manager to shut up because his queen would perform her ass off.
Then there was the parade of wardrobe people, dancers and band members who went in out of her dressing room like it was ground zero with no regard for her privacy, safety or personal space.
And my Songbird?
She smiled through the whole damn thing as she sipped some honey-lemon tea concoction and did her makeup.
Her agent was right about one thing.
She was a queen.
A goddamn patient, rockstar, gorgeous queen.
But she sure as hell wasn’t his.
She was mine.
And she was quietly standing next to me, nerves of steel, calmly holding my hand and awaiting her cue.
I didn’t know if I should tell her I was going to fuck her, marry her, or run away with her.
I was leaning toward all three when a guy in a headset carrying a laptop who looked like he was fucking twelve came up behind us and grinned at her. “Thirty seconds, babe. You know the drill.”
She smiled politely. “Thank you, Wynn.”
Of course she called him by name. She knew everybody’s name. All two hundred of them.
I leaned to her ear. “Do you remember what I did to you on the plane?”
She shivered, and the corner of her mouth tipped up. “Yes.”
“I’m going to do that to you the entire flight home,” I promised.
She opened her sweet mouth to respond, but the lights in the stadium went out, and the crowd went fucking insane. Chanting her name, yelling, screaming—the vibrations rocked the floor.
Then the lighting engineers lit the stage with deep red and purple spotlights, highlighting the band, and the crowd screamed louder.
Wynn leaned between us and yelled over the noise. “Fifteen seconds.”
I cupped her face. “You’re fucking beautiful, and I’m proud of you.”
The band played the first notes of one of her most popular songs, and the noise from the crowd compounded.
Grinning from ear to ear, Wynn handed her a microphone and nodded.
Excitement in her eyes, my Songbird looked at me and mouthed, I love you.
“I own you.” I squeezed her hand.
Then the microphone was to her lips, and she was strutting on stage in a sheer white dress and sky-high heels, singing the first line of her song and fucking killing it.
A hand landed on my shoulder, but I didn’t take my eyes off her. I couldn’t.
“Told you she was a queen,” her agent said, loud enough for me to hear.
I spared the prick a single glance and fucking glared at him. “She’s my queen.”
He laughed, then drank from his flask.
I watched my Songbird sing her heart out.
A shadow fell over me a second before the tip of his finger skimmed from hip bone to hip bone.
Gooseflesh rippled across my heated skin, and my nipples tightened to hard points. “Please don’t stop,” I begged.
His voice, dark and seductive and hotter than the sun whispered across my skin. “Did I give you permission to go topless?” His breath touching my neck, his mouth hovered just above my ear.
“No,” I answered, deliciously aware of what my defiance would mean when he was in this kind of mood.
Swift and firm, his rough hand covered my throat. “Are you asking to be punished, Songbird?”
I sucked in a sharp breath as wetness surged between my legs, coating the bikini bottom I suddenly wished I wasn’t wearing. An impossible ache pulsed in my core, and my hips had a mind of their own, grinding futilely into the padded lounger of the deck.
Needy, I purposely provoked him further. “I’m just getting sun.”
“On your back,” he quietly stated. “Naked.”
A shiver wracked my body because I knew that tone of voice. I knew it, and I loved it. “Only topless.”
“Only.” He leaned closer. “How hard do you want to be fucked?”
It was a rhetorical question, but I answered anyway. “Deliciously hard.”
He pulled the string on one side of my hip. “Is that right?”
“Is the anchor down?” I asked, practically breathless from just the feel of the side of the bikini tugging on my hip, then letting go.
“Do you care?” He swirled one finger over the top of my thigh where my bikini had just been.
I couldn’t see past his tanned, flexed biceps and unbelievable six-pack as he held himself just above me in nothing more than his swim trunks. Crystal-clear aqua waters shimmered under the bright sunlight all around us, but impossibly gorgeous amber-green eyes were staring down at me with possession, and I knew he was right.
I didn’t care. “Kiss me.”
He raised one eyebrow. Playful, but also mouth-wateringly dominant. “Where should I