Page 5 of Filthy Rock Stars

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Should I do the chivalrous thing and offer you my jacket? It’s big enough I could probably slide it over yours.”

I laugh. “No, because I’ll spend every second worrying about you getting sick, and then I’ll stop having fun.”

He slips his jacket back on. “We are having fun,” he agrees.

My heart kicks. I’m still half-hard, wildly uncertain about how to flirt.

“Can I at least get your name?”

He laughs and scratches his jaw. “Honestly, you wouldn’t believe me.” I open my mouth to object, but he cuts me off. “How about this. I’ll give you a secret if you give me one.”

I fidget. “A secret?”

“Who better than someone totally anonymous to tell your secrets to?”

I laugh. “Yes, the smooth-talking man who lured me into a park at dusk is totally the most logical person to trust.”

He grins. “I’m glad you think so.”

My mouth is dry. If I were a different kind of person, I would kiss him right now. His lips are so round and soft, naturally pursed.

Fuck, I really want to suck his lip stud. What the hell?

“Okay, a secret,” I agree. “But you first.”

The man tilts his eyes up to the sky, then back down at me. “I obsessively fantasize about abandoning my life. My job especially, but all of it.”

“Just walking out the door and never performing another root canal?”

He lets out a rough laugh, and I feel pleased, impressed with myself that I earned it.

“Why don’t you quit, if you hate it that much?” I ask.

“I don’t hate it. There’s plenty I like, in fact. But I have to pretend that I love it all the time. I have to make believe like everything is perfect, when the truth is I feel trapped.”

“Trapped?”

“Like everything good is just a cage. Like I’m pretending to be someone I’m not. Like I don’t have control of my own life.” He shrugs. “Thus, the abandonment fantasies.”

Our eyes are locked, and I’m still swirling in the mystery. But somehow, I see in his gaze that he’s telling the truth. He’s showing me something that he always hides. He’s playing it off, acting nonchalant, but he’s vulnerable.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know how it feels, having your life slip out of your control, and it’s awful.”

“I’m sorry you know,” he says, voice rough, but then he shrugs and the brief, raw moment passes. “I can’t complain. I’ve got an easy ride, even if I do want to walk away from it all. But there you go. One secret.”

He blows it off, but I want to cling to that connection.

Questions burn through me, the urge to comfort him on my lips. But the stranger flutters his eyelashes again, and when he steps forward, closing the distance between us, Seattle turns upside down.

“Your turn, sad eyes,” he says. “Tell me your secret. I’ll see if I can make you smile again.”

CHAPTERTWO

NICO

I’m notthe kind of person who has a lot of secrets. In truth, there are only two big ones that I can think of.

---