Page 36 of Dear Rockstar (Dear Rockstar 1)

“See ya tomorrow.” Aimee put her hand up to her ear, mimicking a phone and the words, “Call me!”

I sighed when she shut the car door.

“She’s cute.”

I glared at him, backing quickly out of the driveway and peeling off down the street.

“Whoa!” Dale grabbed onto the dash board. “I meant cute in a cute sort of way. Not in that way!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said through clenched teeth.

“You’re jealous.” He was trying not to laugh and it made me even madder.

“I am not jealous. There’s nothing to be jealous about.”

“Okay.” He was really laughing now as I made another sharp turn into our apartment complex. “If you say so.”

I pulled up in front of the building and threw the car into park. “Okay. See you later.”

“Hey.” He turned to face me. I wouldn’t look at him. “Come on, don’t be mad. So she was flirting with me a little. Big deal. It’s not her I want to take to the movies this weekend.”

I glanced at him, trying to see if he was serious. He was. “This weekend?”

“Yeah. You do want to go to the latest Tyler Vincent movie, don’t you?”

Aimee and I had been planning to make a day of it—camping out for concert tickets and then doing an all-day Tyler Vincent marathon at the theater, watching every showing of All Night Long, a new romantic comedy where he played, go figure, a rock star. Talk about typecasting. So I would have to ditch Aimee to go with Dale, but considering the look on her face when Carrie had mentioned her older brother asking for Aimee’s phone number, I had a funny feeling she wasn’t going to mind.

Did I dare share this with him? Did I really want to do that? I was afraid to share my… thing… obsession… whatever you wanted to call it. Dale had gone out of his way, offering front row seats (Front row! That still hadn’t sunk in yet) and now he was asking me out to see Tyler Vincent’s new movie. He knew I was a fan, but there were lots of Tyler Vincent fans in the world. The problem was, I would bet most of them hadn’t wallpapered their walls with his image, or planned their lives, their entire futures, around him.

Dale’s hand found mine, teasing my fingers open, turning his hand just slightly so he could twine our fingers together. His hands were cool, his fingers calloused—from playing guitar all day long, I knew—but his touch was electric. It made me ache in ways that were utterly foreign to me. Even Tyler Vincent hadn’t reached into the places Dale seemed to find.

I squeezed his hand. “Okay.”

“Awesome.” He leaned over and I froze, sure he was going to kiss me, anticipating it, breath held, leaning slightly toward him without even thinking about it. Instead of kissing me, he nuzzled my ear with his nose and I felt more than heard him take a long, deep breath. “God, you smell so good, Sara. You make me want to eat you all up.”

Oh God.

I wanted to be eaten all up.

He sighed, tracing a slow, deliberate, straight line up my palm, over my wrist, up my inner arm toward my elbow, making me shiver like it was cold, only the opposite was true. I was so warm I could barely stand it.

“Can I call you tonight?” he murmured, still rubbing his nose against my ear, making circles with his finger at the inner bend of my elbow, driving me mad.

“I’ll call you,” I said, my voice shaking, thinking of my stepfather.

“You promise?” He didn’t seem to notice my quivering, like a rabbit caught in a trap. Except I didn’t want to escape. “I don’t want to go to sleep tonight without hearing your voice.”

“You’re sweet,” I whispered, turning my face toward his, knowing how close we would be, anticipating his kiss, every bit of me strung so tight I was ready to snap. My lips grazed his, not really a kiss, it was just barely the lightest of touches, the sensation so exciting it made me whimper for more. I felt his sharp intake of breath as he pulled back, looking into my eyes, both of us lost for a moment, unable to speak.

Dale shook his dark head, touching a finger to my lips and I felt it like a brand.

“Not yet. Not here. I don’t trust myself.”

He got out of the car so quickly he was a blur and I watched him go into the main apartment door, my heart beating hard in my chest.

What was happening?

I sat there, letting my breath and heartbeat return to normal, which took a long damned time. The first thing I thought—the first real, coherent thought after our almost-kiss—was of Aimee and how I was going to tell her what had happened, what was happening, between me and Dale. Especially since I didn’t quite understand it myself.

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