“Sounds a lot like Rafe to me,” Jeremy said.
“I’m telling you, it’s all some big screw-up.”
One he wanted to rectify ASAP. Whoever this guy was, he must look a lot like him. Rafe heard his name at almost every show.
“You ready?” the club manager asked. “Line’s out the door!”
Adam smiled broadly. “Would you say the crowd has more X chromosomes or Y?”
Rafe glared at his friend. “One more crack and I’m gone.”
Chuckling, the other man held up a hand, palm out. “Sorry.”
Determined to ignore everything but the music, Rafe returned to the stage. Applause washed over him, the heat of the lights melting his irritation. Hitting the strings hard, he pounded out his troubles in an edgy rhythm, losing himself in the beat. He kept looking over the heads of the audience, not making eye contact.
At least, until his eyes landed on her.
The blonde stood by the bar, her back ramrod straight. Looking neither left nor right, she concentrated strictly on the stage, so intently focused, she didn’t even seem to be on the same planet as the noisy crowd that surrounded her.
Actually, that wasn’t quite true. She wasn’t looking at the stage. The woman was concentrating solely on him.
Every time he glanced her way, he found her staring at him. But not the way most women stared. This one was not wearing anything that could be described as a come-and-get-me smile. The expression on her beautiful face would more correctly be described as give-me-what-I-want-or-I’ll-hurt-you.
Despite her scowl, some straight men in the place gave it a shot, anyway. Three or four had approached her. Whatever she said to them made them scurry away, thoroughly intimidated.
Rafe, however, didn’t feel intimidated. In fact, for the first time in his adult life, he felt on the verge of getting a hard-on in the middle of a performance.
Because, hot damn, she was amazing.
“Dude, check out Xena the warrior princess in the back,” muttered Adam when they finished the song.
“Way ahead of ya,” Rafe admitted.
Adam had nailed it. Other than being blond-haired instead of brunette, the stranger had that whole bad-ass persona down to a T. And it wasn’t just the attitude. She was dressed exactly like the woman who’d starred in every one of his teenage Lucy Lawless fantasies.
Along with all that attitude, she wore black leather, top to bottom. Though, to be honest, there wasn’t a whole lot covering the top. Or the bottom.
People in San Francisco were always a little out there in their dress, but this woman could start a new fashion trend. If the women in town thought they could look as hot as her, they’d be getting their own leather halter tops and short, matching skirts.
Her flat, knee-length boots laced all the way up the front, hugging slim legs. Personally, he’d prefer them to be spike-heeled, but that was his only complaint.
With the clothes, her long blond hair hanging well past her shoulders—a gold headband resting on top of it—and that gleam of danger in her eyes, she was impossible to ignore. Every man and woman in the bar, gay or straight, had checked her out.
“Dibs,” Adam said.
“Forget it.” Rafe met the blonde’s stare again. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m the one she’s interested in.”
“Aww, come on, you can have your pick from all those other tables.” The way Adam wagged his eyebrows said he was talking about certain tables. The ones filled with guys.
“She’s mine,” he snapped as he plunged into the next tune.
Rafe didn’t know why he was suddenly ready to jump back into the easy-sex game he had long since left behind him. Maybe because the band members’ joshing had gotten under his skin? Or because he was starting to worry he was doing something to attract the male attention he’d been getting?
Nah. It was her. Just her. It had been a long time since he’d looked across a crowded room and seen a woman who stole his breath. She not only did that, she practically stopped his heart.
He suspected she could start it again with a single touch.
Working two jobs, Rafe didn’t have much time for relationships. His last one, with a sad divorcée who’d hired him to renovate her kitchen and kept him on to heal her broken heart, had ended in a major dumping. He’d been the dumpee. She’d decided her attorney was a better prospect than her carpenter.
Same old story. He was a sucker for a woman in need and had gotten involved even when he’d known it was a bad idea.
Rafe had tried to avoid doing that again by sleeping with a different groupie every weekend. But, feeling too much like a user, he couldn’t continue. Sharing a night of sex and nothing else was fine for some women—but not others. Problem was, he could never be absolutely certain which type was trying to pick him up.
He just didn’t like hurting anyone. Maybe because of his own protective tendencies toward women—starting with the one who’d raised him, alone, after his father had walked out. So he’d decided to steer clear of any kind of entanglements, sexual or emotional, and focus on work and the band for a while.
He’d done okay with that. Until tonight. Until her.
Throughout the evening, he continued to steal glances at the blonde. Judging by the full glasses on the bar, she had fulfilled the two drink minimum—or, more likely, some hopeful guy had fulfilled it for her—but hadn’t touched either one. She wasn’t drinking, wasn’t talking, wasn’t dancing, wasn’t smiling.
All she did was watch. And she only watched him.
Finally, near the end of the night, he glanced over and saw she was on the move. She made her way through the crowd; a tap on a shoulder or a word and people melted out of her way. She would have no problem getting up to the small stage, and he’d take anything she might like to throw at him. Including herself.
But, he suddenly realized, she wasn’t coming toward the stage. Instead, she was heading for the door. And without a single look back in his direction, she walked right out of it.
“Dude, harsh,” Adam said as they segued into one last song.
Harsh indeed. Talk about misreading a woman. He’d apparently been way off base, seeing attraction when it hadn’t been there.
After they finished the song, Adam said, “Don’t feel bad. She probably wasn’t that hot up close, anyway.”
Not hot? The woman should come with a Fire Hazard sign around her neck and a smoke alarm taped to her thigh.
One long, luscious thigh.
He’d wanted her. She’d left. And the night suddenly seemed a whole lot emptier. “Do me a favor,” Rafe said as the crowd swooped in. “Let me get outta here. I’m not up for this tonight.”
Despite his joking and smart-ass attitude, Adam was a good friend and he knew when Rafe had reached his limit. Waving, he said, “Go on. We’ll pack up your stuff and get it into the van.”
Normally, Rafe wouldn’t have left without his Fender, but he just had to go. He couldn’t deal with dudes coming on to him, not now, after he’d been desperately interested in a woman and she had walked away without as much as a hello.
Making his way out, he heard his bandmates covering for him, giving him a chance to leave without having somebody go outside to cut him off. Mentally thanking them, he stepped into the San Francisco night, breathing deeply of the cool air—salty, a little grimy. Still, even a back alley with a Dumpster smelled better than the hot, sweaty club filled with wall-to-wall people and the reek of spilled beer.
Sidestepping around Adam’s van, he turned to walk home. Rafe lived downtown, in a converted loft, which he’d bought as a cheap ruin and spent two years renovating. He’d walked these streets at night a hundred times, without ever feeling a hint of worry.
But now, for some reason, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He slowed, glancing from side to side, certain he wasn’t alone, though he couldn’t define why. Maybe a sound, a movement through the air; something had put him on alert.
With reason.
Without warn
ing, a shape came at him from the darkness. He lifted a hand to defend himself but the figure moved like black lightning, shoving him against the brick wall of the building and pinning him there with a forearm across his throat.
Shocked, Rafe tried to struggle, but immediately stopped when he heard a voice. A female voice. A sexy female voice.
“Okay, handsome,” she said, “fun’s over. You’re mine.”
2
OLIVIA HADN’T PLANNED to physically accost the prince. After arriving in this loud, noxious city and tracking him down, using a miniature portrait someone had finally recognized, she had intended merely to talk to him. Reminding him of what he stood to lose should have been enough to convince him to return with her.
The prince might be lazy, vain and a bit silly, but he’d never seemed entirely stupid. As little as he might like his mother, or the responsibilities that came with a royal title, he most definitely liked the perks. Good clothes, good wine, gold by the barrel. No bedbugs or lice to worry about, front-row seats to any show playing at the palace. Oh, and a few palaces.
Not a bad life if you were into that sort of thing.
So she’d been certain she could talk him into returning, and had walked into that public house to do just that.
But the Ruprecht she’d seen up on that stage—the one she currently had pinned to a wall—was nothing like the callow boy she remembered from her childhood. Nor was he much like the prince she’d last seen riding his golden carriage through the countryside two years ago. Absolutely nothing.
“Well, that’s one way to say hello. But offering me a beer would probably have worked, too,” he said, his voice throaty, deep. Not like she remembered, either. “I thought you’d left.”
“I was waiting for you.”
“Lucky me,” he said, his wide smile brightened by moonlight.
She stared at him. “You’re different.”
“Than what?”
“Just different.”
But it was him, of course. She recognized him easily. The light brown hair, the dark, piercing eyes, the square jaw and sculpted cheeks. He had always been handsome, and that hadn’t changed. The fact that his hair was longer now, and his jaw slightly grizzled, didn’t diminish from his looks at all.
In fact, to be honest, they added to it. Because the last time she’d set eyes on Ruprecht, she’d seen the same pretty boy who’d once threatened to have her drawn and quartered because she’d dared to splash mud on his new velvet pantaloons.
Now, she saw a man. A self-confident, powerful man, capable of getting dirty all on his own. In any number of ways.
“So, tell me, does this warrior-woman thing work with all the guys? Do you usually get what you’re after?”
“I always get what I’m after,” she said, her eyes narrowed, her tone carrying an edge as sharp as the blade on her sword.
“I think I can see why. It’s pretty hot.”
His voice contained laughter and his easy manner threw her off balance. Much about him threw her off balance and had since the moment she’d set eyes on him tonight. She’d been shocked at first, trapped in the middle of that odiferous crowd, watching him onstage, performing like a common minstrel. Her proud prince.
Strangely, though, he hadn’t looked at all the buffoon, hadn’t sounded like the whiny, petulant boy she knew. In fact, his throaty voice had been quite melodious. Even if she’d found the music unsettling. The raw, powerful beat had reverberated deep inside her, leaving her restless, confused.
She hadn’t liked it. That was why she’d left, deciding to wait for him outside.
“Where did you learn to do that?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Play that music?”
“I picked it up pretty easily once I started to study. Just a natural, I guess. Did you like it?”
She shook her head slowly, answering honestly though she knew it would probably anger him. “Not really.”
“Gee, thanks.” He sounded amused, not offended.
Strange. So strange. Not just his mood, but everything about him. She’d known this man since childhood, and yet, for the first time, she began to see why other women might find him appealing. All the females in the public house had been talking about him—his handsome face, raspy voice, thick hair and rock-hard form.
That’s what had really thrown her. Ruprecht had always been soft. Pampered and cosseted. She didn’t know if he had ever lifted a hand to comb his own hair.
But now. Oh, pressed up against him as she was now, she had to acknowledge he most definitely was not soft anymore. Not anywhere. Those were thick, rippling muscles in the legs tangled with hers. And his tight, black shirt bulged over an impressively broad chest and strong arms.
She could still take him in hand-to-hand combat, of course. Easily. Probably with one arm lashed behind her back.
But he might actually make it interesting now.
“So, uh, you gonna let me go, hotshot?” he asked, relaxed, not trying to free himself. After all, she reminded herself, he’d never learned to fight; never had to, not when people like Olivia were ready to lay down their lives to protect him.
Maybe with both arms lashed behind my back.
“Can I trust you not to try to escape me?”
He laughed softly. “Oh, I’m not going anywhere. You wanted my attention, you most definitely got it.”
She slowly lowered her arm, reminding herself that this was still her prince. He seemed in a reasonable mood, despite his strange appearance. He’d been gone for a long time. Perhaps a few months in this place had been good for him, had toughened him up. That wasn’t such a bad thing.
He lifted a hand to his throat and rubbed, wincing a bit.
Well, maybe not toughened.
“Did I hurt you?” God, Verona would have her head if she’d actually injured her precious darling, despite what she’d said.
“Nah. Throat’s sore after the performance. I should’ve grabbed something to drink before I left.”
Wordlessly reaching down, she retrieved her small flask, which was attached to a leather belt slung around her hips. Lifting it, she removed the lid and offered it to him.
He took it without question, raising it to his attractive mouth and tilting his head back, drinking deeply. Then he said, “Damn, that’s good. What’d you do, pay a fortune for a bottle of Voss water and dump it in this?”
“I stopped to fill it at a mountain lake on the way over.”
“Sure you did.”
“Feel free to finish it,” she offered, wondering why he acted so strangely about simply quenching his thirst. Then, remembering he had been here for a long while, she realized he must have greatly missed good Elatyria water.
Taking her up on her offer, he lifted the flask again, draining it. Each swallow emphasized the cords of muscle in his neck; they flexed, gleaming with…
“Great Athena’s ghost, you’re actually sweating,” she whispered, finally realizing why the back of her arm was damp.
Royalty didn’t do such things. Certainly Prince Ruprecht, future King of Grand Falls, Elatyria, arbiter of good taste and the only prince in all the land who’d ever had a fairy godmother of his own, never did something as crass as breaking a sweat.
Yet, here was the proof. He was covered with a fine sheen of moisture. Not only that, a deliciously sultry aroma wafted off him, spicy and unexpected. Every inhalation she took was filled with it and, despite herself, she breathed a bit deeper.
“Sorry. It was hot under the lights,” he said.
Olivia couldn’t tear her gaze away from his throat, fascinated by this change in him more than any other. Sweaty, raw and muscular? This man? The man who’d once screamed the castle down because he’d found a golden hair in his porridge?
Unable to help it, she lifted her hand, then slid the tip of her index finger down his neck, from below his right ear to his shoulder. Slick. Hot. Powerful.
A quivery sensation rolled through her and she had the oddest
desire to lick her finger, to taste the salty flavors.
God, how she loved the results physical exertion gave to a man. It was one of the only things she regretted about her decision to stay away from them. “What happened to you?” she asked, hearing the wonder in her voice. “How did you become so hard?”
“You’d think being attacked in a dark alley woulda cured that, wouldn’t you?” Capping the flask, he added, “But no. You’ve aroused my interest and it’s getting more…aroused.”
Olivia stared at him, puzzled by his words as well as his mood. She had expected at least token resistance. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he have returned to Elatyria on his own? But he seemed completely comfortable with her arrival.
Realizing her fingertips still rested on a cord of muscle that ran from the base of his neck over his shoulder, she forced herself to drop her hand. As soon as she did, her fingers began to tingle, and she realized she wanted to touch him again, to feel that rough jaw and squeeze the rock-hard shoulders.
Impossible. That was mad, completely unlike her. She’d had no interest in touching any man since her bacchanalia, the week before she’d been inducted into the guard.
But none of them had felt like him.
She ignored the inner voice, lucky he hadn’t screamed for her head for the liberty she’d already taken. Determined she wouldn’t touch Ruprecht again unless she had to knock him out to take him home, she asked, “Are you ready to go?”
He lifted one brow over a gleaming eye. “Just like that?”
She nodded. “Just like that.”
“You don’t even want to try to pretend to play hard to get?”
“I’m not the one being got,” she said, not understanding.
“True enough.” He flashed another of those smiles. “Will you still respect me in the morning if I let you take me home?”
“Morning? It will take me longer than that to get you all the way there.”
He shook his head. “I somehow doubt that.”
As to the other part of his question, Olivia equated respect with strength of body and of mind, as well as moral fiber. Which meant, frankly, she’d never respected Ruprecht. At least not the one she’d known before. Like most men, he didn’t deserve it.
Leslie Kelly, Jennifer LaBrecque Page 2