Olivia Cunning - Wicked Beat

“No arguments from me, little Reb. I just didn’t know if you were sure.”

A loud horn blared as a solid black tour bus with Sinners’ cherry red logo painted on the side turned into the parking lot and pulled to a halt next to the pigsty bus.

Eric lowered Rebekah to her feet and released her. He held onto her arm until she regained her balance and then turned to drop the hood on the Corvette before going around to the back of the car to open the trunk.

She was a bit confused by his sudden brusqueness. He’d probably lost all respect for her after she’d thrown herself at him like that. It wasn’t like she attacked good-looking guys on a regular basis. Or ever, actually. She just hadn’t expected to enjoy Eric’s kiss quite that much. She really had intended to use it to drive home her point. Which had been that… um… What had her point been? She touched her heated cheeks with cool fingertips.

Eric pulled a large duffel bag from the trunk and closed the hatch.

When he noticed her standing there uncertainly, he said, “Well, come on. Don’t you want to see the inside of the new bus?”

She smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

He bit his lip and shook his head at her. “I still say you’re the most precious, adorable, little thing I’ve ever seen.”

She gasped indignantly. Oh yes. That had been her point. “Eric Sticks, you don’t want me to teach you another lesson, now do you?”

He grinned and Rebekah’s heart raced.

“Yeah, actually, I do,” he said.

Much to Eric’s delight, the new tour bus had six curtained bunks instead of four, and the mattresses were at least a foot wider. Bliss for someone obscenely tall and forced to sleep in a compartment designed for an average-sized toddler. Being perfect gentlemen—yeah, right—the guys let Rebekah choose her bunk first. She selected the bottom bunk closest to the bathroom where Sed used to sleep on the old bus. Trey immediately claimed the bunk over hers, which had been Eric’s.

“This way I get to be on top of Rebekah night after night after night,” Trey said. He bit his lip and leaned toward her, but didn’t touch her. Her eyelids fluttered, lips parted, and she swayed toward him. Under Trey’s spell already. Son of a bitch. The guy had the uncanny ability of knowing how to seduce anyone. Except Brian.

He’d been trying to get in their lead guitarist’s pants for years. As far as Eric knew, he’d never quite managed it.

Rebekah flushed and giggled like most women did when Trey gave them the slightest notice. If Eric had said that exact same thing to her, she probably would have punched him in the teeth for being a pig.

Eric picked the bunk across the aisle from Rebekah’s. Because he was sick of sleeping in a top bunk, not because he kept replaying her little lesson over and over in his mind. And not because those thoughts were making his dick all tingly with excitement. And definitely not because he might catch a glimpse of her while she slept.

Um, yeah.

Jace tossed his duffel bag into the bunk above Eric’s. “I finally get my own bunk,” he said. In the past, he’d had to take whichever bunk happened to be unoccupied, which changed depending on which band member had claimed the queen-sized bed in the only bedroom for a particular night.

Sed took the bottom bunk across from the bathroom, leaving the bunk above him for Brian, whenever he happened to show up.

“Does this bus have a bedroom?” Trey asked. He slipped the strap of Rebekah’s tank top over her shoulder with one finger. Again, with the flushing and giggling on her part. But her nipples weren’t hard. Not like when Eric had massaged her back. And she wasn’t teaching Trey any lessons. At least, not yet.

“Of course it has a bedroom,” Sed said. He opened the door at the end of the hall. “But now that we each have our own bunk, we don’t have to fight over it.”

Eric turned his attention to Jace, who had this totally annoying, empathetic expression on his beard stubble-covered face. Jace glanced from Trey to Rebekah and then rolled his eyes at Eric. So Jace had figured out that Eric was jonesing over Rebekah. Twerp.

Eric supposed it wasn’t too hard to figure out, but it was easy enough to remedy. If she wanted Trey, what did he care? Trey could have her. Um, yeah.

The group inspected the bedroom, which was slightly smaller than the one on their last bus. This one still had a queen-sized bed, but there was no room for a dresser. Eric shoved Jace in the shoulder and grinned. He pointed at the ceiling. “No hook for your bondage games, Tripod. How will you ever get your jollies off?”

“I’ll save it up for when I get home. Aggie’s dungeon should be finished by the time we finish this leg of the tour.” Jace flushed, as he was wont to do whenever the subject drifted to anything sexual or romantic. Considering the hard-core kink the guy enjoyed, his embarrassment was kind of strange.

Eric was pleased to find that though the bedroom was smaller, the bathroom was larger. You could actually turn around without dislocating your elbow on the wall. The rest was similar to their old bus, except the colors were different throughout. The dining benches, the sofa, and captain chairs had black leather upholstery instead of cream. The carpet was red instead of beige. Black granite countertops. Shiny, black paneling. Black apartment-sized appliances. The curtains that hid the bunks were red. The bedding? Red.

Framing around the bunks? Black.

Everywhere Eric looked: red and black.

“Um, Sed?” Eric scratched behind his ear. “Did you have this thing custom-made in Sinners’ colors?”

“Yeah. It was Jerry’s idea. Cool, huh?”

This nightmare-inducing color palate had been their manager’s idea? Knowing Jerry, he was probably using it in some advertising campaign. “I guess…” Eric shook his head.

“I like it,” Rebekah said. “It looks classy, yet metal.”

“Exactly!” Sed smiled so broadly that both dimples showed. His goofy grin faded into a scowl when his eyes met Eric’s. “Metal,” he said in a low growl.

Eric’s amusement died when Trey leaned into Rebekah’s personal space again. Her cheeks went pink, and she fidgeted with the bangles on her wrist. Maybe if Eric told her that he found her fidgeting absolutely adorable, she’d teach him another lesson. He could use another one. Or a million or two.

“What in the hell?” Brian said from near the bus entrance. He rubbed a hand over his face as he took in the new bus’s décor.

“Brian!” Trey was down the aisle hugging and pounding Brian on the back before Eric could blink.

Eric caught Rebekah’s bewildered expression before she’d managed to hide it with a friendly smile. She followed Trey to be introduced to Brian. Trey was asking his friend a million questions a minute, leaving Rebekah to stand awkwardly waiting for her opening.

Now that Brian was here, maybe Eric had a chance to catch her attention again. Trey didn’t have time for some chick when his best bud, Brian, was within reach.

“Did you have fun in Aruba?” Trey asked. Brian had finally had time to take a real honeymoon with his wife of five months.

“Of course. I was with Myrna,” he said, as if that explained everything. “Why is our logo painted all huge on the outside of the fucking bus?”

“Because our logo is awesome,” Trey said, initiating a fist bump with Brian.

Brian knocked knuckles with Trey, but still looked less than thrilled about their new bus’s paint job. “We’ll have a convoy of groupies following us everywhere we go.”

“So the roadies can sell them T-shirts when we stop at rest areas.”

Sed shrugged.

“And we can auction off the utilization of Trey’s lips for beer money,” Eric added.

Trey’s eyes widened. “Uh, no. What if some whacko wins?”

“Then I’ll hold you down until she gets her money’s worth,” Eric said.

“At a rest area, I’d be more concerned about some lonely truck driver winning,” Rebekah said.

Eric laughed. “Or a sexually frustrated politician.”

Rebekah burst out laughing. “Or a demented circus clown.”

“Or an escaped convict.”

“Are you two finished?” Trey said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Who’s this?” Brian asked, nodding in Rebekah’s direction.

“Our temporary FOH,” Sed explained.

Brian’s jaw dropped. “Our new front of house is a chick?”

“Thanks for noticing.” Rebekah smiled and extended a hand in his direction.

Brian shook it slowly, pinning her with those intense brown eyes of his. When she flushed and lowered her gaze, he shook his head as if to clear it of cobwebs. He dropped her hand and then turned his attention to Sed. “How did we end up with her as our FOH? I thought Marcus was going to stand in for Dave.” He glanced from one bandmate to the next, looking entirely perplexed.

“I have a degree in audio engineering,” Rebekah assured him. “I graduated in June.”

“As in June of this year?” Brian’s voice cracked at the end.

Trey grabbed Brian’s arm to gain his attention. “Dave’s little sister,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “He trusts her with his trade secrets. No one else. Just her.”

Rebekah lowered her eyes. “Yeah, he gave me thorough instructions on how to set up and run the entire show.” Eric wasn’t sure why she looked so depressed about that. Dave was a wizard at mixing a live show. The audio engineers of other bands would have paid big money to learn his methods, especially for his seamless mixing of a rhythm and lead guitar in a dueling solo.