Natalie
One Year Ago
The concert had been over hours ago, but the band still had
another thirty minutes of meeting fans. I tried not to let my irritation at the
ten women and five men still standing in line show on my face as I continued to
do my job.
I just wanted everyone to leave, so that I could wrap this
night up and go out with Devlin. That wasn’t asking too much was it? To get to
spend a little time with my boyfriend, doing what normal couples do rather than
having to share him with his fans? Well, I didn’t think it was asking very
much.
For the last few days we hadn’t even had a few minutes
alone, and it was about to drive me crazy. I couldn’t even kiss the man I loved
without having someone pop up on us on the bus, or climb into bed with him at
night without something coming up to keep me out of his arms for the night.
I was starting to think that fate didn’t want me and Dev
together. But that was ridiculous. It had taken us a long time to get to the
place we are now, with us loving each other rather than fighting our feelings.
I was happy, and there wasn’t anything on the planet that would keep me from
being with Devlin Cutter.
Without even realizing what I was doing I stopped and my
eyes sought out the man in question. He was sitting down at his table while the
fans made their way from Axton’s, then to Wroth’s, Zander’s, Liam’s and ending
at his. He was smiling up at some guy who was talking a mile a minute. That
smile was one of my favorite sights in the world, the way his aquamarine eyes
crinkled at the edges and his three day old beard hid the dimples that I was
such a sucker for. His even, white teeth stood out against his dark tan
complexion and made me want to kiss him to see if he still tasted like the
toothpaste he’d used before taking the stage earlier that night. My heart
melted along with another part of my anatomy when I saw that smile.
“It’s weird that one of my best friend’s sister is dating my
dad,” Harris complained as he stopped beside of me.
I turned to frown down at him, trying to figure out if he was
teasing me or if he was serious. He’d always found something to tease me about
over the last few years. He was good friends with my little sister, Jenna, and
I’d always had a soft spot for Harris despite the fact that I’d seemed to
always be in love with his father from the moment I’d laid eyes on him. But
this was a serious matter. If he really thought that it was weird that I was
dating his dad, then I wanted to deal with it now.
Harris grinned up at me, reminding me so much of his father
that it was hard not to love this kid as if he were my own. Yeah, now that was
the weird part. I was twenty-two years old to his fifteen. That was extremely
weird to me. “Relax, Nat. I’m just messing with you. I think it’s kind of cool
that you are with Dad. He’s smiled a lot more in the last few weeks than I’ve
seen him smile in a long time.”
Relief washed over me and I punched him in the arm. “You are
such a punk, you know that?”
“Yeah. You tell me that on a daily basis. But you love me
anyway.”
“Sadly enough, that’s true.” I punched him again and forced
my attention back to the job at hand. I still had things to do so that I could
leave when Devlin was finished. “I’ve got stuff to do, wanna help me?”
“You mean work when I could go back to the hotel, order room
service and watch newly released movies?” Harris raised a brow at me like I was
crazy for even asking such a question. “Yeah, sure, why not? I can help you
out, earn brownie points with your sister, and make my dad think that I’m a
good kid all at once.”
“Brownie points with Jenna?” I questioned as I lead him back
toward the stage the band had performed on earlier that night. “Why would you
need to earn…?” I broke off when I realized why he would want to. “My sister
will never like you like that, Harris.” There were plenty of reasons why I
didn’t think that Harris and my sister would be anything other than friends.
But the major one was the only one that I needed to know that Harris was
wasting his time on Jenna.
My sister had realized when she was fourteen that she wasn’t
into guys. Plain and simple. Of course, I was the only one who knew that little
piece of information, because Jenna thought our mother would freak out at
having a lesbian for a daughter. Jenna wasn’t wrong. Stella Stevenson would
probably disown her youngest daughter if she ever found out about her gender
preference.
Our mother was a total bitch like that. I hadn’t always
thought that way, of course. When you’re a kid you don’t notice the things
adults would about someone. It had taken Jenna, however, to open my eyes to our
parent’s small minded bitchiness. When Jenna had run away to find our brothers
because she was tired of our mother putting Drake down when Jenna would watch
America’s Rocker every week and gush that one of the judges was her brother,
I’d seriously opened my eyes. It was then that I’d realized that my brothers
had never been the bad guys, had their reasons for not wanting a relationship
with me or my dad when their own mother had died. It had all been my mother’s
doing, and I couldn’t blame Drake and Shane for turning their backs on my dad
and me when my mother had forced our dad to turn his back on them when they had
needed him so desperately.
With Harris helping me it still took more than forty minutes
to finish up all the after show things that needed my attention so that I
wouldn’t be as busy the next night. When we were finally finished I gave the
fifteen year old a hug and told him to head on back to the hotel. Harris yawned
and nodded. “I’m beat. Have fun with Dad.” He grinned, flashing those damn
dimples of his that were identical to his fathers and with a wink left.
Laughing I watched him walk away before I shook my head and
lowered my gaze back to the list I had in my hands, making sure I hadn’t
forgotten anything. I was so lost in thought, my eyes critical on the long list
in front of me that I didn’t hear footsteps until a pair of strong arms wrapped
around my waist from behind.
Devlin nuzzled my hair aside with his nose and placed an
open mouthed kiss against the sensitive flesh just under my left ear. “Miss
me?”
The mere sound of his deep voice made me shiver and I rocked
my hips back against him, delighted at the feel of his hard growing against my
ass. “More than you will ever know,” I assured him as dropped my clipboard on
the ground without caring if I’d finished everything on the list or not.
Turning in his arms I wrapped my own around his neck, letting my eyes drink in
the sight off his beautiful face before brushing my lips over his in a
teasingly soft kiss.
Just as I knew he would, Devlin made a low grumbling sound
deep in his chest, almost like he was purring and unwrapped his arms from my
waist so that his hands could tangle in my long hair. His fingers locked my
head into place so that he could take control of the kiss and devour my mouth
in a kiss that left me aching for him in a way no one ever had before.
When he finally lifted his head, just an inch or two so that
he could brush his lips over the tip of my nose, I was breathing hard and
rubbing my lower body against his hard-on. “You ready to go?”
After that kiss I was more than ready, and going to some
club where we would be surrounded with countless strangers for a few hours was
definitely not what I wanted to be doing. “Can’t we just go back to our hotel
room and make love?” I murmured, placing my hands on his chest and tracing
little hearts over each male nipple through the material of his OtherWorld
T-shirt.
Devlin raised a brow at my request. “What happened to the
whining girl that left my bed this morning, complaining about me never taking
her out?”
If he hadn’t been smiling I might have slapped his face. I
hated it when he teased me like that. But I could tease him, too. “I’m a woman,
Dev, not a girl. Your woman,” I murmured in a breathy whisper as I stood on tip
toe so that my kiss damped lips could brush over his ear, making him tremble
just like I had earlier. “And your woman has every right to change her mind a
thousand times before she finally decides to settle on what she really wants.
And what your woman wants right now is for you to take her back to our room and
let her suck your dick.”
With a muttered curse Devlin picked me up and tossed me over
his shoulder. One big hand swatted across my ass, making a loud smacking sound
as he hurried for the closest exit. “You are an evil little bitch, you know
that Nat?”
I propped my head up on my hand so that I didn’t get dizzy
from the way he was carrying me. “So you’ve told me a hundred times before. But
you like it.”
“No, babe. I fucking love it.” He was practically sprinting
as he headed toward a row of taxies waiting in front of the civic center, his
long legs eating up the distance in no time. I heard a door open and then he
dropped me onto the bench seat before climbing in after me. But instead of the
address of our hotel he gave the name of the club he’d mentioned over lunch
earlier that day.
“Dev,” I whined wanting to just go back to our room and have
him sink deep into me for the rest of the night.
With a deep chuckle he wrapped his arms around me again and
pulled me against his side. “Nat,” he mocked me. “Relax. We’ll have more than
enough time for that later. Right now I want to take my woman out and show her
off at the club. Just like you begged me for this morning.” His lips captured
mine and his tongue snuck out, licking my bottom lip until I opened for him.
We were still kissing when the taxi pulled to a stop in
front of a club with a line of people all the way down the block. The driver
cleared his throat loudly and Devlin grumbled something against my lips before
finally lifting his head and tossing a hundred dollar bill at the man. “Keep
the change,” he bit out as he opened the door and pulled me out behind him.
Once we were on the sidewalk Devlin stopped and kissed me
again. His long, raven black hair fell forward, shielding us from the crowd
that was lined up behind us. His hands wrapped around my neck, telling me that
he didn’t want me going anywhere anytime soon. Didn’t he know that I would
never be the first to step back? I loved him more than anything or anyone on
the planet. He was the reason I woke up every morning with a smile on my face,
the reason I hadn’t already lost my mind on this tour.
How long we stood there getting lost in our kiss I couldn’t
honestly say. When he finally lifted his head, his aquamarine eyes were dark
with passion and he was smiling. “Later,” he promised.
I licked my lips, sighing when I tasted him there. “Yeah,
later.”
Laughing he grasped my hand and entwined our fingers,
pulling me toward the front of the line where two huge bouncers stood with
headsets sticking from their ears and a clipboard. The first guy frowned at
Devlin but the second stepped forward and shook his hand. “Welcome back, Mr.
Cutter.”
“Thanks, man.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out
something before seamlessly passing it over to the other man. Another hundred
or two I was sure. Would I ever get over the fact that I was now surrounded by
money? Sure, I hadn’t grown up poor, but we sure as hell hadn’t been rich by
any one’s standards. Devlin didn’t carry anything less than a ten dollar bill
in his wallet. If he got a fives or ones back he just gave them away.
The man’s eyes drifted over to me and he smirked when he
took in my kiss swollen lips. I shot him a glare and then the finger, making
Devlin laugh as he stepped around the two bouncers and into the club, much to
the loudly protesting of the people still in line. I knew that look well. I’d
gotten more than once over the last few weeks. People knew who Devlin was, and
they had never—not ever seen him with the same chick more than once. When they
looked at me they assumed I was just Devlin’s piece of ass for the night and
would be discarded come morning.
And that was when I got to do the smirking because I knew
that I was going to be in my rocker’s bed the next night and the night after
and the night after that. He had promised me that our relationship was
something special to him. That what we had would last because he cared about
me.
Sure it hadn’t been a declaration of loved, but it had been
good enough for me. We’d only been dating for a few weeks now, and I wasn’t in
a rush. We had the rest of our lives to say those three little words to each
other.
Inside the club we moved straight for the bar. Devlin
ordered a beer for himself and a glass of my favorite wine for me. I loved that
I didn’t have to tell him what I wanted. He knew me well and always thought
about what I wanted or needed, in and out of bed.
When the drinks were placed in front of us I reached for my
glass but Devlin shook his head and lifted it to his lips. With his eyes locked
on mine he took a small sip before offering the glass to me. My panties
dampened even more than they already were as I turned the glass so that I could
put my lips where his had just been. As I took my first sip his eyes darkened
and he mouthed a curse before swallowing half his beer in one gulp.
Laughing I took another drink of my wine and grabbed his
hand. I didn’t need alcohol tonight. I just needed him. “Dance with me?”
With another swallow, the bottle of Samuel Adams was empty
and he followed me onto the dance floor. For the next hour I wrapped myself
around Devlin and let myself go to the beat of the music. I’d always loved to
dance, but with Devlin holding me close even through the fast songs, it was an
exhilarating experience.
As we danced he kissed me from time to time, but never more
than a brush of his lips over mine. We both knew that if we kissed like we both
wanted that we would end up in a bathroom stall, and Devlin would hate himself
afterwards. The one time that we had done something like that he’d been pissed
at himself for three days because he respected me more than that.
Our relationship meant more to him than a quick fuck in some
dirty bathroom.
Sweating like crazy, I finally let him led me from the dance
floor to rehydrate. We sat at the bar while he drank another beer and I sipped
at my water and curled my fingers around the ends of his hair. My own hair was
a light brown, with a few blonde highlights. It wasn’t as long as his, but
there wasn’t very many people who did have hair as long and healthy as his. He
loved my hair just as much as I loved his. When we were in bed, lying beside of
each other, he would lift a few locks of my hair and kiss them as reverently as
if he were kissing my skin when we made love.
Devlin leaned forward and kissed me, deeper than he had in
over an hour. The taste of beer didn’t completely mask his own unique taste and
I opened my mouth, silently begging him to take more. When he did I knew it was
past time we left. My panties were drenched and I was throbbing between my legs
for his attention.
Without warning Devlin stumbled against me. His hands caught
me around the waist, righting us both before I hit the bar. His eyes asked me
if I was okay and I nodded before he turned with a snarl to the man who had
just pushed him.
“What the fuck asshole?” Devlin demanded as he faced Zander.
“You nearly made me fall on my girl.”
I nearly groaned at the sight of Zander standing there. His
glassy eyes told me he was drunk, without having to see the further proof of it
in the way he was walking. He’d been drinking a more often over the last few
weeks, even more so when Devlin and I started seeing each other. I knew it was
because of me and I hated it. I’d never led him on, had always made it obvious
that all we would ever be was friends. That didn’t seem to matter to Zander,
because he’d been nothing but an angry bear to me and everyone else.
“Sorry, bro. I didn’t see you standing there,” Zander said
with a sneer before turning his attention back to the bartender and ordering a
shot and a beer.
Devlin clenched his fists at his sides and I could tell he
was about to punch his friend. Emmie had threatened to join the tour if they
got into another fight, and I honestly didn’t want to see more bloodshed
between the two men. Stepping between Devlin and Zander I put my hands on
Devlin’s chest. “I’m ready to go, babe.”
Aquamarine eyes lost some of their hostility when they
landed on my face and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Let me pay the tab, baby,
and we’ll go.”
“Don’t let me rush you off.” Zander tossed his shot of
whisky back and slammed the small glass on the bar top. Picking up his beer he
turned toward us. Devlin was talking to the bartender who had started his tab.
I tried to ignore Zander, not wanting to make Dev any more upset that he
already was. The two had once been best friends but now, because of me, they
could barely stand each other. I hated that I was the cause of the rift between
them.
Zander’s cold hand wrapped around my elbow and swung me
around to face him. The smell of alcohol on his breath made me blink a few
times it was strong. “Stay and dance with me, Nat.”
I gave him a grim smile, not wanting to hurt his feelings.
Until recently I’d thought we were good friends. Now I wasn’t so sure. “I’m
tired, Z. I just want to go back to the hotel and go to bed.”
“No, you want to go back to the hotel and fuck Dev.” His
words made me gasp in pain because they had been like a slap in the face. I
didn’t deserve for him to talk to me like that. “It’s alright. I just don’t get
it, though. Dev’s won the bet, so I figured once he had been in your pants he
would move on. Must be some good pussy.”
If his first words had been a slap the rest was a punch to
the gut. I felt tears burn my eyes even as confusion clouded my brain. “What do
you mean, bet?” I demanded louder than I’d intended.
Behind me I felt Devlin wrap an arm around me as he turned
back from paying our bill. At my question, however, I felt him stiffen. Zander
gave me a drunken grin and tipped his beer bottle to his lips, making me wait for
a response even as I felt Devlin shifting behind me.
“The bet I made with Dev two months ago, babe. The one that
he put his prized John Bonham drum sticks up for grabs against my signed Geddy
Lee bass.” Another drink of beer, this one longer as his words burned like acid
across my skin.
My fingers were trembling as I grabbed the beer bottle from
him and threw it on the ground where it shattered and spilled what was rest of
the contents across my sandal clad feet. “What was the bet, Z?” I demanded
through gritted teeth.
Another shrug, as if he didn’t know or just didn’t care that
his next words were going to shatter my heart. As if his words weren’t going to
destroy me the point of no return. “First one to bag you was the winner. Lucky
for Dev, he now has my bass.”
Devlin moved so fast I didn’t see the fist as he swung out
and punched Zander. Zander stumbled back, knocking three people down in the
process. I just stood there, watching with deadened eyes as Devlin jumped his
best friend. I didn’t move out of the way as Zander somehow rolled and started
punching Dev in the head. The glass from the broken beer bottle didn’t faze
them as they rolled around, fighting.
The fight went on and on. People moving quickly to get out
of their way. A table was destroyed, two chairs and numerous bottles and
glasses. I remember watching a live MMA fight with Linc once, and that was what
the two men before me seemed to be doing right then. They twisted at odd angels
to get their punches in, didn’t seemed to care if they fought dirty or not when
Zander double punched Devlin in the stomach then kneed him in the balls.
Wasn’t that a big taboo with men? Never go for another man’s
package?
Devlin groaned in pain but didn’t pause in his attempt to
annihilate his friend. He gained the upper hand in a move that I wasn’t sure
possible for such a tall man and started hitting Zander in the ribs.
Two bouncers broke through the crowd and tried to pull
Devlin off Zander. He shrugged them off like they were just bees that annoyed
him. Two more stepped forward to help and finally they were able to break the
two rockers apart. Both were bleeding, throwing curses at each other in a
verbal battle now that they could do so with their fists.
Still I remained where I was, not even sure if I were
breathing because the pain that was ripping through me was so consuming.
It was all a lie. My relationship with Devlin Cutter was
nothing more than the product of Devlin wanting to win some bet against his
friend. All our nights spent in each other’s arms, all his whispered words of
how much he cared about me, worshipped me… They were all lies. I was nothing
more than a bet. Nothing. I was nothing to him.
