Page 32 of Dirty Like Me
“What more do you need?”
“How did we get together?”
“I sent you a dick pic after the video shoot and the rest is history.”
“Seriously?”
“Why not? Not everyone can fall in love over a nudge. Some girls need a little dick.”
“I thought it was a big dick. See? We need to get our story straight.”
He laughed. I liked making him laugh. Which was not a good sign.
“What about L.A.?” I asked. “I thought you were out of town since the shoot.”
“Not a problem. We’ve got sexting, phone sex, and there’s always Skype. And I’ve been back in town for six days.”
We’d stopped at another red light, at the edge of Coal Harbour, and I gave him a skeptical look.
“Trust me,” he said. “We could do a lot of damage in six days.”
Well, then. “Okay… so as of right now, we’ve been doing it for six days straight?”
“Every spare moment.”
As the light turned green and his gaze left me, I tried to hold back my smile. This fake relationship was starting to sound like a hell of a lot of fun.
“And is there anything to this relationship besides sex?”
“Of course. Just wrote a new song about you that I’m gonna sing on tour. It’s calledNew Girl.”
I assumed he was joking and laughed, but he didn’t. He looked darkly serious as we turned into the drive of an incredibly posh hotel near the water.
“No one really cares who I’m fucking, Katie,” he said. As he parked us at the valet stand, his dark eyes locked on mine. “Not for more than five minutes. Jesse Mayes in love, that’s the story.”
CHAPTER 8
KATIE
When we arrived, the club was already packed.
About a thousand bouncers were waiting to escort Jesse and his entourage into the venue. Jude and another one of Jesse’s personal security guys, Flynn, had met us at the hotel, and along the way we’d managed to accrue a number of other big, leather-clad dudes with tattoos. I had no idea if they were Jesse’s buddies or his bodyguards or both. He’d given me his hand and I clung to it with both of mine and didn’t ask questions, just tried to take everything in.
The club was in an old but renovated building, original, hundred-year-old stone outside, glass and steel inside. We went in through the lobby of an adjoining building, through the bar’s staff entrance. I could make out Hugo’s99 Problemsthumping through the glass wall that looked into the bar and I could tell it was pretty dark, people crowded at least three deep up to the two long bars. Over the stage an illuminated backdrop featured the image from the cover of Jesse’s solo album, Sunday Morning: a pair of men’s dirty leather boots, discarded on the floor next to what was obviously a woman’s bed.
There were a bunch of people waiting to talk to Jesse in the narrow staff hallway. He spoke with a few of them, briefly, but didn’t introduce me. I hung back with Flynn, who seemed to be hovering near me, but Jesse never let go of my hand. So far, he was a pretty classy date. I just hoped I didn’t disappoint him. I had no idea what to do or say to all these people, so I just smiled—enough that I looked like I was happy to be here, but not so much that I looked like a weirdo. As soon as Jesse was done talking, Jude gave the nod and the bouncers whisked us up a flight of stairs into the VIP room. Which was cool, because I’d never been a VIP before.
It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. There were candles burning in glass bowls on low tables with cushy blood-red seats grouped around them. A web of tiny lights like stars filled the ceiling. The room was surrounded on three sides by a low wall with a railing that overlooked the club floor below and had an incredible view of the stage. Two giant screens, one to each end of the room, played the video for the first lead single off Sunday Morning,Come Lately, which was mostly footage of Jesse playing the song in an empty field while his hair blew around his face and he played his guitar so hard sweat ran down his body… which, if you asked me, was all you really needed to put in a video.
I tore my gaze away from the giant image of Jesse to follow his lead through the dark room. We headed straight for a giant party booth in the middle with a bunch of tables clustered inside it. There were a lot of people there already. Men, mostly. I recognized Jesse’s bandmates, Zane and Dylan, right away, and his hot manager, Brody, who rose to meet us when he saw us coming.
I scanned the group but I didn’t see Elle.
“Hey, brother,” Brody greeted Jesse, but his eyes were on me. A smile spread across his face. I wondered if he knew yet about the proposal Jesse had made me, which was kind of embarrassing, but I’d just have to deal with it. “Katie. Nice to see you again.” He took my hand, though Jesse never let go of the other one.
“You, too,” I said.
Dylan greeted us next. He towered over me, sweeping his dark auburn hair back out of his green eyes as Jesse introduced us. Then the big drummer gave me a huge grin and pulled me in for a quick hug. Thank God he was wearing jeans this time. When I’d met him at the video shoot he was wearing his kilt, and he’d put one booted foot up on the couch while talking to me, showing so much muscular thigh I’d almost choked to death on my water.
