All Night Long (5 page)

‘He gets his kicks from taking pictures. I’m sure he’ll greatly enjoy your contribution.’

‘It was a good one,’ Spook mumbled.

‘So, what …? Let me get this straight here.’ Ginny pushed up onto her elbows to address Spook. ‘You collect photographs of Ash’s –’

‘– the band’s –’

‘– conquests.’

‘He likes to capture their big O faces.’ Ash made an appropriate open-mouthed expression. ‘Then he puts them in his scrapbooks.’

Ginny’s eyebrows scooted up her forehead in disbelief. Spook Mortensen kept scrapbooks, and not just any scrapbooks but catalogues of the band’s conquests.

‘OK, that’s weird.’

Ash quietened her with another kiss. ‘We all have our kinks. One of my faves is these.’ He twanged one of her suspenders, having somehow managed to slip a hand up her skirt. ‘But they’re not my only fetish. I’m sure you have a few interesting ones too. Well, Spook has his, and Xane, if you ever meet him, has a whole load.’

It sounded a little as if Ash envied that fact.

‘Yeah, like what?’

‘Stuff that sends women into raptures, or scares the fucking beejeezus out of them.’

Well, that just described the impression Xane made in general. ‘Sounds fun,’ she remarked in order to see his reaction. Predictably, Ash pouted. Apparently, there were other emotions at work in this band besides their overactive egos. She laughed. ‘You’re not bad at the rapture stuff yourself.’

‘Yeah?’ He snuggled closer, lining his hips up with hers and giving them a rock. Ginny groaned in appreciation. Despite the hair-raising ride they were enduring, apparently Ash’s appetite for her hadn’t waned a bit.

‘I bet his fingers aren’t as dextrous as yours.’ The prediction seemed a safe bet. Ash played lead guitar. Xane only sang.

‘Sweet talker. Tell me more. Like where you’d like me to put my magic fingers.’

‘The same place I’d like you to put your magic tongue, and the huge staff you’re busy busting your fly with.’

‘You mean you want to get dirty with me in the back of a speeding van?’

Frankly, yes. ‘I’m not sure we’re actually speeding any more.’ There’d been barely any bumps for a couple of miles now, and the few swerves they’d made had been gentle too. ‘I figured it was a favourite position.’

‘Nope, that’d be upside down.’

She wasn’t sure how that was even supposed to work, but hey, once they reached the hotel, she was totally up for a demo.

‘And I thought I was doing so well at reading you.’

‘Yeah, the thing is that I’m written in Braille. To truly decipher me, you have to use your fingertips.’ He clasped her hand and sandwiched it between their bodies, over the hummock tenting his fly. ‘Feel me?’

Ginny slipped his button. His zip obligingly unfastened itself as a result of the strain it was under, so that he spilled hot and hard into her hand. ‘Ah, I see what you mean.’

Hungry and ready for action, he thrust eagerly against her palm. Ginny let him dictate for a stroke or two, before using a few tricks she’d learned to curl his toes. His eyes closed as he groaned, only for them to snap open again the moment she removed her thumb from the place she’d pressed it.

‘Nice?’ she enquired.

‘Do it again, and put the other one to work too.’

‘Like this?’ She clasped his butt, and gave it a firm squeeze.

‘Oi! Lay off the kinky stuff. I’m trying to concentrate on the road here,’ Rock Giant bellowed. He adjusted the rear-view mirror so that he could see them better. ‘Tell me which way to go. We’re on the main road out of town, as far as I can tell.’

Ginny gently pushed Ash’s chest so that she could raise her head enough to peer outside. The surrounding traffic had thinned to the typical late-night trickle. ‘It’s up the road about another half a mile. Then turn right. You’ll see it.’

Ash squashed her into the seat again.

‘Seriously, knock it off.’

When they didn’t immediately comply, Rock Giant zigzagged the van back and forth across the lanes of traffic.

‘OK, OK, I’m done.’ Ginny surrendered. She shoved Ash off and sat upright, apart from him and as primly as she could manage, which, given that her top was still pulled down, leaving one breast exposed, really wasn’t all that demure.

‘Love it,’ Ash said. He inched along the seat towards her. ‘Go on, get the other one out too. It’ll give me something fabulous to focus on until we get there.’

‘It’s not much further, is it?’ Spook asked. He drew his camera from its case and snapped a shot or three of her sitting there exposed. Ash leaned forward to look at the results.

‘Whoa! Those are fab. We should use those in the next promo booklet. Totally classy.’

‘Next you’ll be suggesting we run an extreme tits competition,’ Rock Giant bemoaned, though his attention strayed from the road towards the camera screen.

‘I’m assuming you mean expose them in an extreme location, not show us how big your bazongas are? You know I prefer them petite and au naturel to pumped full of silicone.’ Ash put his arm around Ginny and squeezed. ‘That said, I think it’s a great idea. I’m betting we can rustle up some fab merchandise as a prize, or we could offer to wine and dine the winner for an evening. That’d be fun. That’s a cool prize, don’t you think?’ he asked Ginny.

‘Wine and dine?’ Rock Giant snorted. ‘As if. What you mean is that you’ll offer to screw them. God, you’re so shallow.’

‘Ahem!’ Ginny protested.

‘Babe, you’re totally going to win.’ Ash squeezed her again, but only for about three seconds. ‘Wait!’ he yelled as they sailed towards the turn-off for a twenty-four-hour supermarket. ‘We need supplies.’

‘We do?’ Spook turned his head to stare at Ash as though he’d grown another head. ‘You’re kidding, right? Have you forgotten what we just went through?’

‘No.’ He gave Ginny a significant look. ‘But we need some essentials, and the thing about essentials is that they’re essential.’

‘If we walk in there we’re going to cause a riot.’

‘Won’t. No one will even recognise us. They’ll all assume we’re wannabes on the way home from the show.’

Ginny disagreed. They’d be recognised instantly. She’d seen some pretty good lookalikes in the past, but none of them exuded the same presence as these guys. Everything about them screamed rock god, not simply the clothes and their hair but the way they carried themselves, even the way they sneered. That, and tonight, right after Xane had walked off stage, they’d be on everyone’s radar.

‘Everyone knows that rock stars don’t do their own shopping.’

‘Except we do,’ Spook remarked. ‘Leastways, I do.’

‘I’ll go,’ Ginny offered. ‘I don’t mind shopping. What is it you want?’

‘Beer,’ they all agreed.

‘And a couple of bottles of whisky.’ Ash whispered a couple of other things into her ear. ‘We can do food at your hotel, right? They do round-the-clock room service, I trust.’

‘They better had.’ Spook rubbed a hand across his tummy, as it made a loud gurgling sound. ‘I want a decent meal. I’ve not had one for days.’

‘We had burgers for lunch,’ Rock Giant reminded him.

‘I said decent. Do you think I ate that shit hospitality served up?’

‘He had the cucumber sandwiches,’ Ash remarked.

Realising their banter might take up another half an hour, Ginny hopped out of the van. ‘Back in a few. Don’t go without me.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Ash assured her. He leaned out of the window to give her a smacker of a kiss. ‘Don’t be long, darling. I’ve something cooking for you.’

Chapter Four

‘What the fuck are we doing, guys?’ Rock Giant asked, the moment Ash finished winding the window up. ‘Xane announces to the world we’re over, then disappears into the night, our fans start behaving like the new zombie horde and yet we’re in a supermarket car park on our way to some third-rate hotel with a girl we barely know. We need to be thinking. We need a plan.’

Ash slumped back in his seat and took a moment to refasten his fly. ‘A plan for what? Bugger all is happening until we track down Xane, and we’d have to be insane to even attempt that tonight.’ It’d be like trying to reason with a man-eating shark – impossible without a fuck-off tranquiliser gun and a big slice of bait. Hell, if he thought for a single minute that they could sort this mess out by themselves, then he’d be doing it, but the fact was that, even if they rounded up Steve and Elspeth and the five of them stood up before the nation’s press and claimed they were still together, no one would believe a word of it if Xane wasn’t standing with them. They might not like that fact – he certainly didn’t – but Xane was the linchpin of the operation. He could do whatever the hell he liked and the fans would still love him. However, the rest of them were nothing without Xane.

‘There’s no point in doing anything beyond drowning our sorrows tonight. Xane’s AWOL, and even if I did know where he was, I’d stay clear because actually I’m quite keen on keeping my body parts.’

‘I hate to admit it, but I think he’s right.’ Spook pulled off his beanie hat and gave his thick blond hair a good scratch. ‘I’d much rather try to reason with him over his morning coffee than while he’s knocking back vodka or whatever other poison he’s chosen for himself.’

‘Hot bird,’ Rock Giant muttered. ‘You seriously reckon he’s going to be over himself that fast?’ He followed suit in scratching his head. ‘I think it’s more likely the selfish git is going to give us the runaround for a month or two.’

Ash wasn’t sure how much the other guys knew, but he refused to believe that Rock Giant didn’t know about Elspeth and Steve’s wedding, given the two of them were besties, which meant he also had to know that Elspeth had just dumped Xane in a pretty horrific fashion. On that basis, he was struggling to see how Rock Giant shifting all the blame for the situation onto Xane was really justified, not that he didn’t think Xane was an arsehole for getting involved with the bitch in the first place. That said, in Xane’s position he’d probably have given them all the runaround too. Except he had his head screwed on well enough not to lose it over a woman.

‘By tomorrow he’ll have had time to think things through.’ Xane loved the band. He’d realise that splitting them up wasn’t the answer. Rather, they needed to enact a line-up change. Ash tactfully didn’t broach that subject now. The last thing they needed was more bad publicity because he and Rock Giant had come to blows in a supermarket car park over Elspeth’s future with the band.

‘We could consider how we might appease him,’ Spook remarked.

‘With a kick up the arse,’ Rock Giant harrumphed loudly.

‘Tomorrow, eh.’ Ash sighed, his mood back where it had been in the minutes before he’d hooked up with Ginny. She was taking far too long. He didn’t want to stew over the band. He wanted to forget about it for the night. ‘I’m going to go see where our girl’s got to.’ He pulled the same move she’d done, swung open the door and hit the tarmac before anyone had the time to object. ‘Back in a few.’

‘You fuckwit, Ash,’ Rock Giant hollered after him.

Ash turned while still walking in order to give him a salute. Spook had picked up his hat again, and pulled it on all the way down to his chin. As far as disguises went, it wasn’t a bad one. It did make him unrecognisable.

Ash scuttled up alongside Ginny as she wheeled her trolley towards the exit. ‘Excuse me, Miss. I think you’ve forgotten something?’

‘What?’ Startled, she looked first at the till receipt in her hand, and then pulled at the hemline of her skirt. When she recognised him, she took a swipe in his direction, which he expertly dodged. ‘I thought you were staying in the van.’

Ash ignored her accusatory tone as he circled her. ‘The mood started getting a bit heavy. And I was missing you too much.’ He smacked a kiss against her cheek.

‘A likely story,’ she clucked, pressing her fingers to the place he’d kissed. ‘Do you think there’ll be room for this lot in the van? I wasn’t sure how much you wanted me to pick up.’

Ash swept his gaze over the contents of the trolley: enough beer to drown a few sailors and a bumper box of his favourite party hats. Oh, and a tin of treacle. Well, golden syrup. That was close enough.

‘That should do nicely. We’ll make it fit.’ If it came to it, they could always turf an amp or something. ‘Hang on though, not so fast, eh?’ Why did they need to be in such a hurry to get back to Paul and Spook? He captured one of her arms in order to slow her down. ‘Let’s just …’ He reversed their direction, and shoved the shopping trolley into one of the lock-ups outside the in-store café.

‘Ash, what are you doing?’

He claimed the lock-up key and shoved it deep into the pocket of his leathers. ‘I thought we might make a little detour. We don’t need to rush back for anything.’

‘We don’t? What about …’

‘They’ll be fine in the van for a few minutes. Honestly. It’s dead out there. No one’s going to spot them.’ His smile broadened as he spied an ideal location for their mini break – a toilet near the supermarket door. As much as it was tempting to make an exhibition of himself and get dirty with her in the bakery up against the display of bread rolls, what he really needed at the moment was a little bit of alone time with her.

Ginny laughed as he turned her about so she could see where they were heading. ‘You realise the hotel is only across the street. We could be in bed in under five minutes.’

‘And where would be the fun in that?’ Not to mention it would involve waiting five minutes longer than he wanted to. ‘Beds are boring, and it won’t be private. Or have you forgotten I’ve my mates in tow?’

‘Given who those mates are, I don’t think I’m likely to forget. I thought we were planning some fun together that included them.’ She pinched his arse, making him jump.

‘Soon,’ he promised. First, he wanted her all to himself.

‘You’re not getting cold feet about sharing, are you?’

‘Nope.’ Actually, he was pretty ecstatic that she was up for some serious partying. It meant she’d level fewer expectations in his direction. He didn’t mind providing a few big Os, but he didn’t want to have to make a hasty, awkward departure come tomorrow morning, before she got tearful, expectant or clingy, or all three. He hated missing breakfast. It always put him in a shitty mood for the rest of the day.