The Rocker's Muse

“I’m having way too much fun teasing you.” I moved aside. “But if you want to push the button, go ahead. No one’s been stopping you this entire time.”

Much to my pleasure, she didn’t budge.

“I have a question,” I said.

“What?”

“Why did you really stay at the doorway when you could’ve just left the medicine? Was it shock? Or something more?”

She glared. “How about you tell me why you called for medicine to treat a fake allergy instead?”

I laughed guiltily. “You answer first.”

She looked away a moment. “I was just curious, I guess. That’s why I stayed.”

That was probably as honest an answer as I was going to get. I decided to reciprocate. “And I called you to bring me medicine because I wanted to see you, not because I needed it.”

Her cheeks reddened. “Oh.”

“So…you were curious…” I pressed.

She shook her head. “It wasn’t a voyeurism thing. At first I was in shock. Not sure why. I just assumed you were alone if you weren’t feeling well. But then the shock wore off and…I don’t know. I just…”

She seemed a little worked up. And though I was sort of getting off on that, I needed to pipe down. “You don’t have to explain,” I said. “I’m sorry for messing with you tonight.”

“You’re making me flustered, and I don’t like it.” She looked beyond my shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to your friend in there?”

“She’ll be fine.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “If she has any self-respect, she’ll be gone.”

“Let’s hope she is.” After a moment of silence, I added, “I wasn’t going to have sex with her.”

“I didn’t need to know that.”

“Well, you seemed to assume that was my intention, so I wanted to clarify. I’m sure it looked like that’s where things were headed.”

“Why would you start something if you weren’t going to have sex with her?”

I didn’t have an answer for that, since I couldn’t admit the truth—that it had all been a show. That I’d done nothing but think about Emily lately. And sometimes, I fantasized about her sweet, innocent eyes looking up at me while I fucked her in ways she’d probably want me to go to hell for, even if I knew it could never happen.

“How are you feeling about tomorrow night?” she asked.

“Not very confident.” I exhaled. “I told Ronan about my voice issues.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, he brought it up. He was the first of the guys to do that, though apparently, he and Atticus had been talking about it behind my back. I told him the truth about the polyps on my vocal cords.”

“I’m glad. I think the hardest part has probably been hiding what you’re going through from them.”

“He was cool about it. He wants to research things I can do while on tour. Knowing Ronan, he’ll come back with some woo-woo shit he wants me to try or tell me I need to smoke pounds of weed.”

“Well, sometimes you don’t have anything to lose by trying out-of-the-box things. Though, not the pounds of weed necessarily.” She laughed. “But maybe other unconventional stuff.”

I wanted to ask if she would be into trying new things, too—namely, older men.

She gestured to the panel behind my shoulder. “Are we planning to move this elevator anytime soon? I already admitted why I stayed at the doorway. Not sure there’s much more you’re gonna get out of me tonight.”