JaxAs much as I loved a rare day off when we were on tour, I knew there was always a catch. And it was no different now. Erik wanted us to be seen. Those were his words.Seen.Like we were new to all of this. Like we wouldn’t be recognised. But of course, that’s exactly what Erik wanted. He wanted the internet to blow up with pictures of us doing mundane everyday things. Like sight seeing and eating out in public. It wasn’t even the first time we had done it. And every time we did, we saw a huge rise in sales, and our already full concerts would have queues around the corner. “Why the face like a slapped ass… again?” Louis asked, his eyes darting every which way. It was like he was taking it all in, all at once. He looked like he wasn’t paying attention, but I knew that was a lie. In the years I had known him, and the months he had been playing with us, I had come to realise that Louis might look like a dumb air head but was far from it. He was stupidly intelligent. He was also a cl
JaxI dropped her hand a second before we stepped from the street and back into the air-conditioned coolness of the hotel lobby five hours later. It was the first time in the five hours since we had escaped security that I hadn’t been touching her, and my hand felt empty without hers in it. Half of me expected her to kick up a fuss at me dropping her like that, but when I glanced at her, there was no judgement on her face. Her smile was small, sure, but she didn’t look angry.She looked like she understood.Which all by itself was a marvel, because I sure as hell didn’t. I didn’t understand any of the feelings that were racing through my body. She made my heart speed up and my cock ache, and I hadn’t even kissed her yet. All we had done all day was hold hands, that was it. Which shouldn’t have been enough to make me pant after her like a horny dog. But I was. I wanted her with a need that shocked me. “Where the fuck have you been?”I stepped away from her guiltily as Tate swept towa
JaxWhat was the old saying?The show must go on.In our case, or more specifically for Dion, that was doubly true. We had a show, and we couldn’t do it without him. No matter how much he might wish it was different, how much he might prefer that he could sit and drown his troubles in the bottom of a vodka bottle.In reality, it was a wonder he had been sober enough to perform at all, but somehow Elodie had managed it. I didn’t know what she had said to him when she had asked for us all to leave them together. None of us knew what they spoke about, but I was thankful for whatever it was. Because when Dion opened his mouth and started singing, it was almost like old times. To the thousands crowded below us, he seemed normal. It was only to us, to those few who knew what a hard time he was having, that he all was not as it seemed. We noticed the microscopic differences.Still, it went better than I thought it would, considering. In fact, if anything, the crowd was even more wild than us
ElodieThe nightclub where Dionysus Rising were set to appear was packed before I got there, the queue stretching around the block. Normally I would have paused and wondered if I should join the end of the line, but not tonight. I was in a foul mood; waiting for hours to get to my employers would only make it worse.The meeting with Legacy hadn’t gone to plan, but then again, I really hadn’t expected it to. I had heard enough from the guys who worked security and knew he had left his promising career and gone back. Fucking gone back to the life we both promised we would leave far, far behind us. It wasn’t even that I was angry at him for his decision. But I was pissed that I’d had to hear it from the others and not from him.Didn’t I deserve to hear that particular news from the horse’s mouth, so to speak?The dinner we had together had been strained. And I hated that just as much as I hated the thought that he was back with the Sons. We so rarely got to spend time together, and thoug
JaxChance had wanted to carry her to the car. Hell, he had wanted to carry her into the hospital and hang around, but I was having none of that. And in the end, my growled warnings had worked, and he had backed off, but not before I had heard him make a hurried phone call to someone. His voice was gruff and low, but I had garnered enough to realise he was telling whoever was on the other end what had happened. And that made me start to wonder again just how close he was to Elodie.Not that it really mattered. The moment I had seen the blood on her face, I had realised one thing.As much as she drove me absolutely insane, I was obsessively protective over her. I stayed with her, refusing to leave the small room as her face was cleaned up. I didn’t touch her, but I didn’t take my eyes off her grimacing face either. Of course, the others were there as well, hovering around like bodyguards, but I paid them no mind at all. There was no one but Elodie. Tomorrow, I would have to deal with
ElodieI didn’t know what was happening, but it was clear that something was, and it had started when we had gone sight-seeing together. That’s when he had begun to change. Jax had a softer side to him. A side he kept firmly hidden under the asshole-rockstar mantle he wore like armour. I had no idea why he had acted like he had in the beginning, and I doubted I ever would, but today something had started to change. And tonight, me getting injured had just cemented it. If his soft kisses hadn’t told me that, then his worried eyes did. Jax’s head appeared around the bathroom door, followed quickly by a sweet, scented cloud of steam. “Bath is ready.”I didn’t move. I just continued to stare at him. There it was again, that softness. “Jax, you don’t need to do this.” I said again. I had been saying the same thing for the last ten minutes. Ever since I had made the admission that it was my birthday. It wasn’t something I planned on telling anyone, it had just slipped out. And I had trie
JaxYou shouldn’t be doing this, you should not be doing this. The words kept repeating themselves over and over in my head, but I knew I was going to do it. I knew we were going to do it more specifically. Bad idea or not, this was actually going to happen. In reality, there had never been any doubt in my mind that we would end up like this. From the very first moment I had set eyes on her, when her perfect breasts had fallen free from her tank top, we were on a one-way path to fuck-ville. Sure, we had fought against it, clashed at every possible opportunity, but it was always going to end up like this. I knew she expected me to touch her, and I was going to, but first... My fingers found what they were looking for under the foamy water and closed around the washcloth triumphantly. I brought it up over her spine. Elodie didn’t move. She just sat there, her arms about her drawn-up knees as she let me touch her through the soft cloth. Over and over again, I rubbed up and down her bac
ElodieIt was almost too much, almost. The pleasure of Jax’s mouth assaulting me bordered on unbearable. I seemed to have no control over my legs which were clamped around his head, shaking uncontrollably. Any other man might have been put off by the almost violent way I was reacting, but not Jax. Jax was taking it all in his stride. It was like he fed off it. Every time my body came off the mattress, he redoubled his assault. Teasing, probing, licking me into a quivering mess. But never quite letting me reach the pinnacle. I so desperately wanted to go over that particular edge. “Jax!” Throwing my head back, I screamed his name. I was so close, so damn close that it was driving me insane that I couldn’t reach my final destination. It had absolutely nothing to do with the skill of Jax’s tongue, either. He was doing it on purpose, teasing me to explode before stopping, calming me down slightly, only to do it again. He was just as infuriating in bed as he was out of it.“Jax, please.
ElodieJax Turner, lead guitarist of Dionysus Rising: the biggest rock band in the world, loved me. I had heard the words, seen his lips form them, but it still didn’t quite compute in my head. Not even the ring he slipped into my palm seemed real. Even when I could see it nestling there — a thick, hammered band of silver. I couldn’t help myself, I kept staring down at it. If I’d had a hand free, I would have pinched myself.Jax fidgeted, moving from foot to foot awkwardly. “I know it's not…” Wildly, he looked over my shoulder to Dion, who still for some reason had his arms wrapped around my waist. “It's not much, and not you. I can get you something else.” He lunged forward, his hands reaching out to pluck the jewellery out of my hand. Closing my hand around it, I growled out a warning to him. “No.”Behind me, Dion laughed, his chest vibrating against my back.Jax arched one eyebrow. “No?” I could see the confusion on his face. He didn’t need to ask the question I could see formin
Elodie“Of course, Louis.” Leaning against the rough brick wall, I crossed my arms around myself. Outside was quieter, which was one of the reasons we had gone out there to talk. That and the fact that Louis didn’t want the band to know what we were talking about. Or, more specifically, he didn’t want Dion to know. I could understand that. After what had happened with Dion and his sister, I could understand that totally. I might not have had it as bad as she had, but I’d still been burned by a member of Dionysus Rising.Maybe that’s what happened when you walked too closely to gods. Even if they were gods of the rock variety.“Thank you, Eli. I owe you.”I patted his shoulder, not really looking at him. “Believe me, it's me who should be thanking you. You’ve literally saved me weeks of—”“Am I interrupting something?”Blinking into the darkness, I felt my spine stiffen. I knew that voice even when I couldn’t see his face clearly, just a shadowy outline.“No, brother.” Louis moved away
JaxI’d been to my fair share of parties over the years, probably more than my fair share, but I’d never been nervous going into one. Not even when the band was just starting to be known, and we had to show our faces alongside actual rockstars. I had always felt like I belonged rubbing shoulders with the stars because, well, hello, I was born to be one. But this party… I didn’t belong there. In Elodie’s little ground floor apartment which seemed to be nothing more than wall to wall Savage Sons, I felt completely out of place. It wasn’t even that I was nervous around them, although I should have been after how I had acted with one of their own. I didn’t even care that it was a sausage fest of epic proportions and that almost every woman I saw was hanging off the arm of a biker. No, I was nervous because this was Elodie’s place. Which meant she was somewhere in the crowd, no doubt looking beautiful and put together. That’s how Erik had described her when I had asked how she was at the
Elodie“Eli.” Erik enveloped me in a bear hug the moment I stepped onto the floor of his office. It was almost like he had been waiting for me. Hell, he probably had based on how hard he’d been trying to get hold of me. “We missed you.” He held me out at arm’s length. “You need to learn to answer your phone, woman. Everyone has been so worried about you.”My heart slammed into my chest at his words. Everyone? Without meaning to, I looked around, half expecting the band to fall out of a closed door. Or, heaven forbid, for Jax himself to appear. None of that happened, of course, but it still felt like it could. “I’m fine.” Untangling myself from his arms, I wrapped my arms around my middle. I was cold, and it had nothing to do with the air con that was blasting throughout the office. “You didn’t have to worry.”“Of course we did. After what happened…” Erik gave a rueful shrug, his wide shoulders under the white shirt moving in slow motion. “What happened between you and Jax—”I didn’t
ElodieLiving back at the Savage Sons’ clubhouse, even temporarily, came with its own round of headaches. Namely, the fact that I was no longer a gangly, flat chested teen. And every biker, even the ones who were old enough to be my father and should’ve known better, seemed to want to give it a go. They were all shot down. Most only tried it on once, but those who were persistent had my brother in their ear. Legacy might just be a prospect, but our family had been in the club one way or another since the beginning. I had learnt my lesson. No more going for the bad boy. Rockstar or biker, it didn’t really matter. They were all the same. All after one thing. All assholes.Well, maybe not every man who rode with the Sons was an asshole, but Jax most definitely put me off rockstars for life. Looking back, I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been. Falling into his bed, imagining actual affection in his eyes. Chance had been right. I did fall too easily. And it had made me dumb. It made m
JaxSix days after I had caught Elodie with another man, we were on a plane back home and, honestly, it couldn’t have come any quicker. I needed my own space to process everything that had happened. I needed time away from the sympathetic eyes and endless questions from the band about what had gone on. Dion was especially pissed at me. More so than the others, and I understood that. He and Elodie had grown close over the last few weeks. He needed her.I needed her as well. In a totally different way. Her leaving, her choosing Legacy over me crippled me in a way that I never wanted to feel again. All the songs said that love hurt. It didn’t hurt. That didn’t quite cover it. Love had plunged a knife into my abdomen and gutted me.Of course, the rest of them were angry with me too. Not that any of them said anything, but it was there in their eyes. They presumed I had been the one to fuck things up.“Ok, enough.” Dion’s fingers tore the headphones from my head, dropping them onto my lap.
ElodieThey lost my luggage. After an almost nine hour flight sitting next to my moody ass brother whilst I tried to hide the fact that I was still crying over some lousy rockstar who I had no business crying over, they had lost my bags.And it was raining.The raining part wasn’t that surprising. And it seemed very, very apt. At least with the rain pouring down, my tears would be hidden. And I wouldn’t have to put up with Legacy huffing and giving me side eyes like I was some stupid schoolgirl.“Well, what the hell am I meant to do now?” I groaned. But I wanted to scream, to throw a full-on tantrum in the middle of the terminal. Instead, I hugged myself and shivered. It was cold after the heat of Miami. And I was exhausted, which just made it worse. I felt like I could and probably should sleep for a week. Throwing his own backpack on the floor, Legacy started rummaging through it, and it didn’t take a genius to know what he was looking for. It had been surprising that he had gone f
Jax“Eli said she would meet us there and...”Ignoring Tate’s insistence, I stepped out of the elevator onto our floor. I didn’t much care what Elodie had said. I needed to see her. And it had nothing to do with the distant way she had been returning my kisses all day. No, not at all. Well, maybe if I was honest with myself, it had a big part. Something had distracted Elodie all day, ever since she had greeted the bikers like old friends. And that Legacy? He had greeted her right back. And it wasn’t friendship that had made him hug her a little too long. I knew men like him because I was a man like him. A womanising jerk. His familiarity with her made me uncomfortable. And the fact she was distant and distracted just cemented in my mind that something had happened between them in the past. The real question was, was it still happening?I froze. My eyes glued to the two figures at the end of the hallway. Each door was closed apart from hers. Elodie’s door was half open, and she was em
ElodieMiami was beautiful. Beautiful beaches, beautiful architecture, even more beautiful women. And they were everywhere, drawing the eyes of every man in our group. Next to them I felt fat and frumpy, when in reality I wasn’t any of those things. It was just me feeling a little insecure. And that had nothing to do with the multitude of bikini wearing curvaceous beauties and everything to do with Miami itself. Miami was the final stop of the tour before we headed home. A few more days at most. And then all of this would be over. My time with Jax would be over. It had gone by so quickly, in the blink of an eye. When we got back to UK soil, we would go our separate ways, and I would probably never see him again. The others: Dion, Tate and Louis, had said we would all hang out. In fact, they had made it clear that I was one of them now, and that meant I couldn’t ghost them. Dion was especially eager to keep in touch. But that was because we had become friends. He had told me things th