Only one guy even shot a glance in her direction. His interest died away the moment he focused on her chest.
She’d have felt hurt, if she hadn’t realised he’d clocked her pass. It was white, while the ones the girls were wearing were all pink.
Having decided that she must be quite close to the stage now, Dani continued onwards. Only where was the thumping bass? Even through the walls she ought to have been able to hear that by now, if not feel the vibrations pummelling her chest. Instead, only a low-level hum of voices reached her from ahead.
Another few paces on, and she stopped to perform a double take. Hang on … wasn’t that Ash Gore, the Black Halo lead guitarist, lounging against the stacks? Why wasn’t he on stage with the rest of the band?
Unless he had an identical twin brother?
Nah – it would have cropped up in interviews. Stuff like that gave the fan girls wet dreams. Nor did it account for the thick rim of kohl around his eyes or his crazy metal-head hair. Or, indeed, why Rock Giant hunched beside him on top of a busted amp.
‘Oof!’
Dani came to an unceremonious halt, metal claws digging into her shoulder. She put out a hand for balance, only for it to meet leather – soft, supple, leather – and then hard muscle. Equally quickly, she jerked away.
‘Sorry.’
‘Just look where you’re going?’
She was. Leastways, now she was. Staring in gobsmacked disbelief, in fact. Her attention fixed upon his lamp-like cat’s eyes.
Xane. She’d walked right into Xane Geist without even seeing him. And … and …
wow
.
Her heart gave a fluttery drum roll, while her knees threatened to buckle.
Xane had always been her favourite. As the face of the group, he’d always drawn the bulk of the fans’ attention, but he was also the acknowledged genius behind their success. Up close, the magnetism that wowed audiences snagged her in the midriff and yanked her into closer proximity. He was … She had to touch her lips to ensure she wasn’t drooling. He was perfect.
Inky black hair framed his narrow face, and the ends reached midway down his chest. A spiked collar encircled his neck. Dani curled her fingers. The memory of his heat still warmed their tips. His cheekbones were shaved as if from pure marble; his nose a slender blade, above which his black eyebrows were furrowed. His crooked, kissable lips were drawn into a tight scowl that was further emphasised by the silver hoop piercing the centre of his bottom lip.
Two further hoops pierced his right eyebrow.
Beneath his leather jacket, he was dressed in a combination of rags and more form-fitting black leather. When she’d touched him, she’d hit a spot where his T-shirt was ripped away to show a painted-on version of his exposed ribs.
Dani’s lips parted in a gasp. For the first time in her life, she understood what it meant to melt, too feel so drawn to another human being that she lost control of even the most basic functions. All at once she was too jittery and hot; molten with arousal and terrified and ashamed too.
Oh, man – he smelled fab too, of good old-fashioned body scent, liberally mixed with a spritz of something expensive for men. Now it made sense why women like Ginny went to such effort to meet him, and why they were prepared to throw their morals to the wind and romp like wild things with a total stranger.
She could even picture herself sprawled across some hotel bed with him, having crazy sex.
‘Are you all right? Lost?’ He sounded pissed off, something his brittle smile corroborated. Yet Dani’s brain only processed the fact that his speaking voice was much softer than she’d anticipated, and lacked any hint of his trademark growl.
Realising she was still gaping at him, she took a moment to close her mouth. She wasn’t lost, just dazzled.
The painful bite of Xane’s claw rings restored her sanity. She coughed and straightened herself.
Xane kept his hand on her shoulder. ‘Sally?’ he said, as he lifted the backstage pass to read her name. Even hidden by opaque contact lenses, his eyes were still shrewdly intelligent as he gave her face and body a quick, appreciative sweep. ‘Were you looking for me?’ His eyebrows arched meaningfully.
‘Yes. I mean, no. I was trying to get through to the arena so I could watch the show.’
They maintained eye contact, because Dani couldn’t wrench her gaze away.
For a split second Xane’s scowl transformed into a smile. ‘The show’s over, honey. I don’t think you want to go out there.’
‘I don’t? Already?’
He rubbed his thumb across the part of her ID that said PR. ‘I’d stay back here. Safer, until you’ve a statement worked out.’
A statement! What was she supposed to give a statement about? And how was it she’d managed to miss the entire show? It wasn’t supposed to be over yet. Although now she thought about it, the roadies did appear to be packing up. ‘W–what happened?’ If she’d been an actual PR person she’d have been in full-on flap right about now. The woman whose pass she wore probably was. Ginny ought never to have taken her card.
Xane shook his head. ‘Sally.’ He snagged hold of the lanyard again, forcing her to meet his gaze. This was it. She was busted. He was going to yell for security and have her unceremoniously dumped out back. ‘Do you drive?’
‘A car, you mean?’ Why was this important? ‘Yes. I drove to the show.’
His lips quirked up at one corner, forming a rehearsed smile, which nevertheless had her creaming her knickers.
‘Good. Then you can get me out of here.’
‘Xane. Hold up, man.’ Ash stopped him just before he hit the tarmac, by making a starfish impersonation across the exit. His original intention might have been noble – Ash, like Xane, only had one commitment in life and that was the band – but his best intentions went bye-bye as he checked out the girl.
Hell knows who she really was. For definite she wasn’t Sally Kettering, prize battle-axe and PR fiend extraordinaire. Sally had never looked half so hot. Most of the time she barely looked human, and in her case that primarily wasn’t down to stage make-up. He’d made sure Sally had plenty of work to do tonight, a fact she’d no doubt fry him for later.
This girl, now – she was exactly the right mix of hot, indecisive and innocent to get Ash completely jacked up. Pretty oval face, with big wide-set brown eyes and a slightly top-heavy figure, coupled with a fearfully delicate smile. Admittedly, pretty much anything that moved and was ostensibly female captured Ash’s interest. The lead guitarist got laid more often than the rest of the group put together, and none of them went short in that respect. The others weren’t quite such bastards about it, though. Ash liked to get his kink on, turn them out and move straight on to the next one. He consumed women in the same way he consumed booze. He’d take whatever was on offer, as long as it went down well.
The reason Xane insisted on individual hotel suites and his own tour bus wasn’t just because he needed solitude in order to compose. It saved him from being irate at Ash twenty-four seven. Patting Ash’s rejects on the back and seeing them on their way got horribly tedious. Nor did he care for the constant reminder of what his life had once been like. It wasn’t so very long ago that he’d shown similarly indiscriminate tastes. That’d changed in recent times. Having found himself a comfortable arrangement, he hadn’t felt the need to wander.
‘Hadn’t’ – the word rang in his head like a leper’s bell. He tried to shut down the thought before it doubled him over, but failed miserably. His relationship was in tatters, and what he needed right now was a hell of a lot of something to deaden the pain.
When the hell would he learn his lesson? Just because someone whispered words of love into your ear after they fucked you didn’t mean they meant it. It didn’t mean you could trust them. People said one thing and then did another all the time. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know that. It just hurt like fuck to accept it.
Xane kept his fists curled tight. It wasn’t very manly, but curling into a ball and sobbing until he was hoarse really appealed right now. Except he was too damned angry to cry, and he refused to shed a tear over that bastard and bitch.
Not that it was purely the Steve-and-Elspeth situation riling him. It was the contempt too. The fact that the rest of the band valued him so little they thought it was no big deal for him to be treated like this.
Well, it was time people started accepting that their actions had repercussions. If you pissed on the same fire often enough it went out. And right now he felt thoroughly pissed on.
‘Where you headed?’ Ash enquired nonchalantly, as though there were nothing amiss.
Xane put his arm around the girl’s shoulders. Beneath her skin, her pulse raced excitedly. She probably thought she’d won herself a grand old prize, when she couldn’t have been more wrong.
‘Sally and I are going for a drive.’
That got him a response. Ash raised both beetle-black brows in disbelief. The girl stiffened too, so much so that Xane almost withdrew his hold. It seemed the idea of getting lewd and crude with him hadn’t actually been front and centre in her thoughts. She looked up at him in stunned disbelief.
‘Really?’ Ash raked his gaze over the girl’s body from her tits to the hem of her very short skirt. ‘I know I’m always on at you to branch out more, but is now really the best time? Shouldn’t you be hashing it out with them?’
Xane flicked the tip of his tongue against the silver ring through his lip. ‘To what purpose? Everything that needs saying has already been said.’
Ash hunched his shoulders so high he was in danger of piercing his ears with the spikes on his jacket. ‘Dammit, Xane, nothing’s been said at all! It was a dumb situation to get yourself in, and it’s even dumber now. You ought to be glad you’re out of it.’
‘’Cause you’d know all about what’s best for me.’
‘I know you should have waited until the gig was over before you started your pity party.’
Yeah, and Elspeth should have held her bloody tongue until the show was done, but he didn’t suppose Ash had bothered to yell at
her
.
Xane moved closer to the door. His public image might be as a hard man of rock, but not even he could perform a death growl with his throat choked up and a six-foot incision in his chest.
Ash shifted to one side but slouched against the doorframe, forcing them to step over his legs to get out. ‘I’ll be in touch tomorrow. We need to talk things through.’
They didn’t need to talk about jack. Black Halo was done in its current form. ‘Whatever.’ Xane pulled his saviour into the rain.
After the heat of the arena, the cold outside came as a surprise. Xane kept hold of the girl as much for warmth as to maintain the façade that he intended to get laid. Sex was not what he needed right now. With his soul already flayed he didn’t need someone else’s expectations and emotions complicating things. And the thing about fans – which is what he gathered she was – was that they all thought they knew him, having memorised a few bits of trivia. Not only that, but they assumed, because they ‘knew’ him and loved him, he’d feel the same way in return.
He never did. They weren’t people he’d call friends. They had no life experiences in common with him. The only commonality was the music, and even then they didn’t experience it in the same way. To them it was a product; something packaged, shiny and complete. Whereas he birthed the damn stuff, taking lyrics either he or Spook had written and then scratching out the chords and rhythms that filled his head. He worked at it, transformed and nurtured it, until he had something good.
‘How far are we going?’ he asked, growing tired of the cold.
Ahead of them the car park formed a vast dark stain on the horizon, relieved only by the rainbow hues of oil-slicked puddles. Xane lifted his hand to his face to brush back his hair, whereupon streaks of kohl ran into the grooves between his fingers. ‘Where did you say you were parked?’
‘I didn’t.’ She gave him a tight smile. ‘It’s this way. I’m not in the main car park. It was full. I had to settle for a side street.’
He followed the clack of her heels for what felt like miles, while watching the sway of her butt. He’d lay money on her only dressing like this for special occasions. The clothes didn’t sit easily on her back. She was so knotted with tension she seemed in danger of snapping something. Her hemline especially was giving her issues. Her small hands constantly smoothed the cloth.
Jeans and T’s, he predicted as her usual attire. Maybe the occasional floral dress that turned her into a frump.
Xane almost fed her a corny line about how great she looked in order to get her to relax, and because even in his piss-poor mood he could acknowledge she was a knockout. The dark colours suited her peaches-and-cream complexion, while the tight cut emphasised her natural hourglass curves.
Of course, he also considered the possibility that he and not the outfit was the source of her distress. She wouldn’t be the first woman who’d landed lovely foul-mouthed him instead of kinkmeister Spook or everyone’s sweetheart, Paul.
He caught her looking back at the lights of the stadium and decided it was definitely a case of wrong-guy syndrome. Well, she was going to be doubly pissed off when she realised that not only had she landed the booby prize, but he wasn’t interested in making out. His only plan for the night was to get home and get blotto.
If that made him a bastard, then so be it.
At least he’d saved her from being screwed by Ash. Not that she’d ever thank him for it.
‘This is it.’ She stopped under a street lamp, part way along the sort of side road he’d think twice about traversing in daylight.
The wind chased the strands of her now dripping dark-brown hair across her face, giving her a solemn, slight ethereal look. She was different from the sort of girls who normally offered to take him places, but then she hadn’t actually offered, only gone along with what he’d suggested – so far.
‘This is yours?’ He’d expected her to drive a girly city runabout, not a bloody enormous sedan. Maybe she wasn’t quite as inexperienced as she looked. Her whole image might be a sham to lure guys in. Half a mile down the road, she’d probably transform into some vampire bitch queen and suck him dry.