Savage Rhythm (8 page)

As opposed to the other women in his life, who hadn’t been able to deal with much of anything and kept on pretending they had no problems right up until everything went tits up.

Molly handled her troubles more like he did. It made him feel closer to her, even if he had no right to feel like that yet.

Again, the whole thing was stupidly dangerous, right there.

Just preshow jitters
, he told himself. That was why he had this jumpy energy, why his eyes followed her around the bus, even when he was supposed to be working on new material. She was just so damn beautiful, her hair falling in her face as she leaned over that notebook, writing. The way she tucked one leg under her. The way she made fun of him whenever she caught him looking.

He needed to get either
in
her or
on
stage, one of the two, and he needed it bad. At least he’d get one of those things tonight: first big show on the road. First real test of the band without Soren. They’d played a couple of small venues, like the show at Volare. They’d been warm-ups, and even that had been dicey up until he’d rocked the stage, but this? This was an old venue, Springfield, somewhere they’d played regularly since they started to get big. True blue fans, not handpicked and half famous. Declan stayed away from the news and the gossip, but he knew his fans. Knew most of them were either in love with him or Soren.

Who knew what was going to happen?

“Fifteen minutes!” yelled Davey from the front of the bus.

He caught Molly looking at him. “You checking me out?” he teased.

“No. You nervous?” She grinned. She was curled up next to a window, the sun hitting the highlights in her hair, lighting up her face. More than normal, even.

“Nah,” he said.
I’m wound up and you could help me with that
, he thought. But she already knew it.

Molly let her eyes linger on him.

He knew she knew. Knew that it had to happen eventually. They were both only human. And now that he knew she’d been hurt by someone, someone who’d robbed her of a chance to find out who she was—it hit every Dom button he had, knowing he could help her. Declan didn’t leave a sub in need. Didn’t leave a woman in need, period, but this was different. This was something he knew only he could give her.

“Careful with those looks, Mol,” he said easily. “You’ll get yourself into trouble you can’t get out of.”

He laughed when she blushed deep, deep red, then got up to get his stuff together. Too late he thought about how red she’d get over his knee and under his hand, and then he had to jump in the shower again.

***

Freshly scrubbed and it was all a damn waste. He came out of his bedroom to find Molly looking just as good all over again. In fact, she looked good enough, leaning against that window, legs spread out in front of her lengthwise on the seat, that it took him way too long to read the expression on her face.

He’d seen it before, always when she was checking her phone. Molly looked the way he felt when he was waiting for Bethany to check in and tell him she’d made it through another day.

Somebody had Molly worried. Somebody important.

“Somebody wake Brian up, we’re here!” Davey yelled.

Molly’s head shot up, and she came to join Declan near the front of the bus while Gage and Erik went to go drag Brian out of his bunk. Declan was surprised to find that she looked kind of nervous. He smiled.

“Ever done this before?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah, tons of times,” she said quietly, looking out the windshield. The venue, an old brick factory that had been converted into a concert hall, rose up out of the emptiness ahead. There was already a sea of cars in the parking lot. “Nothing unusual about this at all.”

“So you’re not nervous or anything?” he said.

Molly just chewed on her lip and kept her eyes on the crowd.

“Don’t be a dick, Declan.” Brian yawned behind them. “We know you have giant coconut balls made of solid steel, but the rest of us get a little freaked out to see
that
.”

There was an army gathering at the entrance to the parking lot. Even Declan didn’t expect that, at least not a crowd of this size. They looked rowdy, too. Some of them had Soren signs, some of them Savage Heart signs, or “WE LOVE YOU, DECLAN,” and they were on opposite sides of a goddamn police barrier. He could already see some shoving.

“So how big is this show?” Molly asked in a small voice.

“Tiny, for us,” Gage said. Even he seemed a little subdued. The crowd only seemed to get bigger the closer they got. “Or it was supposed to be. We’re playing smaller venues to build up a buzz, keep it in control until the fans get used to it. But this… Did they oversell the show?”

“Don’t say ‘it,’” Declan said. “It’s Soren. They have to get used to not having Soren around. And they will.”

“So what happens now?” Molly asked.

“We go in. We wait. We do sound check. We wait. We kick ass. Simple as that,” Declan said. But he was watching the crowd, too. The bus was pulling into the parking lot now, going about an inch a minute, waiting for the crowd to part. He could see actual fights starting. He could hear them, even through the double thick glass of the windows.

“So much for keeping it lowkey,” Gage said. “This is gonna be one hell of a show.”

Declan, though, was looking at Molly. Then he looked at the crowd, who in his experience would get extra crazy when they found out most of them wouldn’t even get in to the show—if they hadn’t been told already. Then he checked out the piece of shit security the venue had provided, like eight pudgy guys in cheap black shirts, clearly not enough to do anything in this situation.

“Molly, you sit this one out,” Declan said suddenly, surprising even himself with the urgency in his voice. “Stay on the bus.”

He might as well have told her to stick to women’s work or something else equally dumb. She turned on Declan with such ferocity that even Brian took a step back, and the look she gave him should have turned him right to stone.

Molly said simply, “Fuck. No.”

“Do you see that out there?” Declan pointed, irritated even though he knew he didn’t have a leg to stand on. He just didn’t like the idea of Molly out in that swarm of crazy fans. “You think that’s safe?”

“Then
you
stay on the bus,” she snapped. “I have a job to do, same as you.”

“Can I stay on the bus?” Brian whispered.

“You know she’s right, Dec,” Erik said quietly. They all turned to look at him. “We’re all going to have to make a run for it anyway. At least they don’t know I’m Soren’s replacement yet,” he smiled wryly. “After the show I might need Declan to carry me out,
Bodyguard
-style.”

Brian patted their new guitarist on the back while they all laughed. Good. They needed to get rid of that tension. But that didn’t change the way he felt.

“Fuck,” Declan muttered. He hated being wrong, mostly because it meant he had to freaking admit it. That had been one of Uncle Jim’s rules and it was a good one. It just annoyed him this time. He gave Molly a stern look. “Fine. You’re right, I can’t keep you on the damn bus. But you are staying close to me, you understand? Those people out there…”

“They look crazy,” Molly said.

There were warring chants now. “Declan!” “Soren!” It was freaking ridiculous.

“They’re wound up,” Declan replied. “It can happen. I’m more worried about the lack of security.”

And then, just to make sure she understood he was serious, he put his arm around her and pulled her close. He really didn’t give a fuck about being half hard, even if they had to run for it. Molly was tense for a second, still pissed at him probably, but then she relaxed into it, warm and soft and so damn female. Declan couldn’t argue with that; it felt good to touch her in any way at all. Felt right. He could feel her excitement, her fear, and it brought out that caveman part of him all over again. He had to stop himself from picking her up. What had Erik called it?

“You guys ready?” Davey asked. Security guards had lined a the start of a path from the bus to the performer’s entrance at the back.

“You sure you won’t let me carry you
Bodyguard
-style?” Declan asked.

Molly elbowed him playfully in the ribs. He was forgiven.

“And give those women a reason to hate me? You must be out of your mind,” she said.

The doors opened, and the sound of thousands of screaming fans crashed into them like a flying brick wall.

“Let’s
go
!” Davey shouted, and they all rushed out of the bus, toward the line of frightened security guys waving them on in desperation. Declan pushed his way out and then waited for Molly, putting his arm around her again, ignoring the screams.

It was fucking
nuts
.

“Declan, I need you!”

“I wanna have your baby, Declan!”

“Fucking Savage Heart
forever
!”

Molly was ducking into his side under the pressure of the crowd, just the shouting, the craziness of it, the arms reaching for them as they made their way to the door in a scrum of stressed out security guys. Nothing could prepare someone for a fan gauntlet like this, for the way grown adults went crazy in groups. She was tense as all hell, and he looked down to see if she was ok, or terrified, or what, but instead he saw that she was riding the adrenaline just like he was. Looked ready to take the world on, just like he was.

Fuck yes, that is a woman
, he thought.

Couldn’t tear his eyes away from her face. Which was how he missed it. He only saw Molly’s expression: sudden alarm, fear, maybe.

Declan turned just in time to see a bleached blonde woman, heavy black mascara streaming from her crying, crazy eyes, hoisting a bucket over her head as she screamed, “
Murderer!
”

Declan didn’t think, he just reacted. He pulled Molly into his arms and hunched over her, spinning them both around so his back faced the psycho, and then he felt it hit his back.

Liquid.

Paint.

Red freaking paint. That was all. It exploded around him from the impact, splattering the security guards and the already riled up crowd, the shock of it igniting the tension and sending the place into pandemonium. The crowd erupted and surged forward, a security guard stumbled and fell, Gage was knocked into Molly. People were going down left and right, swallowed up by the tide of people, trampled under foot. Panicking.

He heard the crazy lady scream, “Soren! Where is Soren? What did you do to Soren?”

But Declan was already running, Molly in his arms, the band following behind him, security going nuts.

chapter
9

Molly still couldn’t believe it. Not a drop of red paint on her.

Declan, on the other hand…

“Where the
fuck
is the head of security for this shithole?” he roared.

He was pacing around the dressing room where they’d been herded while the security guys dealt with what was hopefully
not
a full-blown riot outside. Dec clearly hated being cooped up, not being able to do anything. He’d taken off his ruined shirt and put his head under a faucet, though he hadn’t seemed to notice that his lower half was still covered in red paint.

Brian, on the other hand, definitely had. He’d been laughing nonstop. “Dude, you have to try to lighten up or we’ll all lose it. Or you could stay like that, with the red coating, for comic relief. I’m good with either.”

Declan seethed, but they could all see that Brian was right. That had been
scary
. So close to truly out of control, so obviously dangerous. Molly never would have guessed something like that could happen at a rock concert. They were all basically waiting to hear that no one had been hurt. No one was talking about when they would go on, or what kind of show it was going to be now. If anyone had been trampled, there wouldn’t even be a show.

Declan looked over at her for about the millionth time. “You sure you’re ok?” he asked again.

Molly cleared her throat. “I’m fine, honestly.”

And she was fine because he really had carried her through an actual raving mob. Just covered her body with his, scooped her up like nothing at all, and charged ahead. She could still feel his iron arms around her, his rock hard chest pressed against her, his breath hot on her neck as she’d clung to him. Molly didn’t normally let her physical size make her feel weak or incapable, but she also didn’t normally hang out in riots.

For a moment, she had been truly scared, knowing she had no way to protect herself if the crowd surged her way. She’d felt completely vulnerable.

And then Declan had been there.

That didn’t help with her little self-control problem.

“Hey, buddy, how about a pre-show special, huh?” Brian said, sitting up and clapping his hands together. “Who’s up for a pre-show special? Work that tension out.”

“Pre-show special?” Molly asked, then immediately regretted it. If she’d thought about it for, like, thirty seconds, she would have figured it out.

Instead she got to watch Gage look ashamed while he grumbled, “You fucking horndog. There’s a lady present.”

Molly laughed out loud at that. “What about the last two days has made you boys think I’m that kind of lady? I don’t care what you do. I’m here to observe, remember? Brian, go get some.”

Brian grinned at her, and she hoped she’d pulled it off. It was a little bit of bravado. The truth was that she really, really did not want to think about whether Declan was about to go get himself some pre-show special pussy from some random groupie. Molly already felt queasy at the suggestion.

“C’mon, Dec, you up for it?”

Molly pretended not to watch Declan, but in the next few seconds a freaking UFO could have landed right next to her and she wouldn’t have noticed. Declan was still pacing, still obviously pissed off, still lost in thought. Then he snapped to, like Brian’s words had just penetrated his brain, stopped, and looked at Brian like he was stupid.