MADELYNNE ELLIS
Come Alive
Rock Hard: Book 3

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Mischief

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

The News Building

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London SE1 9GF

www.mischiefbooks.com

An eBook Original 2016

1

Copyright © Madelynne Ellis

Madelynne Ellis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Cover image from Shutterstock

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EBook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008158316

Version: 2016-04-26

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Prelude

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Epilogue

Author’s Note & Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

Prelude

‘What a fucking tip! Every time I think I can’t hate that wanker any more, he gives me another reason to cave in his skull.’

‘Totally, because if attempting to kill you wasn’t bad enough he had the audacity to trash your stuff too.’ Paul ‘Rock Giant’ Reed followed Xane into the cramped tour-bus kitchen. What had been a pristine vision of black leather and brushed steel now resembled a scrapyard.

‘Bastard!’ Xane dropped into a low squat to scoop the remains of his favourite coffee mug from the piles of detritus. Only half of the ‘Sex Maniac’ slogan remained attached to the handle. A sigh rolled off his pierced tongue as he rubbed his thumb against the brown residue of a thousand or so caffeine hits. ‘It looks worse than the old rust-bucket did after a three-day blowout. Smells worse too.’

‘Reckon the bastard pissed everywhere.’

The sickly stale reek of drying urine drifted along the central aisle from the rear of the bus. Iain Willows had a heck of a lot to answer for, and the fact that the Swedish police currently had him in custody for attempted murder did little to soothe Xane’s mood. He wanted to smash things over the bastard’s head – not primarily because Iain had nearly drowned him, but rather because he’d put Black Halo’s lead guitarist in hospital and Ash’s recovery looked as if it could be a prolonged affair.

Ash had been the one who’d supported Iain and stuck up for him. He shouldn’t have been the one to get hurt. But the world never did seem to work in the way it ought to. The bad guys rarely got their dues, and people who deserved an even break rarely got one. It ought to have been him in that hospital bed with his hands clawed and struggling to talk, but yet again he’d somehow managed to emerge unscathed. So, OK, he’d required resuscitating, but he was here walking and breathing with no more than a few aches and pains to show for it. Xane Geist – they said he’d sold his soul to the devil. Well, he didn’t remember doing so, but the evidence kept stacking up to support it.

‘Let’s get some windows opened and some rubbish sacks in here,’ he muttered.

‘You sure you want to do this?’ Rock Giant curled his hand around Xane’s shoulder. ‘Shouldn’t you be resting? You’re fresh out of hospital. I’m pretty sure they’d have held onto you if they’d realised this was your first intended port of call.’

Xane patted his friend’s hand in gratitude. Rock Giant had been the one who had given him mouth-to-mouth last night. He knew only too well how close Death’s scythe had fallen. But he wasn’t in the mood to sit idle. Everything he’d taken for granted had been upended again. He needed to create some order out of the chaos. There was nothing he could do about the tour dates they’d have to cancel, nothing more he could do to aid the police, and absolutely zilch he could do to fix Ash, who was wired to a few dozen machines having his blood filtered. ‘I need to do something, focus on something.’

‘Getting some rest, perhaps.’

His mind was whirring even if his body was tired. ‘I don’t know about you, but I can’t face the thought of a hotel at the minute. It’s too damned impersonal, and there’ll be a mob of reporters and desperate fans parked outside the moment they get wind of the fact we’re there.’ That would happen approximately three minutes after they checked in. It was the nature of things. If you were famous, and already headline news, then privacy was non-existent. Most of the time, Xane didn’t mind living in the limelight. Hell, he’d even go so far as to say he enjoyed it. Now wasn’t most of the time. Now, life had just walloped him with another curveball. He wanted silence, and the tour bus was the only place to get it. It was currently parked at the back of last night’s concert venue, cordoned off behind fencing and crime-scene tape. Forensics had already done their stuff, but the tape was helping to keep prying eyes away. Plus no one expected them to be here.

‘How did you get out of the hospital unmolested?’

‘Police escort,’ Xane explained. ‘They wanted statements, and they had fuck-off big guns to keep the crowd under control.’

‘Nice,’ Rock Giant drawled through his terse grin. ‘I gave them my run of the events last night.’ He closed the door of the humming fridge, hiding a little of the destruction and instantly halving the local noise pollution. ‘I dunno what cleaning stuff we have. The dust-buster and washing stuff’s normally in there.’ He pointed to a cupboard door that was splattered with a mixture of baked beans, ketchup and lentils.

Xane deposited the remains of his mug on the draining board and gingerly inched open the cupboard. Miraculously the contents had escaped the destructive force that had whipped through the rest of the bus like a tornado.

‘Why am I not surprised that Willows didn’t know where to find the bleach and scouring pads?’

‘I’m not sure he even knew where to find the teabags.’ Rock Giant reached past him to grab a roll of bin bags and a dustpan and brush. ‘I vote for shovelling all the shit up and throwing it, unless you feel a salvage operation is necessary.’

Xane pulled his long hair back into a ponytail. ‘There’s nothing on here that’s irreplaceable. Shovel away. I’ll start on the surfaces.’ He delved into the cupboard and rose again armed with two bottles of spray detergent.

‘You’re going to need a cloth too, super-spy.’

Xane aimed the jets at the nearest defiled surface and let rip, before seeking out a cloth. Cleaning wasn’t exactly his forte, but sometimes focusing on labour-intensive tasks helped to clear the brain. In any case, if they were going to make the bus habitable again before tonight, they needed to put their backs into it, and more than likely round up a few additional pairs of hands.

‘Where did you, Spook and the girls stay last night?’ he asked after they’d been working for a minute or two.

Rock Giant stopped whistling in order to answer. ‘Apparently, Ginny had a hotel room booked, so Dani went there. Spook pulled an all-nighter at the hospital, which is why he’s crashed out like a baby now, and Elspeth and I squeezed into the motorhome with Sally and Graham. It wasn’t ideal, but we managed. I think the road crew kipped in the van, or else found themselves some accommodating young ladies to slumber beside.’

‘I’d appreciate a hug from my accommodating young lady right now,’ Xane mused. Dani had only been permitted to visit for a few minutes the previous night before the staff had insisted he needed his beauty sleep. Considering the headache, and the invisible elephant he’d had pressing on his chest, he hadn’t objected. His head was much clearer today, but his ribs still ached, especially when he twisted.

Having scooped most of the broken glass and crockery into a bag, Rock Giant paused to catch his breath. ‘Did I catch that right last night, that Dani’s agreed you can screw Luthor?’

The crudeness of the remark irritated him a little, but he let it go. Rock Giant had a knack for making his hackles rise, but the important thing was that they were a team and there for one another when they needed to be. ‘Yeah, you caught it right.’

‘How the fuck did you get her to agree to that?’

Xane shrugged. If he was honest, he wasn’t entirely sure himself. He’d done his absolute best to avoid acting on the chemistry that existed between him and Luthor, but Dani had got hurt all the same. Then right at the point when he’d been convinced he was going to lose everything, she’d announced she was prepared to give the notion of sharing a go. How it was all going to work out, he didn’t know, but with the band on an extended hiatus they had time to negotiate the details. So far all she’d stipulated was that if he and Luthor were doing anything, she wanted to know about it, because that way she wouldn’t fret.

‘You’re a jammy git, you know that?’ Rock Giant complained, as he took the brush to the seating area by the window. Both of the seat cushions had been slashed. ‘You realise I haven’t got laid since Amsterdam and that chick that tore handfuls of my hair out, but you … you get Miss Sweet Cheeks and top it off with the new drummer boy.’

‘Is my name being taken in vain?’ Luthor asked, appearing at the top of the entry steps. ‘Jeez, it smells like a zombie’s armpit in here. Looks like one too. Gross.’

‘It looked even worse ten minutes ago. Where did you disappear to?’ Xane scrubbed the last bit of ketchup from one cupboard front.

‘Graham collared me. I’m afraid you’re all stuck with me now. He insisted I sign a contract on the still warm bonnet of the taxi or he wasn’t letting me within two hundred yards of you.’

‘He better not have screwed you over.’

Rock Giant scratched his chin. ‘I’m astonished he hasn’t insisted on a full psych-evaluation.’

‘Would I be expected to pass or fail that?’ Luthor asked brightly.

‘Good point. Black Halo does consist of a bunch of screw-ups,’ Xane remarked. There was no sense in pretending otherwise.

Rock Giant scowled. ‘Speak for yourself. I’ve never had to check myself into rehab.’

Xane rolled his eyes.

‘Fine, you’re totally balanced, but the rest of us …’ He shook his head. ‘Ash is screwed up.’ There was no contesting that, seeing how he was currently occupying a hospital bed. ‘Elspeth is completely batshit crazy. I mean, she was before all the stuff with Steve happened. I don’t think I need to remind you she has a shrine in the back of this bus. And I freely admit to being a deranged, sex-addicted devil-worshipper.’

Both Luthor and Rock Giant sighed and chuckled.

‘The first two are true,’ Rock Giant agreed. ‘But you must have been praising Satan awful quietly, given the amount of shit that keeps being heaped on you. I thought the point of selling your soul was it reaped you major benefits and a platinum “Get out of jail free” card.’

‘I’m alive, aren’t I?’

‘Apparently so. Hey, you missed a bit, near the handle.’

‘Spook’s not screwed up,’ Luthor muttered, his brow wrinkled in thought as he wrestled a bucket and scouring pad out of the cupboard.

Xane and Rock Giant both buckled over with laughter.

‘Why’s that funny? The guy’s totally together.’

‘Spook’s the biggest fuck-up of us all,’ Xane wheezed. Dammit, he needed a good laugh, even if it hurt like hell.

‘True … totally true,’ Rock Giant added. He levelled his gaze at Luthor. ‘Come on, there’s nothing sane about taking a vow of chastity. What sort of psycho does that?’

‘Yeah, but that’s just hearsay, isn’t it?’

‘Nope.’

‘Cross my heart.’ Rock Giant made the sign across his chest. ‘Spook is unequivocally weird. I mean, he doesn’t even masturbate. How disturbed is that?’

Xane nodded in agreement.

‘There’s a reason, though. I mean, he didn’t just decide to go without for no reason.’

‘Reasons smeasons,’ Rock Giant said.

Xane fell quiet and busied himself by squirting the next set of surfaces with spray cleaner. Sure Spook had his reasons. He wasn’t about to go into them. He might not be very good at keeping his cock in his pants, but he was a superb secret keeper. If he was told something that wasn’t meant for other ears, he was never the one to spill the beans.

Dammit! He knelt in a puddle of them, the nasty fart inducers, so he was forced to use the cleaning cloth on himself.

They fell into silence as they worked. Xane watched Luthor from the corner of his eye. Spook’s vow of abstinence predated the band, but curiously none of them had ever really questioned it, or, if they had asked why, they’d been content with an answer that told them nothing. If Luthor was actually going to dig, things might get awkward.

‘Why are you interested in Spook?’ he asked.

‘I’m not specifically.’ Luthor snapped on a pair of yellow Marigolds before dunking his hand in the bucketful of water to start mopping the more gruesome areas. ‘I just thought it was a band secret, and I might get initiated into the inner circle now I’m a fully signed member.’

‘He’s just weird,’ Rock Giant replied, saving Xane the necessity of concocting an answer that didn’t require him to lie. ‘That and someone needs to act as a counterbalance to Mr Geist here.’

‘I don’t think there’s an actual limit to how much sex the band can have overall,’ Xane said.

‘Isn’t there?’

‘Why are we doing the clean-up?’ Luthor asked. ‘Can’t you get the roadies to do it, or a professional cleaning company?’

It seemed their new recruit was keen to leave his schlepping, dogsbody days behind him.

‘The roadies are busy sorting the gear and making sure it all gets shipped back to England, and we’re not going to find a professional cleaning company at zero notice.’ Leastways, not one that wouldn’t photograph every inch of the damage and start a black-market sale of their broken possessions. ‘Besides, what else are we going to do with our time?’

Luthor scratched his head, where a line of the blond strands had been shaved away and numerous steri-strips were now stuck over a gash in his scalp. ‘I can think of a few things.’

‘You’re worse than he is, if you can look at the state of this place and get a hard-on.’ Rock Giant looked at Luthor, and then squared his attention on Xane. ‘I’m going to start on the back room.’

‘Have fun …’

‘But not too much fun …’

Luthor straightened up from his scrubbing task. ‘I thought you’d have gone straight to see Dani.’

‘I’m not entirely sure where she is. Hopefully on her way here if my message to her got through.’

‘Does that make this a good time to talk?’

‘About what?’

‘Us.’ Luthor removed the gloves and hung them over the edge of the bucket.

‘What do we need to say? Everything’s sorted out.’ Tension brewed in his veins as Luthor turned his hypnotic mismatched eyes upon him.

‘Is it? I’m not sure that’s true.’

‘Dani agreed it’s OK, we can …’ She’d watched them make love, got turned on by it, agreed that him wanting Luthor in addition to her didn’t have to be a problem.

‘We can what, Xane? Shag one another senseless while she watches? That’s not really what I want out of this.’ He pointed to Xane and then himself. ‘I don’t think it’s what you want either. For starters, it means I can’t do this unless she’s standing right here.’ He slid one hand around the back of Xane’s neck and drew him forward into a kiss. A kiss that Xane more than welcomed. He opened his mouth to it and groaned in pleasure as their tongues clashed and he wrapped his arms around Luthor’s back.

However, Luthor was right: it technically wasn’t permitted. They were no freer to do this now than he’d been a little over a day ago. Though really, where was the harm in it? It was only a kiss. It wasn’t as if they were about to hump one another blind amid the detritus with Rock Giant watching them from the bedroom. He didn’t doubt that the big guy was doing exactly that. Rock Giant liked to prove his heterosexuality by watching guys make out and then proclaiming the lack of agitation in his pants. That and, like every other member of Black Halo, he was a nosy bugger.

It was just a kiss. How could Dani say it was OK for them to fuck in her presence, but not engage in any sort of affectionate or sexual behaviour in privacy? Maybe Luthor did have a point. He’d been so excited and relieved yesterday that she was happy and wasn’t going to leave him that he’d not analysed the reality of what they’d agreed to.

‘I’m not interested in just being your fuck toy, Xane. I don’t want to be the guy you call when you and Dani feel like spicing things up a little.’

‘You won’t be. Just give things a chance to settle.’

‘I’m not expecting perfection overnight. I just want to know exactly what it is I’m getting myself into, because I thought it was a relationship.’

‘It is … It will be.’ Xane fisted a handful of Luthor’s T-shirt and jerked the cotton up enough so that he could rub his other hand against the skin he exposed. Luthor was so frickin’ perfect to hold and touch, with his work-hardened physique and long slender limbs. He was damned good to look at too, and that was before you even got as far as his natural heterochromia. One sea-green eye and one tawny drank down his image.

‘Is that a promise? Do you swear it?’

Xane answered by pushing his tongue into Luthor’s mouth and initiating another round of fierce kissing. He shifted his stance so that their hips ground against one another, providing some welcome friction where he suddenly needed it.

‘I love the way your tongue stud feels.’

‘Yeah.’ Xane pushed his hands into the back of Luthor’s baggy jeans and grabbed himself a satisfying handful of firm arse. ‘Wait until you feel it caressing your cock.’

‘It has caressed my cock, and I can recall exactly how mind-blowingly good it felt. Too bad a blowjob is beyond the bounds of your accord.’

‘Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Luthor.’

‘Am I making it hard?’ He pushed a hand between their bodies and copped a feel of Xane’s cock where it was trapped behind his zip. ‘I guess I’m making something hard.’ He squeezed. ‘You can see the problem we’re going to have, can’t you? If we spend time together, it’s inevitable that things are going to get tense, but actual relief, that’s not allowed.’

Yes, he could see the dilemma, and his mind was frantically trying to see a way around it, but, as Luthor said, there wasn’t one, other than somehow conjuring Dani out of thin air and having her just stand and watch. Even if he could do that with a simple snap of his fingers, he couldn’t see her patiently standing by and observing them even kissing, let alone screwing one another above once a week, and possibly not even that often.

Luthor was right, there were serious holes in the plan, and yet he understood why she’d insisted on those conditions. Dani wasn’t specifically trying to keep them apart, or torture them; she was trying to buy herself some security. He couldn’t snatch that from her, not when she was adapting and trying so hard to understand and give him what he wanted.

He pushed Luthor to arm’s length, breathing hard through his open mouth. ‘Stop … We have to stop … show some restraint.’

‘For how long?’

He didn’t have an answer to that question. ‘Let her get used to the idea of us. Then we can reopen the negotiations.’

‘Or I could just get down on my knees right now and suck you off.’

‘Don’t.’ Xane held out his palm to keep Luthor at a distance, but with his other hand he was toying with the fastening of his jeans. ‘Take the bucket, go and help Rock Giant.’

‘I don’t think he wants my lips around his cock.’

Xane turned his back. He didn’t know why Luthor was being like this, after he’d been so reasonable before, but piling on an additional layer of stress when he was already feeling stretched and torn wasn’t helping him keep his head clear. Sex, after all, was his drug of choice. It had ever been his method of checking out of bad situations. Flood the pleasure centres and the world became a happy place. If he was fucking, he didn’t have to think, but not thinking about this was only going to get him into trouble.

‘Did I hear you offering me a blowjob?’

Praise be for Rock Giant. That bastard had just saved him.

‘Graham didn’t actually make you sign up to that as part of your contract, did he? I enjoy getting head as much as the next guy, but I’m strictly no-dudes when it comes to my tackle.’

‘I just had to make myself available … to play,’ Luthor clarified. ‘The contract didn’t cover blowjobs.’

‘No dodgy codicils or anything.’ Rock Giant scratched his armpit.

‘No.’

‘That’s OK, then.’ He held up his mobile phone. ‘I just got a call from Elspeth. Apparently Graham and Sally want to talk to us all. We’re to head over to the motorhome for a conflab. Decisions need to be made about what happens next.’

Chapter 1

Three weeks later. July 17, Sweden.

‘No, Xane, don’t!’

Dani’s protest went unheeded as her lover pressed her against the side of the tour bus, trapping her between warm metal and his scorching hot body. She supposed saying ‘wait up’ to a sex-addicted rock star was rather like taking an alcoholic to a bar and then forbidding them to drink. And she could hardly protest if her efforts were having the desired effect when she’d dressed to entice him.

It was the location and timing that were the issues.

Dani clasped her hand tight over Xane’s where he’d just slid it beneath the hem of her regrettably short skirt. ‘Will you behave? Your band-mates are going to be here any minute.’

‘Then that’s a minute we can use to our advantage.’

Trust him to see it that way. Not that she really minded, because while she certainly didn’t share his exhibitionist tendencies, Xane only had to quirk his brows the way he was doing right now and her insides started fizzing with excitement. From everything she’d heard and read about relationships, the first flush of love ought to have been wearing off a little now, but that wasn’t her experience. Looking at Xane still made her heart skip a beat. She still woke beside him and grinned inanely at her good fortune, and the sex … Well, the sex still happened all of the time. Whenever they had a minute or three spare, in fact.

The only slightly troublesome aspect of their relationship was Xane’s attraction to his band’s new drummer, Luthor Albrecht. Dani had tentatively agreed that it was OK for Xane to see him too, but she’d not had to think about that over the last 22 days, because Luthor had been off drumming for his former band, Denna Rädsla.

‘Dani,’ Xane coaxed her with his come-to-bed eyes and a husky purr. He stroked a finger down the side of her throat.

Dammit! How did you say no to six foot of solid muscle with the hots for you? You couldn’t. Leastways, she couldn’t. Not when he had bone-structure to rival the gods, and his beauty hit you like a smack in the guts. He literally took her breath away, every time.

‘No one is going to see us. There’s no one around to see us.’ As far as Xane was concerned his band-mates didn’t count, not that they were here yet, but they would be, and all too soon.

After their lead guitarist had collapsed on stage during their last gig, and innumerable troubles with their former drummer had led to their current tour being delayed, the various members of the band had gone their separate ways in order to get some quality R&R. Today was when that vacation ended and they were supposed to start pulling their shit back together – Xane’s words, not hers. Although he still hadn’t explained why that meant they had to meet in a quayside carpark in some random Swedish town.

‘I don’t think the fish are interested in us.’

‘There’s a windsurfer on the lake.’

‘Yeah.’ Xane turned his head, causing his dark hair to stir against his leather jacket as he checked him out. ‘And he’d have to be Hawkeye to realise what we’re doing from that distance.’

‘He could be.’

‘Superheroes aren’t real, Dani.’

They were. He’d been her superhero for years, long before they’d accidentally bumped into one another, but she didn’t feel like arguing the point. ‘An old person or someone with little kids might wander past. It’s not right to go flashing them.’

‘It’s nine p.m., past their bedtime.’

‘It’s the holidays, they could be up late.’

‘Right, and a sea monster might just rise from the depths to ogle my naked arse too. Admit it, Dani, really this is about you not wanting to share, not the remote possibility of corrupting an innocent.’

Dani pursed her lips, because maybe there was a grain of truth in his observation. It wasn’t so much random strangers happening upon them that she was worried about, as what would happen if Luthor turned up and caught them. She’d die if he tried to join in. The morning the three of them had spent in Halmstad making sense of their feelings and figuring out a way forward now seemed like a half-forgotten dream from a lifetime ago. A dream she’d prefer to forget.

She’d foolishly let Xane drink his fill of Luthor’s body, said ‘OK, I guess it can happen again as long as I’m aware of it,’ and then nothing more was said because events had overtaken them. Consequently, she had had to think about Luthor and his sexy smile for weeks. Now she was riddled with anxiety. He’d been all she could think about for the last two nights. He’d haunted her dreams, crept into bed beside her and Xane and smothered them both in dream kisses. This morning she’d woken having orgasmed in her sleep, as Luthor pushed in alongside Xane.

He was even indirectly responsible for her choice of outfit today. There could be no slumming it in a pair of tatty old jeans when she was about to face stiff competition for Xane’s attention.

‘And there goes another wasted minute while you pretend you don’t want to get off.’ Xane flashed her a glimpse of the gold stud through his tongue. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t want me to make you squeal.’

Black Halo fangirls creamed their panties over fantasies of Xane Geist going down on them. Dani was his number-one fangirl, plus she knew what he could actually do with his tongue, which made it damn near impossible not to melt on the spot.

‘Maybe if we hopped back on the bus for a minute or two.’

‘Cave Troll locked it before he headed off to find a shop.’

Dani wasn’t entirely convinced that Troels would have locked them outside – too risky, considering how often Xane got mobbed – but as Xane wasn’t about to budge and allow her to check, it was largely irrelevant.

‘Why don’t you open your legs a little?’ Xane played with the strand of her hair that was resting against her cheek.

Dani made the mistake of peering into his eyes. Neither alienesque contact lenses nor sunglasses covered them today, meaning she got the full dose of his heartbreaking baby blues. Well, actually more grey than blue, but … Damn! Why did he have to be so pretty? Those cheekbones, the long slender line of his nose, even the piercings, one through the centre of his lower lip and two through his left eyebrow, made her tingle in places where a woman didn’t really want to get an itch in public.

‘What’ll you do?’

‘Tickle you somewhere only a dirty girl would allow me to touch.’

‘My fancy?’ She giggled. ‘I’m not a dirty girl.’

‘But wouldn’t you like to be one?’ He leaned in close, so he could whisper in her ear. ‘I want to get dirty with you. I want to suck your clit and put my fingers and my cock inside you. Do you want to get dirty with me?’

‘It’s wrong, Xane.’ Not to mention it could get them arrested. Sure, Sweden was a liberal country, but it still had public decency laws.

‘Fucking you is never wrong.’

Her heart-rate kicked up a notch. For a moment an internal war raged in her head, religious indoctrination on one side and unrepentant sinner on the other. Sex is wrong, Dani. Sex is wrong. Wanting it is wrong. Letting him fuck you is wrong. An orgasm is the devil’s way of entrapping you. Every time you come, you’re trading him a piece of your soul. It’s called the little death, because you’re giving away God’s eternal love.

‘How could me expressing my love for you ever be wrong?’

True. The damned Sisterhood of St Agatha had much to answer for, filling her mind with so much crap. She was trying to shake it all out, but it wasn’t an easy battle. Of course climaxing didn’t buy you a one-way ticket to hell.

Common sense prevailed. She parted her thighs.

Xane’s hand immediately filled the space, his long, clever fingers curling against her sex. ‘Babe, you’re already wet for me.’

Well, he was her personal invitation to sin and enjoy it, the man who always managed to convince her to sod propriety in favour of naughtiness. Was it any surprise her panties got wet when he leaned this close and promised to do wicked things to her? If it was, it really shouldn’t be.

‘I think these need to come off, don’t you?’ He plucked at the side of her knickers. ‘Why not step out of them?’ He helped by tugging them down to her thighs, and from there it was simply a matter of giving a little wiggle and gravity did the rest, leaving the scrap of silk and lace around her ankles.

‘Much better.’ Xane rested the heel of his hand over her mons, while two fingers traced the split of her pussy. ‘Now, how about a few little pointers? Why don’t you tell me what it is you’d like me to do?’

‘I don’t think you want me to tell you what I want. I think you want me to tell you what you want.’

‘What I want?’

‘Yes,’ she sighed against his lips.

‘And what is it I want, Dani?’ His fingers were already sliding against her wet clit, making the little pearl stand up hard and proud.

‘You want me to ride against your hand and work myself up to a fever point, until I’m begging you to slide those fingers inside me, in order to stretch me wide for your cock. Then you’re going to edge down your zip ever so slowly and show yourself off to me. You’re thick and long and hard, too big to fit in my hand, too big for me to believe you’ll ever fit inside me.’

‘Sorry, whose fantasy is this?’

‘Yours. Definitely yours.’

‘I think it’s your fantasy. If it was mine, there’d be fewer lingering details about my cock and more about your nakedness. I want to see you lift that skirt right up and show me what you’ve got for me.’

She shook her head. It wasn’t happening. Not just because she’d be mortified if his band-mates stumbled upon them while she was displaying herself like that, but because she couldn’t risk anyone seeing the sin marks that etched the flesh of her hips and upper thighs. The questions that would be asked would be a trillion times worse than any embarrassment over being caught having sex.

‘Not even a little glimpse, just for me?’

She shook her head.

‘Still worried about Hawkeye?’

‘No, the rest of Black Halo. Xane, they could be here any second.’

He did glance over his shoulder, but the quayside remained empty apart from them, and one lone car at the far end of the carpark. ‘I’ll wager I can get you off twice before any of them put in an appearance.’

‘Twice.’ Oh, God!

‘Do you accept?’

‘Xane, I’m not sure.’

‘Honestly, Dani –’ he imitated an irritable tut ‘– I can’t believe you have so little faith in me. You should know by now, I have all the skills.’

Yes, all the skills, little or no self-restraint, and exhibitionist tendencies that she didn’t share, and yet she was wriggling on the spot so that the lips of her pussy rubbed against his fingers, getting her wetter by the second. ‘How are you going to?’ she asked.

‘On my knees, with my tongue.’ He poked it out and wiggled it at her. ‘And possibly employing a finger or two.’

‘If you do that it’s going to be completely obvious to anyone passing—’

‘There is no one passing by.’ He held her gaze. ‘Let me give you this, Dani. It’ll help you relax. You think I don’t know you’re worked up about me seeing Luthor, but I know. I get it, but you really don’t have anything to fear.’

‘I don’t.’ Heat flooded Dani’s cheeks, but before she could bow her head, Xane was holding her and kissing her in a way that damn near robbed her of all rational thought. It certainly drove all thoughts of the other man from her head.

‘You don’t. You never have to worry about Luthor.’

‘You’re not going to—’

He stopped her words, her thoughts with his kisses, made her forget for a moment that she was Daniella Fosbrook, the girl abandoned by her dad and left with her crazy mother. She stopped being the girl whose sins scarred her flesh and who was terrified of losing the man she loved to another man. She became an object of pure desire instead. Her nails raked against Xane’s back as she hugged his hard body to her so that her breasts were squashed against his chest.

‘I love you, Dani. I’m not going to do anything to risk what we have. We’ll take things as slowly as you like with Luthor. It’ll be OK.’

She liked Luthor. She kept reminding herself of that fact.

They were friends, and he’d promised, sworn that he wouldn’t deliberately steal Xane away. He’d said it wasn’t in his interests, because he wanted her too. Too bad, she wasn’t interested in that. She had Xane. She didn’t need another man, regardless of whether she found him attractive. The one she had was more than enough, as he was currently down on his knees proving.

‘You have such a gorgeous cunt.’

‘Xane!’

‘What? It’s true. I love the way your cunt tastes too, and how it’s so tight and grips my fingers.’

‘Don’t call it that.’

‘Cunt? Why not? It is what it is, and it’s such a deliciously evocative word, don’t you think?’

‘It’s so harsh. Coarse. I don’t like it.’

‘I suppose you’d prefer if I called it your sex or your pussy?’ He shook his head at the notion. ‘I’m more of a dirty-fucking sort of guy. And that’s how you like it too.’

‘I don’t,’ she mouthed, barely sounding the words, but she knew he heard her and didn’t believe her. Hey, she didn’t even believe herself, not when she was so blatantly aware of what his dirty loving did to her. It made her overheat, exactly as he was doing now.

Xane grinned up at her. ‘That’s funny, because every time I say it, your juices run thicker onto my tongue and it makes you shiver like you’re about to come.’

That couldn’t be true.

It was totally true.

‘Hello, cunt,’ he teased, tickling all her folds with his tongue, and then lavishing flicks and kisses on her clit. ‘You’re so fucking pretty I can’t even begin to describe how much I want to stick my cock into you.’

Dani tried not to wriggle, as it would only prove him right, but goddammit, she wanted his touch, his words – craved all of it.

‘Need to rub up against my thigh?’

‘No, you’re good right there.’

‘Am I? Am I really?’

Damn him, he could be such an incorrigible tease. Her irritation melted away the moment his tongue-piercing made contact with her clit, as did her worries about his friends arriving. Instead, her synapses burned with pleasure, as he took her from zero to a hundred in about three-point-six seconds.

‘Xane.’ She danced on the spot, unable to keep her body still, it was fizzing with so much trapped energy.

‘Yeah,’ he drawled. ‘Let it flow, Dani. I know you want to come for me.’

She inhaled sharply through her teeth as warning tremors shook her body. Her spine arched, head tipping backwards so that it bumped against the side of the tour bus, but she barely registered the thud. Because yes, she did want it, and he was making it happen.

Dani came hard against his mouth. Her limbs turned to jelly, but Xane held her steady, refusing to allow her to melt into a puddle on the tarmac. He wasn’t through with her yet. Almost the second she came down from her flight, he had her shooting back into the clouds again, his tongue on her clit and this time two fingers pushing inside her.

If the paparazzi turned up now she’d look every inch the slut her mother had always accused her of being. But then, her mother was a mad woman whose opinion she no longer needed to worry about. In any case, she could have settled down with the most vanilla man on the planet to a life of technicoloured tranquillity with a white picket fence and two-point-four children and she’d still have been a whore in her mother’s eyes. Why was she even thinking about the stupid woman?

‘Fuck me, Xane,’ she whispered. ‘Lift me up and slide into me.’

He was on his feet immediately. ‘Babe, I thought you’d never ask.’

Another man might have ripped open his fly and shoved inside her right away, but not Xane, not the man who continuously lived up to her every fantasy. He teased open his fly millimetre by millimetre, giving her exactly the sort of show she’d described. The man had a body to die for, ripped muscle and inked skin that made her lick her lips in appreciation. ‘Hello, handsome.’

He laughed. ‘Which of us are you talking about?’ Her gaze was fastened on the tip of his cock.

‘Both of you.’ She peeped up at him. His lips and chin were shiny with her juices.

‘Any preferences as to how madam would like me?’

Dani licked her lips. Her nervousness about being caught hadn’t entirely disappeared. It never did, but there was always a point of no return with Xane, a moment when excitement dwarfed any fears. ‘Inside me, now.’

Xane leaned into her, obliterating the gap between them. His mouth met hers in a hungry kiss as he lifted her into his arms. Dani wrapped her legs around his hips, trusting him to support her. She wasted no time in reaching down and letting his hot length fill her palm.

‘Fuck,’ he hissed as she stroked him. He bucked when she traced a ring around the tip of him.

‘Guide me in, sweetheart.’

She rubbed him against the split of her sex, enjoying the anticipation of knowing he was so close, but they weren’t quite joined.

Xane dug his teeth into his lower lip. His eyelids fluttered as she continued to tease him. She was so wet for him that their bodies were making sticky sounds.

‘You’re determined to make me wait for this, eh?’

‘Just reassuring myself that it’s really what you want.’

‘How can you even doubt it?’

‘I doubt everything.’

He was holding on tight to her, maintaining their balance, but somehow managed to slide a hand into her hair and bring her head forwards so that their brows touched. ‘You don’t need to doubt this. I’m yours, Dani. I’m so very definitely yours.’

‘And Luthor’s.’

‘That’s irrelevant. What I feel for him doesn’t change how I feel for you.’

She teased his earlobe with her teeth. ‘How do you feel about me?’

‘Crazy.’

‘Do I turn you on?’

‘What do you think?’

Dani flexed her inner muscles around him, tugging him deeper, and causing his breath to catch.

‘Do that again.’

She did.

‘And again.’

Xane slowed his movement, and let her do the work. ‘Fuck, that feels nice.’

‘No stalling,’ she chastised. ‘Show me some jackhammer loving.’

‘Speed demon.’

‘Fast and furious, that’s me.’

He cocked a brow. ‘Somebody watching?’

‘No.’

‘Because, you know, if they are, I’m going to have to take things extra slow. I wouldn’t want to ruin my reputation as a stud by hammering you like a randy college boy.’

She laughed. ‘There’s nobody watching.’

‘Glad to see we finally agree on that point.’ He grinned, showing her a hint of teeth. ‘Therefore, I guess it’s OK for me to do this.’ He quickened his thrusts again, pushing her away a little to lean against the bus, and then pulling her hips forward so that she completely engulfed his cock. A couple of thrusts like that and his lips peeled back as he gritted his teeth, trying to hold it all together and simultaneously maintain the pace.

Dani clawed at his back, wishing she could tear through his T-shirt to reach the skin beneath. She hated being naked, but she loved seeing Xane in the buff, because he was ripped and inked, and had rings through his nipples that she liked to suck on.

His movements became a little ragged, and his hold on her slipped. Dani locked her legs more tightly around his waist. She didn’t want this to stop, or for them to fall apart, although the idea of him turning her around, shoving her dress right up so that he could fondle her nipples while he jammed her against the warm metal of the bus and did her from behind, certainly fired her imagination.

But it was only ever happening in her head.

Xane’s big hands found a purchase on her arse as their bodies continued to slap together in a steady rhythm. She could feel the tension building inside him. His pulse throbbed against the side of his temple, and a line of perspiration formed above his lip.

‘God, I fucking love you.’ He slid his hand into her hair and pulled her forward so that their mouths met in a hard, biting kiss. Then he was thrusting deep and crying out, while his grip tightened almost to the point of being painful. ‘Dani … Fuck, Dani …’ His loins glued themselves to hers and she felt the spurt of his come inside her. It was enough to tip her over the edge again. And enough, at least for a moment, for her to forget about their surroundings.

At the sound of a quiet round of applause, Dani opened her eyes and gave a screech.

Cave Troll was standing a few feet away, watching them.

‘Damn … damn …’ She tried to straighten her clothes, but Xane was still inside her and wouldn’t let go. ‘Put me down, Xane. Right now.’

‘Take a breath. It’s OK.’ He kissed the tip of her nose. Then he turned his head to address their observer. ‘Fuck off, mate. You’re making the lady jittery.’

‘You can’t crucify a guy for watching when you’re shagging out in the open.’

‘I’m just saying, give us a moment.’

‘That’s all you’ve got. Spook’s on his way across, and I’ve just seen Rock Giant too.’ Black Halo’s favourite roadie then ambled back up the tour-bus steps as if it was commonplace to have a chat with people who were making out.

‘You OK?’ Xane asked.

Dani nodded. ‘Put me down, though, before they get here.’

Xane lowered her gently. He’d only bared his arse, for his jeans were slim-fitting and clung to his thighs. He tucked his rapidly fading hard-on back inside them and zipped up.

Dani kicked her knickers out of sight underneath the bus, then instantly regretted it. Her skirt was too short to be going commando. ‘I need to nip back onto the bus.’ She hastily kissed Xane on the cheek, then slipped out of his grasp and followed Cave Troll up the steps. All her possessions were packed in her suitcase ready to leave, but Xane had left a stash of things in the closet. She quickly rifled through the items in the upper bunk room and found a pair of clingy shorts. They were a little on the large side, but at least she wasn’t going to unintentionally flash anyone. Now all she had to do was brace herself for seeing Luthor.

Chapter 2

Xane watched Dani hurry up the steps onto the tour bus, disappointed that she felt she needed to hide. He understood her reasons. He just didn’t necessarily get them, but then he hadn’t had his skin sliced open by a group of religious nuts every time a dirty thought had crossed his mind. If he had, they’d have run out of skin a long time ago.

If he had his way, the evil witches responsible for making Dani’s life such hell would be doing jail time right now. He wished Dani would report them, but her expression turned cold and the light in her eyes died if he so much as mentioned it. At least it seemed her father wasn’t quite the prick she’d been led to believe. Dani had contacted him a few times now via Skype, and there was even talk of them meeting up at some point.

‘Did I scare her off?’ Spook asked, joining Xane by the side of the tour bus.

‘She wanted to freshen up.’ He noticed her panties poking out from under the bus, and hunched down to retrieve them.

‘Corrupting her again?’ Spook asked, watching Xane stuff the scrap of silk and lace into his pocket.

‘She initiated everything.’

Spook clapped him across the back. ‘Only in your dreams.’ They stood back and looked one another over for a moment. Three weeks wasn’t a long time, considering the length of their friendship, but there had still been a few changes. Spook’s blond hair was a good few inches shorter, and the skin on his upper arm was still slightly pink around the design of a new tattoo.

‘Let’s have a look.’ Xane turned his friend’s arm so he could see the design. It was clearly another variant on the Norse theme of Spook’s other tattoos.

‘Mjolnir,’ Spook elaborated. ‘Thor’s Hammer.’

‘Looks good. That the only new addition?’

‘For the moment.’

They began walking towards the lake edge, where rows upon rows of speedboats and sailboats were moored. Xane looked back, but there was still no sign of Dani. Xane prayed she wasn’t cowering in a closet.

‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ Spook asked. ‘I like her, Xane, and she’s good for you, anyone can see that, but it’s obvious she’s way out of her depth. You’re a dirty fucker, you don’t need me to point that out, and she’s like spun sugar. I’m not sure she’s really cut out to be part of your threesome fantasies.’

‘We’re not a threesome. Dani and Luthor aren’t fucking. Nor have I embroiled her in anything. She was the one who insisted on Luthor and me making out.’

‘You’re fucking them both, Xane, or you will be as soon as our new drummer puts in an appearance, and don’t pretend you haven’t been fantasising about taking them both to bed. I know you. I know how your mind works, especially when it’s your cock doing the thinking. But you need to get your head in the game, because you can’t screw this up. We need Luthor to stick around or this band is going to dissolve around our ears. Black Halo can’t take another drama. We’re barely holding together as it is.’

The last few months had been rough, starting with Elspeth and Steve’s shock marriage, followed by Steve’s untimely death and then all the unpleasantness with Iain. Yet somehow they’d weathered all that, and things had to get better from this point on … had to.

There wouldn’t be any more drama. Especially not where they were heading.

‘Do you think the others are going to show?’ Spook asked.

‘Why wouldn’t they?’

His friend shot him a side-eye.

‘They’ll be here,’ Xane said decisively. The bastards had better be, or he was going to chop them into itty little bits.

Spook rubbed the non-existent fuzz upon his jaw. ‘Well, Ash will be. He and Ginny are flying in by helicopter later today.’

‘Troels said he’d seen Rock Giant.’

‘Then I guess things look promising.’ They strolled on a little further, finally coming to a halt beside the Valkyrie, a white and blue speedboat with a sleek wood and leather interior. ‘This is us. You may as well hop on board.’

‘I’ll go back and get the bags.’ He turned to find Dani already heading towards him alongside Cave Troll, who was carrying their luggage. Having ascertained his help wasn’t required, Xane climbed into the belly of the boat alongside Spook, who started checking various dials. ‘Haven’t you been home?’ Xane asked.

‘No, I decided to stick around in Karlstad and make sure things were fine for Ash.’

‘But someone has filled the fridge, right?’

‘I have a housekeeper. I’m sure she’s stocked up on everything you could possibly want, including what anyone else would consider a year’s supply of prophylactics.’

Xane hooked his arm around Spook’s neck and planted a kiss upon his cheek. ‘That’s sweet of you to have added condoms to the shopping list.’

Spook recoiled from the contact. ‘Yeah, well, you might not consider me so sweet when I ban shagging on my property. Get the fuck off me, Xane.’

‘Bastard. You wouldn’t.’

Spook bent over, laughing. ‘Totally might if your inability to keep it in your pants starts impacting the group harmony. God, your face! Poor little Xane. Can’t contemplate going more than a few hours without sex or his knob might fall off.’

Xane stuck out his tongue. ‘Shagging is good for the soul.’

‘Not having to deal with your relationship shit is good for mine. Have to question my own sanity agreeing to hole up on a tiny strip of land in the middle of a lake with you, your two current lovers and your ex.’

‘No less sensible than riding on a tour bus with me for the last God knows how many years.’

‘Yeah, that’s true.’

Xane jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow. ‘Lighten up, will you? We’re going to relax, recuperate and emerge in a month or so with a score of new tracks and all our heads screwed on the right way.’

The misgivings swimming in Spook’s pale eyes remained. ‘That’ll be novel. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with your head on right.’

‘Nah, mostly it’s halfway up his arse,’ a voice boomed from several feet away.

‘Paul.’

‘Rock Giant, my man.’ Xane greeted him by sticking out his hand, but the other man simply knocked it aside, locked him in a hug and thumped him across the back with enough force to leave Xane spluttering.

‘What happened to you? You look as if you’ve been dip-dyed,’ Spook asked the newcomer, squinting at the medley of green and purple tie-dye – and that was just his hair.

Rock Giant ignored the question and threw his oversized duffel bag into a corner of the boat. ‘Is this it? Where is everyone?’

‘Ash and Ginny are coming later. They’re sneaking him out of the hospital. Dani’s right here.’ Spook nodded at her as she boarded, and Cave Troll passed her the suitcases. ‘So we’re just waiting on Elspeth and Luthor.’

‘Yeah.’ Rock Giant stroked a hand through the multi-coloured strands of his hair. ‘Elspeth’s not coming. That is, she’s not coming yet. I’m sure she’ll be here in time for your party. Yep, definitely, she will be.’ He nodded at Xane.

‘What the fuck do you mean, she’s not coming? We’re supposed to be getting together to work.’

On a personal level, Xane didn’t actually give a shit whether Queen Elspeth turned up. The rift she’d opened when she’d run off and married his best friend had barely scabbed over. It’d be a long time before he forgave her for all the shit that one act of utter selfishness had caused, but on a professional level they needed her here. The purpose of meeting up and descending on Spook’s place wasn’t to chill out, eat birthday cake and have fun – though they would do some of that – but so they could start getting their shit together for the next album, and make decent use of the time they had on their hands because of the postponement of their Requiem for the Damned tour.

‘I mean she’s not coming. She sent me a text about an hour ago. See …’ He held up his mobile phone so that Xane could see the message.

E: NOT COMING. Will try to make it for the party.

‘That’s it? No friggin’ explanation?’

‘Maybe she just needs to be away from you.’ Rock Giant slipped the phone back into a pocket. ‘So, moving on to the two big questions; how long do we wait for the new guy, and who gets to drive this beauty?’

Spook made an immediate dive towards the steering wheel. ‘Oh, no, you’re not driving.’

‘Aw, come on. That’s not fair. You know I love driving, and this is … this is a speedboat.’ The way he extended ‘speed’ into the sound of a buzzing engine raised a host of smiles, but every one of them shook their heads at the same time, Spook the most emphatically.

‘You big pussies. You bunch of lame-arsed pansies. What happened to living dangerously and enjoying some good old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll madness?’

‘It’s a lake. It’s cold, and none of us fancy a swim at the moment.’ Spook held on tight to the steering wheel as Rock Giant attempted to bodyslam him out of the way, leading the rest of them to scramble for secure footing and something to cling to. Dani wrapped herself tightly around Xane. ‘I’ve heard about his driving.’

‘Don’t worry. He’s not driving.’

Spook seemed adamant about that fact too. ‘The members of this band have sustained enough bumps, injuries and emotional scars over the last few months without enduring a white-knuckle ride because you’re at the wheel.’

‘An invigorating shake-up is exactly what we need.’

‘Fucking don’t.’

‘Fucking do.’

‘And you’re licenced to drive this baby, are you?’ Spook waved some Swedish documentation in Paul’s face. Maybe it was some kind of licence or basic training requirement, Xane wasn’t sure. Spook was the only one of them who could read the language.

‘What is that?’

Spook neatly avoided Paul’s grab for it, dipping beneath his arm, nimble as a goddamned elf.

‘It’s the local pizza menu, isn’t it, or the life-jacket instructions.’

‘It’s the bit of paper that says you need to get your butt away from the helm, and take a seat. I’ll be driving, and if you don’t like that fact, tough shit, buy your own boat.’

‘Bastard white walker … fucking troll … bastard fucking white-walking troll,’ Paul muttered to himself, though he did park his backside in one of the leather seats as instructed.

Xane fell into the seat beside him, with Dani still tucked under his arm. ‘How was the folk festival?’ he asked in a bid to distract Rock Giant from his mulish tirade.

Paul continued to glare balefully at Spook’s back.

‘Rain constantly?’

‘Nah, baking. How’d you think I got so crispy fried?’ He showed off one of his fore-arms, the skin a deep nut-brown. ‘I looked like a goddamned lobster after the first six hours, and yes, I “slip, slop, slapped” with factor a zillion. It was Elspeth’s stuff, it’s like white paste. You know what she’s like about maintaining her complexion and staying out of the sun.’

‘So she did the festival with you?’

‘No.’ Finally Rock Giant stopped glaring at Spook. ‘She bailed on me pretty quickly and said she was going to book herself into a spa. I hung with my folks during and after the festival, so I haven’t seen or heard from her beyond a couple of texts.’

‘Paul, we need to know if she’s about to walk.’

Rock Giant defensively crossed his arms. ‘I don’t know that she is. I just know that she’s still taking Steve’s death particularly hard. You need to cut her some slack, Xane. She was deeply in love, and now the guy’s gone. It’s not easy being around you, knowing what you shared and what she sacrificed, and having to watch you getting sappy with not one but two new lovers, when she doesn’t have anyone.’

‘What, so I’m supposed to pretend I’m miserable, so that she doesn’t have to feel so alone?’

‘I didn’t say that. Just give her some space. It’s not like we’re going to accomplish masses between now and your birthday. You know she’ll be here for that.’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes. You know it, because despite what you want to believe, she does care about you. She cares about every member of this band.’

‘She was really upset over Ash’s collapse and you nearly dying,’ Dani added, surprising him. His current girlfriend and his ex didn’t exactly get along.

‘Hm. Maybe.’ It didn’t mean he couldn’t be pissed over the fact she hadn’t shown up. Actually, maybe he was more peeved over Luthor’s absence and the lack of communication he’d received on that front. He and Dani had enjoyed themselves the last few weeks, being tourists between visits to Ash and Skype calls to Dani’s father, but he’d be lying if his dreams hadn’t sometimes been filled with visions of Luthor and the fun things he’d like to do to him.

‘Your boy’s here,’ Cave Troll announced from the jetty. ‘Car’s just pulled up. So I’m going to head off.’

‘Aren’t you coming with us?’ Dani asked.

‘Nope. You don’t need roadies to sit in a studio, and someone has to drive the bus home.’

‘But won’t that take weeks?’

‘A couple of days, tops. It’s not as if I need to make as many pit stops without you lot on board demanding food and wee breaks, and it’s just straight across to Gothenburg and then onto the ferry. That’s the worst bit of it. I’m not overly fond of the North Sea, and this time of year it’ll be packed with tourists and scout groups.’

‘He pukes,’ Paul leaned over Xane’s lap to inform her. ‘Major vomit stench everywhere. Why do you think we came by way of the Chunnel?’

‘Catch you later, mate,’ Xane said. They all waved him off. Luthor passed him on the quayside. His blond hair was ruffled and had blown over his face, masking his eyes, but his mouth was set in a line of grim determination. Xane inhaled the sight of him like a spliff. Pleasure centres across his body sparked into life. Luthor still looked more like a rock climber than a rocker, but the T-shirt, shorts, woolly hat and laced leather boots thing was totally doing it for him right now. He shifted uncomfortably as Dani squeezed his thigh, aware that he was sporting a stiffy that wasn’t for her.

‘Sorry I’m late.’ Luthor threw a backwards glance over his shoulder. ‘I got accosted.’

That had them all twisting to look back across the carpark. Xane expected to see a pack of obsessive fans charging towards them, but was instead greeted by the stern if bosomy vision of Sally Kettering click-clacking towards them on five-inch heels, with a pair of black-suited, shade-wearing Bond wannabes in tow.

He stood. ‘Why’s Sally here?’

‘She’s not happy with the arrangements. Doesn’t think it’ll be safe having us all in the same place without some protection. She’s had Bill and Ted there parked outside the recording studio for the last week while I was drumming for my old crew, and I’ve heard she drafted in a whole troop of them to guard Ash at the hospital.’

‘The hospital has been besieged by fans,’ Spook piped up. ‘They were keeping the peace, but no one knows we’re here outside the members of the band. We don’t need babysitters. Damned interfering woman.’

Xane and Luthor faced one another, and exchanged an awkward handshake.

‘You’d best tell her that,’ Luthor said.

‘Tell me what?’ Sally leered down at them all nestled in the boat.

‘That they’re not setting foot on my property,’ Spook responded, surprising them all. ‘I told you that over the phone. I don’t appreciate you pushing the point.’

Sally fixed on a nervous grin. ‘I thought that ought to be a whole-group decision. You need protecting – just think over a few of the things that have gone wrong recently.’

‘Such as?’ Xane asked.

‘You’re kidding me, right?’ Sally’s heavily pencilled eyebrows arched impressively. ‘You were half-murdered three weeks ago. Ash is still receiving medical treatment, Luthor nearly had his skull caved in and that’s before I get started on the numerous other skirmishes and incidents. Disaster strikes wherever you lot set foot.’

‘Nearly all of that was down to Iain. I’m assuming he’s still under lock and key, so there’s no need for them.’ Xane nodded at the two men who were standing at ease beside her. Obviously ex-military. They looked far too comfortable posed like that.

‘They’re not coming,’ Spook insisted. He started up the boat’s engine.

‘Nothing grim has happened to me recently,’ Rock Giant remarked, ‘and I’ve spent the last few weeks camping in a field with a thousand or so strangers.’

Sally speared him with a withering look that failed to make any impression. Rock Giant had perfected the art of ignoring her, right after they’d hired Sally as their publicist and general worker bee.

He stretched out his long legs. ‘I suppose I could tolerate it if Xane and Ash need sitters though.’

‘We don’t.’ Xane drummed his fist into Rock Giant’s thigh.

‘Would this be a good time to remind you that, if there’d been someone with Steve when he got injured, he’d probably still be in this world rather than the next?’

The reminder of Steve’s death, alone in a hotel room, quieted them all.

‘There’s Ash’s welfare to consider too. While the hospital have agreed to discharge him, it’d be stupid to think he’s fit and healthy. What happens if there’s a problem? Are any of you medically trained? Do you even know how to dress a wound or administer an aspirin?’

‘Happens I do,’ Rock Giant muttered, but no one paid him any attention.

‘Ginny will be watching over Ash like a hawk,’ Spook said.

‘Still, a few extra hands might not go amiss.’

‘They’re not coming.’

Sally gave an exasperated sigh and raised her hands. ‘I get it, all right.’ She made eye contact with each of them in turn. ‘You want some downtime, you don’t want constant reminders of the outside world and you need to regroup and bond again.’ She linked her fingers to emphasise the point. ‘But having a couple of guys looking out for you isn’t going to get in the way of that. You don’t need to socialise. They’re just there. Just in case.’

‘Sally,’ Spook addressed her patiently. ‘It’s a little house, on a teeny island. There’s barely enough room for the band and associated guests, and there’s no staff besides my housekeeper who delivers the shopping and does a quick tidy round. Nobody visits. Nobody drops by unannounced. By all means, have your guys stay here and if any of us decide to go on a road trip they can tag along, but they’re not setting foot inside my home. Got it?’

‘We’ll see about that,’ Sally spat, her complexion turning a horrid shade of puce. ‘Graham’s not going to be impressed by this.’ She jabbed at the face of her mobile phone and put it to her ear. The dial tone was loud enough that they could all hear it, even over the purr of the motor.

‘Are you sure about this?’ Xane asked, leaning over to address Spook.

‘Do you want ninja squad standing over you?’

‘Course not.’

‘Then let’s end this conversation now, before she puts Graham on speakerphone. Untie us.’

Grinning, Xane released the tether, and Spook took them smoothly away from the quayside.

‘Come back you idiots,’ Sally bellowed, chasing them to the end of the jetty, but then they were in open water and out of her reach. ‘You’re going to get yourselves into all sorts of trouble. Spook, turn back this minute. Spook, do you hear me? I’m not happy about this. Graham will hear about this.’

Spook drowned her voice by revving the engine.

Their manager was over a thousand miles away. Who gave a shit if he didn’t like it?

Chapter 3

The island to which they headed was only a few acres across, and sat far enough out on the lake that the quayside they’d left behind resembled something from a scale model. Spook brought the speedboat in to dock at a short stone jetty. At the end of that narrow walkway, a pea-green lawn stretched upward to a traditional wooden house, backed by woodland.

Dani fell into step alongside Spook as they carried the luggage up to the house. ‘So this is home,’ she remarked. ‘It’s so peaceful.’

‘I think “peaceful” might be a relative term. This lot aren’t exactly known for being quiet.’ He tilted his head back towards the rest of the party ambling along behind them. ‘And I dread to think what sort of nonsense they have planned for Xane’s birthday.’

Rock Giant, who was directly behind them, clapped a hand on each of their shoulders and leaned forward between them. ‘Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, obviously.’

‘Not actual drugs?’ Dani gave her lip a nervous nip, while her stomach cramped in fear. She hated the very idea of anything illegal happening. And drugs … drugs were just bad.

Rock Giant squeezed her shoulder. ‘You’re Xane’s drug of choice, anyway, so no need to look so concerned. I didn’t mean it in a literal sense.’

Thank God, her subconscious sighed in relief.

‘Although no doubt he’s going to binge on you all the same. Well, you and the rock-climbing dude.’

Dani glanced back at Xane and Luthor who were walking side by side at the back of the group, their bodies angled towards one another, and stupid smiles eating up their features. They looked sickeningly in love. She tore her gaze away before she let jealousy get the better of her and transform her into a horrid green-eyed monster.

‘Hey, Xane.’ Rock Giant turned so that he was walking back up the hill. ‘Do we get to play pass the parcel at your party?’

When Xane looked up, Rock Giant pulled Dani into an over-affectionate embrace.

‘Keep your filthy hands off her,’ Xane growled.

‘Let go,’ Spook urged Rock Giant, and then hurried her on until they were a few feet ahead.

‘What was that about?’ she asked, confused both by Paul’s overly affectionate manner and Xane’s cussing.

‘Nothing. Paul trying to get a rise out of Xane. It’s what he does when he’s bored. Let it go.’ He scratched his brow. ‘Time to get everyone settled and find Paul something productive to focus on, like making music instead of enemies. It’d be nice to spend at least the first twenty-four hours together without Xane and Paul trying to slaughter one another.’

The two men did snipe at each other a lot, but Dani had always figured that was down to Elspeth’s influence. Maybe the truth was that she only escalated what was already a fairly antagonistic relationship.

‘You’re not going to start working on the new album today though, are you?’

‘We’ll probably just jam for a bit if Ash is up to it once he arrives, and leave the real work for a couple of days.’

By now, they’d reached the gravelled area to the side of the house, and Spook delved in his pocket for his keys. ‘It’s still a bit of a novelty doing this,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve had the place about fourteen months, but I’ve spent less than seven nights here.’

‘How come?’

‘If we’re not touring, we’re in the studio, or doing interviews, or recording videos. Inevitably if I get a few days off it’s easier to chill at my place in England than fly out here. Or if I do get to Sweden, by the time I’ve made the obligatory family visits it’s time to knuckle down to work again.’

‘You make it sound like a standard evil day job.’

‘Except it involves working nights, weekends and living in the public eye.’ He laughed. ‘I wouldn’t change it. Rock Star is an awesome job title.’

Dani found herself laughing along with him.

‘Being a rock-star WAG on the other hand sounds pretty terrible. Urgh!’ She stuck her tongue out. ‘Is that really what I am?’

Having unlocked the door Spook faced her, a smile still inching up the corners of his mouth. ‘Not unless you start dressing in couture and insisting on attending prize ceremonies, charity galas and other red-carpet events so that your picture is never out of the gossip rags.’

‘I don’t much fancy any of that. It was grim enough being hounded by photographers after that stupid video went viral.’

‘Yes, well, you know the solution to that – don’t hump on trains.’

She pitched another glance at Xane over her shoulder. ‘He’s not so easy to say no to.’

‘Is that how you came to agree to share Xane with Luthor?’ Spook welcomed her inside. He flicked on a few lights that gave a warm glow to some dingy corners.

Dani considered her response as she toed off her shoes and left them in the entry-hall-cum-boot-room. Beyond lay a corridor that opened out halfway along into a huge open-plan living space, with a mezzanine level nestled up near the bared rafters.

‘I don’t want to lose him,’ she admitted, when Spook followed her into the room and indicated she was welcome to sit. She flopped onto a ludicrously comfortable sofa. ‘We talked it through. I agreed I was prepared to give things a go with some rules in place.’

Spook nodded. ‘Good luck with that.’

‘I know I can’t be everything he needs, and I don’t want to force him to deny part of himself. Do you not think it’s the right choice?’

‘It’s not my decision.’

She realised that the others hadn’t come in. ‘Did they get lost?’ she asked, standing up and retracing a few of her steps. Rock Giant opened the door to the boot-room at exactly that moment, providing her with a glimpse of the room beyond, and Xane and Luthor entwined within one another’s arms, enjoying a sultry smooch.

Ice water seemed to fill her veins. Spook gently squeezed the top of her arm. ‘Take a breath, Dani. They’re saying hello. I expect they haven’t realised you’re not right beside them.’

‘Yeah.’ She let out a shuddering breath. ‘It’s OK. I’m OK.’

At least Xane released his grip on Luthor’s arse at that moment and turned to her. He smiled, in a way that illuminated all the joy in his heart. It was OK. He was moving towards her, scooping her into his arms and kissing her with every bit as much affection as he’d shown Luthor. ‘Which room is ours?’ he said to Spook.

Dani dug her teeth into her lip, torn between the swell of love invoked by the press of Xane’s body and his desire for her and the fear that he intended to drag both her and Luthor to bed right this minute.

‘Along there on the left, beside the bathroom. I thought you and Dani could have the double and Ash and Ginny can have the twin room as he’s still recuperating.’

Bless Spook for not bundling Luthor in with them.

‘And where am I?’ Rock Giant asked.

‘I thought you and Luthor could pair up and share the Little House.’

‘The Little House – what is that, a separate building?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fan-fucking-tastic,’ Paul replied, punching a fist into the air. ‘It means for possibly the first time ever I won’t have to listen to groans and humping as I attempt to drop off. Grab your bag, roomie.’ He mock-punched Luthor in the shoulder, failing to notice Luthor’s distinct lack of enthusiasm for the arrangement. ‘You’d better not snore.’

‘You do snore,’ Luthor complained, rubbing his arm. ‘I’ve heard you.’ He cast Xane a wan look. Clearly he’d hoped to be, if not sharing a room with his lover, then at least just across the hall. Staying in a building that was some distance away from the main house wasn’t going to make sexy night-time shenanigans quite so easy to arrange.

Dani pinched herself to counter the sudden elation she felt. She didn’t want to make things awkward, but some distance seemed like a good thing.

‘It’s this way.’ Spook led Rock Giant and Luthor out of a door on the opposite side of the house from where they’d entered. ‘Get yourselves settled in. If you need anything, give me a shout when I get back. My room is upstairs off the mezzanine.’

Only when they’d gone did Dani wonder where Elspeth would sleep once she arrived. Perhaps there was more than one outbuilding, but then why make Luthor and Rock Giant share?

Xane grabbed her suitcase along with his own bag and they set off to locate their room. It was bright and airy, with windows on both exterior walls. The smell of pine wood drifted in through one that was latched slightly ajar.

Dani set about unpacking her clothes into the chest of drawers immediately, while Xane dropped his bag under the nearest window and then sagged into the driftwood throne occupying the far corner.

‘I ought to be cross with you,’ Dani said as she worked, placing T-shirts and smalls into the top drawer, which was large enough that she could probably have fitted the whole suitcase in. ‘You were kissing him. You’re only supposed to do that when I’m there.’

‘You were there.’

She could hear the confusion in his voice. Spook had been right. Xane had been so lost in Luthor that he hadn’t noticed she was no longer around.

‘Actually, I went ahead with Spook. I only saw you because Rock Giant happened to open the door. Otherwise …’ She shook her head.

She heard him rise from the chair and the patter of his feet on the floor. His arms came around her from behind. ‘In which case, I’m sorry. We were just saying hello.’

‘I know that.’ Of course she understood. Lovers greeted one another with kisses. She and Xane did it often every day. If one of them left the room and then came back, it sometimes called for a hello kiss. It was reassuring. It made her feel wanted in exactly the same way as feeling him rub his early-morning wood against her arse did when they were snuggled together like spoons. It was just slightly unsettling facing the reality of Xane having someone else he wanted to share that sort of relationship with.

He must have sensed her agitation. ‘You’re regretting ever agreeing to this, aren’t you?’

‘I’ve some concerns, and I’m nervous about him. I don’t want this to mean the end of us.’ She turned around within his embrace to face him.

‘It won’t be, Dani. Please, don’t get wound up by it.’

‘It’s not something I can switch on and off. It’s awkward. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to behave. I feel as if everyone’s watching me, expecting me to react.’

‘They’re not watching you.’

‘Of course they are, Xane. They’re worried that if it all goes to pieces it’ll mean the end of the band. What happened between you, Elspeth and Steve is still very much on their minds. It’s not been that long.’

‘Yes, but our relationship bears no resemblance to that one: different attractions, different people with very different personalities. There’s nothing toxic about what we have.’

She nodded, wanting to agree, but still all too aware of the butterflies beating in her stomach.

He fell silent a moment as he observed her with an unusual level of intensity. ‘I know we agreed that Luthor and I wouldn’t get intimate unless you were there, but do you really mean that I can’t kiss him if you’re not present? Would it not make more sense to say no sex?’

‘With you one inevitably leads to the other.’

He frowned in a way that painted shadows across his irises. You don’t trust me, the look screamed.

Dani turned back to the task of sorting her possessions.

‘Did you have anything to do with the bedroom arrangements?’

‘No.’

‘It might have been less awkward if we’d all been together.’

‘No.’ She stopped, and curled her fingers around the edge of the open drawer. ‘It would have been nightmarish. I’m giving this a chance, Xane. I’m doing it for you, but please don’t make it all so fast that I end up with my head spinning. My world is topsy-turvy enough, what with all the drama of the band, my mum, and the media interest in us. I love you, I want you to be happy, but …’

No amount of words was going to make him understand. She slipped out of his immediate reach, needing the space in which to straighten her thoughts. When she’d agreed to try this, back in Halmstad, things had seemed simpler somehow. Time apart had given rise to awkwardness. And she was acutely aware of what Xane wanted. If there were no barriers in place between him and Luthor, he’d have dragged him in here five minutes ago and they’d have been furiously screwing on the bed right now. What he really wanted from her now was permission to do that. Well, she wasn’t ready to see him bollocks deep inside Luthor just yet. She hated the way the simple thought of seeing them thus entwined filled her skin with a sort of irritating electrical charge. Looking down at her bare arms, she could see all the tiny hairs standing on end.

‘Are you saying you won’t allow him into our bed tonight?’

Dani folded her arms across her front and hugged herself. ‘Can’t we get settled in first?’

‘Answer the question, Dani.’

‘Why does he have to sleep with us?’

‘How else would you like me to arrange things? I was trying to make things less awkward. I don’t really want to go the route of having to book a time slot for sharing some intimacy with him.’

She had no answer to that.

‘Dani?’

She paced, while gnawing on her thumbnail. This was just wrong and awkward and she wanted to hide from it, bury her head and pretend her boyfriend wasn’t bisexual and involved with another man. The option of saying, ‘Do as you please, shag him when you want as long as I don’t know about it,’ burned bright in her thoughts for a moment. It wasn’t a solution that was ever going to work. All it would mean was that whenever Xane was away from her she’d be imagining what he and Luthor were doing. Her thoughts would be riddled with imaginary conversations where they swore undying love to one another and laughed at how stupid she was.

‘Can we just sleep here together tonight? Maybe another time. You said we could take this at my pace.’

His disappointment was unmistakable.

‘I’m sorry, Xane.’

‘It’s OK. I guess you need time. I just thought that after last time you were fine with this.’

She was the very opposite of fine with it. The whole issue scared and confused her. When Xane and Luthor had been entwined in front of her, it had all seemed incredibly simple. She’d even been aroused by them. Excited enough, in fact, that she’d joined in. She’d sucked Xane while Luthor was kissing him, and then allowed Xane to go down on her while Luthor was inside him. But with every minute that passed, her doubts about the episode increased.

She thought about Luthor and felt both hot and cold.

Irritably, she brushed Xane away, while mentally scouring her thoughts of Luthor’s tight white butt.

She didn’t want to feel turned on by him. She didn’t want anyone but Xane.

‘I need a shower,’ she announced. It was psychosomatic, she knew it, but her skin felt grubby. Soapsuds wouldn’t make her clean, but she might find some perspective while standing under the shower spray. If she’d learned one thing living on a tour bus with numerous grown men, it was that you could always find peace in the bathroom.

Xane pulled his T-shirt over his head, making her think he intended to join her. Dani stared at his ink and his nipple rings, wondering how to tactfully explain she needed to be alone. Luckily, it wasn’t necessary. He grabbed his bag and rooted through it until he found a clean shirt, which he tugged on. ‘The tag in the back of that one has been driving me mad for hours,’ he explained. ‘It’s scratchy.’

Dani nodded dumbly at him.

‘If you’re going in the shower, is it OK if I find Spook and check out the recording studio?’ He drew a dog-eared notebook out of the side pocket of his bag. Dani recognised it as his lyrics book.

‘Sure.’

If he was with Spook she wouldn’t have to worry about him being tempted by Luthor.

‘If I know Spook there’s probably about fifty different bath products next door for you to try out.’ He gave her a quick hug and kiss, and departed leaving behind the scent of fresh linen.

Chapter 4

Xane pottered around in the kitchen and made a sandwich before making any pretence of looking for Spook. He’d been here before, when Spook was viewing the property with a view to purchasing it. The layout was relatively simple: main house, with not very many rooms, and a few outbuildings – one for guests, a strange folly-like building by the water’s edge that purportedly now housed the studio, and the all-important Swedish lifestyle essential, a sauna and communal shower shack. To be fair, the latter building had a lot of potential for anyone with a fetish for shower sex or even water sports. He didn’t think the latter rocked Spook’s boat, but who knew, his friend certainly had a taste for S&M. Admittedly, he didn’t indulge it, but that might not always be the case. And Spook was nothing if not prepared for every eventuality.

Despite the lateness of the hour the sun was still shining when Xane stepped outside. Spook’s lawn was manicured to within an inch of its life; hardly a surprise given how much of a neat freak he was. Xane wandered down to the water’s edge and watched the gentle waves breaking over the rocks. Three weeks ago, when he’d stepped onto the stage in Karlstad and heard Luthor first drum out the beat of one of their songs on Steve’s old drumkit, he’d believed everything was finally going to be all right. Two hours later, Ash had nose-dived off the ego-riser, and he’d been nearly drowned by their psychotic temporary drummer, but at least his relationship woes had been sorted. Now he wasn’t so sure about that. He recognised cold feet when he saw them, and Dani’s were currently icy.

Damn, he’d been seriously looking forward to spending some quality time with Luthor, but he wasn’t about to break his promises to Dani. He guessed that’s why he was here, down by the water’s edge, and not over at the Little House.

Whatever time he spent with Luthor at present wouldn’t be quality time, only a lesson in frustration.

The whirr of a motor interrupted the silence by the shore. Xane raised his hand to shield his gaze as he peered up at the sky. A chopper emerged from behind the treetops to the rear of Spook’s property. The wind from the blades buffeted his skin as the helicopter settled down in the middle of the lawn. Ash, he realised, as two figures, one male and one female, emerged from the noisy beast’s belly, the woman single-mindedly carrying both rucksacks despite the obvious entreaties of the man. Heads ducked, the two of them scurried towards the building before turning to watch the helicopter depart.

‘Hey, down here.’ Xane waved both hands at them.

Ash waved back and headed towards him, despite an exasperated entreaty from Ginny to come into the house.

They met on a stretch of paved terracing that Xane realised was an elaborate sundial. ‘Ash, it’s fucking good to see you, man.’ He wrapped his arms around his favourite lead guitarist, before holding him at arm’s length to get a good look at him. Ash wasn’t quite his perky, handsome self. His skin still had a waxy pallor, and deep lines were etched beneath his eyes, but he was smiling and there was no glaze to his vision.

‘Bloody peachy. How about you?’

‘Same old. Gorgeous, melancholy and sexually frustrated.’

‘Tell me about it. I’ve been stuck in a hospital bed for forever, and while they’re happy to hold a pot up for you to piss in, they draw a line at helping you masturbate. Apparently having blue balls isn’t considered life-threatening.’

Xane grimaced. Blue balls sounded pretty terrible to him.

Ginny joined them on the plateau. ‘Xane. Hi.’ She accepted his welcoming hug. ‘Ash, come inside. You need to sit down.’

‘I don’t need to fucking sit down. I’ve done nothing but sit down. Standing up isn’t going to kill me, Ginny. You go in. I’m sure Spook will tell you where to shove the bags. I’ll follow in a bit.’

He waved Ginny away. She scowled, but went.

‘Stroll?’ Xane suggested.

Ash nodded. ‘Love to. She’s driving me insane. She’s worse than the nurses for mollycoddling me. I like being fawned over as much as the next man, but I’m not a frigging invalid.’

‘She’s just concerned. You had us all worried.’

‘Yeah.’ Ash sniffed and looked away into the distance.

Xane took the hint. What had happened had happened, and they didn’t need to go over it, or dwell on the fact that it had screwed him six ways to Sunday. They just needed to move on.

‘Have you got some new lyrics for us to work on?’

Xane retrieved his rolled-up notebook from his back pocket. ‘I’ve a couple of things. Some fine tuning’s still required, and I’ve a couple of chords for a few potential tracks but nothing completed. We’ve time though. It’ll happen.’

‘Obviously you’ve not been screwing enough, or is it you’ve been humping too much? How’s Dani coping with you making her part of a triad?’

He mumbled something non-committal but generally affirmative. Ash didn’t want to dwell on his injuries, and Xane didn’t want to dissect his relationship. ‘I was on my way to check out the studio. Want to join me?’

‘Are the rest of the gang going to be there?’

‘Not as far as I know. I assume they’re all still unpacking. We’re not long arrived ourselves, and Elspeth isn’t here at all.’

‘We nearly weren’t here either. Someone obviously let slip where we were taking off from. There were fans on the launch pad. Four storeys up, security crawling all over the place and there are bodies literally jumping to grab hold of the bottom of the chopper.’

‘That’s nuts.’

‘People are nuts.’

‘At least you’re here in one piece.’ Not only that, Ash sounded better. The last time they’d spoken, Xane had barely been able to understand one word in ten, Ash had been slurring and jumbling his words so badly.

‘Wherever the fuck here happens to be. I thought Sweden was supposed to be cold and snow-covered. As far as I can tell it’s predominantly lake.’

‘We’re a fraction west of Stockholm and a teeny bit further south.’

‘You’re assuming I could locate Stockholm on a map. I hear city names. I get on and off planes and in and out of buses. I don’t pay attention to where any of the places we perform are in relation to one another.’

That was true; geography had never been Ash’s subject of choice. Although it was foolish to imagine he was thick. The guy had a double first in history and philosophy from a world-class university.

‘Where’s this studio of Spook’s then?’

‘This way, I think, on the other side of these bushes. It’s right on the water’s edge. The lower floor floods on a regular basis, which is apparently a design feature, at least according to the estate agent.’ He raised his hands to convey his perplexity over that one. ‘Spook’s converted the upper storey.’

‘Shit ton of expensive electrical equipment installed over a swimming pool, that’s totally where I’d have installed it too.’ Ash rolled his eyes. ‘Why do I suspect it’s actually an elaborate method of containing us so that we work our butts off?’

‘It’s a pretty prison,’ Xane announced, for they’d reached the octagonal architectural folly. ‘Now, if I remember correctly –’ he leaped across a couple of stepping stones, getting the soles of his shoes wet, to reach the external double doors ‘– the inside is something of a spectacle.’

The reality, it turned out, was less garish than he remembered. Perhaps the lack of furnishings allowed the detailed mosaics to stand on their own. Ash didn’t seem to notice the winking mermaids and pincer-waving crabs. He headed straight for the metal staircase and followed the spiral to the upper storey. Xane quickly caught up. He didn’t know quite what he’d expected to find upstairs, but Spook or whoever he’d hired to refurbish the place and install the equipment had done a spectacular job. What had been a very dull guestroom was now an industry-standard sound studio, complete with top-of-the-range equipment and a separate soundproof recording booth that would also double nicely as a rehearsal space. Not only that, there was enough seating that no one was going to be left perching on the arm of a chair or sitting on the floor in a corner.

The designer had even had the presence of mind to include a WC in the plans, so they wouldn’t lose precious moments trekking back and forth to the main house, or pissing in the lake.

‘I was anticipating something far less flashy,’ Ash admitted.

‘Same.’ Xane idly pushed a few of the sliders on the sound deck. ‘I reckon we could record the whole of the next album here. No need to go anywhere else, we’ll just get the producer to come to us.’

‘It’s an option,’ Ash agreed.

The sound of footsteps thundering below caused them both to turn towards the stairs. A moment later Rock Giant’s head appeared, followed by the rest of him, plus both Spook and Luthor.

‘Ash!’ Rock Giant whooped. He scooped Ash off his feet and did a pirouette, holding him in mid-air, before dropping him and thumping him repeatedly across the back. ‘You’re here. You’re fucking here. Yes.’

Ash staggered and sank into the sofa behind him, whereupon Spook filled the seat beside him. ‘Good to see you in something that isn’t a granddad-style pair of pyjamas.’ Ash was wearing his favourite Danger Mouse T-shirt. It fit rather less snugly than it had the last time Xane had seen him in it.

‘We’re all here, I see,’ Ash commented, ignoring the reference to his recent hospital stay.

‘Does this mean we’re getting straight down to work?’

‘I think we ought to put our new boy through his paces first,’ Rock Giant said. He grabbed hold of Luthor and shoved him to the front of the huddle. ‘I know he did well on stage, but none of us were exactly looking out for faults. He’s a fully committed member of the gang now, so we ought to get to grips with one another’s playing styles.’

‘You just want to jam,’ Xane remarked. Luthor didn’t need to prove himself. They all knew he could play. Still, the consensus appeared to be that it wouldn’t hurt to pick up their instruments. Cases were dragged out of the corner where they’d been stacked, and amps and microphones plugged in and linked up. Ash’s beloved Gibson Les Paul was sadly no longer with them as it had smashed beneath him when he’d nosedived off the ego-riser in Karlstad, but someone, most likely their chief roadie, had procured another guitar.

Ash settled its strap across his shoulders. ‘White?’ he questioned. ‘Who thought that was a good idea for a goth band?’

‘It’s probably all the local music shop had. You can order something else. Maybe even get a custom-build,’ Spook suggested. ‘It’s not like you’re strapped for cash.’

‘What does he need to do that for? He has about fifteen other guitars at home,’ Rock Giant remarked, as he played a couple of test chords. ‘Phone your mum and get her to ship one of them out here.’

‘And what if it gets lost or damaged in transit?’

Spook nodded in horrified agreement over the possibility. His grip tightened around the neck of his purple Washburn, as if it were at risk of being torn from his hands.

Xane went to help Luthor set up the drumkit, and left the others snipping at one another. He knelt beside Luthor. ‘How’s your room?’

‘About what I’d expected when I heard it was an annex. There’s a bed, a wood stove … It’s fine.’

It sounded rather more rustic than Xane had anticipated, and Rock Giant’s sudden bellow of ‘Little House! You’re fucking not joking’ seemed to reflect that.

‘It’s not a house, it’s a chicken coop, and I’m not a fricking chicken.’ Rock Giant squared up against Spook. ‘I thought we were getting the guesthouse with the pool table and the PS4.’

‘I don’t have a pool table.’

Xane would lay money on Spook not owning a games console either. Spook might be seriously kick-ass at various assassin-style games, but he only ever played when he was cajoled into doing so. Most of the time, he was happy sticking things into his scrapbooks or shopping for yet another pair of baseball boots.

‘You don’t have a guesthouse either.’ Rock Giant flapped his arms and made clucking noises.

‘It’s specifically designed for guest accommodation. You’ll find that sort of wooden building all over Sweden.’

‘Bollocks it is.’

‘It is,’ Luthor muttered under his breath so that only Xane appeared to hear. ‘Not that I’m saying Rock Giant is wrong. Glass doors, a sloped roof and decent heating don’t change the fact that it’s basically two beds stuffed into a box.’

Xane helped tighten a particularly difficult bolt. ‘I’d offer you an alternative, but Dani wants to get settled in first.’

‘You mean she wants to keep you all to herself.’

‘Just for a bit. Give it a day or so.’

‘Nothing’s really changed, has it?’ Luthor remarked. Having finished arranging the kit, he stood and set his stool in position.

‘Everything’s changed.’ They could talk and touch and fuck without him having to feel guilty about it. Dani had accepted that, given his libido did rather rule his life and he couldn’t comprehend not indulging the disparate aspects of his sexuality, the best option was for him to have a proper relationship with Luthor in addition to the one he had with her.

‘Are you certain of that? We haven’t seen one another for weeks, but I can’t show you how much I’ve missed you because any sort of intimacy is restricted to when Dani chooses to allow it. Do you have any idea how hard it’s been, living apart from you but knowing that you were with her, fucking her? I had no idea if we’d still even be on when I returned. I’m honestly not sure now if we’re still a thing, Xane.’

‘We’re still a thing.’ He grinned. ‘And I’ve a notion or two about how I’d like to stick you with my thing.’

The remark at least raised a chuckle. Joy shone in Luthor’s mismatched eyes for a moment, before he turned away. ‘What makes you think I’m going to let you stick your thing in any part of me?’

‘Maybe the beautiful poem you sent me the other day. What was the title again? “Ode to Your Cock”.’

‘I did not send you any such thing.’

‘You didn’t? Fuck – you’re right, that was me, after I wanked myself silly for forty minutes thinking about how much fun I was going to have playing with yours once we got here. I think it went in the lyrics book.’ He took the rolled-up pad out of his back pocket and made a show of flicking through the leaves.

Luthor made a grab for the book, but Xane bolted out of reach.

‘Please tell me the first song you’ve written for the new album isn’t a ballad about his cock,’ Rock Giant sighed. He drubbed his knuckles against his forehead.

‘Nah, it’s more of a folk-metal fusion.’ God, they were easy to wind up.

‘I refuse to record a track about his drumstick.’

‘Brings a new meaning to the concept of cock rock,’ Ash said with a chuckle.

Luthor had turned pink all along the ridges of his cheekbones. It made Xane want to pin him against the wall and smooch his full, expressive lips until that wash of colour was evident in a place or two more.

‘Are we going to start?’ Spook asked.

Several shouts of ‘yes’ came in response.

‘“Hole”,’ someone proposed, prompting scattered laughter. It wouldn’t have been Xane’s first choice, but it was one of their bigger and most beloved hits, and it would give his voice a decent warm-up. It was a heck of a long time since he’d rested his vocal cords for this amount of time. He hoped they hadn’t got rusty.

He opened with a long wail.

Actually, that felt damned good.

Chapter 5

Luthor had been psyching himself up for this moment ever since he’d played with these guys on stage and won their approval. He’d been both itching to repeat the experience and shitting himself over the prospect. They were all first-rate musicians, and, while the sound was a little different without Elspeth here to play keyboard, the quality wasn’t lacking. Not for the first verse at any rate. After that, things got a bit wibbly. He was concentrating hard, following Ash’s lead since he was the main guitarist, but Ash’s timing was waltzing all over the place, with the knock-on effect of Luthor constantly having to adjust the tempo. By the time Xane had obliterated the chorus, he was focused so hard on keeping pace with Ash that he’d temporarily forgotten about the rest of them.

Suddenly he was two bars behind and they were all so out of synch that the only sensible thing to do was stop.

‘What the hell was that?’ Rock Giant came straight at him and slammed a fist down on top of the snare. ‘You’re supposed to keep it steady, but you were all over the place, revving it up and then tootling along for the next bar.’

‘I was following Ash.’

‘You’re not supposed to follow Ash.’

He didn’t mean that literally, but a decent drummer knew how to keep a steady beat going and how to keep time for the band, while at the same time taking cues from the guitars and the vocalist.

‘Let’s do it again,’ Spook suggested. The guy was a natural mediator, always so soft-spoken and willing to hear all sides.

Xane counted them in, but they had the same problem over again, this time before they’d even reached the chorus. And it wasn’t down to Luthor. He’d done as he’d been told and hadn’t followed Ash, but Ash wasn’t with the rest of them, so it got discordant pretty quickly.

‘It’s like fucking Willows all over again.’ Rock Giant deposited his bass on the sofa. ‘What are you playing at?’

‘Paul, leave him be.’ Xane shoved the microphone stand away with such force that it toppled. ‘This is nothing like what we went through with Willows. That wanker was out to sabotage us from the get-go. Luthor’s just getting to grips with our style.’

‘He’s incompetent.’

Luthor shook his head. He knew how to play drums, and no one was about to tell him otherwise. In any case, Rock Giant being a dick about it didn’t account for the rest of the band’s behaviour. They were experienced musicians, for fuck’s sake. There was no way they could fail to realise what was going on. They had ears.

OK, so Xane realised, hence his stand-off with Rock Giant, and the pained expression on Spook’s normally composed face suggested he knew too, which only left Ash himself. Black Halo’s lead guitarist had his head bent forward so that his hair masked his face. Only his lips were clearly visible, and they were set in an irritable moue. The definitive piece of evidence, though, was the arthritic claw-like curl of his right hand. It would seem that Ash wasn’t as healed as he’d like them all to believe.

He caught Luthor looking, and two angry black eyes glared back through the curtain of hair.

‘Maybe we should try this again tomorrow,’ Luthor suggested.

Xane muttered an affirmative, Spook too, but Rock Giant stomped his foot.

‘We do it again now. And again. Until it’s right.’

‘Paul,’ Spook warned him.

‘Let’s do this.’

Ash removed the strap from his shoulders and dropped the guitar. ‘I can’t.’

‘What? Come on. Don’t let this idiot get to you.’

‘It’s not him.’

‘Sure it is.’

‘It’s me.’ He held up his clawed hand and strained but couldn’t straighten out his fingers. ‘My hand’s fucked. I can’t play. You guys are going to have to find yourself another guitarist.’

‘The hell we are, Ash.’ Spook smacked him across the back of the head. ‘We’re here for you now, and we’ll still be here for you no matter how long it takes for you to get well. The tour’s dates have already been moved forward six months, and it’s only been three weeks since you took your little dive. Give yourself a chance to heal. I expect you just need some physio.’

Hurt flashed within Ash’s eyes. ‘Yeah, right,’ he drawled. ‘’Cause time and stupid exercises solve everything. Well, what if they don’t? Have any of you thought about that? What if I’m fucked up for good? We’re not going to be all buddies in a band together then, are we?’

‘We’ll always stick by you, Ash,’ Xane claimed cautiously.

‘Had-to-think-about-it-there-didn’t-you.’ Ash seemed to realise thirty seconds after they all did that he was slurring his words. He kicked the nearest chair hard enough to make them wince. ‘Bastard-fucking-wanking-hell.’ The stream of expletives rolled off his tongue as one giant, mashed-together ‘Fuck you!’ to the world. He aimed for the chair again, but Spook sideswiped his arm and Ash turned his rage upon the nearby sofa instead, throwing the cushions from it, pummelling the heck out of its back and tearing at anything else he could lay his hands on.

‘Ash, it’ll be all right,’ Spook tried to reassure him as he darted alongside him, clearly seeking a means of restraining his friend.

‘The-hell-it-will. Iain’s-permanently-fucked-the-shit-out-of-me. I-should-have-put-him-in-the-ground-when-I-had-the-chance-instead-of-just-busting-his-nose. Now-I’m-just-screwed … completely-fucking-screwed.’ He darted for the stairs with Spook still on his tail. Xane caught the back of Spook’s shirt, dragging him to a sudden halt.

‘Let him go. It’ll do him good to yell at the universe.’

‘You can do a lap of this island in less than five minutes. What happens when he’s done two and he still can’t deal with shit? Last thing any of us need is him taking a dip in the lake. I’m not going to interfere, if he needs to let rip. I’m just going to make sure he doesn’t do himself any additional damage.’

Xane let him go. Rock Giant followed Spook down the stairs, leaving Luthor and Xane alone.

‘Sorry,’ Luthor apologised. ‘I should have just kept my mouth shut.’

‘Maybe,’ Xane responded, still facing the stairs. He turned as Luthor emerged from behind the drumkit. ‘We ought to have realised it was too early to have him in the studio. I just … He seemed OK when I was talking to him on the way over here. Sure, he’s still a bit ashen, but the slur was gone and he seemed glad to be back in the land of the living.’

As he hadn’t heard Ash speak more than a couple of simple phrases before he’d started ranting, Luthor didn’t feel qualified to comment, but Xane clearly needed some kind of reassurance that his friend was going to be fine. ‘He only started slurring once he got upset. Maybe it’s the stress that made him relapse?’

Xane chewed the notion over, while agitating the ring piercing in his lower lip. ‘No,’ he eventually concluded. ‘He was just working really hard to make sure he pronounced everything carefully before. I should have realised. Fucking Willows! Prison’s too good for him. He deserves a battering with a baseball bat, preferably one with six-inch rusty nails hammered through it.’

‘Pounding him into snot won’t make Ash better.’

‘It’d make me feel fucking good though, like I was doing something, instead of having to just sit and watch Ash suffer.’

‘He’ll get better, Xane.’ Luthor gently laid his hand upon the other man’s shoulder.

‘Will he? He’s right, you know. We’ve no contingencies in place if he doesn’t.’

‘It’ll come right. It will. Stop worrying about it. If you all get too focused on his recovery then you’re going to make things harder for him. Expectation can be a real bugger. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t need any more pressure on him than he’s putting on himself.’

‘Yeah … yeah.’ Xane sighed. ‘You’re right.’ He brushed a hand through the front of his long hair. ‘We’ll keep clear of the studio for a few days, and then Spook and I can sit down together and talk lyrics and such. There’s no need for us all to be in here until we have some actual tracks to fine-tune.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

He was still squeezing Xane’s shoulder, and the other man seemed to notice that. Xane looked at Luthor’s hand and then up at his face.

‘So, how were you envisaging filling the next few days?’ Luthor asked.

Xane gently brushed away his hold. ‘I need to keep Dani happy, Luthor. She got upset about earlier.’

‘Is that why I got sanctioned and sent to live in the chicken coop?’

Xane smiled at the description. ‘I don’t think so. She didn’t have anything to do with the arrangements. Spook might have stuck you out there as a tactic for maintaining the peace. He’s concerned about how our relationship is going to impact the band.’

‘Are you?’

‘I think Black Halo have bigger problems to worry about. Not just Ash.’

‘You mean the fact that Elspeth didn’t show.’

‘It’s not like her to bail without giving a specific reason. Elspeth might be a bitchy pain in the arse, but she’s not flaky. But I guess she can explain herself at my party, if she shows.’

Luthor nodded. He didn’t really want to dwell on Elspeth. Whenever he’d interacted with her, she’d been an outright cow.

‘What did Dani actually say about us?’ he asked, turning the thrust of the conversation back to their relationship.

‘She just reminded me that we’d agreed not to make out when she wasn’t around to grant her consent or witness it.’

‘Exchanging one kiss is hardly the same as making out.’

‘To her it is.’

Well, that was going to make things awkward very quickly. It was bad enough that they had to get her to green-light the possibility of them getting physical, without her ruling out even minor exchanges of affection. Luthor loved her to bits as both a friend and someone he’d like to be far more than that to, but expecting him and Xane to conduct a non-physical relationship was not only bollocks, it was setting them up to fail, and he could just imagine how she’d react to that.

‘There’s no way this is going to work.’ It was akin to her saying they could love one another, but only on Tuesdays, and if it was a full moon. ‘Maybe you haven’t realised it yet, but all that’s going to happen is we’re both going to end up frustrated.’

Actually, he was frustrated already. Having spent the last three weeks surviving on fantasies about what his reunion with this man would entail, Luthor wanted Xane in his bed with the desperation of a drunk shaking the last drop from a bottle of vodka. Xane remained the one man whose presence knotted him up in a truly delicious way, who raised his pulse and made his whole body hum with arousal. He’d had sex with other men, and plenty of women, but none of those times had felt nearly as right as either of the occasions on which he and Xane had made love.

‘We agreed to her terms, Luthor.’

‘Terms that seem to keep on changing.’

Xane touched his face, but the caress wasn’t enough to even begin to soothe his sudden irritation.

‘So you’re not up for christening one of these sofas, then?’

Xane swiftly withdrew his hand and shook his head, making the long strands of his hair sway. ‘Not funny.’

‘It wasn’t a joke. I want you, and there’s no one around right now for us to disturb, and it’s not like we can save it until we’re alone in our room because we don’t have a room. You and Dani have a room, and I have a berth in a shed that I have to share with Rock Giant, who appears to have decided I’m the new punch bag.’

‘Luthor, I’m not going to go back on my word.’

Luthor grasped the decorative belt that was looped obliquely around Xane’s hips, and jerked him forward so there was barely an inch of space between them. ‘I never asked you to. You’ve a mobile phone, don’t you? Call her. Ask her permission.’

‘That’s not such a good plan.’

‘Isn’t it?’

The man wanted him. Desire burned in the black hearts of Xane’s surprisingly contact-lens-free eyes. His muscles were tensed, but tellingly, despite his protest, Xane didn’t attempt to widen the gap between them, or dislodge Luthor’s hold on his belt.

‘Why isn’t it, Xane? You’re not going to be asking for anything she didn’t agree to, and if she feels the need to watch, then she has only to sprint across the grass and she can drink down her fill of us.’

‘Don’t press me to do this.’

The way Xane was staring at his mouth almost moved him to throw caution and promises to the wind and kiss him as if his life depended on it. Xane Geist wanted him. And being wanted by him … it was something. More than a few people had fainted over the mere possibility of catching this man’s attention.

‘You don’t want this? You’re not interested in the offer?’ He smiled. Apparently that was all it really took to capture Xane’s interest. Or maybe it was the promise of sexual intimacy that went with it. Either way, it was like catnip. Xane was suddenly raising his hands, grabbing him, holding him, tilting his head so that they were so close he could taste the other man’s breath. ‘Call her, Xane, or don’t call her. I don’t mind which, but at least acknowledge this is what you want.’

Xane licked his lips, leaving a delicious smear of moisture over them.

God, it’d be so easy just to lean in and taste him. ‘Another time. Not tonight.’

‘Right now. Let’s break the ice.’

‘Don’t,’ he pleaded, in a way that made it sound like he wanted Luthor to do the exact opposite.

Still holding on to Xane’s belt, Luthor stuck his thumb out so that it made contact with the low-slung denim clinging to Xane’s narrow hips. It was such an incredibly small movement, yet it left Xane gasping for air. He shifted, obviously uncomfortable.

Luthor didn’t need to look down to know his teasing had produced the desired effect. He knew it from the lightning flashes of pain and desire forking across Xane’s pupils.

Here was a man whose unapologetic animal magnetism entranced crowds of thousands, whose acceptance of his own sexuality and needs was so overt that it was almost contagious, and yet he was locked into a stalemate of his own creation. Horny and erect and completely willing – if there wasn’t just a small matter of his genuine love for his girlfriend, which was slamming the brakes on him doing anything.

‘Just call and ask her, Xane.’

A tiny, almost imperceptible stroke of Luthor’s finger made a line of sweat rise across Xane’s brow.

‘No. I won’t hurt her, Luthor. She’s not ready for this.’

‘I’m not trying to hurt her. I’m perfectly happy for her to join us.’

Xane’s muscles shook with tension. Luthor adjusted his stance so that his loins rubbed against Xane’s trapped erection. Xane’s hand fisted in the front of Luthor’s shirt, so that they were nose to nose, almost lip to lip, and their heated breaths mingling in the inch of space between their open mouths.

‘I understand that she’s scared, but there’s no threat to her here. We both know that, because we both want the same things. The only way the three of us are ever going to achieve happiness together is if we push beyond our comfort zones.’

‘She needs time. She’s still dealing with the idea of the two of us being together.’

‘I think she’s trying to bury her head in the sand and is hoping the problem will just go away. I guess you didn’t notice how she acted on the boat ride over. She did her level best not to look at me. And for two people who are supposed to be friends, we exchanged a shockingly poor version of a hello.’

‘Nerves,’ Xane muttered in her defence. ‘This whole situation scares the shit out of her. You don’t understand what she’s come from. How all this plays on her deepest fears. If I … we push this thing too hard, then she’ll run. I won’t risk losing her, Luthor. She means too much and it’s come too close to that once already.’

Luthor let his gaze drop to an inch right of his thumb tip. ‘So what’s the plan – suffer in silence and hope for a miracle?’

‘I don’t see any other way.’

Luthor shook his head sadly. ‘Then this is going to get fucking painful.’ He squeezed the tip of Xane’s cock, then turned and took the same way out the rest of the guys had taken. There didn’t seem much point in staying.

He made it as far as the entrance before Xane caught up with him.

‘I’ll talk to her.’

‘You should. You should definitely do that.’

‘Luthor.’ Xane spun him so that they were facing again. ‘This isn’t easy. Please don’t be a bastard about it.’

‘I’m not trying to be. I just feel as if we’ve moved backwards in the time we’ve spent apart. We’re back to her making appalled faces at me because I openly admit I want a piece of you.’

‘That’s not how it is.’

Luthor pressed his open palm against the still prominent swell of Xane’s erection, making the other man hiss. His eyes briefly closed before snapping open again.

‘It’s exactly how it is. I want to fuck you, Xane. I want to bend you over the nearest goddamned piece of furniture and fuck you until we’re both exhausted and it hurts to move. I’ve waited so damned long that it makes me half-crazy just being this near to you. I don’t want to rip your world apart, so I’ll try and hold myself in check, but at some point down the line I’m not going to care whether Dani approves or not any more.’

‘I love her,’ Xane whispered, the statement so soft it caressed Luthor’s lips as evocatively as any kiss. Luthor swallowed the sensation, along with the choking feel of gathering tears. ‘What about me?’ he wanted to ask, but didn’t. ‘Don’t you care about me?’

The questions must have been written across his face, for Xane bent forward and captured him, sliding one hand behind his neck and another around his back. The kiss shook Luthor to the core. It was over too quick, but there was a promise interwoven with the clash of their tongues. A promise of better times to come, and feelings that sat beyond the range of even the most desperate declarations of affection.

‘Give it time, Luthor. You’ll get what you want. I promise you that.’

Another kiss, that’s what he wanted, and a body to slide into bed beside. He held Xane tight, stole several more illicit kisses and got higher and higher on every one.

‘No,’ Xane insisted, eventually shoving him away. ‘We have to do this without being dicks about it.’

They stared at one another, mouths open, both breathing hard. ‘Who’s going to know if I suck your dick right here and now?’

Xane swallowed so that his Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘I will, and then she will because I’ll tell her. A promise is a promise, Luthor. We’ll have our time soon, and when it comes, I definitely won’t be turning down the offer of a blowjob.’

If only promises came with a timescale attached.

For now, he guessed the prospect of planting lip prints all over Xane’s rock-hard cock would have to sustain him.

He gave Xane’s shaft another friendly squeeze, then backed up. ‘’Night, Xane. If you change your mind in the small hours, you know where to find me.’

‘Chickensville. Let’s hope I can tell the difference between your arse and Paul’s in the dark.’

‘Maybe aim for the tackle instead.’

A warm chuckle wormed its way out of Xane’s throat. ‘Good suggestion. There’s no mistaking donkey dick.’

‘Are you implying I’m not packing much?’

‘Your dick is fucking perfect. I don’t let just anyone slide into me, you know.’

‘Wish I believed that.’

‘Believe it.’ Xane held up several fingers, and regarded him soberly. ‘I can count the times on one … two hands.’

‘Then I’ll count myself privileged.’

‘You do that.’

‘I already do.’

Chapter 6

Xane left the recording studio and wandered along the shore. The sun had finally set and he had to pick his way carefully along the unfamiliar path. It hurt like hell to walk away. Seriously, walking away from an offer of sex that he actually wanted ran counter to his natural programming. However, it was the only sensible option if he ever wanted things to work out between the three of them. And, if he was being honest, he seriously doubted Dani was ever going to agree to a genuine ménage à trois relationship. She had too many physical and emotional hangups, and any attraction she might feel towards Luthor she was doing her damnedest to bury.

In a way her lack of interest in the other man pleased him. After what he’d gone through with Elspeth and Steve, it was a relief to know his girlfriend only had eyes for him. If he was being entirely honest, he had major doubts about the idea of her and Luthor ever getting it on. Hypocritical, much, and he knew it, but justifiably. The announcement of Elspeth and Steve’s marriage still filled his mouth with a bitter taste, despite knowing there’d been no happily-ever-after because Steve was gone.

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