‘I doubt it.’
‘And he’s doing his best to fit in.’
‘Yeah, by imitating Ash. How many girls did they divest of clothing between them last night?’
‘Ash, none. Iain, a few, I guess. They were exceedingly tipsy. But it’s normal to want to let rip when you first thrust into this scene. We’ve all been there, Xane.’
‘Him too, supposedly. We’re not his first band, not even his first major one. I had Sally look into his past. He’s got a reputation. The only reason Ash’s is more widely read about is because we’re a bigger band.’
Spook raised his hands in surrender. Dani suspected he didn’t much care if the other members of the band wanted to screw around. It didn’t affect him. From what she knew of Xane’s past, he sounded a little hypocritical anyway. He’d done his fair share of shagging groupies. She guessed conquering sex addiction had turned him into the equivalent of an ex-smoker. They were always the first to complain if anyone succumbed to their former habit.
‘Guys, three minutes.’ Cave Troll stuck his head round the door. ‘Support act’s done. Audience is seriously psyched.’
Spook stood, and the three of them made their way to the backstage area. Technicians immediately pounced on both men, while Dani was shuffled to one side. She watched them both slip in ear-buds. Spook lined up beside Ash, ready to go on, while Xane hung back a moment, as his call came last. When he strode up the steps onto the stage it would be to a blast of lights and sound.
Rock Giant first, then Elspeth, Iain, and then Spook and Ash took their positions on the dark stage. The lights blinked into brilliance, at the same time as Elspeth’s keyboard produced the opening notes of ‘Darkly Hysterical’, and then the three guitarists joined their sounds to hers.
‘Five seconds.’
Xane planted a kiss upon her lips. Then off he went in a swish of leather, striding onto the stage, a thick purr already emanating from his throat. The crowd went wild. If she’d been out there, she’d have yelled with them. Instead, Dani covered her ears, surprised by the deafening volume of the instruments. This close, they really were painfully loud.
Luthor came up behind her and slipped a pair of headphones onto her head. They were bright yellow, the same as his. She could hear Ulf up in the sound booth, talking to the band. He didn’t seem happy about something, and kept barking instructions at Iain.
‘I can’t tell what’s wrong. What’s Ulf shouting about?’
‘Iain’s too loud,’ Luthor explained. Apparently he could detect more nuances in the music than she could. Everything sounded too loud at the moment, even with her headphones blocking out most of it. And she adored Xane’s voice.
His opening purr became a roar, then transformed into a maniacal scream, before the lyrics began proper.
‘Isn’t that a tech problem, rather than being Iain’s fault?’
‘It would be, and it’s what Iain will claim, but actually it’s his fault. He insisted on mucking about with the arrangement of drums again. Steve’s typical set-up didn’t suit, even though it was perfect. Ulf was damn near ready to crucify him about an hour ago. I kept kind of hoping he would.’
Dani slapped him on the thigh for his malicious grin. ‘Iain’s fiddling won’t make any real difference to the performance, though, will it?’
‘Hmm, maybe. Chances are that, like you, most of the crowd are so deaf they won’t notice, but the band will know the balance is off, and they won’t be pleased about it. It means they’ll have to make adjustments to compensate. There’ll be fireworks post-show, I guarantee it.’
She wasn’t sure she liked that prediction. ‘You needn’t sound so gleeful about it,’ she chastised him, catching the smirk on his face before he attempted to hide it. Really, she liked Luthor – besides Xane, he was the only person on the tour with whom she’d made any sort of genuine connection – but that didn’t make it acceptable for him to be happy about Black Halo giving a sub-par performance. She poked him in the ribs.
‘What?’ He laughed. ‘Why would I be gleeful about him showing off his lack of professionalism?’
‘Actually, you’re only a step away from crowing about it.’
He jumped back out of her reach but Dani trailed him. ‘That’s my boyfriend’s band you’re talking about. You’re supposed to be making them sound great, Mr Second Technician. Why are you here? Why aren’t you helping Ulf sort it out?’
‘You said yourself they sound fine, and Ulf doesn’t need my help with anything.’ He stopped moving and peeped at her from under his long fringe of hair. ‘I thought maybe you’d like someone to hang out with, seeing as your man is going to be busy for the next hour and a half.’
When he looked at her like that, all sultry, from under his hair and eyelashes, it made her uncomfortably hot inside. Dani didn’t think it was right that she got excited by his presence. It seemed disloyal to Xane. And it definitely wasn’t right that she couldn’t stop her gaze straying across Luthor’s body. He had a not dissimilar build to Xane’s. She was just comparing, she told herself.
As on previous occasions, Luthor had on a black standard-issue ‘crew’-marked T-shirt, along with a pair of multi-pocketed cargo pants, the waistband of which sat around his hips because of all the stuff in his pockets. If he carried around much more, his waistband would slip so low she’d be glimpsing tufts of blond pubic hair. Assuming he didn’t shave.
And she definitely ought not to be thinking about his cock, and the bush, or lack of it, around it.
‘I want to be able to see him,’ she insisted. Hearing wasn’t enough. She needed a visual reminder of who it was she loved. ‘Do you know where the best place to stand is?’
‘Can’t bear to take your eyes off him for a second,’ Luthor teased. Still, he led her round to the side, from where she could see straight onto the stage. Ash stood closest to her. If she reached out she could probably touch his arm as he played.
It still gave her tingles that she’d met and was essentially living with all these guys. She watched Ash’s talented fingers work, so fast she couldn’t keep up with the movement. He stood, feet planted wide apart, legs slightly bent at the knees, long hair swishing in time with the beat, and, yes, he did hold his guitar at a funny angle, just as Rock Giant had said. But, for all his sensuality, Ash couldn’t hold her attention for long. Xane remained the real draw here.
Xane had taken her breath away in the dressing room. On stage, he was both mesmerising and terrifying. The way he moved sinuously across the stage, then beat the audience into submission with the power of his voice, sent sparks of electricity across her skin. When he clenched his fists and raised them to the crowd, she imagined his fingers entwined in her hair, holding her just so, as though he were about to kiss her. When his feet hammered out the beat, she imagined him hammering hard into her, and recalled the noises he made when he came. Noises, for all his vocal range, that this stadium full of fans would never hear. She was burning for him by the time they reached the end of the first song. The three songs that followed only escalated that effect.
Dani swayed, dancing in the wings as Xane belted out the love song he’d written to her. It was powerful and raw, but darkly romantic.
Luthor placed a hand on her waist as she danced, surprising her, but he swayed too and so she continued to dance. They were having fun imitating the on-stage postures of the various band members and being swept along by the beat.
‘Come back a bit,’ Luthor insisted, tugging her closer to his body. ‘You’re going to be out there on top of Ash in a minute.’
She didn’t think he’d mind. ‘It’s not him I want to be on top of,’ she said, thinking of Xane, but she was looking at Luthor, and her hormones were going haywire. He held her gaze, until she looked away. This was getting awkward. They were going to have to set some boundaries.
‘You know we can only be friends, right?’
‘I know. You were speaking about your need to hump Xane. I don’t blame you. I’d like to hump him too
.’
Dani froze, as though she’d just been dashed with icy water. She was being oversensitive, she knew it, but every time a guy expressed that sort of comment about Xane, her senses unravelled. She couldn’t handle it, couldn’t cope with the idea of Luthor wanting Xane even in the loosest sense of the word, and that hadn’t been loose. He hadn’t merely said Xane was hot, as he had once before. He’d said he wanted to have sex with him. She’d seen the way he watched Xane sometimes, too, with a faraway look in his eyes, as if he were remembering some fabulous past event.
‘What’s up?’ he said, frowning in response to her reaction.
Dani edged away from him. ‘Nothing.’ She fled from the stage and the auditorium, only pausing when she reached a quiet stretch of corridor. Her heart was still drumming in quadruple time. She needed to calm down and start thinking straight.
Xane was bisexual, so what? He liked guys, but he liked her too. It was stupid to worry about whether he was going to stray, when he’d done nothing at all to suggest he would. Just because other people looked at him with lust in their eyes, that didn’t mean he was going to act upon their desire.
Their desire … not his desire. That’s the bit she needed to remember.
She pulled off her headphones and let them dangle around her neck.
If she didn’t beat this, and stop being so oversensitive and suspicious, then her lack of trust would kill their relationship.
Luthor came up behind her. He didn’t encroach on her space, for which she was grateful, but chose to lean against the wall instead. ‘What is it that makes you most uncomfortable? The fact that I fancy him or the fact that we’re both guys and I fancy him?’
‘I’d rather you didn’t say anything about it.’
‘For the record, I fancy you too, and I wouldn’t say no to Spook Mortensen.’
‘Don’t.’ She shook her head, holding her arm outstretched as if that would fend off his words and stop them churning her up inside. ‘It’s not fair to say any of it.’
‘Fair! I’ll tell you what’s not fair, Dani – that I have to stand in the wings night after night listening to Iain bloody Willows massacring this set when I know I could do better. I think that trumps the world fancying your boyfriend. It’s not as if he fancies them back.’ A deep note of bitterness and resentment rang in his voice.
‘But what if he does?’
Luthor closed the distance between them. ‘Have you any reason to suppose that’s the case?’
Damn, he almost sounded hopeful. She shook her head. She didn’t. Xane hadn’t done anything to deserve this distrust.
‘There now then,’ he said, brushing her hair off her face. ‘What’s to worry about?’ He gave her a hug. ‘Although, damn!’ he spat, stepping back. ‘You know I was going to slot myself in at the front of the queue if you’d said otherwise.’
‘That’s not funny.’
‘Sure?’ he asked, grinning cheekily, and despite the vampire bats fluttering in her stomach, she found herself smiling too.
Dani tugged her expression back under control again. ‘Luthor.’ She touched his arm. ‘You wouldn’t really … I mean, if Xane came on to you. You wouldn’t actually do anything with him, would you?’
‘How honest do you want me to be?’ He gathered his hair in his hands and pulled it back off his face to look at her. ‘Because the God’s honest truth is that if he started it, I don’t think I’d push him away. He’s Xane Geist, Dani. He’s the hottest piece of mayhem on the planet and he fucks like a goddamned demon.’
‘But you won’t deliberately … Hang on, how do you know?’
‘I hear him with you often enough. It does all sorts of crazy to my insides.’
Blood immediately rushed to her cheeks, leaving them burning. She turned away, embarrassed. Of course she knew people could hear them – the bus wasn’t exactly soundproof – but they mostly didn’t comment and pretended they were deaf or something.
‘You listen. You can hear what we say.’
‘I can hear what you’re doing, and the pair of you coming. There’s a lot of coming.’
She covered her mouth, mortified.
‘Does everyone listen?’
‘I don’t really pay attention to what everyone else is doing. I’m normally too busy …’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Never mind what I’m busy with.’
‘Wanking?’ she squeaked, somehow unable to stop herself.
Luthor struggled to keep the smile off his lips as he nodded. ‘It’s bloody impossible not to get caught up in the heat when the show’s that intense. Xane’s very clearly besotted with you.’
‘I wish you hadn’t told me that. Now I’ll have it in my head the next time Xane and I are doing it.’
‘Will you?’ A grin flashed across his face and lit up his eyes. ‘Will it feel as if I’m right there in bed with you?’
‘Stop it!’ she said. ‘Don’t say that. That’s just wrong … It’s wrong, Luthor. It’s bad enough you’ve told me you fancy him and that you … you abuse yourself to the sounds of us making out.’
Luthor put one finger to her lips to quieten her. ‘Would you rather I hid the fact that I fancy him from you, or that I find you ludicrously hot too? Other than drumming for Black Halo, getting it on with you and Xane is probably my ultimate fantasy. But that’s all it is. I don’t expect it to happen. I’m not expecting you to run off and suggest to Xane that you invite me into your bunk for the night for a threesome. The odds on that happening have to be so long that I’ve more chance of being spontaneously transported to Mars. So chill out, for fuck’s sake.’
‘I can’t believe you want to steal him,’ she muttered, shaking her head. She defensively crossed her arms across her chest.
‘Not steal, Dani. Just borrow. You could give me him for a few hours and then I’d hand him back.’
‘That’s not funny.’
‘I’m not joking.’
‘Well, then I’d rather you just didn’t talk about him. In fact, how about we don’t mention Xane at all.’ It was bad enough that he’d seeded her thoughts with images of the two of them … all three of them making out. And the odds on Xane agreeing to a threesome weren’t that long – he’d have no problem with it. She, on the other hand, had a very big problem with that idea. The thought of Xane with another man shot fear into her veins and churned her insides. He’d end up leaving her.
‘I can’t believe you’re jealous over my thoughts.’
She scowled and Luthor raised his hands in surrender.
‘OK. I’ll keep my opinions to myself.’
Several minutes of uncomfortable silence followed, during which she didn’t know where to look. It was a huge relief when Ulf’s irate voice came thundering through their headphones. Luthor slipped his back on and immediately headed back towards the stage.
‘What’s the matter?’ Dani asked, following him.
‘This.’ The band was part-way through ‘Fatal Error’. ‘What we’re currently enduring is one of the worst drum solos in history. He’s mangling it. I can’t believe I was passed over for this muppet. They seriously need to get rid of him.’
‘It doesn’t sound that bad. A little different to normal, but everything sounds different live.’
‘It stinks, Dani. He’s terrible.’
‘Well, I think if he was really that bad, Xane would have replaced him.’ It was obvious that Luthor was just plain sore over losing out to Iain for a slot in the band.
‘Do you think he hasn’t been trying? Ash is adamant he stays. Something about owing him.’
‘Oh.’ She hadn’t known that.
Luthor tapped his lip thoughtfully.
‘You need to help me get rid of him.’
‘I’m not … I’m not helping you nobble someone. Luthor, seriously, you need to deal with your jealousy issues.’
‘Says the girl who just banned me from mentioning her boyfriend, because I dared to say he was hot. How d’you cope with the fan boys and girls sticking their dirty mitts
all over him?’
‘I know he won’t do anything with them,’ she huffed. Well, nothing if you discounted signing bared boobs, stripping off his clothing and handing bits of it over, or giving out kisses, but she knew it didn’t mean anything. She didn’t feel quite as confident that would be the case with Luthor, because Luthor was kind of lovely, with his gorgeous arms and mischievous grin, not to mention his damned hypnotic eyes. Also, he wasn’t a fan. He was a part of the crew and around all the time. It wouldn’t have to be a one-night affair. He and Xane would be able to hook up whenever they felt like it, just as Xane had done with Elspeth and Steve. ‘Stay the hell away from him, Luthor,’ she warned. ‘I mean it. Don’t ruin the only good thing that’s ever happened to me.’
Chapter 17
Dani locked herself tight around Xane the moment he came off stage, damp with sweat and smelling of leather. She needed the reassurance that he was still absolutely hers, and wanted desperately to get Luthor out of her head.
‘Want to get naked with me?’
Xane wiped his brow, smearing his pale make-up. He smiled, but he didn’t sweep her off her feet as she’d hoped he would.
‘I need a shower first.’
‘Not for me you don’t.’
‘Sweetheart, I’m lathered.’
Rock Giant jogged down the steps beside them. At the bottom he stopped to give his bass guitar to Liam and accept a bottle of water in return. He upended the water over his head, soaking his hair and face. Beaded droplets clung to the bare skin of his torso. He’d ripped off his shirt some time during the second half of the performance. Spook followed him off, still looking sweetly angelic and as cool as if he’d stepped straight off a cover shoot for Vogue. Well, assuming that Vogue ever went in for the sort of pictures that normally graced Shock Metal Monthly. She watched him carefully stow his prized guitar in its case.
Iain plodded down off the stage, interrupting her attempt to capture Xane’s attention by sliding her hands inside his clothing. He leered at her as he waited for them to make room so he could get past. He too was drenched, so that his dark-brown hair hung in limp strands as if he’d just come from the shower. ‘Good?’ He stuck both his thumbs up.
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