Nocturnes (31 page)

And grooving to Rax’s music every night? To. Die. For.

I was born to dance. It’s my passion and my pleasure. This could be the opportunity I never knew was waiting for me. Funny how life surprises you with a slap in the face when you least expect it.

“Yeah. I think joining the tour could be fun. But only if everyone’s cool with it.”

Jillian pulls another drag off the fake cigarette. The red end lights up, igniting her features with devious glee. “Don’t worry. They’ll be cool with it.”

Someone breaks out a boom box and cranks up the volume on Prince’s “Gett Off.” All motion in the room stops for a few seconds as ears assimilate and filter the song through internal recognition software. A smile creeps over my lips. I love Prince.

My hips slowly build up to a sway, my legs subtly twist at the knees, and my ass can’t help but
boom-boom
left and right to that relaxed, hot rhythm. Someone whistles high and sharp, and an excited vibe settles into the atmosphere, spreading faster than a virus on steroids.

“Excuse me for a few minutes,” I say to Jillian. She nods, and I prance away, feeling her eyes follow me.

By the end of the first verse, I’m strutting from one end of the room to the other, slashing my arms in time to the funky bass beat, cracking the sound barrier with my hips, and slinging my mane in a head-banging circle. The crowd scatters like ants, making room as I threaten to mow them down with my sassy stripper moves.

Move over, rockers and harlots. Eve Belikov is in the house.

I slam my body left, then right. Shimmy up and down an imaginary pole. Cup my perfectly round tits. Slide my palms over the curves of my hips. Then I bend forward and twerk the fuck out at the break.

Male and female cheers envelop me, urging me on. I find Rax in the crowd and lock my eyes on his, making music with my body, hypnotizing him with my hips. My handsome snake slithers forward, breaking a hole through the tight boundary of human bodies, and presses his dick like an iron rod to my pussy magnet. His visual grip on me narrows, tightens, owns me. I give him this body, this heart, this soul, and we move together as one being.

Claps and whoops fill in around us as the swell of humanity cuts loose in a massive, surging dancefest. Focus shifts from Rax and me to the stars of the iGeneration living it up, if only for four minutes and thirty-two seconds.

“You wear my music like a twisted black halo,” Rax growls in my ear.

“This isn’t your music.”

“I’m talking about earlier. I almost laid waste to my pants with a load of nuclear spunk when I saw you humping that pole.”

“Well, then, I’m glad you saved some for me afterward.” I lick his parted lips with a long, sensual, teasing stroke.

“Plenty more where that came from. I intend to set a world record for cum shots tonight.”

The twitch between my legs gets the better of me, and I rub my crotch against his. “When can we get out of here? I need your cock.”

“Soon.” He presses a tender kiss to my lips, and I’m liquid fire in his hands.

The song winds down. More cheers ring out. The next tune starts, and the crowd dissipates. But not Rax and me. I cling to him like sweaty Saran Wrap, enjoying the warmth and closeness I’ve missed for the months we’ve been apart. He pulls away reluctantly. “As soon as Just Breathe gets offstage, we can beat it. Got more fans to meet. It shouldn’t be long. But before I go…”

He withdraws something from his ragged jeans pocket and opens his palm under my chin.

Mama’s ring shines up at me.

I can’t believe it. Blood rushing on a dizzying course, I feel the smile spread like dawn across my face. I’m stunned. “Where did you find it?”

“Funny thing…” He slips the worn metal band around my ring finger, and I damn near melt. “I found it a month ago in my coat pocket, of all places. I must’ve moved it there when I was drunk that night in the dungeon at Nocturnes and forgotten about it. I’ve kept it with me ever since. Didn’t want to lose it twice, just in case our paths ever crossed again.”

My soul soars. I should never have doubted him.

Mama’s and Papa’s warm voices fill my head.
You don’t need us anymore, Kukolka. You have Rax to watch over you now.

I stare at my finger, turning the ring this way and that. My hands are strong. Just like Mama’s were. Strong enough to let go of over a decade’s worth of superstition to embrace a new life and start a new family with Rax and his friends?

Maybe.

I blamed months of bad luck—getting in trouble with Rico in his office, the attack in the alley, Rax’s hasty departure—on losing Mama’s ring. It had always kept me safe while I wore it, and the moment it was gone, a lot of shit went south for me. But having lived without it for a while and witnessing the changes both Rax and I have been through, I now know it was silly of me to put so much trust in a hunk of old jewelry.

Fingering the metal, I hesitate. I don’t want to reject the comfort of having my parents close to my heart—especially after feeling naked without them for so long. But this ring is not
them
. It never was. They’re not coming back. It’s time to let them go.

I’ve spent my life taking all the wrong chances and never going out on a limb for the right ones. Rax wasn’t right for me before.

But he is now.

I carefully lift the simple silver chain hanging at my neck and pull it over my head. Biting my lip, I remove the ring from my finger and string it on the necklace. “This was my mom’s. A drunk driver killed her and my dad when I was a kid.”

Rax’s eyes widen, and a flare of regret-infused enlightenment nestles into them. He wraps his arms around me in a gentle hug and whispers into my hair, “Shit. I’m so sorry, Eve.”

“I want you to keep it. You don’t have to wear it—”

“You don’t have to explain. I understand.” He pulls back and dips his head. His hair falls forward, and he twists his neck to look up at me, silently urging me to put the necklace on him. Submissive. Tender.

This is the real Rax. The one who can give as much as take, who acknowledges my needs while still needing for himself, and who loves himself as much as he loves me.

I never wanted to change him. I just wanted him to find the good within. He’s far from perfect, but a hell of a lot closer than he was before.

I slip the silver in place and touch the dangling “charm.” As long as he has it, I’ll be fine.

“Thank you.” I kiss him. My heart swells with joy. All is right in my world.

He nods and backs away as if severing his line of sight to me would be downright painful. We have a lot to learn about each other, but it’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun taking him to school.

Side A: “You Shook Me All Night Long”

“All right, shut the hell up, you yapping, happy twats.” Jillian claps her hands a couple of times to get everyone’s attention. Rounding up the members of Killer Buzz Float is like herding rabid cats, but we finally settle into the chairs in the tiny office backstage. I drag Eve onto my lap. Jinx cozies up to Toombs, and Shades pinches Letty’s ass hard enough to get a squeal out of her. She whirls on him, eyes flashing, finger pointing, and warns, “I’ll pay you back for that later, mustache ride.”

One big happy family.

It’s truly complete with Eve here. Now, if we could just find Jillian a nice submissive lesbian to take some of the cold bitchy heat off the rest of us…

“We gotta debrief.” Jillian braces her butt against the wall. “Jinx, I spoke to the roadies about keeping extra sticks behind your kit. You broke four tonight—more than usual.”

“She must’ve broken them in on Toombs before the show. Hard ass like his could make a stick sappy,” Letty quips.

“Har, har, har.” Jinx shakes her head.

“What? Don’t you get it? Sappy? Stick? Tree sap?” Letty throws the wrapper from the gum she just popped in her mouth at Jinx. “Fuck you. And don’t pretend you didn’t use those sticks on Toombs. I saw you two before the show, shaking out your ‘tired muscles.’” She makes air quotes. “Only thing that gets a person
that
tired is a good, hard-core fucking.” Letty bounds to her feet. “This how you guys do it? Uh. Uh. Uh!” She pelvic thrusts the air, waits for a reaction she doesn’t get. “Or you like it the old-fashioned way—missionary with you topping Toombs with a strap-on?” She drops to the floor, assumes the push-up position, and humps the carpet. Shades toes her ass with a boot and laughs.

Eve covers a smile under her hand.

“No, I like it gentle,” Jinx says. She kicks a leg across Toombs’s thigh, straddles him, and dips in for a long, hot kiss. Toombs hops right on board, hitches his arms around her waist, and amps up the kiss with some tongue.

I lift a brow. “Damn.” Has the whole world gone mad since I un-lushed myself? I don’t remember ever seeing those two express their feelings like that outside the bedroom. A few months ago, I’d have been a raging storm of jealousy. Today, I couldn’t be happier for them. Or for myself.

Letty and Shades stare in wide-eyed disbelief too. “I’d love to have one night alone with the two of you. God. Doodle. Damn!” She rubs her nipples, and Shades tugs her back onto his lap, giving her a playful nip on the neck when she lands.

“Children? Do I need to up your Ritalin dosage?” Jillian purses her lips and waits for us to settle down. “As I’m sure you noticed, ‘Without You’ was a huge hit. It got a much bigger reaction than the instrumental piece. I’m sure Letty sharing center stage with our Aussie mate had something to do with it, but so did the power ballad. And Eve’s dancing.” She faces Eve and me, and an almost imperceptible hint of respect steals into her expression.

Jillian is proud of us. No way in hell she’ll come out and say it, but she is.

“We’ve been looking for a gimmick to draw in more fans before the album releases. Up to this point, it’s been the cool ’70s retro shtick. While that works pretty well, there’s no doubt in my mind we stumbled upon something even better tonight. This show…it was a spontaneous rock-o-phonic bomb with a Queen-worthy side of epic. Like modern ’70s glam rock fusion. You guys might have invented a brand new genre of music a few hours ago.

“And Eve’s performance on the pole couldn’t have fit more perfectly. You five dumb-asses took a delicate, sweet little nocturne and fucked it into an anthem for a hot striptease with screeching guitars, rump-shaking bass, and out-of-control rhythms. Eve brought the audio tracks to visual climax with her ‘I am sex’ body. This song—this entire performance—was more than a rock concert. It was a fucking
experience
.”

The five of us dumb-asses test the waters of Jillian’s revelation with quick glances at each other. We really did fucking rock the house. We’ve played hundreds of shows, as two separate bands and as one—but we’ve never had a reaction like we did tonight. The fans were climbing the walls. They probably would have swung from the rafters if they could have gotten up there.

“What are you trying to say, Jillian? From the sound of it, you need to get laid in a bad way,” I joke.

She cracks me with a “Don’t be a fucking twat” glower. “I’m saying maybe it’s time to expand the show. We’ve got more money coming in now, and after the album drops, attendance at gigs and merchandise sales are sure to pick up. We can afford to hire on some extra…staff.” She flickers her attention to Eve.

Letty skips her gaze back and forth between Jillian and Eve. I hold my breath. If Jillian’s saying what I think she’s saying, I gotta keep my mouth shut. The rest of the band has to agree first. If they’re not on board with Eve joining us onstage—
holy fucking hell!
—then I won’t push it. But if they are…

“So, you’re suggesting we add a
dance
component to our show? What’s next? Pyrotechnics?” Letty’s expression is unreadable. Shit. She’s not biting.

Jillian shrugs. “Our Aussie friends do it. Why not?”

Letty pauses and looks to Shades, who also shrugs.

“I think it sounds kinda cool,” he says. “We could try putting Eve on stage for one or two numbers and see how it goes. If the fans like it, maybe we could add a couple of cages to the sides of the set. Really play up the hot stripper shit. Most of our fans are guys, so I doubt anyone would complain.”

“I’m down with it,” Toombs says.

Jinx squeezes his hand. “Me too.” She smiles at me.

I ain’t saying shit until I hear from Letty. She and I engage in a stare down. She breaks the silence first. “Okay. But only on a trial basis.”

Jillian turns to Eve and me and lifts a brow. “Well? You two up for this? Far be it for me to play matchmaker or push you into something you don’t want to do.” She studies her nails.

I stroke Eve’s lightly muscled back, her feathered hair. She settles her contented gaze on me, and a single word pops into my mind: home. Eve is the home where I want to live. The hell of the last few months was worth every struggle, every ounce of sadness and self-loathing to get to this point, to win this ball-buster of a prize. I’ve looked fear and loss in the eyes and beaten them both. I’m not afraid of anything anymore—not commitment, not falling off the wagon, not being alone or unhappy.

I know what I want out of life, and I’m looking at her.

“Your call, babe.”
No pressure, but for fuck’s sake, please say yes.

The corner of her mouth curls upward, and her lips land on mine like we just said, “I do.”

Jillian clears her throat. “Is that a yes?”

Eve pulls away, her lids heavy. “No,” she says.

Fuck. My pulse sputters and stalls out.

“It’s a ‘hell yes.’”

With that evil little kick to the nads, my blood resumes its flow, and I dig in for another bite of Eve’s apple.

“Glad that’s settled, then.” Jillian rubs her palms together. “Rehearsals start bright and early on the road tomorrow. I’ll check with Just Breathe’s manager and see if they’re cool with Eve using their flagpole onstage until we can work out an alternative. In the meantime, you can practice with the floor-to-ceiling bar in the back of the bus.” She points an accusing finger at each of us band members. “As for you assholes…” An uncharacteristically soft smile graces her lips, just long enough to notice, but not long enough to remember. “You did good. But don’t let that shit go to your heads.”