by Cassia Leo
She stared straight into his eyes. Her eyes were a pale shade of brown, not quite light enough to be hazel, but many shades lighter than his own, which his older cousin Pierre had assured him were the deep, dark brown of the Italian Grimaldis and oil-fouled mud. The color of his own eyes rang a melancholy G-minor chord in his head. Georgie’s were a bright, magnificent F-major, full of promise at an ascension down the frets.
From the determined set of her mouth, she was ready to bolt, very ready.
Alexandre reached across the table. She was just holding onto the edge of the table with her fingertips, like she was clinging to a crevice in a cliff face and in danger of a fall.
He lifted her fingers from the edge of the table and held her hand. “Come to my concert tonight.”
“I—what?” Her startled eyes amused him.
Alexandre said, “The reason that I had to leave to go back on such a strict schedule was because I have a concert beginning at nine o’clock tonight. Come hear ‘Alwaysland’ like it was meant to be played: just me, a guitar, and thirty thousand screaming fans.”
Energy infiltrated his calves, and one of his legs began to bounce, anticipating the crowd roaring at him.
Alexandre tamped it down.
Not yet.
GEORGIE FLYING
Georgie
One last night.
As she sat in the buttery leather seat on the airplane while it taxied to the runway, bouncing along on shock absorbers and fluttering down such that it felt like the plane was trying to spring into the air, Alex was asking her to stay for one last night and to hear him sing “Alwaysland.”
And whatever else that happened.
Could her diamond-hard heart handle six?
She thought not, but it was just her heart. She had to disappear again to save her ass and, eventually, to redeem her immortal soul, such as it was.
Georgie flipped her fingers under Alex’s, feeling his warm hand. He had reached over with his left hand, and she ran her thumb over the hard, deep calluses on his fingertips, calluses so deep that steel wires couldn’t cut into them. It took years to build up calluses like those, many years.
His dark eyes—so long and long-lashed, so exotic, so intense—watched her. Every twitch, every time she held back, every flush of her skin when she thought about his hands on her and dragging her body onto his, he saw them all.
That’s the problem with artists, she thought. They feel too much, and they can sense everything that you hide so far down inside.
He probably knew that even the mention of his song made her eyes burn with tears. He probably knew that the thought of seeing him perform it drew her like a hungry animal to offered food.
He knew, from the glitter in his eyes and the smile beginning to curve the corners of his mouth, that the thought of him, on a stage, singing and playing “Alwaysland,” was irresistible.
“Yes,” she said, because it was useless to fight that hunger. “I’d like that.”
“Good,” he said, and his smile stayed small, intimate, not a victorious grin. He covered her hand with his. “One more thing.”
“What’s that?” She couldn’t stop watching his hands. As a pianist, her hands were lean and strong, but she had no calluses. The marks that music had left on his skin were fascinating.
“When we’re there, you can’t call me Alex or Alexandre, and certainly not Grimaldi.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve called myself Xan Valentine since I matriculated at Juilliard. Even Cadell doesn’t know the whole Monégasque and French dukedom things.”
“They don’t know your real name?”
“No. None of them.”
“Or about your background.”
Alex studied her, but this time, he seemed to be searching her for something else. “How much do you know about that?”
Georgie’s surprise stretched her eyes before she had a chance to compose herself. She drew a circle in the air, indicating the airplane. “The duke thing.”
“They don’t know about ‘the duke thing,’” he said.
“Or the Monaco connection.”
“Not at all.”
“Can I call you Alex when we’re alone?”
His smile warmed, and the sparkle in his dark eyes was of an altogether different nature. “I’m counting on it.”
XAN VALENTINE
Alexandre de Valentinois
Alexandre and Georgie stood in the cement tunnel hung with blackout curtains that led to the stage in the arena. Thumping music echoed off the concrete and blended into an atonal, chaotic mass of sound.
He took her hand. The silver death’s head rings on his knuckles were hard between their skin. “Remember,” he said, projecting near her ear to be heard over the din from the stage and the screaming audience. “Remember, I’m Xan, now.”
She nodded, and Alexandre caught one, last whiff of her perfume, night-blooming jasmine and vanilla, that sounded like the drawn-out notes of a cello speaking of love.
He thought, Remember this. Remember her.
Alex found his silver chains in his costume pocket and dropped them over his head. The heavy silver chilled the back of his neck.
On the stage, Cadell cranked his guitar into a primal scream.
Tryp battered an insistent heartbeat on his drums.
Thirty thousand fans stomped the floorboards like thunder harnessed and forced into unison.
“I’ll be done in a few hours,” Alexandre whispered, “and I’ll come back to you.”
Cadell had begun the guitar solo intro to “Nine Levels of Tortured Souls,” an arena rock anthem that pulled the crowd to their feet. Alexandre felt them out there, their barely contained fury about to erupt.
“I’ll come back,” he whispered to her.
He took a flask out of his hip pocket, under the velvet frock coat, and knocked back a swallow. It burned his throat and vocal cords with dark red fire and infiltrated every cell in his body, and the alcohol stripped any slimy gunk off his vocal cords.
The dark tendrils that Alexandre thought of as Xan Valentine’s persona trickled toward him, surrounding him with the flashing colors of rock music and the scent of dust burning in the stage lights.
Alex let go.
He and Jonas needed to meet with the Artists and Repertoire guy from Interscope Records late this week and the woman from Griffin next week.
He needed to cut these demos and send the tracks to his producers for processing as soon as he could, probably as soon as he could roust Tryp and Cadell for a stripped-down cut. Those had to be done before the meetings with the A&R people.
But now, right now, he needed to stride onto that stage and command every one of those thirty thousand people, mold them into his own army, and drive them into a berserker madness.
Lightning cracked through him. This was what he was made for.
Xan Valentine threw back another shot of the scotch and wrapped one arm around Georgie’s waist, shoving her against the wall for one last fiery kiss, and he dropped her to take the stage.
ALWAYSLAND
Georgie
Georgie watched Alex, her sweet rescuer and introspective classical musician, who was so private about his violin and so sparkling in his discussion of music, his posh British accent smooth in her ears.
Alex took a swig from the flask and looked out the part in the curtain at the roaring crowd and swirling lights, and he changed.
She had seen glimmers of it before, that glower and swagger. She had felt it when his hands covered hers at the piano in Paris and when he had tied her up and fucked her at The Devilhouse.
His dark eyes glittered, became almost malevolent. His face hardened.
When he looked back at her, hunger and power flowing off of him, Georgie stepped back, but he was on her, his arm around her waist and bending her back and shoving her up against the wall, sucking at her mouth, his fingers almost bruising her arms.
He released her and marched for the stage, his every movement eager to destroy the
audience.
Georgie slid down the cold, cement wall. The abrupt change was shocking, and she rubbed her lower lip where he had bitten her.
She stood on shaking legs and made her way to the black curtains. Stage lights infiltrated the crease into the dark tunnel. She used one finger to part the curtains so she could see.
The laser-cannon lights from the stage blasted her eyes, and she blinked to clear the tears.
On the stage, Xan Valentine roared to the crowd, and they screamed back.
He sang. He played the guitar. He rocked the crowd.
For hours.
For hours, he held them in his hands, and all thirty thousand were as helpless as Georgie had been when he had shoved her against the wall. You can’t resist a force of personality like that.
Georgie watched him, unable to look away. Every move of his body exuded sex and power. When he tore off the frock coat and his shirt gaped open, silver chains and charms glittering in the stage lights, the women in the audience went wild, and then men felt the animal power wash over them.
Hours went by.
God, that kind of passion was—her heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t think—was attractive.
At the end, during the last few songs, Georgie barely noticed the other band members ran past her, their sprinting footsteps thundering in the concrete tunnel. She only saw Xan with his guitar, singing in a shining pool of silver light in the center of the stage.
The back-up singer, a petite, voluptuous redhead, sang the first verse with him, but he twitched his head toward the tunnel, telling her to go and leave him alone in the follow spotlight with thirty thousand people reaching for him.
That song ended, and he bowed his head for a moment.
The crowd still roared, almost rioting. Their voices shook the cement floor under her.
Xan strummed his guitar and played the intro chords for “Alwaysland.”
His hoarse voice was shredded from so many hours of singing, but he sang in a breathy tenor, “Because while I live, because while I breathe, because while my heart beats in my body, I will love you like we live in Alwaysland.”
The pain from his throat sounded like it emanated directly from his heart, and Georgie’s fingernails pressed into her palms. Her hands wanted to play the song with him, even though the thought of pressing the piano keys in front of all of those thousands of people made a horrified sweat sting her skin.
She wanted to be out there. She wanted to touch the music with him.
The song was over too soon, and Xan strode off the stage. As he hit the edge, the follow spot extinguished.
Darkness covered Georgie’s eyes, and Xan’s pale face emerged from the night, the green emergency lights just frosting his skin. He held her around the waist and whispered, “You’re still here.”
Georgie held back her tears and forced her voice through her clenched throat. “Yes. I’m here.”
Jonas, the stage manager, tugged Xan’s arm. “We have to go.”
Xan’s eyes—those long, exotic eyes that tempted her—never left her gaze, and he whispered to her, “Come on. We have to run.”
Georgie held his hand and followed him into the dark.
~~~~~
The story of Georgie and Alex continues in the next book in the series:
WILD THING
By: Blair Babylon
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USA Today bestselling author Blair Babylon is the nom de plume of an award-winning, bestselling author who used to publish literary fiction. Because professional reviews of her other fiction usually included the caveat that there was too much deviant sex and too much interesting plot, she decided to abandon all literary pretensions, let her freak flag fly, and write hot, sexy, erotic romance and wild, suspenseful thrillers, science fiction, and urban fantasy.
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Table of Contents
Red Hot Bikers, Rock Stars, and Bad Boys
Forever Ours by Cassia Leo
Resisting by Chelle Bliss
Randomly Ever After by Julia Kent
Stella & Dane by Deanna Roy
Every Breath You Take by Blair Babylon
Cold Fusion by Olivia Rigal
The Storm and the Darkness by Sarah M. Cradit
Rock Candy by Daizie Draper
Wuther by V. J. Chambers
Three Nights With A Rock Star by Amber Lin and Shari Slade
Revik by JC Andrijeski
Disclaimers and Copyright Notices
COLD FUSION
an Iron Tornadoes MC Romance
by Olivia Rigal
COLD FUSION
an Iron Tornadoes MC Romance
by Olivia Rigal
COLD FUSION © Olivia Rigal 2014
When he graduates from the Police Academy, David Mayfield is no rookie. His past experience as an MP allows him to jump right into an undercover mission.
Hired at the Bush Fire, a strip club owned by the white supremacist group David's task force is investigating, he is to gather information.
But fascinated by Jeanne-Michelle, a curvaceous Haitian dancer, he soon realizes that the real challenge of his mission may turn out to be abiding by the single rule of the strip club: “No messing around with the talent.”
CHAPTER ONE
“You’re sure this is what you wanna do, bro?” I ask again.
Brian shakes his head, and I know he’s made his decision. I can see that he feels like shit for letting me down, but I get it. We’ve been talking about it for a couple of weeks, but he’s bailing out, and it’s final. The life of a police officer isn’t in the cards for him. He hates the administration, the paperwork, and above all, the politics. Those things don’t bother me. I just keep my eyes on the bottom line. The bottom line is putting criminals away, and that’s what I’ve decided to do with my life.
I’m tempted to draw an ace from my sleeve and play the Lisa card, but that would be really mean, like rubbing salt into a wound. If Brian leaves the police to go run his father’s Motorcycle Club, then there’s no way he’ll work with Lisa. My kid sister is in law school to become a D.A. She won’t turncoat and become a criminal defense attorney just because Brian’s decided to walk on the wild side. But I’m pretty sure he’s aware of that fact.
“One hundred percent sure,” Brian answers with a grim expression. “Even if my father wasn’t so sick, I don’t think I can stomach all this bullshit. We’re not even out of the academy, and already we’re being forced into absurd games. Come on, did you hear them? I.A. wants to secretly recruit us while we officially join the special unit just so that we can spy for them. I can’t do that. It’s way too convoluted for me.”
“But you understand they need to do it? They were very clear about that. Someone in the special unit had been undermining their efforts for years. I.A. needs to get to the bottom of this. I don’t know who they’re investigating—they just said it was some form of organized crime—but obviously it’s so well organized that they have ears in the special unit in charge of investigating them.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Brian says, passing his fingers through his curls. That’s a sure sign he’s nervous. “But it would make me sick to join a team, have the guys welcome me as part of their unit, count on them to have my back, and then spy and tell on them.”
“But you would only tell on the bad cops,” I protest.
“No, David, this isn’t for me.” Brian shakes his head. “Tomorrow, I’m resigning. I feel like a jerk for letting you do this alone, but this is it.”
We finish our beers, sitting on the flowery swing on my mother’s front porch. We have our feet on the fence, and I realize this may be the last time we can do this. I mean, even if Brian is almost family, I’m not sure I.A. would approve of me publicly associating with the son of the president of a motorcycle club, especially since he’s given up police work to go run the MC.
Then again, no one has ever been able to pin anything illegal on the Iron Tornadoes. I guess that’s why Brian’s half brother is still a member of the police force. Of course, Ernest applied and went through the entire process using his mother’s name, but when the brass found out he was Cracker’s son, they gave him a badge anyway. As long as he was keeping some distance with the MC, they couldn’t blame him just for being his father’s son. Brian’s right—it’s a convoluted world.
