LOW: A Rockstar Romance (11 page)

Chapter 19

Zoe

The lights dimmed and he rolled his head from side to side. The crowd roared, a deafening sound and I clapped wildly.

I couldn't believe I was standing on the stage at one of the biggest festivals in the country.

I couldn't believe I had an all-access, backstage pass waiting for me at the gate.

I couldn't believe...any of this was happening. And the only way I could process any of it was by screaming as loud as I could.

The entire crowd was cheering for him, but Low stood up and pointed his drumstick directly at me.

Me!

Whose life was this?

Four big booms vibrated up from the soles of my feet and straight through my chest. Nailing me to the spot, right where I stood.

And then I watched him go...fucking...
WILD
.

He slammed into a hard-charging, manic drum solo. It was tight and frantic but controlled. A rolling crescendo, building and building, just on the other side from chaos, bringing us all to the very brink, so fast we all wondered if he was even human. He built wave upon wave of pulsing beats, one on top of the other.. how could any one man do all this? He was just himself up there but the noise he was making was that of rolling thunder echoing across hills... and then...

Then the wild flash of lightning and the whole band crashed together again and I sagged back and did the only thing I could think of doing.

I took a fucking picture.

I snapped a shot of him, his arms a blur, his lips parted. And then I turned the camera on myself and my wild, breathless reaction. I snapped the picture and then I sent him both. Because I wanted him to see what I saw.

I wanted him to see what he did to me.

*****

The show was over before it began. Five songs and then the band rushed off stage in the opposite direction as thunderous waves of applause echoed across the lawn.

Well, the band rushed in the other direction.

Low rushed to me.

His long legs made it look like he was gliding. He picked up speed and then suddenly I was spinning in his arms, crushed against his body as we whirled in a circle. "You came!" he panted, looking shocked and proud and so very, very happy.

"I did!" I wheezed. He was squeezing all the breath from my lungs but I didn't care so long as he never stopped holding me tight. "You were so incredible!"

He spun us both to a stand, never letting me go. As soon as my feet hit the ground I was on tiptoe, straining upward, desperate for the feel of his lips on mine.

He never even opened his eyes. He didn't need to. He kissed me on instinct, crushing me to him so hard that I could feel his heartbeat through his chest. It was racing like the beat of his drums and my own fluttered like the wings of a hummingbird when his tongue sought mine. I couldn't hear the sounds he was making over the noise of the dispersing crowd, but I could feel them. Low growling vibrations like bass notes in my body. A musical performance just for me.

He hummed something against my mouth, a little teasing question that I couldn't hear over the symphony inside of me.

"What?"

"I played for you," he murmured in my ear. "Could you tell?"

I pulled back and grinned. "Look at your phone."

His eyebrows asked a mute question, but he did what he was told, reaching for his back pocket. I was impressed it had stayed there through the whole show.

He turned it on and his eyes went wide. "Is that... me?"

"It is."

He smiled. "Better picture than that fucking ad everyone was waving."

"That was during your solo. And that..." I swiped to the right. "Is what it did to me."

I was close enough to smell him, close enough to see the way his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. He traced the picture with his finger, his expression completely reverent.

"Low!" A stage manager came running up to us. "They need you. Press junket. They won't start without you."

Low growled something obscene and turned to me, eyes flashing. He tucked his phone back into his pocket and grabbed my arm.

"I want to show you something. Can I show you something, Zoe?" His voice dripped with desperate, dangerous promise.

"What is it?"

"Can't tell you just yet. Just...stay here? Wait for me? Can you do that?"

I bit my lip. What was I doing? Whose life was this? "Yeah, okay," I smiled, and leaned against the wall. "You promise you're coming back?"

"I promise. "I'm coming back and I've got something I want to show you."

And if I didn't believe the words, I fucking believed the kiss that followed.

Chapter 20

Low

A quick word with the stage manager and a few greased palms was all it took. All I needed now was for this interminable press junket to be over.

The seconds passed like hours as I answered the same fucking questions five different ways. Yes, it was good to play live again. Yes, I still loved making music. Yes, the band was still my main focus. No, I wasn't fucking going solo, I'm a drummer and I can't sing for shit. No, I had no plans to take up acting. Sure, whatever, I'd do more ads, whaddya got?

I smiled and made them laugh. I joked with the band and tried to ignore the slight coolness radiating off Rane as he tried to get a word in edgewise. I tried as had as I fucking could to pass some of the questions off to him, but the vultures kept swarming around my head and all I could think was
Zoe is up there waiting.

She'd have every right to get irritated and go home. I couldn't ask her to understand all this. Making her sit and wait for me, it wasn't right. Who the fuck did I think I was? Even if my plan came together, it was still a crapshoot that she'd even want to go through with it, and yet I had asked, all the same, expecting her to want what I wanted. This attention, it was changing me and I didn't fucking like who I was becoming.

Thank god for Keith and his heartburn. "All right," our manager burped. "That's enough, all these questions are giving me indigestion. It's late folks. That's enough for tonight."

I jumped up like a kid getting dismissed at the start of summer vacation. "Low?" Keir called. "You heading home?"

"Nah man, I've got...I left something upstairs."

Not something.

Someone.

The space was echoingly quiet. A few emergency lights lit the place with an eerie red glow. Far up on the hill, an orange vest clad maintenance crew was picking up the leftover trash of twenty-thousand people.

They had a long time before they'd be anywhere close to here.

Here. I'd left her right here, waiting for me in the wings. Where the hell was she? "Zoe?" My voice sounded small. Fuck, I sounded scared. I
was
scared. I had taken too long and fucked this whole thing up. This was it, the moment when I hurt her without meaning to. I'd been wondering how much longer I had with her and now I knew. She had no reason to wait for me, she needed to get home and get on with her life and...

"Low?" Her voice floated up from across the stage. "Where are you?"

Shit, in my haste to rush back here I had taken the wrong stairwell and ended up on stage left instead of stage right.

I ran across the stage, hoping not to snag my foot on loose cable. Most of the equipment was in-house, so there was no worry of running into a random roadie still loading out.

I skidded to a stop next to a small, shadowy shape. My heart was pounding and it had nothing to do with the impromptu sprint I had just run. "Zoe," I panted. "You waited?"

She stood up...stretched, and a shaft of moonlight caught the corner of her mouth curling up into the prettiest smile I had ever seen. I wanted to kiss the perfect apple of her cheek...and then bite it. "I waited about ten minutes," she yawned. "Then I napped."

I brushed the hair back from her face and kissed her. The way she was right now, warm, floppy, sleepy, had me fast-forwarding in my head to the moment where I could see her like this in my bed, waking up next to me.

But I was getting way ahead of myself.

"Come out here with me," I urged her, stepping back onto the empty stage.

"What? Why?" But she let me lead her, step by confused step until we were dead center stage.

"We are definitely not supposed to be here right now," she warned, looking around. But there was a pink cast to her cheeks, visible even in the moonlight, and I knew she didn't actually want to leave."

"Sure we are," I told her. "I already cleared it."

"How do you do these things?"

"Money makes the world go round, Zoe. Want to see what it's like lit up?"

Her beautiful lips were a perfect 'o' of wonder.

I hit send on the text I had ready.

The timing was perfect. The spots hit her from all three angles, lighting her up like a shaft of light from the heavens. She froze.

"There's my star," I said. The three spots pooled together in the center of the stage, forming a perfect circular carpet. Outside of that ring of light was a curtain of darkness that turned this vast empty space into something intimate.

Goosebumps tracked along her arms and I was close enough to hear her ragged breathing. "Low...?"

"Better than just a picture, isn't it?"

"Aren't there...people?"

"Nope. We have the whole place to ourselves. And I'm going to make you scream so loud you'll bring the house down. It's command performance, baby. You ready to put on a show?"

Chapter 21

Zoe

The spotlight warmed the back of my neck like sun beating down on us from above. I bit my lip and then looked up at Low. The night air was thick and heavy on  my skin.

He lifted his hand and dragged his thumb across my bottom lip. "You like being in the spotlight, Zoe?"

I licked my lips, tasting the salt from his skin. "I'd never really thought about it before, no." We were the only two people in the whole vast space, but the air still vibrated with the energy of twenty thousand screaming fans. The air fairly crackled with it. Within this ring of light, we were alone, but it wasn't private at all. "Maybe I do?"

I was amazed at how excited this made me.

"You like it when people look at you," Low went on.

"When
you
look at me," I corrected.

He went quiet for a moment. "I want to look at you."

"What do you think you'll see?"

"Why don't you tell me what you want me to see?"

I felt the flush across my chest, the heat coiling around, tightening the skin around my nipples. His eyes darted down and I knew he saw what I was feeling, his eyes were that same warm amber but there was something darker in there too. "I want you to see what being near you does to me," I whispered.

"What does it do to you?" His voice was low, insistent, and there was a possessive heat in it that I had never heard before in all of his playful banter. There were no more zany antics, no more playful drumming. He was perfectly still, tight and controlled, his full attention on my face.

I licked my lips and smiled, feeling like someone else, and that was the best fucking feeling in the world. I felt daring. I felt light and happy.  And I felt desirable as hell with the way he was looking at me.

So I said things.

I said things that I would have never expected to come out of
my
mouth. But it didn't even feel like it
was
my mouth. It was the mouth that Low had kissed. It was the mouth of the girl who sent sexy selfies to the rock star who was staring at her right now. Not
me.
Something
better
that me.

"It makes me wet when you look at me," that new girl's mouth was saying.

Low opened his mouth just a little bit. His eyes were greedy. "How wet?"

"So wet, that if I put my finger down there right now, it would just slip right inside of me. Like it was an accident."

"It wouldn't be an accident, though, would it?" His hands were tight and controlled at his sides, but I could see the tension straining through them, vibrating him ever so slightly and it drove me crazy to know that I was the one doing this to him.

"No," I whispered. "It would be on purpose."

"Have you touched yourself before? Thinking about the way I look at you?"

"I have."

"Show me how you do it."

"Are you going to take my picture while I do?"

Low touched his back pocket. "Do you want me to?"

"What will you do with the picture?"

"Use it. When we're not together."

A low groan escaped my lips. "You want to see me touch myself for you? Right here?"

"All the lights are on you, Zoe. You're a fucking star."

"Watch me."

"I'm not going to look anywhere else."

I wasn't me. I was a star, just like he said. I twirled around because I remembered how he'd looked at me when I was dancing. My skirt flared out, sending a breeze up the sides of my thighs and I grabbed the hem and suddenly yanked it down, letting the fabric pool on the floor as I stepped out.

"Jesus," Low whispered.

"Are you looking at me?"

"I'm never looking away."

"Good. I like when you look at me."

"How much? Show me."

I slid my hand down my stomach, down and down, sinking my fingers into the soft folds and inhaling sharply. Low was watching me so closely his eyes were nearly glowing, his lids heavy. Then he blinked slow, like a cat, and reached into his back pocket.

My pulse quickened when I saw that he brought out his phone.

"I see you," he said, holding up the phone. "Show me, Zoe."

I bit my lip and tugged my panties to one side. The flash went off and I swear to god the same kind of flash went off in my bloodstream, as epic as a series of fireworks, because not only was he looking at me now, he'd be looking at me again and again.

I slid my hand out and held it up, letting the light catch the wet shine that coated the tips of my fingers. He inhaled sharply. "This is how wet I am," I said.

"Come here."

I stepped forward, obeying him.

He grasped my wrist, keeping those amber eyes on me as he pulled my hand to his lips. When his tongue touched my fingers it was like a bomb went off in my body. I closed my eyes, letting the ripple convulse through my spine as he licked each one of my fingers clean.

I wasn't myself. I was another person entirely, the kind of girl who'd stand here watching, letting him greedily lap the wetness from my fingers.

When he finished, he yanked my wrist down, pulling me to him. I tasted my own self on his lips as he kissed me, slow and warm, with a building heat. I was bent over him, off balance, and I staggered, nearly falling over when his fingers lightly tugged on my nipples, sending more shockwaves through my body.

"You taste..." he didn't finish his sentence, his words cut off in a low, frustrated moan. He slid to his knees and shoved my panties aside.

"Oh!" I nearly fell again, catching myself on his broad shoulders. He gripped my ass and pulled me forward, right onto his tongue.

I was already driven mad, so close to the peak already that when his tongue found my center it was like pulling the pin from a grenade. The hot lights blazed down on my skin, but they were nothing compared to the heat of Low's tongue. The heat of him burned through me in seconds, so that I was coming almost before I was ready. I bucked against him, trying to escape the overwhelming sensation of him, but he sank in fingers into my flesh, gripping me painfully. "No," he growled against my clit.

"You're a..." I didn't know what I was going to say. And animal? A sadist? A god? Nothing I was about to say would be enough to describe what he was doing to me. Instead, I sagged forward again, barely able to hold myself up.

He slid his hands up my back, supporting me as he lowered me to the floor, his tongue still buried in my pussy, with short, precise little thrusts meant to bring me right to the fucking edge. He had me dancing along the precipice, building and building, so that when he finally did make his way back to my clit, I exploded all over again.

I was out of my mind, but in my mind too. I had split into two people and they were at war inside of me. I was at a fucking crossroads and whatever path I started down, I would never be able to turn back.

Low dragged his lips upward, trailing a line of gentle, sucking kisses between my breasts before catching my lower lip in his teeth. He held my gaze for a moment and bit down just to the point of pain. When he let go, I licked my lip, tasting the mark he had made.

"Do it again," I whispered.

"Whatever you want."

"Mark me," I begged, turning my head to bare my neck to him.

The low growl that rumbled up from within him set me on fire again. I arched into him, twisting to give as many inches of skin to him as I could. I knew that in this moment, I had chosen my path.

He laid down a trail of bruising kisses to the top of my breast as I squirmed on the hard, unyielding stage. With each sucking kiss, I traveled further and further away from the crossroads and the sad, frightened girl I used to be.

"I need to feel you," Low murmured. He knelt back up again and quickly torn his shirt from his body. The spotlight caught the highlights and shadows on his body sending him into high relief.

"Come back here," I demanded, scrambling up to a sitting position. He grabbed my shoulders and lifted me to kneel with him.

"Zoe, Christ. What are you doing to me? Do you see it? Can you feel it?" He took my hand and placed it on his jeans. I could feel the shape of him underneath, heavy and pulsing, and my own body pulsed with it. I began to move my hand along that outline, feeling him grown longer, thicker. He sagged forward so that his lips brushed my neck as he spoke. "You have no idea how beautiful you are and it's killing me. I need you to know. I need you to know..." his voice trailed off into a low groan as my hand worked faster. With a growl he plunged his hand between my legs, pressing the flat of his palm against my mound. I gasped into his hair, pressing myself into him and once again we were mirroring each other like the night we first met, touch for touch, stroke for stroke.

With a low roar, he reared backward and yanked his jeans down. With one hand he rolled the condom on while with the other he lifted me with the iron-wirey strength of his arm as easily as if I weighed nothing at all. He rocked back on his knees and I spread my legs to straddle him as he pressed the head of his cock against my entrance.

"Look at you," he whispered.