The Billionaire Dating Game: A Romance Novel (36 page)

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Sometimes a good girl needs to be bad.

I only had one shot. One chance to impress Clint Terrance, the baddest billionaire playboy in the NYC music scene. One song to make all my dreams come true.

So I did what I had to - I tugged on a sexy red dress, slipped on the highest heels I could stand in, and sung my heart out.

I never expected it to work.

Now he’s after me. The
fake
me. And I’m starting to realize that one song was only the beginning, and a billionaire’s desire is more dangerous than even I can handle.

I’ve always been a good girl. All I’ve ever cared about was my family, my music, and the farm I grew up on. I’ve built my whole life around that,and I’m in a good place. A stable place.

So why does one man’s touch make me want to throw it all away?

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Enjoy this free sample of Bad For Me

Prologue

Rachel

I’m pinned on my back, my dress pushed up to my hips, two hundred feet above the streets of New York City. The floor underneath is all glass: if I crane my head to the side I can see the streets below, the cars moving like blinking white and red ants. It’s almost midnight, and I feel like a lightning bug being held inside of a glass jar, suspended among the stars in the air above the sleepless city that I shouldn’t love, but do.

Terrified. Thrilled. Electric with sensation.

It’s the first time I’ve ever had a man’s body pressed against me like this, the hard muscles against my soft curves sending all sorts of strange signals through me. And his one muscle,
there
, hard and insistent against my inner thigh. The music in the air is loud, filling my ears with a beat that almost matches my pounding heartbeat. It echoes through me, and I feel hollow, needy.

I shift, and his body shifts with me, pushing us even closer together.

“Rachel.”

The music dissolves in my mind, and I hear his voice under the thrumming bass notes. A growl in my ear that sends bolts of desire shooting through me down to my toes.

He has me tied up with sashes, floating in the air, and he’s floating with me, his sculpted body arched over mine. A red sash around my ankles, two more sashes knotted around my wrists. I’m supported in a dozen places by soft fabric stretched taut under my body, but the only sensation I care about is that muscle, hard and throbbing between my thighs. He
wants
me.

If you had told me a month ago that Clint Terrance would
want
me, I would have laughed myself silly. But nothing is silly now. I’m melting with every second that passes, every drum beat that stretches out time. I never want this to end, and we haven’t even started.

When he threads his fingers through my hair, I moan. He’s not touching me where I need it most. I ache for him in a way I never knew was possible. I ache for the kiss he hasn’t given me yet. I ache for his hands on my body. I ache for him,
him
most of all, him inside of me, filling me the way the music fills my ears.

The tattoo peeking out from under his white jacket is a splash of musical notes, and for a brief moment I want to reach out and touch it with my fingertips, to try and read the music that’s written all over him. I can’t move my arms, though. The sashes are taut around my wrists. I bite my lip in frustration, and he sucks in a tight breath.

“Rachel. Tell me you want this.”

I look back up to see his dark desirous eyes above me, and I’m scared to think about what will happen if I say
yes
. My whole life has been a careful, sheltered existence. And now he’s asking me to give it all up. Give up my family. Give up my life.

For
him
.

The sky is glass, the floor is glass, and all of a sudden I’m scared that we’ll shatter everything if I let him take me now. I’m not supposed to be here, not with this man. I’m not this kind of girl. I never have been.

He’s waiting for my answer, tense and ready, holding himself back even though I can see it kills him to do it. And as the music plays, I know that I’ll never be ready, not really. There’s never going to be a perfect time, a perfect place. There’s only here and now, and I won’t ever know how to fly until I let myself jump.

His lips are close to mine, so close that I am sure he can feel my breath, even if the word is lost in the music.

“Yes.”

Chapter One

Clint

Goddammit. I’m such a fuckup.

I didn’t mean to get into a fight at the studio. I swear I didn’t. But trouble seems to follow me around like a band of underage groupies.

That night, I burst into the studio after-party already buzzed. The show had gone perfect—I couldn’t wait to hear what my pops thought—and I’d been swimming through hot chicks on my way out of the stadium. I hoped Piers had brought an extra limo to hold all the girls.

Something bugged me, though, and I didn’t know what. I was the lead singer of a hot rock band on the biggest tour of my life. Life was good, and tonight was the peak of it all.

Then why did I feel like something was missing?

The music blared from the speakers, but the crowd was so loud that I could barely hear who was playing. I scanned the mob of people, my eyes passing over girls in tiny skirts and men with fading tattoos poking out from their suit sleeves.

They’d turned the soundboard counter into a bar, and Piers looked like he was getting a kick out of playing bartender for the night. The studio was jammed from wall to wall to celebrate our last run in New York. There were probably a dozen platinum records sitting at the makeshift bar.

Three years ago, I would have been drooling at the opportunity to network with the big names in the biz. But tonight, after a killer show at Shea, I just wanted to find a girl to take home. Maybe two, to get rid of this bug up my ass.

Hell, maybe three.

Pops wasn’t there yet, but his latest girlfriend was leaning over the bar, helping herself to a bottle of Jack Daniels Black Label.

Figures. Sherry was poison, and it was probably her that made me feel something in the air wasn’t right. Oh fucking well. A drink would fix everything.

“Shots on me!” I yelled, and the crowd roared their approval. I motioned to Piers, who quickly yanked the bottle of Jack Daniels out of Sherry’s hand and flipped it over the counter to me.

“You know what I like, Piers,” I said, ignoring Sherry’s dirty stare. “You in the weeds yet?”

“If I wasn’t before, I am now. This place is a bloody madhouse,” he said, in such a proper British accent I couldn’t help but chuckle. Piers wasn’t really into music—I don’t think he’d ever sat through one of my concerts in its entirety. But chicks dig accents, and Piers played it up whenever he came out after one of my shows.

“Hey, you wanted to be the bartender.”

“You kidding? I can’t tell you how much shit I’ve overheard already. If I wanted to blackmail someone in the music business, I’d be all set.”

“Remind me never to get you mad.”

“Don’t worry. I think the tabloids have already printed every picture of your bare ass in existence.”

“Not bare anymore.”

“You finally got that tattoo?”

“Bet your bare ass I did! Wanna see it?” I started to unbutton my jeans, but Piers held up his hands.

“Whoa! Later, big boy. Don’t want to scare away all the ladies with your
derriere
.”

“Scare them away? I’ll have you know that girls fly across the world to get to see this.”

“Humor me and keep your pants up for the first hour of this party, Clint. You showed up before most of the security guards.”

“Fine,” I said, tucking my shirt back into my jeans. “Wouldn’t want to start a riot, I guess.”

“Thank you for not flashing everyone in here. Trust me, it’s a great kindness.”

“You’re
so
welcome.”

I leaned back against the bar, looking out over the crowd again. Still no Pops. And Sherry was flirting with some other producer, I forget his name. What a bitch. My fingers itched at my side, and I tapped out a beat on my knee.

“How was the show?” Piers asked, interrupting my rhythm.

“Huh? Oh, great! We all kicked ass.”

“So?”

I looked up, unscrewing the cap off of the bottle. Piers was already stacking shot glasses in a pyramid on the bar top. I stole a glass and poured myself one.

“So?”

“So why does your face look like you just licked a sour pussy?”

“Fuck, I dunno,” I said. He gave me a look that said he wasn’t going to give up that easily. I’ll give Piers one thing—he knew how to read people. Especially me.

I leaned over the bar so that I didn’t have to yell. I was trying to figure out what had gotten into me, to put it into words.

“It’s like… it’s all the same shit.”

“The same shit,” he echoed.

“All the music and the shows and the girls.”

“Uh huh. And? Your problem is?”

“I dunno, Piers. The music world moves so fast, man. But we’re still playing the same shit we played three years ago.”

“Well. That’s what people want to hear. The hits, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

But that’s not what I want to play.

I didn’t say it. I had it good. Talismen had been my dad’s idea, and he knew best. He was the one with the big office, the platinum records, the number one hits. He’d built this recording company from the ground up. If he told me to get up on stage and play
Row Row Row Your Boat
with a harmonica and a cowbell, I’d do it and I’d like it.

“Look at me,” Piers was saying. “You think I
like
doing reality TV?”

“You
don’t
?” I let sarcasm drip over the words. “How could you not love
Secret Baby Bachelor
?”

Piers rolled his eyes at me.

“You know, I came over to America to be a news reporter.”

“That would be something else.” I tried to imagine Piers behind a news desk, talking about… Syria or something? I didn’t have a clue what news people talked about.

Piers slammed an empty shot glass down onto the bar.

“But people don’t want news. They want Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian clawing each other’s eyes out over which shade of lipstick is better.”

“So what do you do with that?” I asked. I already knew the answer, but I wanted him to say it.

“Fuck it. You do what you have to do.”

“Do what you gotta do.”

“That’s how we’re on top, right? Fuck it.”

“Fuck it,” I echoed, and slammed down the shot. The whiskey burned hot in my throat, but then it was down and a warm fuzzy feeling swept back whatever it was that had me feeling like shit.

“Hey, I got something for you tonight.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Her name’s Roxie.” He nodded over to the far corner of the studio. I looked over and saw what he was talking about: a buxom chick with fiery red hair lounged around in a skin-tight silver dress, a pouty expression on her face. “Pour these shots. People are getting restless.”

“You
do
know what I like.” I grinned and flipped the bottle, pouring the shots expertly over the pyramid of shot glasses. The sweet amber liquid flowed over the top glass and into the others in a fountain of whiskey.

The first shot was taking hold, and with Roxie on the horizon, my mood was rising already. Nothing was missing. Everything was perfect. I hummed a couple bars of an old timey song I had stuck in my head, nothing like the rock that was actually playing overhead.

In the big rock candy mountain, you never change your socks,

And little streams of alcohol come a-tricklin’ down the rocks.

Along with whiskey and wine, redheads were a weakness of mine. Always had been. Not that this Roxie chick was a natural ginger—it looked more like she had dipped her head in candy apple dye. But fake was fine; nobody in this city was real, anyway. I winked at her as I finished the pour, not wasting a single drop. She bit her lip and tossed her hair over one shoulder.

It was gonna be a wild night, I knew it.

“Ladies and gents, drinks are served!” Piers started passing out the shots down the bar. I took a few for myself and retreated through the crowd, still humming as people clapped me on the back in appreciation.

There’s a lake of stew, and of whiskey too,

You can paddle all around em in a big canoe

In the big rock candy mountain.

As I finished with a whistle, I caught a glimpse of someone over by the recording room. “Hey, Danny!” I called to one of the security guards. “That asshole over there leaning on the glass—”

“Got it,” Danny said, snapping his fingers. He moved toward the recording room. I’d personally overseen the remodel of the studio, and I wasn’t about to have some drunk rocker fall through the plate glass window between the two rooms.

“Killer set, Clint, absolutely killer!” my tour manager cried out.

“Thanks,” I said, handing him one of the shots of whiskey.

I was about to head over to Roxie to share a shot with her when it happened. I could already imagine the way the night would go: we’d share a shot, then we’d share a kiss, then we’d share a bed. She’d get a cab ride home by herself, of course, but first we’d have a night of crazy hot sex.

Then something caught my eye.

A woman at the end of the bar shook her head, her light blonde hair falling in long waves down her back. Not really my type, but that wasn’t why I was looking at her anyway.

It was the guy sleazing out all over her that drew my attention.

I didn’t know who he was or what record company he was with, but he looked like every stereotype of an old-school rocker gone bad. A black leather jacket with patches all over it and metal studs around the neck. Three days’ worth of patchy scruff on his cheeks. A gold chain around his stringy neck. It was laughable.