Damn.
“It’s nice to meet you. I was hoping to meet you during the day. I’m a total early bird,” Willow said.
Cerys looked at him carefully before turning her attention back to Willow. “Bands are very often night owls. We came straight from the studio.”
“I’m probably the only one in the room who’s an early bird. Without the opportunity to meet with you, I would have snuck to bed with a good book hours ago.”
He liked the idea of her in bed—only with him, instead of a book. Perhaps it was all the stimulants coursing through him, but the image of the two of them in bed played in time-lapse. Bed. Shower. Against the wall. Yeah, fuck, he was horny, high, and morally bankrupt. “You’re doing partying wrong. Come hang out with us one night. We’ll show you how it’s done in England.”
“Ignore him,” Cerys said. “They’ve got a handful of days to finish the album, and Jimmy came along to make sure nobody stays too late.”
“Willow, guys, let’s get those photos.” Darrin gestured to a spot over by the boxes that transported all the studio’s instruments.
He watched Willow follow her dad.
“Bet you a hundred quid you can’t tap that before breakfast tomorrow,” Alex whispered, and Luke laughed.
“Bet you two hundred it’s before midnight.” He didn’t have two hundred quid to spare. His credit card wheezed under the weight of his debt. And the loans he’d taken out to make sure his sister didn’t struggle through college, after their dad died and their mum abandoned Iz to his care, demanded a hefty sum just to meet the minimum.
But as Willow looked over her shoulder at him, he knew it was easy money.
“You’re on.” Alex slapped him on the shoulder.
As she carried on walking, he noticed a mottled red blotch on her arm. Anger began to simmer. Concerned, he hurried over to her.
“Are you okay, flower? Because your dad gripped you pretty hard there.”
Willow rubbed her arm self-consciously. “No. It’s fine. Honestly. I mean, I was being rude not coming straight over to see you guys, but sometimes you just have to take video when you can. And that song is trending right now, so I had to capture it right away. I think he caught me harder than I expected because I was spinning.”
“You sure? Because I’ll kick his arse for you.”
Willow looked up at him. “You’d do that?”
Luke shrugged. “I’ve hit someone for a lot less. Why not? You shouldn’t have a red blotch on your skin. If anyone did that to my sister, they’d be having trouble breathing right now.”
“That seems so . . . violent.”
“Sometimes bad things happen to bad people.”
She stopped in position. “And the people who do the bad things to bad people—are they bad or good?”
Luke ran his tongue along his lower lip. “You tell me, Will.”
With pursed lips that looked cute enough to nibble on, she considered his question. “I don’t know you well enough to answer that.”
He glanced over to where her father was busy talking to Matt, then looped his finger and thumb loosely around her wrist. “Well, I suggest we change that. You’re staying for the show, right? You can stand with Cerys and watch.”
“I’d love that.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three in March, next month.”
Phew. Not as young as he’d thought. “You feel like getting out of here afterwards?” he asked, his voice rough.
Willow bit down on her lower lip. “I’d like that.”
Luke grinned. “Be ready to go. I’m walking straight off that stage and we’re leaving before anyone has the chance to realise we’re gone.”
“Luke,” Matt yelled. “Get your ass over here for the photograph so we can get onstage.”
“You have a deal,” Willow said before hurrying to the rest of the group.
“Do I ever,” he muttered.
And it remained on his mind. From the first beat of his sticks in the air onstage, with the audience screaming, and her eyes on him. To a guitar battle between Ben, Matt, and Jase, when he slipped his phone out of his back pocket and took a photograph of Willow dancing in the wings as she watched the three of them.
Anticipation thrummed through him. Sure, she was a little young for his twenty-nine, but what happened in Detroit stayed in Detroit.
Right?
What on earth was she thinking?
She was America’s Shamaze app queen with a responsibility to the young women who followed her platform. But as she looked down at the tattooed fingers currently entangled with hers, leading her swiftly through the backstage hallways of the Detroit concert venue, she couldn’t think of them.
Luke’s broad shoulders and inked arms blocked her view as he hurried the two of them to the exit. When he’d said they’d leave straight after the gig, she hadn’t imagined he’d jog to her, grab her hand, and lead her away before the band’s lead singer had even left the stage.
Only Cerys had witnessed it, and Willow hoped the wave she’d given her had been enough to reassure her that she was totally okay with what was happening.
When she’d featured the band’s song in one of her videos, she hadn’t thought about how it might change Luke’s life.
And now, the band was here on the brink of something huge, recording an album with a leading producer.
All because of her.
And it gave her a deep-down thrill to know she’d done that.
When her father suggested they meet up, she’d flown to Michigan from her home in Malibu, hoping for an opportunity to make some content with them.
She’d done her research. The bad boys of rock and roll from Manchester, with tempers and habits and stories of women. Lots of women. A walking definition of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. And for once, she wanted a taste of it. She wanted to shake off the wholesome label she’d garnered as a child actor and for one night just be Willow.
Leaving every instinct for safety behind, she followed a man who’d turned her on with every beat of his sticks on his skins. Who’d blown her away with his intensity. She was a cliche, getting turned on by the drummer of the band. It was a Penny Lane move. A groupie. Straight out of every rock star fan handbook.
And yet she was doing it anyway.
Luke was offering her an escape.
An escape from the stifling environment of her father’s constant reminders of how every single choice could affect her living. Always choose the right words. Always dress to be photographed. God, she’d left the house once without a full face of makeup, and some stupid photographer had snapped her for one of those awful how-she-really-looks articles.
For once, she wanted real bona fide excitement in her life.
And he was striding right in front of her. All six feet of him. Well-defined arm muscles. Dimples. And a panty-melting smile, all the more devastating with the ink that crept up the side of his neck and down his bicep.
Fully aware of what she was letting herself in for, she followed him anyway. One night with no rules. Eight hours, maybe ten if she was lucky, where she could leave all expectations behind. For some reason, the sex she’d had in the past hadn’t remotely lived up to her expectations. She wanted that rush, that uncontrollable desire for another person.