Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
During the meet-and-greet, Ashley watched and learned and took notes on her tablet. Drew had never met anyone so focused on her purpose, and it only served to make her more attractive.
Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who thought so, because the venue manager wouldn’t stop interrupting her.
Every time Drew looked in her direction, the guy was trying to get her attention.
With a drink. Or a joke. Couldn’t he see that she was working?
And why the hell wasn’t Max or James squashing the guy like a bug?
If she had looked at all irritated, Drew would have been over there in a millisecond with the guy pinned against the wall begging for mercy. But she wasn’t frowning. On the contrary, she was actually smiling a little, even laughing softly at one point.
Jealousy ate at Drew, taking big chunks of him in its jaws and grinding him into pieces.
More distracted than ever, he barely stopped one of his more mature fans from yanking off her shirt in front of an eight-year-old girl.
In fact, the woman already had her top more than halfway off when Ashley grabbed the little girl’s attention by asking if she wanted to put on a concert T-shirt and take a selfie with him.
Drew gestured for James to come deal with the woman, who had no business exposing herself in front of a kid, then turned and gave his full attention to the little girl.
Afterward, he went to thank Ashley, but she was back in her corner where the venue manager had clearly been waiting for her so that he could hit on her some more.
Finally, he finished meeting his last VIP fan and headed over to her. Just in time to hear the guy say, “This has been a lot of fun, Ashley. Any chance I can get your number for the next time you’re in town?”
Before she could reply, Drew said, “You ready to head to the bus, Ash?”
Her surprised gaze shifted to Drew. He’d called her Ash out in the desert when he’d been talking about all the fire she had inside and how well it fit her. But tonight he’d deliberately said it in the most possessive way possible.
The venue manager put up his hands and took a step away from her. “Sorry, man. I didn’t realize she was taken.” In a really polite tone, he added, “Great show tonight, Drew. It will be our pleasure to have you back soon.” And then he was gone.
Ashley was frowning as she walked out of the room with Drew. A couple of minutes later they were back on the bus, James had wished them both a good night, and Drew had given Max the all-clear to head for Los Angeles.
“Taken? Did he actually think that you and I are…” Ashley shook her head as if the final word was too preposterous to even say aloud. “Together?”
“I’m pretty sure he did.” Drew knew he should probably feel a little guilty for helping the guy’s assumption along, but he didn’t. Not in the least. Not when that guy wasn’t good enough to touch even one hair on her head.
“Wait…does everyone think that you and I are together?”
“Maybe the guys at the airport did. And I fielded some questions at the radio stations about you.” And there had been more than a little speculation online that must have been put up there by the fans he’d met that morning.
But he didn’t think Ashley needed to know about what people posted on the Internet.
Hell, none of them did. “But the guys in the band and the crew know you aren’t.
” Even so, he would place bets on the fact that most of them didn’t really believe Drew wasn’t going to sleep with her soon.
Probably because only a total idiot would keep his distance from a woman like her.
“I suppose there aren’t a lot of researchers sharing tour buses with musicians, are there?”
“No, there aren’t.”
He knew he should stop there. Should call it a night. Should turn and walk away and lock himself in his bedroom. Should put enough space between them that he could remember why he needed to make sure they never became anything more than friends.
But he couldn’t do it, couldn’t lie to her anymore the way he’d been lying to everyone else.
“They’re not totally wrong, Ash. Not about how much I want to kiss you.”
If she’d looked surprised by the realization that people thought they were together, now she looked as though someone had just told her the earth had been scientifically proven to be flat.
“Excuse me?”
It was the last response he would ever have expected. And yet, at the same time, it was exactly the right one. Because Ashley wasn’t like anyone else. And just because he’d told her he wanted to kiss her, didn’t mean she’d jump into his arms like all the women at his show tonight would have.
Instead, she’d do what he already understood was her way of dealing with everything she wanted to understand better—she’d try to dissect and analyze what was actually going on.
Only, he didn’t want to let her dissect anything at all when it came to them. He wanted her to feel it, to be as overwhelmed by it as he was already.
“I want to kiss you.” He knew he should be putting more space between them, rather than closing it by taking a step closer, but where Ashley was concerned, his rational brain was always a step behind.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you from the first moment we met.
And I’ve wanted to kiss you dozens of times in the past twenty-four hours.
I know I’m probably totally freaking you out, and I swear I’m not trying to scare you away.
I’m trying like hell to keep my promise to be a complete gentleman with you.
I just can’t lie to you about what I’m feeling. ”
She didn’t say anything for several long seconds until, finally, she said, “I don’t want you to feel like you have to lie. Not to me.”
“I can’t. I won’t.”
He watched a play of thoughts cross her face, thoughts that shifted from the surprise she’d initially felt, to processing, and then, finally, to a point where it seemed that she was warring with herself.
“I want to be honest with you, too, but I don’t…
” She paused, licked her lips, and he had to shove his hands deep into his pockets to keep from reaching for her.
“I don’t have much experience with this kind of thing.
” Finally, she lifted her gaze to his and held it. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you, too.”
If she were any other woman, he would have been kissing her already. He would have known how sweet she tasted. Would have finally gotten to hear—and drink in—her sweet gasps of pleasure.
Instead, it nearly killed him to say, “But we can’t.”
At the exact same moment that she said, “But we can’t.”
Perhaps their words echoing off each other’s should have broken the tension between them, but it didn’t. Not even close. Not when they both obviously still wanted the kiss just as much.
“My father—”
“—would kill me if I so much as touched one hair on your head.”
“It’s not you,” she said, as if she needed him to know that it wasn’t personal. “It’s what you do. He doesn’t think this is a very stable business. And he thinks that—” Her face flushed, and she didn’t finish her sentence.
But he could easily finish it for her. “He thinks all musicians sleep around.”
When she nodded, he realized he already needed to face the first test of always honest. A first test he wasn’t particularly proud of.
“I wasn’t the worst,” he said slowly, “but I wasn’t the best either.
Not at first.” Not when he’d been young and stupid enough to want to take advantage of the fact that there were no limits.
That absolutely everything he wanted could be his without having to try for it.
“But I didn’t act that way for long.” Not when waking up next to one stranger after another had come up empty so quickly.
And not when his parents had raised him better than that.
They’d clearly known that he was sowing some wild oats, and they’d never come down on him for it, but he’d known they hadn’t been thrilled.
“You don’t have to explain things to me.”
But he did. Because he wanted her to respect him the way he respected her. “I want to. No lies, remember?”
She nodded. “No lies.” She took a deep breath, one that he knew was going to precede an admission of her own.
“First of all, the truth is that my father isn’t the only one who assumed there was a stereotype of what a rock star’s life is like.
How they think and act. But even though I haven’t known you that long, I don’t think you fit the stereotype at all.
And also…” She scrunched up her face as if she really didn’t want to tell him anything more.
“I was a huge fan of yours. In high school. Way back to when you put out your first demo. And I—” She was really flushing now, her eyes squeezing shut for a second before she said, “I’ve had a crush on you for just as long. ”
When she opened her eyes, she was looking at him in that wary way he’d noticed she often looked at things. As if she didn’t yet know enough about them, hadn’t done enough analysis, to be totally sure that she could trust them to turn out okay.
Neither of them said anything for a while. They both just stared at each other as attraction pulsed hotter and higher than ever. She was clasping her hands so tightly in front of her that her knuckles were white as she finally said, “This isn’t going to be easy, is it?”
“No.” There was no other answer, no way to get around the truth. “It isn’t.”
She bit her lip. “Maybe I shouldn’t stay.”
“No.” The single word came out borderline panicked. “I need you to stay. Not just because I want you. But because I feel like I can talk to you. Really talk in a way I haven’t been able to in a long time.”
“I feel the same way with you.”
“Good.” Relief was washing over him in a major way. “Then you’ll stay.”