Maybe This Time: A One Time Only prequel novella Read online

  Maybe This Time

  A One Time Only prequel novella

  Lauren Blakely

  Little Dog Press

  Contents

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  About

  Maybe This Time

  1. Jackson

  2. Jackson

  3. Stone

  4. Jackson

  5. Stone

  6. Stone

  7. Stone

  8. Jackson

  9. Jackson

  10. Stone

  11. Jackson

  Chapter 12

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Contact

  Copyright © 2020 by Lauren Blakely

  Cover Design by Helen Williams.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This contemporary romance is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This book is licensed for your personal use only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy sexy romance novels with alpha males. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Big Rock Series

  Big Rock

  Mister O

  Well Hung

  Full Package

  Joy Ride

  Hard Wood

  * * *

  The Guys Who Got Away Series

  Dear Sexy Ex-Boyfriend

  The What If Guy

  Thanks for Last Night

  * * *

  The Gift Series

  The Engagement Gift

  The Virgin Gift

  The Decadent Gift

  * * *

  The Extravagant Series

  One Night Only

  One Exquisite Touch

  * * *

  MM Standalone Novels

  A Guy Walks Into My Bar

  One Time Only

  * * *

  The Heartbreakers Series

  Once Upon a Real Good Time

  Once Upon a Sure Thing

  Once Upon a Wild Fling

  * * *

  Boyfriend Material

  Asking For a Friend

  Sex and Other Shiny Objects

  One Night Stand-In

  * * *

  Lucky In Love Series

  Best Laid Plans

  The Feel Good Factor

  Nobody Does It Better

  Unzipped

  * * *

  Always Satisfied Series

  Satisfaction Guaranteed

  Instant Gratification

  Overnight Service

  Never Have I Ever

  Special Delivery

  * * *

  The Sexy Suit Series

  Lucky Suit

  Birthday Suit

  * * *

  From Paris With Love

  Wanderlust

  Part-Time Lover

  * * *

  One Love Series

  The Sexy One

  The Only One

  The Hot One

  The Knocked Up Plan

  Come As You Are

  * * *

  Sports Romance

  Most Valuable Playboy

  Most Likely to Score

  * * *

  Standalones

  Stud Finder

  The V Card

  The Real Deal

  Unbreak My Heart

  The Break-Up Album

  21 Stolen Kisses

  Out of Bounds

  My One-Week Husband

  * * *

  The Caught Up in Love Series

  The Pretending Plot (previously called Pretending He’s Mine)

  The Dating Proposal

  The Second Chance Plan (previously called Caught Up In Us)

  The Private Rehearsal (previously called Playing With Her Heart)

  * * *

  Seductive Nights Series

  Night After Night

  After This Night

  One More Night

  A Wildly Seductive Night

  About

  There's one thing I need in my life right now and one thing only -- a new job.

  So I'm stoked when I land a dream gig as a bodyguard for a rock star.

  But there's definitely one thing I do not need at all -- a complication.

  Like being wildly attracted to the guy who just hired me.

  So I vow to do everything I can to deny the intense attraction for the man I'm sworn to protect.

  All I have to do is ignore it. Eventually it'll go away, right?

  But that's not what happens one night before a concert…

  MAYBE THIS TIME is a 14,000-word prequel novella about how Stone and Jackson meet and it leads into their full-length novel ONE TIME ONLY.

  Maybe This Time

  By Lauren Blakely

  * * *

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  1

  Jackson

  I’m the kind of guy who does his homework. Research is my friend, so doing recon for a job interview is second nature.

  Preparation is the foundation of my job, and I love my job.

  Sure, as a bodyguard, I need to react in a heartbeat. To make rapid-fire decisions in the blink of an eye so I can keep my clients safe.

  But the key to lightning-fast reflexes is advance work.

  Every now and then, advance work can be cool as hell.

  Take today.

  I buy a ticket for a concert.

  It’s time to learn all I can.

  After a punishing six-mile run on the beach at dawn, I return to my condo and bound up the steps, heading into my home. Once inside, I take a quick shower, start a pot of coffee, then dive into the most important part of the job.

  Some people think the most critical part of being a bodyguard is size.

  And sure, that’s vitally important.

  But you either have that or you don’t.

  Other people think the most important part is being in kick-ass shape.

  Yeah, that’s a given. But I never met a day that wasn’t improved by a good run, hard exercise, and a long session at the gym.

  That’s all part of my routine, part of my daily practice.

  Once you have those two key attributes down pat, what makes the difference is your brain.

  How you keep it sharp.

  And whether you use it to research, assess, and devise a game plan.

  I grab a cup of joe, flip open my laptop, and dive into learning all I possibly can about the man I’m hoping to protect. He’s easy to find information on.

  Naturally.

  He’s a world-famous rock star.

  Stone Zenith has won five Grammys, sold more than twenty-nine million albums, and logged m
ore than ten multiplatinum songs. Also, he’s scored countless dates with men and women, as evidenced by the pics of him at clubs, restaurants, and galas that have graced the tabloids over the years.

  He’s an equal opportunity player as far as I can tell, and is 100 percent out in the open. Google serves up fine shots of him kissing a starlet on the red carpet, then dropping a smooch on the lips of a Jon Hamm look-alike who plays a hard-boiled detective on a TV show.

  Back and forth, my eyes scan the images, trying to understand the man, his habits, his routines.

  My research also turns up some stories about the last year when he took some time off from touring, traveled around the world, funded some orphanages, and donated tons of money to charities devoted to saving the ocean and the rainforests.

  I file all those details away.

  He likes to date freely, he likes to travel, he likes to give back.

  He likes to have a good time too.

  I devour all the articles I can find about him, making sure I know how the media perceives him, the image he puts out, the potential problems I might face.

  Guarding a celebrity comes with plenty of challenges. Some stars are squirrelly, some don’t want to be protected, others like to make it a game and escape from their bodyguard. Still more are dickheads, hating life, flipping tables and flipping off cameramen.

  Count me out on that kind of client. I have no interest in working for a douchebag.

  But from what I can glean, Stone Zenith simply seems to be a guy who knows how to have fun. He goes to all sorts of events, shows up at all kinds of parties, and loves to have his picture taken with fans.

  Some of the more salacious tabloids have detailed stories about his love life, with photos of him on dates every night of the week, out at restaurants and events. The one thing they all have in common is he’s grinning in so many of those pictures—a smile that sells millions of records. I even come across an article devoted to that damn lopsided grin.

  With a smile that drips of sensuality and a swagger that exudes sex appeal, Stone was made for the stage and was born to be adored, to have panties and shirts and ties and proposals flung at him nightly from the crowds.

  Have at it on my watch, proposers of the world. Here’s hoping I can make sure that when the panties and shirts and ties and proposals fling at him, the fans won’t tear off his shirt, grab his ass, or feel him up.

  I can do that. I can guard him. Protect him. Make sure he’s safe.

  And after a few more hours of research, I’m nearly ready.

  The next night, I’m in the second row. Arriving early, I use the extra time to assess the concert hall, checking out where the security guards station themselves, how they act when it’s clear the star has arrived in the theater, then if they’re visible when he takes the stage. I learn what I can as a concertgoer, trying to determine everything going on like I’m doing advance prep, as I would if he were my client.

  As I do, I get to enjoy the show, and I’m not ashamed to say that this man is one hell of a performer. Stone Zenith struts onstage, his trademark silver Stratocaster slung around his body, pounding out a screaming chord that he holds for several delirious seconds as he shouts, “Good evening, Los Angeles! Did you miss me?”

  The crowd cheers. They hoot and holler, a deafening roar that carries across the amphitheater.

  “Well, I missed you,” he booms into his mic. “I missed you so damn much. It’s been a long time since I was here. And I plan to spend the next hour showing you how much I love playing music for you.”

  That pretty much causes the entire concert hall to faint and swoon.

  The man powers his way through his tunes, songs I know well like “Bedroom Eyes,” “Make It Last,” and “Take Me as I Am.”

  He has the ability to make everyone feel like he’s playing just for them. Women and men raise their arms, as if reaching for him, screaming at him, craving a piece of him. It’s electric and thrilling to listen, to feel the music reverberate through the venue. At the end, when he strums the last chord on “Bedroom Eyes,” I swear, for a flicker of a second, his eyes find mine.

  His are green, the color of the forest, and they’re too damn hard to look away from.

  So I don’t.

  Not at all.

  I let myself linger on the man standing thirty feet from me. The man on the stage. The man playing to the crowd.

  The man who almost seems like he’s looking at me.

  But it’s crazy to think that. I’m just one of thousands here in the crowd.

  No one special.

  Of course he’s not locking eyes with me.

  It’s the rock-star effect. That’s what he does. He makes you feel like you’re the only one in a sea of thousands.

  That’s why he’s world-famous.

  I blink all the crazy thoughts away, because I’m not actually trying to get him to lock eyes with me.

  Not at all.

  I’m merely a concertgoer, and one with a VIP ticket so I can gain backstage access to the meet and greet after the show.

  That’s the goal—to assess his backstage needs, and whether I could improve them if I landed the job.

  After the encore, I make my way to the back hallway, showing my VIP pass to the security guards.

  They let me through, and a mob of people mill about here, but I weave through the crowd to the green room, where an efficient woman with dark hair, a tablet, designer jeans, and a pretty pink blouse is stationed by the door, directing the fans. Teenagers, adults, moms, dads—everyone. Stone’s music seems to cut across generations, and they’re all waiting for a chance to tell him how much they love it.

  I join them, patiently making my way through the line.

  Unlike most people here, my mission is not to have him sign my T-shirt or a poster.

  That’d be crazy. I do not need autographed swag. From anyone. Okay, fine, I might not turn down a signed T-shirt from Joe Montana or Mariano Rivera.

  But I’m a sports guy, and those players are just the best.

  Point being, I’m here to blend in, get a quick assessment of the room and the other bodyguards—to see how things operate. To get a view into this backstage world so I can have a chance of truly presenting a case as to why I can do a great job for him.

  Once I’m inside the green room, his PR team keeps everything moving and flowing at a reasonable pace, fans interacting with him, but not going crazy. He’s chatting with a handful of women who are about his age, probably thirty, maybe thirty-five.

  Do I feel a little bit like a stalker? Yeah, maybe a little, but not entirely, because I bought my ticket like anyone else, and no doubt he’ll be impressed when I give my professional rundown of his security needs.

  As he hugs a purple-haired, nose-ringed woman, her eyes flutter closed, her smile tips up, and it looks like she just received her greatest wish in the form of an embrace from Stone Zenith.

  That’s the effect he has on people.

  When he lets go, his eyes scan the room as if looking for who he’s going to chat with next.

  They stop at mine.

  They travel no farther.

  He sweeps his gaze over me. Over my whole body.

  Long, lingering, slow.

  And absolutely appreciatively.

  This is not like how he looked at me from the stage, when the lights, the smoke show, and the sea of people fooled me into thinking he was staring at me.

  This is incontrovertible.

  The man is looking at me.

  A rush of heat jolts down my spine. Adrenaline spins higher in me, and my mouth goes dry.

  My cells are buzzing.

  What the hell?

  I like his gaze more than I should, and I shouldn’t, even for a fraction of a second, enjoy that kind of gaze from a potential employer. From someone checking me out like we’re at a bar, or a club, like it’s just us and everyone else has faded away and I’m going to walk up to him, buy him a drink, talk to him, get to know him, and then as
k him out on a date.

  Because that’s the kind of guy I am.

  I don’t do hookups. I don’t take men home that I meet in bars. And if I met this guy at a bar . . .

  Nope.

  Can’t go there.

  I have got to stop this thinking.

  Trouble is, my skin is prickling, and my bones are buzzing from the way his eyes take a tour of my body.

  Just let it go.

  It’s a moment in time.

  I don’t need to let my mind get carried away. This is merely a moment where a star is showing exactly why he’s a rock star. Because he’s magnetic. Because he connects with people. Because he has charisma and sex appeal and all that jazz.

  Fortunately, I have something going for me too. Stoicism. I mastered that a long time ago.

  So I don’t acknowledge the eye sweep, and then, just as quickly as it happened, it ends, and he’s talking to another fan.

  That’s my cue to go.

  After slipping out of the green room, I make my way through the hubbub backstage, past the roadies and the crew packing up after the show. As I go, I do my damnedest to shuck off that moment, those three seconds when he swept his eyes over me, when he looked at me like there was no one else in the room.