SEVEN

Jamison watched Jon walk away. The dangerous thrill that had infused her make-out session with Larry…wait, was it Barry? Hell, whatever—the thrill? It was long gone now. Blarry was just a moment in time. The quick jolt of lust was already subsiding into a less than mild interest.


Jon was the one that made her lungs hurt. Knowing he was watching her had been enough to pump her veins full of adrenaline all over again. The anger and the lust in his eyes was as good as being on stage. The air crackling tension between them had her so turned on she couldn’t stand herself. Everything about Jon was heady and exciting, but instead of losing its edge it was only getting stronger. If she was honest with herself, she’d always been fascinated with him.

From the day Richie had brought him to the house all those years ago, there’d been something there. She could still see the fried bangs hanging over eyes that defied a mundane color like blue. He’d walked into the Sambora house with his hands stuffed in the pockets of too tight jeans, a crooked smile peeking when her mother fussed over him, and a shyness that could spin into a cocky swagger without warning.

Her nineteen year old hormones had sent up a have mercy flag so fast she’d nearly tripped her way out of the house. She would have sliced her own throat before admitting that he freaked her out, but Steph had known. Without saying a word, Steph had gone into the kitchen for ice cream and fudge. She understood, more than anyone, what it was like to be pole axed by a man.

He made her insane. She could admit that. Okay, so it took four years to admit it, but dammit she didn’t like someone else ruling her emotions, even if they were just hormones. Hormones she understood, and she could deal with that.

Sometime between the release of Devotion’s first album and the tour, she’d figured out that the only way to get rid of this thing between them was to face it head on. She was a Sambora, and Samboras didn’t run from their fears. They faced them, and often laughed at them—but oh no, they never ran.

She knew she shouldn’t want him. In fact, she knew it was a bad idea on the all around to even think about getting horizontal with him. And that, she knew perversely, was exactly why she couldn’t think of anything or anyone else.

Feigning a pleasured moan, she readjusted Blarry to the other side of her neck. If he gave her a hickey, she’d shoot him. Or let Jon shoot him. He had a nice little fascination with guns right now, so it probably wouldn’t take that much to push him over the edge.

Tsk, tsk, you shouldn’t even think that kind of thing.

Ignoring that little voice, she didn’t have to fake the next little moan. Well, well, maybe Blarry would do for a quickie. She liked to feel good. Sex loosened her muscles and dissolved the last of the hypersensitivity that a good show left behind. After a few weeks, she’d learned that she couldn’t shut things down after a show without help. Sex was a quick way to pop those little buzzy bubbles and make the evening more manageable.

She heard the clink of Blarry’s buckle and pressed a condom into his fumbling hand.

“Aww c’mon. It doesn’t feel nearly as good with one of those things on. You’re on the pill right?”

God, could the man get a little bit more original? “I may be on the pill, but how many thighs did you try to get between without a wrapper there, stud?”

With a baleful smile, he ripped into the packet. “I wanna make it good for you and these just kill the buzz.”

They kill your buzz, not mine. She reached into his jeans, a little disappointed that he was barely average, but knew it would do the job. She’d make it do the job. She just needed to take the edge off, and she could go back and hang out with her girls.

When she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the pleasure she could bilk out of nearly any man, but all she saw was a pair of intense blue eyes. Eyes that were just as angry as they were turned on. Blarry’s fingers weren’t Jon’s. They were working man’s hands, with calluses and jagged nails. And normally she was more than okay with a blue collar boy, but right now all she wanted was Jon’s slim hips pinning her to the tile.

She wanted Jon’s soft hands with the tiny little calluses at the fingertips from the guitar. Even as Blarry tried his damndest to get her off, she knew it wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t Jon—and evidently only Jon—that would do tonight.

She turned up the little actress inside of her and prepared to get rid of him as soon as possible.



~



After setting Blarry on his way with a smile and a cocky whistle that he so didn’t deserve, she tucked her hair up and showered off the lingering Marlboro and sweat scent of him.

Trying not to think too hard about the fact that she picked the stall Jon had been in, she fingered the empty beer can on the ledge. She stretched her fingers over the tile, letting the surprisingly punishing spray do its job. Her body had been used, but not the way she wanted. The groupies were growing old. The ability to find anything fascinating about them was hard to come by, especially when the one man she wanted was just a step out of reach.

She shook her hair free of the towel and dragged on stretch pants and an oversized AC/DC shirt she’d inherited from Richie. The ripped collar dripped off her shoulder, leaving it bare. She stuffed her feet into ballerina flats. Seduction techniques were done for the night. She followed the laughter and found an impromptu jam session going on backstage.

The guys from Cinderella had stopped in with a still bandaged up Tom Keifer. She was pleased to see him enjoying himself despite the surgery he’d just come out of a few weeks ago.

The slow eyed look he gave her, with a flash of a finger wave, made her grin. Evidently he was on a very good painkiller to make him forget the opportunity that Devotion had snatched away from them. Thankfully they were a good bunch of guys. Most guys would be bitter, but Tom was a sweet guy and his partner in crime, Eric Brittingham, was right beside him.

She grinned and flirted her way through the crowd, snagging a beer from Richie when a blonde in inky black distracted him. She waggled her brows at him when he tried to snatch the bottle back and made a bee-line for Stephanie who was on the other side of Eric. A soulful clash of acoustic guitars, tambourine, and…she laughed—a cow bell, were tearing up The Boys Are Back In Town.

She put her hands on Steph’s shoulders and they both laughed through the chorus as Steph belted out an extended note. Eric dragged her around and settled her on his lap, his lemon blonde hair tickling her face as it tangled with her own dark strands. As always, when it came to Eric, there was a simple companionable vibe between them. They’d tried the naked thing and ended up laughing more than meshing. He was the perfect foil when she didn’t feel like fending off groping hands.

He draped an arm over her shoulder, not a lick of sexuality in the move, but she could feel eyes on her. Not just eyes, but a searing Superman death ray. Jamie looked up—not like she had a choice.

Jon was across the room with a girl on each side of him. Dangerously long red, porn star nails dug into his belly as the girl to his right tried to keep his attention. She had her teeth fastened around his ear and the other hand sliding down over the bulge of his jeans.

The cocky tilt to his jaw and the way he kissed the girl on his left coiled into her belly with a white hot anger. As he deepened the kiss, he opened his eyes latching onto hers. She could see the tangle of tongues and the soft, wet lower lip glisten in the shadowed corner.

Oh, is that how he wanted to play it? A little tit for tat, then?

Lust and anger coagulated into a throaty laugh as she hooked her arm around Eric’s back. Jon wasn’t going to drive her insane—nope, he wasn’t. If she didn’t get herself under control, that bitch with her tongue down his throat was going to find out what it felt like to have it cut out with a guitar pick.

Hoping that her smile didn’t look like The Joker on crack, she dragged Eric’s guitar up on her lap. She strummed out the first chords to Satisfaction and had the whole of the group laughing as they joined in.

Eric played the neck of the guitar and she strummed, bouncing unnecessarily on his lap. Tit for tat indeed, you son of a bitch. Even as the song went into the gutter, and she laughed with the group, she could feel the heat of his stare from across the room. She would ignore him, dammit. What, this was supposed to be a dose of her own medicine? Pride made her lift her chin and stare right back at him.

When he melted into the hallway with both of them, she chained up the anger and took it out on the guitar. Eric’s raised brow was the only indicator that anyone noticed. When she started picking out the chords to Cherry Bomb, Steph laughed.

The knots and the tension finally eased about halfway through the song. As always, the music eased her. The rowdy lyrics, and the laughter along with the innuendo put her in a great mood.

Hey street boy whats your style

Your dead end dreams don't make you smile

I'll give ya something to live for

Have ya, grab ya 'til you're sore

She leaned into her girl and all was right with her world again.

For now.