Something about this handsome man resonates in my heart. Something beyond the fact that he’s a sexy rock god. It doesn’t help that he’s just my type, the absolute personification of tall, dark, and dangerous. Tattoos curl up the tan skin of his arms, making me want to see more. I glide closer to the stage, my feet on a mission.
The other two members of the band stop playing when their lead singer goes silent. I don’t want this song to end. I want more. I need it.
“Please,” I whisper, as though I’m saying it right into his ear. “Don’t stop.”
Chapter 5
Eric
I’ve seen many beautiful women.
They’ve wandered in and out of my life, falling into my bed for a night or rarely two. That’s just part of being a musician. They come creeping out of the woodwork, desperate to cling to you and who you may become if your guitar leads you straight to the fame. Some women drop their panties at the first cord, sure it will lead to status and money. But not her. I can tell she’s different.
Never in all of my life have I seen a woman like her.
She stands there like a queen among peasants, like a glowing star among black skies, like a beautiful rose among thorns. No woman has ever caught my gaze like this. Though I’m known to my friends as a woman chaser, I’ve never once found myself shocked into silence in the middle of a performance just from one look into a pair of eyes so gorgeous they make my entire body feel like I’m holding a live wire.
Music has always been my first love, the only thing I’ve ever been devoted to, and I’m not sure that my band knows quite what to do now that my jaw has hit the stage floor and my eyes are all but popping out of my skull at the sight of the blonde bombshell in the crowd.
She’s all legs wrapped in a sheer white shirt that makes her look like an angel—an unbearably sexy angel that could seduce every last crumb of food from a starving man. She may not have wings, but she sure does make me feel like I’m flying.
Among the dancing bodies, the woman stands perfectly still and I find myself unable to blink, terrified that if I do she may disappear. Surely a girl like this must be at least partially a hallucination. Maybe that tequila Donovan sent me was laced with something. Maybe I died up here on this stage and she’s here to collect my soul.
If that’s the case, she can have me.
She’s absolutely smoking, her golden hair reflecting the pulsing overhead lights as they revolve over the twisting crowd. Though the bar is dingy and packed, she glows like a pure beacon of light.
Faintly, I hear James and Alex struggling to carry on the music, but I can’t bring myself to care about anything but staring at the gorgeous girl before me. I find myself thinking she belongs on a runway in Europe.
So what the hell is she doing in a place like this?
This girl could have anyone she wants. I bet all she has to do is wink at a guy and they fall at her feet, clinging to her ankles and begging to do her bidding. It’s all I can do not to leap off this stage right now and do just that.
And she’s looking right at me.
Just the sight of her makes my throat go so tight that I know I can’t sing another note. As we gaze at one another, the room spinning around us so fast that everyone else completely disappears from view, her stunned expression slowly changes. A frown finds her lush lips and it makes my heart ache. I don’t want her to be unhappy. I’ll do anything to make a smile light her face again.
Her chin tips up as her lips slowly begin to move, forming simple words that ripple through me like ten thousand volts of electricity. Just like that, I remember that I’m standing on this stage for a reason. I’m here to sing, and now I have a muse in the audience who I can sing directly to.
Words slowly rise up in the back of my mind, words that I penned for no one, but now seem only to fit the young Kate Moss lookalike in front of me. This song wasn’t supposed to come until later in the set, but I have to sing it now, just for her.
“You’re like a dream,” I croon, making James and Alex clumsily shift gears as they catch up to the song change, abandoning the last one before it was finished. The crowd is slightly confused by the change, but willing to adapt.
I belt out the next verse. “You make me want to scream . . .”
Slowly, my muse begins to move to the beat. Her eyes remain locked on mine, her hands slowly snaking over her waist and then up her ribs.
Sweat forms on the nape of my neck, my fingers taut against the guitar strings. “I’ve never wanted anything so bad,” I gasp into the mic, the words raw with meaning as the woman’s hands trail delicately over the curves of her breathtaking body.
What I wouldn’t give to touch her, to feel her supple shape beneath my hands. I have wanted and I have lusted, but it’s never felt like this. I’m so captivated by this girl that it takes all my resolve not to drop Camilla and leap off the stage to take this sexy mystery woman into my arms. I bet she tastes like strawberries and champagne or hell, I don’t know, something fancy and bittersweet. Whatever her taste, I know it’s intoxicating, more so than any wine or liquor, because I’m drunk just looking at her.
“Give me your heart, baby, and your body too,” I sing, squeezing my guitar against my body the way I want to hold her.
She lifts her hair over her head, shimmering strands of gold spilling over her face as she dances. With her eyes gazing so deeply into my own, it’s like she can see right into my soul, like every inch of me is hers for the taking, and I would let her take me. All of me. Anything she wants.
Camilla swings down toward my hips as I grab the mic in both hands, pulling it closer to my mouth. My lips brush against the rough curve of the metal, making me ache even more for those glossed lips of hers.
She does a slow spin, her arms still over her head, her beautiful hips swaying back and forth so that the short fabric of her skirt sways teasingly.
I bite hard at my lip, unable to resist anymore. Whoever this girl is, I need her. More than food, than water, than air . . . all that matters is her.
Chapter 6
Morgan
My body moves of its own accord, my lower lip delicately ensnared under my two front teeth as I dance. Even though I’m used to attention from others, I don’t normally dance like this. But there’s something about the way that he’s singing and the way that I’m moving that feels so right, so . . . intimate. Like our souls are connected by a livewire that neither one of us can truly grasp.
Nothing matters except sharing this moment.
I am not a woman who believes in love at first sight or that such a deep connection can be formed so instantly, but I can’t even begin to wrap my head around the depth of this bond I feel with this handsome mystery man. I know nothing about him other than he has the most beautiful, soulful eyes and a voice that seizes my heart.
It has nothing to do with him being on a stage or the spotlight swathing him in golden light or the people cheering for him, and everything to do with the way he seems unable to break his gaze from mine. In one moment, I feel that he truly sees me, the way no one else ever has before. And all I want is to bathe in his gaze forever.
The heat of his eyes on my body makes me feel bare and beautiful. I can feel him mentally peeling back the layers of my clothing as I dance. My fingers play with the hem of my shirt, lifting it just slightly up over my belly button, exposing tan flesh that I want so badly for him to touch.