Claiming Addison (6 page)

“So why’d you scream for Kyle?” I ask her; watching her very closely. She’s a fucking knockout and I’m almost sorry that I’m not the only one that thinks so.

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to explain the whole story now. Thanks, dick,” she says to Kyle and I can’t help but smile. That seems to be our name for Kyle and in less than five hours she’s managed to figure it out already. “Okay, basically this weekend I was supposed to be off, but after you fired your last guy, Bold stepped in and said they would send someone, namely me, so I had to cancel my plans with my girlfriends. However, Cami, my boss’s boss and owner of Bold, offered my girlfriends her plane to bring them to San Diego.” She blushes. “We were coming down for the concert.”

I can’t hold in the laughter. “You really are a fan, aren’t you?”

“I was,” she says completely deadpan.

Her seriousness is a shock. “And why has that changed?” I ask her, completely ignoring the fact that Kyle is standing right next to me.

“Because I have to put up with you for the next twelve weeks.” I’ll put up with you, sweetheart, up and in. Damn it, Carver, cut the shit.

“Fair enough,” I tell her.

“Anyway, after the show we were going to spend the weekend on Coronado and just have some girl time. Well, I had to bail on them, again, and Cami felt bad. So anyway, back to the point, my friends, Sam and Jess, are on the plane waiting for it to take off for San Diego when all of a sudden Cami boards the plane, followed immediately by her husband.”

“Oh, and who is that?” I ask; I honestly have no clue. Kyle has managed most of the Bold dealings, hence why he’s our manager.

“Tristan Michaels,” Kyle chimes in.

I look at Red and back to Kyle. I shrug.

“Holy shit dude, you don’t know who Tristan Michaels is? Where have you been the last four years, under a fucking rock? Even I know who Tristan Michaels is,” Kyle says standing a little straighter.

I watch as Red rolls her eyes. “Tristan Michaels is one of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities, the whole Love is Burning movie phenomenon?”

I curl my lip. “I’ve heard of those, but…,” I shrug. “I’m a dude, chick flicks don’t do it for me.”

Red laughs. “Well, okay then. Bottom line is that I called Kyle back wondering about remaining VIP passes.”

“Just use yours,” I tell her.

“And that is the problem. I was going to give them to Sam and Jess, kinda my payback for ditching them this weekend and having to ditch them during the show. They’re fans and they haven’t a clue that I’m now working for you guys.”

I can’t comprehend why she wouldn’t tell her girlfriends. “Why not?”

She gives me an exasperated look. “Because I’m not allowed to. They know the drill, so I thought that if I gave them my VIP passes that they’d get over it and figure it out without me actually having to tell them, because I can’t,” she says with emphasis.

I look at Kyle. “Can we handle getting this Cami and Tristan VIP access?”

Kyle nods his head. “Though I doubt they’ll need it. I’m sure you’re the only one on the planet who doesn’t know who Tristan Michaels is.”

I sock Kyle in the shoulder. “Whatever, dude, just get it done.”

“Hey guys, we’re here,” someone shouts from up front.

“Let’s get to work,” Red says as she hops down off of her bunk at the same time the bus comes to a stop, throwing her off balance and right into my arms.

Fuck, she feels just as amazing as she looks. She’s skinny, but she’s not bony. Supple and ridiculously sexy as hell; my cock hardens to a point beyond pain. I’m growing a serious case of blue balls right now and it’s driving me nuts. Shut up, that was so not intended to be a pun and I’ll be dammed if her hip isn’t rubbing up against him.

“You all right?” I ask her. Her eyes widen at the sound of my voice that’s filled with lust. God, I fucking want to be buried inside her sweet cunt.

“I’m…I’m fine,” she stutters and she tries to stand up, but I’m not ready to let her go just yet. My lips twitch with a desperate need to kiss her.

Someone clears his throat and I freeze. Instantly helping her to her feet just in time to see Kyle staring at both of us and for some unknown reason, my eyes travel down to the bulge in his pants that wasn’t there before. And that causes my dick to twitch again.

In all the years I’ve known Talon, I’ve never ever seen him look at a woman the way he just looked at Addison and it turned me on. I’m no stranger to admiring men, but Talon? I’ve never looked at him that way before. Seeing the look in his eyes, looking at her, fucking turned me on and he saw it.

“Let’s get to work,” I say, desperate to avoid the fact that while Talon helps Addison right herself, he’s still looking at me. The look in his eyes is full of something similar to how he was looking at Addison earlier, lust maybe?

“Addison?” Talon calls my name from the front of the bus. I, on the other hand, am still trying to get over what happened in the room a few minutes ago. I jumped down, the bus stopped and I fell into Talon’s arms and HOLY FUCK! He was hard as a god-damn rock and it was pressing against my hip. But his eyes were alight with lust and my god, his lips twitched with a need to kiss me. Ultimately, the look that was exchanged between Kyle and Talon was beyond anything I have comprehension for. I could spend months analyzing that look, but instead I need to pull up my big girl panties and get to work.

“Be right there,” I shout back.

“Hurry up. There’s people waiting for you.”

What the fuck? “I’m coming.”

Oh fuck, that was the wrong choice of words to use, especially after what just happened.

Thank god there is a mirror in our room. I adjust myself and climb back into my heels, fluff my hair and check my make-up, pinch my cheeks and straighten my skirt. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was straightening up after a mid-day sexcapade on a tour bus. I roll my eyes at myself. It might as well have been.

“Get your shit together, Addison. You’ve been here for like five hours out of twelve weeks,” I whisper, then steel myself as I head back to the front of the bus.

When I come around the corner it’s just Talon and Kyle with two more members of the men in black patrol. I smile sweetly at them.

“Addison, these are our two main bodyguards. The one on your right is Mills. He’s the head of the team who travels with us. He’s also responsible for event security coordination among other things. If you have a security problem or question, he is the man to go to,” Talon says with a very professional attitude and I’m surprised given what just happened. Is he not as affected by this as I thought I was? Ah, forget it.

“Great to meet you, Mills. I’d ask you for a first name, but I doubt you’ll give it to me.”

He smiles sweetly. “No, ma’am.”

I cringe. “Addison or Addie will be just fine. None of this ma’am crap, I’m not old enough for that and I’m certainly not your boss.” I smile just as sweetly at him.

“Yes ma-Addison.”

“That’s better.”

Mills is a good looking man with an obvious military stature. His dark hair is buzzed short and he’s easily twice as wide as I am, but he’s decent looking none the less with his tanned complexion. If I had to guess, he’s Native American or similar. Now the man next to him is someone more in my league. “You are?” I ask him.

“My apologies, Red. This is Rusty. Mills’ second in command. If you can’t find Mills, you will most definitely find him roaming around.”

“It’s a pleasure,” I say holding my hand out to him. He takes it gently into his. Rusty is attractive with strawberry blonde hair, its skater boy long on top, short all the way around. He has it pulled back in a hair tie. His eyes are a gorgeous blue-ish green color and he, like Talon, has a rather scruffy beard, but it is trimmed nicely. “Okay, I seriously have to ask this, am I the only damn woman around here?”

All four guys laugh. “No,” Kyle says. “My assistant Kate is here too, though she’s on the other bus with the rest of the crew.”

“And us,” Rusty says.

“Oh, you guys don’t travel on this bus?” I ask.

Talon answers, “When we leave a major city, like tonight when we leave, either Mills or Rusty will be on board with us. The couch-,” he turns around and gestures, “folds down into another bed. We try not to use it if we don’t have to. The length of the drive determines whether they will stay on board with us or not. Like from here to Vegas, they’ll stay.”

“I’ll be on board tonight,” Rusty says with a smile.

Yeah, I bet you will. I smile back at him and Kyle gets us moving along. “We need to finish off loading the equipment. Addison, this would be a great time to catch up on any work you might have to do. I’ll come grab you before the sound check.”

“Actually, I need to run my passes up to will call. Are the attendants here yet?” The four men look at each other. “Can we find out so I don’t walk all the way up there for nothing?”

“Absolutely. I’ll send Leroy up there to check. Actually, I can have him drop them off,” Mills says.

“Oh, that’d be great.”

I write down the details of the order number and names on the tickets. Mills looks at me kinda funny when I give him my name. So I end up explaining the situation to him again. He smiles and Rusty laughs. So much for keeping that between Kyle and I. Everyone seems to know and I’m pretty sure Mouse, Peacock and Dex already know and that means I am never going to live this down.

The men all leave me alone on the bus and for the briefest of moments I debate on doing what I should have done this morning, but in the end I decide against it, better to not have someone walk in on me. The whole curtain closed policy doesn’t seem to apply to my room.

I set about checking my email and setting up the Phoenix reservations and cancel the Albuquerque reservations altogether. The drive from Albuquerque to Galveston, Texas, for Friday’s show, is about fourteen hours long so we will spend the majority of Thursday driving across Texas. Then Friday, by two in the morning we are back on the road for Dallas. It’s a short jaunt up the highway, but it’s better to leave earlier when we have a tight schedule.

After about an hour I decide to climb into the shower, not that I need it, but I might as well get ready for tonight. I don’t plan on wearing the pencil skirt to the concert. I am going with a modified version of what I was originally going to wear tonight. I’m swapping the 69 Bottles t-shirt I picked up at Hot Topic for my worn out Nirvana t-shirt. Is it wrong to wear a different band’s t-shirt to a concert? Hell yes it is, unless it’s Nirvana, I mean, come on!