Adam
A bonafide pop diva, all sass and scandal, Cristy Valor commands headlines wherever she goes. The tabloids love her—and love to hate her. From the first time her sexy alto voice rolls over me, she has all my attention. When she joins Balefire on our latest tour, she sashays across the stage in her wild-ass costumes and parties hard enough to keep up with my boys and me. She drives me batshit crazy—and I love every second of it.
Sex on stilettos.
Pure trouble.
Our sizzling chemistry could shoot a rocket into space, and it’s not long before I crave her. For the first time in my life, I want to share everything with a woman. But Cristy is hiding something, something that holds her back from giving me all of herself. She’s about to find out that I’m a patient man—and I always get what I want.
Cristy
Adam Tron is the poster boy for tall, dark, and sexy. His bass rhythms are enough to make me cream my panties every time I hear them. Flirting with him during our live shows is a rush but nothing compared to what happens when I finally give in to my lust and share his bed. The problem is, sex isn’t all he wants.
For my entire career, I’ve set the narrative, teased the tabloids with scandals that kept them too busy to look into my past, too busy to discover the secret that could end the party for good. Adam Tron could wreck me, steal my heart—and my music. I can’t let him in. I can’t let him discover the secret behind the nightmares I have nearly every night. He thinks he can slay all my monsters, and it would be so easy to let him. But if he finds out the truth, will he still be hot for me?
—
EXCERPT:
Adam
Without so much as a hihowareya, she launched into full-on diva. “Your manager is a jerk. Did you all know that? He’s a total tool. I don’t get how you put up with him.” She pounded more than paced back and forth across the front of the stage, her arms waving around her head for emphasis. “Everyone on this tour is an adult, and we don’t need a dad. Perhaps one of you could remind him?” She quit pacing for a second to give us all “the look” every woman on the planet has perfected for calling out a man.
Not waiting for a response, she resumed her attempt to wear a path in the stage floor with her stiletto heels. “Furthermore, someone needs to talk to him about his fashion choices. There is no one in the universe who will ever follow whatever trend he thinks he’s setting with those cut-off shirts tucked in—tucked in for crying out loud.” She threw her hands up. When I glanced at my brothers, I saw each of us trying to hold it in. Dakota’s lips twitched, Jack’s cheeks puffed out, and Blu had turned an interesting shade of purple.
Oblivious to our response, Cristy plowed on. “Tucked into five-hundred-dollar custom-tailored dress pants. He looks utterly ridiculous. The man is just a, just a—” She seemed to struggle to say the word, but finally she sucked in a deep breath and whispered, “prick.”
We erupted in guffaws we couldn’t hold back anymore. As she stood there all indignant, one foot in front of the other, hands planted on her hips, Jack, Blu, Dakota, and I laughed ourselves stupid. We probably should have tried harder to hold it in after the way she ranted about Garrett, but something about that sexy little pixie strutting attitude like a boss—who couldn’t bring herself to curse even when she clearly wanted to—struck all of us as hilarious.
At last when I sort of tried to pull myself together, I looked at her and noticed the hint of a smile making her dimples twitch. Then I caught her watching me, a sparkle of mischief in her eyes. Apparently, even she saw the humor in her little tantrum.
Dakota was the last of us to get it together, but as usual, the first to speak. “So Cristy, how ’bout you tell us how you really feel, huh? It’s okay if you want to call Garrett an asshole in front of us. We won’t tattle to him.”
She rolled her gorgeous sapphire eyes. “Screw you, Dakota.” But she was grinning.
“Now that we have the preliminaries over, let’s put the sound guys to work,” he suggested.
Blu turned to me. “Whoa. Tron. You’re the usual captain of this boat. Are you going to kick back and let Dakota make all the decisions without a comment?”
Jerking my eyes from Cristy’s gorgeous ones, I stammered, “Wh-what?”
Blu laughed. “I see how you’re rollin’.”
“Whatthefuckever.” Strolling over to the guitar rack, I grabbed my bass, flipping him the bird over my head as I settled the strap over my shoulder.
Dakota and Blu didn’t stop laughing as they pulled their axes from the guitar cart at the edge of the stage. I might have succeeded in ignoring them if Jack hadn’t whispered in my ear as he passed me on his way to his drums. “Don’t blame you, man. She’s definitely hot.”
“Fuuuuck,” I hissed under my breath. Usually, I’m the cool one. Not that Cristy would know that.
So I ignored her for the entirety of sound checks. Afterward as we enjoyed the eclectic spread in the green room, I concentrated on food rather than on Cristy. Local seafood, our favorite Mexican fare—every flavor of tacos and burritos—and prime rib carved by Jeff Scott, our private chef. Chef Jeff’s usual array of workout-challenging desserts—I ate three—kept my eyes off of our sexy-hot guest. My mind was another story.
Visions of all the ways I could have her long legs wrapped around my waist scrolled through my head, each scenario hotter than the last. All of them involved her wearing a pair of her stilettos. Judging from the variety she’d worn so far on the tour, the woman had an infinite wardrobe of the things. I liked them all. The bright purple-and-pink-sequined pair she wore today were kind of hard to miss as they reflected into my eyes from beyond the edge of my plate of cinnamon flan, fudge mousse, and raspberry tart.
I let my eyes take a slow tour up the creamy skin of her toned legs and over her tight ripped denim cutoffs. I lingered at the place where her form-fitting green T-shirt left space for the diamond piercing her belly button to sparkle. How had I missed that piercing in all the times I’d checked her out?
“Tron. My eyes are up here.”
“I know where your eyes are.”
My lips curved into a grin as I let my eyes continue their thorough tour of the purple and pink sequins creating a single rose in the middle of her rack and on to the sapphire necklace I’d never seen her without. In my peripheral vision, I noticed her wicked smile when my gaze settled on her cleavage, and I couldn’t help my answering smile at the mischief in her eyes when I stopped my tour.
“You have the sexiest smile, Tron.”
“Just enjoying the scenery.”
“You like what you see?” she sassed.
“Every single thing.”
“Even though you’re the quiet one in the band, you’re used to the ladies giving you exactly what you want, aren’t you?”
The tone of her voice suggested a land mine lurked somewhere nearby, but I ignored the warning. “It’s a nice perk.”
“Yes, it is. I have no trouble getting anything—or anyone—I want either.”
Rather than answer, I raised a brow and waited. And tried not to think of Cristy Valor with any other man. The visual flashing through my head made the taste of all that delicious dessert turn to ash in my mouth.
Something of my thoughts must have shown on my face. “You’re okay with the change we made in the show for tonight?” she asked.
The abrupt change of topic jerked my mind back into the moment. Trying to recover myself, I said, “Sure. Why not? Like Dakota said, you’re our guest.”
“Uh-huh.”
Grinning, I added, “It’s good to shake things up sometimes. Keeps us honest.”
“Honest? Yeah, I’m all kinds of interested in honest, Tron.”
Author Bio:
Tam DeRudder Jackson is the author of the paranormal romance Talisman Series and the contemporary romance Balefire Series. Her favorite “room” in her house is her back patio where she dreams up stories of romance and risk. When she’s not writing her latest paranormal or contemporary romance, you can usually find her driving around with the top down in her convertible or carving turns on the slopes of the local ski hill. The mom of two grown sons, Tam likes to travel, attend rock concerts, watch football and soccer, and visit old car shows with her husband. She lives in the mountains of northwest Wyoming where she spends most of her free time trying to read all the books. Her TBR piles are threatening to take over her office, and she’s fine with that.
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