Chapter 5
Kingsley
Performance was like a high to me, and it always had been. To have the audience eating out of my hand, to feel the songs flowing out of my guitar.
Panties flooded the stage, but my eyes were glued to the VIP section up front where my best friend was dancing.
Fuck, Rosalie looked good.
She was going to break soon.
I knew her.
Fuck, there was no reason for her to be this pissed at me.
After all, she should know I didn’t give one single fuck about Dolly. Once I got the part in the movie, I’d give Dolly a nice parting gift and that would be the end of it.
And that would only take a few weeks, hopefully.
Damn, Rosalie better not be pissed that long. Because I didn’t know how much longer I could go without her.
Earlier I had gone through my phone. I had hundreds of contacts on there. If not more.
But nobody else on my roster appealed to me.
And for some reason even scrolling made me faintly nauseated. There were tons of women in Chicago begging me to fuck them under or over deep dish pizza.
But I’d never had to go this long with Rosalie pissed at me.
I didn’t need her, I reminded myself.
Not like need need her. Look around at all these people. So many of them would fuck me. So why were my eyes glued to one slim figure dancing in the VIP section?
Rosalie’s hips rotated in a slow, sensual circle, that sleek dark hair spilling down her back as she wiggled her ass.
Goddamn, she was hot. Her tank top was riding up so I could see the tattoo on her side.
I had been there when she got that tattoo, had a matching one myself on the side.
Kind of dumb, really. Cheesy as fuck, because the tattoo of the chords only made sense when we were standing together.
I didn’t want to think about that. Or the fact that suddenly the one constant in my life since college wasn’t a constant anymore.
Matt and Dolly were dancing with her too, and Matt bent down to whisper something in Rosalie’s ear.
God, Dolly really could not dance at all, looking like a horror movie marionette out there. But at least she had that reporter with her, because I didn’t think I could keep up this pretense much longer. I had told Rosalie the truth. Why wasn’t she over it?
Whatever Matt said made Rosalie laugh, and she gripped his arm, laughing in that full, I-don’t-give-a-fuck way she had.
My vision seemed to tunnel into that one spot where her hand gripped his polo shirt, twisting the fabric under his fingers.
I didn’t like the way it felt.
Didn’t like that her pants rode low on her perfectly curved hips, that her ass was filling out those jeans perfectly, that there might be guys out there on her Instagram who thought they had a chance.
I’d never seen her so much as look twice at anyone else.
The rest of the concert was a blur, the songs coming out of my mouth on autopilot.
Usually after a concert, I stayed behind or let Cornelius leak a hot local bar I’d be at. Then I’d have my pick of the hottest groupies to fuck, one after the other, or all together.
But I wasn’t in the mood.
Instead, I went back to the hotel suite where Dolly and Rosalie were having a spa night in their pajamas.
“Rosalie, I have something to tell you,” I said firmly, then stopped short, my fingers curling around the back of the couch.
My eyes were riveted to where Matt in a face mask was rubbing her feet, his fingers moving slowly and sensuously over her tiny toes, the candy-pink color peeping out from her long satin pajama pants.
Her toes looked seriously good enough to eat, and my mouth was watering again, sweat pouring down my back.
“I need to talk to Rosalie. Urgent business.”
“But it’s spa night!” Matt protested.
“Get out of here, man! I tell you, it’s urgent!”
I picked Matt up by the collar and dragged him over to the door, slamming it behind him.
Rosalie stretched her toes like a cat and I swallowed hard. She knew exactly what she was doing.
“Can I give you a foot rub?” I asked, trying to make my voice casual.
“No.”
Her total lack of interest and disdain stuck in my throat and I couldn’t swallow it down.
“Dolly, can you go ask the front desk for some more towels? We’re out.”
“But we aren’t out,” she protested, pointing at a big stack of fresh pillowy towels.
“OK, then ask for some whiskey. We’re out of whiskey.”
“Dolly, you don’t have to let him boss you around like that,” Rosalie said tranquilly. “He’s a big boy. He can get his own damn whiskey.”
But Dolly toddled off as I knew she would.
“Rosalie,” I growled the second she left the room, “I’m sorry, all right, fuck, damn. I was being a jackass. This shit with Dolly isn’t real. I don’t even like her. It’s a fake relationship cooked up by Cornelius so I can get this role on the movie.”
My hand on her shoulder wasn’t perfectly steady, especially when her long ponytail brushed across my grip.
Her skin was so soft under my fingers, and she smelled fucking phenomenal, that sexy Christmas smell mixed with something sweet like a sugar cookie.
I wanted to fuck her so badly I was getting the flop sweats, like I was going through withdrawal.
“I was just trying to give you shit and make you jealous. I’m sorry. She means nothing to me. I swear. I only fucked her twice, just to be polite. Let’s just go back to how things were.”
Rosalie was looking at me, narrowing her eyes, and I felt suddenly hot and prickly under her regard, my skin tight and anxious.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think I want to go back to how we used to be.”
“Why the fuck not?”
She shrugged. “Not interested in being your fuck buddy anymore.”
My insides curdled like sour milk, my lungs shriveling like it was hard to breathe.
“Don’t be like that. What do you want then? What can I give you?”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Come on. Something sparkly to wear? New condo? How about a boat?”
She only looked bored.
“Give it up, Rosalie. You know you can’t stay away from me.”
My skin crawled with the desire to touch her, get close to her. I wanted to hear her talking shit as I came down from my post-show buzz.
“Actually, I’m finding it very easy to.”
“Baby—"
She ignored me, getting up to walk away.
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“It’s over between us, Kings,” she said as cold sweat broke out all over my body, dripping down into my eyes. “You said we make better friends. So we’ll just be friends.”
She patted me on the shoulder, a friendly uninterested pat.
“You’ll be fine, buddy. Plenty of women on the roster.”
Something twisted painfully inside me, a sudden gutting pain so deep it took my breath away.
“Rosalie—”
But she was gone.