Chapter One
The heavy bass guitar line that rumbled from the auditorium’s loud speakers caused Lindsey’s entire body to throb. She’d been to several Sole Regret concerts at stadiums, so was painfully aware that their local auditorium didn’t do Owen Mitchell’s skill with four-strings any justice. The intimacy of the small venue made up for the inferior sound system, however. She’d never managed to get this close to the stage before. The anticipation of seeing the five members of Sole Regret from the second row had her rocketing out of her worn velveteen theater seat and leaning against the curved wooden chair back in front of her. She didn’t even care that the move earned her several annoyed looks and a loudly hissed, “Sit down!” from someone behind her.
Sit down? At a Sole Regret concert? Was it even possible to remain seated when they were on stage?
Lindsey’s best friend, Vanessa, grabbed her wrist and forced her to sit in her seat again. “Your boss is here,” she whispered harshly. “Try to control yourself.”
That was easier said than done. Lindsey squirmed on the edge of her seat. Hearing Owen play, but not yet being able to see him was hell on her girly bits.
When Lindsey caught her first glimpse of the bassist as he strolled casually across the creaky wooden stage, fingering thick strings with a steady cadence, she almost swallowed her tongue. The man was devastatingly gorgeous. His light brown hair was styled into a playful sweep that brushed his forehead. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes from this distance, but knew from staring at his pictures for hours on end that they were a hypnotic, brilliant blue. Her gaze moved from his perfect profile, down his neck to his body. Her hands clenched as she fought her need to launch herself on stage, tackle him to the ground, and explore every inch of his hard physique. Tonight Owen wore a tight navy blue T-shirt that clung to his nicely muscled chest and shoulders. A set of silver dog tags swayed between his cut pectoral muscles. As he continued his intro, she became fascinated with the masterful movement of his fingers over the thick strings of his bass guitar. Why were guitarists so fucking hot? It simply wasn’t fair.
Lindsey groaned aloud as she imagined all the things that those strong, skillful fingers could do to her body. What she wouldn’t give to be that man’s fret board.
“Girl,” Vanessa said, “you’re seriously crackin’ a moisty right now, aren’t you?”
Lindsey’s panties were decidedly wet. She couldn’t deny it. “He’s just so…” Her entire body shuddered as she couldn’t find words sensual enough to describe the man.
Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Puh-lease. He’s cute and all, but I don’t think the mere sight of a man can inspire a big O.”
Lindsey released a breathless chuckle. “You’d be wrong, Nessi. I’m halfway there already.”
Vanessa turned her head in the opposite direction. “T. M. I,” she said under her breath.
When the drummer, Gabe Banner, entered the song with a heavy, building progression of bass drum thuds, Lindsey’s heart thumped to match his rhythm. She could just make out the red tips of Gabe’s mohawk behind the drum kit and the occasional flailing drumstick as he pounded out a wicked progression of beats on the skins. As the tempo built, Owen turned at center stage and rushed forward, halting at the front edge as the rest of the band came into view and joined the song. Adrenaline surged through Lindsey’s body. She was such a groupie for these guys. If her prudish boss, who was seated several seats to Lindsey’s left, hadn’t been sending her disapproving looks from behind her thick rimmed glasses, Lindsey would have already shed her bra and tossed it on stage. Fortunately, Lindsey still had enough self-control to keep herself from flashing her bare breasts at the band. Maybe.
Owen held a special appeal for Lindsey, but there was something about the band’s vocalist, Shade Silverton, that demanded attention. He knew how to work a crowd. Shade encouraged the audience to its feet by holding one hand at waist level and lifting it up and down. Lindsey knew they wouldn’t be able to keep to their seats long. Even the stodgiest of attendees—who normally wouldn’t conceive of attending a metal concert—obediently rose from their chairs. It was easier for Lindsey to enjoy herself when the two rather large men beside her blocked her from Mrs. Weston’s ever critical glare of death. She was grateful to Mrs. Weston for hiring her to work at her investment firm, but the woman seemed to think she was in charge of every aspect of Lindsey’s life—both inside and outside the confines of the office. It was a good thing Mrs. Weston wasn’t a mind reader. She’d have been utterly scandalized by the X-rated thoughts racing through Lindsey’s mind as she watched Shade sing the chorus of Sole Regret’s hit song, “Darker”. Tall, dark and mysterious behind his pair of aviator sunglasses, Shade Silverton gave off an energy of raw, sexual power. What was it about the man that made her want to drop to her knees and suck his cock down her throat?
“Now that man makes my pussy quake,” Vanessa said, her eyes glued to Shade, who completed dominated the stage in his unquestionable self-confidence. “I just want to…”
“Suck him off?”
Vanessa laughed. “Oh yeah. I’m on my knees already.”
The rhythm guitarist, Kellen Jamison, was whispering into Owen’s ear. They were both laughing at their lead singer and lead guitarist who seemed to be competing for crowd adulation. Lindsey worshipped the entire band. They didn’t need to fight for her attention. But those two—Owen and Kellen—made her entire body hum with pent up desire.
Where Owen had light eyes and hair, Kellen was a bronze god with shoulder length black hair and almost black eyes that could stare a person into a coma. She praised all deities that the man never wore a shirt on stage. His long, lean body was filled out perfectly with tight muscles beneath taut, tanned skin. Tattoos decorated both arms in colorful sleeves. There was an intensity about Kellen Jamison that she couldn’t ignore. She doubted any woman could ignore it. And when he and Owen stood side-by-side, there was nothing more inspiring on the planet. That’s why the pair of them were at the top of her fuck-it list. She and Vanessa had constructed their fuck-it lists a few months before when complaining about their concurrent lack of boyfriends.
The list was comprised of the three men on the planet she most wanted to fuck and if given the opportunity she was given a free pass to slut it up. It didn’t matter if she was currently involved in a relationship, married, eight months pregnant, or had become a cloistered nun. If the man in question was on her fuck-it list, it didn’t count against her. Vanessa said so and her friend had never steered her wrong. Much.
Number one on Lindsey’s list was Owen Mitchell, and number two was standing right beside him vying for the top position, Kellen Jamison. Luckily, Lindsey wasn’t in a relationship or pregnant. And her current sexual dry spell might make her feel like a nun some days, but she hadn’t taken vows of chastity. If only she could get close to them. Gain their attention. Offer her body willingly. Then maybe she could have at least one of the three men who made her drool like a recent root-canal-recipient.
In the middle of the song, the lead guitarist of the band, Adam Taylor, moved to the front of the stage to play the solo. His dark hair was thick and cut in a shaggy style that drew attention to his face. He had the most sensual lips Lindsey had ever seen on a man. And a collection of chains around his neck and at his hip that she wouldn’t mind getting tangled up in. Adam’s lightning-fast fingers flew over electric guitar strings, churning up images of fingertips brushing against Lindsey’s highly attentive body parts. He was about to kick David Beckham from the number three spot of her fuck-it list. Unless Shade wanted the honor.
“God, I’m so horny,” Lindsey growled under her breath.
“I can help you out with that,” Joe, who worked at her
office, said in her ear.
It was like a cold bucket of water over her head. He hadn’t been sitting beside her at the start of the concert. He must have weaseled his way through the standing crowd when she hadn’t been paying attention. Lindsey shoved him out of her personal space and changed places with Vanessa so she’d have a best friend buffer that no man was likely to cross. The look Vanessa gave Joe—her dark eyes wide, eyebrows threatening her hair line, lips pursed in a harsh line—had him staring at his shoes and running a finger under her collar.
“That’s what I thought,” Vanessa said and churned her neck for added affect. “Lindsey done told you she wasn’t interested. Bye now.”
Lindsey had told him. Many times. She’d thought he’d finally given up. Joe hadn’t bothered her in weeks. She must be flinging out pheromones like a bitch a heat or something. It wasn’t as if she could help it. The members of Sole Regret lit her on fire, but she’d rather sate her lust with her battery operated boyfriend than with Joseph Bainbridge. She was so not attracted to him and never would be. There was nothing wrong with him, but there was nothing right about him either.
Joe sidled away and Lindsey returned her attention to the stage. The song came to an end and the crowd cheered, the riotous noise echoing through the auditorium like waves of an angry sea. Shade moved to the center of the stage and spoke to the audience.
“Thanks for coming to our benefit concert on this cold Christmas eve.”
The crowd cheered.
“Ellie Carlisle wanted to be here tonight to thank you for helping her family out with her medical expenses. Unfortunately, after a strong dose of radiation therapy yesterday, they wouldn’t clear her to leave the hospital. So tonight she’s getting a lot of rest so she can wake up tomorrow and see what Santa brings a perfect angel for Christmas.”
It might have been the sound system, but Shade’s voice sounded a little raw as he talked about the Ellie, a five-year-old girl who was fighting for her life in a local hospital. The town had come together several times to try to help her family out, but pancake breakfasts and silent auctions for afghans only raised so much money. A Sole Regret concert, on the other hand, brought in folks and their money for hundreds of miles.
“Her father is a big fan of ours,” Shade continued, “so when he asked us to come out and help them raise some money to help his little girl fight for her life, we couldn’t say no.”
“Be sure to buy a T-shirt on your way out,” Kellen Jamison said in the deepest, sexiest voice Lindsey had ever heard. How could she possibly think about anything but the sound of that voice in her ear when it echoed around her from every direction? “All of the profits from merch sales go to helping the Carlisle family too.”
Owen stepped up to his microphone. “You know what? Fuck cancer,” he bellowed, thrusting a fist in the air.
He soon had the entire auditorium chanting, “fuck cancer, fuck cancer, fuck cancer” over and over again. Even stick-up-her-ass Mrs. Weston was yelling it along with the others.
When the crowd settled again, Shade said, “Thanks for coming out tonight and supporting Ellie’s cause. Now we’re going to rock your faces off.”
Shade started the next song with a battle cry that caused a thrill to streak down Lindsey’s spine. Hard to believe this group of bad ass men would be willing to give up their Christmas Eve to help out a little girl they didn’t even know. Lindsey was surprised that tears were prickling at the backs of her eyes as she thought of their selfless act. Suddenly, the members of Sole Regret seemed more substantial to her than walking aphrodisiacs. She wondered what kind of men they were. Maybe she could find a way to get to know them. And not just so she could check two tasks off her fuck-it list. She had a powerful need to thank them for being awesome.
Chapter Two
Owen glanced around the tour bus, looking from one grim face to another. You’d think his band mates had just come from a funeral, not from a kick-ass benefit concert that would likely save a little girl’s life. Owen shifted his Santa hat to the cocked and ready position and reached for the black garbage bag of decorations his mom had sent along with him when she’d learned he wouldn’t be able to attend their family’s annual Christmas Eve celebration. His brother wouldn’t be attending either—Chad had been deployed to Afghanistan in August—so Owen was somewhat glad that he wouldn’t have to sit across the table from an empty chair and wondered if his brother was dodging bullets while he was dodging Grandma Ginny’s questions about when he was going to settle down and make pretty babies for her to spoil. Though he missed his family as much as the next guy—yes, even Grandma Ginny—Owen wasn’t going to lounge here on the bus and sulk all the way from Wherever-the-hell-they-were, Idaho to Wherever-the-hell-they-were-going, Montana. He was going to make the best of their situation and not let his bummed out band mates ruin his perpetual good time.
Owen’s prime target was Kelly. Not because the rhythm guitarist was the most depressed—that honor went to their vocalist, Shade—but because Owen needed a partner in Christmas cheer and Kelly always had his back. He didn’t even have to ask Kelly for his assistance. They’d formed a pact of mutual mischief long ago.
Owen dug the snot-green, artificial Christmas tree out of the sack and set it on the end table between the pair of recliners where the band’s drummer, Gabe, sat reading of all things and Shade sat glowering at nothing.
Straightening the branches of the tree into something slightly more pine shaped, Owen hummed under his breath and then broke out into song. “O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, how plastic are thy branches.”
Shade lifted his head and one dark eyebrow rose above the frame of his aviator sunglasses. “Do you have to be obnoxious right now?”
“Why,” Owen said, “is it interrupting your sulking?”
“As a matter of fact, it is.” Shade reached for one branch of the hideously fake tree and bent it into a wider angle.
“And why are you sulking? It’s Christmas Eve. Are you afraid you’ll get nothing but lumps of coal in your stocking?” Owen dove into the sack of decorations and pulled out several strands of lights. His family was of the opinion that it was not possible to have too many lights on a holiday tree. When fully lit, the Mitchell Family Christmas Tree could probably be seen from Mars.
“Julie only has one third Christmas,” Shade said. Arranging another branch, and then dropping his hand when Gabe turned his attention from his book to watch him try to perfect the unperfectable.
“But she doesn’t have to,” Owen said. “You can give her another Christmas when we get home next week. She’d love that. I’ll even wear my Santa hat and shimmy down the chimney to put a smile on her face.”
Shade crossed his arms over his chest, his scowl deepening. “It’s not the same.”
“At least it isn’t my fault he’s sulking this time,” Adam said. The lead guitarist had his acoustic guitar out and was quietly strumming some riff he was working on for the next Sole Regret album.
“I’m not sulking,” Shade said.
“Looks like sulking to me,” Kelly said. He rose from the sofa to stand beside Owen. He inserted a long, tattooed arm into the sack and dug out a red rope garland. He lifted his eyebrows at Owen, before flicking his eyes at Shade pointedly.
Owen tried not to grin and give their silently exchanged plan away, but it wasn’t easy. He nodded ever-so-slightly.
“You’re the one who signed us up to play a benefit concert on Christmas Eve in the first place,” Adam said to Shade. “You don’t even know that kid.”
Owen winced. Did the two of them really need to pick a fight tonight? Surely they could find it in themselves to put aside their differences on Christmas Eve.
“I didn’t have to fucking know the kid, Adam. She has leukemia. Her family has no insurance, no jobs, no money to pay for her chemotherapy. A few hours out of our busy schedules gives her a chance to see her sixth birthday. Do you always have to be such a selfish prick?”
“I had absolutely
no problem with doing the benefit concert. It’s not like I have better plans for Christmas anyway and believe it or fucking not, I do care. But you sitting there looking like your dog just died after you made the decision to do the concert in the first place is pissing me off. I’m not gonna lie,” Adam said.
“There’s a first time for everything,” Shad grumbled.
“All I want for Christmas is a pair of ball gags to shut you both up,” Gabe said and lifted his book until all that was visible of his head was his foot-high red and black mohawk. “I’m trying to concentrate over here.”
“Ball gags?” Kelly nodded. “I can probably fulfill that wish.” He started to wrap the rope garland in long loops from hand to elbow. Owen knew Kelly could produce two ball gags in a matter of minutes. He also knew exactly where Kelly kept his secret stash of kinky implements if he ever felt the need to borrow something. Recently Kelly had taken up a new hobby—tying knots. It was a perfectly innocent hobby for most people, but not so much for Kelly.
Carefully untangling a strand of lights, Owen pretended to be intensely interested in their drummer, Gabe, to keep attention off Kelly, who was fashioning a loose noose out of one end of the garland. The dragon tattoos on the shaven parts of Gabe’s scalp stood in complete contradiction to the colossal, decidedly boring, book in his hands. “What are you reading about?” Owen asked, as if he didn’t already know he didn’t give a shit.
Gabe pushed his reading glasses up his nose and grinned deviously. “Friction.”
“And how to reduce it with proper lubrication?” Owen asked. Gabe was the only person he knew who tried to apply the laws of physics to sex.
“You don’t want to reduce the friction too much,” Gabe said. “You want it slick and wet, but not too juicy.”
“I disagree,” Shade said with a grin. “The juicier, the better.” At least his sulking had diminished.
“Yeah,” Kelly agreed. “I like it dripping wet so I can lick it clean.”
“The conversation on this bus always turns to pussy,” Adam said.
“There’s nothing better to talk about, is there?” Owen asked.
“No,” his band mates said in unison. They all laughed at the one thing they always agreed on.
“And there’s definitely nothing better to think about,” Gabe said, “so you all need to shut up. I’m thinking.”
“Who needs this worse, Owen?” Kelly said. “Shade or Gabe?” He was now prepared to act on his plan.
“Personally, I think they both need it,” Owen said.
“Need what?” Shade asked.
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