Author: Olivia Cunning

“When I said my band broke up over a kid, I didn’t mean that Sinners would break up.”

She touched his arm and that electric sensation he’d felt earlier snaked across his skin again.

“Brian won’t let us down,” Trey said. “Still, things are… changing.”

“Is that bad?”

“In some ways, yeah, but in others…” Trey sighed. “I guess things can’t stay the same forever.”

“Thank God,” she said. Her grayish-blue eyes turned skyward. “I thought I was going to be serving coffee for the rest of my life.”

“Is that what you do for a living?”

“Pssh, no. I’m the rhythm guitarist for fucking Exodus End. Don’t you know anything?”

She tilted her head at him and shook her head. She was so genuinely beautiful it took his breath away. He grinned. “Congratulations. How long have you been playing?”

“Three years.”

Trey almost swallowed his tongue. “You learned to play like that in three years?”

“I played cello before I picked up the guitar, but yeah.”

“What are you—some kind of prodigy?”

She shrugged. “I’ve won a contest or two.”

“Do you still play cello?”

“I played for my dad, not myself. He’s a music teacher. He started me on violin young, but as soon as I could hold a cello properly I switched.”

“Was he strict?”

She laughed. “Not exactly. I just liked to make him happy. There wasn’t much joy in his life after my mom divorced him. He still has all the programs, certificates, ribbons, and trophies from my competitions hanging all over his den. I need to call him and let him know I’m going on tour with Exodus End.” She laughed. “He’s so going to hate it.”

“I’d think it would make him proud.”

She talked out of the side of her mouth as if disclosing a great secret. “He despises rock ’n’ roll. It led to the great rebellion of my teen years and me moving out here to Los Angeles on my twenty-first birthday. Growing up, he wouldn’t let me listen to anything but classical music.”

“My mom was the same way but with folk music.” Trey attempted to suppress a shudder. He still had nightmares about being forced to play “Kumbaya” for all eternity in his personal hell.

“How long have you been playing?” she asked.

He was almost embarrassed to say. “Uh, fifteen years or so.” More like eighteen, but who was counting?

“I love your sound,” she said. “You complement Brian as if he was your soul mate.”

“And you play just like him.”

She blushed. Damn, he wanted to kiss her again. She was tough for a woman, yet there was something sweet about her. The combination stirred something within him. The fact that she played guitar like the man he’d loved for over a decade stirred him even more.

“Who’s Ethan?” he asked. If she said he was her boyfriend, Trey was going to break his own rule about interfering in other people’s relationships. He wanted this woman. His typical take-em-or-leave-em feelings for the opposite sex did not apply in this case.

“My best friend,” she said.

“Only friends?” Messing up a romantic relationship where the partners were best friends would bother him even more, but he’d still give it a go because there was something unique about this woman. Something he wanted to identify, to get to know, to understand.

“Well, we used to date,” she said, “but… uh, let’s just say I wasn’t enough for him.”

Not enough for him? Was the guy a moron? “You’re kidding, right?”

“Ethan’s great. Really. Too bad he likes men. I caught him fucking some guy in my shower. Talk about a shock to the system. Especially since I’d stripped off all my clothes to join him.”

Trey lowered his eyes. He wondered if homosexuality bothered her. He tended to be very open about his bisexual nature, but he’d sworn off men that morning, so it was no longer applicable. Right? Somehow he didn’t think that line of logic would fly with Reagan, but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

“You aren’t some kind of homophobe, are you?” she asked.

Trey laughed and lifted his gaze to meet her questioning eyes. “Uh, no,” he said. “Not at all.”

“Good. What happens in a person’s bedroom is no one’s business but his own. It would have been nice to have some sort of warning though. I had absolutely no clue that he was gay. We used to go at it like rabbits.” She scowled and a distant look settled over her even features. That guy, Ethan, had really hurt her. Trey could tell. Yet, somehow she’d forgiven him enough to continue to be friends with him. She must be fairly open-minded about such things. He hoped.

“So you asked this guy, Ethan, to be your bodyguard?”

She smiled at him. “Yeah, he’d do a good job. He’s very protective of me. Maybe a little too protective. He keeps scaring away my boyfriends.”

“Do you have a boyfriend now?”

She looked up him. “Do you think I’d let you kiss me if I had a boyfriend?”

There were plenty of women out there who’d let him kiss them (and more) with their boyfriends watching. “I don’t know you well enough to say.”

“I wouldn’t.”

He believed her.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked.

“Do you think I’d get into a hot tub naked with you if I did?”

“Yes.”

He laughed. “I don’t have a girlfriend. I’m not really the commitment type.”

“What type are you?”

“The just-looking-for-a-good-time type.”

“That’s too bad.”

His heart sank. He wasn’t sure why. Usually if someone wasn’t interested he just blew it off. He ducked his head and lifted his gaze to meet her eyes. “Maybe you could change my mind.”

She laughed. “Does that line actually work?”

He’d never thought to use it before. Probably because it would have complicated things. He didn’t like complications. He wasn’t sure what had changed since this morning to make him crave a few complications. As long as they involved Reagan Elliot. “That wasn’t a line,” he said.

“I’m not buying it, Mills.”

He leaned close to her ear and she stiffened. He waited until goose bumps rose along her neck and shoulder before he spoke in his well-practiced seductive voice. “You know what you need?” She shivered and Trey leaned an inch closer so his warm breath would caress the damp skin just below her ear. “A hard, slow fuck against a wall.”

Her breath caught.

“That was a line,” he whispered into her ear.

She slapped at his shoulder. “Well, I would have fallen for that one.”

He leaned back and cocked an eyebrow at her. “You would have?”

“Yeah, because it’s true. That’s exactly what I need. A hard… slow… fuck against a wall.”

Trey’s balls throbbed incessantly. The way she said “fuck” made him feel like he was already sheathed deep inside her body.

“You’re just the man to give it to me,” she said in a husky, breathless voice.

His heart skipped a beat. He reached for her, and she grabbed his head between her hands just before his lips met hers. She stared deeply into his eyes and then winked.

“That was a line,” she said and shoved him away.

He laughed and once he got started, he couldn’t stop. He collapsed against the back of the tub and covered both eyes with his wet hands. He might have found his match in this woman.

“Is it safe to join you?” Dare asked from the edge of the hot tub.

Trey was glad his brother had found the decency to put on swim trunks.

“We’re just talking,” Reagan said.

“Just talking? You must be a married woman or something,” Dare said.

“Nope.”

“Trey’s moving slow today. Did he use his hard, slow fuck against a wall line?” Dare settled into the tub across from Trey.

Reagan gasped in indignation.

“Apparently so.”

“Jackass,” Trey grumbled.

“You’re the jackass,” Reagan said.

Trey shrugged. “What can I say? I love sex.”

Reagan stared at him for a moment and murmured something that sounded like, “Me too,” before she turned her attention to Dare. “Did everyone go home?”

Dare reached for the glass of cola he’d set beside the hot tub and took a sip. “Yeah. This is the first break we’ve had from touring in a while. We need some time apart.”

“Maybe I should go,” Reagan said. “I wouldn’t want you to get sick of me.”

Dare met her eyes and held her gaze. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem, Reagan.”

She flushed. Trey scowled. Dare didn’t need lines to attract women. He just had to sit there and give off Dare-a-mones.

“Did you want something to drink?” Dare asked Reagan.

Damn it. Trey should have asked her first.

“I am a little parched.”

“I’ll get it,” Trey offered. When he started to stand, Reagan grabbed his thigh to keep him seated. His naked thigh.

His cock thickened in a surge of hot lust.

“You’re naked,” she reminded him.

And he would have been fine climbing out of the hot tub naked before she’d touched him. Now if he left the water, he’d embarrass himself in front of his brother. When she didn’t move her hand, he eased toward her. Wanting her to touch him, not just there, but everywhere.

“I’ve seen him naked before. I wasn’t overly impressed,” Dare said and took another sip of his Coke. “Harold!” he yelled.

A moment later Dare’s servant/butler/whoever appeared beside the tub. “Did you need something, Mr. Mills?”

“I have guests.”

“Right.” Harold turned to Reagan and Trey. The shine of the afternoon sun on his bald spot was almost blinding as he bowed slightly. “Would you like a beverage? A snack? Cherry sucker?”

Trey nodded.

“What do you have?” Reagan asked.

“Anything your heart desires,” Harold said.

“Sex on the beach?”

“Anywhere your heart desires,” Trey said.

Reagan slid her hand farther up Trey’s thigh and he stiffened. In more than one location.

“I should probably abstain,” she said. “I have to find the correct bus home.”

Abstinence should not be a word in this woman’s vocabulary. Trey’s gaze lowered to the shadows of her dusty-pink nipples just beneath the surface of the water. He bit his lip so he didn’t start with the come-on lines again. Her fingertips stroked sensual trails up and down the inside of his thigh. She moved within inches of his crotch and then away again. An inch closer this time.

Oh God.

“Don’t worry about it,” Dare said. “Have a drink if you like. If you get wasted, the driver can take you home in the limo.”

Reagan’s eyes brightened. “You have a limo?”

“The band has a limo,” Dare said, “so technically you have a limo too.”

“No. Feckin’. Way.” Her hand squeezed Trey’s thigh and he almost leapt out of the water. “Did you hear that, Trey? I have a limo.”

Trey murmured in her ear, “We should go for a ride.”

“That would be fun. We could swing by work and I can quit. Or get fired. I don’t really care.”

“Why would they fire you?” Dare asked.