She made sure not to leave the roses behind. Oh no, she had plans for the two secondhand, wilting blossoms Jonah Speed had given her.


The opportunity to put that plan into action presented itself not a minute later as the sound of deep male laughter echoed through the air behind her.

Hot chills ran up her spine, heating her skin and making her shiver at the same time. Stopping midstep, she turned around, forcing the two men and a woman walking behind her to either stop suddenly themselves or collide with her.

One man stopped dead, the other two effortlessly sidestepped her.

Eve caught a whiff of Jordan Speed’s aftershave as he walked by still chuckling, his arm slung casually around the woman’s shoulders. “See you on the other side,” he called to his brother, and they continued on their way.

She tried to still her insanely beating heart. Honestly she did. If she was going to spend the next six months on tour with the band, she couldn’t break out in fan-girl spasms every time one of the brothers came within a three-mile radius.

But Jordan Speed had just walked past her. Jordan Speed, for heaven’s sake!

How on earth could she still her crazy heart and shaking hands in the presence of Jordan and Jonah Speed?

Although Jordan and the woman were already gone, leaving her face-to-face, once again, with the middle Speed brother.

The laughter that had boomed from his chest seconds ago died, and the smile that had lit his face, temporarily blinding her with its brilliance, straightened as he regarded her with those smoldering green eyes.

God! This man screamed sex. Blatant, raw sex. The kind of sex that should be outlawed.

He fogged her ability to think rationally.

Eve’s shirt pulled tight across her breasts, irksome and uncomfortable. Again the urge to remove it—and her bra—skittered across her arms.

She rounded her shoulders, refusing to let his innate sensuality interfere with her plan. She didn’t care how famous—or gorgeous—Jonah was, her clothes would stay firmly in place.

“I’d hoped to run into you again tonight.” Wow, was that her voice? It sounded surprisingly steady, seeing as her lungs weren’t functioning at full capacity.

“Beautiful, you can run into me anytime, day or night.” His reply was spoken through luscious, full and tantalizing lips.

She didn’t want to run, she wanted to crash into him at full speed.

Pardon the pun.

“Look, while I’m hugely complimented that you’d want to give me flowers, and while I thank you for thinking I’m…beautiful—” She tripped over the word. It wasn’t one she associated with herself. It wasn’t one anyone associated with her. “I just can’t accept these.” She held the roses out to Jonah.

Surely it was both criminal and unjust for a man to look this good? Smell so good? Sound so good…

Jonah looked at her, baffled. “You’re giving them back to me?”

“I am.” She tried to ignore the fact that his voice was as intoxicating as the rest of him. It was deep and velvety, like a gentle vibration from a bass drum.

Instead of accepting the flowers, Jonah folded his arms across his chest.

The movement drew her gaze to that beautifully sculpted chest. And to the tanned arms and outrageously broad shoulders. His shirt was plastered to his skin, outlining the exquisite muscle definition beneath.

Eve struggled to draw breath. Since when had sweaty men turned her on?

Since never, that’s when, yet one look at Jonah’s shoulders, at the way that shirt hugged them, the way his damp hair curled around his face, and funny things happened in places she shouldn’t be thinking about now.

“Why?”

“Because as well-intentioned and as lovely as your gesture was, somehow secondhand roses fail to make me feel beautiful.”

“Secondhand?” Jonah looked startled, taken aback even, but then his confidence seemed to bounce right back into place. “You think I gave you used flowers?” The smile that lifted the corner of his mouth was slow in coming, but once it was there…boy, it stopped her lungs altogether for a good few seconds.

“Those flowers were tossed onstage for you. Not me.”

“Which made them my flowers. Is it a crime to give away something that belongs to me?”

“Not a crime. No. And as I said, your intentions were thoughtful and complimentary. But those roses…they were meant for you. They were given to you.”

His response perplexed her. First he raised an eyebrow in surprise, then he gave a confused shake of his head and finally he stuck out his hand, not to take the roses but in introduction. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet. I’m Jonah Speed.”

She eyed his palm warily as her fingers feathered once again over her left cheek, a nervous habit she wished she could break but knew she never would.

There was no way Jonah could know it, but a handshake was something Eve avoided whenever possible. Instinct, and a slight tingle in her palm, told her this shake would reveal more about Jonah than he’d be willing to share.

Besides, she didn’t want to shake Jonah’s hand, she wanted to clutch it and press it to her breast. And her ass. And her…

Behave.

“It’s nice to meet you, Jonah.” Instead of shaking his extended hand, she placed the roses into it, making good and sure she didn’t touch his skin in the process. She strongly suspected if her hand so much as grazed his she’d be forced to grab great big handfuls of the man, see whatever she was meant to see and never let go again.

His fingers wrapped around the stems and he looked at them curiously, as though not sure how to respond. Then he dipped his head in acceptance and pulled his arm back. “You’re right. It never occurred to me that you’d view these flowers as secondhand, or that I was giving away something meant expressly for me. My apologies. It must seem incredibly rude.”

He sounded both surprised and sincere, making Eve wonder if anyone had ever rejected a gift from Jonah Speed before her.

Her smile was as gentle and forgiving as her tone. “No apologies necessary. It was a lovely gesture.” She tried. God help her, she tried, but she just couldn’t help herself. Eve had to touch him. She grazed her hand gently over his biceps, just below the edge of his sleeve, so she met bare skin. Sparks shot through her hand straight up her arm.

With that, and before she did something stupid—like rip off that irksome top of hers and jump him—she turned back around and, tugging her makeup case behind her, continued down the tunnel until she entered the arena and dressing rooms.

She felt Jonah’s gaze on her back the entire way. It drilled into her like a million sharp darts of awareness.

Eve was only too relieved to shut herself in Delilah and Devine’s change room. Her heart pounded, a million beats a minute for sure. Jonah’s drums probably couldn’t hammer louder.

Never had anyone affected her so. Never had she desperately wanted to shove herself in a man’s embrace like she did with Jonah. Put herself at his mercy and beg him to do anything and everything to her body. He’d handed her half-dead, used roses, and all she could think now was how damn much she wanted to sleep with him.

No. Not sleep. Fuck him—all the way through the night and long into the next morning.

But then, who didn’t want to fuck him? He was Jonah Speed—rock legend, drummer extraordinaire and lethal to women.

Eve breathed deeply, calming herself while she waited for Delilah and Devine to shower before she fixed their hair and makeup, preparing them for the after party.

It was well past midnight by the time the crew arrived back at the hotel. Too tired to even contemplate a party—the third one in less than a week—no matter how much the back-up singers insisted she join them, and perhaps too scared to contemplate coming face to face with Jonah again, she ignored the party suite—jam-packed and writhing with people—and made her way to her own room.

The first thing that caught her eye as she opened the door was a massive bouquet of stunning blood-red roses, centered on the small table beneath the window. There must have been fifty long-stemmed flowers in the glass vase, each one fresher and more dazzling than the next. Their fragrance filled the room, making Eve dizzy.

She threw her key card and bag on the bed, set her makeup kit against the wall and trudged over to read the card attached.


Not secondhand, I promise.

These are meant only for you.

J

Chapter Two

With his customary bottle of beer in hand, Zachary slipped through the crowded suite, searching for Luke. He had to thank the guy for cutting short the interview he’d just been subjected to. Although the TV anchorwoman had behaved like the ultimate professional, her cameraman had openly propositioned him, painting an explicit picture of what Zachary could do to him and the interviewer, given the opportunity.

He shuddered. His days of sex for the sake of sex were over.

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

T-shirts, he amended silently. Zachary had collected a sickening number of them, each one representative of his various degrees of debauchery. If it was doable, he’d done it, and the memories did not always make him proud.

Zachary never found Luke. Instead he was waylaid by a group of teenage girls. With their long hair, skinny jeans, skimpy shirts and impossibly high heels, they all looked the same. Zachary had long since stopped trying to differentiate one face from another. He’d become too accustomed to the clusters of females who swarmed him.