A commotion on the other side of the room drew her attention. Eli, Aggie’s bouncer, darted toward Feather’s stage. Some big, good-looking customer had captured Jessica in his arms. She was wrapped in a leather jacket with her arms trapped helplessly. Several bouncers were trying to secure her release. Several others were escorting some tall, thin guy out of the club. A third guy standing next to Jessica’s captor shook his head in disgrace. All three customers had a similar look to them. Like they were in some rock band or something. Come to think of it, the cute guy at the end of her stage had a similar appearance. A matching set. She looked down to find her potential good time had vanished.

“Motherfuckers!” her blond angel yelled as he launched himself onto the back of one of the bouncers.

* * *

When Jace saw that a bouncer was dragging Sinners’ drummer, Eric, toward the exit, he didn’t think, he just acted. All thoughts of the beautiful, black-haired dominatrix and what glorious things she could do to his body fled his mind.

Jace raced across the club, hurdled a chair, and landed on the bouncer’s back. He knew he wasn’t big enough to take him down, but Jace could fight. If things had turned out differently, he might have become a professional boxer, instead of the bass guitarist for a rock band.

He didn’t mind an occasional brawl—he was good at fighting and knew how to knock a man out in one punch—but Jace wasn’t even sure why they were engaging with a bunch of bouncers at Brian’s bachelor party. They were supposed to be celebrating, not stirring up shit. Eric had better have a good reason for making eight club bouncers pissed enough to hit anything that moved. As the fight moved to the sidewalk outside the club, it escalated. Jace took out a couple of guys with one punch, before pausing to assess the situation.

Tall and wiry, Eric was putting up a fine fight, but was outnumbered four to one. Surrounded on all sides with no way out, Eric unexpectedly pointed to the sky. “Look, the Flying Elvises!”

All four bouncers stared up at the dark sky like turkeys in a hailstorm. When their attention turned skyward, Eric crashed into one of the bouncers at waist level, trying to escape the circle of muscle, but as soon as they realized there were no parachuting icons to entertain them, all four bouncers pounded Eric in rapid succession.

Jace decided to even the odds. Two uppercuts and a couple dozen jabs later, two more bouncers lay on the sidewalk: one out cold, the other attempting to rise, but failing to regain his equilibrium.

Eric wiped the blood out of his eye, his surprised gaze shifting from the human debris at his feet to Jace. “Jesus, little man, you’re a one-man wrecking crew.”

Distracted by Eric’s compliment, Jace found an unexpected fist against his jaw. Pain radiated up the side of his face. His ears rang. Vision blurred. The pain he didn’t mind, but the jar to his senses left him unbalanced. He took another hit to the jaw before he could focus well enough to knock his adversary out with one hard punch under the chin.

Breathing hard, Jace spun and saw some guy whack Sinners’ rhythm guitarist, Trey, in the back of the head with an aluminum bat. Trey hadn’t even been in the club when the fight broke out. Why had he been targeted? “Fuckin’ queer,” the bouncer growled.

Trey dropped to the sidewalk, instantly unconscious. Eric went after the fucktard with the bat, yanking the weapon out of his hands, and tossing it into the road beyond the sidewalk.

“No one.” Eric punched the guy in the face. “Calls him.” Hit him again. “A queer.” And again. “Ever.” Eric continued to pummel the guy until he stopped getting up.

Their lead guitarist, Brian (when in the hell had he joined the fray?), had a one-on-one fight going with the last bouncer standing. The two of them went back and forth with blows down the sidewalk. Brian took a hard fist to the nose, which pissed him off enough to take the guy down with a couple of quick punches.

Jace took a deep breath. Glad it was over. Now maybe he could finish his whiskey and make that appointment with that hot-as-blue-flames dominatrix. Sinners’ vocalist, Sed, burst out of the club. Apparently, he’d gotten tired of the stripper he’d captured off the stage and was ready to fight. They could have used him earlier. Sed was huge. A bodybuilder who would have made a good bouncer had he not been gifted with a voice from the heavens. Sed glanced around, looking for someone to hit, but every bouncer was already down.

Unfortunately, so was Trey.

Sed crossed the sidewalk in two strides and bent over Trey. Sed took him by both shoulders, lifted his torso off the ground, and gave him a gentle shake. Out cold, Trey’s head lolled loosely. “Trey? Trey! Trey, open your eyes.” Sed glanced at Eric. “What the fuck happened to him?”

“That douche bag whacked him in the back of the head with a ball bat.” Said douche bag was groaning in the middle of the sidewalk. Eric had made a mess of the guy’s face.

“What the fuck?” Sed eased Trey down to the sidewalk, dropped to his knees, and put his ear to Trey’s chest. “His heart’s still beating. He’s breathing.”

“Well, duh. You didn’t think he was dead, did you? He isn’t even bleeding.”

Brian staggered his way back up the sidewalk to join them. He massaged the knuckles of his right hand, his dark brows drawn together in an angry scowl. “Damn it, Eric, why do you always have to start shit?”

“It was Sed’s fault. He’s the one who grabbed Jessica off the stage.”

Jace’s gaze swiveled toward Sed in astonishment. Jessica? Sed’s fiancée who’d dumped him almost two years ago? Small world. Jace hadn’t recognized her without clothes.

“Who cares who started it? It’s over,” Sed said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here before the cops show up. I doubt Myrna will want to bail Brian out of jail on their wedding day, and then there’s the concert tomorrow. Kind of can’t miss it.”

They probably should have thought about that before they messed up their hands, faces, and bodies in a brawl that seemed pointless now that it had ended. While a world record contender for the Shortest Bachelor Party Ever, Brian’s last night as a single man had definitely been one to remember.

Jace glanced at the club’s door and released a frustrated sigh. He hadn’t gotten that wood-inducing dominatrix’s card, and he so needed to see her in private. Fighting tended to release some of his tension—that’s why he continued to box for recreation, even though he had a better gig in a rock band now—but getting in a bar fight didn’t sooth his soul’s turmoil. Not in the same way being whipped to the limits of his tolerance by a woman in spiked heels and black leather would.

Sed scooped Trey off the sidewalk, tossed him over one broad shoulder, and headed to the pink ’57 Thunderbird parked at the curb. The sound of sirens grew increasingly loud.

“Jace, let’s go!” Eric shouted.

After one last look of longing at the club’s swinging doors, Jace climbed on his Harley, waited for Eric to settle down behind him, and then followed the car back to their tour bus behind the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Surely someone would report their vehicles. There were plenty of witnesses to the fight. Every member of his band was probably screwed. Busted. In huge trouble. Their manager, Jerry, had told them if any of them were arrested again, not to bother calling him. He refused to bail them out. He also threatened their stage crew with immediate termination should they lend their aid. Jerry didn’t make idle threats.

When Jace pulled to a stop behind the tour bus, Trey stumbled out of Myrna’s car and leaned against the fender. At least he was conscious now. Jace rocked the bike back on its kickstand, shut off the engine, and went to check on Trey.

“You all right, man?” Jace asked.

None of his bandmates were what Jace would consider tan, but Trey looked downright ghostly.

“Yeah. Just a little dizzy.” Trey pressed on his temples with both hands. “Fuck, my head hurts.”

Brian leaned out the driver’s window. “Get back in the car, Trey, and we’ll take you to the hospital.”

“Fuck that. You know I hate hospitals. Why do you think I never followed in my father’s footsteps?”

“Because you’re too dumb to be a doctor,” Brian said. “Now get back in the car.”

Sed unfolded his six-foot-four frame from the little car. “Listen to Brian, Trey. Get back in the car.” He grabbed Trey by the shoulders and tried to force him.

Trey pulled out of his grasp. “Eric’s bleeding all over the fuckin’ place, and you aren’t threatening to take him to the hospital.”

Sed shrugged. “Whatever. It’s just Eric.”

“Thank you very fucking much for your concern, Sed,” Eric said. “Really. Appreciate it.” From the gash on the side of his head, blood continued to drip down Eric’s face and onto his black T-shirt.

“Do you need stitches?” Jace asked.

Eric’s brows drew together. “Do you?”

Jace shook his head. “I’m not bleeding anywhere.”

“And why is that, little man?”

Jace shrugged, shifting his gaze to the ground to prevent Eric from recognizing that he’d managed to push his buttons. Again. He just couldn’t win with Eric. Ever. And he respected him too much to knock him on his ass. Jace took a deep breath and released it slowly as he stared at the ground. He took a lot of shit from Eric, but if that’s what he had to do to stay in this band, he’d continue to take it. Nothing else on this whole fucking planet meant more to him than these four brilliant musicians.

“Sed, give me your sunglasses,” Brian said, now standing in their little huddle and waving a hand at Sed.