Hung Read online

  "What the hell are you doing here, Mike?" I asked gruffly, my throat dry and my head pounding. Mike Riley, my manager, was the best in the business – but he was nothing if not unsympathetic.

  "No girl last night, Clay?" he said cheerfully, completely ignoring me. "You sick or something?"

  "Don't remind me," I said grumpily, burying my head under a pillow. "Can you at least make yourself useful and get me some Tylenol or something?"

  Something clinked against my glass bedside table, and I heard two tiny little patters as he dropped a couple of tablets onto the surface. "Way ahead of you, buddy."

  I reached over, eyes still firmly screwed shut, and felt my way up the table leg with my right hand, greedily grabbed the pills and shoved them in my mouth before tipping my head back and swallowing the entire glass of cold water in one gulp.

  "Thanks."

  "No problem. With the money you pay me, it's the least I could do."

  "Don't remind me," I said. "You might give me an excuse to take a look at your contract again…"

  "Trust me, Clay, with the amount of trouble you cause, I'd be cheap at twice the price."

  "What are you doing here, Mike?" I asked again. "I was sound asleep until you turned up, and now I feel like shit." I rolled over but still didn't bother to open my eyes.

  "Holy shit, Clay, you promised me you were going to stay out of fights for a while," I heard Mike say with barely concealed irritation in his voice. "You know how close we are to the label dropping us because of your antics, don't you?"

  I murmured something that might or might not have been an affirmative. It was all Mike was going to get; I knew he was right.

  "You've got a show later," Mike continued. "How are we going to cover up that split lip?"

  "Don't get your panties in a bunch, Mike," I replied, keeping my voice low so as to avoid antagonizing my hangover any more than necessary. "It'll be fine under a bit of makeup."

  "No, it won't," he replied sharply. "You know as well as I do that some nerd behind a computer screen is going to zoom in on the first photo of you that hits the web, and there'll be a dozen articles about you fighting again in the media inside of an hour!"

  "Who cares," I barked gruffly, pissed off that Mike wouldn't shut up and let me deal with my hangover on my own terms, "what some nerds on the Internet think? I'm the biggest damn star this side of the Atlantic. There's no way the label will drop me."

  "You think?" Mike said, changing his tone. "Because I don't. They are this close, Clay," he said, and I could just imagine him holding up his fingers in a pinching motion as he always did, "to dropping you. And let's be honest, you haven't had a number one for over a year."

  That made me shoot upright, so only my legs remained in bed, and I shot him a furious glare.

  "Jesus, Clay, put your cock away. I'm not one of your groupies; I don't need to see that monstrosity."

  Normally, I would have made some kind of joke about my cock because I was damn proud of it – rightly – but I wasn't in the mood. Still, I didn't bother tucking it away. I had nothing to be ashamed of.

  "What the hell did you say about me?" I spat back at my manager furiously. "You're supposed to be on my side!"

  He raised his voice, too. "Hell, Clay – we're supposed to be a team. All I asked is that you didn't get into a fight for a few weeks, and what did you do? The very next day, you found someone to pummel. For your sake, and mine, you better hope that nobody caught it on camera…"

  "They won't post it," I said confidently. "I gave them a damn good night."

  Mike sighed. "Clay, when are you going to learn that trick doesn't work? I bet you a hundred bucks that video will be up on YouTube by the end of the day."

  I'd take the bet; of course I would. There were a few things I liked doing – fighting, fucking and gambling were all pretty high on the list.

  "What's this about you putting me down, anyway?" I asked, still angry at what Mike had just said.

  "I'm not going to lie to you, Clay," Mike said with the kind of tone of voice that suggested he'd been holding his opinion back for quite some time, "and tell you you're still at the top. Because the cold hard truth is, you're not."

  He didn't say a word after that, just let the statement hang in the air, and for once, his words hit home.

  He was right. I'd spent so much time at number one – five fucking years, when every single I released would zoom straight up the charts – that it got boring. And then the women, the fighting, the gambling – that all became the bit I enjoyed.

  But now, my latest album was tanking.

  Mike was right, and I hated it.

  I bit down on the furious response my mind was formulating and breathed out angrily. I was too hungover to deal with this right now and I slumped back, sighing.

  Mike's phone buzzed. A second later, so did mine.

  And then again.

  And then they both buzzed at the same time.

  "What is it?" I asked, my head giving me too much pain for me to have much incentive to reach over and grab my phone.

  "It's a YouTube video," he replied distractedly. "It's going viral."

  "Of me?" I asked, somewhat pleased. No such thing as bad publicity, right? Mike didn't see it that way, but I never minded my – very attractive – face being plastered across the Internet.

  "Yeah," he said. "Clay – if this is that fight video, then I think this is it. Atlantic Records will drop you faster than you can blink."

  My stomach did a backflip. I'd never heard Mike speak like this. "You can't be serious?" I sat up, looking worriedly at the screen of Mike's phone as he navigated to the YouTube app and furiously punched in my name. This time, I had the good grace to cover up the huge cock flopping in my lap.

  He took a second's break to stare me directly in my eyes. "Oh, I'm deadly serious, Clay. How many times have I told you to tone it down a bit? The bad boy stuff was supposed to be an act. You are never supposed to actually go off the rails like this."

  "What do you mean, go off the rails?" I repeated. "So I like to fuck, smoke and fight – is that so bad? So does half of America. The good half, anyway."

  "Yeah, Clay," Mike spat angrily, "but when half your audience is made up of tweens, the labels want edgy, not full on nut job." He broke away from his rant, attention taken up by something else. "It's loaded."

  With those two words, my attention snapped straight back to the little phone screen in his hands. It was kind of ironic, I thought, that I'd spent so long railing against people spending their lives addicted to smart phones last night, when right now I had my eyes peeled to one to find out if my fate was about to be sealed by a stupid, pointless little fight.

  If only I had met that cocoa goddess a few minutes before I'd encountered that drunk thug, I thought, I'd never have gotten myself into this mess. Whoever she was, wherever she was from, she was the kind of girl that made bad guys good.

  The video started playing, and I looked at the little icon in the corner, which read 1:59 and was slowly ticking down. It started surreptitiously, and for the first few seconds was mainly video of someone's pocket.

  "Is that it?" I scoffed.

  Mike didn't reply, just kept his eyes glued to the phone.

  When the scene revealed itself, my heart did a backflip – this time in celebration. It wasn't shot outside the bar, it was shot inside it! It couldn't be the fight, after all. But if not that, then what?

  "I told those bastards not to film," I said bitterly. "Those two-faced bastards! God knows what my credit card bill's going to be after last night, and it was all for nothing."

  A haunting, beautiful voice echoed out of the tinny phone speaker, so vibrant and so clear that the inadequacy of the sound quality barely seemed to matter. It was my ebony goddess, my crush – and she sounded every bit as good, no, better than she had in my memory. And if she sounded better, then she looked extraordinary. I was glad I'd covered up my cock, because I felt it beginning to stir just at the blurry camcorder s
ight of her. Lord knows what I'd be like if she was actually lying naked in front of me.

  I banished the thought from my mind, guiltily looking back at the screen and resting my hand on the sheet above my package, doing my best to hide the growing bulge.

  And then I began to sing. I could barely hear the words above the noise of the crowd, but I looked at the emotion on my face, the effort I was putting into it, my soul something that I barely recognized – a man who was enjoying his craft. I looked like a man staring into a black beauty's eyes and singing his heart out – not just for her, but for himself.

  I barely remembered it; after the amount of drinks I'd had last night it was surprising I had any memory at all, but I remembered her.

  We were singing a duet, and the sound was haunting, beautiful, natural. It just sounded right. It was the kind of ballad that you could slap up on the Internet and have at the top of the charts by the end of the week. I hadn't sung like this in years.

  The video drew to a close with the girl – I cursed that I didn't even know her name – staring radiantly into the crowd, arm outstretched and singing one final, haunting bar. The entire joint was silent, rapt with attention. It was astonishing, like nothing I'd ever seen.

  Neither of us spoke for a few seconds, but Mike was the first to break the silence. "Christ, Clay – I haven't heard you sing like that in years."

  Neither had I but I didn't want to admit it.

  "Who was that girl?"

  "I don't know, but you've got to find her," I said hoarsely. "Mike – I think I'm in love…"

  "Oh, believe me when I tell you I'll find her," Mike said with a wicked smile on his face, "but I gotta tell you one thing."

  He paused, as though whatever he was about to say, he was going to enjoy telling me.

  Unwilling to be part of his game, I decided to prompt him. "What?"

  "You can't sleep with this girl, Clay. She's going to save your career."

  5

  Alicia

  I didn't wake up until almost midday, completely exhausted by last night's highs and lows, and by the time I had hauled myself out of my comfortable bed, where I could have hibernated for hours longer, and was done messing about in my apartment, getting my laundry done and giving the place a quick dust, it was more or less time for work.

  The bar I worked at was on the east side of town – an upscale joint. I didn't care much for the clientele – mainly socialite white girls and the smug bankers they were trying to hitch their wagons to, but the hours were good and the tips were better. I had decided that if I couldn't make it in the music business, this place was going to pay my way through college.

  Whatever happened, I was going to make something of myself.

  "Hey, Alicia," my manager Tom called out as I walked past him, shucking off my thick coat, suddenly overwhelmed by the heat being inside and stuck under several layers. "Having a good week?"

  I turned and flashed him a quick smile, careful not to linger – I knew he had a crush on me and I didn't want to do anything that would encourage it. Pleasant as he was, Tom didn't have that spice I looked for in a man, and no matter how well he dressed, nor how pleasant he was, he was never going to pin me down in bed and—

  I shook my head, clearing it of the images that had suddenly begun to flood through my mind – every single one, without exception, casting a certain Clay Hunt in the starring role. It wasn't the first time today that cocky son of a bitch had crossed my mind, and I had a feeling it wouldn't be the last. Still, I shrugged; the chances of me running across his sexy body again were slim to none. More's the pity.

  "You okay, Alicia?" Tom asked, looking concerned. "You haven't said nothing."

  "Huh? Oh, sorry, Tom – it feels like it's been a long day already, and I've barely done a thing," I replied, glad that my cocoa skin would hide the red flush that was filling my cheeks in reaction to the filthy thoughts that had distracted me.

  "Going to be a busy night tonight," he replied, looking put out that I hadn't given him my full attention. If only he'd had an inkling of what I'd been thinking about instead, he'd have been a whole lot more disappointed…

  "Always is on a Saturday," I replied gaily, "but think of the tips, Tom, think of the tips!"

  "Damn right," he agreed.

  The hour or so before opening time passed quickly in a flurry of cleaning glassware, checking that the bottles of liquor were topped up and plenty of spares were at the ready nearby to slake the thirst of the inevitable flood of wealthy bankers, stockbrokers and advertising executives all on the prowl for a piece of ass to take home on a Saturday night.

  When the doors opened, it didn't take long for the place to fill up. My bar wasn't like The Joint – the place I played in the night before. It was a bit more upmarket, a bit classier. At least, it was in terms of decor – and it didn't tend to get quite so busy. The Joint was more of a club, whereas the Cocktail Club, despite the name, was definitely an upmarket bar – the kind of place where wealthy men went to meet their future trophy wives.

  I didn't like it much. It wasn't my kind of place. Hell, I was just about the only black face in the place, and that was definitely true if Sean wasn't working. Still, I reminded myself, I did it for the tips. And they were damn good. Nothing like a bit of cleavage to get the guys going, and I knew my tits were one of my best assets, and I wasn't afraid to use them – especially in a harmless environment like this.

  "An old-fashioned," came my first order, and I had to bite back my frustration. Who did this guy think he was, Don Draper? I comforted myself with the thought that, judging by the look of him, he was unlikely to be taking a girl home tonight – especially after sinking a couple of our hefty whiskey drinks.

  As I was twirling the ice in the glass, I could have sworn I saw a couple of sorority girls, the kind on the wealthy end of the scale, pointing and staring at me. Thinking I must have been mistaken, I dismissed the thought and kept paying attention to stirring the ice into the drink.

  "No way," I heard one of them simper, and then the other one reply simply, "Way."

  I just kept my head down; no sense getting involved in the stupid drama that went on in this place on a Saturday night. I sure as hell didn't need that in my life.

  "Go ask her, go on," I heard the second girl say, speaking loudly and acting nowhere near as subtle after a couple of drinks as she thought she was.

  "Hell no," the first girl said, "what if it's not her?"

  "Who cares, she's just a bartender…" They both giggled and covered their mouths. Inside, I was fuming.

  Just a bartender?

  "You girls got something to say?" I finally said, snapping and looking up, shooting them both a stern glare. Tom wouldn't like it, but Tom was at the other end of the bar, being flirted with by pretty girls like usual and doling out free drinks without realizing they were just taking advantage of him.

  They both looked at me with a guilty stare. "Um, sorry about that," the prettier one finally offered. "Can we ask you something?"

  "You may as well now," I finally relented, slightly mollified by the quick apology and aware that the more I buttered them up, the more likely it was I'd get a nice tip next time I served them… I decided to hurry that up.

  "You girls want a drink?" I asked, squeezing a twisted orange peel over the cocktail I was finishing up and pushing it over to the swaying banker standing in front of me. He paid with a twenty and didn't stick around for his change.

  "I guess," they tittered, looking at each other as though daring themselves. "Two Long Island iced teas, please," they said.

  I busied myself with their drinks orders. "So, what was it you girls needed to ask me?"

  They looked at each other again – a habit that was quickly beginning to grate on me – before finally bursting out with, "Are you that girl from the video?"

  "What video?" I asked, pouring in the freshly squeezed lemon juice and topping up their glasses to the rim with cold Coca-Cola. I was pretty sure I was about to shoot w
hatever nonsense these girls were spouting down, so I wasn't really paying much attention.

  "She so totally is," the plainer girl repeated, a little alcohol-induced vocal fry creeping into her voice.

  "Spit it out, girls," I said, pushing their drinks over towards them. They grabbed them greedily and sucked a few droplets out through the straw.

  "You know who Clay Hunt is?" the pretty girl asked.

  Clay Hunt…

  The name rocked me back on my heels as suddenly and thoroughly as the man himself had the night before. Again, a flood of sexual imagery surged through my brain and I had to blink to turn it off, but not before I felt a wetness beginning to prickle between my thighs.

  "What you talking about Clay Hunt for?" I asked, a little more bite creeping into my tone than I had intended.

  "Oh my God!" The plain girl exclaimed, turning to a friend. "You were so totally right – it is her." She turned back to me eyes bright with excitement. "Can we get, like, your autograph or something?"

  The pretty girl looked at me. "What was he like?" She leaned in conspiratorially. "You totally went home with him, didn't you?" She winked. "Was he as amazing in bed as they say? I bet you're sore this morning…"

  "Jesus Christ!" I snapped. "What the hell are you guys talking about? I sure as hell didn't go home with Clay Hunt last night, if that's what you're saying."

  "Show her the video, Claire," the pretty girl ordered, but Claire was already way ahead of her, her fingers typing furiously into her iPhone, and in seconds the screen was shoved right into my face. The loading bar took only a second, and then I saw myself – myself – on YouTube.

  "Oh my God," I whispered under my breath. "How the hell?"

  "Five million views!" Clare announced triumphantly. "Five million views in less than twenty-four hours," she repeated. "Iit's gonna be, like, the quickest video to a hundred million views on YouTube this year!"

  "Oh my God, Claire," the pretty girl announced, "I can't believe she had no idea she was famous…"

  Famous?