One Kiss from the King of Rock (The One Book 2) Read online

  One Kiss from the

  King of Rock

  The One

  Ainslie Paton

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events that happen are the product of the author’s vivid imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations or people, living or dead is purely co-incidental and beyond the intent of the author and publisher. Copyright © 2019.

  One Kiss from the King of Rock

  Ainslie Paton

  Evie Tice won’t kiss her ex, Jay Endicott, ever again. But she wants to. Burns for it. Half the adult population of the world does, because he’s a rock god who can apparently light up the stage. She wouldn’t know. When he quit on her, she made sure to block him from her life and stick to hook-ups with no emotional attachments.

  But Jay is back, sexier than ever, with the first leg of his global tour and her brothers’ band opens for him. As their social media manager, Evie can’t avoid Jay, but she can use him, to get off and get even like he once used her.

  There’s just the one little no kissing issue. Because if Evie kisses Jay, she’s going to fall in love with him all over again.

  One upon a time, this probably happened.

  Being a rockstar is the intersection of who you are and who you want to be.

  -Slash

  Being a rock star is like being a cult leader you really have to be in your own religion.

  -Courtney Love

  You know, rock stardom... I have a hard time discussing that because I don't really accept it. It's not really that tangible. What's really bizarre is how it's used as a thing - you know, 'He's the rock star of politics,' 'He's the rock star of quarterbacks' - like it's the greatest thing in the world.

  -Eddie Vedder

  Chapters

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  One Wicked Lick from the Drummer

  About the Author

  ONE

  Evie was on her knees, face up close to Grip’s cock, hands either side of his open zipper, when the man who ruined her life stepped into the corridor looking every bit the rock god he now was.

  She bit her tongue to stop a shocked exhalation and involuntarily yanked on Grip’s pants, making him jerk forward and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Steady, Evie,” Grip said. “That’s my best asset you’re getting personal with.”

  It wasn’t easy to be steady while her gut twisted, and her throat filled with the taste of a decade’s disappointment and rage gone sour.

  Grip hadn’t seen Jay, but Jay had seen them. His eyes widened, his brows cranking up. He stumbled to a stop, a hand coming up to sweep through his mane of messy dark hair.

  It’d been ten years since Evie last saw Jay in the flesh. She’d had to actively avoid seeing him on screen; he was everywhere from Instagram to the Grammys. She’d been preparing mentally for seeing him again for weeks but that was supposed to happen in a crowded meeting room where she could avoid interacting with him one-on-one.

  Standing not a car-length away, staring at her, he was an electric shock that made her freeze in place. He was so much taller and rangier than she remembered.

  And sexier than any man had a right to be.

  “I. Ah. Shit.” Jay ducked his head, but not before Evie saw his cheeks under a scratchable stubble flush. “Evie. Grip. Sorry, I didn’t. Shit.” He wiped his hand over his mouth. “Serves me right for arriving late and needing to piss.”

  “Hey man,” Grip said, letting go of Evie’s shoulder. “Better fucking late than never.”

  Evie didn’t care if Jay Endicott, the current King of Rock, thought his ex-girlfriend was about to fellate his old band mate in the corridor of Sound Blast Touring’s offices. So long as he and his big shot global concert tour did right by Grip and her brothers, she didn’t care what Jay thought, did, said, ate, drank, sang or fucked, and she hadn’t for years.

  Jay had to pass them to get to the bathroom. “Step around,” she said, not letting go of Grip’s zipper, but watching Jay so that when he lifted his head they were eyeballing each other.

  For a moment there was just the two of them and the vast chasm of broken promises and bitter regrets, and then Grip flattened his big drummer’s hand on Evie’s head and said, “She’s fixing my zipper, not about to swallow me whole.”

  Jay blinked, laughed. Was that relief on his face? “I didn’t know you were seamstress for the band, Tiny Dancer,” he said, and it was better that he didn’t say her name again, there was an angry stitch in her side from the first time.

  Evie jiggled the tab of Grip’s zipper and the teeth aligned. She ignored Jay. He didn’t know anything about her or what she did for the band. She zipped Grip, got to her feet and patted his cheek.

  “Cool,” Grip said, adjusting his jeans at the waist and doing the button. He turned towards Jay. “These are my fuck-lucky pants and I am not ready to mourn them.”

  The Levi’s were frayed and ripped and so well-worn they were almost soft enough to use as a towel, and the zipper had already been replaced twice. Grip looked every inch the badass drummer of Lost Property wearing them.

  “Wait,” Jay said. Now he was staring at Grip. “Those are my old 511s. You nicked them from me in Tokyo about five years ago.”

  Grip laughed. “They look more awesome on me and I didn’t think you’d miss them.”

  “Fucker,” said Jay, advancing on Grip, arms wide for a hug.

  That’s when Evie got away, ducking past the two backslapping friends and making for the meeting room where a dozen people milled about waiting to hash out the final details of the Australian leg of Jay’s band’s Planet Possible tour.

  At the last minute, she veered towards the ladies’ room. The meeting wouldn’t start without Jay but no one was sweating on her presence. She wasn’t the star in anyone’s show, only the insider who got the Lost Property’s fans excited. She could take a few seconds to get her game face back on.

  “He’s nothing to you except a bad memory and a new paycheck,” she said, grateful to have the bathroom to herself. She shoved a stall door. It hit the tiled wall with a satisfying bang and she immediately felt less as if she’d tried to cram her body into a too small space.

  “You’re a professional. Jay freaking Endicott can take his ridiculously hot body and his fucking lethal charm and seduce half the wannabees and groupies in the city for all you care.”

  That was the score. Seeing her ex again shouldn’t make her feel anything. Certainly not like punching something. She smoothed an eyebrow instead. Without the surprise factor of Jay appearing during Grip’s zipper emergency, she wouldn’t be feeling anything but curiosity about Jay a decade after he ran out on her without a word.

  The best part of the surprise was the way he blushed. As if he hadn’t seen every wicked sex act there was to see on the road and backstage. As if he hadn’t had every kind of sex there was offered to him and yet he’d been embarrassed thinking Evie was about to blow Grip.

  The worst part was the way he’d looked at her once he realized he wasn’t interrupting a deep throating. As if he was disappointed in her. Which made no sense, because he couldn’t possibly car
e what she did with Grip or anyone else.

  “The next time he looks at you like you kicked his kitten, you have permission to fuck with him.”

  She checked her face in the mirror, shook her head so that the red under-color flashed in her hair, happy that the shock of seeing Jay again unexpectedly wasn’t showing all over her face. Perversely pleased that the shock of seeing her on her knees with Grip had shown all over his.

  TWO

  Jay quit breathing as he watched Evie, in her skintight black pants and a top that slid all over her shoulders and didn’t show bra straps, saunter up the corridor and disappear into the ladies’ room. It was impossible not to. It was a matter of life and death. She could start a fire with a swing of her hips and he and Grip could be burned alive.

  There were worse ways to go.

  “You and Evie, huh?” he said to Grip. He hadn’t seen that one coming and he didn’t buy the wardrobe malfunction story. He’d seen the look on Grip’s face as Evie knelt at his feet, a mixture of adoration and fear. Once a boy scout, now a heck of musician, Grip had good survival skills and wasn’t afraid of a challenge and letting Evie handle your zip required both attributes.

  His old friend and bandmate whistled through his teeth. “I wish, man. She treats me like one of her bros. And she’s the queen of hit it and quit it.”

  Evie was a player. He didn’t see that one coming either, but ten years was a long time with no contact. When they got together, he was eighteen, and nothing but restless energy and burning unfocused ambition. Evie at seventeen had been incandescently talented and carelessly beautiful. She was still beautiful, in a way that made an ache bloom in the middle of his chest the moment he saw her.

  He rubbed the spot, trying to soothe away the knot of unease. He’d planned to love her forever. Turned out forever was only three years and the rest was rock and roll.

  They were staring at an empty corridor, at the place where Evie had been, when Grip said, “Doesn’t stop me trying to get her to hit on me.”

  “Be careful what you wish for.” The Evie Jay knew would slice Grip up for sandwich meat if she didn’t already love him like one of her brothers. And if she stopped loving him, well at least Grip would have good solid heartache to fuel his songwriting. “Speaking from experience.”

  Grip laughed. “You still hot for her?”

  “Hell, no.” He knuckled that achy spot in his chest. “Evie and me. That was a long time,” and a file folder full of lyrics that would never be set to music, “ago. First contact I’ve had with her since I left Sydney.”

  “No shit?” Grip’s mouth dropped open. “You guys were such a unit. I thought you’d have waited out the teen angst, reconnected. Done the friends thing at a min.”

  Jay shook his head. “Come on, Evie torched me.” He made a sound approximating an explosion and added a hand action to symbolize his heart being broken into infinitesimal fragments of gore and glued back together with whatever substance made you harden the fuck up.

  Grip closed an eye. “Remind me why what was again.”

  Because she wanted to be famous singer-songwriter more than she wanted to be with a loser like me and then she burned that opportunity down. “We were both young and dumb.” It shouldn’t still hurt.

  It still fucking hurt.

  And he wasn’t ready for that. Made him want to smack his head into the wall until he wised up.

  “There’s a lot to be said for young and dumb,” Grip said. “Pretty much describes our fan base. I love every one of them.”

  “Exactly why Lost Property need to open for us.”

  “We need to open for you because World’s End couldn’t fill a stadium alone.” Grip ducked when Jay swung at him with an open hand. “You might be a big deal on the rest of the freaking globe, but this is Australia, mate, and you racked off and didn’t visit once till now and you hurt our feelings.”

  Which absolutely no one was concerned about since the tour was already a sellout. It was just a matter of how many shows they played.

  “Plus you filled your damn band with Yanks.”

  Which absolutely every Australian fan was sensitive about because ten years ago Jay and Grip and Evie’s three brothers were one band called Property of Paradise who had a couple of hits, showed a lot of promise and might’ve made it big except Jay’s world flatlined when he lost Evie. He stopped writing, didn’t want to sing. Couldn’t handle being anywhere near Evie or anyone who reminded him of her. He quit, sold everything he owned, got on a plane and took off, and two years later started a new band called World’s End and never looked back.

  Until now, when he invited Lost Property to open for him in Australia, against the advice of everyone on his management team.

  To say there were a lot of hard feelings was like suggesting water was wet. It went without saying and you could drown in a bathtub.

  “Never thought you’d keep the new band name,” he said. He’d felt winded when he’d found out about it.

  “Trolling you has always been a sweet deal.”

  And Lost Property had done okay for themselves. Not Jay’s brand of hit factory, seriously cashed up, sky’s the limit okay, but they were making a decent living. “Is it safe for me to be in a room with the other guys?”

  “Three layers of management between you and Abel, Isaac and Oscar should be enough to stop any bloodshed. But I wouldn’t expect a warm welcome.”

  “What about Errol?” Evie’s dad had once been the closest thing to a father Jay had known. But when the crunch came, Errol chose blood.

  “Hasn’t changed. Just wants the best for the band and Evie.” Errol had wanted Evie to be a star in her own right. At least he couldn’t blame Jay for standing in her way.

  “Why did you agree to this anyway? I figured you’d tell me to fuck off,” he said.

  “Because we were young and dumb when it all went south. Because we used to be live fast, die-hard friends and—” Grip passed a hand over his face. Jay hung on the end of his sentence. They could be friends again. It’s what he hoped. He hated the idea of this bad blood following him around for the rest of his career. It’s why he was doing this the hard way instead of pleasing everyone on his team and booking an up-and-coming band who’d be grateful for the opportunity.

  “For the money,” Grip finished, making Jay feel the weight of his jet lag in the grit under his eyes and the vague sense of doom that clung to his shoulders.

  At least he could say he’d tried to make amends, but he wasn’t sure the cost of it would rise above the act of placating his own wounded ego and raw vanity.

  “Where are you in all this?” Grip was still a friend. Maybe the only old friend he had in Sydney.

  “Switzerland, mate. You know I don’t do drama. Unless I think you’re taking advantage of us and then I’m your worst enemy. I know where all the bodies are buried.”

  Did he know what Evie was thinking? “You really haven’t hooked up with Evie?”

  “You really haven’t gotten over her.”

  “I have.” Maybe the burning in his chest was indigestion. The kind that bored a hole in your esophagus. “It was a shock to see her handling your dick after a twenty-hour flight.”

  “Shit.” Grip laughed. “If Evie so much as breathed on my dick I’d have made a mess of myself.”

  Which is pretty much what Jay had done the first time Evie had handled him. And then he made a mess of so much more and it was for no good reason at all. “What does she do for you guys other than wardrobe?” It was one thing to try and not make it in the music biz, but to have Evie’s talent and not try was criminal.

  “Not wardrobe. Evie’s on the management side. Marketing and social media. Runs the fan club, the website, the gram and facey. Produces all our sharable content and keeps the record company and the promoter happy. Makes sure we don’t get caught misbehaving and blow everything.”

  “I hope she’s paid well, because that last one would be a full-time job all on its own.”

  “
Don’t you worry about what she’s paid. Though not enough if you ask me. Worry she takes a bad angle photo of you and makes it go viral. She can make you look like you’ve got a fatal disease and have one foot in the grave.”

  Yep. That was the Evie he knew. “I just want this to be good for everyone.”

  “Always were a big dreamer.”

  It was a dig he’d heard a million times. Away with the pixies, never going to amount to anything. Too many schemes and not enough rubber on the road. He’d disproved that a billion times over, hearing it shouldn’t have any power over him.

  “You’ve gotta have dreams, Grip. You don’t have dreams, you might as well be dead.” Did he even want to know what made Evie give up hers? Maybe once, but now, it was ancient history and not his beeswax.

  “Dude, I dream of Evie allowing me to do the walk of shame from her bed.”

  “You’ve had ten years to seal that deal.”

  Grip laughed. “I’ve been busy sealing other deals. Evie was always the longest shot. Speaking of deals, everyone is waiting for you to make a start.”

  “Right.” He was holding everyone up, which is exactly the kind of behavior the guys would expect from an entitled douchebag rock star. He clapped Grip on the shoulder and inclined his head towards the gents. “I’ll be there in five.”

  Up ahead the door of the ladies’ room opened, and Evie strode out, cutting them a look that would scrape the fur off your tongue. Did he care why she lied to him and then gave on up taking her own shot?

  Fuck, yeah. Lying to himself was something he gave up on years ago.

  Was he going to do anything about it?

  Not if he wanted to keep the peace, and since this whole exercise was a peacekeeping mission he was sworn off starting trouble.

  “It’s going to be easier to convince people you’re over her if you quit looking at her like she’s your next fix,” Grip said.