk of my face, I moved undetected through the space, easily mistaken for one of our roadies.