Kiss the Stars (Falling Stars 1)

Bad call, motherfucker.

I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.

Pussy nothing but a runt.

He started to whirl on me. No doubt, he was getting ready to throw blows.

If only I’d get so lucky.

Maybe it would take off some of the edge.

His punk eyes went wide when he saw he was about to get his ass beat by the guy in the back. “You . . . you’re the drummer? Right?”

Everyone was staring like they’d just witnessed a fifteen-car pileup on the interstate.

Didn’t give a shit.

Only thing I cared about was this girl who was looking at me in shock and surprise.

“Leif,” she murmured in a bid to get my attention.

“That’s right,” I told him, unable to staunch the jealousy that spread through my being. The thought of someone else touching her. Loving her. Couldn’t tolerate the image.

The thought or the assured possibility.

“Think you should probably head out, yeah?” I warned.

My gaze narrowed and my fingers twitched. Wanted to smash in his face for having the audacity to look at her. For even thinking about her.

Which was fucked up on so many levels.

He put both hands up, one with a beer dangling from his fingers. “Whoa, dude. Think we have some kind of misuderstandin’, here. Meant no harm or disrespect. Didn’t know this was your girl.”

He backed away.

I stalked forward, same way as he’d done Mia.

“Yeah, well, I think my girl was making it plenty clear she wasn’t interested, whether if she was with me or not.”

He chuckled an anxious sound, attention darting over his shoulder like he was getting ready to bolt.

A hand landed on my arm.

Soft and sure and right. “I think he was just leaving, weren’t you?” she prodded. Mia’s voice wrapped around me.

A balm and a match.

Consolation and gasoline.

The guy’s attention swung between the two of us. “Sorry. Seriously. We’re cool, man. We’re cool.”

We so were not cool because I was burning the fuck up.

Losing it.

The collected focus I’d possessed for the last three years obliterated in a breath.

Her breath.

Her hand squeezed my arm, and she peered up at me through the drizzle of light that poured through the theater. Worry in her eyes and mischief twitching across those lips.

Something new rippled in the space between us.

Understanding.

Girl getting me on a level that no one else could.

Like maybe she could see through the grief and the pain.

My chest tightened.

No.

Not through it.

Like she was willing to wade through the middle of it with me.

“Hey, there, Drummer Dude,” she said softly, grinning when she uttered the nickname Brendon had given me, all the kids taking suit considering there was no denying he was the alpha of the pack.

I heaved out a strained breath.

She grinned wider. Seduction and sweet. “Nothing like a little overreaction. Don’t tell me you’re jealous?” she teased, the mood a thousand miles from where we’d been yesterday.

A grunt of possession rippled through me, and I angled her way, erasing the space.

Body against hers.

Relief. Relief.

“He touched you,” I grumbled.

A slight, disbelieving giggle rippled free. Laced with a deadly dose of temptation. “And I’d just told him to get lost. That I wasn’t interested.”

She hiked up on her toes and placed that mouth next to my ear. “That I was taken.”

A growl ripped up my throat and my arm was around her back and the fingers of my other hand were diving into the long locks of that black, black hair.

The girl wicked.

The girl pure.

The girl everything.

My mouth came down hard, devouring her lips the way she was devouring my soul. Kissing her mad. Relentlessly.

Right there in the middle of the crowd.

Could feel the laughter and the need rolling up her throat, a gush of lust that I swallowed down right as her hands were fisting in my shirt.

Flash. Flash. Flash.

A slew of cameras went off.

Shit.

We definitely didn’t need this kind of audience.

A smirk hitched at the corner of my mouth as I tore myself away. I grabbed her hand while she stood there panting.

Shocked and turned on and the best fucking thing I’d ever seen.

“Come on.”

I started to drag her through the mass.

“Where are we going?” she rasped from behind.

“Where I can get you alone.”

People ducked out of the way as I pushed through. A few of them called my name, asking for an autograph or a picture. “Not tonight.”

Like I had time for that.

One minute lost was one I wouldn’t get to spend with her.

I knew the brutal truth of that.

I just needed to get her alone. Hold her and touch her and get lost in the perfect torture of her body.

I hauled ass for one of the side doors that led backstage, taking the one that led opposite of where I knew the rest of the band would have landed themselves.

There for the fans who’d purchased VIP tickets.

Interviews and all that bullshit required when you were trying to establish your celebrity.