Читать книгу All Fired Up - Madelynne Ellis, Madelynne Ellis - Страница 6

Ash looked for her the moment he came off stage, while his body was pumped with adrenalin and he was still buzzing from the performance high. He knew she’d be there, just as she had been every moment from the night they’d met. Ginny – just a glimpse of her was enough to make him want to barrel caveman-like through the crowd to claim her and cover her precious upturned face with a thousand million kisses. She made him crazy. One simple touch and he was all fired up and eager to please.

However, the last thing any budding relationship needed was the attention of the global media. Black Halo had just kicked off their Requiem for the Damned tour and there were enough journalists present, waving cameras and microphones about, to make his hackles rise.

Ash intended to keep what he had with Ginny private. No spotlights. No photographs. And no well-meaning friends offering advice and generally screwing things up. After his first brush with love had left him a quivering wreck, he wasn’t taking any risks second time around.

Still, it was hard not to run to her and lose himself, staring into her liquid-gold eyes. Instead, he steered himself in the opposite direction.

Ash made small talk with a couple of other ladies who’d managed to find their way backstage. He signed three autographs, one on a boob, and had his picture taken with new drummer Iain Willows, and their official fan-club president, whose name he could never remember. He forced himself to do an entire circuit of the room without looking at Ginny once, before he finally headed in her direction. Even then, he held off from giving her any sort of welcome that might have been deemed extraordinary. Just a friendly peck on the cheek, when really he wanted to drink down every last drop of her and tell everyone else here to fuck off home.

Only that sort of outburst would really focus their attention.

‘You took your time working your way here.’

‘I was saving the best for last.’

‘Were you?’ Sceptically, she raised one of her arched eyebrows.

‘I needed to find out how we went down.’

‘And?’

‘Like a storm, it seems.’

‘Because there was any actual doubt that’d be the case. The audience were just stoked you’re all together making music again and playing gigs. Say, has anyone ever told you, you hold your guitar in a really weird way. You make it look as if she’s about to fly from your hands.’

Yes, actually they had. He overlooked the remark though, because Ginny knew his guitar was female. She was amazing like that. Ash clenched his fists to stop himself cupping her face and stealing a proper kiss. He really needed to find an exit route out of here soon, because he didn’t want to stand still next to this woman. He wanted to do. His body wasn’t going to be content until he’d sampled every damn part of her for the zillionth time. These past few weeks, he hadn’t seemed able to screw his head on straight unless they were sandwiched so close there were no discernible gaps between them.

‘Actually, I think you’ll find she’s like a lot of ladies, and appreciates gentle coaxing.’

Her lips pursed. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate tenderness, but Ash could genuinely attest to her being one of the few women who, when she said she wanted it hard, meant exactly that. He had the bruises to prove it. And didn’t that just keep him running back for more.

‘It’s just unfortunate that Mr Geist keeps writing hardcore rock anthems,’ he muttered, still half talking about his guitar. They needed to get out of here now, find themselves somewhere secluded, away from the din and the crush of people. Who the hell were all these people anyway? And why were they backstage?

‘Yeah, I’ve heard he’s addicted to rocking out.’

‘Wanna rock out with me?’ they remarked simultaneously, making one another laugh. Did he ever. He was damn well hooked on her. Ginny Walters, the new drug of choice. ‘I think I’m addicted to the taste of you.’

Ginny prodded him with her elbow. ‘You say such crude if lovely things. I’m rather partial to the taste of you too.’

‘Then maybe I can persuade you to come this way.’ Ash hooked an arm around her tiny waist – Ginny was skinny everywhere apart from around the hourglass curve of her hips – and guided her in the direction of the bar. There was an exit right by it that’d take them to the dressing rooms and some blissful seclusion.

‘Hey, Mr Rock Star, I hope you’re not planning on plying me with alcohol and then having your wicked way.’

‘Course not. I wouldn’t dream of taking advantage like that. I was thinking wicked way first, then alcohol. What do you say we relive a little of our history?’

‘That does sound fun,’ she agreed, a nostalgic look in her eyes. He still couldn’t believe they’d met because she’d gatecrashed his dressing room looking for fun with whoever turned up. Ash had always supposed he’d meet his special lady somewhere civilised and unconnected to the music industry. Not that he was arguing with fate.

‘And were you thinking we’d do this with or without the accompaniment of your bandmates?’

Definitely without. While he’d once shared her with Spook and Rock Giant, he had no intention of ever doing so again. Just as he had no intention of sharing himself with anybody else. Ginny was his, and he was strictly a one-woman man from now on. Why risk perfection for something mediocre? And boy, was she perfect. He admired the wiggle of her butt as she walked ahead of him to get through the crowd.

Of course, slipping away unnoticed proved a little trickier than he’d hoped. By the time they’d reached the end of the bar, they were surrounded by the other band members and associated hangers-on.

Most nights Ash was happy to hang out with them and do some post-gig chilling, but they were about to spend six months on a tour bus together. He’d see plenty of them, and not nearly enough of Ginny. After weeks of having her around whenever he needed her, not being able to hold her in his arms was going to be absolute murder.

Also, things were still kind of tense within the band, following their temporary split a little while back. Ash wasn’t going to even pretend those wounds were fully healed.

‘Ash. Come and have a beer.’ Iain Willows clubbed him across the back before handing him a bottle. ‘I think that went well. They’re still loving us outside.’ The general hum of backstage activity was regularly punctuated by the roar of the fans waiting outside for a glimpse of the band as they left. ‘I see you haven’t lost your talents.’ Iain’s attention abruptly shifted to Ginny. ‘Let me say good evening to the prettiest girl in the room.’ He grasped Ginny’s hand and raised it in order to kiss her fingers.

Around them several female onlookers sighed, while Ash experienced an overwhelming desire to tear Iain’s head off. He did not need to be touching Ginny, or looking at Ginny, or breathing in the same space as Ginny. And he definitely didn’t need to be flashing his ‘come to bed’ eyes at her.

‘You don’t want to hang out with this waster, do you?’ Iain drawled, cosying up to her side. ‘You should really consider checking out the new talent in the band.’

‘Where’d you recommend I look?’

Iain briefly pouted, which made him look decidedly constipated. Then he pressed his hands to his heart in a theatrical fashion and claimed, ‘I’m wounded. So cruel.’

The bastard completely overcooked it and ought to have crashed and burned; instead he managed to raise a smile out of Ginny.

‘Seriously, though,’ Iain said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. ‘You do realise he’s been everywhere?’

‘Which beats having been nowhere,’ Elspeth Shriik, Black Halo’s diminutive keyboardist, remarked, interrupting Ash’s mental picture of Iain being bloodily beheaded. ‘At least Ash comes with a satisfaction guarantee. What do you come with?’

‘Minimal effort,’ someone quipped, instantly freezing Iain’s smile.

‘God, yeah. Very droll,’ he complained. ‘You’re all so funny. That’s right, pick on the new guy.’

‘Have another beer, Iain.’ Ash thrust the bottle Iain had given him back at him again, hoping to prevent an argument. He might be somewhat pissed at Iain at the minute, but if possible he wanted to avoid another feud brewing within the band. It was bad enough that Xane and Elspeth were barely speaking to one another, without a third war zone being drawn up.

He got it. He understood why Elspeth didn’t want Iain on board. For the same reason that Xane didn’t, because the vacancy only existed because of Steve Matlock’s death and neither of them was ready to move on yet.

‘At least you’re drinking something less girly now,’ Rock Giant, Black Halo’s bassist, remarked of the beer, ‘and not that pink nonsense you had earlier.’

‘Cosmo?’ the bartender enquired.

‘Dirty Shirley,’ Iain corrected him. ‘And I’ll take another now.’

Ash shook his head. ‘You’re supposed to be a badass rock star. Don’t you think cocktails are a little bit fluffy?’

‘What can I say?’ Iain raised his hands and shrugged. ‘I happen to love cherries.’

‘First-timers only,’ Elspeth mocked. ‘Is that so they don’t realise how rubbish you are?’

Ash watched Iain’s skin turn purple beneath his artfully constructed five o’clock shadow, and prayed he managed to inure himself to Elspeth’s jibes fast, else he was going to be doing a lot of mediating on this tour, and, if there was one thing he truly sucked at, it was calming situations. Creating them – now that was a different matter.

Xane came over looking for his girlfriend Dani and drifted off again when he realised she wasn’t present, which in turn prompted Ash to make a second attempt at escaping.

‘Where are you going?’ Iain asked.

Ash cuddled Ginny closer. ‘I’ve something I need to attend to.’ He saw a particular thought burst through Iain’s expression and deliberately turned away before his friend chose to express it. If the word ‘threesome’ left Iain’s mouth, or in fact anything else suggestive involving him and Ginny, then Elspeth wouldn’t be Iain’s major problem, because he’d have two broken legs and a bust nose to deal with. The only reason Ash was considering leaving his arms intact was that they needed a drummer.

‘Catch you later,’ he said pointedly. Then he led Ginny calmly to the exit, just as he’d led hundreds of women before her. ‘Nothing’s changed, nothing’s different,’ he recited mantra-like beneath his breath for the benefit of anyone watching. ‘I’m just doing the same thing I always do, going to enjoy a little post-show wind-down with a pretty lady I recently met.’

His audience seemed to buy it. Leastways, no one appeared to be taking any notice of them, not even the snoops from the Daily Sleaze.