Sweet Temptation: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 3)

Malone’s “rockstar” loudly enough to send the message that he was totally cool to hang out and wait, in case I wanted to duck inside the house for a quickie.
I’d given him a lift home, too. Seemed like the charitable thing to do, since he’d been drinking all night.
Maybe I’d also hoped his presence might kill any romantic notions this woman might’ve had about how the night was gonna end.
“Fuck off,” I said as I got into the car.
“Guy, I would laugh if that wasn’t so painful to watch.”
I started the car.
“She wanted a piece of that,” he informed me. “Bad.”
I backed us out of the woman’s driveway.
“I could wait,” he informed me. “No need to rush out of here on my account…” His words faded off as I shifted gears and we took off up the street. “Guess not. Dude, you are ice-cold.”
“I was polite,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to take one for the team. Girl had legs, bro.”
“I wasn’t into her.”
“Trust me, she noticed.”
I tossed him a dark look.
“I’m starting to think you’re actually dead inside.”
I didn’t dispute that.
“So,” he ventured, “do you think that was Tam’s idea? Or Naveen’s?”
“Naveen knows better,” I muttered.
At least, I fucking hoped my partner knew better than to try to secretly hook me up with one of his wife’s friends at a dinner party.
The party was for me, a little “congrats on officially retiring as a bodyguard” thing that my partners had insisted on throwing for me. It was at Naveen and Tamara’s house, and once the kids were put to bed, the adults had some decent conversation. It didn’t take too long to figure out, though, that everyone was coupled up except for me, Andre, and the woman seated next to me, a co-worker of Tamara’s.
And that Tamara was bent on the two of us hitting it off.
We didn’t.
“Are they in trouble now?” Andre asked, snickering.
“Whatever. It’s fine.”
It wasn’t.
Granted, Naveen’s wife had tried playing matchmaker for me a few times over the years, and the woman she’d tried to hook me up with tonight—shit; I’d already forgotten her name… Rosalie? Rochelle?—was pretty. She seemed like a nice girl. Worked at the same hospital as Tam, as a nurse.
But none of that mattered when you just didn’t feel anything.
It was definitely gonna take a hell of a lot more than pretty and nice to make my cold, dead heart kick back to life.
“You really weren’t into her?” Andre pressed, like he just couldn’t fathom it. “Like… even for a few hours?”
“No. She was way too… eager. Needy? Something.” Honestly, the woman stank of eau de desperation, which was even more off-putting given the fact that she clearly had a lot to offer.
Red flags all over the place.
I was done with needy.
Been there, done that. And been sucked dry by it way too many times.
“Christ, you’re an asshole,” Andre muttered. “She liked you.”
“I know. It was awkward.”
He snorted.
“Think I need to put the word out to my friends,” I grumbled, “and their wives, that I’m not looking to get fixed up.”
“I don’t mind getting fixed up. As long as she’s hot. And that Roshana chick was hot.”
Right. Roshana.
“Then how about you have dibs on the next one.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m fucking tired of everyone thinking I need to get fixed up just because I’m thirty-five and single.”
Andre laughed. “The only reason they’re setting you up is because they think you’re a catch, and they want to see your cold ass melt. They can’t wait to introduce you to their hot single lady friends. I’d love to get that kind of endorsement.”
I looked at him.
Andre was a big dude, fit, gainfully employed, and he wasn’t ugly. He wasn’t winning any beauty contests either, objectively speaking, but he was a great guy. Warm-hearted, fucking brave, and always good for a laugh.
He was a hell of a lot nicer than I was.
“You don’t get hooked up?” I asked him.
“Not like you do, fucker. And not with women who look like that.”
Huh.
“You think I should go back,” I said, just to be an asshole, “give Roshana another chance?”
“Fuck, yeah. You serious?”
I shook my head. “Not happening.”
“So, life’s just one giant, gorgeous-woman buffet for you, huh Ronan Sterling?”
“You know, it really is,” I said, just to piss him off.
Andre coughed, and muttered something that sounded distinctly like Eat a dick.
My phone rang through the speakers in my car, and a name popped up on the screen on my dash.
Brody Mason.
I glanced at Andre, who raised an eyebrow.
I answered the call. “Brody. This is Ronan. I’ve got you on speaker here with one of my guys.”
“Hey, Ronan.” Brody’s voice filled the car. “Sorry to bother you in the middle of the night.”
“No problem. What’s going on?”
“We’ve got a situation with one of my musicians. The police are at her house right now with a canine unit. Some guy tried to break in. I’m on my way over there from North Van, and I have one of my guys responding. Wondering if you can put a body on the house for me tonight, and we can talk in the morning about a possible ongoing situation?”
“Yeah. Of course.” I let off the accelerator, slowing down. We were on a residential street, a few blocks from Andre’s place. “Where?”
“Arbutus Ridge. I’ll text you the address so you can put it in GPS. I’m just getting in my car.”
I stopped my car in the middle of the dark street. We must’ve been close to the scene. “I’m in Dunbar right now, just off sixteenth.”
“I’ll see you there, then?”
“Yeah,” I said, making the decision on the fly. “I’ll be there when you arrive.”
“Perfect. See you soon. And thank you.”
“You got it.”
The call ended.
“You’re going in?” Andre asked.
“Guess so.”
He studied me, as I input the address Brody sent into my mapping system. Granted, I didn’t usually respond to random calls into the field in the middle of the night; I’d normally call in one of my guys. But Brody Mason