The sheet-draped gurney wheeled closer, the white fabric floating down the tunnel while the EMTs walked beside it. The wheels wheedled a slow creak, and Xan saw the loamy color of freshly turned earth.
Rade wasn’t resisting the EMTs at all, just lying like a lump on the gurney.
Fuck me.
Rade must be stoned out of his gourd. Today, of all motherfucking days, on the day of the concert at Madison Square fucking Garden, Rade had managed to get a hold of some heroin and shoot up.
Tomorrow, Xan would be auditioning musicians at Juilliard, and he would call the Colburn School in California where he had found Tryp. He could not tolerate Rade’s or Grayson’s drug abuse any longer. He would again throw Rade in rehab, perhaps a secure facility in the Swiss Alps with concertina wire fences guarded by wolves so that Rade could not check himself out or elope as he had done the three goddamn times that Xan had arranged intervention before.
Grayson was just as bad, though he had only broken out of rehab twice.
But Rade and Grayson were out of the fucking band.
Behind Xan, Grayson yelled, “Hey, Rade! Get up! We’ve got a fucking show!”
For tonight, though, Xan needed a musician, a pianist. He raised a hand toward Georgie, who had one foot in the car.
Grayson’s voice asked, “Rade?”
He began to walk across the loading dock to where Georgie idled between the cars, looking inside the limo, about to climb in and escape. “Georgie, wait a moment!”
Back by the loading dock, Grayson yelled, “Rade! Get up!”
“Georgie!” Xan yelled as he strode past the shining steel of the ambulance and light bar that was still throwing red bursts at the high brick walls.
“Rade!” Grayson’s panicked scream sliced through the air.
Xan turned back.
Grayson had pulled the sheet off of the gurney where Rade lay, and the black EMT was holding Grayson back with his arms around his chest while he howled. Another EMT was flipping the sheet over Rade’s still form, and he pulled the pale sheet up, all the way up, over Rade’s face, over the purple tips of his hair.
No.
God, oh God, no.
Xan’s legs stuttered under him, and he staggered a step as his knees gave way. He reached for the cool asphalt under him, scraping his palm, as he regained his feet and dug in with his toes, running toward Rade on that awful gurney.
The sheet fluttered in the breeze and stinging, sulfurous exhaust of the trucks, but Rade didn’t move under it.
Xan skidded beside the stretcher and grabbed handfuls of the cloth, the soft fabric lowing like an oboe in his head, and tore it away.
“Sir!” The other EMT yelled and snatched at the sheet billowing away. “You can’t do that!”
Rade’s skin was ghastly pale, almost as white as the bandage on his groin soaked underneath with scarlet blood. His clothes were cut away except for his underwear, and livid red patches marked his chest.
His bright blue eyes stared, unblinking, up into the sun overhead. One of his neon blue contact lenses had slipped to the corner of his eye, revealing a crescent of gray iris. The purple tips of his blond hair trembled in the breeze, but his slack jaw had fallen open.
Xan stumbled backward. He clapped one hand over his mouth and slapped the wall behind him as he slammed into it. The brick walls soaring overhead tumbled and he slid down the wall, crouching as the EMT covered Rade’s body again.
“Why aren’t you trying to help him?” he yelled. “You fuckers aren’t doctors! You’re supposed to help him!”
His own heartbeat rushed in his ears.
He heard the EMT saying something about EKG leads and pulselessness.
Georgie was plucking at his arm, dragging him. Xan lost his balance and fell to his knees and elbows, staring at the oily black pebbles of asphalt.
Georgie’s voice cut through Xan’s heartbeat booming in his ears. “Come on. A crowd is gathering. Stand up.”
He held her arm, violin-toned velvet skin over soft flesh, and his toes scuffed the sidewalk and then the cement of the tunnel. Neon streaks overhead flashed blue and peach afterimages like screams in his ears.
“Here,” Georgie said, guiding him to a blurry brown couch. “Sit down.”
“I killed him,” Xan heard his own voice say through the gathering gray fog. “I pushed him too hard and I killed him. I’m pushing them all too hard and I’m killing us all.”
Georgie’s slight form curled around him, and he grabbed her and held on.
Black crashed into him.
FALLING APART
Georgie
Georgie was holding onto the door of the limo when Xan ran back to the stretcher, ripped the sheet away, and staggered backward, falling.
She should have gotten in the car.
She should have made her flight.
Her life would have been so very different.
But she ran to Xan, who was falling while he tried to stand, slipping on the pebbles under his feet. His dark eyes stared at the stretcher as the EMT covered Rade’s body, but it looked like he couldn’t see anything.
She led Xan back to his dressing room and settled him on the couch. The make-up counter blazed with lights, and she found the switch to kill them before she fit herself against his body.
Between mutterings about how he had killed Rade—Flicka’s admonitions rose in Georgie’s head, but she had been with Xan literally every second since Rade had split off from them—Xan started to shake, rattling with cold.
She fished for the blanket in his black runner duffel bag and wrapped it around him, but he clutched her to him, his teeth chattering.
“You’re okay,” she told him, trying to reassure him, bending to look at his face. She combed his hair away from his face with her fingers.
He pressed his forehead against her shoulder, his eyes squeezed shut. “I can’t believe it. I’m numb. It hurts and I’m numb.”
“He must have OD’ed. It was his addiction, his choice.”
“He was an addict. Addicts don’t O.D.”
“Addicts overdose and die all the time.”
“No. Amateurs overdose. Rade should have known exactly how much tolerance he had and how much he could handle. I should have sent him to rehab again. I should have cancelled the whole fucking tour.”
“You can’t do this to yourself,” she told him, rocking him in her arms. “He found and bought the drugs. He shot them into himself, the first time and every time and this time, too. You can’t take responsibility for everything.”
“I should. I should have known. I should have done something. I should have kicked his stoned ass off the tour and found another musician.”
“It’s not your fault. You’re okay.” She tightened her arms around him, holding him. When he calmed down, she would argue logic. This was grief talking.
“I should have done something.”
“You’re okay. Just breathe.”
“Everything’s falling apart.”
“Xan?”
“Yes.”
Georgie stroked his back, deciding.
His characters, his personalities, they may be a convenient metaphor, but they might be something more. Xan was the composer, the performer, the one who felt things so deeply that they could destroy him.
“I should have done something. I knew that he was heading down a spiral of self-destruction. I should have stopped him.”
She pressed her lips to his cheekbone, tasting salt. “You can’t do this to yourself. No one could have stopped him. He had to hit bottom and decide to climb out for himself.”
“I’m falling apart.”
That was exactly what she was afraid of.
She lifted his chin and wiped under his eyes with her palms. His dark eyes seemed even darker for his wet, clumped eyelashes and pink lids, creased with pain. She gently kissed him.
He flinched, almost backing up, but his mouth softened under her lips.
Georgie held his strong jaw in h
er palms, cradling his face, kissing him, waiting for his response.
His hands found her waist, settling on her hips. She parted her lips, an invitation, and he opened his mouth, his tongue barely touching hers. He didn’t taste like whiskey yet, which was almost jarring, just his own warm breath. A hint of salt touched her lips again.
“Xan,” she whispered against his mouth.
His hands tightened on her hips, his fingers digging into her jeans, and he dragged her toward him.
Desire was already beginning to mist her mind, but saying his name invoked the personality of Xan Valentine, brought him out more clearly.
So she needed to do that. She needed to remember to call him when they were in the throes of it.
Xan slid his hands around her back, grabbing her ass and pulling her against his strong chest. Desire shot through her, vibrating in her hands, and she dropped one hand down his neck to his shoulder, stroking over his hard, heavy muscles there.
God, it was going to be difficult to remember to do that.
His arms tightened around her, crushing her to him, and he chewed down her neck, shoving the neckline of her shirt aside. Her pulse sped under his mouth, tapping an allegro tempo in her chest and reverberating through her skin. Her fingers picked up the quickness, fluttering on his neck and back. His scent, fresh and male, puffed out his shirt, not the smoky musk from after the clubs, though she had come to crave that scent because it meant Xan’s hands on her and his body against hers.
His hands reached under her ass, scooting her to press against his whole body, from his broad chest to the hard bulge in his jeans. He scraped his teeth over her shoulder and pushed himself between her legs.
It wasn’t a tawdry fuck to distract him. His body was thrumming with heartbeat and breath, and she needed to find his warmth after the chill of seeing Rade’s lifeless eyes had seeped into her. She wanted to touch him, feel him, and breathe him in.
His fingers slid under her shirt, skimming her ribs, then higher. Georgie closed her eyes, already lost in the heat of his mouth and hands. He shoved her bra up, cupping her breasts, thumbing her nipples, and he yanked her shirt and bra over her head and flung them away. His mouth warmed and sucked her, and she bowed her back, dropping her head back and pushing against his mouth.
Xan took over, grabbing her, stripping off her jeans and panties and wrapping her naked body around himself, lifting her to straddle him and widening his thighs under her until she was spread open to him, and rubbing her until she was panting for him. She should remember something, but his hand was dragging on her clit and driving shivering tension into her, tightening in her belly and inside, and his fingers slipped wetly through her folds and into her as she gasped against his shoulder, her heart thudding in her chest.
“Xan,” she whispered, her voice tight with desire.
“Oh, yeah,” he growled. He tugged his wallet from his back pocket, picked out a packet, and unbuttoned the fly of his jeans to roll it on himself.
Rock stars were always prepared for sex, debauchery, and rock and roll. Awesome.
He picked her up, almost entirely off her knees, and angled her over his cock. He looked up at her, his dark eyes not glazed over but fiery, roaring with life and energy.
“Xan,” she said again, her voice cracking with passion.
“Say it,” he said, adjusting his cock to press between her folds. “I love hearing it.”
“Xan,” she whimpered.
“Yeah.” His hands gripped her hips, and he slid her down on him, filling her with himself. She arched as he slipped in, still so big inside her, and she gasped as she settled on him.
She grabbed around his neck as her body stretched to take him in, and she needed a moment to open to him because if he took her hard right now, he might rip her apart.
Xan’s hands were clenched around her waist, and he pressed her down farther, steadily, as her body let him in. He leaned back on the couch, watching her with that intensity in his dark eyes that she associated with Xan, and his smile verged on danger.
When she had sex with Alex, he was always watching her, reacting to her, crafting her experience, and playing her body like an instrument.
Xan was physical, a being of power and passion. He swept her up in his embrace and drove her until she shattered.
Her body settled against his, and Xan tilted his hips, angling farther into her. His body rubbed her already swollen clit, and she gasped, holding onto his shoulders. She tightened as he moved her hips on him and ground her on his rough mat.
Her fingers tightened on his shoulders, her fingertips grazing the trails of the tattoos on his back.
Now.
Georgie lolled her head around. She whispered, “Xan.”
“That’s right,” he said, watching their bodies connect. He looked up, and his eyes were alight with fascination.
Georgie blinked and opened her eyes. God, her body was clenching, almost ready to come.
She was panting as he moved her on himself. She took a deep breath, looked deep into his dark eyes, and whispered, “Alexandre.”
His body bowed under hers, a hard snap backward that raised his hips as he thrust into her like a bolt of electricity had run through him. His muscled core stretched as he shouted.
When he opened his dark eyes, she could see that he wasn’t Xan anymore.
But he wasn’t Alex, either.
BLACK MAGIC
Alexandre Grimaldi
With her word, when she called his name, the dark smoke that was Xan Valentine dissipated, and the brittle veneer of Alex de Valentinois fell away.
Names are power. Adam named the animals and gave them form. God named Adam and breathed his life into him.
Georgie didn’t know that she had lit the incense and swung the brazier with her body and her voice.
Sometimes, if you dabble in black magic, when you call, you can summon a demon.
Alexandre Grimaldi breathed, and he reached for Georgie’s cheek. He held her face in his hand. His unused voice was hoarse, a whisper. “Georgie.”
Her soft eyes closed, lost in pleasure, and her whimper shot through him as a burst of royal blue and gold.
He pushed himself up, holding her body impaled on him with his arm cinched around her trim waist, and he pivoted them, laying her down so that she was underneath him. He cradled her, holding her face in both his hands as he braced himself on his elbows and knees to drive himself into her. Her sweet brown eyes closed as his body moved into hers. Her satin skin slipped under him, around him, and she pressed up to take him in farther.
His body felt her urgent rhythm, and the womanly scent of her flesh and perfume surrounded him, striking chimes and chords in his mind.
Alexandre felt like he had been watching her from afar all his life, fighting through fog to get to her, to say something to her, even though it had been only a few months. He had been with her but not, like his life was a memory or a dream. He had spoken to her, breaking through the miasma of Alex and Xan, when he could.
But he wasn’t dreaming anymore.
Alex de Valentinois was the intellectual who wrote and played the instruments.
Xan Valentine performed.
Alexandre Grimaldi was someone else entirely.
He pressed into her, driving her higher, watching her reaching and feeling her arms and body around him as he descended farther into her, until he felt every inch of her skin as he had been longing to.
“Georgie,” he whispered to her.
She opened her eyes, even lost in her pleasure.
He moved in her, feeling her, every moment an eternity with her, until she cried out with her release, and his body pulsed music as he came.
She had almost gotten in the car to leave, and though Alexandre raged, fighting to go after her, fighting to protect her from the Russians he knew were out there.
Now, she was in his arms, under his body, and Alexandre wasn’t going to let her go.
ALEXANDRE GRIMALDI AND THE VIOLIN
Georgie
Georgie blinked, holding on to his shoulders, and managed to focus on him. His long hair had slid to one side of his neck and was brushing her shoulder.
Aftershocks shuddered through her, but she took a deep breath to try to steady herself.
She had felt the moment when he changed.
When they had sex, Alex was gentle and deliberate, every moment a study and art.
Xan rocked her world every time he fucked her.
But now, he was holding her in his arms, and the intensity in his eyes wasn’t directed at the stage or the crowd or music, it was all focused on her. Again, his tempo was perfect, a deep rhythm that pushed her higher with every elegant slide into her body, but he moved within her as if his very heartbeat depended on her. He was holding himself above her on his elbows, gazing down at her. His dark eyes were unguarded, vulnerable, and his lips, parted as if on the verge of saying something that he couldn’t take back.
She had to leave. She had to get to the airport as soon as she could. The intimacy in his gaze scared the hell out of her.
He was still looking into her eyes like it was so important that he not look away.
Georgie reached up and cupped his cheek in her palm.
He tilted his head, and without breaking eye contact, his soft lips brushed her palm.
A hitch caught in Georgie’s chest, and she swallowed hard, trying to make herself the Ice Princess again.
“Georgie,” he said, and both of the G’s in her name were soft in his mouth, Zhor-zhie, a deep French accent. He whispered, “Zhuh tem.”
It seemed important to him, so she nodded, watching him.
He closed his eyes, arching his back and biting his lip. He curled down, pressing his cheek to hers and moving in her as he came. The faint roughness of his violin callus on his jaw rubbed against her cheek as he gasped almost silently near her ear.
His body stilled, and he slid his arms under her back, holding her to his chest.
Georgie tightened her arms around his neck, clutching him. She might be a little emotional, considering that Rade had died and she had to leave and these were their last moments together, and she couldn’t stop shaking. Her whole body was shaking like she was coming apart.
Wild Thing Page 17