Author: Olivia Cunning

“So what do you say?” Myrna asked.

“Can I get an advance so I can find a new apartment?”

“You’ll be touring with the band, Jessica. You don’t need an apartment.”

Her bubble of relief and happiness ruptured.

“I can’t tour with the band. Sed—”

“What about Sed?”

Why did Jessica feel like this woman was manipulating her and planning her demise? “We can’t get along.”

“This is a professional relationship, Jessica, not a personal one. Besides, you’ll be working for me. You can ignore Sed entirely.”

Jessica didn’t think it was humanly possible to ignore Sed. Sed was… Sed was… well, Sed. She sighed aloud. “I…”

“Do you have a better option?”

Jessica shook her head. “I’m really grateful for this offer, Myrna. I just don’t think I can be around Sed for two months.”

“Why not? Do you still care about him?” Myrna asked.

“No!” Jessica said, a little too fast and a lot too loud.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“No problem. I gratefully accept the job. Thank you, Myrna. You saved my life.” Or potentially ruined it.

“Awesome. I hope you can start tonight. I’m leaving on my honeymoon in about…” She checked her watch. “…ten minutes.”

Well, what did Jessica have to lose? Except her sanity and already pulverized self-respect. “Um, okay. Sounds good. Just show me what to do.”

Myrna was explaining how to enter her huge backlog of data into a spreadsheet when the crowd outside the bus erupted in cheers. Jessica’s heart raced. The members of Sinners were probably headed this way right now. How would Sed react to her joining his band on tour? How would she stand being so close to him for two months? Living quarters on a tour bus were… intimate.

Brian climbed the stairs and entered the bus. He didn’t even notice Jessica. He went straight to Myrna, drew her against his sweaty body, and kissed her hungrily. “Are you ready to go?”

“Everything’s packed,” she murmured. “I just need to explain a few more things to my new assistant before we head out.”

“Assistant?” Brian’s eyes, surrounded by purple bruises and a thick rim of black eyeliner, settled on Jessica. “Jessica?” he said breathlessly. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

His hostility surprised her. Brian was such a nice guy. She wondered why he was so pissed to see her.

“Hey, Brian,” she said, offering a single wave. “Long time no see.”

“Sed’s on his way. You’d better leave before he sees you.”

Myrna ran a hand up Brian’s sweat-drenched T-shirt. “She’s staying for a couple of months. I just hired her as my assistant.”

Brian looked down at her incredulously. “You did what? Are you insane?”

Myrna smiled and shook her head. “Trust me, m’kay?” she murmured, dropping a kiss at the corner of his mouth. “Besides, with an assistant’s help, I’ll have more time for us.” Her hand clenched, gripping his T-shirt at the waist.

He stared at her as if in total awe. “God, yes, you definitely need an assistant. I love you.”

“I love you,” Myrna returned.

Jessica averted her gaze. So much mushiness was sickening to watch.

“Did you reserve a nice suite?” Brian’s fingers clutched the fabric of Myrna’s suit jacket as if trying to control the urge to rip it from her body.

“Uh-huh. At the Venetian. One with a jet tub.”

His breath caught. “Nice. Mmm, I love you. Did I tell you that today?”

“Only a million times.” She smiled. “Please, continue.”

He kissed her again. “I love you,” he murmured against her lips, before drawing away.

“Five minutes and I’ll be ready to leave,” she said. “I promise to hurry. I can’t wait to get you alone.”

“I’ll go wash off my stage makeup.”

“Leave it for now,” Myrna murmured. “I want to love both of you tonight. I’ll start with the rock star and work my way to that regular guy hiding under that makeup somewhere.”

He grinned. “I’m glad you didn’t see our show tonight, then. We sucked. Sed couldn’t hit his high notes. Jace’s hand is so swollen he can barely play. Trey kept having to sit down with dizzy spells. I couldn’t concentrate because all I could think about was you. At least Eric kept the beat.” He scratched his head behind his ear. “Well, most of the time.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Myrna said.

“Yeah, it was pretty bad, but I honestly don’t care at the moment. Hurry. I need to devour you.”

“Me first.” Myrna kissed him and then turned her attention to the computer again. She was decidedly distracted as she explained the rest of the data entry to Jessica. Luckily, entering the data wasn’t difficult. Just time consuming.

“Just work on this for the next couple of days,” Myrna said. “We’ll be back on Monday to hit the road again and you can help me with the groupie interviews.”

Groupie interviews? Now that did not sound like fun, but she’d be an idiot to turn down this job. “Okay. I can handle this. Do you want me to work on anything else?”

“Probably, but I can’t form a coherent thought right now. It will wait a couple of days.”

There was a commotion outside the bus. Several sets of feet marched up the front steps. The chorus of feminine giggles could only mean one thing. Jessica reached for a stack of Myrna’s raw data so she could look as busy as possible when Sed turned up. She would do her damnedest to ignore him.

“Will you two get out of here?” Sed said to Brian and Myrna. “The bedroom is mine tonight.”

Speak of the devil.

Jessica couldn’t stop her body from tensing involuntarily, but she didn’t take her eyes off her work.

“Sed, don’t chase off my new assistant while I’m gone. I need her,” Myrna said.

“New assist—”

Jessica glanced up at Sed and smiled her impersonal smile. “Hello.” Could he see that her hands were shaking as they hovered over the laptop’s keyboard?

Sed gaped at her. Her gaze traced the beads of sweat running down the side of his face. Oh God. Eyegasm. Why did he have to be so fucking attractive, anyway? The bastard.

“What?” Sed sputtered, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish.

Brian fled the bus, but Myrna didn’t abandon Jessica. She grabbed Sed’s arm to gain his attention. “Your little stunt got her fired.”

He slowly dragged his gaze from Jessica to Myrna, who was almost a foot shorter than he was, but somehow standing as his equal.

“What?” he said again.

“She needed a job and a place to stay, so I hired her to help me with my research. You will not harass her.”

Sed scowled. “Why would I harass her? I don’t give a shit about her.” He glanced at Jessica and then Myrna again. “You hired her? What do you mean you hired her?”

“Sed,” one of the three women who’d followed him on the bus complained. “Are we going to party, or what?”

“Yeah, shut up,” he bellowed at the attractive strawberry blonde. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

The woman didn’t even bat an eyelash at his rudeness. Jessica bit her lip to keep from scolding him. It wasn’t her business. Sed was free to do whatever he wanted with this woman. Correction. These women. Three of them. The heat of anger rose up Jessica’s throat. Why did his trio of willing flesh irk her so much?

Myrna said calmly, “She is my employee, Sed. I expect you to treat her with the same respect you treat me.”

“Myrna, are you coming?” Brian yelled from outside the bus.

“I’ve got to go.” Myrna planted a chaste kiss on one of Sed’s cheeks and patted the opposite one. “Behave. Do you hear me?”

“Whatever,” he said. “This is bullshit, Myrna. You should have consulted—”

“Pretend I don’t exist,” Jessica said. “I’ll do the same for you.”

Jessica went back to her data entry, trying to ignore the girl who had plastered herself to Sed’s back and ran her hand up and down over his crotch. Jessica couldn’t help but notice the growing bulge in his pants. She crossed her legs. No, not because she knew what that bulge could do to her. The bench-seat just wasn’t very comfortable. Uh, yeah…

“Sounds like a plan,” Sed said gruffly. He took the young woman’s hand from his crotch and tugged her toward one of the doors at the back of the bus. The bedroom, Jessica presumed. “Follow me, ladies,” he said to the other two girls. The door opened and closed behind the four of them.

Jessica suppressed the urge to punch something. She hadn’t slept with anyone since they’d broken up. She wondered how many hours he’d waited before fucking one of his groupies. Or three of them.

God, she wanted to break something. Preferably his face.

Eric stomped up the bus stairs. “Where’s Sed? Did he start without me?”

Jessica glanced up from the blurry computer screen. “How the fuck should I know?” she growled, her face aching from the tension in her expression.

Eric gaped at her. “Jessica?”

“Yeah, guilty.”

Her mood had gone from foul to horrendous. The copious giggling coming from the bedroom did not improve her disposition.

Eric slid into the booth across from her and whispered, “Does Sed know you’re here?”

“Uh, yeah. He had to pass here to take his little sluts back there.” She pointed at the offensive bedroom door.

“My God, Sed, you’re absolutely perfect,” a muffled voice came through the door.

“Can you always hear everything that goes on in that bedroom?” Jessica asked.

“Pretty much,” Eric said. “You think Sed and his groupies are loud, wait until Brian and Myrna get back from their honeymoon. She makes this sound in the back her throat. It’s like… gah, instant boner.”

“I’m moving to the pigsty bus,” Jessica said, rising from the bench. She closed the laptop and scooped the stack of papers on top.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Eric said. “The place is toxic to sensible females.”

“Is Jace over there, by any chance? A friend of mine wanted me to give him a message.”

Eric scowled, an uncharacteristic look of guilt on his ruggedly handsome face. “Not sure where Jace went off to.”

Sed’s deep groan carried through the door. “Suck it harder,” he demanded. “Yeah, harder. Harder. That’s better.”

Jessica rushed down the hall and threw open the bedroom door. It banged against the wall. Sed stood just inside the doorway entirely naked, save the cherry-red condom on his cock. His three girls were in various states of undress. One was on her knees in front of him, sucking his shaft down her throat. A second knelt behind him flicking her tongue over God-only-knew-what. The third girl ran her hands up and down the hard muscles of his chest and abdomen as if she was inspecting The Statue of David for flaws.

Sed gazed at Jessica through half-closed eyes, a sardonic smile on his handsome face. “Can I help you?”

With an angry growl, Jessica grabbed the girl sucking Sed’s cock by the hair and yanked her down to the floor. Sed’s yelp of pain seemed well deserved. And the girl? Jessica wanted to kill her. “Get away from him, you fucking slut,” Jessica spat.

Jessica narrowly avoided a kick to the head and tossed the screaming young woman into the hall by her hair.