IntheMood (10 page)

“Matt?”

He followed the sound down to the last cubicle. She huddled
on the seat, hands clasped over her bare arms, shivering, her hair falling over
her face.

“V, sweetheart, you scared me.”

Shocking him, she laughed, tremulous and shaky, close to
hysterical. “I scared myself.”

“What happened? Was it building all day?”

She shook her head. “Just before I went on.”

“It exploded over you?”

She nodded, then her head jerked up and she met his agonized
gaze. Her water-stained eyes stared into his, black mascara streaked down her
cheeks and her lip was swollen where she’d been biting it. “Just after Jack
called.”

The bastard. He might have known. He was right about that
guy. “What did he say?”

Her voice shook. If Jack had been anywhere close, Matt
would’ve taken him apart with his bare hands. “He wished me luck. Said he hoped
I did it perfectly this time and made a joke about not making the same mistakes
twice. Told me to favor my left side, because that’s my good side. Asked me if
I’d tested my dress in front of a bright light.”

Anyone who didn’t know might think that an innocuous call.
But Matt knew. Jack had been subtly undermining her confidence for months. Just
that one call would trigger all the doubts that he’d been planting in her head
and send her screaming for shelter. No, not screaming, because somebody would
have picked up on that. Just running.

“Come back to the dressing room. Let me look after you.”

“You won’t make me—”

“Darling, I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to
do.” When he reached his hand out to her, she shrank back. Water dripped, the
sound ghostly and dank. “Please, V. I swear it. If you want to go home, that’s
what we’ll do. All the way back to Chicago. I’ll hire a car and drive through
the night.” Then he could kill Jack sooner. At least he had that consolation.

Tentatively, she moved forward. He remained still, holding
his breath, waiting for her. If he tried to grab her, he’d scare her all over
again.

After what seemed like forever, she touched his fingers and
slowly slid her hand into his. He grasped it, not too tightly, not wanting her
to feel trapped. Her warmth brought him more relief.

He tugged her very gently and she got to her feet. He
stepped back, pulling her with him, never taking his eyes from hers. She
followed, step by step, until he had her closer, in the main part of the room.
But he wouldn’t rush her. Let her heart start beating at its normal rhythm.

The little pulse in her wrist fluttered, far too fast. That
came with extra adrenaline, the energy that she should have been expending on
stage.

“So Jack decided you wouldn’t go onstage?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Jack cares for me.” Her voice was breathy. So sexy, and his
relief, plus her presence, had its inevitable effect.

Yes, he probably did. “I know. But he wants to keep you as
you were, the bud that didn’t blossom. Your family did everything to get you
sorted out, didn’t they? That’s why they didn’t turn up to your performances?”

“Yes, that’s right.” She turned a stricken gaze on to him.
“Is it true? Are they here?”

“As many as could make it.” What was the point of lying to
her now? “Quite a few. They love you, V, they want to see you succeed, be
everything you can be.”

Her face crumpled. “I’ve let them down, haven’t I?”

“No.” He drew her close and she went to him, nestling close
against his heart, her hot tears bathing his T-shirt. “They love you whatever
you do. Besides, it’s only one night out of the whole of your life.” He cradled
her, knowing he would be there for her. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. You still have
your life, you still have me.”

“But I wanted to do it!” The vehement cry ripped away from
her heart and her shout echoed around the bathroom. “I thought I could!”

He had to be careful here. “Do you still want to do it?”

“Yes, but I can’t.”

“Yes you can. They’ve held back the number, rearranged the
running order. All the new stuff is later now.”

She gasped. “Wow.”

“Yes, wow. That’s how highly the band thinks of you.”

She took a breath, steadier now, and he felt her move in his
arms. “I don’t think I can, Matt.”

“Come back to the dressing room.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want anyone to see me like
this.”

He took her to the basins. A white melamine held them,
chipped at the edges, with a part at the end forming a small table. He grasped
her waist and hoisted her up to sit.

“Let me help.” He tore a few paper towels from the holder
and ran cold water over them before squeezing them out. He applied them to her
face, dabbing at the black marks as gently as he could, talking while he
worked. “We’ll say you were taken ill. I can take you straight back, but you
left your purse in the dressing room. It’s okay, I locked it in the safe,” he
added, smiling at her gasp when she realized she’d left the room that fast.
“Nobody has to know about this.”

“How did you know?”

“You told me, remember? You got stage fright, you said.” He
paused, switching out the towel for a fresh one, but hesitated, and met her
gaze once more. “And because I used to get it myself. I got it bad.”

“Really?”

He huffed a wry laugh. “Why do you think I started taking
the drugs?”

He saw when the awareness entered her eyes. “I never
realized.”

“Nobody did. Except Jace. No, he doesn’t get it, he just
knew. Found me one night hunting down some speed because I had to have
something to stop that panic. My stomach tightened and I couldn’t sing when I
was bad. My nightmare was standing in front of the audience and nothing coming
out.”

“Is that why you gave up?”

Thinking of someone else seemed to help her. The spirit was
returning to her defeated soul. Her chin went up a tad, her eyes regained some
of their sparkle. “No. I gave up because I was addicted to everything. Except
the drink. By then I was on the hard stuff, and all the dealers in every town
we visited knew it. They were waiting for me. I got my junk for nothing because
of the custom I brought with me, all the hangers-on that follow a band. I
enabled untold people. But when you give up, it has to be for yourself.
Eventually I respected myself enough to want to do it.” He smiled, his heart
steady. “I was lucky enough to find something I liked better.”

“The studio?”

He nodded. “The studio. I got over the stage fright. I can’t
tell you when it left me, but it did, sometime on the first tour. After that I
had no excuse. I was just another junkie. One who drew all the best stuff in
every city we visited.”

“I’m glad you gave it up.”

He tossed the towel in the trash and touched his lips to
hers. “So am I. Even more now. Are you ready to go?”

She looped her arms around his neck. “Not quite. Make love
to me, Matt.”

He froze. “What?”

“Make love to me. I want to try, I want to do the song, if it’s
not too late. If you give me an orgasm, I can get over this, I’m sure of it.
Sure.” She paused. “Anyway, I want to. It worked last time, at the studio.
It’ll work now. I want you, Matt. Please.”

He laughed. “Here?”

“Here.” To prove her point, she widened her legs. Her dress
slid up her thighs and she wrapped her legs loosely around his waist, her hands
going to his fly. Her voice turned throaty and seductive. “Do it to me, Matt.
Fuck me.”

And there it was. Apart from the setting, this was the
embodiment of the dream he’d had the first time he’d seen her in this gold
dress. To push up her skirt and take her hard and fast and rough. How could he
resist?

He couldn’t think of one reason. Unzipping as fast as he
could, he shoved his underwear down and brought out his damp, throbbing cock.
His hand shook and he wasn’t afraid of showing her, but she made no comment.
She braced her hands on the small table, pushing her pelvis forward to the
precarious edge.

He glanced down. She still wore her panties, but the delicate
gold thong wouldn’t prove much of a problem. He watched as the piece of fabric
darkened and dampened with her arousal, and he growled. The primitive sound
surprised him, but then he repeated it, decided he liked it, because he was
sure as hell feeling primitive right now.

When he moved the thin strip of fabric aside, he revealed
her glistening pussy, reddened with arousal, but not blushing red. Blatantly,
invitingly red. Come-fuck-me red.

He introduced his cock to her pussy. They kissed, the
gleaming tip with its bead of liquid meeting the hard, erect nub of her clit.
Her gasp told him she was as aroused as he was. It was enough. He couldn’t
tease or wait for her. She was ready and if he waited any longer, he’d be more
than ready. He guided his cock farther down and she tilted back a little more,
exposing that glorious aching void, waiting for him to fill it.

His cock sank home, hardly a tug of her muscles impeding its
way, but that ever so slight resistance drove him crazy insane. With a yell, he
took her. Dragged her to him, one hand around her slender waist, and fastened
his mouth to hers as he powered in and out of her sweet depths.

Abandoning her balance, she gave it up to him. She flung her
arms around his neck and thrust one hand into his hair, the other gripping him
between his shoulder blades in the kind of death grip a wrestler would be proud
of. Her little cries into his mouth urged him on. He powered harder, faster,
fucking her with the frenzy of a man who hadn’t had sex for months, when in fact
it had been hours. Hours could feel like months. He could attest to that.

The wet scent of their mutual arousal wreathed them in their
own atmosphere, superseding anything else that might be around them. The wet,
hard slap of bodies connecting was the most perfect music in the whole
universe, echoing around the large room.

At the top of his peak, he knew he couldn’t hold back. He
dragged his mouth from hers. “Come. Please come.”

Her mouth partly open, her eyes wild, she stared back. “I’m
close.”

Grabbing the hand that gripped his shoulder blades, he
guided it down and, watching her eyes the whole way, brought it to her clit.
“Let me see. Do it.”

Her lips curved in a wicked smile. Pinching her clit between
finger and thumb, she worked it as if it were a miniature penis. She stroked up
and down, stimulating the little bud until she froze and he felt the deep
pulses that signaled her orgasm.

The sight and the feel of her inner muscles clenching around
his cock tipped him over the edge. He came in a blinding shower of sparks and
lights.

Until he opened his eyes a few minutes later, he hadn’t
realized that one of the light bulbs had blown. The light showers weren’t just
in his head.

“The circuitry must be bad here.”

“What?” Opening her eyes, V met the glorious sight of the
man she loved. His hair was wild, sticking up in spikes where she’d clutched it
as she came, his eyes still dark, the pupils barely ringed by the irises. But
she realized that she couldn’t see as clearly as before.

“All that vibration must have broken the connection.”

She blinked and glanced down the long row of sinks to the
light at the end. It had gone out. “I’d like to think it was the intensity of
the moment.”

He laughed and grabbed a few more paper towels from the pile
that she’d been leaning against. “Hold still.” He held a towel under her bottom
as he withdrew, releasing a gush of liquid, then he cleaned her with the other
towels in a few efficient strokes. “I think your dress is finished.”

“Yes. I’ll have to go on in jeans.”

His eyes, previously sultry, widened. “You want to go on? I
won’t force you to anything. Tell me what you want and I’ll make it happen.”

“If I can. If they haven’t done the number.” That sex had
wiped out everything that had gone before and once again she was thinking
clearly. The blind panic had left her, although adrenaline still spiked her
mood.

“They could have left it for the encore.” He checked his
watch. “They’ve been on half an hour. That might have felt like forever, but I
think it’s our fastest fuck yet. Barely five minutes.”

She laughed and the sound cleared the final tension from her
throat. She could play her instrument now. Back in control, and it felt good.
“It worked.”

He touched his lips to her forehead. “That, darling, isn’t
why I did it.”

“I know.” She really did. “Let’s get back to the dressing
room. I can wear the outfit I brought to wear afterward. Jeans and a T-shirt.
It’ll have to do.”

If she kept the impetus going, she could do this, she knew
it.

After washing her hands in one of the sinks, she grabbed him
and towed him out of the room, as eager to get onstage as she’d been reluctant
less than an hour ago. She wouldn’t think about what happened, not wanting to
trigger anything again. She wouldn’t let the band down any more than she had
already.

No time to shower, only time for a few quick swipes with a
damp cloth. Once back in her dressing room, she changed into the jeans and
T-shirt, tossing the dress aside without a qualm. She could go shopping
tomorrow for something else. A few strokes of eyeliner, a swift application of
lipstick while Matt brushed her hair out with swift, efficient strokes and she
was done.

“I definitely want to keep this.” His low growl turned her
on all over again and he exchanged a smoldering look with her across the room.
Matt carefully put the crumpled gold rag in her bag, tucking it out of sight.
He added the panties, which she’d exchanged for a fresh pair, but she knew the
scent of sex still hung faintly about her.

She wanted to do this fast, get on the stage before she had
time to talk herself out of it.

A sharp rap on the door heralded the entrance of the band’s
manager. “There you are.”