Page 41 of Dirty Like Me
I stalked past him, heart pounding, shoving his hand away as he made a grab for me again—and found Jesse Mayes standing in the hall, staring at us.
His hair was damp and clinging to his neck. He was still wearing his leather pants, but he’d changed his shirt to a distressed gray T-shirt that showed off the long, muscled lines of his tanned arms, the veins running up his forearms.
I swallowed, not knowing what to say. I looked from him to Josh, who’d come up behind me.
Jesse took a long look at me, and then at Josh, who wasn’t exactly being discreet about the fact that he was doing up his belt.
Fucking great.
Jesse flexed his right hand, then made a fist. His gaze locked on me. “You alright?”
“She’s great,” Josh answered for me. “Aren’t you, babe?”
I cringed. In all the years I’d known him, Josh had never had a sweet or sexy nickname for me. And now it was allbabythis andgorgeousthat. When we were together he called me Kath. Short for Katherine. Which I always hated. No one called me Katherine. Even my parents called me Katie.
I cringed even more when he swaggered on over to Jesse, offering up the same hand he’d just used to shake the piss off his dick for a manly handshake. “Joshua,” he said.
I think I fell totally in love with Jesse Mayes for a split second as he stood there, completely unimpressed, looked at that hand, and made no move whatsoever to shake it.
“Katherine and I were just reminiscing about some good old times.” Undaunted, Josh slipped his hand into his pocket. “And discussing some plans for the near future.”
I heard a door open and glanced back. Brody stepped out of the men’s room behind us. He saw us, saw Jesse, and stopped.
Which meant Josh was now flanked by two men who could very easily pound the shit out of him if they wanted to. At the moment, I didn’t much mind if they did.
“Not too near, I hope,” Jesse said, looking at me again. “Since Katie’s coming on tour with me as of tomorrow.”
Josh turned, slowly, to face me. He tried to look all nonchalant but I saw the tension in his neck, the hardening of his jaw as he ground his teeth. “On tour? What the fuck for?”
“Oh, you know…” I walked over to Jesse. He reached for my hand and I let him take it, let him lace his fingers through mine. “Keeping my man company on the road.” I looked up into Jesse’s dark eyes, and he gave me the slightest grin in return, a look of deep approval on his face. “Nice to see you again, Josh,” I said pleasantly. Then I turned away, my heart thudding.
I fucking hated confrontations.
Though as far as uncomfortable run-ins with exes went, this one probably went down in the record books for awesome endings… as I walked away hand-in-hand with a rock star.
CHAPTER 10
KATIE
“I know it’s barely past midnight and this is all very Cinderella of me…” I held up my shoes, which I’d taken off like an hour ago, in emphasis. “But I’m not feeling so hot. I think I need to crash.”
We were sitting on one of the couches in the VIP room between Brody and Maggie, and Jesse had his arm draped around me. The champagne was keeping me pretty sparkly, but I was definitely wilting at the edges. I’d taken pretty much all the photo ops and handshakes and smiling I could for one night. But really, I was feeling kind of sick to my stomach from the post-Josh adrenalin dump.
Jesse smoothed my hair away from my eye as his gaze searched my face; I felt his pulse beating against me in his fingertips, hot and slow. My eyes met his, and I felt guilty. I was crazy to run away from him, right? I mean, he was beautiful, and he’d been a perfect gentleman so far. But despite my efforts to tune him out, I kept catching glimpses of Josh watching me from across the room. I had to get the fuck out of here.
“Actually, it’s past one,” Jesse said. “I’ve got an after party to hit, though. You should come.”
True. I should’ve gone with him. If Devi hadn’t left with some guy a while ago, after I’d sworn up and down that I was fine without her running interference, she’d tell me that right now. But I was spent. Emotionally tapped out over the run-in with my ex and the barrage of ugly feelings unearthed by his smirking face. I wasn’t proud of it, but there it was. I kinda just wanted to go bury my head somewhere and feel shitty, but I wasn’t about to tell Jesse that.
Instead, I gave him what I hoped was my prettiest, most apologetic smile and said, “I’m so sorry it didn’t work out. I can pay you back for the hotel room and everything—”
“Katie.” He dug in his pocket, took my hand and pressed a hotel room key card into it. “You were amazing tonight.”
I shook my head in protest. “Really. I can just get a cab. It’s no problem.”
“The hotel’s a few blocks away,” he said, gently but firmly. “You’re exhausted, sweetheart.”
“I should probably just head home…” I knew I sounded unsure. Tempted.
