A Little Night Music (21 page)

Lifting her hands, she gathered her hair up, a stray breeze cooling the back of her neck. A sinful smile curved his sensual mouth. His hand stole to his waist. The buzzing, vibrating pleasure sped up just a little.

Hannah let out a moan. The crowd noise swallowed it up. Someone jostled her from behind. She barely noticed. He turned the control up again, just a tiny shift of intensity, and Hannah caught her breath, hanging on the edge of orgasm.

Lips parted, low breathy moans came from her throat. She was torn between desperately needing to come and the embarrassment of knowing it would be in front of thousands of people. They pressed against her from behind, from the sides, intimately close, yet none of them knowing what he was doing to her.

But to climax in public, like this, surrounded by people…. He would be able to make her come whenever he wanted to, and she’d be able to do nothing about it.

Nate spun away. The intoxicating buzz between her legs diminished, leaving her moaning with frustration. Her inhibitions were being whittled away with every tiny vibration. She’d never thought that she could ache so badly, be so close, so wet, and still cling to the edge.

The closeness of the crowd added to the thrill, the collective energy stroking over her skin. The fact that everyone was riveted, watching Nate on stage, meant that she could conceivably have a screaming orgasm and nobody would really notice.

Hannah had never considered herself an exhibitionist, wasn’t sure if this counted, really. She was fully clothed. Nate wasn’t even going to touch her.

But he did. With his eyes, as he ran by. With his fingers, as he stroked music from the guitar strings. With the titillating buzz that surged again and again. The world narrowed to just the two of them. The audience faded away.

The concert was nearing an end. Hannah knew that, because she was enough of a fan and had been to enough concerts to know the pattern of songs. The encore would be coming soon. Once she’d figured out the pattern, it had always caused her a brief moment of grief whenever she heard “Dragons of Winter” live because it was a signal that all good things must come to an end, that the concert was nearly over, that she’d go home alone, to her empty bed, and relive the magic of the concert and dream of Nate Fox.

But now he wasn’t a dream anymore, and even though the song still sent a pang of despair straight to the pit of her stomach, it was coupled with heart-fluttering excitement.

 The concert was almost over. Soon it would reach its climax, and hopefully so would she.

The time for him to wield the vibrator’s control was rapidly declining. Hannah couldn’t remember having been kept on the brink of arousal for so long. Oh, she’d always been horny at his concerts, but this was very, very different. She could feel the hard egg of the vibrator against her vulva, pressing the lips open, leaving her ready and willing.

“Dragons of Winter” ended. Hannah hadn’t been entirely aware of singing along, but she knew she had. The crowd around her screamed and cheered, and her own arms were in the air as she clapped and pumped her fist.

Kenny started a throbbing beat on his bass. Hannah stared at him, shocked at how well the rhythm was timed with the vibrations. Oh god, had Nate planned this that carefully? But no, it was the heavy bass making her sternum pulse, and her whole body was tuning in to the hard-driving pound of the song.

She watched as Nate jumped up onto the keyboard. His hips rocked, the guitar an extension of his body. His head was thrown back, sweat trickling over his chest. His shirt was gone, and she imagined trailing her tongue along his taut flesh, chasing the sweat down his body. He howled the lyrics, and Hannah again pressed her hips against the wooden barrier separating her from the stage.

She hadn’t seen his hand move, but she could swear that the teasing egg nestled against her aroused flesh had sped up. Heat pooled low inside of her, tightening, drawing her awareness to it.

The song was close to its finale, and her body echoed it. She didn’t know if she could hold back for him. The cliff was waiting, and she was ready to leap.

Looking down into her eyes, Nate sang the final words, “your strange desires.”

He pulled his head up and gathered himself.

His fingers turned the remote control dial to maximum.

He leapt into the air off the keyboard.

The world exploded into a million shades of red. Hannah heard herself scream, her hips bucking uncontrollably as spasm after spasm consumed her. Heat pulsed outwards from her clit, rolling along her skin, the buzzing egg sustaining the sensations. She came in waves that shattered her, wringing every last drop of pleasure from her aching body.

Looking up, Hannah saw Nate close, kneeling at the edge of the stage where he’d landed. His eyes glittered with dark satisfaction. The look was for her alone. He unclipped the remote, pressing it to his lips before tossing it to her.

A souvenir.

A promise.

Chapter Twelve

The sun was hot, beating down on her shoulders out of a nearly cloudless sky. The sidewalk burned up through her sandals. Hannah ignored the discomfort. She was too busy patting herself on the back for the crowd turnout.

The CD signing at the Borders Books & Music in Phoenix had been her baby. The newspaper articles she’d engineered had been lukewarm. The charts had shown an upwards trend for the CD, but not fast enough or far enough. Nate’s remake of “Born to Be My Baby” was receiving decent airplay, but it seemed stuck just outside of the Top 50.

Both Nate’s and Hannah’s reputations were at stake.

That was why she was so excited to see the long line snaking down the sidewalk outside of the store.

“Pretty respectable,” Sam remarked. He handed her the extra bottle of water he carried.

“Thanks,” Hannah said. It was for more than the drink.

“Sales are up inside,” Sam said. He snapped the fingers of one hand, simultaneously beating out time on his thigh. He just couldn’t keep still. “It was a good idea to order in a supply of Nate’s older stuff.”

“The manager’s been great,” Hannah agreed.

Someone called out Sam’s name, and he raised a hand in acknowledgement. A lot of hard-core fans recognized him as Nate’s manager.

Hannah scanned the crowd, seeing a few faces that she recognized. The FoxFanatics who’d shown up had been at the head of the line. They’d staked their places since early morning. Hannah had made sure she’d greeted them and thanked them for their support.

“How are the T-shirt sales going?” Hannah asked.

“I’m still not sure that was a good idea,” Sam said. “I want to distance Nate’s name from the drugs, not remind everyone of his addiction.”

“We’ve had this argument before,” Hannah reminded him. “You know how he feels about it.”

“Shit, I know,” Sam said. He squinted up into the sun. His foot had taken over his internal rhythm, tapping restlessly. “I just want him to maintain that bad-boy image. Being the poster boy for an anti-drug campaign just doesn’t cut it.”

Hannah took a long swallow of the cold water. What she really wanted to do was hit Sam with the bottle. The two of them had clashed endlessly over this. “
Options
is good for him. When they approached him about being a spokesperson, Nate was really excited.”

“Yeah, well, next thing you know, he’ll be wanting to visit local schools to tell the kids to stay off of drugs.”

She frowned at Sam. She couldn’t see why that was a bad idea.

“If he wanted to be a do-gooder, at least he could have picked a charity that didn’t focus on drugs,” Sam went on.

As she’d told him time and again, people weren’t going to forget Nate had had a drug problem. This was a way for him to turn the negative into positive publicity. He could still have a bad boy image without drugs.

She knew Sam wanted only the best for Nate. The older man had been with Nate a long time and in many cases did know what was best. But he didn’t have the PR training and experience that she had.

Patiently, Hannah guided the conversation back to her original question. “So are the T-shirts selling?”

Sam ran a hand through his curly hair. “The
Options
spokesperson here is thrilled. They’ve almost sold out of the large size.”

“See, it was a good thing,” Hannah told him with a cheeky grin. It had been her idea to feature the Fox band logo on T-shirts for the House. Borders was allowing them to be sold, with the proceeds going to the charity. Nate would sign them when fans brought them up to his table.

“I hate being wrong,” Sam muttered before marching off and leaving her to crowd-watch.

Hannah drifted along the sidewalk in the direction of the store entrance. She wanted to peek in on Nate. She loved to watch him work.

“It’s her!” The excited shout had her looking around to see what was going on.

“Hannah!”

A woman was waving to her from the line, fairly bouncing up and down in her excitement.

Confused, Hannah walked over to her. Maybe they’d met at a concert. A sun visor hid a part of the woman’s face, and made it impossible to tell from a distance.

The woman elbowed a friend. “I told you it was her!”

Sure now that she didn’t know the woman, Hannah was about to say hello when a tabloid was suddenly shoved into her face.

“You’re Nate’s girlfriend. We saw your picture in here!”

There was suddenly a lot of people looking her way. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone holding up a cell phone, snapping a picture.

The woman was hurriedly flipping pages. “Here,” she said finally, stabbing a finger at a picture. “Will you sign this for me, please?”

Hannah’s hands were shaking. Ignoring the pen shoved her way, she stared at the picture.

It was the paparazzo shot from Lorelei. The bastard had caught her at a highly unflattering angle. Her mouth was wide open, her eyes squinty, and Nate’s fork poised there.

“A new low instead of his high,” the article began. “Rocker Nate Fox was caught at a trendy Las Vegas restaurant sharing a romantic meal for two. Gone are the supermodel and starlet beauties of the past. Fox’s new
amore
is his publicist, Hannah Montgomery. No longer on the A-List, is Fox reduced to dating his employees?”

Her stomach plummeted. The heat was suddenly unbearable. Her vision telescoped to a single point. The rest of the world was black.

Just the picture.

An ugly, accusatory picture.

Someone was shaking her arm. She looked up to meet the woman’s excited eyes.

“Will you introduce me to him?”

People were pressing close, drawn by the excitement. Suddenly and unwillingly a celebrity, Hannah felt overwhelmed, sick. Pinned open and flayed alive.

“Ask her if he’s good in bed!” The shout came from someone at the back of the crowd.

“Excuse me,” she said faintly. “I have to go.” She tried to move away, but someone grabbed at her. The woman with the tabloid shook the paper, still waving a pen.

“Please, let me out,” Hannah said. She felt dizzy. Penned in.

Her mouth wide open, her faced squished up.

Reduced to dating an employee
.

A new low
.

“Please,” Hannah repeated.

A strong arm curled around her shoulders. A dark brown hand closed over the pages of the tabloid, pulling it from the fan’s grasp.

“Everyone step back now,” Andre said. The low rumble of his voice would have shattered a glacier.

What the words didn’t do, the breadth of his shoulders and the utterly ruthless expression on his face accomplished. The crowd moved back enough to let them through.

Two of the guards that Andre had hired as extra security stepped in to regain control.

“You should be with Nate,” she said faintly.

“He’s just fine inside,” Andre answered. He bent his head close to hers. “I was told you were being accosted out here. What the hell is going on?”

They’d reached the store entrance, and Andre steered her inside. The shocking cold of the air conditioning was a slap in the face. She drew away a little, but let Andre keep his arm around her waist.

Everyone was looking at them. She could see them staring.

Not a supermodel.

Not a starlet.

Just a plain employee with her mouth wide open.

She was grateful when Andre took her back into the employee break room. She sank down into a hard chair, and felt his hand at the back of her neck, pushing her head down between her knees. About to protest that she wasn’t going to faint, Hannah kept silent when she realized that it was making her feel better.

A half-drunk can of Coke sweated on the table, and there was a faint smell of tuna in the small room, probably emanating from some crumpled tinfoil in the full trash can.

A burst of static, and Andre spoke quietly into his walkie-talkie.

“Sam’s on his way,” Andre said. “Are you all right, honey?”

She looked up at him. He’d taken off his mirrored sunglasses, and his dark eyes were concerned. “Have you seen the picture in the tabloid?”

A glance down at the paper he still held in one hand and a quick shake of his head told her that he hadn’t. His big hands flipped the pages deftly. When he reached the short article, he frowned. “I’ll find out who took this and arrange for him to meet with an accident.”

The fact that she couldn’t tell if he were kidding or not was worrisome.

“What’s up?” Sam asked. He stood in the doorway, looking from one to the other.

Wordlessly, Andre handed him the paper.

The frown that drew Sam’s brows together changed the whole dimension of his face. “Well.”

“I’m supposed to be helping Nate, not dragging him down.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Sam said. A quick motion of his head sent Andre out the door. He stared at Hannah, his hands shoved down into his pockets. “I thought you’d be good for him, but I have to say I’m not happy about this.”

She took the criticism in silence. Her misery couldn’t go any deeper. She had enough self-confidence to know that she was pretty and sexy, but she also knew she couldn’t compete with glamour girls. She knew that under her gloss and shine, she was still sometimes gawky. A little boring, even.