“That’s what I thought,” Vanessa said and churned her neck for added affect. “Lindsey done told you she wasn’t interested. Bye now.”
She had. Many times. She’d thought he’d finally given up. Joe hadn’t bothered her in weeks. She must be flinging out pheromones like a bitch in heat or something. It wasn’t as if she could help it. The members of Sole Regret lit her on fire, but she’d rather sate her lust with her battery operated boyfriend than with Joseph Bainbridge. She was so not attracted to him and never would be. There was nothing wrong with him, but there was nothing right about him either.
Joe sidled away and Lindsey returned her attention to the stage. The song came to an end and the crowd cheered, the riotous noise echoing through the auditorium like waves of an angry sea. Shade moved to the center of the stage and spoke to the audience.
“Thanks for coming to our benefit concert on this cold Christmas eve.”
The crowd cheered.
“Ellie Carlisle wanted to be here tonight to thank you for helping her family out with her medical expenses. Unfortunately, after a strong dose of radiation therapy yesterday, they wouldn’t clear her to leave the hospital. So tonight she’s getting a lot of rest so she can wake up tomorrow and see what Santa brings a perfect angel for Christmas.”
It might have been the sound system, but Shade’s voice sounded a little raw as he talked about the Ellie, a five-year-old girl who was fighting for her life in a local hospital. The town had come together several times to try to help out her family, but pancake breakfasts and silent auctions for afghans only raised so much money. A Sole Regret concert, on the other hand, brought in folks and their money for hundreds of miles.
“Her father is a big fan of ours,” Shade continued, “so when he asked us to come out and help them raise some money to help his little girl fight for her life, we couldn’t say no.”
“Be sure to buy a T-shirt on your way out,” Kellen Jamison said in the deepest, sexiest voice Lindsey had ever heard. How could she possibly think about anything but the sound of that voice in her ear when it echoed around her from every direction? “All of the profits from merch sales go to helping the Carlisle family too.”
Owen stepped up to his microphone. “You know what? Fuck cancer,” he bellowed, thrusting a fist in the air.
He soon had the entire auditorium chanting, “fuck cancer, fuck cancer, fuck cancer” over and over again. Even stick-up-her-ass Mrs. Weston was yelling it along with the others.
When the crowd settled again, Shade said, “Thanks for coming out tonight and supporting Ellie’s cause. Now we’re going to rock your faces off.”
Shade started the next song with a battle cry that caused a thrill to streak down Lindsey’s spine. Hard to believe this group of bad ass men would be willing to give up their Christmas Eve to help out a little girl they didn’t even know. Lindsey was surprised that tears were prickling at the backs of her eyes as she thought of their selfless act. Suddenly, the members of Sole Regret seemed more substantial to her than walking aphrodisiacs. She wondered what kind of men they were. Maybe she could find a way to get to know them. And not just so she could check two tasks off her fuck-it list. She had a powerful need to thank them for being awesome.
II
Owen glanced around the tour bus, looking from one grim face to another.
You’d think his band mates had just come from a funeral, not from a kick-ass benefit concert that would likely save a little girl’s life. Owen shifted his Santa hat to the cocked and ready position and reached for the black garbage bag of decorations his mom had sent along with him when she’d learned he wouldn’t be able to attend their family’s annual Christmas Eve celebration. His brother wouldn’t be attending either—Chad had been deployed to Afghanistan in August—so Owen was somewhat glad that he wouldn’t have to sit across the table from an empty chair and wondered if his brother was dodging bullets while he was dodging Grandma Ginny’s questions about when he was going to settle down and make pretty babies for her to spoil. Though he missed his family as much as the next guy—yes, even Grandma Ginny—Owen wasn’t going to lounge here on the bus and sulk all the way from Wherever-the-hell-they-were, Idaho to Wherever-the-hell-they-were-going, Montana. He was going to make the best of their situation and not let his bummed-out band mates ruin his perpetual good time.
Owen’s prime target was Kelly. Not because the rhythm guitarist was the most depressed—that honor went to Shade—but because Owen needed a partner in Christmas cheer and Kelly always had his back. He didn’t even have to ask Kelly for his assistance. They’d formed a pact of mutual mischief long ago.
Owen dug the snot-green, artificial Christmas tree out of the sack and set it on the end table between the pair of recliners where the band’s drummer, Gabe, sat reading of all things and Shade sat glowering at nothing.
Straightening the branches of the tree into something slightly more pine shaped, Owen hummed under his breath and then broke out into song. “O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, how plastic are thy branches.”
Shade lifted his head and one dark eyebrow rose above the frame of his aviator sunglasses. “Do you have to be obnoxious right now?”
“Why,” Owen said, “is it interrupting your sulking?”
“As a matter of fact, it is.” Shade reached for one branch of the hideously fake tree and bent it into a wider angle.
“And why are you sulking? It’s Christmas Eve. Are you afraid you’ll get nothing but lumps of coal in your stocking?” Owen dove into the sack of decorations and pulled out several strands of lights. His family was of the opinion that it was not possible to have too many lights on a holiday tree. When fully lit, the Mitchell Family Christmas Tree could probably be seen from Mars.
“Julie only has one third Christmas.” Shade arranged another branchthen dropping his hand when Gabe turned his attention from his book to watch him try to perfect the unperfectable.
“But she doesn’t have to,” Owen said. “You can give her another Christmas when we get home next week. She’ll love that. I’ll even wear my Santa hat and shimmy down the chimney to put a smile on her face.”
Shade crossed his arms over his chest, his scowl deepening. “It’s not the same.”
“At least it isn’t my fault he’s sulking this time,” Adam said. The lead guitarist had his acoustic guitar out and was quietly strumming some riff he was working on for the next Sole Regret album.
“I’m not sulking,” Shade said.
“Looks like sulking to me,” Kelly said. He rose from the sofa to stand beside Owen. He inserted a long, tattooed arm into the sack and dug out a red rope garland. He lifted his eyebrows at Owen, before flicking his eyes at Shade pointedly.
Owen tried not to grin and give their silently exchanged plan away, but it wasn’t easy. He nodded ever-so-slightly.
“You’re the one who signed us up to play a benefit concert on Christmas Eve in the first place,” Adam said to Shade. “You don’t even know that kid.”
Owen winced. Did the two of them really need to pick a fight tonight? Surely they could find it in themselves to put aside their differences on Christmas Eve.
“I didn’t have to fucking know the kid, Adam. She has leukemia. Her family has no insurance, no jobs, no money to pay for her chemotherapy. A few hours out of our busy schedules gives her a chance to see her sixth birthday. Do you always have to be such a selfish prick?”
“I had absolutely no problem with doing the benefit concert. It’s not like I have better plans for Christmas anyway and, believe it or fucking not, I do care. But you sitting there looking like your dog just died after you made the decision to do the concert in the first place is pissing me off. I’m not gonna lie,” Adam said.
“There’s a first time for everything,” Shade grumbled.
“All I want for Christmas is a pair of ball gags to shut you both up.” Gabe lifted his book until all that was visible of his head was his foot-high red and black mohawk. “I’m trying to concent
rate over here.”
“Ball gags?” Kelly nodded. “I can probably fulfill that wish.” He started to wrap the rope garland in long loops from hand to elbow. Owen knew Kelly could produce two ball gags in a matter of minutes. He also knew exactly where Kelly kept his secret stash of kinky implements if he ever felt the need to borrow something. Recently Kelly had taken up a new hobby—tying knots. It was a perfectly innocent hobby for most people, but not so much for Kelly.
Carefully untangling a strand of lights, Owen pretended to be intensely interested in their drummer, Gabe, to keep attention off Kelly, who was fashioning a loose noose out of one end of the garland. The dragon tattoos on the shaven parts of Gabe’s scalp stood in complete contradiction to the colossal, decidedly boring book in his hands. “What are you reading about?” Owen asked, as if he didn’t already know he didn’t give a shit.
Gabe pushed his reading glasses up his nose and grinned deviously. “Friction.”
“And how to reduce it with proper lubrication?” Owen asked. Gabe was the only person he knew who tried to apply the laws of physics to sex.
“You don’t want to reduce the friction too much,” Gabe said. “You want it slick and wet, but not too juicy.”
“I disagree,” Shade said with a grin. “The juicier, the better.” At least his sulking had diminished.
“Yeah,” Kelly agreed. “I like it dripping wet so I can lick it clean.”
“The conversation on this bus always turns to pussy,” Adam said.
“There’s nothing better to talk about, is there?” Owen asked.
“No,” his band mates said in unison. They all laughed at the one thing they always agreed on.
“And there’s definitely nothing better to think about,” Gabe said, “so you all need to shut up. I’m thinking.”
“Who needs this worse, Owen?” Kelly said. “Shade or Gabe?” He was now prepared to act on his plan.
“Personally, I think they both need it,” Owen said.
“Need what?” Shade asked.
“Looks like Shade volunteered to be first.”
“First at what?”
Kelly moved fast—like ninja—and Owen stepped back out of his way, awaiting his opening to assist him.
Shade was bigger than Kelly, but Kelly had the element of surprise on his side. Before Shade could even react to Kelly jumping on him, Kelly had the garland of red rope around Shade’s forearms, binding them together from wrists to elbows. Shade might have been able to break free of the garland given time, but the instant Kelly stepped away, Owen went after him with strands of lights, wrapping several strands around Shade’s upper arms and chest, crisscrossed in a web of unbreakable art. Kelly had taught Owen all he knew about shibari and Owen had taught Kelly all he knew about calf-roping. Their combination of skill, teamwork and speed ensured that Shade wasn’t going anywhere until they decided to free his arms.
As was common for Shade, once he got over his recent, perpetual dour mood—his divorce was to blame—he was happy to join in on their fun and play along. He laughed as a second strand of lights secured him to the chair around the waist. He was in danger of hyperventilating with laughter when Kelly found some sparkly tinsel in the sack and wrapped it around his neck several times.
“Now you have no choice but to be in the Christmas spirit,” Owen said. “No more bah humbug out of you.”
Chuckling at the spectacle the coolest member of the band made trussed up like an abomination of a Christmas tree, Adam added to the festivities by strumming Christmas carols on his guitar. “On the first day of Christmas my buddies gave to me, decorations on a Shade tree.”
“Shut up,” Shade yelled, but he was snickering too intermittently for anyone to take him seriously.
Kelly found a gaudy tree topper in the sack. Before he could add it to their tree, Gabe snatched the tinsel-trimmed star out of Kelly’s hand and set it on the pinnacle of their Shade tree. Gabe wrapped the light cord under Shade’s chin and then around the star to hold it somewhat upright atop Shade’s head. Apparently, Gabe had given up on reading his The Physics of Fucking and Friction book or whatever it was called. None of them could resist messing with Shade. He worked so hard at being cool onstage and in public. Sometimes they had to remind him that he could still act like a kid and have some stupid fun when there wasn’t anyone important watching.
Gabe found a package of blue glass bulbs in Owen’s sack of Christmas cheer and dangled them from the strand of lights near Shade’s crotch.
“You did not just give me blue balls, Force,” Shade said with the deep, commanding voice that made their road crew scramble for their lives.
Owen laughed.
Adam added to his song, “On the second day of Christmas my buddies gave to me, two blue balls and decorations on a Shade tree.”
“I will give you blue balls when I punch you in them,” Shade said.
“You shouldn’t threaten people when you can’t fight back,” Adam said.
“Plug him in,” Owen said, hoping Shade and Adam didn’t actually get into more than a pissing contest.
Kelly located the power cord and plugged it into the outlet behind his chair. Gabe plugged the star into the end of one of the light strands.
When the multicolored lights began to flash and cast brilliant specks of lights all over their tattooed, buffed-out, sunglasses-wearing lead singer, they all burst out laughing. Owen grabbed his cellphone out of his pocket. “Okay, this is going on Facebook.”
“Don’t you dare,” Shade said, his smile fading and mouth opening in exasperation.
Oh, Owen dared. He even gave the candid picture a caption—All Dressed for Christmas with No Place to Go.
“Hey, guys?” their driver, Tex, called from the front of the bus. “We’re going to have to pull over soon. The snow is coming down so heavily I can’t see the road. We better park until it lets up or a snowplow blows through.”
Snow! Oh yes. A perfect addition to Shade’s festive attire.
“Sweet.” Owen grinned at Kelly who quickly caught on to his newest nefarious plan.
“Shade tied down,” Kelly said.
“Plus snow,” Owen said.
“Equals projectile fun,” Gabe said.
“You guys wouldn’t fucking dare.” Shade tried to lean out of the chair, but found that while he’d been tethered mostly by complacency at first, he now had no choice but to stay put.
Owen grinned and straightened his Santa hat. “Wouldn’t we?”
III
Lindsey squinted at the dark road ahead. The wipers scraped rhythmically across her field of vision to keep the thick snow at bay, but she was fixated on the glowing red taillights of her favorite band’s tour bus. Storm or no storm, she wasn’t giving up now. It had been a stroke of luck that Sole Regret’s bus had turned out in front of her car as she pulled out of the auditorium after the benefit concert. Instead of taking the proper road toward home, she had continued following them eastward out of town, through the wilderness and up into the mountains. It was pitch black out here in the middle of nowhere and what had started out as a few flurries was now becoming a blizzard.
“It’s getting really bad out,” Vanessa said from the passenger seat. “We should have gone home instead of following their bus. The farther we go, the worse this shit gets. Can you even see the road?”
“Yeah, I’m used to driving in the snow. And they have to stop sometime,” Lindsey said. “I want to meet them and thank them for helping out the Carlisle family.”
Vanessa chuckled. “Bullshit, girl. You want to bone them.”
Lindsey bit her lip. “Yeah, I do—all five of them—but just meeting them will be orgasmic enough.”
Her engine roared as her front tires lost their grip and spun in the slick, wet snow. The car skidded slightly, before finding a better patch of pavement and righting itself.
Vanessa was clinging to the dashboard with long red nails. “Girl, you and your horny vagina are gonna get us both killed.”
“It’s fine,” Lindsey said and laughed. “Well the car is fine. The vagina is still horny. God, those guys were hot on stage.” She shuddered at the mere memory of their blatant sexuality. Just watching them perform made her wet and achy between her legs.
“That ain’t no lie,” Vanessa said. “Too bad they’s all white boys.”
“Once you go white, you think it’s all right.” She shrugged.
Vanessa laughed. “Girl, you are too much.”
“You know you love me,” Lindsey said. They’d been best friends since elementary school and twenty years later, still did everything together. Well, almost everything.
“You’re lucky I don’t jack your car and get us off this damned mountain,” Vanessa said.
“You are all talk, Nessi. You know you want to meet them too.”
“Maybe a little.” Lindsey could hear the smile in Vanessa’s voice. They liked to tease each other and pretend they were as different in attitude as they were in looks, but they really did have almost everything in common—including their taste in music and men.
The right blinker on the bus ahead began to flash. Lindsey saw the sign for a scenic turn out and turned on her blinker to follow them. Finally, her chance. Assuming they didn’t think she was bat shit crazy for following them over seventy miles through a blizzard and falling at their feet to dry hump their legs.
The bus pulled to a stop and Lindsey parked behind it. She left the car running, the wipers working extra hard to keep the fluffy white flakes off the windshield. Lindsey’s heart thudded faster and faster at the thought of getting out of her car, knocking on the tour bus door and offering her body to anyone who would have it.
“You’re going to chicken out, aren’t you?” Vanessa said.
“No, I’m just thinking about how to approach them.”
She could barely make out Vanessa’s rolling eyes in the glow of the dash lights. “Whatever. You say I’m all talk. You might think you’ve got the guts to raid their tour bus for cock, but sweetie, I know you. You ain’t a ho.”
A Very Naughty Xmas Page 27
