Chapter 19
“Holy shit, this place is insane!” Tom shouted over the music, his eyes wide.
“What?” Lily yelled back, cupping a hand to her ear. “I can’t hear a fucking thing!”
Andy grinned, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “I think that’s the point, Lil. If your ears aren’t ringing, you’re not doing Vegas right.”
The bass thrummed through my body as we walked deeper into Club Phoenix, following a chatty, black-suited manager and a gang of burly security guards. He cut a path through the crowd, the sea of people parting before him like he was Moses and they were the Red Sea.
Strobe lights flashed in dizzying patterns, painting the writhing bodies in neon hues. Go-go dancers in glittering, barely-there costumes gyrated in elevated cages, their lithe forms silhouetted against the pulsing lights. The air was thick with the scent of sweat, perfume, and the unmistakable tang of alcohol.
It was quintessential Vegas—a sensory overload of light and sound that left me feeling buzzed before I’d even had a drink.
Rich, jewel-toned fabrics draped from the walls, and intricate mosaics glittered underfoot. The furniture was all plush velvet and gleaming chrome, oozing luxury and excess. It was like stepping into a modern-day pleasure palace, a hedonistic wonderland designed for indulgence and escape.
But the real spectacle was just beginning. As word of the band’s arrival spread, a crowd began to gather near the VIP section stairs. Mostly women, they jostled for position, their eager faces turned towards us like flowers seeking the sun.
Security fanned out, holding them back and creating a path for us.
“Oh my god, it’s them!”
“Lewis, over here!”
“I’ll marry you, Alex!”
Their shrieks and pleas blended with the pounding music while camera flashes nearly blinded us. If not for Anderson’s tight grip on my shoulder, I’m not sure I would have found my way through.
“Damn, it’s good to be a rock star,” Tom said as we mounted the stairs, surveying the scene below like a king overlooking his kingdom.
I barely heard him, my attention snagged by a flash of chestnut hair on the balcony above. Liv. She was dancing with Tommy from Lover’s Knot, her body undulating to the relentless beat, her shirt riding up to reveal a strip of tanned skin at her waist.
Something hot and prickly unfurled in my gut as I watched Tommy’s hands skim down her sides, coming to rest on her hips.
I had no right to feel jealous.
Watching her with someone else, seeing the casual intimacy of their bodies moving together… it cut like a knife, swift and unexpected, making me momentarily forget why it mattered that we stay a secret.
Then the fancy thoughts faded and my sister’s tear stricken face filled my mind. The press had twisted her words in ways she’d never meant. She cried for hours on the phone to me, begging me to make it stop. But nothing I or our publicist did eased the pressure or the vicious chatter of teenagers.
A month later, she was gone.
I remembered all too well the damage the press could do. I never wanted Liv to look at me like that. Or to mirror my sister’s path in any way.
“You keep staring like that, your face is gonna stick that way,” Lily shouted in my ear, jolting me from my brooding.
I schooled my features into something resembling nonchalance. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She snorted. “Please. You look like you’re about five seconds away from punching Tommy in the dick.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she cut me off with a knowing look.
“Lewis. I’ve known you since we were thirteen. I can read you like a book.” Her expression softened, her hand coming to rest on my forearm. “Why don’t you just tell her how you feel?”
I sighed, scrubbing a hand over my face. “It’s not that simple, Lil. You know what it’s like, living in the spotlight. I don’t want to drag her into all that.”
“Maybe. But it’s not your choice to make.” She gave my arm a squeeze. “Olivia’s a big girl, she’s going to be in the spotlight with or without you. And I’ve seen the way she looks at you.”
“Oi!” a familiar voice bellowed from across the VIP section. Jared, Rhiannon’s drummer, waved us over. “Get your asses over here, you wankers! The drinks are flowing, and the night is young!”
Beside him, the rest of Rhiannon and the guys from Lover’s Knot were sprawled across the plush sofas, bottles and glasses littering the table, already well on their way to properly sloshed.
“You heard the man.” Andy laughed, clapping me on the shoulder. “Can’t let them down, can we?”
“Absolutely not. Lead the way.” I grinned, letting him steer me towards the group. As we approached, a cheer went up, hands reaching out to pull us into the fray.
“About bloody time!” Nick, Lover’s Knot’s drummer, crowed. “Thought you lot had gotten lost. Or worse, sober!”
“Not a chance,” Tom scoffed, snagging a bottle of vodka from the table. “The night’s just getting started, boys. And we’ve got some catching up to do.”
As the banter and laughter flew around me, I found my gaze drawn back to the dance floor. To Liv. She was in her element, lost in the music, her body moving with a fluid grace that took my breath away. As if sensing my stare, she looked up, our eyes locking across the crowded room.
Her smile, slow and secret, sent a jolt of heat straight through me. She crooked a finger, beckoning me closer, and it took every ounce of willpower I had to stay put.
“Mate, you still with us?” Tom’s voice cut through the haze, his hand waving in front of my face.
I blinked, dragging my focus back to the group. “Yeah, sorry. Just… distracted.”
Tom followed my gaze. “I’ll bet. That girl of yours is a right firecracker, isn’t she?”
I bristled, my jaw tightening. “She’s not ‘my girl’, Tom. We’re just… it’s complicated.”
“Right,” he drawled, clearly unconvinced. “Well, while you’re sorting out your ‘complications’, get a drink. We haven’t got long before they bundle us up on the bus again.” He nodded to the waiting server. “They need your card to put on the tab.”
“Maybe we should take it easy tonight. We’ve got an early start tomor?—”
“Oh, come off it!” Andy cut in, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “We just played the best fucking show of our lives. If that’s not cause for celebration, I don’t know what is. Get a drink, Lew.”
He had a point. And honestly, what was the harm? A few drinks… it was nothing in the grand scheme of things. And maybe, just maybe, it would take my mind off the growing ache in my chest, the longing to be out there with Olivia.
“Alright, fuck it,” I relented, fishing my wallet from my back pocket. I handed it over, muttering a drink order to the server and went right back to staring at the dance floor and the singer owning it.
“Holy shit, lads!” Nick’s eyes were wide. “Is that what I think it is?”
Tom grinned, holding up the amber-filled bottle like a trophy. “Macallan ’26, aged to perfection. Smooth as silk and twice as expensive.”
A low whistle went around the table. I felt my stomach drop.
“Where the hell did you get that?” I asked, my voice carefully even. “And more importantly, who paid for it?”
Tom’s grin turned sheepish. He tipped the bottle towards me in a mock salute. “You said you wanted whiskey. I just gave the bar a little direction.”
The table erupted in cheers and laughter.
“Damn, Davies!” Andy crowed, his grin stretching from ear to ear. “When you decide to splash out, you don’t fuck around, do you? What’s the damage on that beauty, a couple grand?”
“Ten, actually,” Tom supplied helpfully, already pouring generous measures into the waiting glasses. “But who’s counting, right? Not like our boy here can’t afford it.”
I forced a smile, my teeth gritted so hard my jaw ached. “Right. What’s a few grand between friends?”
Just you wait. Payback’s a bitch, dickhead.
I stared at Tom, communicating the threat with my eyes. He just grinned at me, unrepentant.
“Well, go on then.” I gestured at the bottle. “Pour us a dram of that liquid gold. Let’s see if it lives up to the hype.”
I didn’t need to tell him twice. He popped the top and started pouring. The whiskey flowed, the laughter and conversation picking back up. I knocked back my drink in one swallow, relishing the burn, the way it momentarily quieted the gnawing in my gut.
Half an hour and a few too many Tequila shots later, the club was in full swing. The VIP area was packed, celebrities and hangers-on jostling for space, for a chance to brush shoulders with rock royalty.
And I still couldn’t tear my gaze from Liv.
I watched her move, her body swaying to the beat, her hair a wild cloud around her face. Even sweaty and drunk, she was magnetic, mesmerising. A siren’s call I was powerless to resist.
Before I could think better of it, I was on my feet, weaving through the crowd with single-minded focus. All I could think about was getting to her, feeling her body against mine, consequences be damned.
I reached her just as the music kicked into high gear, my hands finding her hips, pulling her back against my chest.
“Lewis,” she breathed, her voice husky and low. “What are you doing? Someone might see…
“They’re all too drunk to see a foot in front of their faces.” My lips grazed the shell of her ear. She melted into me, her head falling back onto my shoulder, her ass grinding in a slow, dirty circle against my crotch. “They aren’t going to see a thing and even if they did, they wouldn’t remember tomorrow.”
For a moment, she just stared at me, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Then, slowly, a smile spread across her face. A real smile, bright and blinding and full of promise.
“Well then…” Her arms wound around my neck. “I guess you’d better shut up and dance with me. Before I change my mind.”
I grinned, wide and reckless and so fucking in love I could barely breathe. “Yes ma’am.”
And with that, I spun her around, pulled her close, and lost myself in the music, in the feel of her body against mine. The rest of the world tunnelled away until there was only this. Only us. Her arms looped around my neck, my hands mapping the dip of her waist. Her breath hot against my ear.
“I’ve been thinking about this all night. About you.”
My fingers flexed on her hips, heat licking down my spine. “Fuck, Liv. You can’t just say things like that.”
She grinned wickedly, her nails scratching lightly at my nape. “And why not? Afraid you won’t be able to handle it?”
“More like afraid I won’t be able to keep my hands to myself.” The words came out lower, rougher than I intended. Reckless in a way I rarely let myself be.
But Liv had a way of undoing me, of making me want to throw caution to the wind and damn the consequences. With her, I felt drunk on more than just whiskey and Tequila. Drunk on possibility, on the promise of her skin against mine, on the future I could see unspooling before us, dizzying and bright.
She held my gaze, her green eyes molten in the strobing lights. When she spoke, her voice was a rough purr I felt all the way to my toes.
“Who says I want you to?”
If I had been a better man, a stronger man, I would have pulled back. Would have put some distance between us before I did something stupid, like kiss her senseless in the middle of this crowded club, with our friends and half the music industry watching.
But tonight, with the bass thudding in my bones and Liv pressed against me, I was weak. Weak and wanting and so bloody tired of denying myself the only thing I’d ever really wanted.
So when she fisted her hands in my hair and pulled my mouth down to hers, I didn’t resist.
I sank into the kiss, into her, losing myself in the hot slide of her lips, the flick of her tongue, the gentlest graze of her teeth. She tasted like tequila and lime and something undeniably Olivia. An addictive flavour I already knew I’d never get enough of.
My hands roamed her back, slipping under her shirt to find the warm skin beneath. She shivered, arching into me, a breathy moan lost to the pounding music. It was a siren’s song, calling me to ruin, and I followed willingly, eagerly, until the need for air forced us apart. We stared at each other, chests heaving, pulses racing.
Her lipstick was smudged, her hair even wilder than before. She looked thoroughly, devastatingly kissed, and the knowledge that I had wrecked her so completely, sent a dark thrill through me.
She leaned in close, her lips brushing the shell of my ear. “I have a crazy idea,” she whispered, her voice a husky purr that sent shivers down my spine. “Let’s get married.”
I pulled back, my eyes widening. “What?”
“You heard me.” She grinned, her eyes sparkling with mischief and something deeper, something that made my heart skip a beat. “Let’s get married. Right now, tonight. That little chapel next door… it’s perfect.”
I stared at her, my mind reeling. This was insane. We’d only known each other for a few weeks. Getting married, here, now, on a drunken whim in Vegas… it was the epitome of recklessness, of irresponsibility.
But as I gazed into her eyes, saw the love and certainty shining there… I couldn’t remember why that was a bad thing.
There’d be no more risk of another man catching her eye, no more need for jealousy. We’d still be able to keep our relationship quiet, but she’d be mine and I’d be hers. That was all that mattered, wasn’t it?
“Okay,” I breathed, a giddy laugh bubbling up my throat. “Okay, yes. Let’s do it.”