Come Together

by Madelynne Ellis

  Steve was gone. He still struggled with that concept. The guy was only twenty-six.

  As soon as Dani got back, he was going to crush her in his arms and lock them together in a way that made them both feel good. He needed to feel good. He had to sing to a crowd tonight.

  It was damn hard to sing with your throat locked tight with emotion.

  He recited his mantra again, even attempted to turn the corners of his mouth up a little. It didn’t work.

  Fucking was definitely on the agenda, as soon as Dani got here … literally as soon as. It wasn’t using her. He needed her. Dani knew how to take his pain away.

  ‘No girl with you?’ Paul ‘Rock Giant’ Reed, the band’s bass guitarist, slouched against the corridor wall opposite Xane’s door. ‘I thought you took your nubile little wench everywhere with you these days.’

  Xane held his breath and counted to ten before stepping out of the room. He was not going to deck Rock Giant as his opening move, though if the idiot made any more crass remarks Xane refused to be held accountable for his actions. Dani was no groupie. She was his girlfriend, and he’d have her treated with bloody respect. ‘Shut the fuck up,’ he muttered. Rock Giant was six foot six of muscle, not counting the signature gravity-defying spikes of his hair, but Xane refused to feel intimidated. He had the same soft points as every man, and Xane would happily prove that point. Swinging his fists was sometimes almost as good as sex.

  ‘I just thought you might officially introduce her, since Graham informs me she’s joining us on the tour.’

  Fan-bleedin’-tastic! Trust their blabbermouth of a manager, Graham Callahan, to leak that fact. In the interests of not causing undue friction – because, goddammit, there was enough already – Xane had planned to make that announcement to the band as a whole, preferably while Dani was with him, in the hope that they’d all be sweet about it. He didn’t consider that he needed their permission to invite her along, but the fewer ructions before they hit the road the better. So far, the day didn’t seem to be stacking up so well in that regard.

  ‘What happened to the policy of no extras on the bus, eh? If you’re bringing someone, then what’s to stop the rest of us doing the same? I don’t want to share a bus with Ash’s bloody harem.’

  ‘I’m not bringing someone. I’m bringing my girlfriend, which is hardly comparable to Ash inviting along a score of groupies.’ It was pretty safe to say none of them besides Ash wanted that.

  ‘So we’re back to one rule for you and some other crap for the rest of us?’ Rock Giant grumbled, his voice so low and grouchy it sounded like boulders colliding. ‘Might have known. Why is it you get to be such a special snowflake, Xane? We should all have to live by the same rules. I say let’s stick to the band and crew, and no hangers-on. We need to make this work, and it’ll be easier with less people around to get in the way.’

  Fuck that! Dani’s coming wasn’t open to negotiation. Dani was the primary reason he was even prepared to consider this tour. She understood him in a way that pretty much everyone else didn’t, with maybe the exception of his cousin Ric Liddell.

  Steve had understood him too.

  Xane shut down that line of thought immediately. Thinking about Steve wasn’t going to help him keep it together.

  ‘It’s not as if you’ve known her very long. Have you had her background checked?’

  ‘Piss off!’

  Rock Giant halted, pretty much forcing Xane to do the same unless he wanted to squeeze round him. ‘I won’t, and you’ll listen. Have you even considered how you bringing this girl will make Elspeth feel? You’re flaunting your new lay in front of her while she’s mourning the loss of her husband. Real sympathy you’re showing.’

  ‘It’s not just her loss.’ And he sure as hell didn’t owe their petite keyboardist anything. He’d tried to feel sorry for her, but she’d scarred him too deeply, and she’d certainly never considered his feelings when she ran off with his best mate to get married. ‘She dumped me, remember.’ Plus, there was the fact that he couldn’t help blaming her, at least in part, for what had subsequently happened. If Elspeth hadn’t set things in motion, then maybe, just maybe, Steve Matlock would still have been with them now.

  Not that he placed the blame entirely on her. Too many variables had impacted on events. God knows, he’d been ruminating on them ever since. What if he hadn’t gone to Monaco? What if Steve hadn’t followed? What if, instead of running after the fight in the casino, he’d talked things through with Steve? That way the guy would have had someone with him. Someone to call for help. And even if the worst had still come to pass, at least Steve wouldn’t have died alone.

  He had excruciating nightmares over that last fact.

  ‘You’re such a fuckwit, Xane. Elspeth’s lost her husband, and you’re still bemoaning the fact she dumped you for a nicer guy. She ought to be home piecing herself back together, not heading out on tour. We should have held off a while longer.’

  Holding off hadn’t been an option, although he agreed that time might have benefited them all. He’d pissed off too many fans when he’d walked off stage at their last gig, and they now needed to appease them. It was past time they made up for that show and moved forward. Their real fans had cut them some slack following Steve’s tragic death, but sympathy only extended so far. It was essential they proved to the masses that they could still kick ass, and deserved the accolades they’d won.

  ‘Elspeth didn’t have to come,’ he said. He hadn’t forced anyone to sign up, and, to be perfectly honest, he thought the band might be happier without her. He didn’t really want her around, acting as a constant reminder.

  ‘You’d seriously do this without her? We’re honouring her dead husband, and you’d leave her behind? She’s the most right out of all of us to be included. I wish to God you’d admit that, instead of constantly trying to co-opt her grief.’

  ‘Co-opt her grief,’ he muttered, flabbergasted by Rock Giant’s gall. Xane and Steve had been best friends since they were eleven. They’d been lovers for nearly eighteen months, and had been to hell and back together several times over. Just because Steve had ultimately chosen Elspeth didn’t mean Xane’s feelings for the guy were any less sincere than Elspeth’s, or any less intense – assuming Elspeth was capable of that level of depth. He doubted the authenticity of everything she’d ever said to him, other than her delight in screwing him up when she said goodbye.

  Rock Giant did so love acting as her knight protector, though. ‘You know the bit that really doesn’t add up, Xane?’ he continued, determined, it seemed, to stir things up. ‘It’s the fact that you make like you’re so devastated because the pair of them dumped you, but then you dive into bed with Dani less than twelve hours later. That’s not the action of someone who’s lost the love of his life. I don’t think you were in love. I think your pride got hurt, because they chose one another over being with you.’

  ‘Shut the fuck up.’ Paul didn’t know a damn thing. Only what Elspeth had told him, which would be half-truths at best. Xane slapped his hand against a poster they passed, and tore it from the wall. He really was trying hard not to let this devolve into a fight, but connecting his shin with Rock Giant’s nuts was looking increasingly appealing.

  ‘I say we vote on your girl coming along.’

  Xane sucked the ring that pierced the centre of his lower lip, and wished he’d already applied his full mask of stage make-up. The veneer of pan-stick white mixed with blood and kohl made schooling his expressions so much easier. Rather than engage in a pantomime back and forth, he simply shook his head. They weren’t voting. If it came to it, he and Dani could ride on the main bus and anyone who objected to her presence could bunk up with Ash on the sleazemobile – the rust-bucket of a bus that was ostensibly meant to house the road crew but inevitably became Ash’s shagging pad. Somehow, he suspected Dani’s presence wouldn’t be quite so objectionable to them when faced with that prospect.

  Honestly, he didn’t know what the hell they
could find to object about her anyway. She wasn’t exactly high drama. She was the sort of girl mothers dreamed you’d bring home. Most mothers at any rate; his had never given a shit.

  ‘She’s coming, and that’s the end of it,’ he muttered. ‘If you don’t like it, take your bass and stuff it up your arse.’ He was getting one thing straight from the outset. He wasn’t going to be walked all over or taken for granted any more. This band was his outfit. He wrote the material, he was the creative force behind it. Every bugger else was replaceable. He expected a little respect.

  To his astonishment, Rock Giant clapped him on the back. ‘OK, bring your girl, but try and cut Elspeth some slack, please. She is genuinely a mess right now. Losing Steve’s hit her bloody hard. It’s hit us all hard, I know, but …’ He shook his head. ‘You’ll see.’

  Chapter 2

  You’re dead to me, Dani, if you go with him. Dead – like your father. Men don’t love. They only think with their dicks. He’s using you. He’ll discard you, just as soon as he’s sucked all the goodness from you.

  She made Xane sound like a vampire.

  Dani’s finger hovered over the delete button. As mementos went it was a strange one to want to preserve. Then again, it summed up her mother perfectly – batshit crazy, preachy, lacking in genuine understanding or warmth. It also succinctly summarised why Dani was here and not with her mum, locked inside the religious commune that’d been her home since the age of eleven.

  Xane might tempt her to sin, but he sure made it a lot of fun, whereas being a good girl the whole time was deadly dull. She didn’t want to turn into the sort of sanctimonious leech her mother and the other women of the Sisterhood of St Agatha’s were. She wanted to live and love, experience what the world had to offer. And yes, it totally did help that the world in this current context happened to possess washboard abs, the voice of Lucifer and waist-length hair the colour of midnight.

  Xane Geist could turn her insides mushy with a single glance. He rocked her goddamned world. Hers and a couple of million other folks’ – but she was the only one he was taking on tour.

  ‘Dani Fosbrook?’

  Dani peeped up from her phone screen. The voice didn’t belong to Xane, nor to anyone else she recognised. Although, to be fair, she couldn’t see much of the man’s face, because of the asymmetrical cut of his blond hair. Crew, she gathered, given his Black Halo ‘Requiem for the Damned’ T-shirt and khaki cut-offs stuffed with guitar strings and bits of electrical cable.

  ‘I’m here to take you backstage.’

  Hallelujah! She’d been sitting waiting for someone to fetch her for far too long. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but ever since a certain video clip of her and Xane together had gone viral, she’d become an object of curiosity – the rock star’s girlfriend. Hence the queuing fans with their faces pressed to the glass doors.

  Unbidden, her escort hefted her suitcase, proving he had muscle hiding beneath that lean physique. She’d squeezed most of her worldly possessions into that bag.

  ‘Ready?’ He swiped them through a set of security doors.

  Dani trotted along behind him. She’d never been more ready in her life, though she was nervous about properly meeting the rest of the band. It didn’t matter how many times Xane told her it’d be all right, she couldn’t entirely quell her butterflies. Black Halo were massive, and she’d been a fan of theirs for eternity. She still regularly pinched herself to check her relationship with Xane was real. Also, she wasn’t sure how much they blamed her for Xane skipping out on them after their last live performance. They might consider her major trouble.

  ‘First tour with the band?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Mine too. I guess we’ll be seeing a fair bit of one another.’ He pushed back his curtain of long hair, revealing a pair of intriguing mismatched irises, one pale-green and one hazel. Both shone with excitement. ‘I’m Luthor.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  He gave her an endearing lopsided grin. ‘You’re not what I was expecting.’

  ‘Meaning?’ she asked, fearing the worst. People didn’t seem to like that she and Xane were together. She still wondered at the miracle of it herself. It didn’t seem to matter how often Xane said he loved her, part of her still expected him to wake one morning and wonder what the fuck he was doing with her – a screwed-up nobody, not especially pretty or clever, and with welts across her soul and body that might never heal.

  For the most part, she didn’t even dress like a rock star’s girlfriend. She currently had on a pair of old jeans, a faded long-sleeved T-shirt and only a smidge of make-up.

  Luthor shook his head, reinstating the curtain of hair over his eyes. ‘I only meant that I didn’t know he had a steady girlfriend.’

  ‘Where’ve you been living, Mars?’ She’d have bet money on the whole world having seen that video.

  ‘Malmö.’

  Dani paused a moment to interpret the unfamiliar place-name. ‘Malmö, where is that?’

  ‘Sweden.’

  ‘You’re not English?’

  He dropped her suitcase in order to release a bellyful of laughter. ‘You needn’t sound so surprised. Not everyone in the world is.’

  ‘I know, but you don’t have an accent.’

  He leaned closer, so his breath stirred the wisps of hair around her face, making them tickle her cheek. ‘Does it make you feel better if I talk like this?’ She could hear it then, the soft inflection on certain words. It sent a tingle down her spine. Damn, he sounded sexy. She could imagine that purr driving a woman wild in bed.

  Dani turned away from him, mortified by the heat that a few incongruous words whispered in her ear had generated. She wasn’t a free agent any more to be thinking random wicked thoughts about handsome strange men. She belonged to the sexiest man on the planet. Besides, Xane could do incredible stuff with his voice. He commanded the attention of stadiums full of people. His whispers invoked wild emotions. They could turn hearts inside out and even the tiniest of his growls dampened her and a million other women’s knickers.

  She was moist now, merely thinking about him, which just proved that two weeks apart had been too long. They’d been surviving on nightly phone calls and sexting, which didn’t compensate for genuinely being together.

  She hadn’t wanted them to be apart, but she’d had to face her mum and put a few things, like her degree, on hold. Taking charge of her life meant cutting a few tethers. On the plus side, she wasn’t beholden to anyone any longer.

  ‘Aren’t we heading to the dressing rooms?’ she asked, when Luthor turned the opposite way to the one she’d expected.

  ‘No. The sound booth.’

  ‘How come?’ Perplexed, she continued to jog along behind, her eye on the way his shorts were clinging to his hips, in danger of sliding down because of the weight of stuff in his pockets.

  ‘Because Ulf said so, and I do as he says. He’s the guy who hired me. Best damn sound and light engineer in the business.’

  She’d never heard of him.

  ‘He also just happens to be my uncle.’ Luthor held open a door for her to pass through, and they began to climb, up towards the top of the building. ‘My guess is that he wants you out of the way until the soundcheck is done, so that Xane isn’t distracted.’

  ‘I wouldn’t distract him.’

  ‘Course not.’ Luthor made an appraising sweep of her body. ‘I bet Xane maintains complete focus when you’re present, just not on the music.’ His gaze lingered on her cleavage.

  Dani covered her mouth and coughed, astonished by how blatantly he’d assessed her. Guys didn’t normally hit on her. This was a new thing that had only started happening since Xane took an interest. She guessed they all thought she must have something special hiding beneath her ordinary appearance to have ensnared a man with such a huge sexual appetite, or maybe they thought stealing her away would prove they were shit-hot too.

  No man had a chance against Xane.

  In retaliat
ion, she shot a glance at Luthor. He had gloriously good arms, and legs that were tanned by the sun and covered with fine golden hairs. Crazy good looks too, if you liked guys who were all light and golden. She guessed she preferred them dark and brooding.

  Luthor was fit, but he wasn’t a patch on her man.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ grumbled an older man, his long hair and beard threaded with silver, as they entered a glass-fronted room overlooking the stage. They were perched high up in the auditorium, almost on a level with the lighting rig. ‘You walked off with my duct tape. Gimme.’ He snatched the roll of tape that Luthor mined from his pocket and began tearing off strips and fixing assorted cables to the floor. After a moment or two, he turned his webbed face upon her. ‘So you’re the one he ran off with, are you?’

  ‘Be nice,’ Luthor counselled. ‘She is.’

  ‘Really? Didn’t think Xane did nice. He normally lands the absolute bitches.’ He thoughtfully rubbed one nicotine-stained finger across his lips before stepping closer, which meant he had to bend his head to look at her, for he was tall, even taller than Luthor, and stocky too, with tattoos that covered his bare arms like sleeves. ‘Are you sure this is the right girl?’

  ‘I am, yes.’ Dani politely stuck out a hand for him to shake.

  Ulf clapped his hand against hers but didn’t shake it. ‘Take a seat. I’ll let you at him once I’m done with him.’

  A swivel chair materialised behind her, courtesy of Luthor. Dani gingerly lowered herself into it. She’d got it into her head that the only people she’d have to face in order to join the tour were the members of Black Halo. Somehow she’d overlooked the fact that there was a team of people involved in managing them and delivering their sound to the masses. ‘What are you doing to him?’ Nothing too terrible, she hoped. He’d sounded pretty low when they’d spoken last night. Leastways, he had at the start of their conversation. Not so much by the end, after he’d made her burn with excitement.