Free Slow Body Rock (Rockstar Romance) by Nora Flite

noise, I waited for them to calm. “But it isn't the first time I've been here.” A sound, curiosity and excitement, rolled over the sea.
    It was exactly what I wanted.
    Turning, I found Lola watching me. I'd never seen her eyes so big. “I came when I was a kid. And you know, back then? All I could think was that someday , maybe I'd make it here.” My stare wandered over the arena. “Maybe I'd get to play.” One, two, let them breathe. The strained patience was overwhelming, but this wasn't my first rodeo.
    Timing was everything.
    I shook my head. “Well. Here I am. Guess it's time to do what I wished to back then...” With a giant smile that flashed all my teeth, I winked. “Bring the fucking place to its knees.”
    That was it. The crowd was done.
    In the canvas of the stage— my stage— clean drum taps signaled the beginning. Colt primed the air for our art, silencing the audience to a rumble. My mouth tasted like adrenalin mixed with cotton candy; everything tingled.
    This was my first love, music . Lola stood at the ready, stroking her strings. This. This will replace the void she's created. She smiled at me, fucking smiled...
    And I knew it wasn't true.
    Into the mic, I roared as only a man fallen to pieces could. I was held together by emotion; fragile and ghastly at the same time. Caught in my blast, the world would be destroyed. I'd revel and dance in the fucking ashes.
    But, like glass, colliding with something stronger would be my annihilation.
    Singing the words of Tuesday Left Behind, we showed the crowd who we were. Four and a Half Headstones had changed when we lost Johnny Muse. We sounded better than we had in months.
    I should have kicked him out sooner.
    If I had, would I have ever met Lola Cooper?
    She punched her guitar, eliciting notes that turned me inside out. The people felt it, too; they became nothing but tooth-filled mouths that begged for more. They wouldn't lynch her. They knew it. They all fucking knew what I did.
    Lola was god damn amazing.
    Tonight, just hold on till tonight. I wouldn't lose her to them. I couldn't bare that.
    Every song merged together for me. They made a map that took the audience through a world of smoke, charcoal and rust. They tasted our enthusiasm, reveled in every lyric like I'd written it just for them. By our last song, I was panting. Sweat turned my skin to bronze; shiny and new.
    The back of my shirt was soaked through. The front, well. The eyes of every girl in the first row says it all. “Listen up,” I whispered into the mic. Still I boomed, calling them to order. “This our last song.” I let the cries of sadness die. “It's my favorite. Maybe yours, too.”
    Porter and Colt summoned the first notes that heralded No More Stars.
    Bathing in the cheers, I stalked across the stage. Lola met my eyes. She was glowing, lips puckered. Everything in her face, her aura, made me think of sex. I wanted to grab her, kiss her harder than I had in the elevator.
    The gravity between us tugged. I saw it, how her joy stumbled. She wasn't angry. It wasn't the cold wall of rejection. With the heat of our momentum, the music sinking into both our souls...
    Lola shivered with lust.
    Fuck. Fucking hell.
    Pouring that voracious need into my voice, I belted out the words to No More Stars. She followed me down, rampaging over her strings. Nothing could stop us; none of us.
    Four and a Half Headstones was whole.
    Once I had Lola...
    I would be whole, too.

Chapter Six.
Lola
    I 'd never felt more alive.
    Perspiration ran down my sternum, the backs of my knees were taut as elastic. I thought, if I tried, I could have jumped straight up and never come down.
    This was what playing music was all about.
    Laughing, crying, none of it mattered; none of it would have helped. I was a bundle of nerves ready to explode. Or, perhaps I had exploded. My ears were ringing, the powder keg of my mind leaving fragments that coated the one word in my skull.
    Rockstar.
    I was a fucking