One More Time Read online

  “You guys, as in, you know?” Missy’s cheeks flushed. “Celebrities. Rock stars. The rich and famous.”

  “Oh, those guys.” I smirked, tipping the top of my bottle to her. “Looks like we’re not all we’re cracked up to be.”

  “I’ve watched Cribs,” Missy said. “I know what some of the other people’s homes look like. Why don’t you have more… stuff?”

  “I don’t need any more stuff.” I was quickly growing tired of this conversation. Missy wasn’t getting into my brain or my heart. She seemed like a sweet girl, and she was hot as hell, but there was only one body part of mine she had a shot at. The rest were closed for business.

  It was time to shut down the questions. Any more answers or conversation would only lead her to believe that there was more to this than there was. That I wanted something that I didn’t. I was an asshole, a douchebag of the highest degree, but I didn’t lead women on.

  “Fame is fleeting, Missy. Yes, there are a lot of people with a lot of stuff. There are others who believe that the money well will never dry up. I know better. I use what I need. I live comfortably, but I don’t waste money on shit I’ll never use. What goes up, must come down. We’re on an upward trajectory now in Destitute, but eventually, we’ll crash and burn just like all those who came before us. I don’t plan on living so large now that I have nothing left for those days.”

  She was quiet as she listened, her eyes widening and her body moving closer to mine like she wanted to protect me or hold me up. Neither of those things were part of the deal tonight. “But Destitute is… You guys are bigger than ever. Do you really think it’ll all be over soon?”

  Fuck. The last thing I needed was for her to go running to the press with the headline, “Caleb Larsen says the end is in sight for Destitute”. We had to stop talking, or she had to get the fuck out of here. I closed the distance between us, planting one hand on her hip and the other lightly on her neck.

  “I’m not saying it will be. I’m just saying it could be. If you came over here to try to figure me out or learn shit about me, you’re here for the wrong reasons, and you should leave now.”

  My dick was already reacting to her clean, feminine scent and the way her tits pushed up against my chest, her nipples digging into me through her bra and our clothes. But if she didn’t know what the score was, he was staying in my pants until she left. Then I’d deal with it myself.

  Thankfully, Missy’s teeth sank into her bottom lip, and she shook her head. “I’m not here for the wrong reasons. I’m here to fuck you, Caleb Larsen. Is that an acceptable reason for being here?”

  “Absolutely.” Without giving myself time to overthink the fact that she wanted to fuck Caleb Larsen, lead guitarist of Destitute, not just Caleb, I had her panties on the floor and her legs spread wide open on my kitchen counter.

  She was glistening wet and swollen for me, exactly what I’d been looking for earlier. Attempt at conversation clearly forgotten as soon as I started touching her, Missy writhed and moaned and came twice on my fingers before I finally sheathed myself and thrust into her.

  “Christ, Missy,” I grunted when I hit home. Some of the other guys hardly ever bothered with the names of the chicks they fucked. I could never bring myself to cheapen the act quite that much. While I probably wouldn’t remember her name in a couple of days, at least I knew it now.

  I lost myself in the familiar rhythm of sex, the pants, the grunts, the telltale spasming of her velvety walls around my cock. Once she’d shouted my name so loudly that my ears rang, I surrendered to the burst of heat at the base of my spine, feeling my balls tighten as my dick twitched and I emptied myself into the condom.

  Missy propped herself up with her elbows on the kitchen counter, breathing heavily and smiling at me after I’d taken care of the condom. We’d never even gotten around to completely removing her dress, now crumbled up at her waist.

  “Wow, you’re amazing at that.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I hated this part, the after part. The part where I realized that even though the sex was fine, good even, and even though I’d gotten off, I still felt empty.

  It was the same way it’d been since—No. Nope. I wasn’t going there. Instead, I muttered about having to get back to my home studio and saw Missy out.

  Watching her drive away, I wondered if I should’ve asked her to stay. But no, nothing good would have come from that. I learned that a long time ago. There was a reason I only did one-night stands, why girls like Missy could never be invited to stay.

  No.

  One-night stands was it for me. Elizabeth had made fucking sure of that.

  Chapter 4

  Kelly

  The start of November was holding true as the start of the rainy season in Los Angeles. Raindrops splattered against the windows of the ballroom where the Destitute press conference was being held, completely drowned out by the din of the crowd, the flashing of bulbs, and finally, the roar when the guys came out onto the makeshift stage.

  The sky outside was gray and dreary, but inside here, it was bright and loud. Intros to some of the new Destitute songs played as the band took their seats, with Alicia settling in behind a podium at the far end of the stage.

  The men of Destitute were all dressed in black, with the exception of Nick who was wearing a forest green Henley that brought out the flecks of green in his eyes. Jared wore sunglasses, even though we were indoors, but given the amount of cameras in the room, I couldn’t entirely blame him.

  As soon as he took the stage, I could see that he was in full-on “Emperor of Rock” mode, as Alicia called it. She swore he wasn’t like that in private, but that remained to be seen. I’d only caught glimpses of what she called the Real Jared, the one she slept next to at night.

  The night she was attacked, for instance. That night, he couldn’t have been further away from the cocky rock God who was starting to take questions from the crowd with his usual swagger. A deranged fan of his had accused him months ago of having fathered her child. Alicia figured out that the woman was lying and that it wasn’t the first time she’d made up a story like it, uncovering her true identity. Turned out, she hadn’t even been pregnant.

  The fan in question, Madison whose real name was Jenny Green, refused to believe that Jared not only didn’t father her non-existent child, but also that he didn’t want to be with her. She believed that Jared was her soulmate and that Alicia was standing in the way of all that, so she tried to kill my sister.

  I still shuddered to think about it, and the very memory had me back to paying attention to Jared, sending him silent mental thanks. He hadn’t let Alicia out of his sight for weeks after it happened, taking her on vacation and eventually practically moving her in with him until the woman was apprehended and arrested. Alicia hadn’t been happy about that at the time.

  Of course, she’d never moved out again, so there was that. But my sister had never been happier, and though I knew most of the crowd didn’t know them well enough to see, I noticed all the little looks Jared shot Alicia’s way and her tiny smile when he hit the nail on the head with a question he was asked.

  I wondered if Caleb also had a Real Caleb side that he was hiding from the world, or whether only one Larsen brother was part human, part persona. If it was a persona on Caleb’s part, it was a damn good one.

  The man hadn’t cracked a smile since they’d walked in, hadn’t answered one question and looked slightly… bored? Or maybe it wasn’t boredom. It kind of looked like he was lost in thought, like he’d checked out of the press conference completely.

  “This tour is going to totally insane, sick, off the charts,” Jared was promising when I turned my attention back to him. “Does that answer your question?”

  A reporter to my left, a young girl with doe eyes who was fluttering her eyelashes at Jared, nodded and flashed him a smile. I glanced at Alicia to see if she’d noticed the flirtatious glances this woman was sending her fiancé, and sure enough, there Alicia was, glaring daggers
at her.

  To his credit, Jared didn’t look twice at the reporter, scanning the room and nodding at a beefy man on the other side of the room to indicate that he would take his question.

  Maybe he wasn’t as oblivious to the girl as I’d first thought. His next choice of reporter certainly seemed to be bid to appease Alicia and perhaps get a breather from being hit on. The man cleared his throat loudly and checked the notes he’d made in a grease-smeared notebook.

  “Thank you for taking my question, Mr. Larsen.” Jared looked amused at being referred to so formally while the man tugged at his collar and rechecked his notes. “Is there any song on this new album that means more to you than the others, and if so, which one and why?”

  I barely suppressed a loud groan. I may not have been working at GNM for a long time yet, but I knew my editor would throttle me for asking such a boring question. Those were the kinds of questions asked in radio interviews or the written ones that you submitted for answers.

  When you had the band right there in front of you with no holds barred, live access, you had to go for the questions that warranted seeing their reactions as you asked them. Jared lifted a dark brow, the corners of his lips pressing together in a way that told me he was as surprised by the meek question as I was and about to have some fun with it.

  “As you know, Mr.—” Jared quickly looked to Alicia, who mouthed Barry. “Mr. Barry, I’ve always said that I write music from my soul. When there’s something inside that wants out, I grab a pen and a piece of paper and let it out. It was no different with this album.”

  And there was Jared’s particular brand of media-trained superstar fun. The non-answer, said in such a way that it made you feel like he’d truly bared a piece of his soul to only you right there. By the time you realized that he’d given you zip, nada, and nothing, it was too late, and he’d have moved on.

  Hey, I bet that’s what all those girls he used to be with thought. Bada bing. I giggled quietly at my internal joke, schooled my features, and listened as he repeated the move with a couple more reporters.

  Finally, he slid his dark sunglasses to the tip of his nose to reveal his eyes, sparkling with mischief or maybe dirty thoughts of my sister, and nodded to me. “Ms. Diamond. You got a question for me?”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Larsen.” I made sure to place just a smidge of sarcastic emphasis on his name and kind of loved that I could see the laughter he was just barely holding in. He was going to be one hell of a fun brother-in-law. That was for sure.

  It sucked that I was about to ask a question that he wasn’t going to like, but those were the breaks.

  “You’ve recently become engaged.” Jared’s eyes narrowed in suspicion at where I was going with this question for a fraction of a second before his “Emperor” persona was firmly back in place. “What do you say about the talk that your engagement is affecting the band and that it’s making you lose your edge?”

  Alicia shot me a well-deserved dirty look, but Jared stayed smoothly embedded in his persona, laughing the question off and shrugging. “I’d say that’s horseshit and whoever’s talking like that knows it. Every great emperor needs a great empress. I’m better than I’ve ever been before.”

  That was exactly what I’d thought he would say, so I came prepared to take the question to the rest of the band. “Anyone else wanna weigh in on this one?”

  Matt, sitting directly beside Jared, did a mocking bow with his arms and head on the tabletop in front of him. “If the Emperor’s happy, I’m happy.”

  His response got a tinkle of laughter from the crowd. Then they quieted down, and I looked to Nick. To my disappointment, he hid his discomfort behind a trademark smirk, leaned toward his microphone slowly and seductively, licked his lips, and waited a beat before saying, “Pass.”

  Dominic was next down the line, running his hand through his long hair and squeezing it together at the base of his neck to offer a curt, “No comment.”

  For the first time since the conference started, Caleb looked like he was actually paying attention. In fact, he looked amused by the question, putting his elbows squarely on the table and facing the audience head on as he spoke into his microphone.

  “I think the tour’s going to be interesting proof of whether or not love makes rockers weak, don’t you?” he asked.

  He turned the full weight of his gaze onto me, and it felt like he could see straight through me, those dark eyes looking right into the heart of my soul. It was completely disquieting and yet completely natural at the same time, like we’d been exchanging meaningful looks our whole lives. And I didn’t even know what this look meant or whether it meant anything at all.

  Outside of a few shared glances when his brother and my sister were engaging in acts of PDA so sweet they threatened to make our teeth ache, I’d never exchanged any kind of look with him at all. Yet here it was, as natural and comforting as breathing.

  When I finally tore my eyes away from Caleb’s, Jared had moved on to taking other questions, and I took to studiously avoiding Alicia’s gaze. Shortly after the press conference wrapped up, however, there was no more avoiding her.

  She appeared at my elbow out of nowhere and dragged me into an abandoned hallway behind the stage area, blue eyes flashing in anger and frustration as she turned to face me. “What the fuck was that all about?”

  “Whoa.” I took a step back from her and threw my hands up. “That was me doing my job, in case you’ve forgotten. We talked about this just last night.”

  “And this is exactly what I was afraid of, you delving into things that we discuss in private in a public forum.” She dragged a hand through her loose blonde waves.

  “I didn’t use anything we talked about privately!” I protested. “You know as well as I do that Jared’s not losing his edge. If anything, you’ve sharpened it. As for the band, doesn’t look like they’re affected by it.”

  “Why’d you ask that question, then?”

  I sighed exasperatedly. “Because I had to, Alicia. It’s my job. That really is the word on the streets. God knows where people get it from, but there you have it. I would never betray your trust like that.”

  “I guess.” The fire in her eyes died down until there were only embers of it left. “Still, you could’ve told me. Like you said, we talked about this just last night.”

  “Controversy sells, sis. If I had told you, you would’ve warned Jared, and his response wouldn’t have been authentic. Chinese wall, remember?”

  “Chinese wall,” she repeated, then sighed again and nodded. I could tell from the little twitch in her left eye and the set of her shoulders that she was still annoyed, but at least she wasn’t pissed anymore.

  “Besides, it’s stuff like this kind of controversy that gets the band even more attention, you know? The word’s already out there. It’s just about presenting it to them and seeing how they take it.”

  “If only it weren’t my sister that had to present the rumor that I’m killing my fiancé’s band and his career,” Alicia replied dryly, letting me know that I was spot on about her lingering irritation.

  “I never said you were killing the band or his career. Neither did anyone else. Okay, maybe a few people did at first, but you get my point. The public’s curious about how an engagement is fitting into the whole, ‘we’re players’ thing the band has always had going. It’s no secret that none of them do relationships, and then boom, lead singer and songwriter Jared Larsen gets engaged to the band’s PR chick at a press conference. Those stories kind of write themselves, don’t you see?”

  “People still think our engagement is a PR stunt after the fake pregnancy thing with Madison?” A haunting sadness suddenly flickered behind her eyes, and I knew that those tough days for them were not yet forgotten, so I shook my head fast.

  “Nope, I don’t think so. Now they’re just wondering how having a member who’s married will affect the band in the long run.”

  She nodded. “I see your point, I guess. Doesn’t mean t
hat I liked the question.”

  “Maybe not, but since controversy sells, maybe you lean into that question a little. Caleb was the only one who really answered. Maybe playing up the brotherly rival angle is exactly what you need right now.”

  “There’s no brotherly rivalry going on.” Alicia scoffed, though I could see that she was a bit uncertain. Maybe Caleb really wasn’t too impressed with the engagement. Alicia herself didn’t think Caleb thought they would last for very long.

  “How about you let me interview him? Caleb. Let me get a follow-up on the discomfort he showed when I asked the question. I could help you play up that angle.” A small seed of hope started blooming in my chest. It was a fucked-up way of getting it, for sure, but this interview could give me some alone time with Caleb.

  Maybe I could finally see if that something in me that was drawn to that something in him was justified, or whether he was nothing more than a moody rock star who lived in his brother’s shadow. I couldn’t imagine that that was it, but who knew?

  I didn’t, but I had every intention of finding out.

  Alicia chewed her lower lip, her narrowed eyes on mine. “I’m not sure. Let me talk to the band about this, and I’ll get back to you, okay?”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “I’ve gotta get back to the office and write all this up. I’ll talk to you later?”

  “Sure.” We hugged, and Alicia set off in the direction where the band’s dressing rooms were set up when a last thought occurred to me.

  “And Alicia, you better get used to seeing me around because I’m going to be on the band like white on rice when the tour starts, okay? Just promise me that you’ll trust that no matter what I ask, I would never do it to intentionally hurt either you or Jared.”

  Alicia gave me a swift nod, muttering something about walls, and disappeared around the corner. I knew that she was still worried about my going on tour with them, but all I’d just done was given her a taste of what it was going to be like. She might not have liked the taste at first, but she did say that I had a good point a few times, so I was thinking that we were going to be okay.