Hotter Than Hell

MUSIC HATH CHARMS Tanya Huff

AS GLEN MANEUVERED HIS CAR OVER THE RUTTED field the sign insisted was the parking lot, Ali frowned out the tinted window at a line of teenagers dressed in white and leading enormous brown cows and wondered if her partner had lost his mind. Bands that played the county fair circuit might be a step above garage bands, but it was usually a small step. Bedford Entertainment needed to sign a group that could pull in some numbers, and she didn’t think they’d find that here.

“What’s up with the kids and the cows?” she wondered as they bounced to a stop next to an impressively rusted pickup.

Glancing past her as he shifted into park, Glen shrugged. “Different leash laws in the country, I guess. Come on, they’re on in twenty minutes.”

He’d brought her here to see a band named NoMan. Five-man, country-rock, fronted by two brothers, Brandon and Travis Noman. One sang lead, one played—well, in country-rock she supposed it was a fiddle, wasn’t it? She wasn’t sure about the name but names were easy enough to change. They were backed by guitar, bass, and drums but she had no information on the musicians.

When asked, Glen laughed. “Backup doesn’t matter, Ali, it’s the brothers you’re here to see. You could back those two with…with boy-band leftovers and they’d still kick ass.”

“A ringing endorsement.”

He laughed again. “You’ll see.”

The stage had been set up at one end of the midway. It had a back and a roof of sorts and the ubiquitous three guys in black t-shirts screwing around with the sound system, but there was no disguising it was actually a hay wagon or that hay bales had been arranged in rows for the audience.

This explained Glen’s instruction to wear jeans.

“How rustic,” she murmured as they settled on a bale at the end of the fourth row.

“Trust me.”

She closed her hand around his arm. “Please tell me you didn’t sleep with them and you’ve dragged me out to the middle of nowhere to hear a thanks-for-the-fuck audition.”

He laid his hand over hers, large and warm and calming. “I didn’t and it isn’t. Although I would have. Couldn’t get close.”

Leaning around him, Ali realized the bales were filling fast with an interesting cross section of humanity. She hadn’t known baseball caps came in such a wide variety of colors. A closer look at the packed first three rows—the rows between her and the stage—and she realized no one sitting there could be considered either old or young and they all exuded a certain visceral anticipation as they waited for the show to start.

Evidently, NoMan had groupies. A decent enough showing for a Saturday afternoon gig at a county fair but not the kind of numbers that would have kept Glen away from the prize. Nor, more importantly, the kind of numbers that would make them the saviors Bedford Entertainment needed.

On the other hand, if they were as good as Glen said they were, she could build their numbers to the point where they’d become what she needed. And if they weren’t…at least she’d got out of the city for the afternoon. There had to be some truth in what everyone said about fresh air.

“If you’d got to them, would they?” she wondered, determined to distract herself.

Mouth by her ear, he murmured, “I pegged them as enthusiastically nondiscriminating.”

Well, she was all for enthusiasm. Settling her weight against Glen’s shoulder, she found a certain amusement in noting the envious looks being sent her way. Six foot meant a lot of leg in tight jeans, the heavy white shirt emphasized the breadth of his shoulders, and the rolled-up sleeves exposed muscular forearms. It might have been gym muscle, not work muscle, but he didn’t look out of place amid the surrounding country boys. The light dusting of freckles across his nose just added to the wholesome appeal.

“What are you smiling about?”

“The bottle redhead in the front row keeps turning to give you the eye.”

He drew his tongue over a full lower lip, watched her squirm and said, “Her boyfriend’s not bad.”

“And that’s why I was smiling.”

“Bitch.”

“And that’s why you love me.” Ali had a feeling she was attracting some attention herself, felt that prickling between her shoulder blades that said someone was staring. The feeling grew and, although she’d had every intention of ignoring it, she finally turned. No mistaking the familiar figure standing just behind the last row of hay bales.

He winked. He pushed back the curl of thick, dark hair that fell over his forehead and he unmistakably winked one brilliant blue eye when he caught her staring.

Bastard.

She tightened her grip on Glen’s arm. “Tom Hartmore’s here.”

Muscle tensed but Glen didn’t turn. “If Tom’s here then Mike’s interested.”

“You think?” she snapped. There was nothing Michael Richter’s Vital Music Group liked better than finding a band just on the verge of breaking out and thrusting them out onto the world stage. Vital made stars out of guts and raw talent—Ali had to give them that—and they were so good at it most of the musicians took years to realize they’d signed an iron-clad contract giving away rights to everything up to and including posthumous work. Michael Richter didn’t believe in death cutting into his bottom line.

“Tom could be doing some preliminary scouting. Working on rumor. If he had actual word on the band…”

“Then Mike would be here himself, he wouldn’t send Tom.” The knot loosened in Ali’s stomach. They were still one step ahead.

A squawk from the sound system drew her attention back to the stage. The guitar player was fiddling with his amp, the bass player looked stoned—although that was hardly unusual for bass players—and the drummer looked like he’d been borrowed from a thrash metal band. No sign of the brothers…

Almost before she finished the thought, they were on the stage. The matching black cowboy hats seemed to be the only affectation—given the blazing afternoon sun, she’d allow Travis’s sunglasses as a necessity—otherwise they were both in jeans and worn boots. Brandon had on a black t-shirt with the band’s name in red and Travis wore a black shirt tucked in over the biggest belt buckle Ali’d ever seen. The sun glinting off it kept drawing her gaze back to his crotch as he tuned up, not necessarily a bad thing, but she was after the larger picture. Brandon’s dark blond hair just covered the back of his neck. Travis’s was longer, lighter, and tied back.

As Brandon moved to the center microphone, the redhead bounced and squealed.

The redhead’s boyfriend seemed close to doing the same. Another vote cast for enthusiastically nondiscriminating then.

While they wouldn’t stop traffic, the brothers weren’t unattractive. It was hard to get a handle on their height—given the stage and the hats—but she doubted either of them had hit six foot, although Travis looked a little taller. As far as she could tell, they were in good shape and both presented the overt masculinity that often came as a package deal with country singers. The way they moved made her think theirs came to them naturally. She was obviously missing something though, given Glen’s reaction.

Well, Glen, the redhead, her boyfriend, a pair of busty blondes who waved wildly until Brandon acknowledged them with a smile, and pretty damned near everyone sitting in the first three rows.

“Glen…”

“Wait for it.”

Then Travis drew his bow across the strings and Ali felt the note dance through blood and bone. It was the eeriest damned sound she’d ever heard.

The drummer counted them in as Brandon wrapped both hands around the microphone.

The first song was called Sweet Southern Rain, the second, Wild Nights, and by the third, Ali had lost track of the titles. She had to move, up on her feet like everyone else, the crowd growing with every song as men and women abandoned the midway and the show rings. She was unable to take her eyes off the way Brandon’s mouth moved mere inches from a big, old-fashioned condenser mic—whiskey voice caressing, or screaming, or growling the words. All she could think of were those hands, cupping her face the way he held the microphone, fingers rough against her skin. When he started to sweat, she breathed deep, trying to catch his scent over the hay and the cotton candy wafting in from the midway. When he moved, she moved with him and imagined his skin slick and hot against hers.

Travis kept playing between songs, bow drawing out soft sighs and desperate moans, each sound the perfect counterpoint to Brandon’s patter as he introduced songs and the band and flirted with the audience, the band, and occasionally, his brother.

They took two encores and finally left the stage, Travis playing one last note that hung over the fairground. As it faded, Ali took a deep breath and sagged against Glen’s side, feeling like there wasn’t enough oxygen left in the world.

“My God, I’m…”

“Wet?”

She was drenched, sweat molding her t-shirt to her sides, her hair damp and sticking to the back of her neck but as she smacked him on the arm, she knew that wasn’t what he meant. “Enthralled.” Her voice sounded raw. Wanting. Everything seemed…more. The sky seemed bluer. The grass seemed greener. The breeze didn’t just blow past her bare arms, it caressed sun-warmed skin.

No need to look to understand why Glen had worn his shirt untucked. Although, given how tight his jeans were, that kind of pressure couldn’t be fun.

The redhead sat straddling her boyfriend’s lap, his face against her neck, one big hand buried in her hair, the other splayed over the patch of creamy skin between her jeans and the edge of her t-shirt. She rocked her hips slowly, the gentle rhythm suggesting the main event was already over and they were just riding out the aftershocks.

Unable to help herself, Ali rocked forward to the same rhythm, seeking the minimal friction her jeans could offer.

There were a few couples still in the first three rows but most of the bales were empty.

“NoMan has a very hopeful fanbase,” Glen told her, shifting uncomfortably. “And backstage is probably one of the only private areas on the fairground. Even if you can’t nail the band you’ll still be able to take the edge off.”

“Charming.” She had control of her voice again and could only pray that her own need to take the edge off wasn’t showing on her face. She turned, scanning the fairground. Tom Hartmore was nowhere to be seen. If they were lucky, he was on his way back to the city to report to the boss and they still had time. If they were really lucky, he was getting laid by some buxom farm girl and they’d picked up a little more time. If their luck truly sucked, he was already backstage. “Come on. We need to talk to the Noman brothers and we can’t do that out here.”

“So you want them?”

After the way she’d bitched and complained during the drive out from the city she supposed he had grounds but she still gave his smug, smarmy tone the response it deserved. “Bite me.”

“Yeah, I told you that you’d be…”

When his voice trailed off she turned, saw where he was looking, and smiled. Big guy, heavily built, mud on his boots and his jeans, straw cowboy hat, checked shirt, and eyes that tilted catlike up at the outer edges narrowed in a come-hither glare—as much challenge as invitation—directed right at Glen. Who made a noise low in his throat, kind of cross between a growl and a moan.

She couldn’t say she blamed him. “Go ahead. Take the edge off.” Her hand resting in the warm curve of the small of his back, she pushed him forward. “Save a horse.”

“Ali…”

“Don’t worry. I can convince a couple of rock-and-roll cowboys to come into the office and talk without you by my side.”

“Not what I was worried about.”

“Oh please.” Her lip curled. “If Tom’s back there, I can handle him. And if not, well, I like to think I can handle myself in a honky-tonk orgy. You go handle tall, dark, and country over there. Play safe,” she added as Glen started across the trampled grass. “I’ll meet you back at the car in half an hour.”

“Forty-five minutes.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to talk to him too?”

He turned just far enough to flip her off.

She laughed and headed backstage. Competent musicians were a dime a dozen; to make it big a band needed to connect with its audience on a visceral level and NoMan could certainly do that. The brothers were exactly what she’d been looking for. Glen was right, she wanted them.

Backstage was a white canvas tent about twenty-five-feet long and maybe ten wide. It was a shelter for the sound board if the weather got bad, a place for the performers to pull it together before the show, and this far out in the country it could do double duty as a sheep pen for all Ali knew. It had the kind of sidewalls that could be tied up or staked down, depending. At the moment, these were staked down.

No big surprise if what Glen said about NoMan and how close they got to their fans was true.

She paused, one hand on the tent flap. The honky-tonk orgy crack had been a joke but if even half the NoMan fans who’d headed back here had been as turned on by the music as she’d been—as she still was—well, orgy might not be too strong a word for it. Not something she wanted to walk in on, mostly because the way she was feeling she wasn’t entirely certain she could walk out again.

Still, the band wasn’t signed and if she didn’t want Michael Richter to grab them first…

And grabbing them sounded like a damned good idea.

Telling herself to focus, she slipped in under the tent flap…

…where things were almost anti-climactically low key.

Like the redhead and her boyfriend, the fans present seemed almost postcoital. They milled about in the front half of the tent looking dazed and a little like they were starting to come down off a very pleasant high. Eyes were half closed, smiles contented as hands lazily stroked bare arms, and cupped the backs of necks, and ran up under the edges of shirts and down under the edges of jeans but no one seemed to be taking things farther than they might late at a party with close friends.

At least not in the front of the tent. In the back, behind the sound board and a card table holding a box of NoMan CDs, a scrawled sign indicating they cost ten dollars, and an open cashbox, the drummer had his hand shoved in through the front of the bass player’s open jeans and was slowly jacking him off. Without breaking his rhythm, he took a swallow from the bottle of beer in his other hand; leaned forward and pressed his lips to the other man’s mouth. Ali watched mesmerized as a line of liquid escaped the kiss running along the bass player’s jaw and down his throat. She wanted to move forward and catch it on her tongue, capturing the taste of the beer and sweat, licking her way back up past his tats until…

The edge of the sound board caught her in the thigh and the pain brought her back to herself. As she gasped, the guitarist, sprawled in an Adirondack chair, flashed her a satiated smile and waved a sloppy salute with his nearly empty bottle.

The Noman brothers were nowhere around. Nor was Tom Hartmore. If they were together…

Pleasantly startled by the images that evoked, she hastily dropped a ten in the cash box, shoved a CD in her purse, and slipped back through the crowd to the exit, ignoring the moments of warmth as bodies brushed against hers. Definitely past time to leave.

Once outside, she took a deep breath. The smell of grease and cotton candy wafting over from the midway combined with the odors of large farm animals and diesel fumes cleared her head and she felt like she was thinking clearly for the first time since Travis Noman had set bow to strings. Thinking back, the concert seemed wrapped in sensation, her memory of everything but the way it made her feel already fading.

It wasn’t the strangest concert experience she’d ever had, but considering it had happened in a sunny field in the middle of the afternoon, it was in the top ten.

It shouldn’t have been so hard to find the car. After all, it was parked in a field—a big, flat field full of lines of cars parked nose to nose that all seemed to look alike. After wandering around for nearly fifteen minutes, Ali spotted what she thought was the rusty pickup Glen had parked beside and headed toward it, skirting rear bumpers.

She spotted the cowboy hats first.

Realized who wore them as she moved closer, finding a path between two ancient Buicks.

Realized they weren’t alone when she’d gotten too close to turn back.

Didn’t actually think of turning back.

Brandon and Travis Noman leaned back against the hood of the pickup, side by side, shoulders touching. Kneeling at their feet in the strip of grass between the truck’s bumper and the bumper of the car parked facing it were the pair of blondes from the front row. Although the car blocked all but the top of their heads, it was obvious what they were doing and from all the giggling, they certainly seemed to be having a good time doing it. Travis was still wearing his sunglasses and his head was back, exposing the long lean line of his throat. Brandon’s head was tipped forward and Ali knew he was watching.

She shouldn’t be watching.

She couldn’t stop watching.

It wasn’t like she could actually see anything…

Travis moaned—the sound broken, on the edge of shattering and his fingers, long and tanned, threaded through golden hair as his hips came up off the truck.

No, not a moan. Or not only a moan. Brandon was humming one of the songs from the show while Travis added a weirdly erotic bass line under it.

The girls’ heads moved to the beat.

Hardly aware she was doing it, Ali slid her hand down into her jeans, past the edge of her underwear. Still aroused from the concert, she fell easily into the rhythm of Brandon’s song, fingertips moving in unison with the quartet filling her vision. And then she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing because quartet made her think of chamber music and they weren’t in a chamber, they were in a field and anyone could walk by just like she had and God, the memory of the music left her feeling stoned.

And close.

Really, really close.

Both men were breathing hard, the rhythm of the song beginning to stutter. The girls sped up and Ali sped up with them, linking her finish to theirs. Tension was building, low and sweet…

When it happened, it happened like flood waters finally breaching a levee. Brandon. Travis. Then both girls. A heartbeat behind them, Ali trembled on the brink until Brandon looked up—his pupils dilated, his irises reduced to a pale, narrow ring of blue—and the open, fucked-out expression on his face pushed her over the edge.

Riding the wave, Ali sagged against sun-warmed metal and concentrated on keeping her knees from buckling. The world went white around the edges and she closed her eyes, just for a moment. Just long enough to draw in a long, steadying breath. She opened them again as she eased her hand from her jeans and she may have made a noise because Travis raised his head and smiled at her over the honey-blond curls of the girl in his arms. Something in that smile said he—they—knew she’d been there all along. Still smiling, he slid his sunglasses forward…

A flash of gold.

And she was standing alone, facing the rusty pickup parked next to Glen’s car. Power chords blared from the midway’s speakers, nearly drowning out the screams of children riding the ancient Octopus and Scrambler. The world no longer wore the sheen given it by NoMan’s music—the sky was more gray than blue and the grass underfoot dry and yellow. If not for the evidence of her own body, she’d have thought she’d imagined the whole thing.

Glen was right. If Bedford Entertainment could sign these guys, they were saved.

The CD wasn’t bad but it was strangely flat.

“Not evoking much of a reaction,” she murmured as they sped back to the city.

Glen laughed. “After that performance, I’d be amazed if you had a reaction left in you.”

He had a point. And he hadn’t seen the encore performance out in the parking lot.

NoMan had a barebones website that held a picture of the band, a headshot of the brothers—Travis had his sunglasses on—a song list, and an order form for the CD plus a link to their mailing list. There was no concert schedule and the mailing list was the only way to contact them. Ali added the email address for Bedford Entertainment, including in the body of the message their business number, the URL for the website, their MySpace address, and an assurance that Bedford Entertainment was definitely interested in representing them. Professional bases covered, she paused a moment, remembering, then typed We nearly met in the parking lot.

“They’re twins.”

She hit send before looking up to find Glen raising a brow in her direction. “What?”

“You’re flushed.”

“It’s warm in here.” It wasn’t. “Who are twins?” Like she didn’t know. Like she’d been thinking about anyone else for the last twenty-four hours.

Glen moved a stack of eight-by-ten glossies out of the way and perched on the edge of her desk. “Travis and Brandon Noman, twenty-seven, born in Tarpon Springs, Florida.”

“So they’re American.”

“They’re carrying American passports,” Glen allowed. “Their mother was a Greek national named Thea Achelous. Travis is older by nine minutes.”

When he paused, Ali frowned. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. And getting that much was like pulling teeth. They’re living almost entirely off the grid.”

“You said you heard about them from a friend…”

“And that’s who told me what I just told you. He’s a fan in the whole fanatic sense of the word and if he can’t pull information on them, well, it’s not there to be pulled. I’ve left messages with the people who booked them for that fair but we’re talking volunteer labor and they haven’t called me back.”

“All right…” Staring at the exceedingly unhelpful webpage, Ali tucked a lock of hair back behind her ear. “The good news is, if we can’t find them then Mike can’t find them and…”

The intercom buzzed. Wondering what was up—she had nothing on the books until after lunch—she hit the connect.

“What is it, Brenda?”

“There’s a Michael Richter to see you.”

“Speak of the devil,” Glen muttered.

“Don’t even joke about that,” Ali told him, more than half seriously.

She didn’t get the chance to ask what Mike wanted before Brenda added, “He wants to speak with you but he has no appointment.” Her tone, while polite, suggested she’d never heard of anyone named Michael Richter and couldn’t imagine why he’d be dropping by. Mike had heard some of Brenda’s voice work and wanted Vital to represent her until he discovered she weighed just over three hundred pounds. Too much work to make presentable had been his final judgment.

The position of office manager at Bedford Entertainment had been a part-time gig to fill in the corners around bookings but gradually the two jobs had evened out and, currently, office manager was slightly ahead. Unfortunately, it was also about to be made redundant unless they could find an act that actually paid the bills.

“You have an hour open Wednesday at nine,” she announced. “Shall I schedule Mr. Richter for then?”

Glen mouthed an exaggerated, “Burn!” as Ali rolled her eyes. “I’ll shuffle some things around and see him now, Brenda. We don’t want him to have to come back.”

“Alysha.” Arms spread, Michael Richter walked into her office like he owned it. Given that he probably could have bought the building for the cost of his wardrobe and accessories, he had grounds and the shaved head only added to the whole Daddy Warbucks/Lex Luthor vibe. He was entirely unruffled by Brenda’s little one-act play but that was hardly surprising—he had Tom Hartmore to be ruffled for him.

Ali came around her desk and moved into his embrace, skin crawling. Appearances were everything to Mike, and she knew she couldn’t win if she declared war. Enveloped in a cloud of expensive cologne, she touched each cheek gently with her lips, felt his touch in return, and backed away, gesturing toward the more comfortable of the two chairs facing her desk. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure,” she purred as he sat.

“Tom here…” A slight nod indicated the man who’d followed him into the room and now stood glaring behind him. “…says we want the same thing.”

“Peace on earth? A little less David Hasselhoff? A really kick-ass pair of black ankle boots?”

“NoMan.”

“Ah.” Neutral expression locked on her face, Ali changed her mind about walking back around the desk and perched on the front edge instead. She crossed her bare legs, dangled one high-heeled sandal, and smiled down at the man who was trying to put her out of business. “It appears we both have excellent taste; but then…” Her smile flicked up to Tom and grew edged. “…I knew that.”

“I’m not here to drag up old conflicts, Alysha.” Mike’s voice had always made her think of that velvet glove over the iron fist. “I’m here to offer you a proposition.” To his credit he smiled when she raised both brows. “You flatter me, my dear.”

He was eleven years older than she was, not nearly enough difference to be so damned patronizing.

“I want you to leave NoMan alone,” he continued. “In return, I will open up a weekend at the Hazard. You know what that kind of exposure would do for one of your…acts.”

The Hazard was currently the place to be seen, the place to build the kind of buzz that led to major recording deals and Vital had bookings locked down into the next decade. Mike was right; she had people signed who could turn a gig at the Hazard to a solid career, their success becoming the little engine that dragged Bedford Entertainment out of the red. Ali, a firm believer in the bird in the hand over two in the bush—no matter how extreme her reaction to the two birds in question—would have taken him up on the offer except for two things. The first was the disdain in the moment of silence before he said the word, acts.

The second…

“That’s very generous of you, Mike, but I have no desire to become a subsidiary to Vital, living off scraps from your table.” No matter how bad it got, she wouldn’t sell her people out to a man who saw them as inferior product.

He spread his hands, the movement graceful and predetermined as though her response hadn’t been entirely unexpected. “I respect your choice, of course, but perhaps you should take a moment to think about it. My scraps, to beat the metaphor vigorously about the head and shoulders, have more substance than any meal you can provide and I know you hate to see your people starve.”

“No one’s starving.”

“Yet.”

And there, in the single word Tom dropped into her office, was the stick to Mike’s carrot. Ali waved Glen back and realized, almost as an afterthought, that she was standing. Tom looked down at her through narrowed eyes, daring her to react further. To move in closer.

Not going to happen. Except…

One of them had definitely moved, but Ali was sure it hadn’t been her. They were less than an arm’s length away now. She stared at the scar bisecting Tom’s upper lip and remembered the night he’d got it.

The lip in question curled as if he could read her thoughts.

“Play nice, children.”

The amusement in Mike’s voice moved her back until the edge of her desk digging into her thighs stopped her. No way was she providing entertainment by fighting with her ex in front of his boss/lover/who the hell knew.

“I’m sorry you weren’t able to accept my offer, Alysha.” Mike stood as he spoke and gifted her with a benevolent smile. “It would have made everything so much easier.”

“For you.”

“For all concerned,” he admonished, gently. “I can see myself out.” He was at the door before he realized he was alone. He turned in the doorway and the velvet glove slipped. “Tom!”

“Your master’s voice,” Ali murmured. As Tom closed the distance between them, she raised her right hand and laid her palm over his heart, flat against his chest. She could feel the heat of his skin through the black silk shirt. It matched the heat of his breath against her cheek. The heat in his voice.

“You’re going to lose this one, Ali,” he growled, “and I’ll be there to see you go down.”

“You’re going to pay for making Mike wait,” she purred back, her breath moving the dark hair curling over his ear. “And I wish I could be there to see you go down.”

He jerked away from her like he’d been hit, spun on one heel, and followed Mike out the door, slamming it closed behind him.

“Ali?”

Glen’s voice dragged her back to the here and now and she realized her hand was still pressed up against the space Tom’s chest had filled. Slowly, she closed her fingers and let it fall to her side. “That was interesting.”

“I’ll say.” His tone was so totally neutral she knew he wasn’t only referring to Mike’s offer.

“Let it go, Glen.”

His green eyes were worried as he watched her walk around her desk and drop into the chair. “Maybe you should take your own advice. It’s been three years.”

“I know.”

“You and Tom bring out the worst in each other.”

She thought about the scar. “I know.”

Glen stared at her for a moment longer then spread his hands in surrender. “Fine. Why do you think Mike was trying to keep us away from NoMan? It’s not like him to care if we’re after the same band.”

“No, it isn’t.” Usually he enjoyed the competition, secure in the knowledge that nine out of ten times, he’d win. Something about NoMan had made him try and tie up that tenth time. Try to buy her first, because that came with added benefits, and then threaten when she refused to be bought. It was a good thing he didn’t know just how bad their situation was or he’d have merely waited for time to take care of it and not bothered tipping his hand. “He can’t just be working off Tom’s report and the CD. He has to know something about the Noman brothers we don’t.”

“We know almost nothing so that wouldn’t be hard and I’ve tapped out my sources.”

“Then go at it obliquely. You were right when you said it wouldn’t matter who was backing them and, since they can’t be making much money, I’m betting there’s been a bit of a revolving door. Let’s start by finding an ex member of the band.”

Over the next ten days, a hundred small things went wrong. Not one of them could be definitively laid at Mike’s door, not one of them big enough to confront him about, not one of them that would allow her to take any kind of legal recourse.

“It’s like being nibbled to death by ducks while you’re drowning,” Ali muttered, hanging up as Glen came into the office. “An argument over a clause in a contract here, a sudden renovation of a venue there.” She slumped down in her chair. “Do you know what I think? I think Mike has no more idea of how to contact the Noman brothers than we do and he’s trying to distract us. I think that’s why he tried to warn us off—there’s a chance we’ll luck out and find them first.” Glancing up at her partner, she realized he was smiling. “Why are you looking so happy?”

“I found a bass player.”

“When did you lose one?”

“I found a bass player who used to play for NoMan.”

“Oh man, there was all the pussy you could ever want.” Steve, the bass player, took a moment to grin at the memory. “We’d stop playing and the girls would meet us backstage, ready and willing. Boys too if that floats your boat. Me, not so much but Brandon and Travis, man, the two of them together, they could get anyone to do anything you know?”

Actually, Ali had a fairly good idea. She leaned forward, careful to keep her elbows out of the spilled beer. “Was it always the two of them together?”

“Always. When the two of them wanted something, they got it.”

“They couldn’t have always wanted the same thing,” Glen protested.

Steve shrugged. “All I know is what I saw, dude.”

“Was it always sex?” Ali wondered.

“Hell, no.” Steve grinned again, broadly enough this time for a gold tooth to flash in the dim light of the bar. “Sometimes it was pie. But usually it was sex.”

“Suppose they asked for money?”

“Long as they didn’t ask me, man. Shit, I could never keep two bills together.”

“I didn’t mean they asked you,” Ali sighed. “Suppose they asked the people who come to their concerts for money.”

Steve’s smile disappeared. “What part of if the two of them wanted something, they got it are you not understanding? But I never saw them ask for money, they didn’t really give a shit about that kind of thing. They just wanted to sing and drink and have a good time.”

Which made them pretty much the same as every other band that played the bottom of the market except…

“Were you their first bass player?”

“Hell, no. There were…” He stared off into the distance, lips moving as he counted back. “…seven, maybe eight before me. And a couple of them, they lasted twice as long. Me, two years was all I could handle. Just too much of a good thing.”

A raised hand cut off whatever Glen was about to say. Ali had a feeling she knew what that was and didn’t want to argue about it with an audience. “Why did you leave?”

“Leave?”

“The band.”

Steve took a long swallow of beer and frowned down at the amber liquid still in his glass. “Well, there was…and it kinda…you know?”

“Not really,” Ali told him while Glen rolled his eyes.

When Steve looked up, his expression was unreadable. “Sure you do.”

Ali remembered the flash of gold as Travis lowered his glasses. Maybe she did. “Steve, did you ever see anything weird about Travis’s eyes?”

“Nothing wrong with singing and drinking and having a good time but fuck, after a while it’s exhausting.” He took another long drink. “I do studio work now. Got an old lady. Got a life.”

“Eyes,” Ali prodded.

He grinned. “I got two.”

Shaking his head, Glen leaned into his space. “Do you know how we can contact Brandon or Travis Noman?”

“Always Brandon and Travis, dude,” Steve told him. “Never or. And I don’t have a clue.”

“That was ninety minutes we’ll never get back,” Glen snorted dropping into the car and reaching for his seatbelt. “Total waste of time.”

“No, it wasn’t. We learned a couple of things. We learned, based on the number of bass players, that the Noman brothers have been performing for at least twenty-four years—seven before Steve, Steve, and two after him averaging two years a piece with at least two of them hanging in for four—which would have made them three when they started and somehow I doubt that. I’m guessing that’s what cued Mike in that there was something up, something about them he could exploit.”

“He noticed they were lying about their age?”

“He noticed they’ve been around a lot longer than the evidence suggests.”

“Ali, if you looked at the evidence the Rolling Stones should be dead and they’re still performing.”

“Yes, but Mick Jagger doesn’t look twenty-seven. The Noman brothers have a power in their voices…” She could feel her heart speed up just remembering the way they’d held that crowd with their music, the way it lingered even after they stopped playing. “…and Mike wants to use it. The moment he gets them under contract they’ll be singing for more than pie.”

“Ali…”

“You heard what Steve said.”

“He’s got four functioning brain cells—one for each string and nothing extra. Brandon and Travis are good-looking guys with talent and stage presence; they know how to play the crowd. Of course they can get laid.”

“Mike…”

“Mike wants them because he knows he can make money off them. It’s why we want them. It’s as simple as that.”

Travis raised his head and smiled at her over the honey-blond curls of the girl in his arms. Something in that smile said he—they—knew she’d been there all along. Still smiling, he slid his sunglasses forward…

A flash of gold.

“No, it’s not.” She closed a hand over his forearm, willing him to believe her. “You didn’t see what I saw.”

Glen was out of the office, hand-holding a client through a recording session, when the email came. NoMan was playing at the Atlas on Friday night. Ali was pretty sure she’d have told Glen about it had he been around; he had been the one to bring the band to her attention after all, even if he continued to insist they were nothing more than they seemed.

The denim skirt was so short it barely required all five letters and the heels on her boots made her legs look at least three inches longer. A white shirt so she’d stand out in the dim light of the bar. Noticeable, Ali decided, checking the mirror as she picked up her black leather messenger bag, but practically business casual given the excesses of the music industry.

The Atlas was attached to a downtown hotel that had seen much better days. There was a pool table off in one corner, a heavy, dark wooden bar across one narrow end, and a decent-sized stage across the other. Ali arrived at eight for a nine-thirty start, but the redhead and her boyfriend were already at a table. Pulling a t-shirt from her bag, Ali arranged her face in her best I can do things for you smile and moved in to make her pitch.

By nine-twenty she had all six t-shirts in place. Tight and low cut, black on white and stretched over the redhead, the two blondes from the parking lot, and three brunettes with a similar advertising under-structure, the name Bedford Entertainment would be impossible for the brothers to miss. At fifty dollars a shirt, it would be three hundred dollars well spent.

By nine-thirty the press of bodies had raised the temperature in the bar just a little higher than comfortable. As far as Ali knew, anticipation had no actual scent but there was definitely something in the air besides sweat and scotch. Something that kept her shifting on her high stool at the bar, every movement bringing her into contact with the men and women packed around her, every contact making her nerves sing that much more.

Shadows moved across the stage, then one long note dropped the room into silence. As the stage lights came up, NoMan started to play.

The hats and boots hadn’t changed, but above torn and battered jeans, Brandon wore a gray t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off that was so tight it looked painted onto his torso. Bare, muscular arms already glistened with sweat. Travis’s jeans were in better shape, but his untucked white-and-pink-striped shirt was half unbuttoned and gold hair glinted between the wings of the shirt every time he pulled back the bow. Ali wasn’t surprised to see he still wore his sunglasses.

The first two songs were the same as the last time but, just like the last time, by the third song Ali’d lost any hope of keeping coherent notes. All she could do was ride the sensation, intensified by the close quarters. Off her stool now, she moved with the music, with the crowd, touching, rubbing as the notes from Travis’s fiddle burned through her blood and Brandon’s voice licked at her skin.

Hands gripped her hips and dragged her back against a hard body, hot breath lapped at her ear, and a familiar voice just barely audible over the music growled, “You drive me crazy, Ali. I look at you like this and I can’t keep my hands off you.”

She bit back the moan that possibility evoked and struggled to turn but Tom held her in place, his erection a line of hard heat against her thigh.

“I could have you right now,” he said, slipping one arm around her waist and pulling her closer still as fingers stroked up her bare leg under the edge of her skirt, blunt nails digging lightly at her skin. “I could lift your skirt, drag your panties aside, slip into you.” Two fingers pushed under the elastic. “I could fuck you in time to the music.” The fingers slid down the wet line of her sex, teasing. Up on her toes, Ali’s head fell back against Tom’s shoulder. “I bet they’d notice—no one else would but Brandon and Travis, they’d watch from the stage.” Then the fingers were gone and his grip was gone and there was only his voice at her ear. “I want to, but I won’t. Because I’ve moved on.”

She managed to turn in time to see him push the fall of thick dark hair back off his face and, eyes tracking the motion, she noticed there was something in his ear. By the time she got all the way around, he was moving away, slipping easily through the crowd, the only person in the room who hadn’t given control of his body over to the music.

Wax plugs in his ears to keep himself from being swept away.

As heated bodies brushed rhythmically against her, and the hands on her skin and the breath raising goosebumps on her neck belonged to strangers, Ali looked to the stage where Brandon held the microphone like a lover and sang of learning to touch and Travis danced the bow across the strings of his violin spilling out notes in point and counterpoint…

…and she knew.

After, when the music ended, she slid back up onto the stool, ordered a scotch, and waited. The crowd had thinned and those who remained were moving around the room like cats after a kill—slow, deliberate, sensual. The box of CDs on the end of the bar had emptied as people paid for the chance to take the sensation evoked by the music home.

Brandon stood just off the stage, brushing damp tendrils of the redhead’s hair back off her face while Travis stood beside him, one hand gently kneading her boyfriend’s broad shoulder. All four of them glanced down at her chest, and she half turned, pointing toward the bar.

As Brandon’s eyes met hers, Ali raised her glass and smiled.

Travis laughed, the sound falling into the room like pebbles into a pond, the ripple of reaction spreading. Someone dropped a glass. Someone else moaned. Brandon leaned toward his brother, asked a question, and when Travis nodded, led the way up onto the stage and toward the door at the back. They paused at the door, standing close enough as they turned that Ali knew they had to be touching shoulder to hip. Still smiling, Travis beckoned.

Given the sunglasses it should have been impossible to tell who he was beckoning to.

It wasn’t.

His teeth were very white.

Backstage was nothing more than a long, narrow room between the rear wall of the stage and the brick, outside wall of the Atlas. The air was cooler and smelled more like dust than like sex and alcohol. Following the two men past stacked chairs and empty boxes to where a small lounge had been set up in the far corner, Ali wondered a little at her willingness to throw caution to the winds. If the brothers could make anyone do anything…

The possibility smoldered in the cradle of her hips, the heat shifting and flaring as she walked.

“So, Alysha Bedford of Bedford Entertainment…” Travis dropped onto one corner of the disreputable-looking couch, Brandon perching on the arm beside him. “…you’ve got our attention.” His right hand rose to rest on his brother’s thigh, long fingers absently stroking the faded denim. “What is it you want?”

Ali drew her tongue over dry lips. She wanted them to touch her. To drag rough fingers over her skin. To open her. To fill her. To feast off her. That was what she wanted but it wasn’t why she was there. She was there because they had something she needed and she had to convince them that they in turn needed her. “I know what you are,” she said.

Travis laughed but Brandon tossed his hat down on the other end of the couch and drew both hands back through damp hair, pale eyes never leaving her face. “I think she does.”

“Do you?” Travis stretched out one long leg, the room narrow enough his boot ended up thrust between Ali’s ankles. She looked down, saw the black leather and barely stopped her hips from rocking forward. “All right then,” he murmured, “what are we?”

“Sirens.”

In the silence that followed, her heartbeat sounded unnaturally loud.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Brandon growled at last.

“Probably,” his brother agreed. He beckoned and Ali found herself moving forward, straddling first the outstretched leg, then both legs, then his lap. It wasn’t so much a compulsion as a mutual acknowledgement of the need to get closer that she knew had to be showing on her face. She was still standing but only because the couch was so low.

A little voice—a voice that sounded remarkably like Glen—reminded her this wasn’t the business meeting she’d planned but she was too turned on to care. Besides, she’d always prided herself on being adaptable and nothing in the rules said business couldn’t be discussed over friction.

“So…” Travis reached out and lightly stroked the inside of her leg with his thumb. “…you’re half right.”

His touch was distracting but then, she could see from his smile that his touch was supposed to be distracting.

“Momma was a siren,” Brandon continued, shifting enough to watch his brother trace patterns up and down her leg. “And we split the power between us.”

“Split…?”

And then Brandon’s hand curved around the inside of her other leg and her knees buckled from the rush of sensation. Travis’s grip shifted up her leg, sliding up under the edge of her skirt to hold her hips, as she folded forward, knees going to the couch, her sex rubbing against the rough edge of denim over his erection.

“Takes both of us to make it work.” Brandon’s voice was a low, heated growl at her ear and she moaned as he dragged his tongue over her neck.

“Your name…it was the name Ulysses gave the Cyclops.”

“Same story,” Travis grinned. “Different chapter. Since Momma never said who our father was…”

“If it is no man, then it must be by the will of the gods.”

“Good girl.”

Brandon was behind her now, straddling his brother’s legs, pressed up against her back, arms around her, hands working the buttons on her shirt.

This was where she could stop it. Should stop it. Should pull the business plan she’d drawn up out of her bag and…

She knocked Travis’s hat off and bent to devour his mouth as he hiked her skirt higher with one hand and slid the other under the scrap of silk and lace. He tasted like honey and sunshine and she could feel him still smiling against her lips. When she pulled away, fingers buried in his hair, he murmured, “We never saw a lot of point in singing ships onto rocks.”

Then Brandon took hold of her head and turned it. “This is a lot more fun,” he breathed against her lips just before he claimed them. He was rougher than his brother, his tongue demanding entry. She opened for him and rocked down against Travis’s fingers as Brandon fucked her mouth. When he finally moved along her jaw and scraped his teeth against the sensitive skin where her neck met her shoulders, she fought to bring at least one or two brain cells back on line, reminding herself this wasn’t all she wanted.

“I’m not the only one who knows what you are.” Her voice was husky, needy, desperate, and she was actually more than a little impressed she managed to complete the sentence.

So was Travis. He wrapped fingers wet with her own arousal around her wrist and stopped her from opening his fly. “Who else?”

“Michael Richter. He owns Vital Music Group…Oh God!”

“Brandon!”

Brandon snorted something unintelligible against the back of her neck and stopped rolling her nipples between his fingers.

“Go on, Alysha.”

Go on where? Right. Mike. “One of Richter’s people was here tonight, in the club, wearing ear plugs.”

“Ear plugs?” Brandon straightened, his hands going from her breasts to her shoulders, lightly stroking the skin exposed when he’d pushed back her shirt, the motion somehow holding all three of them at that moment.

Held suspended between them, Ali dredged up a bit more of the myth. “If you sing and no one reacts then you have to throw yourself into the sea…”

“Metaphor.” Travis’s teeth flashed white. “If we sing and no one reacts then we surrender to an outside power. Mythically, the sea. As things stand right now, not so much.”

“Surrender?”

“We give over control.”

Ali frowned down at her reflection in Travis’s glasses, the expression looking out of place sharing her face with swollen, spit-slicked lips and blown pupils. “That’s what Mike wants. To control you. To make you sing up what he desires.”

“Isn’t that what you want, Alysha Bedford of Bedford Entertainment?”

“No. Not control, manage. It’s not the same thing.”

“A difference of degree,” Brandon noted.

“I don’t want to control you. I don’t want to use you, Mike does. Some day, now he knows about you, I guarantee you’ll do a gig where he controls the audience and then he’ll control you.”

“Good thing you showed up to protect us then.” Travis’s lip curled mockingly.

“We don’t mind being courted,” Brandon noted, fingers tightening on her shoulders, breath stirring her hair. “But we don’t like being threatened.”

“Threatened?”

“Someone else knows what we are. Someone else wants to control us. You saw a man in ear plugs and yet, we see only you.” Travis’s hand rose to his glasses. “Your timing sucks, Alysha Bedford. Should have waited until we finished to make your pitch.”

That she wholeheartedly agreed with, but it didn’t change the fact she had to convince them they were in danger.

“You can’t…”

Travis slipped the glasses down and his eyes flared gold.

Ali came back to herself in a parking lot two blocks from the Atlas, standing beside her car, clothing more or less decently arranged over her body—the buttons on her shirt were off by one, but that was a minor point. She remembered everything up to the moment Travis lowered his glasses. Whatever mojo his eyes performed, its effect seemed limited. Twice now, he’d used it as a way to essentially say, we’re done here.

She had a feeling the Noman brothers weren’t cuddlers.

Teeth gritted, she pulled out her keys and unlocked the car. The bastards were mythical creatures and they didn’t believe her? She had half a mind to let Mike have them. A few years under his beck and call, paranormal control issues added to his usual iron-clad contract, and they’d be sorry they hadn’t listened. Fortunately, the other half of her mind was well aware that the brothers weren’t the only ones who’d suffer.

Working together, Brandon and Travis could get whatever they wanted.

Working for Mike, they could get whatever Mike wanted. At the moment, Mike wanted to exercise his power in the music industry but he sure as hell wouldn’t stop there.

She’d have to save NoMan in spite of itself. If she could save Bedford Entertainment at the same time, so much the better.

Mike wouldn’t try his plugged-ear ploy at a concert, there’d be too many variables to control. It would have to be a private party. The brothers might not care much about money, according to Steve, but Mike could offer enough to tempt the significantly more saintly.

Tom had left the bar before the concert ended so he’d already accomplished what he’d had to do. Since he hadn’t spoken to either brother, he’d probably left an envelope with the bartender to be handed over when they were paid. Mike wouldn’t waste any time; his offer of a private venue where they could connect with the industry brass would be in the envelope. There’d be nothing about Vital Music Group, and, while he’d definitely be present at the concert, Mike Richter wouldn’t be hosting. The number on the offer would be large enough that the other three members of the band would insist on accepting and the Noman brothers wouldn’t see the harm. They’d been doing this for so long, they’d clearly gotten careless.

Too careless to listen to warnings.

She’d have to get invited to the party.

Tom’s office was about the size of her office and Glen’s office and Brenda’s reception area combined. A plush, deep-blue carpet acted as a stage for ebony furniture—probably the color, not the wood, although given the depth of Mike’s pockets, Ali wouldn’t swear to that.

Head down, dark hair falling forward over his eyes, Tom kept working as she crossed to the desk, her sandals making no noise against the thick nap. As far as she was concerned, the whole I told my secretary to let you in but I’m far too busy to actually pay any attention to you was a childish power play but she wasn’t going to call him on it. She needed him to feel superior if this was going to work.

Pushing a pile of paper out of her way, she perched on the edge of the desk, allowing her skirt to ride up just enough to be distracting. “So, you’ve invited the Noman brothers to play at a private party where you’ll introduce them to everyone they’ll need to know to make it big.”

He looked up then, eyes narrowed.

“And, just to make sure they’ll agree,” Ali continued, “you’ve sweetened the pot with a big old wad of cash.”

“They told you?”

She smiled. “You’re obvious.”

“And you’re not?” He returned her smile then, leaning back in his chair, silk shirt pulling tight across his chest. “You didn’t sign them last night or you wouldn’t be here now.” Frowning, he added, “Why are you here, Ali?”

“I came to warn you.”

“Out of the goodness of your heart?”

Dropping her gaze to the hem of her skirt, Ali rolled a bit of the fabric between thumb and forefinger. “Believe it or not, I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Not.”

“Okay fine.” She looked up then, matching the challenge in his eyes. “I don’t want to see you get hurt by anyone but me.”

He looked startled, then he threw back his head and laughed.

White teeth. Long, lean line of throat. And his laugh still sent shivers down her spine. Ali stomped down hard on her reaction.

“All right,” he said at last, “what did you want to warn me about?”

“I know what they are, what the Noman brothers are, and you can’t control them. They’re out of your league.”

“You can’t control them and they’re out of your league.” Tom’s gesture covered the room, the gold records on the wall, and managed somehow to include all the resources the Vital Music Group could access. “What makes you think Mike can’t bring a couple of good ol’ boys to their knees?”

Because these aren’t the kind of guys to take it up the ass for a fat paycheck and a chance to throw their weight around. But she trapped the words behind a smile because they had nothing to do with the Noman brothers and everything to do with Tom walking away. From Bedford Entertainment. From her.

Tom’s smile tightened and she knew he could read her thoughts on her face. “You want proof, Ali?” he asked, pushing the chair back and standing. “You want proof we’ve won this round?” Leaning forward, he scrawled an address and a date on a piece of paper, straightened, and offered it with a mocking flourish. “Why don’t you come see for yourself?”

She slid off the edge of the desk and just barely stopped herself from slapping the paper out of his hand. This was exactly what she’d expected him to do, exactly what she’d needed him to do if she was going to have any chance of stopping Mike from using the sirens’ power to further his own agenda. If, to be completely honest, she was going to have any chance of signing the band herself. It was just…no matter how much she knew it had to happen, she hated being patronized. Hated it more when Tom acted as the extension of Mike’s so very superior and entirely infuriating attitude.

“Mike will control the Noman brothers, Ali, and when he does you’re going to want to be on his good side. I’m giving you that chance.”

Fortunately, he’d know something was up if she made no protest. Her smile had edges. “So, out of the goodness of your heart, you’re graciously allowing me to play the sycophant?”

“I am graciously not throwing you out of here on your ass,” he growled, moving closer.

Too close.

And suddenly, it was that afternoon in her office all over again. But this time, there was no Mike to call him to heel and no Glen to tell her this was a bad idea.

Ali knew it was a bad idea and, from the way Tom’s eyes narrowed, he knew it too.

One of them had to acknowledge that and back away.

“Ali…”

“Shut up.” As memory replayed the sirens’ song, she decided she’d had all she could take of wanting and not having. Wrapping her hands around his face, she rose up on her toes, and sucked the curve of scarred lip into her mouth, biting it none too gently, then lapping at with the tip of her tongue. He closed his hands around her wrists and pushed her away.

But he didn’t let her go. His cheeks were flushed and he looked as though he was silently weighing alternatives.

Ali looked up at him from under her lashes and smiled. “Dare you,” she said, just enough mockery in her voice to overrule any remaining remnants of his better nature.

He released her then, but only to shift his grip to her waist.

As he lifted her back onto the desk, she wrapped one leg around him and dragged him up against her—he wasn’t starting something and then walking away. Not this time. Fingers buried in the thick, silken mass of his hair, she devoured his mouth, using her teeth as much as her lips, loving the low growls she evoked.

Tom wasn’t about risk, he was about control, always had been, and Ali loved making him lose it. They’d been together for almost five years before Mike had lured him away with the promise of power and no matter how bad things had gotten during those five years, the sex had always been incredible.

He moved his mouth to her throat, licking and sucking at the curve where her neck met her shoulder, bringing the blood to the surface, his hands moving from her waist to her breasts, stroking her through the fabric of blouse and bra, strong fingers finding her nipples as they hardened and closing around them.

Ali fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, needing to feel his skin under her hands.

“You’ve been working out,” she gasped, both hands brushing quick and rough over the hard, hot planes of his chest and stomach as he licked along her collarbone and down over the swell of her breasts. She’d been trying for glib and had a feeling she’d missed it entirely.

He laughed—at her, with her, at this point she didn’t really care—and dropped his hands to her thighs, running them up under her skirt. “I don’t have time…”

“I don’t need time.” Not with the siren song still playing in her head.

He took her at her word, reaching into the center drawer for a condom.

“Do I want to know why you keep condoms in your desk?” she asked, leaning back on her elbows, as he rolled it on.

Eyes dark, his lips curled. “Same reason I always did.”

Same reason. Different partner.

Her lips curled in answer to his. “Be a nice change for you then, back on top.”

“We don’t have to do this, Ali.”

She sat up, grabbed the wings of his shirt. “Yet we both know we’re going to.” She dragged his mouth back onto hers. He tasted like expensive coffee, the apple he always had for breakfast, and memories. The kiss got rougher, sloppier, wetter.

One hand splayed against the small of her back, Tom pulled her toward the edge of the desk. The other hand slid up under her skirt, trailing lines of want along her inner thighs.

Ali couldn’t keep from crying out as he entered her, wasted a moment hoping his office was as soundproof as it looked or that his secretary was considerably more discreet, then wrapped her legs around him and matched him stroke for stroke.

Matching the rhythm of the music…

It felt like she’d been on the edge since the first time she’d heard NoMan play and it didn’t take her long to fall.

After, as she paused at the office door to slip the piece of paper with the date and address of the private concert into her purse, she glanced back at Tom. Dark curl of hair falling down into his face, his cheeks flushed, he looked like a debauched angel. Buttoning his shirt, he frowned down at the glossy surface of his desk like he was trying to work out just what exactly had happened.

NoMan had happened.

That was one hell of a band and there was no way she was letting Michael Richter have them…

…too.

“How nice of you to join us, Alysha. Tom tells me you know what I’m hoping to accomplish here tonight.”

Mike’s smile was all dangerous edges and as he moved closer, Ali felt her heart begin to race. Behind him, Tom’s smile suggested she was totally screwed, and not in a fun way. Not this time. The interlude in his office had been just that—when it came to choosing sides, Tom had made his decision three years ago and, to give credit where credit was due, regardless of any lingering heat between them, he stuck to it when it mattered.

From the hall where Mike had stopped her, she could see the backs of maybe two dozen well-coiffed heads. Heads belonging to the men and women who made the decisions—who recorded what, who got the promotion money, who’d be the new flavor of the month.

“Although,” he continued thoughtfully, “I’m not sure just what exactly you hope to accomplish.” A gesture toward the inner room. “Half of that lot thinks you and your little company that couldn’t quite is on the way out. Make a fuss, run about shouting something about sirens like a crazy woman, and the other half will come to agree with them.”

He had a point. A little screaming might save the band but ruin her.

“If you’re planning on warning the brothers, well, they clearly haven’t listened to you up to this point or you wouldn’t be here.”

Ali flashed him her brightest, falsest smile. “I’m here to witness your victory. Just ask Tom.”

A muscle jumped in the toned line of his jaw. “Tom’s judgment isn’t exactly sound where you’re concerned, Alysha, but I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Thank you.” Her response was exactly as sincere as the statement that prompted it.

“Given the stakes, however, you will remain here only under certain conditions.”

Before she had time to ask what those conditions were, Tom grabbed her arms, dragged them behind her, and Mike snapped a pair of handcuffs over her wrists.

“Kinky,” she muttered, trying to get free.

“Just a precaution,” Mike purred. The soft wax pressed into her ear didn’t exactly take her by surprise.

“Very kinky.”

With Tom’s fingers digging into her jaw, angling her head toward his employer, Mike paused before sealing the second ear. “When the Noman brothers sing,” he told her quietly, “no one will hear them and they’ll be mine.”

Ali pasted the false smile back on. “Isn’t this where you’re supposed to laugh maniacally?”

“If you like.”

“One question before…” Her gaze flickered to his fingers and then back to his face. “How did you convince that lot to stuff wax in their ears? Tell them a story about Ulysses?”

His answering smile was entirely sincere. “They’re industry executives. They don’t actually like music.”

The second piece of wax left her feeling as though she’d been cut off from the world. Ali fought the rising panic, kept her head high and her expression disdainful—a meltdown now would help no one. Not her. Not Brandon and Travis. Mike held her while Tom slid his own plugs in then kissed her forehead gently, patronizingly, as he handed her back to her ex.

Who seemed to be overcompensating for their tryst in his office.

His hands wrapped around her arms above the elbows, his grip just on the edge of bruising, Tom held her about a foot out from his body. She struggled, just enough to know she couldn’t get free, and then, together, they watched Mike make his way to the makeshift stage. Drummer, bass player, guitarist—they’d already taken their places back out of the light. They seemed to know what everyone else knew; they didn’t matter.

When Brandon and Travis came on stage, Mike gestured and Ali saw the members of the audience clap politely—part of Mike’s show, pre-arranged. Walking away, he plugged his own ears, then turned just behind the last row of chairs to face the band.

Although she could see both Travis and Brandon, the stage was angled in such a way that unless they turned specifically to face the hall, they wouldn’t see her. Tom’s grip kept her from moving into their line of sight.

By the middle of the first song, the brothers knew something was wrong; Ali could see it in the way they moved, their easy confidence replaced by the wariness of wild creatures sensing a trap. Trouble was, they’d sensed it a little late. She fought the urge to yell, Still think you don’t need me? and concentrated instead on figuring out a way to get the wax out of her ears. Companies like Vital Music Group had the luxury of long-term planning; companies like Bedford Entertainment survived by improvising.

It wasn’t a great metaphor but it was all she had.

First, Tom had to release her.

Ali stepped back, taking him by surprise. Reaching out with her cuffed hands, she cupped him through the fine wool of his dress pants. When he gave her a shake, she curled her fingers and gently squeezed. His grip tightened on her arms but she continued caressing him as he hardened. Let him think she wanted a replay of that morning in his office and, hopefully, let him remember what Mike’s reaction to a replay would be.

She was starting to think she needed another plan when he jerked back and all but threw her against the nearest wall. Face flushed, he moved to block her view of the stage and silently snarled at her to stay put.

Fine with her.

The paintings hung along the hall had been illuminated by small halogen lights. Glad she’d worn the three-inch heels, Ali gritted her teeth and pressed the side of her head against the brass casing over the closest light.

She could feel blisters rising where casing touched her cheek and the back of her ear but she could also feel the wax softening so she thought about the smell of cotton candy and the wail of a fiddle on a warm summer afternoon.

…about bodies moving together, heated and wanting, packed into the dark anonymity of a downtown club.

…about Brandon’s hands and Travis’s mouth.

…about everything NoMan could do for her bottom line, and she forced herself not to move away.

When Tom turned to check on her, Ali managed a grimace he took for a smile. Or he assumed she was grimacing about the situation, not the pain. As long as he left her to it, he could make any assumption he wanted.

Finally, she felt a tiny dribble of warn liquid roll out of her ear. Tears sliding down both cheeks, she moved her scorched face away from the brass and tossed her head, once, twice. The softened wax shifted. Slid. Dropped out.

Brandon’s voice slid in to fill the space, lifting the hair on the back of Ali’s neck, the howl of Travis’s fiddle coiling sleek and dangerous in her belly. Her body moved to the music as the familiar ache began to build.

They still couldn’t see her, but somehow they knew. Travis drew one final note from his bow and Brandon stopped singing. Hands wrapped around the microphone, he smiled and said, “That was our last song, ladies and gentlemen.”

She heard Mike growl, “Keep singing,” although with the wax in he couldn’t have heard himself.

“Not right now,” Brandon told him, and Ali wished Mike could hear the threat in the singer’s voice. It made every threat he’d ever uttered seem like posturing.

Tom grabbed her as she moved forward into the actual room, brought his face down to hers, and demanded to know what she’d done.

No point in answering since he couldn’t hear her. So, she showed him.

Still handcuffed, she darted her head forward, caught his right ear between her teeth and, holding on as he tried to shake her free, plunged her tongue into his ear and worked the wax plug out. He’d always been impressed by what she could do with her tongue.

On the stage, while the rest of the band watched in confusion, Travis played a new note and Brandon sang the counterpoint. The two sounds rose and wound about each other as the NoMan brothers directed their full attention on the action in the hall.

Releasing her, Tom straightened, listened for a moment, and pulled the plug from his other ear.

Heads began to turn as more and more of the industry executives realized something new seemed to be happening. Expressions ranged from confusion to anger as hands rose and manicured fingers dug at the wax.

No matter what story Mike had spun to gain their initial cooperation, this was about to get messy. Ali turned to show the brothers her wrists. “Little help here, guys.”

The note changed.

“Tom! What the hell are you doing?” Mike might as well have remained silent for all the notice Tom took as he pulled out the handcuff key.

Ali grinned as the cuffs dropped to the floor, steel ringing against the tile. “They’re controlling him, Mike. Take my advice and cut your losses.”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t hear her.

When Tom wrapped one huge hand around his shoulder, crushing the elegant line of his suit, holding him effortlessly in place, he was too astonished even to shout. Demanding Tom listen to him, he grabbed the younger man’s wrist with both hands. Tom ignored both the words and the grip and removed both of Mike’s earplugs, one after the other.

As the music changed again, Ali scooped the wax plug she’d taken from Tom off the floor, scrubbed it against her dress, and shoved it into her empty ear.

Stepping back into sight of the stage, she raised a hand in farewell. NoMan’s audience had begun to move to the music and while she had no idea just where they’d be moving to, it really wasn’t something she needed to see.

“Apparently, Michael Richter is taking a well-earned vacation in an undisclosed location, no one knows where Tom Hartmore is, two recording companies have filed for bankruptcy, one high-placed executive has given everything to charity, two more have turned themselves in for tax fraud, and there are at least three messy divorces happening in the industry between people who’ll be dividing acts with their assets.” Glen set the paper down on her desk and shook his head. “If Brandon and Travis are responsible…Are you sure you can control them?”

“Not control, manage,” Ali reminded him. “Besides, they owe me.”

“Speaking of.” He put one finger under her chin, and studied the burn across her cheek. “That looks like it’s healing well.”

“Still hurts.”

Green eyes crinkled at the corners as he grinned. “You need something to take your mind off it. Just say the word and I’ll break out the champers. Tell me that NoMan’s finally decided to sign with us.”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Why tomorrow?”

“Because once they sign, they’re off limits and tonight I’ve been invited to a private concert.” Ali leaned back, tucked her hair behind her ears, and smiled. “They’ve promised me an audition I’ll never forget.”