Nashville Boxed Set #1-3 Read online

  But I hadn’t forgotten. I couldn’t. He was a superstar now. And I was still catering parties for record execs who wouldn't give me the time of day and fending off the wandering hands of Willie the pub owner and a dozen others like him at every gig the band and I scored.

  Dex was the star of all my naughty fantasies and I constantly wondered if I had done the right thing, leaving him behind without even giving him my name.

  The first time I met Dex Wilder I was wearing a bed sheet and body glitter. The second time, it was handcuffs.

  Chapter Two

  Two Years Later

  “I hate Dex Wilder.”

  “No you don’t,” Becca said, pouring the coffee. I took a sip then peered back at the latest tabloid photos of him and another blonde bimbo.

  I didn’t argue. We both knew she was right. “Look. Her boobs practically have their own ZIP code.”

  Becca peered across our tiny second-hand kitchen table and pulled the rag towards her. “Wow. Wonder what those cost?”

  I snatched the tabloid back, balled it up and tossed it in the general direction of the garbage can. “It’s disgusting.”

  “You’re just jealous. You could have been the tour bunny of the hottest, richest, most popular country star since Johnny Cash and you wouldn’t even give the poor guy your phone number. Maybe it could have gone somewhere.”

  “Yeah, like the back of his tour bus. Besides, I don’t want a boyfriend.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is, it’s just not fair.” I gestured to the tiny apartment just on the safe side of “condemned”. “I mean look at this place. I’m tired of playing to rednecks in shitty bars, wondering if I’ll serve enough crab cakes to make rent every month. Sending out demo CDs to every label in Nashville and getting absolutely nowhere.”

  I scooped the balled-up tabloid off the cracked linoleum. “And then you have people like Dex Wilder who no sooner get to Nashville and sign a multi-million dollar record deal to sing songs about his boots or his dog or how much fun it is to party all the time. Ugh!” I re-balled the tabloid and threw it in the can this time then slammed the lid.

  It didn’t help that everywhere I looked, there he was. In the tabloids, magazine interviews, news shows, music videos, billboards and of course the radio. God, those DJs loved Dex Wilder. And every time they played him, what popped in my mind? Hot, steamy, finger-lickin’ good sex up against the wall of a public building, which I hadn’t experienced again since that night. If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t change a thing. I just wish I could forget about him, the way he’d obviously forgotten about me.

  I was determined to put Dex Wilder and the Bimbo of the Week out of my mind. I’d made the decision that night to make it a one-night stand and it had been the right one. Dex was free to screw whomever he wanted.

  I flipped to the review section of the Sunday Tennessean. My band, Road Kill, had played a gig the previous night at yet another stinky hole-in-the wall, but I’d seen the music reporter pop in for a few minutes and hoped he’d have something nice to say about us, for a change.

  He didn’t.

  “Road Kill lives up to its name with second-rate covers and a few lukewarm originals. The only good thing about Road Kill is its lead singer, a Heidi Klum look-alike with a so-so voice. If Miss Stratton had shown a little more skin, patrons might have stayed for the second set.”

  I wadded up that paper, too. “Can you believe that jerk?”

  “Well, you really should dress sexier on stage. Boobs are as important as voice, you know.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Just because I happen to be blonde and tall, and well-endowed, people think that’s all there is. I don’t want people to look at my boobs, I want them to hear my music.”

  Becca shrugged. “Your funeral.”

  I sat down again, the wind knocked from my sails. “It’s not that I’m really jealous of Dex Wilder or anyone else who has made it. I’m just…tired. I never thought this would be so hard. Every time we take one step forward and it looks like something might finally go our way, something falls through and we’re right back to square one.”

  I rubbed my eyes, still burning from playing the smoky bar the previous night. “This isn’t working.”

  Becca got up and put her cereal bowl in the sink.

  “You need to do something drastic.”

  I raised my head and looked at her. “Like what? Go into Wildcat Records with a gun and force some record executive to listen to my demo?”

  Rebecca smiled thoughtfully. “Well that’s definitely plan B, but I was thinking of something that carries slightly less jail time.”

  I’d tried it the right way, been the good girl, willing to pay her dues and do the work it would take to get that first contract with a big label. Yet here I was, two years later, still living hand to mouth, still playing crappy bars, still waiting tables for record company parties I’d never be a guest at.

  It sucked.

  All I’d ever wanted growing up in Indiana was to move to Nashville and make music. It was time to break out of the box and do something different. Big stars broke the rules. Big stars made things happen. Maybe it was time to take a risk.

  “What kind of drastic move did you have in mind?”

  * * * *

  As I smiled and nodded at the last security guard standing between me and the performers’ dressing rooms, I asked myself for the hundredth time how the heck I had let Becca talk me into sneaking into Michelle Waters’ dressing room to slip her my demo tape in person. Michelle was a huge star and had enough clout in the industry to help me get my foot in the door if she liked my stuff. She and a handful of other country stars were playing a charity concert and there were a lot of people milling around. It was the perfect opportunity for “drastic”.

  Becca’s friend at the Sommet Center had assured us that they let attractive, scantily clad blondes backstage all the time without proper passes. So here I was in a borrowed dress that showed more cleavage than a plumber’s dungarees and heading into the shadowy backstage corridors to pimp my demo.

  I finally made it into the hallway where the dressing rooms were located and started reading doors. There were rooms for the bands, rooms for refreshments, rooms for press, rooms for the stars. I kept reminding myself that Dierks Bentley had gotten his big break by slipping Brad Paisley his tape one night at the Opry. That seemed to have turned out well for Dierks and I was hoping for the same result.

  “Hey.” I heard a voice echo down the corridor. The silhouette of a large security guard who liked his donuts just a little too much was visible against the light from the main area. “Miss? I need to see your credentials.”

  Great. A rent-a-cop who was actually doing his job. Just what I needed. I glanced at the wall of doors. The security guard was far away and the lighting was dim at best. If I ducked into one of the dressing rooms, it would be hard for him to tell where I’d gone. Then I could sneak back out after he was gone and locate Michelle’s dressing room.

  I turned the first knob on my right and slipped inside.

  It was dark, which was good. That meant no one was home right now. Or maybe this particular room wasn’t being used at all. Even better.

  I flipped the lock on the door and pressed my ear to the door. After a minute, I heard the huffing and quick shuffling footsteps of the security guard and held my breath. I clutched the CD in my sweaty palm and prayed the guard had the IQ of a caterpillar.

  I heard him opening doors further up the corridor, then closing them before moving on to the next. Shit. Why couldn’t this guard go back to swilling beer and ogling groupies like the rest of his cohorts?

  The guard was coming closer. His shuffling footsteps and jangling keys reminded me of all the horror movies I’d ever watched through fingers half covering my eyes. Only this was for real, and though I might not be hacked to pieces with a chainsaw, being put in jail and having to call home for bail money would be almost as bad.

 
The doorknob wiggled and I heard the key in the lock.

  I hid behind the door. With any luck, the guard hadn’t seen me going into the dressing room. But I had never had good luck and when the doorknob turned I sucked in my breath and held it, willing myself to go invisible.

  “Miss?” The lights went on. There was no point in hiding now. But maybe he could be persuaded to let me go without too much trouble.

  I stepped out and smiled at him. “Hi.”

  He didn’t smile back and the name tag bearing “Reynolds Security” in block lettering confirmed my suspicions that I was in deep shit.

  “What are you doing in Mr. Wilder’s dressing room?”

  Mr. Wilder. Shit. Not… “Dex.” I said in a groan.

  “Yeah,” he eyed my skimpy dress and gold heels. “Are you a guest of Mr. Wilder’s?”

  “Guest?”

  He arched a brow.

  “Oh, a guest,” I said, feeling my cheeks burn. He thought I was a groupie. “No. Definitely not a guest.” Not on purpose, anyway.

  He took a pair of handcuffs off his belt and approached me. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you in, then.”

  “What? For trespassing?”

  “Mr. Wilder has gotten threats from women like you before. We don’t take chances.”

  I suddenly remembered reading about Dex being attacked in his dressing room in Tulsa by a crazed fan convinced she was his wife and he was her cheating husband. She’d had a gun and though it hadn’t turned out to be loaded, well, I could see why he took precautions now. I wasn’t sure how I felt about being put in the same group as a woman currently incarcerated in a mental institution.

  I backed away, deeper into the room but the beefy guard followed me.

  “Just calm down, now, Ma’am, and we’ll get this all straightened out, okay?”

  “I’m not a stalker.”

  “Okay. We’ll sort this all out. Just calm down.”

  He lunged then. He was much faster than he looked and before I knew it, I was on my belly and handcuffed just like one of the perps right off of Cops.

  The guard hauled me to my feet. “Sorry Ma’am. But I’m going to have to run you in.”

  “Really,” I said as he walked me towards the door. “I’m not a stalker. I don’t even like Dex Wilder. I hate him!”

  The door opened just as the last words left my mouth and standing there framed in the doorway was the man himself.

  “What the—” shock was replaced by surprise, which was replaced by a glare.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Wilder. I only left for a second to use the john and she slipped in. It’s all taken care of now, though.”

  Behind Dex there was a crowd of fans and media and I heard the tell-tale click of dozens of cell-phone cameras recording my humiliation.

  The guard tugged me towards the door, but Dex put a hand on his arm.

  “It’s ok, Joe.”

  “You know her?”

  He looked right into my eyes and every second of the night we shared two years earlier came rushing back.

  “Yeah, I know her.”

  The guard jangled his keys and moved to take the cuffs off.

  “Leave them,” Dex said, still staring into my eyes, the naughty glint in full force.

  “Sir?”

  “And leave the key.”

  The confused guard shook his head a little and handed Dex the key before scurrying out of the room. Dex locked it behind him and turned to face me.

  I swallowed hard.

  “I can explain,” I began, not at all sure I really could.

  “I’d love to hear it.” He circled me slowly, like a predator. My knees felt weak but not for the same reason they’d gone soft the last time I’d been so close to Dex that I could see the gold flecks in his eyes.

  “Yeah, I was looking for a different dressing room and ended up here by mistake.”

  His gaze traveled from my overly made up face to the fuck-me heels on me feet. I grew warm under his stare.

  “Well, you found mine.”

  He moved in closer until I was staring at the buttons on his shirt. He tilted my head up with one finger beneath my chin and forced me to look him in the eye.

  “Lucky me,” he whispered, showing that sideways grin I remembered before bringing his lips to mine.

  He put one hand on the back of my head and kissed me with the same confidence and skill that I had remembered way too often over the last two years. When he licked the seam of my lips, they opened and he swept inside to taste me, tease me with his tongue.

  I couldn’t help it. I kissed him back, rising on tiptoes to reach him better. He groaned at my response and wrapped the second arm around my waist and tugged me against his long hard body.

  “You still taste good,” he said against my lips. “Sweet—and spicy, too. Just like I remembered.”

  A little thrill that he remembered me at all shot through my body.

  I was kissing Dex Wilder. The Dex Wilder on all the posters and the one I’d seen on stage a few times from the cheap seats. And also the Dex from that long-ago summer night who overwhelmed me with his passion and pure maleness. I wondered if I was having another very vivid erotic dream.

  “Unlock me,” I said leaning into him.

  “Not a chance.” He nibbled my ear.

  “What?”

  “I’m not letting you leave this time until I’m good and ready to let you go.”

  I should have been outraged, but deep in the back recesses of my mind, just this sort of set-up had always been my ultimate fantasy. To be taken, with no choice in the matter, by a man so sexy and alpha that I couldn’t resist even if I’d wanted to. It wasn’t PC and wasn’t something I’d ever admit to in the light of day, but handcuffed and helpless and in the arms of the one man who was the star of my dirtiest fantasies, well, that was different.

  I nodded, not that he needed my go-ahead, and turned my face to kiss him again.

  The cowboy hat was the first thing to hit the floor this time. His hair was damp and his skin salty from performing on stage. I loved his scent, his taste and everything he was making me feel deep inside. Warmth spread through my body as I imagined all the things he might do to me, none of which I could control or deny him.

  “I need a shower, baby.”

  I blinked for a moment. “Okay. I guess I’ll…wait?”

  He smiled slowly and ran his hands down my sides, over the curve of my breasts, the indentation of my waist, the flare of my hips and down to the outside of my trembling thighs.

  “Oh, no, you’ll be with me.”

  His hand started back up my body, under my dress this time, shoving it up as he went. But this time there was no barrier, no fabric separating his skin from mine.

  He peeled my strapless gown off my body, then slid it down my bound arms to drop to the floor.

  I wasn’t wearing a bra, only silky black panties that didn’t leave much to the imagination. My nipples were rock hard by then and he used his thumbs to circle them gently, that naughty grin still in full force as he stared into my eyes.

  “Are you feeling dirty, too?”

  I wet my lips. “Yeah.”

  He unbuttoned a few buttons of his shirt then grabbed the back yoke and pulled it off over his head. I caught my breath. He’d been working out. He’d been hot before with his broad chest and flat belly, but now he was all hard muscle and six-pack abs. His biceps were bulkier, too, his chest even broader. When I’d seen his shirtless picture in some of the tabloids, I’d wondered if they had been Photoshopped. Nope—all Dex.

  He sat down on a low footstool and tugged off his cowboy boots and socks, then popped the button on his fly and eased his zipper down.

  His boxer-briefs left little to the imagination. He still took my breath away. Warmth pooled low in my belly and I could hardly wait for him to touch me.

  Dex brought that delicious body close to mine and traced a line between my breasts, down my abdomen to my navel, where he flicked the gol
d ring there.

  “Didn’t see this the last time,”

  “It’s new.”

  He got to his knees then looked up at me, putting his hands on my hips. “I like.”

  He traced my navel with his tongue, flicking the ring with each circle. Then he moved lower to the line of my panties.

  He hooked his thumbs under the string waistband and tugged them down to expose me fully to his gaze.

  With my hands behind my back, I couldn’t do anything to hide myself, or distract him or even help him. I was completely at his mercy and at the moment, I couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.

  He slid my panties down my legs and I stepped out of them. I was totally nude except for my red heels.

  “I like this, too,” he said and tugged my hips until he could bury his mouth in the curls at the apex of my thighs.

  My head dropped back and a low, ragged groan escaped me. He used his tongue to circle and tease and venture inside just a bit until I was so wet it was almost embarrassing. But he only gripped my thighs harder and delved deeper with his tongue, thrusting and sucking until my head felt like it was going to float off my shoulders. I swayed on my feet. It was a good thing Dex had a good grip on my hips.

  With a final kiss, he got to his feet then and kissed me on the lips. I could taste my own essence, a little salty, musky and combined with Dex’s unique flavor, perfect.

  “See how good you taste, baby? I could do that all night.”

  He ran a hand through my hair and kissed me deeply again until all I could see, hear, smell and think about was Dex and getting him inside me as soon as possible.

  “Please,” I groaned when he moved to my neck. “Please, Dex.”

  “I love it when you say my name like that.” He was smiling that smile again, ornery, lids half lowered. I’d seen magazine shoots in which he flashed the camera the same sexy look. I’d masturbated to it more than once. I should be immune by now. But that grin in person was deadly.