Secrets to Hide 2: Naughty Little Christmas (7 page)

Leaning toward Hank, she murmured, “V. sounds like he knows what he’s doing.”

“He’s just following your example, you know.”

So Vincent was taking over the managing of the band. She nodded her approval. He’d been the hardest band member to get close to, but she knew enough to be certain he had the savvy to do as well or better than she had with Aftershock. “Tell him to give me a call after this concert. Maybe I can help.” She’d gone to the school of hard knocks to get her managing degree, after all.

“You know it, Little Miss,” Hank said with a grin. That grin had always gotten to her somehow. Its boyishness contrasted sharply with the firm line of his shaved head and the tats marching up one side of his neck, yet it also fit in perfectly. His smile was one of the things she’d always loved about him. For a moment she wondered what her life would’ve been like if she’d let him get close the way he’d wanted to. And then Damien’s voice broke in, calling the meeting to order.

“HARLEY, FILL US in on what’s coming up this week.”

Harley turned to him, her gaze clouded for the merest second before it cleared and she reached for the phone she’d set on the table, clicking the touchscreen to access her notes. Damien wondered where her thoughts had escaped to. Or who. She and the biker boy, Hank, had been talking. They were obviously close. He tried not to let it rankle him, but damn it, it did.

Less than a week had passed since he met Harley, yet it felt like forever. Damien was coming to accept that Horny and Grumpy were his new alter egos, but that didn’t mean he liked it any more than those around him did. A certain woman with candy-colored hair kept driving him nuts, but hell if he knew what to do about it.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out one of the strawberry-and-cream candies he’d bought Sunday afternoon. The suckers he’d loved as a kid weren’t for sale anymore; lucky for him they made a Life Saver-sized version—easier to indulge that way. Or easier to torture himself. There couldn’t be any other reason, because one taste shot his craving for Harley into the stratosphere. Still it gave him something to do with his mouth besides opening it and letting Harley and everyone else at the table know he was jealous of the prick sitting next to her and the intimate connection they so obviously shared.

“First, the contest,” Harley said. “We’ve designed a backstage-pass prize for a select group of fans. The prizes are awarded to randomly chosen tickets at the time of purchase, which we thought might be a good way to drive up sales.”

“You mean
you
thought,” Marc put in. “And you were right. Sales are climbing rapidly. At this rate we’ll sell out well before Saturday.”

Harley’s idea to connect the contest to the buying of tickets had been brilliant. Marc, who’d been in the business several years longer than Damien, couldn’t stop raving about Harley’s work. Damien admitted he was impressed as well. The woman spent every minute focused on this concert, from meeting with the representatives of their LA charity to posting promo and facilitating fan-club loops to generate hype. A one-woman dynamo, Marc called her this morning, and Damien agreed.

“Weekend Washout has two live interviews tomorrow, which will air in conjunction with the spots Zeus Dues are scheduled for. They are doing theirs from Seattle before they head down for the weekend. We’ve also arranged to have a local reporter come here Friday for a taped interview that will air Friday evening in their weekend entertainment spotlight.” She consulted her list again. “Saturday morning is sound check, with the concert at four. You have your sets selected, right?”

“You know it, baby,” the lead singer said with a sly grin.

“Yes, I do.” She made a quick note, then, “The club will be open to the public between your concert and Sound’s, but we have a room in the back where you guys can chill. The fan meet will be there too, about an hour and a half before Sound goes onstage. The contest includes ten winning tickets, and each winner is allowed one guest.”

“Twenty fans. That’s not too bad,” Chad said.

“Not like that mob outside Milwaukee that one night, remember?” Drew, the guitarist, grimaced.

The quiet one—Vincent, Damien thought his name was—nodded at the memory. Chad snorted, the sound an odd mix of remembered dismay and glee. “I’ve still got the scars from that.”

“I’ve done some research on the Web, but can you give us more details on the charity for the interviews tomorrow?” Hank asked, obviously trying to steer them back to business.

Damien watched Harley talk with the men around the table. Though they’d known each other a long time, she handled herself well. In fact, he didn’t think either Marc or Lenore, his general manager at Twice, could’ve done better. Harley possessed a confidence and friendliness that drew people in. It allowed her to hold her own when big personalities surrounded her, especially in this male-dominated business. Even when conflict arose, she remained calm and collected, except when she felt the need to bash heads together, which she didn’t hesitate to do. As Damien watched her give Chad what-for, he found himself sympathizing. He’d been on the receiving end of her sharp tongue too, after all, and it wasn’t exactly a fun place to be.

Hank asked a question about the sound system, and Harley answered. As she gestured, the phone in her hand went flying. Hank grabbed it out of the air, laughing, and passed it back, his hand lingering on Harley’s in a way that made Damien bite down on his candy until it crunched between his teeth. Why was every man she came in contact with always touching her? Even Marc. She drew men like honey, and each time he witnessed a new set of hands on her, he was left with a lump of impotent irritation—
not
jealousy; he didn’t get jealous—in his gut and a jaw that ached like a son of a bitch. The feeling was starting to seriously suck.

Crowds had filtered in, and the DJ was cranking the music by the time Harley deemed “her” band sufficiently filled in on their upcoming duties. Damien wrapped things up and stood, as did the others. Hank crowded close to Harley, saying something about practice, but Damien tried to shut out any more conversation. He couldn’t miss Harley’s “I don’t think so,” however. It was spoken on a rising note as Hank dragged her, laughing, toward the dance floor.

The rest of the band egged them on until Harley acquiesced. The pout pulling at her lower lip was almost cute too. Damien warned himself not to watch, not to brand the image of her lithe, sexy body moving to the music into his brain, but his feet didn’t listen, carrying him without his consent toward the edge of the dance floor even as he popped another creamy candy into his mouth.

“Come on, Little Miss,” Hank said, twirling her around before he gripped the shallow dip of her waist in his hands. “Show me that sexy shake.”

Harley threw the man a sultry look, pushed him away with a hand on his chest, and stepped off. When she glanced back at Hank over her shoulder, Damien caught a full glimpse of the mischief lighting her eyes. Her hips cocked to one side, then the other, then a slow roll that would do a belly dancer proud. A sudden image of how Harley would look moving like that under him, even over him, flashed through his mind, and he crunched down on the remainder of his candy and swallowed before he choked on it. Sweat broke out on his brow as he watched the woman move, her slender hands tracing the outline of her hips in a way that drew every masculine gaze in the club straight to her rounded ass.

“God almighty,” he groaned.

What followed was a five-minute torture session that spiked his dick and his heartbeat until he thought his ribs might crack along with his zipper. Harley epitomized sex, her body every man’s perfect wet dream, and the way her breasts shook when she danced forced Damien’s hand into his pocket for a surreptitious squeeze. No way in hell was he coming in his pants just from the sight of her breasts, but he wanted to. She made him want to. She made him want a lot of things he knew weren’t good for him. When her arms crossed over her head and she shimmied like that, she could make him forget every principle he’d built his life on.

And then where would he be? A heavy weight settled on his shoulders. If, for a single moment, he was honest with himself, he had to admit he didn’t know. All he knew was this: the club, the people in it, and the rules he’d given himself to live by. On the other side of that line waited a blank abyss he feared would wipe away everything he’d managed to accomplish. He couldn’t let Harley push him over that line.

That same damn honesty popped up again, and a wry grin twisted Damien’s lips. Right. Honesty. If he was honest, it wasn’t Harley pushing him anywhere; it was him trying desperately to stop his own slow slide toward oblivion.

He forced himself to turn, to walk away from the vision that had him hard as a rock and sweating with need. Only once he’d closed himself in Marc’s office and dived into the paperwork awaiting him could he get the image of Harley sensual swaying to the music to recede.

Of course, the woman herself waltzed into the office less than an hour later.

Train was playing softly through the speakers on the entertainment center near the desk, trying to soothe him, and Damien held another damn candy in his mouth. What could he say—he was a glutton for punishment. And a candidate for diabetes if he kept up with the sugar intake.

Speaking of sweets. Harley’s cheeks were flushed with exertion, her hair disheveled like she’d run her hands through it.
Or had sex. Her hair would look just like that after I shoved my fingers—

He closed his eyes, told himself to shut the fuck up, and opened them again. If Harley noticed his mood, she gave no indication of it. She crossed to the low glass coffee table in the conversation area of Marc’s office, the area she’d taken over as her own, and sat quietly.

He snagged a pen from the desktop and twirled it casually, but his words sounded far from casual. “Have fun?”

Well, if she hadn’t sensed his mood before, the tone of his voice probably clued her in. Judging from the surprise on her face, she was quick on the uptake.

“Yes,” she said warily.

“Good. Maybe we can get some work done now.”

God, he was such a dickhead. He knew it, knew he needed to find a way to deal with this like a logical, reasonable adult, but the reasonable approach blew up in his face every time he tried it. He opened his mouth, and something totally illogical and not at all reasonable came out.

That’s what the candies are for, remember? Keeping your mouth shut.

He eyed the half-empty bag of Creme Savers on his desk. No, they were too easy to chew or swallow. She’d never make it past her trial period like this, not because he’d let her go, but because she’d kill him and have to go to jail for a lengthy sentence unless she could plead self-defense. Of course, with a female judge, she might get off easily.

“Damien, haven’t we had this discussion before?” she asked, then, with a derisive twist to her lips, “Recently?”

“Right, we did. I believe it was Monday night,” he said, knowing that wasn’t the conversation she referred to. “I warned you to stay away from the customers.”

A hint of hurt swirled in her green eyes. “I’m not sleeping with customers, for God’s sake. I barely have time to sleep or talk to—” Tension spiked through the air as she paused. “Or talk to anyone.”

“Except Hank.”

She threw her phone carelessly onto the coffee table. “Yes, I spoke to Hank. I danced with him. You know that; you saw me. What does talking and dancing have to do with sleeping with customers?”

“Just that you don’t really have time to be sleeping with anyone right now. We have too much going on. You need to be focused on work.”

“Damien,” she said, his name sounding more like a curse, but when she opened her mouth to continue, nothing came out. Instead a V formed between her eyes, eyes gone dark and dangerously stormy. He was beginning to get the feeling that V was a warning sign.
Danger, violence ahead.

Harley stood, fists propped on her hips, and stalked toward the desk. “You know what?”

“What?”

“You are a hypocrite.”

“A—” Anything more was choked off in his suddenly constricted throat. Spluttering, he finally squeezed out a weak, “I am not.”

Honesty, remember? Look it up.

“Yes, you are.” She stood before the desk now, leaning over, her fists planted on the surface the same way they’d been planted on her hips. “I spent quite a bit of time at Thrice before I spoke to you. Did you know that?”

Uh-oh. Here it came, his ass in a sling. “No.”

“I didn’t think so. Otherwise you would know how utterly ridiculous it is to try to sell me that line of bull about not sleeping with the customers. Because you, dear Damien, always seemed to have one of them on your arm, even following you out the door at night. What’s good for the goose, remember? Just how many women have you slept with in the past month who also happened to dance and/or drink at your club?”

No way in hell was he answering that. “How many women I’ve slept with is no one’s business but mine. How many men have you slept with?”

At least she didn’t call attention to the fact that he’d left the all-important
who were customers
off his question. “That’s not the point. The point is you telling me one thing and doing another. What’s that old saying, ‘Don’t do what I do; do what I say do’? I’m not a child incapable of choosing my own sexual partners. At least I can remember them all,” she taunted with a twist of her lips.

He couldn’t say the same. The perks of the life he lived meant women were available at every turn. Until recently, he’d enjoyed as many women as his body would let him have. Now, his body seemed to be restricting him to only one.

“Just how many do you remember?” he asked, unable to stop himself, because he needed to know how many men there’d been, and maybe, just maybe, to prove to them both that she was just as “bad” as he was.

Harley hesitated, taking a long, slightly shaky breath. On the exhale, she breathed out a single word. “None.”

For a moment he couldn’t speak. Then he couldn’t help himself; he laughed. “A woman like you?” She had to be the most sensual, beautiful woman he’d ever met. “Come on, Harley. Give me a number I can believe, or just tell me it’s none of my business.”