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“Ah, there’s the one,” Steve said in what Roux considered a rather smug tone.
“Make yourself useful,” Roux snapped. “Can’t you see she needs help?”
“Is she drunk?” Steve asked, shifting out of his relaxed pose against the far window, but not before Roux noticed what she could only describe as his “I’m a male model waiting for you with one foot on the seat and my arm resting seductively on my knee” pose. Who sat in cars in that position? Steve Aimes, that was who.
“Jussssst a little tipsy,” Azura said, her words muffled by the seat against her mouth.
Roux massaged her brow, trying not to laugh at the ridiculous and exasperating situation she found herself in. Steve managed to get Azura into a slumped seated position before returning to his original semi-reclined position. The car started forward, and Roux, who’d been crouching, trying to figure out where she should sit, tumbled back onto Azura’s lap with the momentum.
“Maybe you should try his lap instead,” Azura said in what she probably thought was a whisper. Steve’s smirk made it clear that he’d heard her.
Roux adjusted herself so she was sitting next to Azura instead of on top of her. But that put her closer to Steve’s foot, which was resting on the seat. Again, who the hell sat like that in a limo? Was he anticipating a photographer would show up with a camera and do a fashion shoot?
“I wasn’t expecting you to bring a friend, but I’m game,” Steve said.
Roux’s face went hot. She hoped he took her heightened color for the anger she felt, not the added arousal his innuendo had flushed through her.
“I didn’t know you’d be in here,” she said. “I figured you’d already be at the hotel. Waiting.” She lifted her gaze to meet his. “Alone. As I’d planned to leave you.”
“Roux!” Azura snorted. “You’re joking, I hope. You don’t leave Steve Aimes alone. You just don’t.”
Steve offered Azura a sensual smile that made Roux’s toes curl inside her boots. Now why couldn’t he smile at her like that? Maybe because she was so contrary in his presence. But she couldn’t help it. He pissed her off! No one should be as full of himself as he was. Not even a living legend.
But she had glimpsed a different side of him. A side she was pretty sure he kept hidden from most people. His tender side. There were no signs of it now, however.
“So what do you say?” Steve’s gaze moved from Azura to Roux. There was a question in his exotic brown eyes. “Two’s company, three’s a ménage.”
Before Roux could tell him to fuck off, Azura’s scrambling hands reached for her bucket and she heaved the contents of her stomach, accompanied by a forceful splash, into the plastic container.
Roux cringed, fighting her own waves of nausea, but dutifully held back the hair of Azura’s waist-length blue and black wig as the poor thing found more to throw up. Thank God she’d thought to bring a bucket.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Steve said. “Some other time maybe.”
“Sorry,” Azura said between pants for air. “I thought I could make it home before . . . Before—”
She puked again, and Roux was pretty sure she’d join her if she didn’t soon get away from the stench wafting from the rapidly filling bucket.
The limo pulled to a stop, and a different security guard opened the door. Without so much as a blink, the poor guy accepted the bucket of puke Steve took from Azura and handed to him. Steve exited the car and then reached inside to scoop Azura into his arms.
“I’ve got you,” he said, cradling her against his chest. “Where to?”
As Roux watched him hold her friend in his strong arms, she suddenly understood one reason it might be beneficial to get falling-down, throwing-up drunk. She hurried ahead of them, glancing back every few seconds to make sure Steve was behaving himself around her judgment-impaired sister. Roux probably should have been more worried about Azura making moves on Steve since she breathed him in and murmured, “You smell nice.”
“Better than you do at the moment,” he replied, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement.
Azura was too wasted to be insulted. If she remembered his words in the morning, though, she’d likely be mortified. She had puked her guts out in front of the iconic drummer of Exodus End.
“Tequila is not your friend, Azura,” Roux muttered as she followed security into a waiting elevator car in the hotel lobby.
“But you are, Roooo-zey,” she slurred. “You always take care of us.” She blinked up at Steve. “Who are you?”
“I’m Steve, but some call me Trouble.”
Azura laughed as if he’d said the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard. “Trouble. That’s a funny name.”
And fitting, Roux wagered. Azura went a bit green as the elevator began its climb to their floor. Roux tried to focus on her sister’s well-being instead of the distracting bulging biceps in her peripheral vision, but damn if the man didn’t have the most amazing body she’d ever seen.
“Thanks for helping us get to our room,” Roux said.
“I might have a few ulterior motives.”
“Yeah, Butch told me about those.”
“And?”
She licked her lips and met his gaze steadily, Butch’s advice playing through her ears. “It’s not happening, Aimes. You might as well get the idea out of your head.” She wondered if she meant that, or if she was actually hoping that Butch’s warning about Steve pursuing her relentlessly became her reality. She just wasn’t sure how long she’d keep running.
Was ten minutes long enough?
Six
Steve shifted the drunk girl in his arms and watched Roux fiddle with the velvet stays of her corset. He had a hunch that dear old Butch had told her to play hard to get, the bastard. What neither of them knew was that while that ploy used to work on him, he was wiser and more mature than he’d been when he’d fallen head over ass in love with Bianca. He knew what that level of passion and obsession brought—utter misery and irreparable heartache. He was not looking for a repeat of the anguish his ex-wife had pressed upon him.
The elevator dinged, and he followed Roux down the hall, hoping Miss Too-Much-Tequila didn’t puke all over him before he dropped her off. As far as he could tell, the woman was unconscious. She’d become a complete deadweight in his now-straining arms, but hell if he’d drop her and show an ounce of weakness in front of Roux. Roux used a keycard that had been hiding in her bra—lucky card—to unlock a door and pushed it open. A pretty, dark-haired girl—wearing only a pair of men’s boxers and a black bra—whirled around at their intrusion.
“For fuck’s sake, Roux. What the hell are you doing back so early? Are you ever going to learn to party? It’s not even midnight!”
“Azura hit the tequila a bit too hard,” Roux said. “Is the connecting door unlocked?”
That was when the yet-to-be-introduced woman noticed Steve leaning against the wall to help support Azura’s ever-increasing weight. Miss Wears-Men’s-Underwear gaped at him, her mouth and eyes wide with disbelief.
“Steve Aimes,” he introduced himself. “And you would be?”
“Oh my God, what is he doing here?” the woman shrieked.
He couldn’t tell if hers was a positive or negative reaction. Roux had ventured toward door along one wall, and he shifted Azura more securely in his arms to follow her.
“Her name is Raven,” Roux said. r />
“Hello, Raven,” he said as he passed her.
“Oh my God, he’s even sexier in person!”
He was glad someone noticed since Roux seemed impervious to his obvious appeal. He placed Azura on one of the beds in the adjoining room, and before Roux could loosen her clothing to make her more comfortable, Raven rushed over and pushed Roux aside.
“Don’t mess up her costume,” Raven said, leaning over Azura with splayed hands, as if protecting a golden shroud. “I’ve got this. And take him with you. You know how Azura is about being naked in front of ridiculously hot guys.”
Based on the confused look on Roux’s face, she had no idea what Raven was talking about. Either that or Roux didn’t think the ridiculously hot description fit him. Steve took Raven’s words as his cue to exit the room, and he tried not to overhear Raven whisper to Roux, “Now’s a good time to loosen up. Here, you might need this.”
“Why would I need a condom?” Roux’s voice got closer as Raven started shoving her from the room.
“Just a hunch,” Raven said.
Raven shut the connecting door in Roux’s face, leaving her alone with Steve. He wasn’t ready to leave—not unless she was coming with him. She glanced at him, her cheeks pink, and tucked the condom into her corset. He hoped that meant she trusted Raven’s hunches.
“Have you had second dinner yet?” he asked.
“Second dinner?”
“I’m starved. After a show I always need second dinner. Usually it consists mostly of alcohol, but—”
“You can drink,” she said. “I never suggested you couldn’t drink.”
He didn’t want a drink. “I think I need to be in full command of my senses when I’m around you.”
Her amazing gold-rimmed green eyes narrowed. “Why?”
He didn’t honestly know, but said, “You’re beguiling enough without the thought-scrambling detriment of whiskey.”
She smiled, and color rose up her throat. His heart skipped a beat. Fuck, she was beautiful when she smiled. And when she didn’t smile. Or when she scowled or produced any expression or none at all. She was beautiful.
