Page 112 of Cherry Beats

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The band’s sound check ended an hour or so later, and everyone headed backstage where private chefs had set up room after room of food for everyone involved. This wasn’t some thrown-together snack of hotdogs and hamburgers. This was as sophisticated as the Michelin star restaurant we’d visited in Paris. Caterers had set up tables of vegetarian, vegan, organic, and even gluten-free food. Beside the bottles of alcohol was a full table filled with water. Private rooms had been cordoned off for the band alone, and inside those rooms were specialist tour doctors who were there to check blood sugars, blood pressures, and the hydration of the band.

“We can get vitamin shots whenever the fuck we like,” Presley said as he led me through the backstage area, pointing in different directions to give me the full experience.

I looked around in complete awe. Anything I’d ever imagined about current rock star life had been left back in the eighties and nineties. These guys weren’t living The Mötley Crüe life where the only shots they ever had came in the form of heroin. Modern life on the road allowed them to party hard while knowing they’d have someone there waiting off the side of the stage with a headache pill and two hands to offer a massage. There were therapists, masseuses, physios…

You name it—the band had it.

“Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t always this way.” He side-eyed me, lips twitching. “Before we made the big time, we hit the scene hard. After our first taste of tour life, though, Dicky demanded we started taking better care of ourselves.”

“That makes sense.” I nodded, grateful to see this side of everything. My imagination had clearly taken me down some darker paths that I was only just beginning to acknowledge.

“Want a protein smoothie?” Presley pointed to another bar that had been set up where a young guy was currently whizzing ingredients together in a blender.

“I’m good, thanks.” I chuckled.

“In that case…” He turned and opened another blank door, revealing the band’s dressing room.

Presley squeezed my hand, and I looked up at him with a smile on my face. “Want to grab a beer and suck my dick before I play tonight?”

I smacked him on the chest, unable to help my laughter as I walked past him and into the room, looking around at the fairly bland walls and the sofas with the guys’ shit thrown over it.

When Presley walked in behind me, he pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and leaned back against a wall, crossing his feet at the ankles, simply watching me as I roamed around the room, touching the surfaces of the vanity tables, and running my hand over the backs of the chairs in there, too.

It was the quietest it had been for hours, and despite the ringing in my ears, I found myself at peace while in one of the most bustling cities of the world. I came to a stop and turned to face him.

“How long have we got?” I asked quietly.

“About ten minutes.”

“There’re a few things we could do in ten minutes.”

“Anything in particular spring to mind?” He asked with a heated gaze before he ran his teeth over his bottom lip.

I walked over to him slowly, making sure to swing my hips with confidence, the way I used to do when working at BB’s. Presley’s attention fell to the leather trousers I was wearing, and I saw the subtle tensing of his jaw and the way the muscles twitched there. Once in front of him, I hooked my thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans and tugged on them hard.

“Let’s take these down and see what springs to mind, shall we?”

I fell to my knees, feeding off his sudden ragged breaths, and the way his hands shook ever so slightly as he unfastened his jeans and slid them down his thighs. As always, he wasn’t wearing any underwear, and his dick stood large and proud in front of me.

My fingers curled around it, squeezing with just the right amount of pressure to make his lips part in anticipation. I looked up at him through the thickness of my lashes and smiled.

“You’ve got me falling, rock star,” I whispered, the very thing he’d written on post-it-note that day when he’d had his jacket delivered for me to sign.

“No regrets,” he breathed back, lips parted. Presley’s hands found the back of my hair, and he twisted my ponytail around his fist, tugging it back so the sting of pain made my mouth fall open as I stared up at him. “Not one single fucking regret.”

I gave him the best damn blow job of his life, making sure that he felt the after-effects of it every time he moved out there on the stage, the way I felt the after-effects of his adoration every time I breathed.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Iwatched the show from backstage. Presley was in my direct line of sight the whole way through the concert, and his eyes always managed to drift my way each time he got enough of a break to drink his water or beer. Stage crew slipped on now and then to change his empty for a fresh drink, and Presley, covered in sweat and adrenaline, almost downed a full bottle every time he got to take a drink. Whenever the arena camera projected him doing that on the big screens, the crowd would go insane, and the screams of the women among them would pierce my eardrums.

Rhett would periodically grab his microphone and boo down it when the women went crazy for Presley, which only made them scream louder and make Rhett laugh. He had everyone in the place eating from the palm of his hand. He deserved to have, too. For all Rhett could be weird in day-to-day life with me, he was damn good at what he did out there.

Still, I found it hard to pay him too much attention when Presley was in action. The bounce of his knees and the way he lost himself in each strike of his sticks had me swooning hard.

You’ve missed so much of this from him,I thought to myself.You could have been here from the start.But then the start was rougher, his eyes roaming to a million women—that much he’d admitted himself. Maybe neither of us would have been ready three years ago.

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