Taste Me

by Tamara Hogan

  Thank the aurora that Jack had taken his meds, because things were getting a little dicey at the front of the stage. Scarlett was standing too close to the edge again. Each time she reached out to grasp the supplicating hands that reached up to her, the crowd surged. Stuffed animals, flowers, thongs, and jocks littered the stage. Hands groped wildly at Scarlett, who was posed at the lip of the stage, one foot planted atop an amp as she blithely sang a song about touching herself.

  Jesus.

  A couple of meatsticks in the front whipped out their cell phones, hoping to snap an upskirt shot. Anger surged at the thought of some asshole having a picture of whatever Scarlett was—or wasn’t—wearing under that skimpy excuse for a dress. How could her band mates focus, watching her luscious ass twitch and shift all night long, night after night?

  Scarlett was in her own little world, completely unaware that a good portion of the pit was just waiting for a glimpse of her panties.

  The crowd was going wild, and understandably so. Since the start of the show, they’d been lyrically invited to line up for a blow job, asked for a one-night stand because they were perfect strangers, begged to be her pleasure victim, informed that all day long she dreamed about sex. And now, after calling out a hasty apology to the mother she couldn’t see, watching from the VIP box, she crooned, “I Touch Myself.”

  The taste of her humid arousal had deepened to mango. She was turned on, horny, and didn’t seem to care who knew it. She’d pulled a strange vamp onstage with her and let him bury his tongue in her mouth.

  No, Scarlett had left no doubt whatsoever about what was on her mind. Sasha’s statement about Scarlett’s right to sleep with a different fan every night haunted him. Would she take that slinky vamp home tonight, use his body to take the edge off? Let him use hers?

  A collective groan went through the crowd as Scarlett placed her hand on her inner thigh, stroking the cuff of her boot with a delicate forefinger. Every molecule in Lukas’s body went on Red Alert, and his dick was raging against his zipper. He wouldn’t be surprised if its teeth were permanently carved into his flesh.

  But he couldn’t look away.

  Chapter 10

  From his position back in the wings, Lukas watched the sweaty guitarist, Michael, throw his head to the ceiling and make his guitar squeal as he and Scarlett traded verses on “Erotic City.” When Scarlett stroked the neck of Michael’s guitar with her hand, Lukas knew he wasn’t alone imagining that small, soft hand wrapped around his dick.

  She swayed with the music, power blazing in her eyes, and her suggestive voice swooped and looped around the room before burrowing into each and every person in the audience.

  Scarlett was hiding it well, but she looked ready to drop. The band had been performing for over two hours, and standing backstage he’d gotten a brand new perspective on how hard the band worked. Michael’s chest and arms were pumped like he’d spent the night quarrying rocks. The drummer’s hair was lank and wet, his teeth gritted, his arms pounding the skins like a jackhammer. Joe was wilting at his rhythm guitar. Tansy alone seemed unaffected, her feet planted, banging out the bass line with methodical steadiness.

  When the final notes faded, howls and shrieks of delight split the air. From the back of the room, the crowd surged toward Scarlett en masse. Jack hollered “Perimeter!” to the Sebastiani Security and Underbelly event staff working the front of the stage. Lukas lunged out from behind the curtain, snatching Scarlett back from her precarious position with an arm around her waist. “I’ve got you.”

  Scarlett sagged, wrapping her arm around his waist.

  “Scarlett?” he repeated, his voice strangling out of his suddenly tight throat. She didn’t mean anything by the embrace, but it didn’t stop him nuzzling his cheek against her hair.

  Her eyes flew open. Locked with his. “I’m… okay. Thank you.”

  He released her, going back to his position next to Garrett in the wings. Scarlett walked to the front of the stage and spoke softly into her hand mike. “Hey folks, stop pushing, please.”

  Something in her voice was like an anesthetic. The crowd settled down.

  “Thank you.”

  A sole voice in the audience called out, “We love you, Scarlett!”

  Scarlett smiled and responded, “We love you too.” Catcalls and applause followed, and when it finally died down, Scarlett simply stood there, staring into the bright, hot lights. The crowd quieted. Waited.

  She stepped back, put her hand mike on its stand, and walked back toward the drums, to where a shiny black guitar stood. Garrett, standing next to him, whipped his head to the set list hanging on the wall. “She’s off the grid.”

  Lukas suspected the phrase meant something entirely different to Garrett than it did to him, because Scarlett was standing right there, swiping her damp hair back into a hasty ponytail using an elastic band on her wrist.

  “She doesn’t need a guitar for the next song they’re supposed to play,” Garrett was saying. “I have no idea what’s coming next. The band doesn’t either. Buckle in.”

  In the silence, Scarlett picked up a towel from the stack on the drum riser and swiped it across her face, over her neck and exposed shoulders, then had a quick huddle with a roadie. A stool was set center stage, and the mike stand repositioned.

  She stepped back into the spotlight carrying her guitar and sat, exhaustion pulsing off her in waves as the crowd hooted and called out requests. Silence. Finally, she strummed out several keening chords that had him swallowing before she sang a word.

  Beside him, Garrett relaxed slightly. “‘Such Reveries.’ Duncan Sheik. We’ve rehearsed this. But I don’t know if Dave—”

  Tansy stepped over and mouthed the song title to the drummer just in time for him to join in with a soft tap. Swaying on her stool, Scarlett softly sang a tale of two soul mates on vacation, watching the ocean, riding horses on the beach. A fantasy romantic interlude. But her voice shifted from wistful to tear-stained as the song took a surprise twist: the whole thing was just a reverie, a fantasy. It never happened.

  Her regret tasted like dirt on his tongue.

  The last notes drifted away. There was a moment of hushed silence before the audience responded with cheers and deafening applause. While they clapped, Scarlett momentarily turned away from the crowd and covered her face with her hand.

  “Damn.” Tomas Diego reached around him to snag one of Scarlett’s water bottles.

  Garrett looked at his watch, raised an eyebrow. “Good of you to show up. I was taking bets that Dave would play the encore.”

  Tomas laughed and twisted the cap off the bottle, tipped his head back, and guzzled. He’d lost his shirt somewhere along the line, and Lukas had a clear view of the tattoos layering most of the man’s torso and arms. His cobbled abdomen exclaimed CARNAGE in elaborate gothic letters, but his children’s names were etched into his wrists in their own childish handwriting. Nothing seemed to be holding up his baggy, wallet-chained jeans except his porn star dick.

  Tomas breathed heavily as he finished drinking. “She’s in love.”

  “What?” Lukas whipped his head to the other man as Garrett passed Tomas a snowy white towel from the stack on the table.

  “Thanks.” Tomas wiped down his chest and hitched up his sagging pants. “Dude, can’t you feel it? Homesick, horny, pissed—and in love.” He flashed a grin. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

  Lukas stood ramrod straight, broadening his upper body in response to the sexual energy pulsing off the other man—energy that somehow managed to be both cheerful and lascivious.

  BACK. OFF. The words were on the tip of Lukas’s tongue when the taste of ashes barreled down his throat.

  He snatched one of Scarlett’s airsickness bags off the stack and heaved.

  ***

  A blue-tinged spotlight picked up a delicate touch at an electric piano. Applause surged as the people standing closest to the stage realized a drummer change had occurred in the dim light. The moment was magic, and T
omas milked it for all he was worth.

  Dispassionately, Scarlett knew it would film beautifully. But… what was wrong with Lukas?

  The silence hung. Raucous applause pulled her attention back to the matter at hand. She met Tomas’s eyes and nodded.

  She was… home.

  Her eyes stung as she lost herself in someone else’s lyrics, someone else’s song. One more show where she couldn’t bring herself to sing even one of the songs that had made the band famous—songs she’d written, emotions she’d purged, in the aftermath of the shattering night she’d spent with Lukas Sebastiani.

  When she’d awakened the following morning to find him gone.

  Lukas reappeared in the wings at the guitar bridge, a little pinched and pale around the lips but still standing strong. Her stomach fluttered, but she aimed the final sustained high note at him like a sharpshooter’s bullet.

  Want me. Love me.

  She watched it hit, saw his abdomen clench under the clingy sweater. Felt his pheromones bloom in response, felt them shiver into her. Their eyes locked across the distance. The final piano notes faded. The moment hung.

  And as the crowd broke its silence and roared, with a blink she raised the microphone to her lips, calling over the applause, “Thank you so much. Thanks for welcoming us home.” She gestured to Tomas, who stood and blew her a kiss, stoking the applause higher. The band put down their instruments and joined her at the front of the stage, Dave walking from backstage with a fresh beer in his hand. They all took bow after bow. Michael, Tansy, and Joe finally waved and walked off the stage, leaving Scarlett, Tomas, and Dave. The guys stepped back, and the crowd went wild as Scarlett stepped to the front of the stage to take a final bow. She waved to the crowd to acknowledge the applause, and choked out a “thank you” that no one could hear.

  After a quick, final wave, she joined arms with Dave and Tomas, and let them escort her off the stage.

  “You okay?” Dave murmured as she sagged between them.

  She automatically nodded yes as they reached the backstage area, but her knees positively wobbled as Garrett bundled her into her robe, slinging a towel around her neck like a muffler. Lukas handed her an open bottle of water. “Thank you.” Was that her hand? It tingled, and she couldn’t really make the fingers work. Her vision blackened around the edges, contracted to a tunnel. Lukas spoke into his headset, directing the security staff to clear the hallway to the dressing rooms.

  The bottle dropped to the floor. His arm was around her waist, a manacle supporting her weight, before the water splashed his pants.

  “Okay, we’re moving,” Lukas said, practically carrying her down the hall, Garrett and Jesse trailing in their wake.

  Scarlett leaned into Lukas’s strong body. Pheromones steamed off of him, dark and luscious.

  “Holding on?” he asked.

  Her eyes were nearly closed, but she nodded in response to his soft question, stroking her cheek against his cashmere sweater.

  A low groan rumbled in his chest.

  When they reached Scarlett’s dressing room, Lukas didn’t let go. “Clear it,” he ordered the tough-looking guard standing at the door. The man disappeared into the room. Lukas lowered his head to her ear. “We need to talk.”

  She nearly shuddered at his tone, half-promise, half-threat. Finally. “When?” Neither of them was anywhere near done working.

  “After the party tonight?”

  She nodded. She’d be absolutely exhausted, but she might never get this chance again.

  The guard returned. “Clear.”

  Lukas squeezed her hand before passing her to Jesse. “We’ve got your door.” With one glance back, he left the room, closing the door with a snap.

  “I don’t have time for a bath, do I,” Scarlett confirmed with Garrett.

  “Take all the time you need.”

  “Let’s make it a shower tonight, Jesse,” she said. She didn’t want to keep people waiting any longer than necessary. There were always people waiting.

  But the sooner she finished with work, the sooner she could talk with Lukas.

  Chapter 11

  Where the hell had all these people come from? “Chico?” Lukas snapped into his headset. The scrappy werewolf who’d just cleared Scarlett’s dressing room had vanished into thin air, and Lukas needed him at Scarlett’s dressing room door. Someone had died, Scarlett was about to drop, and he was stuck playing traffic cop to tipsy hipsters. “Passes. Now,” Lukas demanded from each member of the giggling, rowdy group who swarmed the hallway.

  “Right behind you,” Chico said. The Sebastiani Security lieutenant’s shaved head gleamed like an eight ball, and pea-sized diamonds blazed in both ears. The ornamentation made him more menacing rather than less, because Chico only broke out the bling when he didn’t care if you saw him coming.

  Lukas jerked his head at the crowd. “Get these people out of here.”

  Chico stepped toward the tipsy group and growled deep in his throat. They hurriedly dispersed, leaving behind a copper-tinged cloud of fear.

  “Theatrical, but effective. Why is this hallway such a sieve?”

  “Fight broke out at the entrance. Jack needed backup. Do you plan to stay at the door?” Chico indicated Scarlett’s dressing room door with a jerk of his head. “If so, I’ll take the T in the hallway to keep this area clear.”

  His silent mini-comp mocked him. The comm channel was quiet. Whatever had caused the ashes to barrel down his throat like a pyroclastic floe hadn’t popped yet. “Sure, I’ve got it,” he replied. There was nothing he could do until he got some actionable information.

  As Chico disappeared around the corner, Lukas reached to his right front pocket for the small container of breath mints, popping one in his mouth as he paced in front of the closed dressing room door. Humidity leaked from the crack under the door. Scarlett must be taking a shower.

  Ah, shit. The woman scrambled his brain. He should already have initiated a check-in of principals. “Jack.”

  Jack turned on his outgoing audio, but Lukas could barely hear him with all the crowd noise at the entrance. A high-pitched voice screeched, “Is that your hand on my ass?”

  “Hold on a sec,” Jack shouted. The noise lessened as he walked to a quieter area. “Ah, silence. What’s up?”

  “Everything okay down there?”

  “Fight’s over, crowd’s clearing. We’re pouring people into taxis. What do you have?”

  “We need an immediate visual verification on all principals. Can you—”

  “Got it,” Jack replied. His voice tensed, but he didn’t waste time asking questions. “You’ve got Scarlett?”

  “Confirmed.”

  “Sasha’s right here. I’ll start at the VIP box and check in shortly.”

  Lukas swallowed heavily, the essence of ashes still stinging the back of his throat. It had felt—tasted—close.

  Turning off his outgoing audio—his crew didn’t need to hear him mutter and swear while he paced—he pulled his mini-comp and checked the Hot Sheet. He wanted to call Gideon Lupinsky, but he had absolutely nothing to tell him yet. All he could do was wait for Jack to check in, damn it—and imagine Scarlett, naked and wet, behind that locked door.

  “Hey, dude, feeling any better?” Tomas Diego asked Lukas as he approached from the band’s dressing room next door. He dragged a half-dozen people in his wake.

  Lukas shoved his mini-comp into his pants pocket. “Passes.” He quickly but carefully examined the laminated passes hanging off people’s necks, sending everyone except Diego and Tia Quinn on their way.

  “Well, look who’s here. Lukas Sebastiani,” drawled the curvy vampire who possessed a coveted All Access pass. Tia Quinn, an award-winning investigative journalist who’d gotten her start writing reviews for Rolling Stone, was here to interview Scarlett. Her pass authorized her to roam anywhere in the venue except Scarlett’s dressing room and the VIP box.

  Earlier, Lukas had overheard Garrett canceling their interview. Why w
as she still here? “Ma’am, why don’t you go upstairs to the after party, enjoy a drink? Garrett will reschedule your interview before you leave tonight.”

  She raised her eyebrow slightly, a tiny fang peeking over her purple-glossed lips. “Do I look like a ma’am to you?”

  Lukas took in the precision-cut blond hair, the knockout body, the clinging black pants topped by a tiny T-shirt and a battered leather jacket. “No, ma—no, Ms. Quinn,” he finished carefully. “But we need to clear this area.”

  “Okay,” she responded agreeably. But instead of walking away, she planted herself on the eggplant-colored leather couch in the alcove directly across from Scarlett’s dressing room, her expression saying “not specific enough, doofus.” “I’ll just wait until she gets out of the shower and say a quick ‘hi’ before going upstairs.”

  “Ms. Quinn—”

  Tia hitched a thumb at the closed dressing room door, her purple nails filed to lethal points. “That set list was a huge ‘fuck you’—or was it a ‘fuck me?’—to someone. Whoo-ee.” She fanned her face with her hand. “My panties are still steaming. Did she and Duncan break up? Is he here?”

  Lukas stood silently in front of Scarlett’s door, not saying a word.

  “All I know is, if I were incubus, I would have been down for the count—or least had my tongue jammed down somebody’s throat half the night. But here you are, standing strong and tall. How is that?” Her eyes narrowed. “Why is that? Why is Lukas Sebastiani, of all people, guarding Scarlett Fontaine’s dressing room door?”

  Why couldn’t she be a random entertainment stringer instead of an investigative journalist? “Ms. Quinn—”

  “Tia! Dude! What’s it been, five years? Seven?” Tomas chose that moment to drag the journalist into a bear hug, whether she wanted to be dragged there or not. Tia looked momentarily annoyed before returning the embrace.

  Lukas almost missed Tomas’s conspiratorial wink.

  “Let me buy you a drink, catch up,” he suggested to Tia.