Olivia Cunning - Wicked Beat

“But our set list is changing to accommodate the new single,” Brian reminded them. “Totally uncharted territory for us. Piano intro. Bass solo. A vocal duet.” Which frankly made Eric a bit queasy.

He’d be singing vocals live and, at the same time, maintaining the insanely fast drum track of their newest single, “Sever.”

Rebekah brightened at the mention of a new song, her blue eyes flashing with excitement. “I’ll make it sound awesome!” She thrust a fist in the air. “Just you watch.”

Eric grinned at her enthusiasm. Absolutely adorable. But not metal. Like, at all.

“Dave needs to work out the new mix, not some freshly graduated coed. Ummmm,” Brian said. “What’s your name, miss?”

“Reb,” she supplied.

“Reb, I need to have a little meeting with my band.” He swept a hand at them. “Would you excuse us for a minute?” He glanced pointedly over his shoulder toward the exit.

Rebekah’s bottom lip trembled. For a second, Eric thought she was going to burst into tears, and then she straightened her spine.

She nodded curtly. “Of course.”

She started toward the exit. Eric’s first instinct was to follow her and make sure she was okay. Brian had been too hard on her.

Eric figured it was mostly the shock of knowing his complicated sound would be at the mercy of some amateur. Master Sinclair expected perfection in his live sound and so did Sinners’ fans. But he shouldn’t have said those things in front of Rebekah. She glanced over her shoulder with longing and then grabbed the handrail to start her decent of the steps. Eric couldn’t stand to see someone so full of life look so downtrodden.

“Hey, Reb,” Eric called.

She glanced over her shoulder, her pale eyebrows raised in question.

“Would you do me a huge favor?”

She grinned deviously and his heart skipped a beat.

“Depends.”

“Um, could you move my car into storage? Travis can show you where to park it.”

She smiled and nodded eagerly. Eric tossed her his keys and she caught them. She cradled them against her chest and hopped down the stairs with a spring in her step. Eric grinned. He just prayed his stubborn car would start for her.

“Uh oh,” Sed said in his typical, low baritone growl.

“Houston, we have liftoff,” Trey said. He cupped his hands around his mouth and made CB radio scratch noises. “Head in the clouds confirmed. Roger.”

Eric turned his attention to his bandmates who were staring at him with wide grins.

“What?” Eric asked.

“Someone has a little crush,” Sed said.

“Nah.”

“Dude, you let her drive your car,” Trey said. “You don’t let anyone drive your car.”

“Drive is a relative term in the case of that piece of shit.”

Sed chuckled.

“Fuck you, Sed,” Eric grumbled.

Sed just laughed harder.

Eric shook his head. “That isn’t why I let her drive it. I don’t like her, like her.”

Jace choked on a laugh. Eric sent him a look of warning. No one needed to know he had already locked lips with Rebekah. And oh yeah, he’d liked it, liked it.

“She just looked…” Eric sought the right word to explain why he’d broken his no-one-drives-my-car rule. “…sad.”

“If you do like her, and I’m not saying you do, but if you think you might, do not let her walk all over you like the others,” Trey advised.

“I don’t like her,” he insisted. “Besides, she has a thing for you, Trey.”

“Does she?” Trey grinned. “I guess I’ll have to use that to its greatest advantage.”

“What do you mean?”

Trey’s grin widened. “You’ll see.”

“I didn’t call a band meeting to discuss Eric’s nonexistent love life,” Brian interrupted. “How could you guys just hire her without consulting me?”

“You were unreachable,” Sed said.

“That’s bullshit, Sed. You could have called me. This isn’t some trivial decision you make on the fly. Have you even seen her work?”

Sed crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Well, not exactly, but Dave vouched for her. That makes her okay by me.”

“Of course Dave vouched for her. She’s his sister.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” Sed asked.

“Find someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing. How about that?”

“I think we should give her a chance before we fire her,” Jace said.

Everyone hesitated, still not used to Jace speaking his opinion.

It wasn’t that they didn’t respect it. They just didn’t expect him to voice it so readily. Jace’s woman had somehow managed to break through the impenetrable wall he’d hidden behind since he’d become a member of the band. Aggie should consider a job in top secret military weapons development or something. If she could break through Jace’s defenses, she could break through anything.

“I agree,” Eric said. “I think Reb will do fine. Dave wouldn’t throw her off a cliff without a safety harness.”

“Does Marcus know about this?” Brian asked.

Shit. Wow, look at that new carpet. Very nice. Eric noticed the black flecks in the red for the first time as he stared at it to avoid Brian’s accusatory glare.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Brian sighed. “You know Marcus wants the FOH position. As monitor engineer, he has seniority.”

“I’d agree, except Dave’s coming back,” Sed said. “We’re not giving Dave’s job to Marcus. We owe Dave that. This is just temporary, until he gets back.”

Brian rubbed a hand over his face. “You know I hope you’re right, man, but let’s face facts. Dave’s paralyzed. How likely is it for him to ever return?”

“He can move now,” Jace said. “We saw him a few days ago. He was moving. Wasn’t he, guys?”

Trey nodded slightly. “Yeah. A little.” Trey stared down at his hands and flexed them into tight fists before lifting his head to look at Brian. “We’ve got to give him more time to recover before we do anything hasty.”

“So we’re going to give Rebekah a chance then?” Eric prompted.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Brian said.

“I have a bad feeling about your face, but we still let you hang around,” Eric said.

Brian crossed his arms over his chest, and after a long tense moment, nodded. “Fine. We’ll give her chance. I just hope I won’t be saying, ‘I told you so’ in three days.”

Eric grinned. “Great, I’ll go tell her.”

“Nope, I’m going to tell her,” Trey said and sprinted down the steps.

Eric dashed after him.

Rebekah shut off Eric’s Corvette and glanced up to find Trey Mills grinning at her from beside the car. His sultry, green eyes held a spark of orneriness. Her heart skipped a beat. He always looked like he’d just crawled out of bed after a night of fantastic fucking.

Rebekah wouldn’t mind volunteering to keep him in that look. The man was too fine for his own good. Or her own good, she wasn’t sure which.

“Hey.” Trey’s deep, teasing tone sent a shiver of delight down her spine.

She flushed, wondering why this man just had to look at her to get her all hot and bothered. A bit belatedly, she noticed that Trey had Eric in a headlock with his hand over Eric’s mouth. Eric poked Trey in the ribs, which made Trey squirm, but he didn’t release him.

“What are you doing to Eric?” Rebekah asked.

“You can’t take this obnoxious guy anywhere,” Trey said.

“Brian’s decided you’ll do a fine job as our soundboard operator.”

She grinned and shook her head. “Liar.”

When she opened the car door, Trey stepped back, forcing Eric to move with him. Eric made a sound of protest against Trey’s hand.

Trey got a strange look on his face and then laughed. “You think licking my hand will make me release you, Sticks?”

“So what did Brian really say?” Rebekah asked.

She took one of Eric’s hands in both of hers. Looking up at Trey, she drew her tongue over Eric’s palm. Eric shuddered.

“He said you deserved a chance,” Trey said. “Brian is a really great guy, you know. Fair. Considerate.”

Eric said something against Trey’s hand that earned him an elbow to the ribs.

Rebekah still didn’t believe Trey. Brian didn’t want her there and she knew it. She’d just have to show him that she could excel at this job and change his mind about her ability as an audio engineer. Show him that great things came in small packages. That you shouldn’t judge a book and/or FOH by her cover. And any other relevant clichés that came to mind.

Rebekah traced Eric’s lifeline with the tip of her tongue, and his fingers curled. Trey’s hand muffled the little sound of torture Eric made in the back of his throat.

“What are you doing?” Trey asked, his green eyes following the motion of her tongue as she slowly licked Eric’s fingers one at a time.

Strong fingers that gave wonderful massages. Eric’s entire body was trembling by the time she reached his little finger.

“I thought you might release him if I licked his hand.” She sucked Eric’s middle finger into her mouth.

Trey watched her draw Eric’s finger deeper into her mouth. He bit his lip and held a hand in her direction. “My turn.”

His mouth now free, Eric wriggled out of Trey’s stranglehold and stood upright. Her plan had worked. And she’d gained Trey’s attention as a bonus.

“If you’re trying to make my fly too tight, little Reb,” Eric said, “you are succeeding.” He adjusted his jeans with a pained wince.

She grinned around his finger. That hadn’t been her original intention, but she liked how he readily admitted her effect on him.

She needed to feel desirable. She hadn’t felt that way for a long while.