The band breaks, and Kit wipes her hairline with her forearm. The lead singer walks toward her, but I go that direction and hop onto the stage before he can get to her. He nearly bumps into my back. But he stops and goes the other way.

“Oh my God!” she says, excitement in her eyes as she jumps in place in front of me. “Did you see that?” she asks.

Then she grabs my shoulders, jumps, and wraps her legs around my waist. She kisses me. She tastes like root beer and excitement as she licks into me. I hold her ass, and jerk her tighter against me. The owner of the club waves and I catch him out of the corner of my eye. He jerks his thumb toward the back of the club. I nod and carry Kit in that direction. But she’s all hyped up on nerves and attitude. And she hasn’t taken her lips from mine. I carry her with her legs still wrapped around my waist into the storage room, and back her up against the wall. She’s tangling her tongue with mine, and I don’t ever want her to stop.

She finally pulls back and looks at me, her hands clutching my face. “Did you see that?” she asks.

“See what?” I have lost all my wits in her kiss.

“Me playing. Did you see it?”

I nod, nuzzling my nose into her neck. “You were amazing.”

“I know! Wasn’t I? Oh my God, I want to go back out there.” She unclenches her legs from around my waist and drops her feet to the floor. She starts to pace back and forth across the room, chewing on her fingernail. I can’t see her lips moving at all, but I lean against the wall and smile at her. “What’s so funny?” she asks, stopping to look at me.

“Nothing,” I say. I walk to her and brush her sweaty hair from her neck. “You’re just so f**king beautiful.” She shivers as I blow across her neck.

Her hand comes up to cover mine where it lays on her shoulder, and I get more comfort from that little touch than I ever have from a girl I’ve been inside. “Thank you for bringing me here,” she says.

“Thank you for coming with me.”

“I haven’t had this much fun in a really long time,” she admits. She’s glowing.

I lean down and kiss her, because she’s that damn pretty. She hears something from the doorway, and turns to look that way. “I’ll be right there,” she says, holding up a finger. She looks up at me. “They’re ready to get started again.”

“I have to get back to work, anyway. The owner just sent us back here because he was afraid I was going to f**k you on the stage.”

She covers her mouth with her hand. “So, they think we’re ha**g s*x back here. Are you serious?” Her eyes are wide.

I can’t keep from grinning. “Probably.”

“Do you do that back here often?” she asks.

I freeze. I don’t want to answer her. Because I have done it. She doesn’t push for an answer. But she heaves a sigh and shoves herself away from me. I feel the loss of her immediately. “Don’t do that,” I say, taking her face in my hands. “I can’t change my past.”

She looks deep into my eyes and says, “I know. I didn’t ask you to. I just have to go back on stage.” She kisses me softly. “Can we come back to this later?” she asks, grinning. She’s nearly vibrating with excitement.

She’s not mad at me. Thank God. “We can come back to this as often as you want.” Any time. Any place.

She darts away from me, and I tug on her fingers to hold her back. She pulls back from me slowly and I ache with wanting to jerk her back into my arms. But she turns and runs away.

She hops back up on the stage and I follow her. The lead singer turns to her, scowling. “You and Logan, huh?” he asks. I can read his lips from where I’m standing.

She grins and nods her head.

He says something that looks like, “Figures,” before he scowls and turns toward me. I point to her and point to my chest and mouth the word “mine” at him. He gets it. He totally gets it. He might not want it to be true. But he knows she’s not in his future. She’s my future.

I go see Abby and get Kit a root beer. She’s been sweating up there for an hour, and they have another set to do. I point to the root beer lever on the fountain and raise my brows. “For you?” Abby asks, with a pointed finger as she fills a glass. I point to Kit. She nods and drops two cherries into it. I turn to take it to Kit and Abby tugs on my sleeve. “Where did she learn to play like that?” Abby asks.

I shrug. I have no idea where she learned to play. All I know is that she’s good. I can tell by the way the crowd is reacting to her. My heart is filled with pride for her. And it’s filled with a lot more. A lot more that she’s probably not ready to address yet.

I take her root beer to her and stand by the side of the stage to wait until she’s done with the song. But she marches down the steps, her fingers flying over the strings, and she leans over, taking the straw into her mouth. She sucks it greedily, and there’s not a man in the room who’s not envious of me right that moment. She never stops playing, but she drains the glass. Then she smiles at me, kisses me quickly and struts back up the steps and onto the stage. Great. Now I have a hard on and so does every man within a twenty foot radius. Suddenly, she runs back down the steps. She nods toward a cherry in the glass and I lift it to her lips. She takes it against the tip of her tongue and closes her lips around it. She pops it off the string with a gentle tug. She nods to the other, and looks at my lips. She taunts me with her grin, and I lift it to my lips and open my mouth for it. I tongue it from the stem, taking my time with it, playing with her, until she leans over, opens her mouth over mine, and takes it back from me.

I pretend to look offended, but I’m so f**king turned on that all I can do is look like an idiot.

Emily

I crash onto the stool at the end of the bar I’d vacated when I took over the band’s guitar, and lean my elbows on the table. A grin I can’t suppress tugs at my lips. Abby clinks a root beer down in front of me. “That was amazing!” she says as she tosses in two cherries.

I nod. It was pretty damn amazing. I’m still trying to catch my breath. I lift my wet hair off my neck and roll it into a lump, then let it go.

“You been playing for a long time?” Abby asks. She wipes the bar down with a rag.

“I think I was playing before I could walk,” I admit. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a guitar. “My grandfather gave me my first guitar.” My dad was all for it, until it became the only thing I was good at.

“Well, you can tell.” She raises a hand to give me a high five. “That was fantastic.” She clenches my hand for a second and meets my eyes, smiling. I don’t quite know what to do with that. Yet.

I look around the bar. The place is finally quiet and Logan is stacking chairs on tables for the cleaning crew. He raises the tail of his t-shirt and mops his brow with it. His abs ripple as he bends and a whistle escapes my lips. “Goodness gracious,” I breathe.

“That boy is one fine piece of man candy,” she says, stopping to lick her lips.

“Makes me want to lick him from top to bottom,” I reply softly, more to myself than to her. My face floods with heat when I see that she heard me.

She laughs and keeps cleaning. “What’s stopping you?”

I point to Logan. “He is.”

Her brows shoot up toward her hairline. “Logan won’t scratch your itch?” She points a finger toward him. I’m afraid I’m going to have to give her mouth to mouth, she looks that shocked.

I shake my head. “He scratched my itch. But he won’t let me scratch his,” I whisper fiercely. I have no idea why I’m talking to this girl. Probably because she’s a bartender. They have a natural way of making people open up and spill their guts. Consider me eviscerated.

Abby steps back, her chin dropping toward her chest. She regards me like I just grew two heads. Then she smiles. “It’s about damn time,” she says, throwing her head back with a laugh.

“It’s not funny,” I pout. “And don’t say anything to Ford, ok?” I add.

She holds up a hand like she’s raising it to God and says, “I promise not to say a word.” She laughs again. “Even though it’s the news of the century, I’ll keep it to myself.”

I look up as Pete walks out of the back, but he’s deep in conversation with Bone and another man. I watch them closely. Pete reaches over and shakes hands with Bone. What in the world is that about? You never, ever shake hands with Bone. Ever. That would imply that you made a deal with him. And Bone’s deals never turn out well for anyone but Bone.

Logan smacks his hands together to get Pete’s attention. He signs something really quickly, but Pete brushes him off with a wave. Logan sets down the mop he was wielding, and steps toward the pair of them. Bone squeezes Pete’s shoulder and then Bone walks away from him and straight toward me.

Bone leans back against the counter beside me, and Abby tries to make herself look really busy. I watch Logan as he yells at Pete in sign language. I have no idea what he’s saying, but it’s not pleasant, whatever it is.

Bone looks at me over his shoulder and says, “You got a place to stay tonight, Kit?”

I nod. “Yep. But thanks for checking.”

Bone looks closely at me for a minute. So closely that my skin crawls. “Let me know if you ever need anything.”

“Sure will.” I don’t say more than that. I just play with my straw and wait for him to walk away. It’s best not to antagonize him.

Bone stands up tall, nods at me, and walks toward the back entrance. He leaves. Logan is still yelling at Pete. And Pete’s finally deflating a bit. Logan’s bigger than he is. But that’s not all. Pete looked like he wanted to argue with Logan when they first started talking. But then Logan wraps his fist up in Pete’s shirt and jerks him into his chest. He’s not signing a word. He’s just glaring at Pete until Pete holds up his hands in surrender. If looks could kill, Pete would be a dead lump on the floor.

Logan releases him and Pete falls back off his tiptoes onto his heels. He signs something that calms Logan down, but he’s still pissed, and he starts shoving chairs from place to place. He was stacking them. Now he’s stacking them forcefully. Pete walks toward me and grumbles.

“What were you doing with Bone, Pete?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he mutters.

“That man’s no good. Don’t let him get you into trouble,” I warn quietly.

“Why does everyone think I’m going to get into trouble?” Pete asks, affronted. He pats his chest. “I can take care of myself.”

“Not with the likes of him,” I say.

He looks up at me, and asks, “What do you know about Bone?”

“More than I want to know,” I admit. I’ve seen what he’s capable of. I’ve seen what he’s done to girls at the shelters. I’ve seen how he uses them.

“Mmm hmm,” Pete hums.

Just then, the band members walk out from the back of the building. The lead singer walks toward me and slaps a small pile of bills in front of me. He sits down on a stool next to me, his shoulder a little too close to mine for comfort. I shift away. He doesn’t take the hint.

I look down at the stack of money. “What’s that for?” I ask.

“That’s your cut of the door.”

“What’s that mean?” I ask.

He nods toward the front door. “We get a percentage of the cover charge. That’s your cut. We split it five ways.”

A grin steals across my lips. “Seriously?”

He smiles and nods. “Seriously.” He lays a hand over mine. “You did a good job tonight.”

I slide my hand from under his and wipe it on my jeans. He doesn’t notice. He looks at me like he’s hungry and I’m cake.

I pick up the stack of bills and fan them out in my hand. There’s more than three hundred dollars here. My mouth falls open. “Thanks,” I say. I can live for weeks on this much money.

He shrugs. “You earned it.”

Abby jumps in. She’s watching Logan across the room. And warning me by shooting her eyes in Logan’s direction. “Logan’s girlfriend is an amazing guitar player, huh?” she asks.

“Girlfriend, huh?” he asks me quietly.

I smile and nod. “Girlfriend.” I look over and see Logan walking toward us. He’s not smiling. He’s doing the opposite. I get up and step between him and the lead singer. I didn’t even get his name. Nor do I really want it. I tuck the money in my pocket and put my hands on Logan’s chest. He looks down at me and tries to brush me to the side, but I won’t let him. “When can we go home?” I ask, purposefully tugging him toward me by the loops in his jeans. He finally looks down at me. His brow is furrowed as he glares at me. “What’s the sign for home?” I ask.

He shows me, looking into my eyes as he signs it. I point to me and then repeat the sign. Logan nods.

The lead singer walks by us, and says softly so that I can hear, but Logan can’t see his lips. “When he’s done with you, give me a call, sweetheart,” he says.

Abby gasps. He looks over at her and winks and she flips him the bird. He laughs louder, and then he leaves, taking his band mates with him.

Logan wants to talk to me, I can tell. But he won’t do it with everyone looking. “When can we go home?” I ask.

He looks around. The chairs are all put up and Ford took over with the mop. Logan claps his hands at Pete and Pete turns around. He makes the sign he just showed me for home and Pete nods. He’s still pissy but he comes with us.