“Dale!” I cried, gasping for breath. “Oh God. Oh!”

The way he did that, using all his force to take me, made me tremble all over. His thighs spread mine and the sounds of our sex mingled with the sounds coming from the television, moaning and slapping, the hot, aching sound of fucking.

“Sara,” he panted. “Oh sweetheart, I’m… Ohhhhh nowww!”

I cried out when he came. I wasn’t going to climax again, not this time, but the force of his orgasm shuddered through me as he thrust, thrust, thrust, hard, fast strokes, emptying himself into me with a force that threatened to tear me apart. I whimpered when he slid out of me, glancing back at him over my shoulder.

His eyes were glazed, his look dreamy. He grabbed the remote, turning off the sounds of sex, almost as if it was an affront to the senses now. He helped me off the coffee table, grabbing the comforter and wrapping us both in it.

“Think you can sleep now?” he murmured, kissing the tip of my nose.

“Like a baby.” I rested my cheek against his chest.

“Come on.”

He scooped me up like it was nothing and carried me to bed. I listened to the sound of his breathing, both of us snuggled under the covers. His hand was on my breast, his thigh over mine, claiming me, even in his sleep. I closed my eyes and decided to count blessings instead of sheep, but as my eyelids grew heavier and heavier, I realized it just wasn’t possible to count that high.

* * * *

“Fuck!”

I sat straight up in bed, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. The first light of morning crept across the plush hotel carpet, not quite reaching the bed. Dale’s side was empty.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Dale’s voice, growing louder.

“What is it?” I croaked. My throat was dry and I was incredibly thirsty. Either I was a little hungover from the lure of last night’s open bar or I was dehydrated of all bodily fluids after our wild night of homecoming sex. Probably both.

“Look at this.” He burst into the bedroom wearing just his boxers, tossing something on the bed. I was far too interested in him standing there shirtless—how could I possibly be thinking about sex after the night before was beyond me, but I was—to really pay attention. “That goddamned wedding photographer sold pictures to the paper!”

“What paper?” I grabbed it, scanning the top. It wasn’t the Times—they wouldn’t have bothered with it. It was the New York Daily News, a complimentary copy slipped under the door by hotel staff for light breakfast reading. We weren’t on the front page—Dale had it opened to the entertainment section, where they’d printed a fuzzy photograph—me pressed against the wall, my legs wrapped around his waist like a monkey, our mouths slanted in an open mouthed kiss.

“Fuck.” I swore, skimming the article. There were more photographs—Dale sliding the garter up my leg, my dress pulled up sky high, another of the two of us dancing together, bodies pressed close. The article named me and speculated that I was the girl Dale had proposed to during the Battle of the Bands.

Dale’s manager and pubicist had done everything they could to quell that incident, telling all the tabloids and teen mags we’d broken it off. Reporters had never found out my name and the story had died off. Besides, whenever Dale jetted off to L.A. to do television spots or interviews, he always denied being involved. Whenever someone asked him about me, he said, “It’s over. I don’t like to talk about it,” giving the world the impression he was a now-a single broken hearted rock star on the rebound—which is just what his manager wanted everyone to think.

I hated it. It was like a knife twisted in my gut every time I heard him say it. But Dale hated it even more. I remembered the first time his manager had broached the subject, me sitting between John and Dale, sipping wine at a restaurant so fancy they had bathroom attendants. Fancy shmancy, Dale didn’t let that stop him. It was the manager’s fault—he was like a dog with a bone, he just wouldn’t let it go. He insisted I be kept a secret, hidden away.

“You can still see her, I don’t care,” his manager had said. “But we’re telling the media you broke up. I can’t sell a married young rock star to the buying public. It’s not the image you’re going to need to project.”

“I don’t care about my image,” Dale had scoffed.

“Then you’re done before you even got started.” The manager had thrown his napkin on his plate, pushing away from the table. “She goes or I go. And if I go, all your dreams of fame and fortune go with me. Bye-bye!”

“Fine.” Dale had squeezed my hand under the table. I remember the manager’s knowing smile. He had clearly done this before. He was anticipated the outcome like a gambler counting cards in Vegas, calm and cool, arms crossed over his chest.

He definitely hadn’t expected Dale to get up and walk away from the table.

Of course, after all the posturing and two more meetings with the manager—he brought Dale’s publicist along to back him up—Dale had finally relented. But not before he asked me if I was okay with it, and I’d lied through my teeth. It was the night before the last meeting and we were in bed. Dale tossed and turned and groaned into his pillow until finally, I just told him, “It’s okay. Let them play their little game. It’s probably better the world doesn’t know about me anyway. We don’t want reporters hanging around outside.”

I’ll never forget what he said.

“Sara, I can’t do it. I can’t live that lie. I love you and I want everyone to know it. All I want to do is play guitar and love you. That’s it. If I can’t have both—then I choose you.”

I couldn’t be responsible for him not living his dream. I just couldn’t. So I lied.

“You can have both. Just do what they say for now. Then when your first album goes platinum and you’re selling out on tour, you’ll have the leverage to say no.”

He was thoughtful. “I’ll walk away from it all right now, Sara. I swear to God I will. All you need to do is say the word. You’re more important to me than anything.”

“I know. You don’t need to prove it to me,” I reminded him.“If our relationship isn’t strong enough to withstand this, then I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.”

“I love you, Sara. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell you how much.”

“So show me.”

And he had.

I stared at the paper in my hand while Dale picked up the phone, remembering that first concession—the first of many. He got tired of fighting, after a while, and just starting giving in. At first he was adamant. He wasn’t going to lie about me, so he said, “I don’t like to talk about it.” The manager and the publicist eventually wore him down and he started saying, “We broke up, I don’t like to talk about it.” Then it was his hair. He refused to cut it. They insisted. Arguments ensued. Finally, they won. By the time they got around to recording the album, I think they believed they’d molded him into something soft and pliable they could bend, but they were wrong.

On the album, Dale refused to compromise. All of the songs were his—and he’d even insisted that I do the cover art. He’d conceded on everything else, even on me, but he wouldn’t compromise his dream. I loved him for that, more than he would ever know.

I put the paper face down on the bed. I didn’t want to see the pictures, read the speculation.

“Greg wants to meet.”

Greg was his manager.

“Now?”

“In two hours. At our house.”

Our house was John’s house. Dale would have to call and let him know.

“I’m sorry, baby.” It was a big mess.

“It’s okay.” He shrugged, looking at me still curled up in bed. “Cheer up—we’ve got time to order room service. And if we hurry, we can still soap each other up in the shower.”

“Why does the rest of the world seem to disappear when I’m with you?” I asked, only half kidding.

“Because I am your world?” Oh that smirky smile, the one that brought out that sweet little dimple.

“That must be it.” I laughed. “I’ll call room service. You get in the shower.”

CHAPTER SIX

We arrived home wearing various designer clothes from the gift shop in the hotel lobby.

They carried several designer lines, marked up of course, which meant they were so expensive none of them even had price tags. Their clientele obviously never asked and I didn’t either—I was too afraid. I just grabbed some Calvin Klein—jeans and sweatshirts—and took them back to our room so we could change. The salesman asked what room we were in as I went to hand over Dale’s card, and then he waved it away and told me he would charge it to the room.

I had lugged the new clothes upstairs, barefoot in my formal bridesmaid dress. After we changed, I was careful to fold Dale’s tux before putting it back into the now empty bag and Dale had laughed at me.

“What? It’s a rental, remember?” I had said, putting my dress in too, along with my one remaining shoe. I’d also picked up two pairs of Nikes and two pairs of Ralph Lauren socks. I didn’t even know he made socks.

Dale had put his arms around me, chuckling.

“Sweetheart, after this tour is over, we’re going to be able to buy everything in that store.”

The concept was so foreign to me, I couldn’t quite grasp it.

When I’d asked how we were going to get back home, Dale just made a phone call and there was a limo waiting to drive us when we got downstairs to the lobby.

Rutgers’ full-time faculty housing was nice—instead of apartments, they were townhouses all stuck together in rows. John was a professor there and he’d insisted we move two years ago after everything happened with the stepbeast. He said it was because he didn’t want people hounding Dale once his name was out there and the Black Diamonds were famous, and I’m sure that was partially true.

Rutgers’ full-time faculty housing was completely private—they didn’t want students bothering the professors at home. For that reason, it was near campus but technically not on it, hidden away in a little wooded cul-de-sac. You’d never know it was there—it didn’t even have a street sign. All the mail went through the university, so while the townhouses had addresses, they weren’t published or used anywhere. The only bad thing about it was we could never get pizza delivered—they couldn’t find the house!

I think that was the reason we’d managed to keep it from the press for so long that Dale had a girlfriend—me!—and she was living at his house. They could have traced Dale’s father—they had the same last name—to Rutgers, but that would be as far as they could go, unless someone directly told them John lived in faculty housing. And even then, they’d have a hard time finding the townhouses.

The limo driver even passed it twice, the driveway was so hidden. Finally, he pulled up at the townhouse and we climbed out.