Spotlight on Love

by Maxene Novak

  Frowning, I reached down and out, my questing fingers gliding down his side to his hip. “You put your underwear back on?”

  “Yeah. It’s how I sleep,” Shane mumbled, his hand resting on my hip, his forearm along the outside of my thigh, his knees bent so his thighs rested against my shins. And I had to smile at how perfectly we nestled together like this. As if we’d been purposely sized for just this position.

  “Guess what I wear when I sleep?” Jessie said as he scooted closer against my backside under the covers.

  Then I felt him, now soft, nestle between my butt cheeks.

  Of course he’d sleep in the nude. I chuckled sleepily and reached back to caress his hair as he wrapped an arm around my waist, the heat from his chest against my back acting like a heating pad to soothe the last remaining tension from my body.

  It was the most perfect way to fall asleep that I’d ever experienced.

  ***

  Shane

  I’d never slept so well…until the bus engines fired up the next morning. As soon as I heard that familiar rumble, I woke up with my heart racing and one thought on my mind.

  Shit!

  It wasn’t that I’d slept with Sabrina. It was the problem of the tour members who would see Jessie and me leaving Sabrina’s bus at this hour of the morning. And after our being absent all night long. And of course, the press coverage from our dinner together last night.

  Sabrina and Jessie were both hard asleep. I eased out from the bed, threw on my clothes, then reached over to shake Jessie’s shoulder.

  He grunted and cracked one eyelid open. “This better be damned important. I was having the best dream of my life…”

  Sabrina sighed, and Jessie looked down at her and his face lit up like a little kid’s on Christmas morning. “Mmm, not a dream after all.” He looked up at me, shot me a glare, and closed his eyes, snuggling in closer to Sabrina with a smile.

  I shook him again. “Jessie, we’ve got to go. Now. The buses started up.”

  One corner of his mouth turned down. “So?”

  “So that means everyone’s going to be moving around soon. And our absences will be noticed. Along with our exit from Sabrina’s bus.” I circled around the bed, grabbed his clothes and held them out.

  Grumbling under his breath, Jessie sat up, scrubbed his face with both hands, then finally started getting dressed.

  While he did, I caught myself staring at Sabrina. God, she was gorgeous, even asleep with her hair all crazy over her face. I hesitated then bent over and brushed her tangled hair back from her face.

  Her eyelashes fluttered. She looked up at me and smiled. “Morning.”

  “Hey. Jessie and I have to go. The buses are starting up.”

  She grunted, her smile disappearing. Sighing, she burrowed deeper under the blankets.

  Finished dressing, Jessie leaned over, stuck his head under the blankets, and did something to make her giggle. “See you later?”

  “Mmm hmm,” she mumbled from under the covers.

  We hurried through the bus, and I made Jessie wait while I peeked out a window to make sure the coast was clear. Then we slipped out. I ignored the guard posted as usual by the bus door, but Jessie gave him a cheeky grin and mock salute on our way past.

  “What’d you tell her before we left?” I asked just before we were supposed to split up and head to our separate buses.

  “That we’d hang out again with her tonight.”

  I had to work to control my facial reaction to that. “Not a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  “Because. For a hundred different reasons. Who she is. Who we are. The fact that anything you start on this tour is doomed two months from now when she takes off overseas and leaves us behind. ‘Cause of the risk for gossip and media problems—”

  With every reason I listed out, Jessie’s eyes grew wider and wider. Eventually he stopped me with a raised palm in the air. “Dude, you do whatever you have to. But I’m in it for however long she wants it to last. Last night was…”

  Fantastic.

  Amazing.

  The best sex I’d ever had.

  I didn’t need to hear the rest of his statement, because my mind was busy filling in adjectives of its own.

  Shaking my head, I turned towards the Drakes’ bus, waving at the driver to let me in. My band mates were all passed out in their bunks, so I kicked off my boots, then crawled into my own bunk. But it took me forever to fall asleep.

  Images of last night kept pushing their way into front and center stage in my mind. The way she’d felt, the way she’d smelled, the sounds she’d made as I moved inside her…

  I rested a forearm on my forehead, my fists clenching and unclenching as I fought the growing need. No, not need. I never needed any woman. Wanted maybe, but not needed. I didn’t have room in my life or career for needing any romantic relationship.

  But when it came to Sabrina, my body called my mind a liar. It needed to be buried inside her again, or at least curled up with her nice and close, and soon.

  CHAPTER 9

  Sabrina

  When I woke up again, it was early afternoon. The rocking of the bus told me we had yet to reach our next venue in… I realized I had no idea what state we were in, much less which city we were headed to for tonight. Geez, I could use a break from this bus.

  Yawning, I rolled over, reached out to grab my phone from the bedside ledge, and simultaneously froze and groaned. My shoulders were killing me! I gave an experimental wiggle and scowled at the ceiling as my hips and thighs also lodged their own formal complaints even louder than usual for the start of my day.

  Then I remembered why I might be hurting more than the norm.

  Last night.

  The guys…

  Oh. My. God.

  I’d had my first ménage à trois.

  Face burning, I lay there remembering last night’s craziness for several minutes, my heart rate slowly but steadily climbing.

  I’d slept with not one, but both lead singers on my tour.

  And we still had like two months to go. Which meant a lot of chances for awkwardness.

  What had I been thinking?

  I couldn’t even blame it on being drunk!

  I found the familiar name in my phone’s contacts, hit the button to make the call, then laid there waiting for clarity from the one person on this planet who understood my insane life best.

  “Hey! Just waking up?” Dani greeted me, all high energy as usual.

  “Mmm. Yeah. So…I sort of did something…crazy last night.”

  She snorted. “You? Yeah right. What kind of crazy could you possibly get up to without me around?”

  “Oh, just a threesome with Jessie Quinn and Shane Reynolds.”

  There was a loud spewing noise with muffled clattering and choking. It took her half a minute to stop gasping and coughing. “What?!”

  I waited patiently.

  “You’re kidding. No, I know you too well. You’re not kidding. What—How did that happen?”

  “You know, honestly, I don’t know? It was our second time to have a movie night, though last night we went to that restaurant you told me about first? And then after dinner we came back to the bus and started watching Westwood—”

  “God, I love that show.”

  “I know, me too. So we’re watching it, and I’m sitting there just dying—”

  “Dying to jump their hot bodies?” She snickered.

  “No, physically dying. As in, in major pain.”

  “Oh. Right. That sucks.”

  “Yeah. But I’m trying not to show it because—”

  “Because you don’t want to be lame.”

  “Exactly. We were having such a good time. I didn’t want to ruin it. And Shane was finally lightening up and proving he was actually human after all. He dumped a bowl of popcorn on Jessie’s head,” I said with a laugh.

  Dani chuckled. “I’m sure Jessie deserved it.”

  “Pretty much. But then I
started really hurting, I mean crawl to the bathroom ‘cause I can’t walk kind of pain. And the guys noticed and were so sweet and started massaging my hands and feet for me—”

  “Uh huh, and then your boobs and other body parts…”

  “Dani!” My face started burning again. “Jessie kissed me first. And Shane got up and was going to leave. And the look in his eyes, Dani… if you’d seen it…” I sighed and rubbed my chest, remembering the visceral pain I’d felt seeing that hurt resignation in Shane’s eyes. “I couldn’t let him leave. I got up to stop him from going and…”

  “And one thing led to two others?”

  “Yeah.” I let out a long, slow breath through my nose.

  “Was it amazing?”

  “Oh, God yes,” I said without hesitation, earning a laugh from her. “I went from kill-me-now- level pain to feeling like melted chocolate.”

  “And did they lick you up?”

  “Dani!” I protested with a laugh. She knew I wasn’t as wildly blunt as her. Sometimes I swore she had no barriers.

  “Well, good for you. It’s about time you had some fun. And especially after the shitty year you’ve been having so far. You deserved a little treat.”

  A little treat? “Maybe. But Dani, now I have to work with these guys for weeks still. I mean, this isn’t your normal tour arrangement. They’re bookending my act…”

  She started snickering. I tried to ignore it and continue. “And I have to sing a duet with each guy every night…”

  Again, she giggled.

  I sighed. “Really? What are we, in kindergarten?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just, everything you’re saying is so ménage-y code speak. Bookending. Singing duets.”

  Though she couldn’t see me, I rolled my eyes, stretched in bed, and risked circling my feet. And immediately regretted it. I was going to have to take a long, hot shower to try and get all these muscles loosened up in time for sound check.

  Oh Lord. Sound check. I’d have to see the guys then. There would be no screaming fans, no list of songs to perform, no pyrotechnics and strobing lights to prevent conversation.

  What if they regretted last night?

  I wasn’t sure if I regretted last night, even. Or how to feel about it exactly.

  “How do people act around each other after doing something like this?” I muttered.

  She stopped laughing finally. “Relax, kid. Don’t make a big deal out of it. It was just road craziness. A onetime moment of temporary insanity.”

  “Have you ever had a threesome?”

  “Well, no, not exactly.”

  “What if they want to do it again?” I blurted out as the idea hit me.

  She hesitated. “Would you want to sleep with them again?”

  I opened my mouth, shut it, opened it. “I… Yes? No. No, it’s too complicated. And a really bad idea. Like you said, once was just temporary insanity. Twice would be…”

  “A nightmare to keep hidden. The paps still hounding you?”

  “Of course. Nothing gets rid of them.”

  “Not while you’re hot, babe.”

  I sighed. “Careful. You’re starting to sound like Roz.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. That woman’s a battle axe. Nothing stops or gets in her way for long.”

  I snorted. “No kidding.” I winced. “Can you imagine what she’d say about last night?”

  “Ha! Probably ask if she could be the cream in that cookie sandwich instead.”

  But we both knew better. In fact, I could practically hear Roz if she’d walked in on me with Jessie and Shane. And it would not have been: “Oooh, can I play too?” More like: “The Princess of Pop that I spent the last few years of my life dedicated to building and promoting does not become the cream in any kind of sandwich…unless it’s one that fits into the Sabrina brand’s image and earns us a nice-sized licensing deal!”

  That ever-present knot in my stomach grew a tiny bit bigger.

  I wasn’t some spoiled brat who took all of this for granted. I knew how amazing I had it thanks to a lot of people putting in countless hours and effort into turning me into a recognizable brand in the music industry.

  Which was why I was probably stuck forever being the Princess of Pop, whether I was over it or not. Trying to change course now would be like trying to turn a speeding train in a new direction.

  You didn’t mess with a good thing, Roz always said.

  And what I’d done last night could have messed with that so-called good thing pretty badly.

  I didn’t even want to imagine what the media and fans would say if they could have seen it.

  And yet…

  And yet Shane and Jessie had managed to make me feel so amazing, the best I’d felt since getting sick.

  Better even. While I’d managed to have a few boyfriends over the years, none of them had ever made me feel even close to what I’d felt last night.

  Were last night’s epic highs because of being with two gorgeous guys at once?

  Was any sex going to be greater now in contrast to how physically bad I felt otherwise?

  Or was it something specifically about Jessie and Shane?

  ***

  When I got to the stage for sound check later that day, Shane was already onstage with the Drakes and the stage manager, fine tuning instruments and working with the sound techs to get the volume levels adjusted right for the new arena.

  I waited to the side of the stage out of the way. Shane glanced my direction once and immediately looked away again. I tried to tell myself that it was because he was busy and it had nothing to do with last night.

  But then he wouldn’t look at me as the stage manager signaled they were ready for me to come out and do a few bars from Shane’s and my duet.

  And it was sooo awkward. And precisely the reason why I never slept with anyone in my tour groups. Ever. You just couldn’t safely mix business with pleasure.

  Yeah. Last night had definitely been a major mistake.

  And yet, seeing Shane sitting on that stool, those long, lean arms braced on his thighs, one heel of his boot hooked on the stool’s rung, made me remember last night in detail.

  How it had felt to run my hands over those broad shoulders, how those long fingered, calloused hands had felt running all over my body…

  How those lips had felt against my lips and skin and breasts…

  “Sabrina!” the stage manager shouted my name, making me jump and look around.

  Everyone was staring at me. Oh God. What had I missed while probably obviously and blatantly lusting after Shane’s body again?

  One corner of Shane’s lips twitched upwards as he looked away. As if trying not to laugh at me.

  Gritting my teeth, I half turned away from him and vowed not to look at him again until I could control myself better.

  Which of course was right when Jessie showed up.

  Because what I needed right then was more eye candy to get distracted by.

  Thankfully, unlike Shane, Jessie seemed to have no regrets about last night. He strode across the stage straight for me, and I half feared and half anticipated a huge full body hug from him in greeting. At the last second, he seemed to remember all the crew and band members around us and settled for a one-armed, sideways hug as if we were just good friends.

  Maybe we were?

  I felt so out of my depth here. And embarrassed about that fact on top of everything else, because I was pretty sure most people a few years shy of thirty probably had experience with at least how to work with people they’d had sex with, if not necessarily threesomes with.

  Jessie was wearing that infectious grin of his, his hands now stuffed in his front jeans pockets as he looked from me to Shane and back again. God, he was adorable, but in a completely sexy kind of way. As we switched to practicing a few bars from our duet together now so the sound techs could make their adjustments, I studied him and tried to figure out how in the world he did it. There was nothing classically handsome abo
ut him, just a friendly boy-next-door kind of vibe. He dressed super casually all the time, even while up on stage, usually in just jeans, sneakers, and t-shirts or hoodies. His red hair was perpetually shaggy and in need of a haircut.

  And yet that grin of his paired with those amazing blue eyes made things down low in my body tighten up and every cell in my body beg me to throw my arms and legs around him.

  That was it. He made me feel like a teenager again, completely capable of doing all the same wild and crazy things the party girls in my high school were known for, and then some.

  It was probably a very good thing I hadn’t met either of these guys while in high school.

  Then again, maybe if I had, I wouldn’t be so inexperienced and at a loss for how to act now.

  Jessie stared at me so long I felt my cheeks turning pink, until the techs said they were done with me till the show. I thanked them, then headed off stage to find Shane waiting in the hall, either for someone else or for me. He looked up, blinked a few times, and rubbed the back of his neck. I got the feeling he wanted to say something but either wasn’t sure what exactly to say, or else wasn’t sure how I’d take it.

  I decided to pretend I did this sort of thing all the time and gave him what I hoped was a casual and friendly smile. After looking around to ensure we were alone and waiting for my bodyguard to hang back and give us a little privacy, I murmured, “So…about last night.”

  A flash of what looked like relief then uncertainty flitted through Shane’s eyes as he ducked his head and looked at me through his upper lashes. He was waiting for me to go on.

  But now I didn’t know what to say. “Um, I guess I should mention…I’ve never done that before. Or anything even remotely like it.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Me neither.”

  I licked my lips. “But…this doesn’t have to make things awkward, does it?”

  He slowly shook his head, those gray-green eyes locked onto me like I was supposed to magically have all the answers here somehow. “I guess not if we don’t want it to.”