Come Alive E-Book

Madelynne Ellis

• Herausgeber: Incantatrix Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Turn up the volume, grab a cold drink, and climb aboard the Black Halo hard rocking, dirty, sexy, crazy train.

When goth rockers Black Halo settle on a private island to enjoy some downtime, Dani’s relationship with frontman Xane Geist is put to the ultimate test. She agrees to allow him to explore his desire for sizzling new drummer, Luthor Albrecht, but even with strict rules in place to define what’s acceptable, Dani’s heart is never more than a step away from being broken. Nor does it help that she’s secretly attracted to Luthor too.

As the band battle with the repercussion of previous events, Dani must make peace with her past, for only by learning to trust has she any hope of holding onto her man.

“Man alive was this book brilliant! The characters are perfection and the story full of twists and turns. It dragged me in and refused to let me put it down until I'd read the whole blinking thing.”- Amazon Reviewer.

COME ALIVE is the third full-length novel about Black Halo frontman Xane Geist.

DEEP DIVE INTO THE WORLD OF BLACK HALO:
ANE: (Come Undone, Come Together, Come Alive.)
ASH: (All Night Long, All Fired Up, All Right Now.)
SPOOK: (Off the Record, Reflex, Replay, Refrain, Revive)
ROCK GIANT: (Reckless Beat)

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

-Title Page-

-Copyright-

-About the Book-

-Prelude-

-1-

-2-

-3-

-4-

-5-

-6-

-7-

-8-

-9-

-10-

-11-

-12-

-13-

-14-

-15-

-16-

-17-

-18-

-19-

-20-

-21-

-22-

-23-

-24-

-25-

-26-

-27-

-28-

-29-

-30-

-31-

-32-

-33-

-34-

-Epilogue-

-All Right Now Preview-

-Author’s Note-

-Rockstars & Rakehells-

-Also By Madelynne Ellis-

-About the Author-

ROCK HARD #3: A BLACK HALO NOVEL

MADELYNNE ELLIS

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | NEWSLETTER | READERS GROUP

Copyright © Madelynne Ellis 2016, & 2019. All Rights Reserved.

Cover Art by Madelynne Ellis

Originally published by Mischief, HarperCollins 2016.

Incantatrix Press version first published May 2019.

This edition published May 2024.

www.madelynne-ellis.com

This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or to events or places is coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Licence Notes: This ebook is licenced for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

-ABOUT THE BOOK-

Turn up the volume, grab a cold drink, and climb aboard the Black Halo hard rocking, dirty, sexy, crazy train.

She's forever his girl, but he's also dating another man.

Dani's relationship with the bisexual bad boy frontman of goth rockers Black Halo is tested when she agrees

to allow him to explore his desire for sizzling new drummer, Luthor Albrecht. Yet, even with strict rules in place, Dani's heart is never more than a step away from being broken.

Nor does it help that she's secretly attracted to Luthor too...

When the crisis hit band hole up to record a new album, Dani's forced to confront her traumatic past. If she's going to hold on to Xane's heart, then trust is paramount, and also key to turning this uneasy love triangle into something stable and precious.

“Man alive was this book brilliant! The characters are perfection and the story full of twists and turns. It dragged me in and refused to let me put it down until I'd read the whole blinking thing.”- Amazon Reviewer.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “Another well written sexy book with interesting and engaging characters. It was a thrill to be along for their ride!”~ Goodreads Reviewer.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “I absolutely love Black Halo. These characters are amazing, and I love that they keep evolving. I can't wait for more.” ~Goodreads Reviewer.

Come Alive is part of a larger story about the rock band Black Halo.

DEEP DIVE INTO THE WORLD OF BLACK HALO:

XANE: (Come Undone, Come Together, Come Alive.)

ASH: (All Night Long, All Fired Up, All Right Now.)

SPOOK: (Off the Record, Reflex, Replay, Refrain, Revive.)

ROCK GIANT (Reckless Beat.)

To discover more about Madelynne’s books, sign up to be part of her newsletter email list.

-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.”

-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.