Play Dirty: Brooklyn Dawn Book 1 Read online

  “Duchess, no one forces me to do anything. Any bloke would thank his lucky stars you want to spend time with him.”

  I couldn’t respond. I’d been struck mute. Perhaps permanently.

  That would be a problem on tour.

  He tucked my ponytails out of the way and frowned as he rubbed my shoulder. “You’re far too pink. No sunscreen?”

  I shook my head. “Forgot. No sun before dawn.”

  “Christ, woman.” He sat up and wrapped his arms around me as if he was a human shield. “Let’s go inside and find some aloe.” He smacked my back and I winced. Ouch. “Never mind the damn bugs. You would think that it’s close enough to fall that they would be hibernating or whatever.”

  “It’s still warm enough for people to fuck outside. It’s warm enough for bugs.”

  He tightened his grip. “Unexpected bonus.”

  Normally, I would’ve nudged him away. Not that I’d had sex in a lifetime that wasn’t attached to him, but I wasn’t a cuddler afterward in any case.

  I prided myself on being the exact opposite. Enjoy things, let loose, let go. I wasn’t a woman who pined.

  I’d never been her before.

  Not that he was cuddling so much as giving me a healthy dose of side-eye.

  “I didn’t expect to run into your dick this morning,” I reminded him. “My yoga sessions normally last thirty minutes, give or take. Then I intended to go back inside.”

  His lips quirked. “And your sex ones?”

  “They don’t. Since there hasn’t been anyone since before you.” I started to rise.

  He grabbed my wrist. “Is that your idea of a joke? You haven’t been with anyone but me since yesterday?”

  “Try three years.” I shook off his hold and got to my feet. Suddenly, the idea of aloe and shade didn’t sound bad at all. “Let’s head back.”

  “Lindsey.”

  The urgency in his tone made me stop.

  “What I said about you and Logan—what I insinuated—I had no right.”

  “You surely didn’t.”

  “But that you didn’t—that you haven’t—shit, I don’t know how to do this.” I glanced back as he raked a hand through his shaggy black hair. The sun wove hints of gold through it, little bits of light peeking through so much dark.

  So much like the man himself.

  I stepped back to him, and he rested his head against my thigh. I gave into the urge to touch his hair. So soft. So wild and untamed. “It’s like building a song. Start with a lyric, a piece of music. Then you layer. You take the time. And you build.”

  He didn’t say anything. But he nodded. His fingers clamped around mine.

  Holding tighter than any doubts I had left.

  Eighteen

  To the world, I was a hotshot, reclusive wizard in the studio.

  In reality? I was the guy who left detailed notes on what to feed his cat. And his dog. And what precise amount of water to provide the succulents.

  “So, no issues? What about the plants? Sarge likes the Christmas cactus in the corner.”

  I should just get rid of the stupid thing. It had been a gift from Kyle’s ma a million years ago. A housewarming present when I moved to New York.

  Foolish sentiment had no place in my life. Yet it kept popping up.

  I’d vacillated between notions like that and my usual bitterness on the pad of paper I’d misplaced while fucking Lindsey. My sweatshirt and undershirt had met the same fate.

  Lo’s property was large, but we’d headed back the same way we had walked to the waterfall. At least I thought we had. Leave it to my buddy to have such a huge place that you could never find the same exact spot twice.

  I hoped the gardener or whomever had happened upon my scribblings bothered to return them to Lo. I’d come up with some good stuff even in my sleep-deprived state.

  Besides, now they held a kind of sentimental value.

  See? Foolish.

  “Sarge hasn’t touched the plants. He has, however, decided he likes to sleep in the master bathroom sink.”

  “Oh, that’s not new. He always does. If you could turn on the water a little now and then, he’ll come for a drink.” I rubbed my forehead. “Didn’t I leave that on your list of instructions? Fuck, I’m slipping.”

  “I may have overlooked it. If you’ll just hold—”

  “No, no, that’s fine. He can wait until I’m home. He’s so damn fussy. You’d think by the age of six, he’d be less cranky. What about B?”

  “He’s doing well. Ignoring Sarge and staying in his own lane.”

  “He’s eating? If you don’t watch him, he’ll take his sweet time and Sarge will steal it.”

  “I’m watching him, sir. Watching both of them closely. As I’m paid handsomely by you to do.”

  I exhaled a long, slow breath. Recording had been going well. Too well. Ever since Lindsey and I had so creatively broken the tension between us, we’d been working together as if we’d been doing it for years. Not without snarls, of course. We both had very definite, sometimes divergent ideas about the work. But the snark was mostly gone.

  I’d caught Lo smirking at me a time or sixteen before I’d finally escaped to make a call to check on my boys.

  Again.

  I was practically a fretful mother, for feck’s sake.

  Footsteps sounded behind me and my spine stiffened. Time to go.

  “You’re right, Ailish. I’ll check in later.”

  I turned, expecting Logan and another one of his smirks. He was doing a damn good imitation of me today. Didn’t matter. I’d let him have his fun. At least I understood where he was coming from, unlike Kyle who’d watched most of the recording and brainstorming sessions with a broody expression I couldn’t decipher.

  Much like the expression currently worn by my lover.

  “Lindsey.”

  “You sound surprised to see me.” She propped her hands on her jean-clad hips. With them, she wore sneakers and a high-necked thin sweater that hid both her rampant sunburn and the hickeys and bite marks I’d apparently left on her neck.

  A pity.

  “I was surprised. As I’d just left you.” I slipped my phone into my trouser pocket. “Is Lo getting restless already? Thought we were taking fifteen.”

  “We are. And you’ve already used five more than that. Although now I see why. Ailish? Check in? A six-year-old? What’s that all about, huh?” She stepped forward before I could speak and slapped her hands against my chest.

  I grimaced at the pain from my own sunburn. I was quite a bit darker than she was naturally, but my chest didn’t see that much sunlight in a given year, never mind a morning.

  And I’d been too busy slathering her in aloe and filthy kisses to much care about tending to myself.

  “I didn’t intend to hear anything. I just came to find you because—” She shook her head, her cheeks going sweetly pink. “Anyway, I was about to walk away when I heard you talking to your nanny. If you’d tell me, I wouldn’t have to spy.”

  “You never asked.”

  She made a sound akin to an angry cat. I knew precisely what that sounded like, since mine was often in that state.

  “Are you quite finished now?” I cocked my head, inordinately pleased with her and the world in general. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been nearly this content.

  Oh, yes, I could. This morning, when she’d been riding me in my guest bed. Biting her lower lip so she didn’t wake the others.

  Until I threw her over on her back and made sure she did.

  “Am I finished? Are you serious right now?”

  I gave a shrug, mainly to piss her off. I could only tolerate so much harmony in a given day. Especially since she was so goddamned gorgeous when she was annoyed.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t just pretend not to care about my lover’s personal life. But you know what? That’s my problem. You don’t owe me anything. I’m going back to the studio.” She whirled around, going still as I gripped her shoulder
.

  “You overheard me talking to my pet sitter. My six-year-old is a pissy one-eyed cat named Sarge who prefers to drink out of faucets. My other one is a three-year-old Rottweiler that Sarge has pretended to resent since day one yet sleeps in his bed the minute my back is turned.”

  She didn’t move for so long I began to fear for my physical safety. I’d heard her best friend was a bit of a wild one. Not that I doubted Lindz could do some serious damage of her own.

  Rather than try to coax her to forgive me for her mistaken assumptions—and now for feeling foolish, I suspected—I pulled out my wallet and thumbed free a small snapshot. It was one of those where the pets were posing with Santa. Brutus was all lolling tongue excitement while Sarge’s eyes were slitted and his Christmas bow sat lopsidedly on his head.

  The bow had been Santa’s idea, not mine.

  The only reason I’d taken them there in the first place was because I needed pet food and I’d had a misplaced moment of holiday cheer.

  Never again. Now the run up to the holidays was spent in a darkened huddle on my sofa with the telly and alcohol-free eggnog, as it was meant.

  “Look.” I pressed the picture into her hand.

  She took one glance and started to laugh, cupping her palm over her mouth. “Asshole.”

  My eyebrow arched. “Why am I an asshole now?”

  “Because you could just tell me stuff instead of making everything cloak and dagger. That thing the other day about having a pair waiting for you at home.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I wouldn’t let myself think about it. I was trying to be the bigger person and wait for you to tell me when you were ready.”

  “Then today you gave up?”

  “The snatches of what I heard in the hall—” She nudged the picture back at me. “They’re very sweet and I feel ridiculous.”

  “As ridiculous as I feel trying to maintain some level of cool around you once you’ve heard me on the phone with my petsitter.”

  She grinned up at me and lifted her arm around my neck to drag me down for a quick kiss. “Don’t tell anyone, but the pet stuff only makes you cooler. There’s nothing hotter than a daddy.”

  I rubbed my suddenly interested cock against her ass. “Can we be specific what kind of daddy we’re talking about here?”

  Logan cleared his throat as he stepped into the doorway. “You always take chances when bringing on talent, but I’d say you two may be the most interesting I’ve worked with recently.”

  “Smartass.” Lindsey eased away from me and patted Logan’s cheek. “Feel free to take any tips you’d like to use with Bella.”

  Logan watched her leave. “I’m not sure you’re the best influence on her.”

  I wasn’t certain either. And although he was merely teasing, I slipped the photo back in my wallet and shoved my hands in my pockets. “Yes, I know I’m tardy. I’ll be back to it momentarily.”

  “Don’t worry, I don’t hand out demerits here. If I did, you would’ve gotten one for destroying my demo, jackass.” He rolled his shoulders. “I debated saying anything at all, as I can tell you’re in a different headspace now than when you arrived. But seriously, dude, I’d kept that tape for years. It was some of All the King’s Men’s earliest mixes, and we—”

  The rest of what he said faded to a buzz of white noise.

  “What demo?” I demanded when the fog cleared.

  He frowned. “The one in the boombox in the back room behind the stage in the barn. That wasn’t you?”

  “What happened exactly?”

  “That wasn’t you?” he repeated.

  “No. Pissed or not, I would never damage your equipment or tools.”

  “Just insinuate I’d step out on my wife.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Glad to see where your priorities lie, brother.”

  Heat prickled along my spine. “Can we just forget that ever happened? I wasn’t in my right mind.”

  “Yet now you are?”

  “Better,” I admitted. Or I had been, before this.

  Whatever the hell this was.

  “What happened with the demo? You can’t find it?” Even as I asked the question, I knew that wasn’t the half. Lo had used the word destroyed, and he wasn’t one to exaggerate.

  That was usually my domain.

  “I found it unspooled on the floor. The guts pulled out and shredded, the tape cracked in two.” He tucked his fists under his arms. “Someone has some rage issues.”

  “And you assumed it was me.”

  “Well, I had locked you in with your nemesis.”

  “I think we’re okay now,” I said drily.

  “That you are. So, the question remains, who else did I annoy the fuck out of recently? Izzy sharpens steak knives and gives me a dose of side-eye when I’ve gone too far. She doesn’t stomp on cassettes.”

  “Maybe kids sneaked back there at some point and you just didn’t realize.”

  “Seems unlikely, but who else could it have been?” Logan shrugged.

  Deep down, I didn’t believe mischievous children were to blame, not for a second.

  That arrow of heat was back zipping down my spine, and this time, it didn’t come from shame. Or not only shame.

  If I was right, I’d played a part in what had occurred. There could be no denying that.

  I knew better than to pretend things were like they used to be. That I could take a pocket of time for myself and live away from the tragedy that had grown to define me.

  My fault. I couldn’t forget that. I’d make every choice and taken every step that had led us to this place.

  I just couldn’t bring Lindsey down with me. I wouldn’t let it happen.

  No matter what it cost.

  Nineteen

  “Miss York?”

  I blinked out of the nanosecond’s worth of a nap I’d managed on the plane. I glanced around with a frown. At least it felt like little more than a blink.

  “I let you sleep as long as I could.”

  The gentle voice tossed another log of guilt on the fire. It had been a shitshow since I’d left Logan’s. “Thanks.” I slid my sleep mask off the top of my head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

  “Not a problem. We figured it was easiest since word had gotten out that you were on this flight. We had a good fifty people looking for you as soon as we opened the doors.”

  I flushed. “I’m so sorry.”

  The plane attendant waved me off. Her eyes were a little pinched, but I was pretty sure that was more from the end of a long day than my bullshit. At least that was what I told myself.

  “We’re more worried about the fact that someone leaked you were coming in. Especially since we didn’t use your name on the manifest at your behest.”

  I hadn’t moved from my seat, even to use the facilities. Exhausted wasn’t even the word to describe how I was feeling. A creative fugue state usually did that to me. It wasn’t unheard of for me to drop for three days straight after a good writing session.

  Add in a super fast recording session and a few rounds of sexual gymnastics—at least for me, since hello, drought for way too long—and yeah, I needed to sleep about fourteen hours. Then maybe I’d feel human again.

  Right now, I was pretty sure my dog’s toenails looked nicer than mine. The rest of me was no better. I quickly stuffed my long hair under a slouchy hat I’d stolen from Nash. It still smelled like him and instantly perked me up.

  I really didn’t know how things were going to work between us, but at the moment, I didn’t have time to think about it. The last few days had been crazy between the stress of getting the song right in two days—probably one of the best non-Brooklyn Dawn songs I’d ever done—and our almost desperate fucking. I was wrung out. Like end of a tour wrung out and I had so much more to go for this leg.

  We were just beginning.

  I was already late since I caught the very last flight out of New York that I could possibly take and still make the concert.

  Damn t
hat man.

  I’d needed just one more taste. It was worse than any chocolate craving I’d ever had. And I had imported chocolate in my bag at all times.

  I sighed and clued back into the conversation with the plane attendant. “Thanks. Someone always gets a tip when it comes to the media. It’s not your fault.”

  “We appreciate you saying that. Your bags have been brought out to your car. Your driver is waiting for you. One of our security men will escort you.”

  I gathered up my carry-on and winced at my phone. Eleven messages from Jamie and three from Darcy, our tour manager. I stuffed my phone into my jacket pocket. I’d deal with that in the car. One thing I knew for sure was that my driver would be waiting for me and would find the best way to get me to the venue no matter how little time we had.

  I quickly thanked the last of the crew that was cleaning up after first class and found a scary-looking security guy waiting for me. He smiled with a sweetness that belied his military bearing, but almost immediately, the blank mask returned.

  “I’m Jerome.”

  “Lindsey.”

  He nodded curtly. “If you’re ready, ma’am?”

  “I am.”

  He gestured to take my bag, but I shook my head. If I had to slip away from him and find my own way out, it was safer for me to have my travel life on me. Replacing a license was easy enough, but my passport? Hell no.

  It was a near sprint through the colossal airport that was O’Hare. Finally, we ducked down a hallway I’d never been through. We generally traveled with our own plane or bus, depending on the closeness of the venues. Signs for shuttles eased my anxiety. We had to be close. The blast of cold coming through the door at the end of the hallway had me burrowing into my lightweight jacket. Chicago’s version of fall was definitely not as temperate as Winchester Falls.

  My strapping young security guard kept talking into some little microphone on his shoulder. When I got to the door, I saw why. They’d found me.

  Fans always found a way.

  Luckily, it was just fans, and not photographers on the hunt for a shot to sell. I had enough vanity to say a small prayer of thanks. I looked like roadkill’s dinner.