I think to my brief encounter with Cade. He’s more like the men my mother brought home—cocky, smug, thinks the world owes him. I wonder where he is now. With the girl he’d tried to pick up before the show? I remember what he’d said about his cock being pierced. Was that true? The thought makes me feel all hot and flustered. Then I remember what he’d said about sharing with his brother. Did they really do that, or had it just been said for my benefit, to shock me?
The image of being sandwiched between Cade’s and Darius’s big, hard, naked bodies flashes into my head, and I quickly push it away. I don’t know where that came from, and I vow to myself to not allow myself to think that way again. It isn’t even just that they’re my stepbrothers. It’s that any girl with half a brain cell can see these men would only want women around for one thing. Cade probably doesn’t even know how to spell the word respect.
“Are you coming with us back to the hotel?” Reed asks him.
Darius purses his lips and shakes his head. “No. Cade will be here shortly. He’s got something planned for us.”
I wonder if that something has anything to do with the girl in the short silver dress. A thread of bright green jealousy winds through me. Will she be the one who gets to be sandwiched between the two brothers? Will she have Darius’s knowledgeable hands all over her body, and get to experience Cade’s pierced cock?
“We’re flying out to Montreal first thing,” Reed says. “We need to be ready in the hotel lobby by seven. Got it?”
This is news to me. “Umm...am I coming?”
I don’t know what I’ll do with myself otherwise. Maybe he’ll let me go back to my trailer? But even as the thought occurs to me, the image of my mother sitting dead on the toilet flashes into my head, and I feel like I never want to see the place again.
Reed shoots me a curious glance. “Of course you’re coming.”
“But I don’t have a passport.”
“Don’t worry about that. I have my connections. You’ll have an emergency passport by the morning.”
“Oh, right.” I wonder who his connections are to get a passport that fast. I guess with enough money and fame behind you, you can achieve just about anything. I’ve also never been on a plane before, but I don’t tell him that. I don’t want to appear inexperienced or childish in front of him, and my lack of experience with travel or just the world outside of my small corner of Los Angeles makes me feel both.
We leave Darius in his dressing room and exit the concert hall. The driver is waiting for us, and he takes us back to the hotel.
Reed walks me up to my room, and we stop outside of my door.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asks. “I mean, after your mom...and it being your first night alone...”
I raise my eyebrows. “You’re not offering to stay with me, are you?”
He shoves his hands in his pockets and steps away, a frown furrowing his brow. “No, of course not. That would be completely inappropriate.”
“Yes, it would.”
Yet there is a part of me that wishes he would stay. I don’t really want to be alone, and I don’t mean that in aninappropriate way either. Just that it would be nice to sit with someone. To know there was another beating heart in the room.
“If you need anything, call down to the lobby. I’ll be back in the morning for us to leave for the airport together. Make sure you have everything packed.”
I’m about to tell him that I don’t have anythingtopack, but then I remember the personal shopper woman and all the clothes she brought. I assume I’ll also be able to take the toiletries from the bathroom. I might even pinch a towel. I figure I need it more than the hotel does. If the hotel notices it missing, I assume they’ll either add it to the room or just ignore it.
“Okay, well, night, Laney.”
“Night, Reed,” I say and let myself into the room.
I’m grateful to be out of the emerald dress and into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. I scrub the makeup off my face and brush my teeth with the toothbrush the hotel has provided.
I’m utterly exhausted, but my mind is racing. It darts toward memories of my mother, and tears threaten once more, so I force myself to think of more interesting things, such as my two new stepbrothers. What are they up to right now? Having the time of their lives, I bet.
The bed is the most comfortable thing I’ve ever slept on, but even surrounded by feather pillows and one thousand thread count sheets, I know sleep won’t be easy to find.
Chapter Seven
Reed
THE SUN IS BARELY OVERthe horizon, but I’m already hovering outside of Laney’s hotel room door, wondering if she’s awake yet.
I’ve already made sure both the boys made it back to their rooms last night, though I suspect neither of them was alone. That’s fine by me. They’re adults and, as long as they’re safe, they can bring back whomever they like.