He shuddered. Lover. Okay, so they were going there. “You’re right about it not being the first time.” He took a kiss back. “And yeah, I wanna worship you, Mish.”
“Good.” She kept straddling him. “I’m gonna love that. A guy like you on his knees for me.”
He rolled his head against the back of the couch. “I’m so fucked.”
“Not yet.” Oh, the humor in her voice. “Just you wait.”
He twined his fingers into her hair then, and pulled her into a long, deep kiss. When he broke it, he spoke. “We should talk about work.”
She groaned, but it wasn’t with pleasure. “Yeah, you’re right. I—just wanted to set you at ease.” She slipped off his lap, and he missed her warmth and weight immediately. “Want me to get more coffee?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” That would give him a chance to get his dick and brain back under control. “Please. And maybe Adrian, too?”
“Okay. But first...” She kissed him again, and fuck, he loved every second of her mouth on his. When Mish relented, she scooped up the two coffee mugs, winked at him, and vanished past the privacy curtain.
David stared up at the ceiling of the bus. That hadn’t gone like he’d planned. He should’ve been worried—instead, relief washed through him, along with anticipation and delight.
He was fucked. Completely.
* * *
Of course Zavier raised an eyebrow at Mish when she returned to the front of the bus. Ray’s husband always seemed to be able to spot connections and relationships in an instant. She gave him a cocky-ass smile, and took the last of the coffee. “Should I shut the pot off, or are you gonna make more?”
Adrian looked up from the book he’d been reading. “Eh, we’re close to the venue. Turn it off. I’ll give it a cleaning.”
Dom was sprawled out next to Adrian, his nose in a book of his own. “Venue coffee sucks.” He didn’t even look up.
Adrian poked him in the side. “Yes, but I don’t want you to get complacent and replace me with some other coffee brewer.”
Dom started and looked up. “Never in a million years. You’re fucking stuck with me now.”
The smile on Adrian’s face was radiant and so personal, Mish looked away. “Could we borrow your boy toy for a bit, Dom? David wants to talk to him about work.”
“He’s not my boy toy.” Embarrassment in Dom’s words.
“Quite the other way around,” Zavier murmured. Then looked even more smug when Ray thwapped his thigh.
“God,” she said. “Can you guys stop for even a minute?”
“Pot, meet kettle,” Ray said.
Heat to her face. She didn’t think she looked different, but that make-out session with David had every bit of her body tingling, so maybe there was a neon sign the same color as donut frosting above her head blinking Got some. Gonna get more. “Adrian? Can we borrow you?”
He set his book down on Dom’s chest and stood. “Of course. Even though you took the last of the coffee.”
Dom shifted on the couch. “Hey! Am I furniture now?”
“Now?” Adrian absently ran a hand through Dom’s hair.
Ray huffed. “Okay, I’m gonna agree with Mish here.”
Talk about smug smiles. Both Adrian and Zavier wore similar ones. Ray rolled his eyes. “Go work.” He made shooing gestures at the back of the bus.
Adrian grabbed his tablet, and they went. He still had a grin when they entered the back lounge, and yup. David’s color rose like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Mind you, she did want his hands in her—“Fuck you all, you have me doing it now.”
Adrian laughed. David looked bewildered. She handed David a mug. “They’re a bundle of innuendo up there, that’s all.”
“Exactly how is that different from any other day of the week?” David seemed to relax. “Because you all are primed for it.”
“I’ll give you that,” Adrian said.
Yeah, she had to admit that they did get into the thick of it damn often. “Yeah, all right. I don’t help, either.”
Adrian snorted. “You encourage it, sweetheart.” He took a seat on the couch. “But we’re here to work, right?”
“Well, I’m not into ménages.” David seemed less embarrassed, though the blush remained on his neck. He sat as well.
It was Adrian’s turn to look a little uncomfortable. Maybe David was his type, though Adrian and Dom were completely committed to each other. Monogamous, too.
“What did you want to talk to us about?” Mish wanted to crawl into David’s lap again, partly because throwing Adrian off was such a treat. She sat next to David instead. Not a ménage, but David was between them.
“When I got on the crew bus last night, I talked a little bit with Faith. I think she works with the VIP crew?”
Adrian looked sharper and he was the one to answer. “Yeah, she organizes the extras. Been with the band longer than I have, first as a roadie.” There was an edge to his voice. Yeah, he was protective of the band, too.
Before Mish could intervene, David held up his hand. “She’s good people, I know. Told me something that got me thinking of how we might find this stalker asshole.”
Cold spiked through Mish. Fuck that goddamned dude. “How?”
“Faith said that the guy had a wristband, so I couldn’t have kept him out of the line.”
Adrian got a look like he’d been poked in the back of the head. “Oh fuck. The credit card. Of course.”
A second later, she got it, too. “If that fucker paid for that guy to be there, we can figure out who he is.” They knew the name of the guy who’d taken her ring, so in theory, they could work backward.
“The only thing I’m not sure about,” David said, “is privacy rights. I mean, I know you guys have the info, but I’m not a cop.”
Adrian mulled that over. “Yeah. We might have to bounce this off someone legal.”
More ice in Mish’s spine. She rubbed her hands over her face. Going to the police would mean public records. Sure, the attack earlier and the ring theft were known, but they’d kept the whole stalker thing out of the press. Easy enough to do. Everyone expected Mish to have some overenthusiastic male fans, since she was a woman.
“If it’s the last resort, let’s go to the cops.”
David patted her thigh. “I want to keep as much of this as I can out of the public eye. Pretty sure this guy wants to be known. Feels like he needs there to be a connection.”
Adrian scratched his stubbled chin. “What if there is one?”
They both looked at him.
“I mean,” he said, “the guy seems familiar with Mish. At least to my reading.”
Jesus. She was sure it wasn’t an ex. “Maybe I need to look at everything.”
Oh man, did David look unhappy with that statement.
“Really?” She stood and looked down at him. “You’re the one who said they shouldn’t keep things from me.”
David caught her hand, and Adrian raised an eyebrow at that, but fuck him. She focused on those dark eyes of David’s.
“I don’t intend to keep things from you. But you have a concert tonight.”
As if to punctuate his statement, the bus slowed and shifted and she nearly lost her balance. Rather than topple over, she sank down next to David. “I didn’t mean right this instant,” she muttered.
Adrian looked at the privacy curtain, his brow furrowed. “Let me see how much info I can get without involving lawyers.”
“Legally, please.” David hadn’t let go of her hand. She squeezed his.
Adrian’s smile was all teeth. “What do you take me for, some black hat hacker?”
“Oh,” David said, “I suspect your hat’s a little on the gray side.”
That smile didn’t fade from Adrian’s face. “We should get ready for the show. How
about once we get to the hotel in New Hampshire, we all have a meeting? With the rest of the band, too?”
Shit, yeah. “We shouldn’t leave them out of this.” Mish reluctantly slipped her hand from David’s. “Especially since I yelled at Ray about that.”
The bus came to a stop with a jerk. Outside the darkly tinted window was a view of another vast parking lot surrounded by trees—another summer amphitheater. Back in her youth, she’d dreamed of having enough money to buy lawn seats to those blockbuster concerts. That girl would never have imagined performing on stage at one.
David stood. “That good with you? Adrian sees what he can find, then we lay it all out on the table?”
Mish tore her attention from the window. “Yeah. It’s a good plan.” She paused, then added, “I still don’t think it’s anyone I know, but I’ll consider that, too.”
“Don’t let it throw you off your game.” Real concern in David’s voice. And a twitch in Adrian’s smile before the latter left for the front of the bus.
She closed the distance between them and took David’s chin in her palm. “There’s something else I want in New Hampshire.”
“Yeah?” His eyes were wide, and the thrum of his pulse was visible in his sleek neck. “Tell me, baby.”
“You inside me.” She drank his moan in with her lips, and relished the way his hard body fit against hers. A beautiful man. Tough and headstrong. So, so pliant in her arms. She relented, too aware of the voices in the front of the now much quieter bus.
“Any way you want me,” David said, his voice low but clear.
“Exactly.” She took another drink of him, then untwined their bodies. “I gotta go work.”
“Me, too.” The way he looked at her in that instant didn’t help the wobble in her knees. “Got the best seat in the house. Go knock ’em dead, Mish.”
She would. Then later give David the show of his life. Maybe a bad idea, like he’d said earlier. But the best things in her life only happened when she’d taken the initiative and grabbed that one chance.
Mish blew him a kiss and sauntered up to join the rest of the band. They were waiting for her at the front of the bus. Ray wore a smirk, and she punched him in the arm. “Shut up.”
He mocked being affronted. “I didn’t say a word!”
“Didn’t have to.” There was joy in her heart, especially when David worked his way forward, a soft smile on his handsome face.
They’d kill the show tonight, then head to New Hampshire, where she’d set a certain personal security guard on fire. That thought was much more pleasant than dwelling on her creepy-ass stalker.
Chapter Nine
The crowd for this concert was thicker than their first one. David hadn’t expected that. He stood by the soundboards before Two Times Strong took the stage, and surveyed the venue. The Twisted Wishes meet-and-greet had gone off reasonably well, with both the fans and the band having a huge amount of fun, despite one overenthusiastic fan rushing the band as they made their way to the pavilion where the fans waited.
David grabbed the guy around the waist and hauled him back before he got anywhere near the band. “Hey, hey. Nope. We’re not gonna do that.”
The crew was smart enough to notice the scuffle and delayed the band from entering.
The kid—he couldn’t be more than twenty—squirmed in David’s arms as he shoved him back. “Sorry, I just—I want to tell them how much I love them.”
David moved him another couple of feet into the pavilion. “Plenty of time for that, kid. But if you rush ’em like that you’re not gonna see them at all.”
That deflated the kid. “I—Okay.”
David sat him in the back row, and clamped a hand on his shoulder until Twisted Wishes entered and took their seats at the table up front.
Once the band started talking, the kid was wrapped up in listening. Good. David didn’t think this guy was an actual problem, and he didn’t have any of the vibe of Mish’s stalker. Sometimes fans just got ahead of their brains. The band acted like nothing had happened at all.
Ray was on-point as the leader, and Dom his outlandish self. Mish was loud and brash and sexy, while Zavier played the cool, quiet type, throwing out occasional quips.
David did have a harder time looking away from Mish this meet-and-greet. Maybe because he knew the way her mouth felt along his neck and the heat of her body against his.
Or because she’d changed into an outfit that was both low-key and hot as sin. White flowing pants that were slit up to her knees, along with a top from the same material that showed glimpses of her abdomen and arms. Her jewelry—as well as her nails—was blood-red. How she’d painted them in the scant hours since they’d gotten off the bus, he didn’t know. That kind of thing had always seemed like magic to him.
He’d kept an eye on the fans, especially the kid, even as he’d admired Mish and enjoyed the banter of the band. They answered questions and picked on one another the way siblings—and lovers, in the case of Ray and Zavier—did.
When it was all over and the fans had been escorted out to their seats, Ray clapped him on the shoulder. “Thank you for spotting that.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
It was. And a little proof to himself that he could do this job, despite his attachment to the band. To Mish. Still might not be smart, but it was workable.
Now Twisted Wishes was changing for their set, being looked after by Adrian, the crew, and venue security. Access to this venue’s backstage area was tightly controlled, so David took his time scoping out the crowds while the techs prepared the stage for Two Times Strong, who’d be out in short order.
The pit by the stage was packed with fans decked out in Twisted Wishes T-shirts and tanks, waiting for the main attraction. He’d walked along the barrier between the stage and the pit, and nodded to the security stationed there. They eyed his badge and let him go past.
The main seated area was filling in. There’d be lots of empty spots during the opening act, but he also spotted pockets of fans here to see Two Times Strong. The lawn, however, was a mass of blankets, people, alcohol, and probably some weed. It really wasn’t a summer concert without that scent drifting through the air, no matter how much the venue security inspected the bags at the gates.
He should be on edge. Instead, excitement built in him to see this show, what Mish would wear on stage, what songs they’d play tonight. Twisted Wishes never played the exact same concert twice. Sets were similar, but the band liked to mix it up and give each city a unique experience—and that had really worked this past concert. According to Adrian, the internet had exploded since Ray and Mish’s duet.
David wanted to watch that again. Wanted to see her safely through this night, and then on to New Hampshire, where he’d let her do whatever the hell she wanted with him. Some of that was lust, but he’d clicked with her the moment she’d snarked at him. He knew something of Mish behind the rock star...wanted to find out more, too. Share pieces of his life and experiences with her.
He was the last person who should be hooking up with Mish, becoming part of this strange Twisted Wishes family. This was not the way the job was supposed to go. His logical brain told him he needed to step back and tell Mish they couldn’t get together. But another part remembered the earnest expression in Ray’s face, in his eyes, when he’d told David not to back away.
Not backing away wasn’t the same as running headlong into fire, though.
David rolled his head to release the tension in his neck, and resumed his walk through the covered pavilion. He should join the band backstage. They might want to watch Two Times Strong perform from the side of the stage again. Ray said Five Asylum had done similar for them, and they wouldn’t have gotten where they were without that support.
But if Twisted Wishes were visible, the fans would react.
David dodged between people entering
the pavilion, and headed toward the entrance that led behind the stage. Close to the gate, someone tapped his arm. “Excuse me?”
He halted to find a woman inspecting him from head to toe. “Yes?”
“Aren’t you that guy who’s been with Mish?”
With Mish? Jesus, he needed to ask Adrian about that. Yes, he’d been seen frequently with her in New York, but there hadn’t been much muttering in the press, especially since they’d established that he worked for Twisted Wishes.
“I’m security for Twisted Wishes.” He was a little gruff, but he and Mish hadn’t hooked up yet, and they hadn’t talked about how public they were going to be if they did. When they did.
The woman got one of those smiles that made him apprehensive. “So you’re not with Mish?”
He wished like hell he’d been wearing his sunglasses, because he wanted a shield to hide behind. This wasn’t a normal fan question. “I’m sorry...who am I talking to?”
“Oh, my apologies, I’m Vicky Heydel, from the HitsDaily website. Rumor has it that you’re Mish Sullivan’s latest fling, and I’m trying to confirm that.”
Now he really wanted his sunglasses, because his first instinct was to roll his eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m not available for interviews, and I have a job to do. If you’ll excuse me.” He turned and walked away.
Thankfully, the reporter didn’t follow to press for information, and he’d been around enough important people in his career that his response was fine. Still, he made it a point to track down Marcella. Easy enough to do, since she was chatting with Adrian in the hall outside the dressing rooms. But when they broke off their conversation to look at him, they both had long faces. His stomach dropped an inch or two. “What happened?”
Without a word, Adrian handed over his tablet, and there was yet another email from yet another address. This one had an attached photo of Mish’s ring.
My dear, I’m surprised you even have such inexpensive trinkets now. After all, you are the serpent who shed her skin for fame and fortune. But such a thing does belong on your finger. I’ll be sure to slip it on again once you’re mine.
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