I’m so fucked, but right now, I don’t care.
* * *
Every rose has its thorn, and every song has one too. For the Poison power ballad, it’s the belting.
That’s not normally a problem for me with the tune though. I’ve performed it so often, and it’s fun to sing.
The challenge tonight is brand new.Notsinging every single line to Chloe.
It’s the first number in my set, and I vow to focus on the whole audience when I stride onstage after Duke’s intro.
As the music begins from the karaoke machine at Pour Decisions, I make a point to make eye contact with everyone. Well, as many of the everyones as I can.
The group of nurses. The construction workers. A couple that comes in every week—they’re in their seventies, I’m guessing. They both have gray hair and wrinkles, but they dance their asses off. There’s a group of women likely here for a girls’ night out, judgingby the sequins, polished nails, and constant hugs. And a pack of twentysomethings—my money’s on friends from college. Most wear blinged-out T-shirts from the local university.
I sing to them, too, so I don’t give short shrift to the audience by focusing solely on Chloe. When I reach the chorus though, I figure she deserves her moment to be sung to. Right before I belt out the title lines, I find her near the front. Her red hair is swept up in a bun. A few strands frame her face. The wicked grin on her pretty pink lips is somehow sexy and exuberant at the same time.
It says there’s no place she’d rather be than right here. But when my eyes take a full and proper tour of my woman, I blink. Do a double take as I read her shirt twice.
She wasnotwearing that T-shirt when we drove over here together. I try to fight off a smile. It’s not fucking working. Because…Chloe’s wearing a shirt that saysSam Silversmith Makes Me Hit the High Notesacross her chest. It has to be from one of those while-you-wait print shops. Bet she made it today. That thought revs me up.
And feeds my own damn enthusiasm to sing. There’s just something special about crooning to someone who wants to be here. Someone who’s as into this as I am. I belt out the chorus to the whole crowd, but it feels different tonight.
Because I’m sharing my secret with someone who wants to know it.
At the end of the song, I lock eyes with her.
No, I’m not simply sharing Sam with someone who wants to know—Chloe’s the one I want to share this part of me with.
* **
Chloe flops down on her bed, sweaty, cheeks red, lips bruised, smelling like sex and cinnamon.
“I just fucked a rock star,” she says, still panting and murmuring after coming hard not long after we arrived at her home post-show.
I drag her close. “Sweetheart, the rock star fucked you.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please. Let me have my moment.”
“Whatever you want,” I say, then drop a quick kiss to her neck, inhaling her once more and letting her scent go to my head.
And my heart.
“I want…to go again. To Pour Decisions,” she says, propping her cheek in her palm as she shifts to her side, looking at me with hopeful eyes.
Like she thinks I might say no.
I tap my chin. “Hmm. Let me consider it.”
She sighs, over the top, then swats my shoulder. “Sawyer.”
“That’s Sam to you, groupie.”
“Sam would say yes to his favorite fangirl,” she says, a tease in her tone.
I roam a hand down her arm, and she trembles the slightest bit. Even after an orgasm. She’s so responsive, and I fucking love it. No, I’m addicted to it. “Sam would say yes…under one condition.”
Her eyes pop. “You’re going to blackmail me now?”
