Cover Me: A Rock Star Romance (4 page)

I was such
a freak. Derek Bast gave me a toe curling orgasm and I started bawling against his chest. I was an emotional disaster. How could I not be? It was
him
. The man I thought of—with enormous amounts of self-loathing—ninety percent of the time when I masturbated. He was a fantasy, not a reality. Not anymore.

Now I knew what it was like to be held and kissed and touched by him. What his rough stubble felt like scraping over my nipple. What his hips felt like pressed between my thighs. What his hard, silky-soft cock felt like with my hand wrapped around it.

And I wanted more.

And it would hurt so badly in the end.

Because Derek Bast couldn’t be trusted with my heart. He’d take care of my body, that he’d proven, but he’d also proven that my feelings were worth nothing to him. I couldn’t let any amount of sexual pleasure make me forget that.

Keeping emotionally detached was key. I could rinse off in his shower, slip into a pair of his boxer briefs and cozy up in his big t-shirt, but I couldn’t invest my heart. The mind had to rule when it came to being close to Derek Bast.

I regretted it, though. I’d never in my life wanted to jump without a net, abandon myself to vulnerability like I did with Derek. I wanted to love him with everything inside me. With every ounce of my being.

Hence the tears. And we didn’t even have sex. But, we shared a closeness that meant more to me than anything else.

There had been this constant back and forth between us before he hurt me. Before we kissed the first time. We were young and there was social status to think of, the ranks of high school. He was cool and I was not. But by the time we were eighteen and faced graduation and endless possibilities of our futures, none of what kept us apart seemed to matter anymore.

Except it must have. To him.

How could you be more than physically close to someone who didn’t even realize when he wronged you?

You couldn’t.

You’d always be expecting the worst and would probably get it.

I bundled up my clothes and opened the bathroom door. The only evidence that we’d been together was the scuffed and flattened patterns in the carpet by the door. Not to mention the occasional twinge of pleasure between my legs.

There was no wishing myself home. I had to go out there and face him. The problem was I knew the moment I laid eyes on him, I’d want to touch him. I’d want to stand on tip-toe and press my lips to his. I’d want him for my own. But, he wasn’t mine to have and never had been.

Enough thinking. I stood tall, pushed my shoulders back and left the bedroom.

I found him right around the corner in the great room, sitting in a blanket fort in front of a fire in the fireplace with all the glass doors open to the outside. My heart lodged in my throat.

“Remember when it got cool enough for my dad to start a fire, we’d pull all the blankets off the beds in my house and drag all the kitchen chairs into the family room and make a fort?” He held his hands up, gesturing to the quilted roof above his head. “I put the burgers on the grill and brought our wine inside. Come under with me.”

I looked down at my hands. I couldn’t do this. I knew this perfect man was only a piece of the whole puzzle and the rest of it would fall apart like the blanket fort that surrounded him. My heart was screaming: Go in, drink wine, make love and spend the night in his arms. My head was urging: You know better. Be smart about this.

“Bess?” He scooted out of the fort and stood. I let my eyes feast on him standing in front of me in nothing but his boxer briefs. “I figured it would only be fair if I was walking around in my underwear, too.” He took my hand. “What is it? It doesn’t look like anything good.”

I lifted my eyes to his and let the fear and wonder in their green depths sink into me. “It’s fast,” I said. “That’s all. It’s very fast.”

His thumb stroked the back of my hand. “For someone you’ve known your whole life?”

“Time has passed. There are—we’re not kids anymore. It’s complicated now.”

He pulled me against his warm body and held me tight. “It doesn’t feel complicated to me.”

I pushed away. “Because you don’t know! You weren’t the one who got hurt!”

Derek put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath. “You keep saying that I did something. Tell me what it is! What the hell did I do to you that you carry around with you every day for this long and can’t let me have this with you.” He motioned between us. “We’re not strangers. We’re far from it. You say this is fast, but to me, it’s our time, Bess. That review busted my balls, but I’m starting to think it happened for a reason. To bring you back into my life. I’ve been sitting in this place alone, trying to make a life for myself now that I’m not on tour and like magic, here you are.”

“It’s not magic. It’s a review. A bad review. The way you responded to it brought me into your life, Derek. Not fate or destiny or any other kind of special force.”

He turned to the fire, rubbing his palms together and nodding. “Fine. I’ll call you a driver. I’d take you back, but the paparazzi would have a fucking heyday seeing you getting out of my car like that.”

We stood in silence. I stared at his back, followed the line of muscle where my fingers had pressed and held tight what seemed like only moments ago.

I didn’t want to leave. I was already hurt, but at least I was the one hurting myself and it wasn’t coming from him. He walked into the kitchen and picked up his cell phone from the counter. I heard him say he needed a driver while he opened the sliding door and stepped outside, then closed it behind him.

The scent of grilled burgers wafted into the house. He was trying so hard to make it a good night. A normal night between old friends who could be so much more. If I could just let the past go.

But I couldn’t. I was getting caught up in the moment and had to put some distance between us to know how I truly felt.

He came back in with the burgers on a plate and sat them down hard on the kitchen counter with a loud crack. “If you’re hungry, you can eat before you leave.”

I didn’t want to go with him angry. The past was pushing me away. I didn’t want the present pushing him. “Will you eat with me?”

He ran his fingers into his hair and gripped it tight, giving me a piercing stare. Standing there with his amazing body on display, his waist band riding low on his hips, he looked at me like he could be done with me in a heartbeat or be inside me in a second, proving he was right and tonight was meant to be. I could barely breathe, watching him think and wondering what he would do.

Finally, he dropped his hand and shook his head. He strode by me, swept the blanket off of the tops of the chairs and headed toward the master suite. “I’m taking a shower. Lock the door behind you when you go.” He stopped and turned his head, glancing back over his shoulder. “It’s been nice catching up. Good luck to you, Bess.”

I watched him walk around the corner, the words I’d said in the bar as an attempt to dismiss his dinner invitation slung back at me. Dismissing me.

Derek

I
waited until
she left then took the bottle of wine out on the deck. Dangling my feet in the pool, I sat there getting drunk, hating her, hating myself.

It would be easy to call her a psycho bitch and be done with it. But Bess wasn’t a psycho. Bitch I’d give her, but only when she had a reason to be. What the fuck did I do to her to make her afraid to get close to me?

We never went out, so it wasn’t like I cheated on her. I’d never cheated on a woman. Weak men cheated. Bess and I were friends. She helped me write the song I sang and posted on You Tube that went viral and got me noticed. It was something we did our boring ass summer before senior year. That song, Cover Me, was the title song on the first album I ever recorded. It was a huge deal and she bailed on me after that. After all the years she was there and then having her gone, it was like losing a family member, a sister. It sucked. She wouldn’t even talk to me.

If anything, she should be the one apologizing. Instead, I was pounding a bottle of wine and going fucking nuts trying to figure out what the hell her problem was.

Fuck it.

I got up and went back inside. It was ten o’clock. I’d call Kurt and find out if he had an update from Joe. If he was trashing the songs Adrian and I already recorded. Might as well get all the shit out of the way in one night and go into tomorrow with a fresh slate ready to fight.

He answered on the second ring. “Get your retraction, hot head?”

I slumped down on the couch. “Not exactly, no. Talk to Joe?”

“Joe’s pissed. He’s tired of you thinking you call the shots when it’s his money on the line.”

A headache started pulsing behind my eyes. “Right. And Adrian? Does he give a rat’s ass what happens with this deal?”

“Has he ever? He’ll go back on tour with his boy band to millions of screaming pubescent girls and forget all about Derek Bast.”

Jesus. Those millions of girls used to scream for me. Now they were all married women with toddlers listening to Adrian while they lugged their kids to the park in minivans.

“What do I do, Kurt?” The feeling of walking on the edge of the end of my career fell over me again.

He yawned. “Come to my office in the morning and we’ll figure it out.”

We hung up and I let my phone fall to the floor. I poured the last of the wine into my glass, stared at the fire until it blurred and my mind went numb from the alcohol.

Not feeling was better. Maybe I’d stay drunk from now on. No wonder so many celebrities ended up in rehab. Seeking love from the public for your art was soul-sucking. Seeking acceptance from a woman scorned was even worse.

Sometime during my drunken haze, I fell asleep. I woke at four in the morning with a kink in my neck, a raging headache and red wine spilled on the carpet. After downing three Advil, I crept down the stairs to my home studio.

It was always fairly quiet in the hills, but down here it was silent. I picked up my guitar and sat on a stool. No song I knew felt right, so I strummed a few chords and started free-styling. It resulted in a slow, sad sound. One hollow, lonely riff after another.

I picked up the pace and shifted into a hard, metal sound. My chest clenched. This was the way to get pissed off and let it out. My fingers flew over the fret-board, letting out anguished cries of regret from my guitar.

I shouldn’t have broken up G.O. and gone solo.

I shouldn’t have teamed up with Adrian.

I shouldn’t have let Bess fucking leave.

A screech let loose from the depths of the sound hole and I threw the guitar across the room into the wall. It struck with enough force to break the neck.

Lowering my head into my hands, I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes. I had to break the contract with Joe and tell Kurt Unholy Union was done. Fuck it. Bess’s review wasn’t shit and I knew it, that’s why I was pissed. That was why I spent the day on the verge of career suicide. Leave it to her to be the one to shove the truth in my face and wake me the hell up.

I trudged back upstairs and took a scorching hot shower. When I got out, the sun was rising. It felt like a greeting—a greeting card—this is the first day of the rest of your life, Derek Bast. What the fuck are you going to do with it?

For the first time in a long time, I had options. I didn’t have to be who Kurt or Joe wanted me to be or succumb to their brain child, Unholy Union. I could remake Derek Bast.

At eight AM, I sat in Kurt’s office waiting for him to show. Lazy bastard was never at work on time. I finished two cups of coffee and read The Scene cover to cover. It was brilliant, No wonder Bess had become successful so fast. Every review was written with brutal honesty and respect. She never resorted to personal attacks. Even the Unholy Union review was peppered with touts of my accomplishments and Adrian’s. The Scene didn’t employ paps either. The photos were taken with permission and often sold to the magazine by agents and managers for use.

Kurt strolled in at nine o’clock. “’Bout fucking time you got here,” I said.

He sat down behind his desk and sighed. “Traffic was a bitch.”

“Always is. Listen, I’m bowing out of Unholy Union. I’ll give back all the money Joe’s invested in the project and I’ll be out of the house this afternoon. Cancel the contract.”

He slammed his hands down on top of his desk. “You can’t quit the project. We have shows lined up. Tickets sold.”

“No, Kurt. I’m out.”

“You know what? You’ve been a pain in my ass since day one. I don’t know why I—”

I sat forward and held out a hand to shut him up. “You don’t have to put up with me anymore, because I’m firing you.”

He sat back and threw his hands in the air. “You’ve lost your fucking mind, Bast. Who do you think will manage you? It’s no secret that you’re a hot head who has to have everything his way.”

“Which is why I’m not going to have a manager. I’m going back to being indie and producing my own music. Managing my own career.”

Kurt turned his eyes away from me and let out a derisive laugh. “Back to where you started, huh? What a colossal mistake.”

I stood and held out my hand to shake his. “I don’t think so, but we’ll have to see.”

He didn’t bother to stand and gave me a half-hearted handshake that was pretty much a fuck you. “Good luck, Bast,” he said and they held the same meaning as every other time those words were spoken in the past two days: Goodbye and kiss my ass.

I didn’t want
to get out of bed to find my phone, but it kept ringing and my voicemail kept chiming and whoever it was wouldn’t let up.

It had to be the office. I never let a workday pass without calling in if I wasn’t there at eight AM. A glance at the clock told me it was almost eleven. I didn’t sleep last night and my head felt stuffy. My eyes were gritty and puffy from too much crying.

Derek’s t-shirt was soft and I had my knees tucked up inside it. I couldn’t bring myself to change when I got home. The driver didn’t say a word when I got in the backseat in a pair of men’s underwear, barefoot, cradling my clothes and shoes in my arms.