Rock All Night (The Rock Star's Seduction #2) (25 page)

When I awoke the next morning, I wondered if maybe my brain was broken.

All my thoughts were fuzzy and disjointed. My head throbbed. Things seemed slightly unreal and hyper-real at the same time.

Hangover time, mushroom style.

Derek was still asleep, lying naked in the sheets.

Mmmm… nice view. But I felt so messed up that I couldn’t properly enjoy it.

I got up and took a shower, trying to will the hot water to wash away my blahs.

No such luck.

I remembered having sex without the condom, and freaked out a little bit. I was on birth control, so there was no chance that I was pregnant – but I
was
a little worried about other things.

I thought back to what he had told me:

I get tested now, once a month. And I’m totally clean, by the way.

I hoped we were on Day 3 of the month rather than Day 29.

Fuck it… there’s nothing you can do now, so quit worrying about it.

I got dressed and threw on a little makeup, then went back to the bedroom.

Derek looked up sleepily from the tousled sheets. “Hey.”

“Hey, you,” I said, and gave him a kiss. “I’m going to go next door and get some breakfast with Killian and Ryan.”

“Mmmm… okay…” he murmured, and settled back into dreamland.

Outside the guys’ cabin, I could hear Killian plinking on the unplugged electric guitar – and the tunes were once again melodic and pretty. No more horror movie soundtrack.

I knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

I entered to find Ryan sitting down, fully dressed, at the small kitchen table. The box of banana nut muffins we’d bought the previous day was open in front of him, with a couple missing.

“Morning,” he said. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah… although I didn’t wake
up
so well…”

Killian was slumped in a faded, overstuffed chair, wearing exactly what he had been the night before. His guitar was in his lap, and a doobie hung between his lips.

“Oh my gosh, did you even sleep?” I asked him as I sat down.

“Of course I did, luv.”

“Otherwise I would have gone and slept out in the desert,” Ryan said.

“You could have come over to our cabin,” I said, biting into one of the muffins.

Ryan didn’t say anything.

Neither did Killian.

They just sort of exchanged a little glance.

“What?” I asked.

And then I remembered exactly what I’d been up to last night.

And for how long.

My face went beet-red in two seconds.

“I think I’m going to go now and crawl into a hole somewhere and die of embarrassment,” I muttered as I stood back up.

“Sit dowwwwn,” Ryan grinned as he caught my arm and pulled me back to my seat.

“Oh my God… oh my God…” I whimpered, and buried my face in my hands.

“You’re lucky about one thing,” Killian said.

“What’s that?” I asked, my face still in my hands.

“It’s a good thing Riley wasn’t here, or you’d never hear the end of it.”

“She probably would have tried to break into your cabin,” Ryan said, stifling a laugh.

“Like a bitch in heat,” Killian agreed.

“Killian!” I shouted, both mortified and shocked.

“What? I meant Riley, not you.”

I gave him a sidelong look, then winced at Ryan. “…was it that bad?”

He scrunched up his face. “Naaah.”

Killian wasn’t as diplomatic. “You were louder than the coyotes, luv.”

“Oh GOD,” I moaned, and buried my face in my hands again.

“Sounded a lot like that, actually – just more repetitive,” Killian observed.

I threw my half-eaten pastry at him.

“Hey! Hey! Mind the guitar!” he complained as the muffin exploded into a dozen crumbling pieces off his head. “And the joint!”

Ryan just laughed his ass off.

After I got over my bout of mortification, we talked for a little bit.

“What did you think of the mushrooms?” Killian asked.

“Did
not
care for them,” I answered, and proceeded to list all the messed-up phenomena I’d experienced – from the feelings of unreality, to the obsessively looping thoughts, to the complete inability to distinguish time.

“Oh my,” Killian said sympathetically. “I’m sorry about that. That sounds bloody awful.”

“The first hour was good, at least.”

And the last couple were mind-blowing,
I thought, though I didn’t say it out loud.

“I had something similar the second time I came here,” Killian said.

Ryan started laughing uproariously.

I stared at him. “What’s so funny?”

“Because he knows what’s comin’ next.”

“I’d forgotten about that story,” Ryan guffawed.

“What story?”

“Well, I decided I wanted to be completely
free
. Just free of
everything.
I had this overwhelming urge to unburden myself of all the trappings of the civilized world… so I threw my wallet and my keys out into the desert, and then I took off all my clothes and spent the rest of the day walkin’ around starkers.”

“Naked?!” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Got a bugger of a sunburn,” Killian confirmed. “Especially on my arse.”

I joined in laughing with Ryan.

“Took the better part of the next day to find all my stuff, too,” Killian said.

“But the best part was, he had the outline of the guitar on the front of his body!” Ryan hooted.

“He showed you?!”

“Well, of course,” Killian said. “It’s not every day you get a sunburn in the shape of a guitar.”

“Actually, it was a sunburn everywhere
but
the shape of the guitar,” Ryan said, wiping tears away from his eyes.

“Either way, it was bloody awful.”

“Why did you throw everything else away but the guitar?” I asked. “Why not the guitar, too?”

Killian looked at me like what I’d just said was outlandish in the extreme. “I’d never do that.”

“It’s like a baby,” Ryan said. “Even stoned out of his gourd, he’d never hurt a baby.”

“But other rock stars smash their guitars as part of their acts,” I pointed out.

By the looks they gave me, you would think I had just advocated actual infanticide.

“What?” I asked, alarmed at their expressions.

“A guitar is a beautiful piece of art,” Killian said quite seriously, like he was an adult imparting a valuable life lesson to an ignorant youngster. “You don’t go around destroying art.”

“But what about those other rock stars?”

“Bloody uncouth bastards.”

I looked over at Ryan, who still looked horrified. “What about you?” I asked.

“What about me?”

“You wouldn’t ever smash a guitar on stage?”

“No.”

“Ever?”

“HELL no.”

“Okay, now I
know
you’re serious, because you said ‘hell,’” I teased him.

“Ha ha,” he said, not laughing at all.

“What about Derek?”

“What about him?”

“Would
he
do it?”

“Of course he would, because he’s a bloody uncouth bastard,” Killian sniffed.

“And exactly
why
am I a bloody uncouth bastard?” Derek asked as he suddenly walked in the door, sleepy and disheveled and looking sexy as hell.

“You’d break a guitar onstage as part of the act,” Ryan explained.

“Of course,” he said as he snatched up a muffin and wolfed it down. “The best all did it. Pete Townsend, Kurt Cobain, Jimmy Hendrix – but only if he set it on fire first – ”

“Which is why we don’t let Derek near our guitars,” Ryan told me.

“I think we should start smashing lead singers on stage,” Killian said. “But only if we set them on fire first.”

“I’m down,” Derek said with a completely deadpan expression.

“Let’s save it for Bigger’s final performance, though,” Ryan said sardonically.

“Of course. The very last encore, ever.”

“Let me know beforehand, so I can insure you for a couple mil,” Killian said.

“What, for my family?”

“No, for me. Got to fund my retirement somehow.”

Finally, after mushrooms and orange juice, and Santa Claus lookalikes and doggie angels, and treks through the desert and psychedelic sex… we finally made it to Joshua Tree National Park.

After the drama of the previous 24 hours, the rest of the trip was boring by comparison. We just spent several hours driving around the park (fully sober, by the way – except for Killian, who was never sober). It was beautiful, in an otherworldly, Star Trek planet meets John Wayne western kind of way.

Joshua trees look like God took tree bark and twisted it every which way like pipe cleaners, then added green spiky cacti at the ends of all the branches. The trees are interspersed throughout a landscape filled with odd rock formations. Almost completely spherical stones… natural arches, probably carved by water over a hundred million years ago… and fifty-foot-tall piles of boulders.

It was one of the weirdest and most beautiful places I’d ever seen.

But my enjoyment was hampered by the fuzziness of my head. I mostly just relaxed in Derek’s arms as we reclined in the back seat. Ryan drove and Killian rode shotgun, plinking his guitar and smoking his herb.

Three hours later, after a few short hikes (and a few stolen kisses with my new boyfriend), Ryan turned to Killian. “We good?”

“We good,” he answered, and we rode out of the park and back towards San Diego.

The first thing I did when I got back to Derek’s hotel room was take a long, hot bath to wash away the sweat and the dust. (There might have been a certain rock star in the water with me, and a little bit of sex, too.)

The second thing was to return phone calls.

The first call, I was looking forward to.

Shanna picked up immediately.

“What up, superstar celebrity journalist! Any big scoops?”

“Is that Shanna?” Derek asked as he got ready for a band meeting.

“Holy shit, is that the rock god himself? Put me on speaker!”

I sighed, knowing where this was probably headed… but I did it anyway.

“Shanna?” Derek said.

“DEREK! Oh my God! How have you been?!”

“Famous,” he quipped, and she laughed. “How have you been?”

“Horny.”

“Same as always, I see.”

“The more things change… so, D, you tapped that ass yet?”

“Repeatedly.”

I swatted him for that one.

Shanna about lost her mind.

“WHAAAAT?! Hahahaha! YES! How long did you hold out, Kaitlyn?”

I blushed crimson. “Two days.”

“Not
even,
” Derek grinned. “You got into town, what, Friday afternoon? Saturday night, so… 36 hours, tops.”

“Hahaha – you SLUT!”
Shanna cackled.
“You really ARE embedded with the band! Get it? Em-bed– ”

“I got it, I got it,” I snapped.

“Come on, now, that one was clever. I was saving it up for when you finally put out. Sooooo, how was he? Enquiring minds are dying to know.”

I looked over at Derek, who was grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

“Enh,” I said to the cell phone.

“You little – ” he laughed, and tickled me until I shrieked.

“Hey! Knock off the foreplay, you’re making me jealous!”

“Shanna, you should totally fly out and see one of our shows,” Derek said.

“Hell-ooooo, why do you think I called? First, you totally promised me that four years ago – ”

“Oh yeeeaaah,” Derek recalled. “Backstage passes, right?”

“Hell yeah. Plus, it’s the least you can do, seeing as how I hooked you up with a prime piece of ass.”

He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“WHAT?! She didn’t tell you?!”

“Tell me what?”

“I’m the one who hooked her up with Rolling Stone!”

“What?! Really?”

“Yes! Kaitlyn?!”
she said in a ‘scolding Mama’ tone of voice.

“I forgot…” I protested meekly.

“Bitch! Stealin’ my byline, not givin’ credit where credit is due – ”

“I’m sorry… there was a lot going on…”

“Like a lot of sweet lovin’, apparently. And not only that, Derek, but she didn’t want to come see you, and I talked her into it.”

“She mentioned that part.”

“That I talked her into it?”

“That she didn’t want to come.”

“But she didn’t mention anything about ME.”

“Uhhh… no.”

“Kaitlyn! Are you removing ALL my contributions to the story?!”

“You know I’m not. It’s just been a little… busy around here.”

“Unh-huh. I hope I get ‘busy’ tonight, too.”

Derek got a look in his eye. “Hey Shanna – seeing as I owe you twice over – ”

“Damn straight!”

“ – how about we fly you out to San Francisco for our next show, all expenses paid?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“Are you fuckin’ with me?”
she finally asked.

“No, it’s the least I can do for hooking me up with such a prime piece of ass,” he grinned, squeezing me playfully. I slapped his hand away.

“Oh my God – that would be – oh, wow! I mean, I was only talking about when you come to New York!”

I’d never heard Shanna so flustered.

“It’s cool, just give me your info and I’ll have my manager get you a plane ticket and the hotel reservation.”

“Are you – are you sure? That’s a lot of money – ”

“I’m a rock star, Shanna. I got it.”

“He bought a car the other day because he didn’t want to rent one,” I said disapprovingly.

“Haha! What’d you get?”

“A 1969 Mercedes convertible.”

“Ooooh… sounds nice. But no Ferrari, no Porsche?”

“That would have been the obvious choice,” he joked.

“True dat… are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all. Give me your info, I gotta go do a thing, but I’ll take care of it.”

He scribbled down her information on a piece of hotel stationary, then excused himself.

“See you soon, Shanna!”

“Thank you so much, Derek!”

“Don’t mention it,” he said, then gave me a kiss before heading out the door.

“…are you alone now?”
she asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay, for real: how was he?”

I sighed blissfully. “Incredible.”

She squealed on the other end.
“Oooh, I’m so jealous! You bitch!”

“Hey!”

“It’s a term of endearment. Tell me everything – I want length, girth, duration, kinky fetishes, everything.”

I wasn’t exactly
that
forthcoming, but I did tell her enough to make her even more jealous.

“Damn it, now I’ve got to go score some mushrooms and find somebody to fuck,”
she pouted playfully.

“Yeah, just don’t go walking in the desert first.”

“Oh HELL to the no. No wonder you had a bad trip. So are you glad I talked you into going?”

I paused, not wanting to give her the satisfaction… and then I relented. I couldn’t keep from smiling. “Yes.”

“HA! See? You had SO better dedicate your book to me.”

“It’s an article, Shanna.”

“Just wait till Random House hears you slept with him, they’ll want a book. By the way, how’s Ryan?”

I smiled fondly. “He’s good. He’s really cute, by the way.”

“Ooooooh, really? Maybe you won’t be the ONLY one who sleeps with a band member.”

As soon as she said it, something weird sparked up inside of me.

Like, I didn’t
want
her to sleep with Ryan…

…but why?

It was silly.

“Maybe,” I said, then grinned wickedly. “Just watch out for the drummer.”

“Isn’t the drummer a chick?”

“Yes.”

“Well… it’s been awhile… but I could definitely switch hit again…”

“Shanna!” I gasped.

“It was a phase. Hey, maybe you, me, and her could have a threesome,”
 she teased.

“Ewwww!”

“You homophobic bitch,”
she teased some more.

“It’s not that – well, yes it
is
that – but more that she’s totally gross.”

“So you’re saying just you and me?”

“Shanna – ”

“You’re uncomfortable. I get it. Maybe throw in Derek and Ryan, too? Group sexy times?”

“I am not continuing this conversation.”

“Fine, fine,”
she laughed.
“I’m really happy for you, Kaitlyn. And I’m proud of you. You really DID go out and take a chance.”

“Thanks,” I said humbly. “And thank you for pushing me to do it.”

“Aaaaand…?”

“And for getting me the job in the first place.”

“Ha! Never thought I’d hear that one. You owe me!”

“I know.”

“Well, if Derek flies me out there, we’ll call it even. Is he serious?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Wow… well, tell him I said thank you.”

“I will. I’m looking forward to you coming!”

“Oh, I’M looking forward to me ‘coming,’ too.”

“Ew, Shanna – ”

“Get Ryan ready for me.”

“I’ll tell Riley instead.”

“Is that the drummer?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell her she can have my body, but my heart belongs to you.”

“I’m hanging up the phone now, Shanna.”

“See you soon! Be naked when I get there!”

The trouble with Shanna is, I couldn’t exactly tell if she was kidding or not.

I hoped she was.        

But you never know.