“One person,” another deep male voice corrected. This voice I recognized as well, since I’d just been introduced to the man. It was the band’s record producer. He was a white man in his forties that wore his baseball cap sideways, overused words like swagger, and tried to freestyle rap. He called himself The Dutchman, and in my head, I’d already started thinking of him as The Doucheman.

I hadn’t been impressed with him, and where I saw this conversation leading just reaffirmed my opinion.

“Single Tristan wouldn’t be going back to Vegas every chance he got,” Dean continued. “Single Tristan wouldn’t be refusing to go on a debut tour with the band because he couldn’t leave his girl for that long of a stretch. There’d be no more fights, no more hissy fits. I’m telling you, we’d have a brand new lead singer on our hands, if that bitch was out of the picture.”

“Getting rid of girlfriends is not part of my job description.”

“It’s not that complicated. She’s a jealous mess. The right combination of circumstances and one visit from our girl Nat would do it.”

I was glued to the wall, openly eavesdropping.

“Nat? That blonde with the big fake titties? The chick I banged last week?”

“Yeah. That one. She’ll help, I guarantee it, and there’s no one that could make Danika more jealous than Nat.”

“Oh yeah? Why? That Nat chick is busted.”

“Hell yeah. You know Tristan used to be engaged to Nat, right?”

“Why the hell would he get engaged to Nat? That chick’s a whore.”

I felt myself nodding agreement, even though I was by myself.

“She didn’t used to be like that. It’s a long story. The Nat you got and the Nat Tristan got are in two different leagues, but that’s beside the point. What I’m saying is, no one can make Danika more jealous than Nat, since Nat used to have Tristan’s ring on her finger. And Nat is cooperative. She’d do anything to break those two up. All we have to do is set it up. Get Danika to catch those two naked together, however we make that happen, and no more Danika. Just that easy, we’d have our lead singer back, full-time.”

“That’s fine, man. Set it up. You guys need to go on tour, so do what you need to do to get Tristan on board.”

I moved quietly away, more disgusted than worried. I’d known Dean was a dirtball, but this was too low, even for him.

My first instinct was to tell Tristan about what I’d heard the second I saw him, but the longer I looked with no luck, and thought about Dean’s plan, the more I was inclined to keep it to myself.

Their entire sordid scheme was based on my reaction, and now, with me expecting it, and hearing first hand just what lengths they were willing to go to, I knew they’d be that easy to predict. I had it all settled in my mind before I found Tristan. I’d watch, and wait, and expect a setup. There was no way in hell I’d give them what they wanted. Now if I thought of Nat with Tristan, my gut didn’t twist up with anxious jealousy. Now I was just disgusted. And prepared.

I continued to search through the house, and the backyard, even combing some of the beach that attached to the property from one long wooden walkway.

Finally, I tracked Tristan down back in our room. He was laying on the bed, still fully clothed, one arm thrown across his eyes, the room dark.

I sighed and shut the door behind me. “Where’d you go?” I asked. I’d checked in here twice during my search.

“I took a walk on the beach. More of a run, actually.”

“You still mad?”

He didn’t answer, which was answer enough, if his toneless voice hadn’t been enough of a clue.

I switched on the lamp by the bed, then sat at his hip, my hand going to his stomach. “Do you want to talk?”

“No. Talking is exactly what I don’t want to do.”

“Then what can I do? You’re obviously upset, and I wasn’t trying to upset you.”

“I know. I think that’s almost worse.” He stood up, and began to pace. “Here’s what I want; I want you to quit treating this, us, like less than it is. Quit analyzing us to death, and for the love of God, stop thinking that our sex life is not enough for me. I have a lot of fucking problems, and to say that isn’t one of them is the understatement of a lifetime.”

I kept my eyes on him as I reached for a pillow, tossing it on the ground, directly in his path. It made him stop, glancing down at the pillow, then at me, his annoyed expression working itself into a puzzled one.

I smiled as I moved to the pillow, dropping to my knees.

His breath punched out hard as my hands went to the fly of his jeans, working it open. I had him loose and hard in my hand with a few quick movements, never looking away from his shuttered gaze.

“I didn’t mean it the way it came out. I wasn’t trying to belittle anything about us. It was just a misunderstanding. Is there anything you can think of that might get you out of this black mood I put you in?”

“Fuuuck,” came out of his mouth as a long curse, even as he shrugged off his shirt, tossing it aside, and buried his hands in my hair. “Show me what you had in mind?”

I smiled, pleased by his about-face. I ran my hands up and down his stomach, just reaching to the bottom of his chest, and feeling my way down again.

I knelt at his feet, looking up at him, running my eyes over his tall form. I traced his abs with my fingertips, running my hands over his body until I reached his lean hips. He was ripped and huge, but I’d have sworn there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. I was rubbing the V-cut of his pelvis, utterly fascinated by the shape of it, when I asked, “I take it you’ve been getting plenty of gym time out here?”

The question was rhetorical. His body was as impeccable as ever. But he answered me anyway.

“As much as I can. That’s the only way to blow off steam over here. That and jacking off in the shower.”

I smiled, leaning my cheek on his thigh and gazing up at him mischievously. “And how many showers do you take a day over here?”

“Not nearly as many as I did back in the day when you were shaking your little ass at me, and then not letting me touch it.”

I giggled.

“I’m not gonna lie, though. I take a shower the second we get off the phone with each other.”

“And what do you think about us doing while you’re getting off?”

He grabbed one of my hands, gripping it around his base. “This is a good start. Having you on your knees is definitely on my playlist.”

I licked my lips, using a firm touch to stroke him. “Do you want to know what’s on my playlist?”

He gripped my hair in his fists. “I do. But don’t expect me to last longer than two seconds if you start talking dirty.”

“That’s okay. You’re always good for a round two, right?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“Well, then…I like to get off to fantasies about you tying me up and blindfolding me. I pleasure myself to the memory of being completely at your mercy.

His breath punched out of his lungs in a powerful whoosh. “Fuck.”

I never stopped touching his spectacular body as I took him in my mouth.

I moaned at the delicious feel of his tip slipping past my lips, the hard velvet heat of him between my lips making moisture pool between my thighs. I stroked him with my mouth, my throat, savoring every thick, turgid inch of him that I could take, bobbing my head.

He gripped my hair hard enough to sting, cursing, praising, and as he pushed deep enough to make me gag, apologizing profusely. I never stopped, sucking in hard pulls, taking as much of him as I could handle.

He never was one to last long for a blowjob, and he was cursing as warm liquid shot down my throat less than two minutes after I’d taken him in my mouth.

He was also never one to be selfish, and so he had me on my back on the bed, skirt up, panties down, working me with his clever, busy tongue, and those magic, rapid fingers.

I doubted I lasted two minutes.

I was still panting from my orgasm when he crawled on top of me, his hips sliding between my thighs. He took me languidly, leisurely, whispering sweet somethings in my ear.

“I love you too,” I told him, kissing his neck, when we’d finished.

He reared back, cupping my face in his hands. “It’s one thing to be jealous in the present. That I can handle. But this fixation on who I used to be, on things I can’t go back in time and change, this I can’t take, especially when you’re using it to belittle what you and I have.

“Just do me this favor, sweetheart. Quit comparing what we have to anything I’ve had before, or anything you’ve had before. You and me, we’re different. This is different. More.”

I nodded, kissing him. There was no question; it was incalculably more for me.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

DANIKA

Every single time he came back from L.A., be it days or weeks after he’d left, it felt like the distance between us had gotten just a little bit bigger. It killed me, and I obsessed constantly over ways to change it.

“How is it going over there?” I asked him, as I often did.

It was a very casual question that was not at all casual for me.

“It’s a rough fucking scene. The album is getting done, but not fast enough. Dean and Kenny aren’t getting along. Hell, all of us are pretty much fighting constantly. Drugs are going around like candy, and I’m drinking Jack for breakfast.”

“You need to take better care of yourself,” I chided him, feeling sick to my stomach.

He gave me a rueful smile. “Yes, I do. And if I really wanted to do what’s best for myself, I’d never leave your side. I’d just stay here and never go back.”

I felt selfish for asking, but I couldn’t keep it in. “So why do you keep going back?”

“I don’t know what else to do. For better or worse, this is the only thing that gives me direction in my life right now. Otherwise, I’d just be following you around like a lovesick puppy every day.”

I wanted to shake him and tell him that I didn’t care about that. He could follow me forever. I didn’t care if he worked. I’d take care of him. Anything he needed, I’d try to provide.

But I knew him better. He had too much pride to ever let me do that.

While the emotional gap between us seemed to build, our wild craving for each other never waned, just becoming more desperate with every reunion. Sex was never, ever the problem for us. But it also wasn’t enough, not on its own. But sometimes, occurring more and more often, it felt like it might be all we had.

He would come to me strung out, and uncommunicative, serious and unsmiling. Where had all those easy, readable smiles gone? Nowadays, I had to work for his smiles, and it was killing me.

“I can feel you slipping away from me,” I’d say, or, “What can I do to make you feel better?” Often, in fact, most times, that would draw him out of it, and if he spent a few days with me, he was more sober than not and never partook in anything harder than liquor.

But he was with me less and less.