Prologue
Five years earlier…
‘I’ve done it guys. That music exec has agreed to meet us. We’re playing for him tomorrow a.m. 9:30 sharp.’
The mumbled replies of, ‘Yeah,’ and ‘Cool,’ were not the responses Iain had envisaged for all his hard work. He’d sweated his butt off to get them this break, and it was a big thing. If everything went well tomorrow, and there was no goddamned reason why it shouldn’t, then he and the rest of Love Rocket were made. The bigwig from the record label had already seen them perform live, so he knew both that they could play and had star potential. Tomorrow would be about working out the details and selling them to the rest of his team. This was a small label, but it would get them out there in front of audiences, bigger audiences than they could muster playing the university scene, and in turn that would hopefully boost them into the spotlight.
Iain realised this wasn’t going to make them an overnight success, but it would give them a solid boost up the ladder of superstardom he had pinned to his wardrobe door.
‘Where’s Ash?’ he asked, noticing that his lead guitarist was absent. Ash would be totally stoked about this, and unlike the rest of the guys—which glancing around the room, were beginning to look expendable—he was essential to this deal. Iain might be the motivating force, but Ash was their primary selling point.
Ashley Ryan had been born to rock. He looked every inch the rock star he was so obviously destined to become; black hair that shrouded his face, a lean physique corded with muscles, and two baby blue eyes that could magic the panties off chicks from a hundred paces. Their fan base had tripled overnight after the first time he joined them on stage. What made things more interesting was that Ash, beneath the grungy image, was about as clean cut as you could get. His only stumbling block was his girlfriend, Connie, for whom he’d do anything. Correction, had been prepared to do anything, until ceremoniously dumped him last week. Thank you, Jesus!
‘He’s not mooning over Connie’s departure again, is he?’
‘Whaa--?’ Tom remarked, his eyes never leaving the TV screen, into which his games machine was permanently wired. Guitar Hero, he certainly wasn’t. ‘There’s a letter for you on the corkboard.’
Biting back an expression of despair at Tom’s ineptitude, Iain left the communal lounge and hustled into his study-bedroom. Sure enough, a folded piece of paper with his name scrawled across the front in Ash’s overly swirly handwriting sat pinned in the centre of the board, over the top of next month’s rehearsal schedule. Heart suddenly in his guts, he took it down and opened it.
Sorry mate. I need to get away from here. The whole thing with Connie has knocked me for six. I’ve been talking to some other guys about joining them, and I’ve decided this is the right time to make the jump. Clean break and all. Plus, their sound’s more my scene and they’ve agreed to take it more in my direction. You know that you and I don’t quite hit it off in that regard.
Anyway, they’ve a mini tour already booked for over the half-term break, so that’s why I’m not here to tell you this in person.
I know Love Rocket don’t have anything booked, but just in case you want to get started on finding my replacement, I’ve left you some numbers.
See you when I get back.
Ash.
‘Fuck!’ Iain put his fist through the mirror.
‘Hey, man, what’s up?’ Gary mooched through from the lounge, lank hair combed forward over his face. Tom appeared at his heels, still super glued to his games controller. The former bent and picked up Ash’s note, which Iain had dropped. He read it quickly.
‘Sucks,’ he remarked, and dropped it again.
It more than sucked. They were screwed. He was screwed. As the remaining shards of the mirror tumbled from the frame, Iain’s dreams of stardom crashed.
It was not supposed to work out like this. He’d thought with Connie gone, Ash would be all over this project as something to throw himself into instead of making prissy wedding plans, but no, he’d only gone and fucked off to make some other fucker fucking rich.
Ash, you selfish ruddy bastard!
Chapter One
Birmingham, England, Requiem for the Damned tour, opening night.
Ash looked for her the moment he came off stage, while his body was pumped with adrenaline and he was still buzzing from the performance high. He knew she’d be there, just as she had been every moment from the night they’d met. Ginny— just a glimpse of her was enough to make him want to barrel caveman-like through the crowd to claim her and cover her precious upturned face with a thousand million kisses. She made him crazy. One simple touch and he was all fired up and eager to please.
However, the last thing any budding relationship needed was the attention of the global media. Black Halo had just kicked off their ‘Requiem for the Damned’ tour, and there were enough journalists present, waving cameras and microphones about to make his hackles rise.
Ash intended to keep what he had with Ginny private. No spotlights. No photographs. And no well meaning friends offering advice and generally screwing things up. After his first brush with love had left him a quivering wreck, he wasn’t taking any risks second time around.
Still, it was hard not to run to her and lose himself staring into her liquid gold eyes. Instead, he steered himself in the opposite direction.
Ash made small talk with a couple of other ladies who’d managed to find their way backstage. He signed three autographs, one on a boob, and had his picture taken with new drummer, Iain Willows, and their official fan club president, whose name he could never remember. He forced himself to do an entire circuit of the room without looking at Ginny once, before he finally headed in her direction. Even then, he held off from giving her any sort of welcome that might have been deemed extraordinary. Just a friendly peck on the cheek, when really he wanted to drink down every last drop of her, and to tell everyone else here to fuck off home.
Only that sort of outburst would really focus their attention.
‘You took your time working your way here.’
‘I was saving the best for last.’
‘Were you?’ Sceptically, she raised one of her arched eyebrows.
‘I needed to find out how we went down.’
‘And?’
‘Like a storm, it seems.’
‘Because there was any actual doubt that’d be the case. The audience were just stoked you’re all together making music again and playing gigs. Say, has anyone ever told you, you’ve hold your guitar in a really weird way. You make it look as if she’s about to fly from your hands.’
Yes, actually they had. He overlooked the remark though, because Ginny knew his guitar was female. She was amazing like that. Ash clenched his fists to stop himself from cupping her face and stealing a proper kiss. He really needed to find an exit route out of here soon, because he didn’t want to stand still next to this woman. He wanted to do. His body wasn’t going to be content until he’d sampled every damn part of her for the zillionth time. These past few weeks, he hadn’t seemed able to screw his head on straight unless they were sandwiched so close there were no discernible gaps between them.
‘Actually, I think you’ll find she’s like a lot of ladies, and appreciates gentle coaxing.’
Her lips pursed quizzically. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate tenderness, but Ash could genuinely attest to her being one of the few women who when she said she wanted it hard meant exactly that. He had the bruises to prove it. And didn’t that just keep him running back for more.
‘It’s just unfortunate that Mr Geist keeps writing hard-core rock anthems,’ he muttered, still half talking about his guitar. They needed to get out of here now, find themselves somewhere secluded away from the din and the crush of people. Who the hell were all these people anyway? And why were they backstage?’
‘Yeah, I’ve heard he’s addicted to rocking out.’
‘Wanna rock out with me,’ they both remarked simultaneously, making one another laugh. Did he ever. He was damn well hooked on her. Ginny Walters, the new drug of choice. ‘I think I’m addicted to the taste of you.’
Ginny prodded him with her elbow. ‘You say such crude if lovely things. I’m rather partial to the taste of you too.’
‘Then maybe I can persuade you to come this way.’ Ash hooked an arm around her tiny waist—Ginny was skinny everywhere apart from around the hourglass curve of her hips— and guided her in the direction of the bar. There was an exit right by it that’d take them to the dressing rooms and some blissful seclusion.
‘Hey, Mr Rock Star, I hope you’re not planning on plying me with alcohol and then having your wicked way.’
‘Course not. I wouldn’t dream of taking advantage like that. I was thinking wicked way first, then alcohol. What do you say we relive a little of our history?’
‘That does sound fun,’ she agreed, getting a nostalgic look in her eyes. He still couldn’t believe they’d met because she’d gate-crashed his dressing room looking for fun with whoever turned up. Ash had always supposed he’d meet his special lady somewhere civilized and unconnected to the music industry. Not that he was arguing with fate.
‘And were you thinking we’d do this with or without the accompaniment of your band mates?’
Definitely, without. While he’d once shared her with Spook and Rock Giant, he had no intention of ever doing so again. Just as he had no intention of sharing himself with anybody else. Ginny was his, and he was strictly a one woman man from now on. Why risk perfection for something mediocre? And boy was she perfect. He admired the wiggle of her butt as she walked ahead of him to get through the crowd.
Of course, slipping away unnoticed, proved a little trickier than he’d hoped. By the time they’d reached the end of the bar, they were surrounded by the other band members and associated hangers on.
Most nights Ash was happy to hang out with them and do some post-gig chilling, but they were about to spend six months on a tour bus together. He’d see plenty of them, and not nearly enough of Ginny. After weeks of having her around whenever he needed her, not being able to hold her in his arms was going to be absolute murder.
Also, things were still kind of tense within the band, following their temporary split a little while back. Ash wasn’t going to even pretend those wounds were fully healed.
‘Ash. Come and have a beer.’ Ian Willows, the newest addition to the band, clubbed him across the back, before handing him a bottle. ‘I think that went well. They’re still loving us outside.’ The general hum of backstage activity was regularly punctuated by the roar of the fans waiting outside for a glimpse of the band as they left. ‘I see you haven’t lost your talents.’ Iain’s attention abruptly shifted to Ginny. ‘Let me say good evening to the prettiest girl in the room.’ He grasped Ginny’s hand and raised it in order to kiss her fingers.
Around them several female onlookers sighed, while Ash experienced an overwhelming desire to tear Iain’s head off. He did not need to be touching Ginny, or looking at Ginny, or breathing in the same space as Ginny. And he definitely didn’t need to be flashing his ‘come to bed’ eyes at her.
‘You don’t want to hang out with this waster, do you?’ Iain drawled, while cozying up to her side. ‘You should really consider checking out the new talent in the band.’
‘Where’d you recommend I look?’
Iain’s briefly pouted; an expression that made him look decidedly constipated. Then he clutched his hands to his heart in a theatrical fashion and claimed, ‘I’m wounded. So, cruel.’
The bastard completely overcooked it, and ought to have crashed and burned; instead he managed to raise a smile out of Ginny.
‘Seriously, though,’ Iain said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. ‘You do realise he’s been everywhere?’
‘Which beats having been nowhere,’ Elspeth Shriik, Black Halo’s diminutive keyboardist, remarked, interrupting Ash’s internal visualization of Iain’s gory decapitation. ‘At least Ash comes with a satisfaction guarantee. What do you come with?’
‘Minimal effort,’ someone quipped, instantly freezing Iain’s smile.
‘God, yeah. Very droll,’ he complained. ‘You’re all so funny. That’s right, pick on the new guy.’
‘Have another beer, Iain.’ Ash thrust the bottle Iain had given him back at him again, hoping to derail things from devolving into an argument. He might be a wee bit pissed at Iain at the minute, but if at all possible he wanted to avoid another feud brewing within the band. It was bad enough that Xane and Elspeth were barely speaking to one another, without a third war zone being drawn up.
He got it. He understood why Elspeth didn’t want Iain on board. For the same reason that Xane didn’t, because the vacancy only existed because of Steve Matlock’s death and neither of them were ready to move on yet.
‘At least you’re drinking something less girly now,’ Rock Giant, Black Halo’s bassist, remarked of the beer, ‘and not that pink nonsense you had earlier.’
‘Cosmo?’ The bartender enquired.
‘Dirty Shirley,’ Iain corrected him. ‘And I’ll take another now.’
Ash shook his head. ‘You’re a supposed to be a bad ass rock star. Don’t you think cocktails are little bit fluffy?’
‘What can I say?’ Iain raised his hands and shrugged. ‘I happen to love cherries.’
‘First timers only,’ Elspeth mocked. ‘Is that so they don’t realise how rubbish you are?’
Ash watched Iain’s skin turn purple beneath his artfully constructed five o’clock shadow, and prayed he managed to inoculate himself to the Elspeth’s jibes fast, else he was going to be doing a lot of mediating on this tour, and if there was one thing he truly sucked at, it was calming situations. Creating them, now that was a different matter.
Xane came over looking for his girlfriend, Dani and drifted off again when he realised she wasn’t present, which in turn prompted Ash to make a second attempt at escaping.
‘Where are you going?’ Iain asked.
Ash cuddled Ginny closer. ‘I’ve something I need to attend to.’ He saw a particular thought burst through Iain’s expression and deliberately turned away before his friend chose to express it. If the words threesome left Iain’s mouth, or in fact anything else suggestive involving him and Ginny, then Elspeth wouldn’t be Iain’s major problem, because he’d have two broken legs and a bust nose to deal with. The only reason Ash was considering leaving his arms intact was because they needed a drummer.
‘Catch you later,’ he said fixedly. Then he led Ginny calmly to the exit, in exactly the same way as he’d led hundreds of women before her. ‘Nothing’s changed, nothing’s different,’ he recited mantra-like beneath his breath for the benefit of anyone watching. ‘I’m just doing the same thing I always do, going to enjoy a little post-show wind down with a pretty lady I recently met.’
His audience seemed to buy it. Leastways, no one appeared to be taking any notice of them, not even the snoops from the Daily Sleaze.
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