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“Roux.”
She dropped her gaze, the empathy in Steve’s eyes more than she could stand. “I was in the hospital for months. Having no family willing to take me, I was released into foster care. My grandparents were too old to take care of themselves, much less me. They’re gone now. My aunts thought I’d be too much trouble, with the mental problems I was sure to have. So Mama Ramona took me in. CPS sends her the girls they can’t place anywhere else.”
“I can’t imagine. I’m sorry.”
“For what?” She shook her head, sparing him a glance. “There’s nothing anyone could have done to prevent what happened. Except get my alcoholic father treatment before he snapped.” And she wasn’t sure that would have made much of a difference. “So to answer your question, that’s why I don’t drink. Alcoholism runs in families, and I refuse to follow in that man’s footsteps.”
Steve upended his half-empty glass over the balcony railing. She appreciated the symbolism, but remembered he’d been drinking water. She waited for him to find an excuse to leave. Few could stomach looking at her once they knew what she’d been through, Mama Ramona and her foster sisters—who’d survived childhood tragedies of their own—being the exceptions.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” he said, proving her right. He couldn’t handle her tragic past. “But I can’t just stand here and not hold you right now.”
Huh?
When his arms went around her, she stiffened, but when his embrace remained merely comforting and not the sexual come-on she expected—perhaps wanted—she began to relax.
“I can’t fathom what that must have been like for you,” he whispered.
“You survive,” she said. “If you don’t . . . well, you don’t get to tour the globe with Exodus End, now do you?” She lifted one corner of her mouth.
His huff of a laugh was breathless with emotion, and his arms tightened around her. “So your bandmates are all foster kids?”
“All survivors,” she said. “Mama Ramona’s girls.”
The balcony door opened, and Sage—one of those survivors she’d mentioned—poked her head outside. “Been looking for you everywhere,” she said to Roux. “Should have known you’d be macking with Steve Aimes on the balcony.”
Steve’s hold on Roux loosened. She pressed her face against his chest and breathed in his scent, hoping to use it to recall this tender moment later.
“We weren’t making out,” Steve said. “I was behaving like a perfect gentleman.”
Roux leaned away and gazed up into his deep brown eyes. He averted his gaze, a smirk on his lips.
“For the first time in my hedonistic life.”
“That’s not what I saw, but who am I to call Steve Aimes a liar?” Sage teased. “Sam wants a group photo of Baroquen at our first world-tour party. We need you for just a minute, Roux, then you can get back to not standing tits to chest with a living legend.”
And what a nice, hard, well-defined chest her tits had been pressed against. Funny how she hadn’t been fixated on that when she’d had the opportunity. Roux had been too enraptured by the feeling of security and reliable strength Steve provided. She was pretty sure a quintessential rock star wasn’t supposed to make a woman feel safe. He was supposed to make her feel reckless, dirty, a bit dangerous. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to show him she wasn’t a tragic snowflake due to her dark past, she rose on tiptoe and kissed the corner of his mouth. It was meant to be a tender thank-you for listening to her tale. She didn’t anticipate him cupping the back of her head and turning his mouth to her chaste kiss, or him taking charge of her innocent smooch to make it something that burned through her body like a fuel-ignited inferno. Her arms fell limp at her sides as she opened her mouth to his gently stroking tongue, not wanting anything—not even the feel of his flesh beneath her palms—to interfere with her enjoyment of his claim on her mouth.
“Ha!” Sage clapped her hands. “I knew it.”
Steve released Roux’s mouth with a slow, tingling suction, and said in a deep voice that shredded her already frayed nerves, “Maybe I’ll see you later.”
“Maybe,” she said calmly, though inside she was screaming: Maybe? What the fuck do you mean, maybe?
“Come on, Roux,” Sage said. “They’re waiting for us.”
Roux forced herself to follow Sage back to the party, though every atom in her body was inexplicably drawn to the man she left on the balcony. She and the rest of her band posed through dozens of pictures with various party attendees—it seemed everyone wanted to be recognized as being present for Baroquen’s debut, though the new band had already released two albums and had been playing locally for years. She tried not to be too obvious about noticing when Steve returned to the party or when Steve greeted acquaintances or when Steve laughed at something some woman said. She had no claim over the man or anything he did. Hell, she didn’t even like the guy. More accurately, she didn’t like the guy she’d thought he was before she actually spent a few minutes alone with him.
Eventually, everyone who wanted a picture with Baroquen had taken the opportunity. Roux sighed in relief that she was free to move around the room again. Or better yet, now that several people were deep in drink and acting obnoxious, to return to the balcony.
“I’m going back outside for some fresh air,” she told Sage. “Just wanted to let you know in case I’m needed again.”
“I think Sam wants us to network,” Sage said.
“I’ll network outside.”
“Steve isn’t out there,” she said, as if she knew Roux was hoping he’d follow her. “I think he’s found someone else to mack with.”
Roux spotted him standing against the bar, a drink in one hand, a woman’s ass in the other. So much for him proving that she was wrong about him. He really was an asshole. And rather than look ashamed or uncomfortable, he seemed completely in his element.
“Yeah, well, whatever,” Roux said. “I need some air.”
Sage didn’t press her further. Sage and the rest of her bandmates knew Roux wasn’t big on parties involving alcohol. It wasn’t that she was afraid that some drunk might try to kill her. She was afraid that she might see everyone having a good time, decide she might as well get drunk herself, and then wind up an alcoholic like her father had been. Alcoholism started with one drink, and she refused to risk it.
She pushed open the balcony door, leaving it cracked a bit because she enjoyed listening to the music. She gripped the cool metal railing and swayed to the beat, her eyes closed, heart wide open to the music. Perhaps the dance floor was where she belonged tonight.
“Were you hoping I’d join you?”
Steve’s deep voice made her pause for several beats, but then the music found her again, and she continued letting the heavy bass line live through her body’s motions.
“I’m not sure what to think of you,” he said. “You look like a party girl. Right now you’re acting like a party girl. But when you speak?”
She turned to find him shaking his head in bewilderment.
His eyes lifted, and he met her gaze. “You speak from the heart, Roux.”
“Party girls don’t have hearts? Is that what you’re getting at?”
“I’m sure they do,” he said. “I’ve just not been allowed to glimpse any.”
“They’re probably afraid you’ll ditch them if they show the slightest substance.” That was initially why she’d opened up to him. She’d assumed the honesty would send him packing. She’d wanted him to ditch her. And then he had to go and surprise her by being kind and empathetic. At least that bit of deception hadn’t lasted long. There’d been no sympathy in that kiss.
“I’m not that callous,” he said.
She lifted an eyebrow.
He laughed, muscles tightening in all the right places, and pulled a hand through his shoulder-length brown hair, gathering it into a fist at the back of his head. “Okay, you got me. I can be that callous, but only because I don’t want to get hurt.”
