Page 1 of Forever and Ever

Prologue

Noah

Loveatfirstsightis bullshit.

Everyone knows this. Even an idiot like me, who has a history of tripping over his heart every chance he gets.

Been there.

Done that.

I learned my lesson and now I’m over that kind of optimistic thinking.

At least, I was. Until right now, standing here, scraping my jaw off the floor after witnessing what just walked into my dressing room without knocking.

She’s a dark goddess in a black tank top and low-rise dark gray jeans. Her skin is laced in tattoo ink, and she’s sparkling in piercings. She’s by far the most beautiful chick I’ve ever seen, looming in the doorway like a pit of vastness I’d like to swallow me whole. And she’s staring at my hardening cock because I’m one hundred percent buck naked.

“Nice dick,” she says, her spiky eyelashes flicking as she looks up at me with a feisty smirk tugging at her bright red lips.

I’d like to see what else her sassy mouth is capable of, but I grab my jeans off the chair and slip them on instead. Because I’m a gentleman. At least, until a woman asks me not to be.

“You don’t believe in buttons?” she says when I don’t fasten my pants all the way.

I reach for the bottle of bourbon sitting on the table and take a healthy sip straight from the bottle.

“No point.” I take another drink and relish in the burn of alcohol fresh in my throat. “They’ll be coming off again soon enough anyway.”

I wink at her, and the dark goddess rolls her eyes. But not in a way that tells me she’s irritated with my comment, more like unimpressed. Like this is what she expects. After all, I’m the drummer for Enemy Muse, the biggest rock band in the country. This is exactly what she should expect from a guy like me.

Her expression proves she’s not naïve.

I walk over to a table in the corner and pull a hair band off my wrist to tie my blond hair into a bun on the back of my head. Picking up a razor blade from the table, I scrape together a line of white powder, feeling her eyes on me the whole time. I make three nice little rows guaranteed to send me into a black hole where I don’t need to think about what a fucking mess my life is.

“Want some?” I hold a straw out to the hot-as-fuck chick still standing in my doorway, but she shakes her head.

“No thanks.” Her eyes narrow the slightest, and I don’t like that she seems like she’s trying to read me. Maybe she’s even judging me, but if so, she doesn’t say shit.

I lean over and snort a line up my nose until my brain starts to tingle. The air gets fuzzy, and there’s a slight ringing in my ears, dulling out the voices in my head. Just how I like it. The blurrier my thoughts, the less I have to live with them.

“Fuck.” I drop the straw and sit on the couch in hopes it will hold me in place as my body starts to vibrate.

The dark goddess doesn’t move as I blink her back into focus. She’s pulsating—or maybe it’s my brain. There’s one of her, then three, then one again, as I find my bearings. Once she’s clear, I notice her eyes are still fixed on me.

She's not a groupie, or she'd be working her way across the room already instead of staring at me like I'm the most unimpressive piece of rock star trash. But damn, I wish she was. Because even though her eyes are a gavel casting judgment, everything about this chick makes me want to peel off her layers and see how far her ink goes.

“I should leave,” she says, like somehow it just occurred to her that she walked into my dressing room without knocking and is now just staring at me.

“Not staying for the party?” I kind of hope she will, even if she seems a little uptight about what I just stuck up my nose.

After all, I’m arock star.

Fucking deal with it.

It’s either I numb the pain, or I let the demons in my head loose. And if I go for the latter, there’s no coming back.

“I was looking for Adrian.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “Wrong door, apparently.”

I tick my head to the side. “He’s probably with the crew further down the hall.”

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