Razing Ryker (Dissonance Book 1) Read online

  And Grant. He had Grant and he honestly didn’t know what he’d do without him. He was the only real friend that Ryker had anymore. The only person he even considered trusting. Everyone else wanted a piece of him or all of him if they could manage it. But even that friendship couldn’t fill the emptiness that plagued him night after night and left him waking at three am. Lexy hadn’t filled it. Booze didn’t fill it. His music wasn’t what he wanted and it left him more lost than anything else. Hearing his own songs on the radio was like listening to someone else’s music. It didn’t resonate with him. He couldn’t connect with it and he’d wrote the shit. It was messed up and he hated it. He hated almost everything lately. It was depression, he knew it, but he didn’t know what to do about it. He wanted to write, to create, but there was nothing in him to put to paper. He was hollow and it scared him more than anything else in his life ever had before.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” he told Grant, his eyes falling on the corner of Greer’s headshot that was peeking out from the pile. Her large green eye was squinted at the edge from her smile, a line of laughter that hit him in the heart like a jolt of energy. He wanted to reach out and pick up her photo to get a better look, but he knocked back the remainder of his whiskey instead. “Call ‘em. Line it up.”

  “You got it, man. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “You don’t think they’ll all want to do it.” It wasn’t a question.

  Grant shook his head doubtfully as he pulled the headshots into a neat stack. “I don’t, no. I think the girl from Surrendered, Cara, is going to stay with the production. She said in her audition that she wasn’t sure she could get away long enough to work with us.”

  “Yeah, I know. Call her anyway.” He hesitated, watching Grant pull out his phone and pick up Cara’s headshot off the top of the pile. Cameron, the guy from Rendezvous, was underneath it. “Give me that one. I’ll call him.”

  “Sure.”

  “Give me all of them from that production. I’ll call them all.”

  Grant chuckled at him. “You know we’d be better off if you personally called Cara and the others still involved in running productions, right?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, taking the headshots and walking to the bar to refill his drink.

  “Ry.”

  “You’re a silver tongued devil, Grant,” he said, not looking back at his friend. “You’ll stand a better chance getting them than I will. Give me the locks. I can’t screw those up.”

  “You won’t screw it up, man.”

  “I screw everything up lately,” he grumbled dialing Cameron’s number.

  “Come on, you—“

  “On the phone!”

  Grant watched Ryker’s back as he waited impatiently for the call to go through. His shoulders were high and tight, anxious. This was important to him. It was important to everyone involved and the success of this concert could change the tide for Ryker’s entire career, but Grant had a sinking, awful feeling that it wouldn’t be enough. He knew his friend. He knew he needed more, but what that ‘more’ was, he didn’t know. Even worse, he understood that Ryker didn’t know either.

  Ryker made the calls to all of the members of Rendezvous.

  All but one.

  He listened as Grant laughed and joked with the other dancers and he knew he’d get them. Every last one of them because that’s the kind of charisma Grant had. The same kind that Ryker used to have. He recognized it and envied it. Especially now as he looked down at the final headshot, the final phone number, and he wondered if he wanted to call her after all. He wanted her in the show but he didn’t know if he could handle the joyful exuberance that would most likely follow his offer. The joy and the screams and the appreciation that Mia had just given him. He didn’t think he could stomach it. Maybe he didn’t have to call. Maybe a text would be enough.

  “Shit,” he muttered, running his hand through his hair. She didn’t have a cell. This number was a landline. He had to call. Annoyed that he was afraid of a phone call, he whipped his cell phone off the bar and dialed the number quickly. He’d tell her she got it, congratulate her, and hang the fuck up.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, can I speak to Greer, please?” he asked.

  “This is Greer. Jace?”

  He paused, thrown by the sound of her saying his name. He realized then that he hadn’t heard her say it in their brief conversations. Most people tried it out at least once while talking to him as though to cement the moment in their minds. “Yeah, it’s Jace Ryker.”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m good. I’m calling to tell—how are you?”

  She chuckled lightly. “I’m great. Just sitting around brushing up on my Old McDonald.”

  “Have you reached the duck yet? The duck was always my favorite as a kid.”

  “Not yet. I’m stuck on goat.”

  He frowned. “Do goats make a sound?”

  “Exactly my problem. I think I’ve sung myself into a corner here.”

  “You could always skip them.”

  “I’m no quitter.”

  “I think they say ‘bah’, like sheep.”

  “But then what do I do when I get to sheep?”

  “Fall asleep?”

  “Now we’re rhyming,” she laughed. “I think we just wrote a song together.”

  “My first in months,” he chuckled dryly.

  “That’s not true. I heard one of your new ones just the other day.”

  “You weren’t supposed to. No one was.”

  “Oh. You mean it was leaked?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s your work,” she replied as though it were obvious. “It’s a piece of you and you aren’t in control of it. That sucks.”

  He swallowed in surprise at her reaction, at how close it hit to home. “Yeah, it does.”

  “Do you know how it got out?”

  He hesitated, not sure he wanted to continue this conversation. Greer was deceptively easy to talk to and he probably shouldn’t have told her as much as he just had. He definitely shouldn’t tell her who he suspected of leaking his material because if it found its way to the press it’d be another scandal he had to deal with. He wasn’t ready to face that. He was already cleaning up from the last mess. “Not a clue,” he said, his voice clipped. “Anyway, I was calling to let you know we want you in the show if you’re available.”

  “Seriously?” she asked, sounding breathless.

  Ryker winced, prepping himself for the screams. “Yeah. Definitely. We need you in the show.”

  Want, he thought angrily, scolding himself. We want you in the show.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  He paused, unsure of what was happening because it definitely wasn’t screaming. “You’re welcome.”

  “Is it all right if I ask what the show is now?”

  “Yeah, of course. It’s a one night concert in my hometown back in Washington. We’ll have rehearsals for a couple weeks before hand, we’ll need you in Washington for a couple of days gearing up for the show, then you’re free immediately after.”

  “That sounds amazing.”

  “It’s a small commitment,” he clarified. “No promises of future work. Just this one show, that’s all we’re asking for.”

  “I understand that. It’s still amazing. I’ve never been out of New York before. Oh God, that’s embarrassing,” she mumbled. “Forget I admitted that. I was kidding. I go to Milan like every weekend.”

  Ryker chuckled at her lie. “Me too.”

  “See, when you say it I actually believe that.”

  “I’ve been to Milan a couple times,” he admitted. “Not that great.”

  “Well, I’ll sell my summer home there immediately.”

  “Smart.”

  “Any suggestions on where I should spend my summers now?”

  “Not Washington.”

  “Are you hating on your home?
”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it my home. I was born there. That’s about it. I’ve spent more time in the studio than I ever spent in that town.”

  “Then why are you going back?”

  He hesitated again, stumped as to how she kept getting him so close to these topics. She should have been a reporter.

  “Never mind, none of my business,” she said quickly before he could shut her down. “I’m just excited to be a part of it.”

  “I’m glad you’re going to be a part of it too.”

  His honesty hung in the air between them and he suddenly didn’t know what to do with it. Obviously she didn’t either because the silence drug out between them until it felt like a tangible thing linking her to him from across the town and over the sullen streets. She was a light in the air that found him and swirled through the receiver until he breathed in warm, crisp air that tasted like sunshine on his tongue.

  “Well, good,” he said, filling the silence and pushing out her presence. “I’ll have my agent call yours and handle the business side. They’ll settle your compensation and draw up the contracts.”

  “Okay, great. Thank you again, Jace. Or… I should call you Mr. Ryker?”

  “No. Jace,” he said, tasting the warmth in his mouth again. “Call me Jace.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “You rang?” Samantha asked seductively.

  Cameron grinned at her framed in the doorway. She was wearing spiked high heels, a slinky red dress, and her lips were painted a crimson color to match. Her long bottle blond hair fell around her face in perfect straight strands that begged to be wrinkled by his fingers.

  “Come in,” he told her, opening the door wider to let her in. “Do you want a drink?”

  “Nope.” She tossed her purse on the small kitchen table and spun around to sit on top of the scratched surface. “I want to fuck.”

  Cameron smirked. “Don’t beat around the bush, tell me what you really want.”

  “I want your cock beating at my bush, that’s what I want.” She lifted the skirt of her dress, showing off her creamy inner thighs and the fact that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. “Isn’t that what you want?”

  “It sure as shit is now.” Cameron crossed the small space between them and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her forward on the table until she rested both feet on chairs and spread her legs wide.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered.

  Cameron leaned in to lay his lips on hers, but she pushed him away roughly.

  “Not here,” she said, touching her lips. She drug her hand down her body, between her breasts, down her stomach, and into her core. “Here.”

  He smiled as he knelt on the floor in front of her. He was eye level with her heat, with her heart, and he braced his hands on her thighs to push them even wider. He’d seen her dance, he knew how limber she was. He knew how far she could stretch and when she was opened wide to him, he licked his tongue slowly up her center where her rich scent filled his nose and made his dick rise in his pants. She sighed, her fingers finding their way into his hair and holding him to her as he lapped at her fold, savoring the taste of her want. He found her head and licked her clit in firm, languid circles that made her jerk and gasp. He brought her to the edge and pulled away, then took her back again until she was pleading the way she had been the last time they’d fucked.

  “Make me come, Cam. Jesus, please, make me come.”

  “Not yet,” he told her. He slid one finger insider her and curved it, finding her G-spot and twitching, caressing against it.

  “Fuck!” she cried, falling back against the table. She writhed and squirmed as he worked her from the inside out, licking her clit as he fondled her. “Please, please, fuck!”

  He pulled out his finger, thrust in three, and sucked hard and fast on her clit.

  She blew up. Her body seized and she whimpered as the pleasure took her over. He pulled back, watching his fingers fucking her and coming back wetter with every thrust. Finally he pulled out completely and slipped a condom on his dick. She was still panting on the table when he thrust inside her and made her shout again.

  She wrapped her legs around him and her heels dug into his ass, but he didn’t care. He drove into her and watched her breasts bounce with every thrust. She reached up and took them in her hands, pinching her own nipples and squeezing her full flesh. She pushed them together and he imagined fucking them. He imagined coming all over them, on her stomach, on her red mouth. He imagined her lips around his cock sucking him off and he nearly lost his shit right then and there.

  Samantha sat up suddenly and pressed her mouth over his, tasting her own desire on his lips and licking it clean from his mouth. She bit down on his lip the way she had in the studio.

  “Fuck me until I’m sore,” she moaned against his mouth. “Fuck me raw. Fuck me ruined. Make me come around your cock until it hurts us both.”

  “You’re fucking crazy,” he panted, loving every word from her dirty mouth.

  “I’m fucking serious, Cam. Take me. Make me yours. You want me, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then fucking take me,” she growled.

  He pulled out of her, surprising her, then he spun her around and pushed her down on her stomach on the table. He thrust back inside her as he reached around and felt for her clit, his fingers dancing over his own dick where it pushed in and out of her. He found her swollen nub and rubbed it vigorously. She yelped and groaned as he thrust harder and harder inside of her until she began to shake and tremble. He came inside of her as she clenched on his cock but he didn’t stop. He pounded into her as long as he could. He pushed and pushed until his dick went soft from exertion and he couldn’t go any longer.

  “Like that?” he asked, panting and sweat soaked.

  “No,” she answered in a content whisper, her face flat against the table and her hot breath fogging the surface. “But we’ll get there.”

  Four times. It took fucking her four times to get her to leave him alone. She was insatiable. At the end of it his dick was raw and angry at him and she’d come seven times as far as he knew. May have been more. He was lucky his roommates were all gone for the night because they’d done it on every surface of the apartment, including their beds. Samantha was a freak. He was pretty sure he’d be in love with her if he could be.

  If his heart hadn’t been devoured by a damn demon.

  “What’d you mean by ‘it sure as shit is now?’” she asked breathlessly.

  They were laying on the floor stark naked and staring at the ceiling after having done it missionary just to mix things up. You know you’re having a good day when missionary feels like a new adventure.

  “What?” Cameron asked, dazed.

  “You said fucking was what you wanted to do now, but what did you want before that? Why’d you call me over if not to get laid?”

  “I wanted to celebrate.”

  “Well, we kind of did.”

  “Yeah, we did.” He raised his hand and she slapped him a limp high five before they both dropped their lifeless hands to the ground.

  “What did we just celebrate?”

  “I got a job,” he answered sleepily. “Not a great one, but it’s a good opportunity. Could be something.”

  “I got one too.”

  He turned to look at her, smiling at her beautiful flushed face. “Really? That’s great. What is it?”

  Samantha didn’t look at him. She continued to stare at the ceiling, biting the inside of her cheek. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Why?”

  She sighed, finally turning her head to look at him. “It’s with Surrendered.”

  “What?!” Cameron sat up, suddenly wide awake. He stared down at her, stunned. “You’re kidding, right?”

  She stared back at him calmly. “No. I’m serious. They called me today and said they’d lost one of their people to another project. They need a replacement ASAP and… and Eve recommended me.”
r />   “Fuck,” Cameron growled, standing up and stalking out of the room.

  “I knew you’d be mad.”

  “Of course I’m fucking mad, Sam! How could you join up with her?”

  Samantha stood up and started gathering her clothes. “Because it’s a good job. Rendezvous is dead and who knows when another opportunity to be on Broadway will come up? I need to take the chance while I can.”

  “So you’re in it for the spotlight? Just like she was?”

  “Oh, fuck you,” she snapped, annoyed. “We’re all in it for the spotlight. It’s why we’re performers. Don’t get all high and mighty with me. You’re not mad that I’m trying to stay on Broadway, you’re mad because it’s Eve.”

  “Of course I’m mad because it’s Eve. She screwed us all.”

  “No one as much as you.”

  “Exactly!”

  “Right, which means no one is as mad at her as you are. Try and get some perspective.” She pulled her dress over her head and stepped into her shoes, shaking her head angrily and heading for the door. “Try being happy for me, asshole.”

  She slammed the door behind her leaving Cameron standing in the center of his world in the nude wondering at how quickly a good thing could turn bad.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “You are an asshole,” Greer told Cameron, stretching out on the floor of the studio. It was different than the one they’d been in for Rendezvous. Smaller and older, but they’d only be in it for a couple of weeks as they learned Jace’s songs and dance routines. His choreographer was supposed to be there soon and Greer wondered briefly if Jace would make an appearance. Her stomach flipped at the thought of seeing him again.