Right on my heels, she snapped back, "Hey, I'm doing you a favor. You think he's changed, you think he's suddenly a faithful, one-woman man now? A tiger doesn't change his spots!"

Groaning as I dashed down the steps, I tossed over my shoulder, "A tiger doesn't even have spots. Get your metaphors straight."

Prissily she marched beside me. "Whatever, my point is, Tina here," she jerked her thumb at the blonde striding next to her, "saw him after a show on the Square just last week." Smirking, she yanked on my elbow to hold me in place. "He was shirtless and about get it on with some skank."

Tina nodded her agreement, adding, "And in a storage closet too...how romantic."

Glaring between the two of them, I felt ice pour through my body. He had several shows during the week that weren't at Pete's bar. He got home really late after those shows, because he had to help clean up their stuff. He could have... I shook my head. No, not after everything...he wouldn't do that to me. A nagging voice in my head added, "Right, just like you wouldn't do that to Denny?"

Ignoring that voice, I narrowed my eyes at the gossipers. "You didn't see what you think you saw. I trust him." With that, I jerked my arm away and sauntered off.

Light laughter followed me, along with, "You know, him having your name across his heart doesn't mean he's not loaning out other parts of his body!"

My mouth dropped open as I looked back at her. Not many people knew about Kellan's tattoo. He was much more reluctant to strip off his shirt at shows now, like he didn't want the world to see his hidden art. It meant a lot to me that he felt that way. It was private, between the two of us. How did this group of girls know about it? Had Tina really seen him half nak*d? I didn't want to believe it, but my mind vividly pictured him undressed, panting with desire, with some harlot fan attached to his mouth. Then I pictured him closing the storage room door and doing all sorts of unseemly things to her.

I felt my stomach rising as I gaped at them. They only chuckled at me, Tina giving me a fake, apologetic smile while Candy shrugged. "Dogs are dogs, Kiera," she said, smiling sweetly.

I bit my lip and forced myself to walk away from them, and not run. They were lying...they had to be.

When I got out to the parking lot, I spotted Kellan's shiny black Chevelle right away. I also spotted him and instantly understood why he hadn't greeted me outside of class on my first day of school. He was surrounded by a group of about five girls. He was casually leaning against his car as he talked to them. They giggled, tittering like thirteen-year-olds as he spoke. Even from the distance between us, I could see the small, amused smile on his face. After my meeting with Candy, it boiled my blood.

My hands in permanent fists, I strutted over to him. I tried to calm myself down, but instead I seemed to get angrier with each step. Where had they seen that damn tattoo? Where was he exposing himself? Was I being naive in thinking that what we have is so monumental that he'd never stray from it? Was he still being a whore?

Laughing at something one of the hussies said, Kellan turned his head and spotted me. His small smile brightened at seeing me approach, then dimmed when he noticed the scowl on my face. The tittering girls didn't back off at all, and I had to elbow my way through them to get to him.

"Let's go," I bit out, not really in the mood to be around his fans for another second longer.

He nodded, his brow furrowed as he opened the passenger's door. After shutting it behind me, I heard him say to his adoring entourage, "I'm sorry, but I have to go. It was nice meeting you all." There were whines and groans of disappointment as he walked over to his side of the car. I rolled my eyes.

Kellan watched me curiously as he started the car, the roar of the engine matching my foul mood. Cocking an eyebrow, he put the car in reverse. One eye on me, the other carefully tracked the girls, so he didn't run them over as they watched us pull away. "You want to tell me what happened that's got you all ticked off?"

Gritting my jaw, I glared at the floosies staring after him. Most turned away from my eye line, a couple glared back. "Not really," I muttered under my breath.

Sighing, he put his hand on my thigh. I instantly wondered where else that hand had been recently. "Will you anyway?" I looked back at him, trying to keep my expression and my mood even. He frowned before turning onto the road. "You're the one that said we should talk things out...and you look like you need to talk something out."

Grunting, and wishing I'd never said that to him, I crossed my arms over my chest. "I have another class with Candy this year. She made sure to say hello afterwards."

I watched him carefully as he studied the road he was driving along. He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head; it was an adorable expression of confusion. "Candy...?"

I rolled my eyes that her name didn't immediately register with him. Well, when your little black book was as about as thick as the local yellow pages, I suppose it took a while to mentally filter through it.

A second later, as I was sighing, recognition flared in his eyes and he peeked over at me. "Oh, right...Candy." Twisting his lips, he shrugged. "What...did she say?"

Full on glaring at him, I tightened my hands across my chest. If I didn't, I was sure I'd smack him. "She just mentioned a show that you had last week. You played in Pioneer Square, right?"

He looked up, accessing his memory, or was he accessing the creative part of the brain that made up rapid-fire lies. Looking up and to the left meant one, looking up and to the right meant the other. I could just never remember which one was which. "Yeah, yeah we did." He tilted his head to me. "Was she there? She didn't say hello." He added that last part quickly, as if he was reassuring me that he hadn't seen her.

I narrowed my eyes even more as I studied him. Had I just had sex last night with a man that was hav**g s*x with a bunch of other people too? God, it made me sick just to think about it. "No, a friend of hers saw you there...in the back."

I said that suspiciously and he looked at me funny before shifting his attention back to driving. Shrugging, he said, "Huh, well, okay." Peeking over at me, he raised an eyebrow. "Why is one of her friends seeing me making you look like you sucked on a lemon?"

Exhaling in a tightly controlled way, I resisted the urge to smack the crap out of him. "Because she says she saw you doing things...with someone who was not me."

His eyes widened as he stared at me, then he jerked the car over to the side of the road. I had to hold onto the door he moved over so fast. With the car slightly on the curb, he slammed it into park, and shifted to face me.

His expression deadly serious, he held my eye; I could feel mine stinging as my fears bubbled up to the surface. "I am not doing anything with anyone who is not you. Whatever she said was a lie, Kiera."

I lifted my chin, but I could feel the tear building, swelling until it rolled down my cheek. "She knew about the tattoo, Kellan."

He cupped my cheek, brushing the moisture off my skin. "Then she saw it somewhere else or someone told her about it, because I'm not fooling around with anyone." Unbuckling his seatbelt and scooting closer to me, he rested his head against mine. "I'm only fooling around with you. I'm only getting nak*d with you. I'm only hav**g s*x with you, Kiera." Pulling back, he met my eye. "I chose you. I love you. I'm not interested in anyone else, okay?"

I nodded, feeling more tears slide down my cheeks. I felt the truth in his words, words that were similar to the words of comfort and reassurance that I often gave to him. I hated that one conniving, jealous bitch had made me doubt him. If she hadn't had such a good point I wouldn't have, but Kellan had a long, sordid history of poor decisions when it came to women. I didn't always feel special enough to stop that cycle of behavior.

He leaned in to tenderly kiss me and I felt myself relaxing as he poured his heart into his soft touch. Tasting the salt of my tears between us, I tried to let the doubt go. We'd gone through so much. I'd seen a side of him, a vulnerability, that I was positive no other girl had seen before. I was certain that I had his heart, and surely he wouldn't risk losing his heart over some stupid ache his body might be feeling. Not when he could satisfy that ache with me. Not when I would take him into my bed every night, and the brand new bed that he'd just purchased for me the other day, too.

As our kiss picked up heat, our bodies inching closer as our breaths increased, I wanted to remind him what I could be to him, and I wanted him to remind me exactly what we had together-a bond that no eager fan could break. Knowing that I had a couple of hours before work, and an empty apartment, I dragged my lips up to his ear. "Show me that you want me, Kellan. Take me home."

He had the car back in drive and flying down the road a microsecond later.

Chapter 5

A Dream

It never failed to surprise me how quickly Kellan Kyle could turn my mood around. One minute I could be positive that I'd made a mistake and we would never work out, and the next I'd be languidly rising out of bed with him, a dopey, satisfied smile on my face and thoughts that everything in the world was right and good.

I felt that way now as I gave him one last peck before heading to my bathroom to get ready for work. Pulling out my curling iron, I made room for it on the small counter that my sister's beauty products seemed to multiply on. I listened to Kellan humming in my bedroom. It was a comforting sound and my dopey smile widened in the mirror.

Shaking my head at my frazzled I-just-had-sex hair, I yanked a brush through my waves. Kellan just had a way about him. He could ruin everything, or he could make everything perfect. Candy was just trying to interfere with that because she was the jealousy harpy that I was trying not to be. I'd heard her brag to students about being with a rock star before. While I sometimes wished he wasn't, she adored the fact that he was sort of famous around here. She wanted more of that fame. I was pretty sure she'd date him just to attach her name to him. It made me sick that some people were so obsessed with their fifteen minutes. For me, his fame only complicated things. It'd be so much simpler if no one knew who he was.

Finished with freshening up my makeup and taming my locks into a functional-but-cute ponytail, I headed back to my room. Kellan had made himself comfortable on the Queen-sized mattress that took up most of my tiny bedroom. Propped up on my pillows, he was happily rubbing his sock-covered feet together. Once again fully dressed, he was reading one of my romance novels with a small, amused grin on his face.

Glancing at the cover, which featured some bronze, buff man holding a scantily clad woman to his bare chest, I shook my head at Kellan. "What are you doing?"

Not looking up at me, his smile widened. "I'm reading your porn."

Smacking his foot as I walked by, I scoffed, "That's not porn...it's romance."

Snorting, Kellan looked up at me. "Really?" Glancing down at the book, he started reading a passage from it. "She gasped in his mouth when his erection slid against her. He groaned when her desire coated him. They were both so ready to be together, guilt and remorse free...finally. Her legs wrapped around him as her h*ps rocked him into place. As he felt the tip of himself press against her entrance, he heard her groan, 'I want you buried in me, I want to be consumed by you.'"