But she was insistent, her voice urgent now as she called his name. “Ryder. Ryder! Come on, Ryder, wake up for me. Open your eyes.”

She shook his shoulder, pulled at his hair, and the last vestiges of his dream fell away.

With a groan of dismay, he pushed himself into a sitting position. But something was off. There was a soft, warm weight on his lap, pressing against his chest. A soft, warm, womanly weight.

Alarm jolted through him, chasing away the last of his sleepiness. He flipped open his eyes, tried to focus on the concerned face only inches from him. And that’s when he knew. None of the last few minutes—hours?—had been a dream. Jamison was on his lap. Her knees were straddling his hips. And her sex, her soft, damp, glorious sex, was nestled intimately against his cock.

Jared was going to kill him. That is if Ryder didn’t do the job first himself.

…

If she’d needed proof that Ryder wasn’t really with it when he was touching her, Jamison got it the second his eyes cleared and he was obviously awake. A look of abject horror crossed his face, and then he stood up so quickly that he sent her sprawling, ass first, onto the carpet.

“I’m sorry!” he exclaimed, extending a hand down to help her up. But he looked so freaked out by what had happened that she ended up batting his hand away. Far be it for her to make him touch her when he so obviously didn’t want to.

“Are you okay?” he asked after she made it to her feet.

She shot him a disbelieving look. “I only fell about a yard.”

“I meant—” He broke off, ran a hand over the back of his neck. “You know. I didn’t mean to grab you like that. Did I hurt you?”

Only by completely freaking out once you realized who you were touching. She couldn’t say that, though, no matter how much his obvious revulsion hurt her. What did it say about her that Ryder Montgomery, lead singer and sex god extraordinaire, was—for all intents and purposes—traumatized simply because he’d touched her breast?

Oh, there was a part of her that knew this was more about who she was than what she looked like, but that part was nothing compared to the one screaming at her for being a fool. For thinking, even for a second, that Ryder might have wanted her. Might have been responding physically to her. Bad enough that she was Jared’s sister and five-eight instead of the cute, pixie type girls Ryder usually liked. Add in the fact that she was a size twelve instead of a two and she might as well have a reject-me sign plastered across her chest.

“It’s fine. You were asleep. I get it.” She crossed back to the bar and got another bottle of water, more for something to do than out of any real thirst.

“Still, you should have hit me or something.” His foot was tapping against the carpet now, a surefire sign that his agitation was escalating. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared! Jesus, what kind of pansy ass do you think I am?”

He blinked at her for a few seconds, like he was shocked by her outburst or something. But really, how many times could a guy apologize for touching a girl before her ego got a little—more like a lot—bruised?

“Max nearly—”

“Give me a break. There is no situation in which I would ever mistake you for him. Remember, I was the lucid one, not you. If I were really concerned that you were going to hurt me, I would have racked you. Then I’d be the one looking sick and apologizing while you were the one telling me to knock it off.” She paused, pretended to consider. “Although, there is a chance you might not be as understanding as I am.”

He snorted. “Just a chance, huh?”

“Okay, a big chance.” She tossed him a bottle of water. “So, are we cool? You’re done beating yourself up for something you did when you were asleep?”

He drained the water in one long gulp, then slowly lowered the bottle so he could look at her with those crazy onyx eyes of his. “I wasn’t beating myself up.”

“Dude, I can practically see the bruises from here.”

“I was just worried about you. I didn’t want you to think—”

“And I was worried about you. Whatever you were dreaming about seemed pretty awful. That’s why I went over to you to begin with.” She said it deliberately, to get him to stop apologizing, but the second the words actually hit the air between them, she wished she could take them back. He literally shut down in front of her.

“Did it?” He shrugged, but his face was carefully blank. “I don’t remember anything, so it must not have been that bad.” But he crossed to the bar, set down the water and pulled out a glass and a bottle of tequila instead.

“Haven’t you had enough of that?” The words burst out of her before she could stop them. It wasn’t her business, but really. If he spent every night drinking to avoid all the ghosts that tormented him, he was going to end up completely pickled by the time he was thirty-five.

He arched a brow at her. “That seems an awful lot like the pot calling the kettle black. If I remember correctly, you’re the one who got so drunk she took three shots of Patron, went out to dance, and ended up blacking out in my arms.”

She felt heat creeping into her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. It’s been a crappy week, but that’s no excuse. I was completely irresponsible.”

“It happens to the best of us.” He saluted her with his shot of Patron before knocking it back. “Besides, I’m not the one you need to be apologizing to. You really freaked out Jared.”

She could only imagine. “Yet he had you put me in your bed.”

“I don’t sleep much. It made sense.”

She bet. With nightmares like the one she’d seen haunting him, it was a wonder he got any sleep at all. With that realization, the last of her anger at him drained away. Of course he wanted to blame himself for what had happened between them on the couch. He blamed himself for everything else.

“Do you want to try to get some more sleep?” she asked. “It’s barely dawn.”

“Nah.” He didn’t bother to glance at the clock. “I’m good. But feel free to go back to bed. You’re probably wiped.”

She was, completely. But he looked so forlorn standing there, that damn bottle of tequila clutched in his hand like some kind of pacifier, that she couldn’t just walk away from him. No matter how stupid that made her.

“Actually, I’m good,” she told him. “But I am starving. How about we order room service and watch a movie?”

“Don’t you have to go to work in a couple hours?”

“Nope. I don’t have work today.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie, she told herself. She did, after all, have the day off. And the one after that and the one after that and the one— She stopped herself before she ended up taking another shot of tequila herself.

“So? What do you say?” She slipped the Patron bottle from between his hands, tucked it back under the bar. He watched her with a cross between amusement and exasperation, but he didn’t say a word about the booze. “Eggs?”

“You obviously don’t get drunk often enough,” he said. “The proper early-morning-after-a-bender breakfast is waffles. Heavy on the syrup with extra bacon.”

“Extra bacon, huh?”

“Definitely.”

She reached for the phone, turning her back so he couldn’t see her grin. “Then extra bacon it is.”

They ended up watching The Avengers and eating waffles drenched in syrup, with strawberries and whipped cream. It felt a little surreal after what had almost happened, but Ryder couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed himself more.

Sure, he had a blast when he was onstage, singing, dueling with Jared, electrifying the crowd. But his performances were loaded with expectations—from the fans, from the other members of Shaken Dirty, from the concert promoters, their managementand the record label. And from himself most of all. The worst part was that he felt like he rarely met those expectations. How could he when he spent so much time wondering how and when and where he was going to fuck everything up? It was his legacy from his father, and from Carrie.