Page 114 of The Stalker

16

The Drumsticks

Tatiana stoodin the darkness as Hayden sang into the microphone on the stage in front of her. The band were performing the encore for that night’s concert, and Tatiana was on edge, as always. She was more than ready for the show to be over and for Hayden to be safely backstage again.

The band finished the song, and Hayden stood from his drum throne, walked to the front of the stage with his friends, and took a bow before they headed offstage. Tatiana followed them, relief flooding through her as soon as Hayden was away from the crowd.

“Great show, guys,” Sebastian said cheerfully as Lita walked over to him, with Mirabella in her arms and Ariana walking by her side.

“It really was,” Hayden agreed. “I think that—”

“She wants Papà,” Lita interrupted him as she held the baby out to Sebastian.

He laughed and asked, “Does she?”

“Yes. I’m touched out, and she wouldn’t go to Ariana or let me put her down anywhere,” Lita huffed.

Sebastian took Mirabella in his arms and smiled down at her. “Hey, bella. Were you sad without Papà? I’m here now.”

Sebastian bounced the little girl in his arms as he swayed from side to side while he continued to look down at his daughter. He started walking away in the direction of the dressing rooms, and Lita followed him as Ariana moved over to give Gabriel a hug.

“Poor Lita. It’s a good thing the concert’s over. I think she was about five minutes from dumping Mirabella onstage with Sebastian,” Ariana laughed. “How was the show?”

“Really good,” Gabriel said. “I’m not sure how we’d incorporate an infant into the concert, though.”

Harrison gave him a thoughtful look. “I’m sure she could probably pull off the guitar solo in ‘Midnight Rebellion’ better than Sebastian does.”

“I like your thinking. We’ll get her onstage at the next show. Is her not being able to speak going to be a problem, do you think?” Gabriel asked, sounding as though he was seriously considering it.

“Not at all. We’ll just have to learn how to harmonize with general wailing. I have faith in us,” Harrison nodded.

“You guys are idiots. You know that, right?” Hayden laughed.

Harrison and Gabriel burst into laughter, and Ariana shook her head at them as they headed toward the dressing rooms. Jesse joined Tatiana to escort Hayden, and as usual, he sat outside the door while she followed Hayden inside.

She did a sweep of the dressing room, then walked back to Hayden, letting him know it was clear. He had abandoned his shirt for the last five songs of the show, and sweat was glistening off his chest when he turned to look at her in the doorway to the bathroom.

“Want to join me, Tati?”

“In your dreams,” she grinned at him.

“In my fantasies, you mean.” He laughed and looked her over slowly before he turned away, closing the bathroom door behind him as he did.

This had become a ritual for them in the weeks since they watched Skyfall together. He asked her to join him for a shower after every concert, and every time she resisted. She hadn’t allowed herself to get that physically close to him again, but it didn’t stop her from wanting it.

Tatiana headed over to the gifts that had been left tonight and started going through them. She didn’t bother getting Jesse for this task unless there were a lot of gifts to sift through. There had never been as many as that first night, but some cities still had a decent amount. Tonight there weren’t many at all.

She was only looking at the second gift, a teddy bear from a fan, when she heard a groan from Hayden’s bathroom. She’d heard him masturbate more times than she could count now. He didn’t seem to bother trying to hide it from her, and a part of her was sure he was doing it on purpose. The arousal it caused flowed through her, but she resisted the urge to do anything about it. There was plenty of time for her to take care of her needs when Hayden was safely on the tour bus.

Of course, it did make this time between his shower and her alone time a lot more difficult. She didn’t know if he had any idea of the effect his actions had on her, though, because they hadn’t talked about it. He groaned loudly again, and she struggled against the idea of opening the door to watch him masturbate, or maybe even join him in the shower.

Focus, Tatiana. Just look through these gifts and pretend the stupidly hot man isn’t doing stupidly hot things in the next room.

She moved on from the teddy bear, looked through a couple of letters and a gift basket before she came across a long box wrapped in silver wrapping paper with a silver ribbon wrapped around it in a bow.

She unwrapped the gift as she heard Hayden give a long, low groan that she could recognize as him coming and she flushed with heat as she envisioned it from the night she’d watched him on the bus.

I’m not even going to mention that you should absolutely not be able to tell by sound alone when your client is having an orgasm.

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