I caught my teeth on her bottom lip and when she gave up a ragged gasp, my tongue plunged into her like a heat-seeking missile. I tasted her like I’d wanted to do for fucking years, desperate to have her, any way I could get her, angry, clawing at me, I didn’t care.
Then it hit me, and I almost gagged.
The taste of liquor. Pungent and sour… revolting… and totally fucking intoxicating.
And I dove right into it.
I screwed my tongue into her mouth like I was tongue-fucking the neck of a bottle, sucking hard, the bliss of that taste and a brutal crush of memories smashing me in the back of the skull.
Then I caught myself. I almost gagged, again.
I ripped myself away with such force I shoved her off.
I spit out that bittersweet taste on the carpet and mashed the back of my hand to my mouth.
Yeah… not the best thing to do after kissing a woman. Kinda ranked right up there with laughing at her and throwing up.
I saw it in her gray eyes… the exact moment she started hating me. Or at least, hating me more than she already did.
Her face shut down and she wrapped her arms around her chest as she sat there on the floor staring up at me, next-to-naked in her lace panties, looking small and so fucking vulnerable it gutted me.
“You’re so full of shit,” she whispered.
“Maggie—”
“Get out.”
And for once, there was no arguing the point. I was the world’s biggest asshole, and now she had proof.
I got the fuck out.
Chapter Three
Maggie
There were fuck ups, and then there were Fuck Ups.
And I had just Fucked Up.
Despite how I might look, given that I was on the petite side and my tastes ran to pretty makeup, manicures and four-inch-heels—in which I was still petite—I was a tough chick. Had to be, given the life I lived and the job I had to do. Which meant that Fucking Up the way I just did hurt in a way I didn’t often feel hurt, because my night had already gone bad, I’d already been hurt bad, and now I’d taken that hurt from bad to worse.
And now I, Maggie Omura, the tough girl, the “on it” girl, the organized-as-fuck girl, the girl always armed with a plan, was at a loss for what to do about it.
For once, I had no plan.
I didn’t even have the first clue.
Freshly showered and wrapped in a hotel bathrobe, I leaned against the low wall of the giant rooftop patio, gazing out over the shimmering lights of the Strip below, as if they might have answers. I had my sunglasses on, dimming the night around me, because my eyes felt suspiciously tingly and no one was gonna see my cry.
Not that anyone was around.
I’d already checked to make sure Coop and the groupies were gone; the main room of the suite was empty, the music turned off, and Zane was nowhere to be seen. The only thing out of place was a random lacy stocking, which I’d deposited in the trash before heading outside for some air.
The patio ran the full length of the penthouse, but I stuck to my own end. The last thing I needed was to wander past the glass doors that opened onto the master bedroom and glimpse Zane in there naked and doing God-knew-what.
I’d had enough of that man and his dick for one night.
You’re just mad because he shoved you away before you got to the really good part.
Jesus, but you can be a perv, Mom.
God, why’d she have to butt into this? Not as if she’d never made any questionable decisions when it came to a charming, slutty rock star.
Guess this particular strain of masochism ran in the family.
I tore the foil from the top of the champagne bottle and untwisted the wire that secured the cork. To hell with my dad and his stupid free shit with all the strings attached. I was gonna drink his champagne, because fuck him.
And fuck Zane, too. Whatever his problem was, it was so not my problem. I just needed to remember that.
“Managing” the members of this band only went so fucking far.
I popped the cork and sucked off the gush of bubbly that erupted, hoping maybe I could lose the last hour-and-a-half of my life to champagne-induced bliss… because I couldn’t even wrap my head around it.
I kissed Zane.
And he shoved me away.
Oh, and then there was that really fun part where he spat on the carpet.
Thank God for that, because it was just the punch in the face I needed. A reminder that throwing myself at Zane Traynor was a complete and utter Fuck Up.
I’d let him get under my skin, when I’d made it a policy, long ago, never to let that man anywhere near my skin. And now I was gonna pay for it in crazy.
Shit.
I got more than enough crazy from my dad.
I could not afford to let Zane’s crazy overflow the professional bounds of our relationship just because I was hurt and angry—most of this hurt and anger misplaced, since it was my dad I was truly pissed at—not to mention horny, humiliated and vulnerable, and I lost my temper, snapped, and did something totally ridiculous.
It was my own fault, too. As much as I’d like to blame Zane, it wasn’t exactly his fault I threw myself at him, no matter how big a dick he was being and how much that unfortunately, annoyingly messed with the signals between my clit and my brain. Acting on it—the anger and the messed up signals—was all me, and it was totally out of character.
Zane, for his part, was just being Zane.
Years ago, he and I had reached a kind of stalemate in our relationship. He wanted
