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Nor did he need to. Those things didn’t matter. He wasn’t looking for a life partner, just a quick bit of fun. ‘And the same would be true of any woman I picked up. Catch you later.’ He saluted Steve with his beer, took a final swig and left the bottle on the bar. Xane didn’t speak to the guy, he didn’t even approach him. He simply held his gaze before heading for the exit, and, what do you know, two minutes later mister blond and beautiful – who was called Luthor – was literally begging to go down on him.
Another person might have simply rolled with that, sat back, lapped up the attention and come down his throat without giving a damn thing in return. Xane disliked such selfishness. How could anyone abuse something this pretty? Besides, he wasn’t looking for a quick release. If that was all he needed, he could achieve that with his own hand. No, he wanted a long, slow, hard ride with this man, the sort that would give him the chance to savour every inch of perfection, every blessed angle.
‘Tell me what you need. Let me –’
‘Sh-h!’ Xane silenced him with some seriously devil-may-care kisses. This didn’t need to involve conversation. He didn’t want to hear about his performance. He’d already gathered the man had watched him on stage and decided then that he was willing to do pretty much anything the fuck Xane wanted him to. He didn’t want to exchange pointless pleasantries or have a heart-to-heart. What he wanted, in the words of Marc Bolan, was easy action.
Thank fuck the guy seemed to catch on quickly. Xane’s kisses were rewarded with matching fervour. Luthor had a mouth made for pleasure, wide, with a full lower lip, and it tilted upwards at the corners, making him seem cheerful even when his face was relaxed. He knew how to kiss too, unlike some men, who seemed to think it was all about being savage and clashing teeth. In fact, he seemed to know a hell of a lot about how to coax joy into being with every cell of his body. The guy had a sensuality that made Xane’s nerves vibrate – in a good way. There was a grace about him too that seemed almost at odds with his rather sharp physique. He was all long limbs, slender hips and compact muscle. Very nice to hold and undress, and no doubt a knockout to look at.
However, none of those things entranced Xane the way the man’s eyes did. He hadn’t noticed them in the VIP tent – they’d been standing too far apart – but up close, even in the dark they caught Xane’s attention and refused to release him. He’d never seen eyes like those before: one tawny, one sea-green. Natural, too, not achieved with lenses like his own Evil Dead look. Luthor possessed eyes that seemed to reflect the duality of being, making it near impossible to look away.
Normally, Xane avoided looking into the eyes of the people he fucked. It saved him from emotional entanglements he wasn’t seeking. With Luthor there didn’t seem to be any avoiding it.
‘Yeah,’ he hissed as the sweet caress of cool air tickled his skin, and Luthor formed a fist around his shaft. He swept his hold upwards in a satisfying pull towards the tip, making energy spike through all seven chakras at once. ‘Let me,’ Xane insisted, craving more skin-on-skin contact. He grabbed Luthor’s arse and grinned delightedly at the way the springy muscle tightened beneath his palm. He intended to explore every bloody inch of this man, from the pretty ridges of his hip bones to the soles of his feet. He was going to taste him and possess him, and they were both going to know what it felt like to make the universe turn.
‘Oh, man,’ Luthor gasped, as Xane dropped to his knees and yanked Luthor’s jeans down over his narrow hips without bothering to loosen them. They were barely holding up anyway, and he didn’t want to wait any longer for his prize. ‘Are you gonna …’
Yeah, he totally was. He wanted the taste of this man on his tongue, the smooth, sabre-like curve of his cock filling his mouth. Sometimes it just felt ridiculously good to engage in a bit of repetitive motion.
All right, a lot of repetitive motion, because once he’d got Luthor good and wet and excited, Xane intended to get intimately acquainted with some other fun parts of his anatomy.
Xane kept his hands busy as he sucked, and not just at the base of the guy’s cock. He squeezed, he coaxed and caressed. He wriggled his fingers someplace warm and tight and that turned Luthor into such a quivering wreck that he could barely keep himself upright and had to weave his fingers into Xane’s hair to maintain his balance.
Not long after that, they ended up on the ground, scrabbling about, too desperate for contact to disentangle themselves efficiently from one another and their clothing.
Xane didn’t notice stripping almost naked, only the inferno that burst into being when Luthor wrapped his palm around both their cocks and worked them together.
‘Have you got something?’ he asked, both clinging onto Xane and almost pushing him away at the same time. Like he wasn’t sure if this wasn’t good enough, and maybe they should come like this and avoid ramping things up any further, except he wanted the other way to happen so badly too, because the first way was too quick and would be over too fast. Neither of them was ready to part ways just yet.
Luthor’s eyes lit as Xane produced condoms and slathered them in lube. They were both breathing heavily and momentarily kiss-drunk as he got them lined up. It was easy, so very easy, as all the best fucks were. It wasn’t too tight or too awkward, there were no tense moments where they had to hold one another in check so they could breathe and relax. It was simply right. Everything worked, and it felt so goddamned wonderful that even if they did it a thousand times over it would never grow old.
Luthor mouthed the side of Xane’s neck as they fucked to the hum of ‘Paranoid’ that drifted over to them from the festival stage.
‘Bite me,’ Xane encouraged. ‘Leave a mark behind.’ He enjoyed nothing better than the feel of a lover’s mouth against his neck. It drove him fucking demented. He liked the marks they left behind too. Wore them like badges to the bemusement of the rest of the band. To Xane they were reminders that for at least a few brief moments he’d belonged, truly belonged to someone, enough for them to want to stamp their mark on him. He stamped a hell of a lot of marks all over Luthor, not that he thought for one second about actually keeping him.
He got Luthor off right before he came inside him, staring into those mesmerising mismatched eyes.
Xane floated for a few minutes, enjoying the roar of bliss in his ears and the whiplash bite of his orgasm pushing its way out of his body. It wasn’t enough, though. He went straight back down on Luthor again, got him stupidly hard. He knew a trick or two that made it easy and fun. This time round, he let Luthor do the sliding. Fair’s fair. He loved fucking, loved the feel of his cock enclosed in all that enveloping heat, but sometimes it felt damn good to be shafted too.
Xane never dished out what he couldn’t take.
It wasn’t such a straight glide with him on the bottom. It felt fucking fantastic, though. ‘God, yes!’ Luthor’s breath scalded the back of his neck as he pressed in deep. He ached as his hips rolled, but in a way that made his cock springy and hard and set his synapses alight. He didn’t care that he’d be sore tomorrow, or that he’d still be able to feel the heat of Luthor’s cock inside him, because then he could squeeze his muscles and remember. A shiver ran through him, almost making him lose it. The gig had ended, leaving the chirps of nocturnal insects as their only accompaniment. Sweat broke out across his body and pooled in the places where his and Luthor’s skin touched. The man was like a flaming brand inside him, burning him up, making him feverish, but still pushing him ever closer to an explosive reward.
Curious, how one subtle shift could make such a huge difference. Xane angled his hips up as Luthor drove forward. The tip of his cock hit Xane’s prostate. Everything moved up a gear. ‘I’ve got you,’ Luthor murmured. ‘I’ve got you.’ He held on tight, not pausing, and still fluid in his assault. ‘Stay with me. I’m almost there too. Oh, Lord, the grip of you …’
Another thrust … or two … and they hit tipping point.
For a few brief moments Xane existed entirely in a higher realm. Then he fragmented into a million pieces. Hot joy streaked along his shaft and poured from his cock. He felt the pulse of Luthor coming hard inside him. They clung together tight, and it seemed as if it might last for ever. It lasted a good long while.
Xane thought it might be the best fuck he’d ever had. He didn’t think anyone else was going to bang him half so well anytime soon. As they lay side by side, spent, while the sweat of their exhaustion cooled their overheated skin, Xane decided Luthor’s T-shirt slogan needed an addendum. ‘I love to bang’ ought to read ‘I love to bang … and I’m fucking awesome at it.’
It was a shame their paths never did cross again …
Chapter 1 (#ulink_b0c91750-7a05-554f-b10a-3d25c2372363)
England
‘Xane, they’re waiting on us. Soundcheck, now.’
Xane Geist cracked open his dressing-room door, still uncertain this was the right decision. A little over six weeks ago he’d been ready to pull the plug on Black Halo; now they were about to embark on a European tour. That was assuming they could get through a gig together, and not just because there was a slew of unresolved issues still to work out between them. Steve Matlock’s death might have officially reunited them, but it was also the reason they were all reeling in shock. If he hadn’t had Dani to hold on to, he wasn’t sure he’d have even been upright. It was hard to function when part of your heart had been ripped out. Not that Xane was any stranger to loss. He had a mantra that kept him going in difficult times. Smile. Feel. Orgasm. Bliss. It worked quite well for blotting out reality, particularly when it was recited while engaged in mindless sex.
Not that he engaged in mindless sex. Not any more. He wouldn’t do that to Dani and he didn’t fuck anyone else. He strived to keep his thoughts focused when he was fucking her. It wasn’t so difficult, since she seemed to have swallowed what was left of his heart now that Steve was gone.
Steve was gone. He still struggled with that concept. The guy was only twenty-six.
As soon as Dani got back, he was going to crush her in his arms and lock them together in a way that made them both feel good. He needed to feel good. He had to sing to a crowd tonight.
It was damn hard to sing with your throat locked tight with emotion.
He recited his mantra again, even attempted to turn the corners of his mouth up a little. It didn’t work.
Fucking was definitely on the agenda, as soon as Dani got here … literally as soon as. It wasn’t using her. He needed her. Dani knew how to take his pain away.
‘No girl with you?’ Paul ‘Rock Giant’ Reed, the band’s bass guitarist, slouched against the corridor wall opposite Xane’s door. ‘I thought you took your nubile little wench everywhere with you these days.’
Xane held his breath and counted to ten before stepping out of the room. He was not going to deck Rock Giant as his opening move, though if the idiot made any more crass remarks Xane refused to be held accountable for his actions. Dani was no groupie. She was his girlfriend, and he’d have her treated with bloody respect. ‘Shut the fuck up,’ he muttered. Rock Giant was six foot six of muscle, not counting the signature gravity-defying spikes of his hair, but Xane refused to feel intimidated. He had the same soft points as every man, and Xane would happily prove that point. Swinging his fists was sometimes almost as good as sex.
‘I just thought you might officially introduce her, since Graham informs me she’s joining us on the tour.’
Fan-bleedin’-tastic! Trust their blabbermouth of a manager, Graham Callahan, to leak that fact. In the interests of not causing undue friction – because, goddammit, there was enough already – Xane had planned to make that announcement to the band as a whole, preferably while Dani was with him, in the hope that they’d all be sweet about it. He didn’t consider that he needed their permission to invite her along, but the fewer ructions before they hit the road the better. So far, the day didn’t seem to be stacking up so well in that regard.
‘What happened to the policy of no extras on the bus, eh? If you’re bringing someone, then what’s to stop the rest of us doing the same? I don’t want to share a bus with Ash’s bloody harem.’
‘I’m not bringing someone. I’m bringing my girlfriend, which is hardly comparable to Ash inviting along a score of groupies.’ It was pretty safe to say none of them besides Ash wanted that.
‘So we’re back to one rule for you and some other crap for the rest of us?’ Rock Giant grumbled, his voice so low and grouchy it sounded like boulders colliding. ‘Might have known. Why is it you get to be such a special snowflake, Xane? We should all have to live by the same rules. I say let’s stick to the band and crew, and no hangers-on. We need to make this work, and it’ll be easier with less people around to get in the way.’
Fuck that! Dani’s coming wasn’t open to negotiation. Dani was the primary reason he was even prepared to consider this tour. She understood him in a way that pretty much everyone else didn’t, with maybe the exception of his cousin Ric Liddell.
Steve had understood him too.
Xane shut down that line of thought immediately. Thinking about Steve wasn’t going to help him keep it together.
‘It’s not as if you’ve known her very long. Have you had her background checked?’
‘Piss off!’
Rock Giant halted, pretty much forcing Xane to do the same unless he wanted to squeeze round him. ‘I won’t, and you’ll listen. Have you even considered how you bringing this girl will make Elspeth feel? You’re flaunting your new lay in front of her while she’s mourning the loss of her husband. Real sympathy you’re showing.’
‘It’s not just her loss.’ And he sure as hell didn’t owe their petite keyboardist anything. He’d tried to feel sorry for her, but she’d scarred him too deeply, and she’d certainly never considered his feelings when she ran off with his best mate to get married. ‘She dumped me, remember.’ Plus, there was the fact that he couldn’t help blaming her, at least in part, for what had subsequently happened. If Elspeth hadn’t set things in motion, then maybe, just maybe, Steve Matlock would still have been with them now.
Not that he placed the blame entirely on her. Too many variables had impacted on events. God knows, he’d been ruminating on them ever since. What if he hadn’t gone to Monaco? What if Steve hadn’t followed? What if, instead of running after the fight in the casino, he’d talked things through with Steve? That way the guy would have had someone with him. Someone to call for help. And even if the worst had still come to pass, at least Steve wouldn’t have died alone.
He had excruciating nightmares over that last fact.
‘You’re such a fuckwit, Xane. Elspeth’s lost her husband, and you’re still bemoaning the fact she dumped you for a nicer guy. She ought to be home piecing herself back together, not heading out on tour. We should have held off a while longer.’
Holding off hadn’t been an option, although he agreed that time might have benefited them all. He’d pissed off too many fans when he’d walked off stage at their last gig, and they now needed to appease them. It was past time they made up for that show and moved forward. Their real fans had cut them some slack following Steve’s tragic death, but sympathy only extended so far. It was essential they proved to the masses that they could still kick ass, and deserved the accolades they’d won.
‘Elspeth didn’t have to come,’ he said. He hadn’t forced anyone to sign up, and, to be perfectly honest, he thought the band might be happier without her. He didn’t really want her around, acting as a constant reminder.
‘You’d seriously do this without her? We’re honouring her dead husband, and you’d leave her behind? She’s the most right out of all of us to be included. I wish to God you’d admit that, instead of constantly trying to co-opt her grief.’
‘Co-opt her grief,’ he muttered, flabbergasted by Rock Giant’s gall. Xane and Steve had been best friends since they were eleven. They’d been lovers for nearly eighteen months, and had been to hell and back together several times over. Just because Steve had ultimately chosen Elspeth didn’t mean Xane’s feelings for the guy were any less sincere than Elspeth’s, or any less intense – assuming Elspeth was capable of that level of depth. He doubted the authenticity of everything she’d ever said to him, other than her delight in screwing him up when she said goodbye.
Rock Giant did so love acting as her knight protector, though. ‘You know the bit that really doesn’t add up, Xane?’ he continued, determined, it seemed, to stir things up. ‘It’s the fact that you make like you’re so devastated because the pair of them dumped you, but then you dive into bed with Dani less than twelve hours later. That’s not the action of someone who’s lost the love of his life. I don’t think you were in love. I think your pride got hurt, because they chose one another over being with you.’
‘Shut the fuck up.’ Paul didn’t know a damn thing. Only what Elspeth had told him, which would be half-truths at best. Xane slapped his hand against a poster they passed, and tore it from the wall. He really was trying hard not to let this devolve into a fight, but connecting his shin with Rock Giant’s nuts was looking increasingly appealing.
‘I say we vote on your girl coming along.’
Xane sucked the ring that pierced the centre of his lower lip, and wished he’d already applied his full mask of stage make-up. The veneer of pan-stick white mixed with blood and kohl made schooling his expressions so much easier. Rather than engage in a pantomime back and forth, he simply shook his head. They weren’t voting. If it came to it, he and Dani could ride on the main bus and anyone who objected to her presence could bunk up with Ash on the sleazemobile – the rust-bucket of a bus that was ostensibly meant to house the road crew but inevitably became Ash’s shagging pad. Somehow, he suspected Dani’s presence wouldn’t be quite so objectionable to them when faced with that prospect.
Honestly, he didn’t know what the hell they could find to object about her anyway. She wasn’t exactly high drama. She was the sort of girl mothers dreamed you’d bring home. Most mothers at any rate; his had never given a shit.
‘She’s coming, and that’s the end of it,’ he muttered. ‘If you don’t like it, take your bass and stuff it up your arse.’ He was getting one thing straight from the outset. He wasn’t going to be walked all over or taken for granted any more. This band was his outfit. He wrote the material, he was the creative force behind it. Every bugger else was replaceable. He expected a little respect.
To his astonishment, Rock Giant clapped him on the back. ‘OK, bring your girl, but try and cut Elspeth some slack, please. She is genuinely a mess right now. Losing Steve’s hit her bloody hard. It’s hit us all hard, I know, but …’ He shook his head. ‘You’ll see.’
Chapter 2 (#ulink_15c1b993-2d2f-5a7f-b141-4111c31692dc)
You’re dead to me, Dani, if you go with him. Dead – like your father. Men don’t love. They only think with their dicks. He’s using you. He’ll discard you, just as soon as he’s sucked all the goodness from you.
She made Xane sound like a vampire.
Dani’s finger hovered over the delete button. As mementos went it was a strange one to want to preserve. Then again, it summed up her mother perfectly – batshit crazy, preachy, lacking in genuine understanding or warmth. It also succinctly summarised why Dani was here and not with her mum, locked inside the religious commune that’d been her home since the age of eleven.
Xane might tempt her to sin, but he sure made it a lot of fun, whereas being a good girl the whole time was deadly dull. She didn’t want to turn into the sort of sanctimonious leech her mother and the other women of the Sisterhood of St Agatha’s were. She wanted to live and love, experience what the world had to offer. And yes, it totally did help that the world in this current context happened to possess washboard abs, the voice of Lucifer and waist-length hair the colour of midnight.
Xane Geist could turn her insides mushy with a single glance. He rocked her goddamned world. Hers and a couple of million other folks’ – but she was the only one he was taking on tour.
‘Dani Fosbrook?’
Dani peeped up from her phone screen. The voice didn’t belong to Xane, nor to anyone else she recognised. Although, to be fair, she couldn’t see much of the man’s face, because of the asymmetrical cut of his blond hair. Crew, she gathered, given his Black Halo ‘Requiem for the Damned’ T-shirt and khaki cut-offs stuffed with guitar strings and bits of electrical cable.
‘I’m here to take you backstage.’
Hallelujah! She’d been sitting waiting for someone to fetch her for far too long. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but ever since a certain video clip of her and Xane together had gone viral, she’d become an object of curiosity – the rock star’s girlfriend. Hence the queuing fans with their faces pressed to the glass doors.
Unbidden, her escort hefted her suitcase, proving he had muscle hiding beneath that lean physique. She’d squeezed most of her worldly possessions into that bag.
‘Ready?’ He swiped them through a set of security doors.
Dani trotted along behind him. She’d never been more ready in her life, though she was nervous about properly meeting the rest of the band. It didn’t matter how many times Xane told her it’d be all right, she couldn’t entirely quell her butterflies. Black Halo were massive, and she’d been a fan of theirs for eternity. She still regularly pinched herself to check her relationship with Xane was real. Also, she wasn’t sure how much they blamed her for Xane skipping out on them after their last live performance. They might consider her major trouble.
‘First tour with the band?’
She nodded.
‘Mine too. I guess we’ll be seeing a fair bit of one another.’ He pushed back his curtain of long hair, revealing a pair of intriguing mismatched irises, one pale-green and one hazel. Both shone with excitement. ‘I’m Luthor.’
‘Pleased to meet you.’
He gave her an endearing lopsided grin. ‘You’re not what I was expecting.’
‘Meaning?’ she asked, fearing the worst. People didn’t seem to like that she and Xane were together. She still wondered at the miracle of it herself. It didn’t seem to matter how often Xane said he loved her, part of her still expected him to wake one morning and wonder what the fuck he was doing with her – a screwed-up nobody, not especially pretty or clever, and with welts across her soul and body that might never heal.
For the most part, she didn’t even dress like a rock star’s girlfriend. She currently had on a pair of old jeans, a faded long-sleeved T-shirt and only a smidge of make-up.
Luthor shook his head, reinstating the curtain of hair over his eyes. ‘I only meant that I didn’t know he had a steady girlfriend.’
‘Where’ve you been living, Mars?’ She’d have bet money on the whole world having seen that video.
‘Malmö.’
Dani paused a moment to interpret the unfamiliar place-name. ‘Malmö, where is that?’
‘Sweden.’
‘You’re not English?’
He dropped her suitcase in order to release a bellyful of laughter. ‘You needn’t sound so surprised. Not everyone in the world is.’
‘I know, but you don’t have an accent.’
He leaned closer, so his breath stirred the wisps of hair around her face, making them tickle her cheek. ‘Does it make you feel better if I talk like this?’ She could hear it then, the soft inflection on certain words. It sent a tingle down her spine. Damn, he sounded sexy. She could imagine that purr driving a woman wild in bed.
Dani turned away from him, mortified by the heat that a few incongruous words whispered in her ear had generated. She wasn’t a free agent any more to be thinking random wicked thoughts about handsome strange men. She belonged to the sexiest man on the planet. Besides, Xane could do incredible stuff with his voice. He commanded the attention of stadiums full of people. His whispers invoked wild emotions. They could turn hearts inside out and even the tiniest of his growls dampened her and a million other women’s knickers.
She was moist now, merely thinking about him, which just proved that two weeks apart had been too long. They’d been surviving on nightly phone calls and sexting, which didn’t compensate for genuinely being together.
She hadn’t wanted them to be apart, but she’d had to face her mum and put a few things, like her degree, on hold. Taking charge of her life meant cutting a few tethers. On the plus side, she wasn’t beholden to anyone any longer.
‘Aren’t we heading to the dressing rooms?’ she asked, when Luthor turned the opposite way to the one she’d expected.
‘No. The sound booth.’
‘How come?’ Perplexed, she continued to jog along behind, her eye on the way his shorts were clinging to his hips, in danger of sliding down because of the weight of stuff in his pockets.
