happened to be aggressively sure that she didn’t want him.
He’d actually made an effort to look for her after the gig, but Big Mike had said that she’d gone out on her own. Then he’d asked Jesper if he knew where she’d gone, and he had told Dylan that she hadn’t wanted to “cramp anyone’s style.”
How could she be so cool about this sort of thing? It made him want to punch a wall.
The brunette gave a final gasping cry, then went limp beside him. Dylan noticed his jeans were still unbuttoned, and he surreptitiously buttoned them. Lesson one when dealing with the fame whores: never leave your valuables hanging out in the open. Snake had a story about a girl, his dick, a home piercing kit, and way too much cocaine. Dylan had no interest in trying to top that tale.
“That was amazing,” the brunette sighed, rolling her body toward Dylan’s. “ You’re amazing.”
Those words should have been exactly what he wanted to hear. The girls had always stroked his ego, and he had always let them. Sure, he knew they were just there for the fame, but that had always been fine by him. Everyone got what they wanted: Dylan got a release, a way to come down from the high of a gig that didn’t involve the kind of hard drugs he tried to stay away from, and the girls got their fifteen minutes of bedroom stardom.
“Yeah, good times,” he said. It was a lie, and the fact that it was a lie infuriated him.
“It’s a crazy story I’m gonna tell people for years. ‘The night I fooled around with Dylan Bennett’...it’ll be great at parties.” She gave him a serious, measured look that seemed incongruous with the fake, naked breasts staring him in the face. “I have a suspicion you were thinking of someone else though; I think you even whispered her name to me. Who is she?”
Dylan sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”
“So she ,” the girl said with inflection, “is a potential lover?”
“Not really. She doesn’t seem to like me very much.”
The girl nodded, seeming unsurprised. “That makes sense.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what. This mystery woman is probably smart, pragmatic, stable—everything that a wild rock star who’s constantly on the run would desire. Someone solid, someone to come home to. Probably the sort of thing you lacked in your childhood, too.”
Dylan narrowed his eyes at her. Where the hell was all of that coming from?
“But if she’s smart,” the brunette continued matter-of-factly, “then she’s obviously not going to mess around with someone like you, because even though you may desire stability, it’s really not in your nature to live that sort of life. Though it speaks very highly of you that you’re in love with a woman who knows better than to get involved with you.”
“Jesus! Since when does sex come with a side of psychobabble?” Dylan muttered.
“Call it what you like.”
“Where do you get this shit?” he asked.
“I’m a psych major,” she said.
“Alright, honey, it was a good time but you gotta go. You’ll make a good shrink though,” he said dazedly as he watched her get dressed. This was by far the weirdest encounter he’d ever had with a groupie—and one of them had set his car on fire a few years back.
“Thanks for the fun,” she said, leaning up to place a friendly kiss on his mouth. As she turned to go, she bumped into someone—a certain female someone.
Dylan wanted to crawl into a hole.
Melody smiled tightly. “Hey. Sorry. Crowded in here after a gig. You’re the third one I’ve run into. No offense.”
“None taken,” the groupie said brightly. “You were amazing out there tonight. Like, seriously my hero. If I wasn’t a zero on the Kinsey scale, I would have angled for someone else’s bed entirely.”
Melody laughed, a throaty sound that made Dylan’s gut clench with want. He hated it. “If I weren’t a Kinsey zero myself, I’d make a move right now.”
“I’m so buying
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