“Lacey Dawes, Lacey Dawes!”
A horde of news magazine reporters, Entertainment Channel markers garishly decorating their mikes, were huddled in a swat-team formation at the press area set aside at the bottom of the stairs. A wide-open space heavily ringed by security for Dante to give his triumphant postperformance last speech. Lacey frowned at them, holding up her hands as if she was dressed in her usual sleek agent gear, and not a full-on leather bustier. “Just a few minutes more, everyone!” she shouted. “Dante will be right here.”
That didn’t seem to calm anyone down. “What act will you go to next, Lacey? Word has it you have job offers at ELG and Celebrity—will you take them?”
“How did you orchestrate the whole performance?” Another question came in. “Did you and Dante mastermind it together? Did the Teen Fantasy angle come from a real-life incident or was it completely made up?”
“What?” Lacey blinked at the camera people, but her smile never faltered. She had been buried in makeup and onstage for the last several hours. She hadn’t checked the Internet. How had the story developed? And what did she need to do to control it? She managed a mile-wide smile. “One of you guys has to tell me where you get your intel. I swear you know what’s going on before I even do.”
That merited her a round of laughter, and she parried back questions about the hugely entertaining show they’d just produced, leaving everyone guessing about the junior agent who’d thrown herself into the drama to create a ratings blockbuster—and how much of it was real, fake, or somewhere in between.
Apparently, the story had spiraled out of control. Now, at least behind the scenes, the belief was that there had been a few scrapbooks from Lacey’s past, yes. The rest had been fabricated to feed the fantasy. Fabricated unapologetically, supposedly based on audience contributions about where they wanted the story to go. RockerGrrl had been a real fan, but they’d dolled her up to make her own fantasy come true as well. Lacey had stood in as the second RockerGrrl, to introduce Dante’s new song. The whole thing had been a “do you or don’t you believe” tease, carried off in real time—with over half the fans still swearing that it was all real, that Dante’s declaration of love had been 100 percent authentic. That Lacey had been a love-struck kid who grew up to fall in love for real with her dream rocker, and that Dante really did love her back. There was just enough doubt on both sides, that everyone was willing to concede that anything was possible.
And Lacey had no problem keeping the mystery alive, either. Because she no longer knew herself what was real, and what was just her own fantasy.
By the time a second wave of questions soared up, indicating the band had just made their appearance at the top of the stairs, Lacey felt like her smile was going to fall off. She tried to leave, but for every reporter surging toward Dante and Paradiso, another one stopped her, looking for the inside scoop. Where was she going to go next? Was it true IMO was going to promote her to assistant vice president? And, again, was any of it real—did the childhood crush she’d had on Dante really inspire the fantasy that swept over the Dream It tour?
It must have been a full half hour before Lacey finally broke away, but instead of heading for the band and the transport that would take them back to their hotels, she headed for the tour buses. She knew for an ironclad fact that no one would look for her there. The tour was done. The buses were no longer needed. They’d roll on eventually, and so would she. But for now, they were a quiet oasis, and she needed the time, the space, the solitude. Needed it desperately, to give herself a chance to recover, to find closure—somehow.
Because the fantasy was over.
She tried the door of Dante’s bus, and mercifully her keypad combination still worked. She swung up into the darkened van, the last two weeks of her life washing over her. Her last two weeks of Dante and Paradiso. Her triumphs and failures and—whatever the hell had just happened. She needed time, time to think, to plan, to store everything up that she could spend the rest of her life remembering. She needed—
A shadow uncoiled in front of her. A long, lean, rocker-hard body.
“I was wondering when you’d get here,” Dante said.
Lacey stilled in the shadows, but Dante moved with calm assurance, crossing to the wide controls console. A single flipped switch, and the bus was locked down tight—from the inside. With another pressed button on the intercom, a few spoken words, the engine roared to life.
“What are you doing?” Lacey squeaked, scrambling for purchase. She felt the weight of Dante’s stare on her, his slow curving smile, even in the semidarkness. She was grateful for that darkness, but she didn’t have it for long. Another swipe of Dante’s fingers and low lights flared throughout the bus—just enough to see and be seen by.
Dante stood before her looking like absolute perfection in a loose button-down shirt and jeans. The intimacy of his bare feet transfixed Lacey, like she had walked into his living room. Like he had been expecting her. She took a step backward as he paced toward her, not missing the hunger in his gaze, thrilling to it. Wanting it. But none of this could be happening! “You can’t just take this bus,” she tried, struggling for reason.
Dante shrugged. “I bought this bus.” He chuckled at her reaction. “What? It’s a nice bus. I have a lot of good memories about this bus. And I plan on having more. Starting tonight.”
“Dante, you can’t be serious.” Lacey backed up as he stalked toward her. “You can’t even look at me! I feel like I have seventeen pounds of makeup on. And this wig—” She stopped short as he passed right by her, not even stopping to kiss her. She tried to beat down the momentary surge of disappointment, then Dante was grabbing her hand and pulling her behind him down the luxurious main cabin of the bus. “What are you—”
“The other reason why we needed the bus to be moving,” Dante said. She could hear the smile in his voice, the easy command. He led her into the compact but state-of-the-art bathroom, and gestured to the counter—where the rocker groupie’s makeup bag sat, complete with every cream, pouf, and lotion made by man. “We need to get you out of those things.”
Dante didn’t want to give Lacey time to think. He didn’t want to give himself time to think. Not because this wasn’t what he wanted—needed to have happen. Not because he couldn’t feel the heat pouring off of Lacey every bit as much as the confusion, hope, and frustrated desire. But there was almost too much between them at this moment. Too much for them to think about. She’d known him, in her way, for more than ten years, and he’d been looking for her just as long. Someone who saw him for who he was—and who he could be. Someone who reminded him of what was important. Someone who was standing in a room full of steam, makeup, and hair and silky dress and—
Dante turned back to Lacey, laying a finger on her lips when she would speak. “Let’s just start with this,” he said, and he realized something was wrong with his voice. It was too raspy to his ears, too choked. Schooling his emotions, he helped Lacey detach the wig. As it came away, her hands immediately went to her plastered hair, touched her cheeks.
“I must look like hell,” she groaned.
“You look amazing.” Dante couldn’t help himself at that point, and he couldn’t slow down. He moved to Lacey’s silky dress, zipping her out of the sheath in a long quick slide and—his mouth tightened—leaving her with only a thin scrap of material at the vee of her legs, and no bra at all.
The flush that climbed up Lacey’s skin set his own blood racing. “There was a bag of clothes that Harry bought—I don’t know where he got this.”
“Harry is getting a bonus,” Dante said. “Come here.”
“My face—”
“Shhh.” Dante pulled Lacey to him, and finally gave himself leave to hold her against his body, her soft breasts pressing against his chest, his hands on her perfect face as she tilted it up to him. Not perfect because of the makeup, or perfect because of some rock star standard of beauty, but perfect because of how her lips parted as she gazed at him, how her breath came fitfully between her teeth, how her eyes were so wide and so serious and so intense with a passion she still couldn’t quite let go.
He kissed her then, a soft, simple brush of the lips, and Lacey’s moan beneath his mouth was all he needed to know that this was right, this was true, this was what she wanted. He deepened the kiss, pulling her up almost roughly against him, and then her fingers were at his own shirt, pulling the buttons apart, her hands splaying on his chest, his abs, dropping to the waistband of his jeans. “This is just supposed to be the shower part,” he tried, but she didn’t stop, peeling away the dark materials and shoving it down. As she curled her fingers around the waistband of his boxers, his hands found hers. “A shower, Lacey,” he groaned again. “I want to do this right.”
“Well, I want to do this wrong.” And then she’d freed his cock, her cool, strong hands wrapping around his erection and Dante straightened, the growl low in his throat as he slid open the shower door and they both stumbled inside, the stream from a dozen jets immediately capturing them in a whirl of sensation. “Oh!” Lacey spluttered, and her eyes blinked against the spray.
“Keep your eyes closed, sweetheart,” Dante said roughly. And he was right there, with something from one of the jars he’d been given, some sort of white frothy goop that he spread against Lacey’s skin, watching the colors blend and stream away, each pass like seeing a rare portrait come to life beneath his hands. The ever-more-beautiful woman beneath all the paint and glitter. A second later it was gone, but he watched her a moment more, breathing in the wonder of her, and then, when her fingers crept up his abs, he felt the need roar back into life.
“Lacey,” he said brokenly, but she didn’t have her eyes closed anymore. She was staring at him, her body stretched up, her curves molded against his straining muscles. If she got any closer to him he was probably going to lose it. And he didn’t want that, he still didn’t want that—
“Dante,” Lacey whispered in his ear. “Please. Please make love to me here. You can do it again, anywhere you want, but please—now—this moment. Please just do this for me.”
She didn’t have to ask him again.
Dante grabbed both sides of her waist and lifted Lacey up, pressing her against the wall of the shower, arching his head toward her as he cradled her close. Her legs naturally went around his waist, his erection pressed up against her belly, the water slick and hot between them. He leaned away—fumbling against the piles of products, until he found what he was looking for. Lacey took the small foil packet from him and grinned. “I’ve always wanted to do this, too,” she said. “One of the other girls showed me how.”
“She gets a bonus, too,” Dante gritted out, as he resettled her feet on the floor of the shower stall. Lacey opened the packet and with a dexterity that left him breathless, and more than a lot harder, she smoothed the sheath around him with her mouth. Dante stood stock-still as she stroked him, afraid to move or he would explode. Then she was up again and he pushed her back against the wall, unable to stop now, unable to even breathe. She took him inside her, impossibly tight, both of them gasping at the exquisite mix of pain and pleasure as he buried himself in her, then drew back only to feel her pull him in again, and again, the pressure mounting between them and Dante’s half-laugh of desperation breaking the silence. “Lacey, slow down. We’ve got time. I’m not going to last here.”
“You don’t have to,” Lacey whispered, half moaning as her hands slid over his back, his shoulders, tangled in his hair. “You don’t have to do anything, Dante, just whatever you want—however you want—”
“Fuck,” he muttered and he pulled her against him tight. “Just give me a second.”
But Lacey had apparently decided she didn’t want to give him a second. She sighed beneath him, arching her hips even as her legs tightened and everything around him squeezed in a rhythmic, driving pulse, again and again and again. And he couldn’t speak, couldn’t see, could barely even breathe as he stared down at her, her mouth loose, her lips open, her eyes hooded, her gaze intent upon his. Even as his hands fisted against her, his legs shuddered, and he climaxed in a roar of emotion and power and something he wasn’t sure he could articulate but knew he wanted to feel over and over and over again, for as long as he drew breath.
They stood there, the water sluicing over them, for a long minute more. Then Dante leaned down and kissed Lacey on her neck, smiling as she shuddered beneath him. “Sweetheart,” he promised. “We’re just getting started.”
She smiled up at him, and there were tears in her eyes again, even though she refused to shed them. Something about those tears made his breathing go a little ragged, a little desperate, but then she reached up and pressed her lips to his, and he gave himself over to the sensations she stirred within him, letting his doubts slip away.
This song wasn’t over. It couldn’t be over.
This is the last letter I am going to write to you—and I shouldn’t even write this one. I never thought I’d get the chance to meet you in person. To be with you, fall even a little more in love with you. But I know that we have to go back to our lives, follow our dreams, and be the people we’re meant to be.
Please don’t worry about me—even if IMO fires me, which they still might, I’ll land on my feet. The opportunity of working with you and your tour has been a career-changer, and I am truly excited about what lies ahead for me. And I’ll never forget these few weeks we’ve spent together, where you helped bring all my fantasies to life.
I promise that I’ll start listening to amazing music again, as long as you promise to keep making it. If only you can dream it, it just might come true, right?
Most Love Always,
Lacey Dawes