Roxy straightened her askew tiara and grabbed my hand. “Your terrifying daughters need to go get a little drunk on shots. We’ll be out there dancing and throwing our elbows if anyone gets too close, like you taught us.”
“You’ll kill it, like always,” I said to my dad. He wrapped his arm around my mom. She looked up with the same affection I’d seen her give him my entire life. They were exasperating, a handful, and so fucking in love.
My dad nodded, grinned, and plugged his guitar into the amp, setting off a cheer from the still-growing audience.
Two hours later, and I was a hot, happy mess. Roxy had plied me with enough shots to have me just past tipsy. Not drunk, not sloppy, but that brilliant, boozy rainbow of light-hearted exhilaration. It was after midnight, and we’d danced our faces off, twirling and singing at the top of our lungs. There was a uniquely special magic to being a Quinn in the crowd when The Hand Grenades were on stage. My parents had never had chart-topping success but had managed to build a dedicated cult following of punk fans all across the country who filled small venues like this one and sang along to every song.
That meant Roxy and I were minor celebrities on Tuesday nights, and the extra warm welcome had me nostalgic for the days when straddling my two worlds had been more seamless.
Now, as I watched my big sister throw her hands in the air and twirl, I realized how much I really had missed her. I pulled her in for a sweaty hug.
“Ew, gross Fi,” she sputtered, laughing and out of breath.
“Let me sweat on you,” I yelled. “I fucking missed you.”
That stopped her for a moment. “We’re always here. I’m always here.”
“I know,” I said. “Sometimes I need you to kidnap me and force me to have fun.”
She was sliding her phone from her back pocket. “Always available for a sister kidnapping.”
When her face lit up at whatever was on her screen, I was fully confident it was her fiancé.
“Sexting?”
She bit her lip. “Sexting is too banal of a word to convey the way Edward Cavendish uses this specific form of communication.”
I snorted, lifted my hair from the back of my neck. “I’m fucking hot,” I said. “Do you want to go sit on the fire escape with me? Get a little air?”
“I want to do dirty things to my fiancé.” She pointed at her phone. “If Edward succeeds in doing everything he’s promised in these text messages, I won’t survive the night. So nice knowing you, love you lots.”
“Have fun on that swing,” I said, wiggling my fingers at her. She tossed her hair with a satisfied smile but stayed quiet. Gave me a kiss on the cheek and then started to move backwards through the crowd.
On stage, the music stopped for a minute and my dad sang, “Roxy Quinn you better text us to let us know you got home safely.”
I laughed and flashed my dad a double thumbs-up as he kept right on singing the actual verse of the song—a crowd favorite from The Hand Grenades’ first album. Roxy raised an affectionate middle finger before slipping through the heaving mass of bodies and toward the front door.
Running a hand through my sweaty hair, I made my way to the side wall and grabbed my blazer from the back of a chair. Then I snuck down a hallway marked Employees Only. Being the daughter of Lou and Sandy Quinn had its privileges, namely that I had run of this place and all of its secret hiding spots. The Red Room’s owner—who everyone called Pop—was a grumpy and surly quasi-uncle to Roxy and me when we were growing up and promised to never tell our parents if he caught one of us up on the fire escape.
I climbed one set of stairs and then another, the music growing slightly softer. Pop kept storage up here, boxes of liquor, old band posters. The third-floor window was where I was headed. I slipped off my heels and placed them neatly against the wall. Hauling the window open, I climbed through it with a skill born from years of practice. My bare feet landed on the grate, my fingers hooked around the metal. I inhaled the fresh air of New York City at midnight.
Then I turned and found a man sitting in my normal spot.
“Don’t fall,” he drawled. “Didn’t expect another person to climb through that window or I would have warned ya you had company.”
“I’ve been climbing out that window since I was eleven years old,” I countered. “I would never fall.”
The man-in-shadows chuckled, as if surprised. “I should never have doubted you, princess.”
Something about his voice was vaguely familiar.
Something about his voice was extremely fucking sexy. Low and raspy, like the hint of a flame against your skin. There was a carelessness to his words. They were loose, unguarded, almost song-like.
“The last man who called me princess didn’t survive the night,” I said, brow arched.
“More apologies. I was only referring to that tiara on your head. Makes you look like royalty.”
I touched it, the sparkling diamonds all but forgotten during my two hours of jumping around. “I’ll let it slide since you were accurately referring to my aristocratic appearance.”
I was still standing, hand gripping the window for support. He sat in my favorite spot, one knee up for his arm to rest on. His other leg stretched out in an arrogant dominance of space. The mysterious stranger leaned fully into the light of the streetlamp. He was white, with black hair, messy as if a woman had been running her hands through it. His strong jaw was scruffy enough to be appealing. Those eyes were dark and much too dangerous.
And against the backdrop of his plain black tee-shirt, his muscular arms were covered with tattoos that reached all the way to his knuckles. He looked like a modern-day rake, the kind of man that exists solely to lure women into the best kind of sin.
But it was his smile that had me tightening my hold on the window—a precaution against real-life swooning. A first for me, and not a sensation I’d ever expected to experience.
“Fair warning,” he said, voice like silk. “I’m no Prince Charming.”
“Excellent,” I replied. “I’m not the kind of princess who needs saving.”
“That’s goddamn obvious. And I mean that as a compliment.”
I licked my lips. Caught the raw hunger in his gaze. “So if you’re not the hero on the white horse, then who are you?”
He smiled at me once more. And my body filled with tiny fireflies of excitement. It was the kind of cocky, crooked grin I imagined the Devil employed to do his bidding. It spoke of whispered, illicit words and slow, teasing seduction.
“Easy.” The rough edge of his voice made me shiver. “I’m the princess’s dirty little secret. After Prince Charming gives her a chaste kiss on the cheek, she lets me in through the window. I stay all night and sneak out before dawn.”
That fluttering in my belly turned hot as a bonfire on an autumn night, orange embers floating up into a starry sky. I felt them from the top of my head to the very tips of my toes. And I was pretty sure I knew what it was.
Sparks.
7
Fiona
The sparks momentarily stunned me into silence. And they were complicated by the man who’d incited the blaze. He’d just implied he was good for only one thing—and one thing only.