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A hot, emergent wave of nausea swept me away, nearly knocking me on my ass, and with a white-knuckled grip on the bar’s edge, I willed my gut to hold on to the dinner I’d reluctantly eaten earlier.
I had known Tarryn was presenting the award with Angels of the Silences. Hell, I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t been a selling point when she asked me to attend as her plus-one. And, yeah, okay, I had hoped I’d get the privilege to stand in Dylan Pierce’s shadow for just one cherished second. But it hadn’t happened at the award show, so I’d assumed it just wasn’t going to happen at all. Especially since the band had been collectively straight-edge when Dave Lee quit drinking years ago. Their likelihood to attend parties was slim to none these days, and I’d thought I’d be free to relax and enjoy the life of the rich and famous for a night.
Never in a thousand years would I have expected Dylan himself to be standing next to me at a bar.
Please, Lord, don’t let me puke right now.
And if I absolutely have to, don’t let it be on his nice shoes.
“Hi, Tarryn,” he replied in that whiskey-warm voice I’d been in love with since I had been nine years old and listened to his debut album on my Sony portable CD player.
“Can I do something for you?” she asked with an enviable confidence I wished I could borrow for a few minutes. Just long enough to be able to look at him without losing the chicken marsala, which was now doing backflips in my quivering stomach.
He leaned down to fold his tattooed forearms against the cool, glossy countertop. I could smell him now, yet still, I refused to look in his direction. Leather, cloves, sandalwood, and the faintest hint of bergamot tickled my senses, and I fought the urge to close my eyes and groan.
No man has the right to smell that good.
“Actually, yeah,” he replied, equally as confident. “I was hoping you would introduce me to your friend.”
When I had been younger, I had convinced my teenybopper heart that I would one day marry Nick Jonas. There was never a single doubt in my hopeful, childish, inexperienced brain that there was less than a snowball’s chance in hell of me even meeting him, let alone marrying him at the ripe old age of ten. It had been a cruel day when my own well-meaning mother drove a stake through my heart, insisting it was never going to happen, and from that day forward, I never believed I’d ever be in the presence of my heroes or favorite celebrities.
Tarryn not included, of course.
Now, I wished I had been more prepared for a moment like this. Just in case it ever happened. Not with Nick Jonas—because he was happily married now—but anyone I had previously assumed I was unworthy of.
Dylan Pierce especially.
He wanted my name.Mine.
Shit, do I even have one? What the hell is it? I knew it two seconds ago. Does Tarryn know? Maybe Mom can help, if I can just sneak away long enough to give her a call …
“This lovely lady is Lennon,” Tarryn said, stepping in with the knowledge I’d suddenly lacked. “Lenny, allow me to introduce you to Mr. Dylan freakin’ Pierce.”
My eyes found the twinkling, excited gaze of my best friend, and there, I saw her hope for me to have this opportunity. This chance she knew I’d wanted ever since I had been a kid in ripped jeans and baggy sweatshirts. And just like that, as if by magic, something happened to me. My brain made the knee-jerk decision to pretend, only for tonight, that I held the same showstopping self-confidence she carried everywhere she went.
I was unlikely to hold on to it for long—I knew that. But one night wasn’t likely to kill me, if it meant having a chance at a conversation with the man of my dreams.
Sucking in the deepest breath my lungs could manage, I pulled my shoulders back and held my head high as I finally—finally—turned to face him.
Tears bit the backs of my eyes at the reality of his presence, standing right there, inches away from me. His elbow—his fucking bare, tattooed skin—was grazing my arm, and the intimacy was enough to send jolts of electric passion through my pitiful veins. His icy eyes, glowing hauntingly beneath the penthouse lights, stared straight into mine and through to my trembling soul, and I prayed to God and whoever else was out there that I wasn’t squinting.
“Lennon,” he said, his tone dripping with primal hunger, as he swiped his bottom lip with a tongue I had fantasized about more times than I cared to admit. “Where have I seen you before?”
Tonight, you’re Tarryn, I reminded my shaken core before uttering the first thing I’d ever say in his presence. “Oh, I doubt you’ve ever seen me before.”
He pursed his lips, searching my face with heavy-lidded eyes, then shook his head slowly. “No, I have. My soul remembers when it’s been touched, and it has definitely been touched by you before now.”
That anxious, nauseating wave of panic was back with a vengeance. God, was that ever a line, but it was a good one.
And he had used it onme.
There was nothing I wanted more than to believe it was true, but I’d also be an idiot. Dylan had no idea I’d even existed before this moment, and a stupid, poetic line wasn’t going to convince me of that.
So, remembering I was Tarryn for the night, I pulled an easy smile and rolled my eyes. “You probably say that to woo the panties off all the ladies.”
Dylan’s dark brows pinched as his head tipped back. “Actually, I’ve never said that to anyone before, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true,” he said. Then, with a suggestive quirk of his perfect lips, he added, “But if it woos you out of your panties, I’ll consider it a bonus.”
My heart raced, and my mouth opened to reply when Tarryn exclaimed with a slap of her hand against the bar, “Well! I’m just gonna take my little drinky-poo here and see if James would like to chat.”
