All Fired Up

She entwined her arms around his middle and breathed in deeply the smell of his skin. ‘You know, if we’re going to be apart for that long, I think I need to say goodbye to you some more before you go.’

‘I’m totally with you on that.’ He lifted her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. ‘Phone me every night, even if we’ve already spoken a million times that day. I want your voice to be the last thing I hear before I sleep.’

She nipped at the faint trace of stubble lining his jaw. ‘What makes you think I’m going to let you sleep? If I’m calling you last thing at night it won’t be to sing you a lullaby.’

‘No?’ He wrinkled his brows as if in disappointment. ‘What will it be for?’

‘To torture the fuck out of you with my dirty thoughts, of course.’

‘You’re going to talk dirty to me?’ She heard the catch of excitement in this throat. ‘Babe,’ he purred, ‘you’re way too good to me.’

Chapter 4

Paris, France.

Dinner had seemed like such a good idea when Spook had suggested it. Seriously, what wasn’t to like about the idea of decent food, in a nice restaurant, and someone else footing the bill? However, that had been before the adrenalin rush of the Paris gig had worn off, and he’d had to talk Iain down from the rafters. Ash didn’t recall Iain being quite so big a diva when they’d played together in the past. Apparently these days he didn’t take criticism at all well. He was rather peeved himself that Iain had screwed up ‘Fatal Error’, since it was normally a major crowd-pleaser, but he’d had to bite his tongue, given that the rest of the band were already seething and they couldn’t actually afford to give him the boot, or see him walk. Without a drummer, the whole tour would collapse, and none of them could afford for that to happen. This perhaps explained why they were all tolerating his motor-mouthed yapping too. Iain had hardly paused for breath in the last forty minutes and Ash was beginning to suspect he’d taken something, but he sure as hell didn’t want to suggest that at the dinner table, because it’d be an instant tour-killer.

And, if he was being honest, he needed this tour. Touring was easy, it made life ridiculously simple: they drove about, they played gigs, he ate, slept and fucked. It wasn’t real, and it wasn’t complicated. He didn’t want to deal with real life right now. Reality was a total screw-up.

Xane leaned towards him, his long black hair falling forward to shroud his angular face. ‘If he doesn’t shut his trap soon, I swear I’m going to throw something at him.’

Ash caught Xane’s wrist as he reached for a bread roll. Although he was relieved it was only food missiles Xane was considering – there were steak knives on the table.

‘He’s nervous, is all. Iain always talks when he’s nervous.’ Not entirely true, but he needed to find some explanation for Iain’s behaviour. ‘Give him a chance to settle in. It’s only been a few days, and you did all lay into him when we came off stage tonight.’

Actually, they’d all given him hell every night since the tour began, nearly a week ago.

Xane withdrew his hand, but rolled his eyes at the notion that they’d given Iain a hard time. ‘What the fuck were you thinking, Ash? He’s so wrong for us, it’s depressing.’

‘He’s a drummer. That makes him perfect for us.’

Xane gave him the sort of look that would have made anyone else wither. Ash refused to shrivel.

‘He pisses me off – deliberately.’

‘That’s a bit of an overstatement. He messed up one song, Xane. And I hardly think he did it deliberately. Why would he? We’re his ticket into the big league.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe that’s my issue. I don’t like freeloaders hanging off my coat-tails.’

‘So work him harder.’

Xane smiled grimly. ‘Oh, I will. Don’t worry about that.’

‘Whose phone’s vibrating?’ Spook asked, his native Swedish lilt coming through, a sure indication that he was stressed. The rest of the conversation around the table had stopped.

‘Heck, mine.’ Ash fished the damn thing out of his pocket and swiped a finger across the dimmed screen to waken it. It was a little late in the evening for his mum to be calling; she’d be in bed with one of her beloved mystery novels by now. There were only two other people with his number and one of them, Spook, was sitting next to him.

You never told me what a nice guy your driver is. Ginny’s message flashed up.

Shit! Ginny. What with one thing after another post show, the fact he was meant to meet her had completely slipped his mind. Although, hang on. He checked the time. He wasn’t due at the Arc de Triomphe until midnight. Why was she texting him now?

Where are you? He typed and hit send.

On your bunk. Flicking through your porn.

Really, where are you?

Your bunk.

She couldn’t really be on the tour bus. Troels, their driver, wouldn’t let her on. OK, he might, depending on what Ginny had said, and if he believed he was doing Ash a favour. It wasn’t as if the band’s resident Cave Troll hadn’t sneaked a girl or two on board in the past for him.

Why don’t you come and check if you don’t believe me? It’s all quiet here, no one’s home. It’s just me and a lot of empty beds. Whose do you think we should try out first?

Ash shot to his feet.

Maybe Xane’s? No. Spook’s. We can rumple all his neat edges and give his mattress springs a workout. It’ll be the only action they ever see if your assertions he’s celibate are to be believed.

‘Ginny, you’d better be pissing with me,’ he mumbled. What in the name of hell was she playing at? She’d seemed fine with their arrangement the last time he’d seen her. They’d had a lot of fun playing Secret Agent and Spy on the train under the English Channel.

‘Where the hell are you going?’ Rock Giant asked, when Ash pulled on his leather jacket.

‘I’m …’ He stalled, having failed to invent an adequate answer. ‘Off,’ he concluded. He turned to Spook, hoping his friend would understand why this was important. If he didn’t make the connection now, then Ash would explain it later. ‘Sorry. I’ve really got to go. Something’s come up.’

‘Can it not wait until dessert? At least finish your meal.’

Ash’s phone buzzed again. This time the message came with an attachment. Ash opened it and gawped at the screen. She’d only gone and sent him a picture of her pert and very sexy derrière wrapped in fishnets and the skimpiest, sexiest black silk shorts he’d ever had the pleasure to behold. She was bent over, clearly on the tour bus, as the bunk room was in the background.

‘I’d love to, but no. I’m sorry. I need to run.’ He needed to get her off that tour bus before anyone saw her there.

Chapter 5

Ash arrived with a plan that would bypass questions and get them both off the bus and somewhere private fast. Unfortunately, every coherent thought in his head went bye-bye the moment he saw her poised waiting for him. God, she was …

His jaw dropped as he hurried towards her.

… she was going to be the goddamned death of him.

Ginny had gone all out to entice, dressed in his favourite fishnets that covered her slender legs and disappeared inside those teeny satin shorts. Her lovely figure was cinched into a corset. She had on elbow-length fingerless gloves and her black hair had been styled into a wild mass of curls.

She looked both nightmarish and terrific.

Make that tongue-lolling, instant-hard-on terrific.

Hottest-thing-in-universe terrific.

Fuck! His heart took up residence outside his ribcage.

Sure, her get-up was slightly sleazy, but you’d hear no complaints from him about that. Hey, he knew what he liked, and so apparently did she. That fact would probably have scared the shit out of him, if his brain had still been functioning above animal level.

‘Looking for a good time?’ she asked, smiling down at him from under her thick eyelashes. She stood with one leg provocatively bent to block his passage, and an arm outstretched. In her hand she held a riding crop.

He gulped, not sure if he was hopelessly turned on or plain shit-scared at the possibility of her using it on him. He did know that if he didn’t adjust his pants soon they were going to cut his cock in two.

‘I think I might have found it,’ he croaked as he attempted to mount the bottom step, only for her to flick out the riding crop and block his passage. Ash froze as the looped leather end ticked against his chest and descended sharply towards his groin.

Damn, damn and heck!

This was bad. Seriously bad. His cock was saying yee haw, while something in the back of his brain tried to remind him that the goal here was to get her away from the bus so that they weren’t seen by the band, or anyone else for that matter.

‘Rules first.’ Her smile lit her face like a neon light, and made him salivate like one of Pavlov’s ruddy dogs. ‘You sit, you don’t touch and you do as you’re told. Got it?’

He mindlessly nodded. Got it? Sure, he got it. Not that there was enough blood left in his head to make an informed decision, but, his cock was in full agreement. It apparently liked her bossy and fiendish.

‘Then do come in.’

This was crazy. Why was he accepting invitations onto his own tour bus? It was the fault of those shorts, and her pert little ass, or maybe the ultra-glossy scarlet lipstick he wanted to see smeared across her face, or maybe just the fact that he hadn’t got laid in over 48 hours. He was used to a certain amount of sex, and he just wasn’t getting it so far on this tour. Instead of every night, all night, he was seeing Ginny every two to three days. Was it any wonder that he turned into a slathering beast the moment he saw her?

She’d been busy inside the bus. ‘My God!’ he gasped. She’d transformed the place into a sumptuous gothic boudoir by swathing everything in black velvet and dragging Rock Giant’s favourite chair into the central aisle.

‘Take a seat.’ She gave him an intoxicating smile, then a persuasive push in the direction of the leather seat. When he stayed upright, she snapped the crop against his backside, making him jump.

He sat, shocked and tingling.

‘Ginny, we can’t do this here. We’d arranged a time and a place.’

‘So you don’t want to see me dance?’ she said, pouting and opening her eyes really wide.

‘I …’ Absolutely, he did want to see her dance. Especially since, in that outfit, he was pretty certain she wasn’t going to perform ballet, but something rather more raw and dirty. He glanced around. The bus windows were tinted, so no one could see in from outside, and the band were still dining, so he guessed they had a couple of minutes. That left the crew to consider, and he had no idea where they might be, but presumably Cave Troll or one of the others had let her on board in the first place, so they already knew she was here. That was fine, as long as they presumed she was just another fan out for some fun with him, and didn’t realise they were a whole lot more committed than that.

‘Comfortable?’ she asked him.

Ash shook his head. His trousers were too tight, and the ache in his groin was too persistent. Things only got worse when she hit the stereo remote and filled the space with a raunchy, grinding beat. One sway of her hips, a flick of her hair, and he was done for. He wanted her in his arms, across his lap, their mouths locked and sexy bits touching. Nothing else mattered.

Damn, he was weak!

Whoa! She danced like a pro. No, better than a pro. The few lap dances he’d had before hadn’t made him want to rip the lady’s clothes off. When Ginny had mentioned she used to practise rhythmic gymnastics, and that she still liked to keep herself fit, he hadn’t appreciated how much dedication she’d obviously given her art. The sway of her hips worked like a snake charm, mesmerising him while simultaneously making him rise. ‘Come closer,’ he pleaded, when she twerked her rear over his lap. She kept maybe an inch of space between them at all times, which was not what he wanted. He wanted to feel her rubbing up against his fly.

‘Ah, ah!’ she chastened him, when he put a hand on her hip to guide her down to where he wanted her. ‘No touching, remember.’

‘Babe, that’s just evil. What do you want to torture me for?’

‘Fun,’ she quipped, arching an eyebrow. ‘Aw, look at you getting all pouty and irritable.’

She tweaked his nose in an annoying manner. ‘You know we’re not allowed to fuck on the bus. Xane’s rules, remember.’

‘Fuck Xane and his fucking rules.’ He exhaled hard. Then sucked in a deep breath. He ought to be inured to this sort of stuff. He was a goddamned rock god, after all. Plenty of other women had shaken their stuff in order to tempt him. The difference was that none of them had been Ginny. She undid him. Not the hairdo, or the clothes, or the stupendously fit body she was shimmying, but the person inside. Ginny was right for him in the way every other woman who’d passed through his bed had been wrong. She saw into his heart. With her he was more than he was without her. That unfortunately meant she also knew just how to make him sweat.

‘Hold it together. Think how good it’ll be when you finally get what you’re after.’

It was a shame the rule wasn’t about fucking with him on the bus, because he really couldn’t hack this sort of torture. He didn’t like delaying gratification. He’d spent too much of his adult life seeking bliss and never finding it, to want to wait for something when he knew it could be had so easily. He clenched his fists, black-painted fingernails biting into the arms of the chair as he fought to maintain some control over his libido. It wasn’t easy with her mimicking the movements of sex right over him.

‘There’s not enough time until the guys get back.’

If she surrendered now, there might just be enough time to reach orbit before they had to make a sharp exit, but the likelihood of achieving that lessened with every passing minute.

‘Yeah, but it’s not as if they haven’t seen you fuck before. I mean, how many pictures of your cock does Spook have in his collection?’

‘He doesn’t take pictures of me.’ Why did she refuse to grasp that? Not that that was even the issue here. The important part was that he wanted to keep their relationship quiet. He didn’t want the band in on it, or their expectations colouring things. Nor did he want to listen to their shit, if something went wrong and it all fell apart. ‘Let’s leave and go somewhere quiet.’

She shook her head, making her wild curls bounce. ‘I like it here. The setting, the lights, the nice little hummock you’re sporting.’ She swayed down low, and brushed her pussy right against his cock.

The few scorching seconds of contact sent a thrill straight through Ash’s frayed nerves, shredding the last vestiges of his restraint. His hips jerked upwards so their bodies met properly, and his hands locked around her waist. Suddenly, he could feel the sweat breaking out across his body, and his heart was pounding in his throat. He needed to be inside her right now. Really, right now, before he embarrassed himself and came in his pants.

‘Bad boy, Ash.’ She smacked the riding crop against the back of the chair, startling the hell out of him with the explosive thwack. ‘No touching, remember.’ She moved his hands from her waist to the arms of the chairs. ‘Do it again and I’ll punish you.’

She was torturing him already, so that didn’t seem much of a threat. ‘What will you do?’ he asked, still rocking his hips so that her silky shorts slid against him.

She leaned close and teased his ear lobe with her teeth. ‘Leave you to reach orgasm all by yourself.’

‘You wouldn’t.’

Her smile was warm and yet sly. ‘Wouldn’t I?’

Ash’s muscles jerked all over his body. ‘I don’t want to play games anymore. Let’s just go somewhere where we can work this out without fear of interruption.’

‘You don’t want me to unzip your fly for you, then?’ she said in a low sultry voice.

Oh fuck! He did. He totally did. There was no way on God’s earth he was ever going to say no to that.

She popped the button of his fly, and carefully drew down the zip.

Ash sucked in a breath, waiting for her to touch him. His cock bucked hard when she peeled the waistband of his shorts away from his body so that the tip of him peeped out. She tugged his clothing down far enough to free him properly, and dragged his T-shirt off too, and chucked it into the kitchen sink.

‘I will never get tired of looking at you.’ She gave a dreamy sort of sigh, and then rode her silky shorts up against his shaft, while her hands slid into his hair and her mouth claimed his. It felt so right that he couldn’t help but want more of it.

Maybe they’d be safe here for a few minutes. They could come together, part and be out of here before the guys returned. It was possible, totally possible. His cock knew so.

Ash groaned as blood pumped hard through his shaft.

God, he was doomed, if he was letting his dick do all the thinking. It’d never made a decent decision in his life. Well, apart from when it’d first perked up at the sight of Ginny on the night they met.

‘We should really take this elsewhere,’ he mumbled.

‘Upstairs?’ she said brightly.

‘Hotel,’ he countered. She knew exactly why he didn’t want to climb into his bunk with her, so he saw no point in telling her again. Once there, she wouldn’t leave, and he wouldn’t want her to. Then his bandmates would know they were dating and the whole world would find out about five minutes later. ‘We’d get no privacy upstairs. There are six berths.’

‘Yeah, but I don’t think I can wait for this –’ she sat on the very tip of his shaft, so that he was pushing against the seam of her shorts ‘– until we got to a hotel. That might take a while.’

The honest truth was that he didn’t think he could wait either. If her damn shorts weren’t in the way, he’d be inside her now, driving them both towards heaven. He could already feel her arousal seeping through the silk. ‘You need to take these damn things off.’

‘I’m wearing crotchless tights.’

His heart skipped a beat. The guys would arrive back. They’d be seen, but he wasn’t sure he cared any more. In any case, they might not recognise her in her present showgirl get-up. They’d just think it was another fan eager for a piece of him. Xane would give him hell, but that was routine.

Only he was forgetting about Dani. Ginny and Dani were best friends, so there was no way Dani wasn’t going to recognise her. Although he suspected she already knew about the relationship.

‘We should really stop,’ he suggested, but there he was letting her guide his fingers between her thighs, under the edge of her shorts and into the slick heat of her pussy. She was so ready for him. ‘You know why it’s a bad idea for us to get caught …’

‘I know where I want you to get caught.’ Her hands curled over the tops of his shoulders so that her index fingers pressed against his collar bones. Her lips descended to his neck, nipping, licking, driving his senses into overload, so that his hands were shaking as he fingered her.

‘Ginny, it’s for your own protection.’ The press could be ruthless; the fans even worse.

‘The only protection I’m interested in right now comes in shiny foil squares and makes a nice crinkly noise when you open them. Where’s it hiding tonight?’

In his goddamned back pocket where he couldn’t easily reach it.

‘It’s OK, I’ve got it.’ She plucked a condom foil from her décolletage and ripped it open with her teeth. Ash waited breathless as she dressed him. Then she was holding him, guiding him, sinking onto him nice and slow.

‘Oh, fuck!’ Her pussy engulfed his shaft completely.

‘Mmm,’ she agreed. ‘That is way too nice.’

Ash inhaled sharply through his teeth, as the walls of her sheath fluttered around him. Then she was riding him hard, and his senses became tightly focused on the thrum of his pulse inside his shaft, and the bite of her kiss as she ravaged his mouth.

He couldn’t … would never get enough of this woman. He wanted to do this with her always. No other woman would ever have a look-in. They might be hot, but they’d never have that soul-binding quality that Ginny had. Even with his first love he’d never felt this, and at the time he’d been utterly convinced that she was the one.

When the car pulled up alongside the bus, it came as the worst kind of shock. ‘No,’ he gasped. ‘Oh, no … no … no!’ The bastards couldn’t be back yet. Couldn’t they have stayed away another few minutes? He held onto Ginny, driving into her, making sweat break out across his body and both of them pant.

‘Ash,’ she said calmly. ‘It’s not happening now. It’s time for me to go.’

‘No. Just another minute.’

‘You’re the one who doesn’t want to be caught.’

‘Another … minute … Please!’

She slipped out of his grasp. ‘I’ll call.’

‘Ginny, seriously?’

‘Sleep tight, baby.’ She blew him a kiss, then, as abruptly as the intrusion of the car headlights had been, she was gone; down the steps and out of the door.

‘Ginny,’ he croaked, hardly able to rouse himself from his stupor. How the devil did she move so fast? He thought about going after her. Tried to stand and came crashing to his knees as his trousers tangled around his legs. He only just managed to haul himself upright and get his leathers straight before Elspeth burst into the kitchen area with a face like thunder.

‘Why’s the chair there?’ she snarled, barging past him to reach the back bedroom.

Rock Giant followed her on board, trooping after her like her faithful pet dog. He looked around at the swathes of black velvet, his favourite evil mastermind chair, and his brows shot up into his hairline. ‘Seriously, you bailed on us so you could host a vampire orgy?’ He looked around again, obviously expecting to find scantily clad women dotted about. His confusion showed in the beetling of his brows when he didn’t find them. He pulled back his shirt cuff to look at his watch. ‘Are we waiting for the witching hour for them to arrive?’

‘No.’ Ash snatched at the nearest piece of black velvet and tore it down. ‘I didn’t do this.’ He didn’t volunteer any information about the culprit but just stripped the area and, when he was done, bundled the material into the bottom of the larder cupboard.

‘Where’s everyone else? You must have eaten quickly.’

‘You fucked the dinner up by leaving,’ Rock Giant informed him. He seemed torn between talking to Ash and pursuing Elspeth into the bedroom. ‘Xane took an extended bathroom trip the moment you left, and Iain used that as a cue to make more dickheadish remarks.’

‘He’s lucky I didn’t smash a plate over his skull,’ Elspeth hollered from the back end of the bus. ‘If he ever dares joke about Steve again in my presence I’ll string him up by his nads.’

Um, OK. It sounded as if things had gone downhill rapidly.

‘Speaking of nads, you might want to attend to your fly, since I’m not interested in seeing what you like poking people with,’ Rock Giant suggested.

‘All in all it was a pretty shitty night,’ Elspeth finished. ‘I’m going to bed, so switch the racket you’re listening to off.’ She slammed the bedroom door.

Rock Giant hit the button on the stereo’s main control panel while Ash was still trying to locate the remote. Once the throbbing bass was cut, he realised how hard his heart was still hammering. No doubt Elspeth would be out and yelling at him to quieten that down too. Hell, was it too late to go after Ginny? He’d rather spend a night with her at a hotel than here listening to his bandmates gripe about the man he’d brought in to save them. They needed a drummer. He’d found them one. What was their fucking problem?

‘I’m gonna crash too,’ the big guy muttered. ‘It’s been a fucking long day what with the gig and all the practice we’re having to put in due to the awful drummer you picked for us.’