Chapter 23
“Should I be jealous that your heart is racing and you have a blissful smile on your face that has nothing to do with me?” Noah growled close to her ear to be heard above the sound of band rehearsals.
Leia laughed and turned in the circle of the arms caging her in on either side. Behind them, the huge stage in the Vienna Stadthalle, where the bands would perform in an hour, gleamed under powerful colored lights. Sliding her arms around his neck, she stood on tiptoe and kissed his jaw.
“Sorry, for the next few hours, you have to share me with a serious addiction to jazz funk.”
He grunted but allowed her to tease him with light kisses before their inevitable hunger for each other threatened to fire out of control.
When he raised his head, his blue eyes were dark and his breathing a little ragged. Leia was beginning to think she would never get over how staggering their hunger for each other was, or how this breathtaking man seemed to be as caught up in the turbulent emotions swirling around them as she was.
“Don’t worry, baby, I’ll be right next to you to remind you of your other addictions.” He cupped her ass and squeezed. Her gasp at the fused spike of pleasure and pain darkened his eyes further.
“So you’ve changed your mind about singing backup with me?” she teased.
One corner of his mouth twitched in a purely masculine, insanely sexy smile. “Fine, maybe not right next to you but close enough to make sure you stay on the right side of groupie lust.”
She laughed again, and it suddenly struck her how easy it was to laugh with Noah. How very little of it she’d done for a long time. How different her life would be a week from now once she was back home. Back with Warren.
He cupped her chin. “Hey.”
She glanced back at him, fighting to stay in place. “Sorry.”
“What was it?”
“A whisper of ghosts. Nothing more.” She visibly shook herself out of thinking about the future. “I’m awesome groupie material. The right ingredient to being a good groupie is to project enough crazy awe without coming over all stalkerish.”
He stared down at her, head tilted thoughtfully. “So if I were in a band, you wouldn’t chain yourself to my trailer or drape yourself naked over my drums?” he asked with a salacious wink.
She laughed. “No, but I’d wear your headband and let you sign your name on my boobs. Possibly consider holding your joint when the muse suddenly struck and you didn’t have an ashtray nearby.”
His laugh was a deep and sexy rumble that wove its way through her body to her toes before whooshing back up to curl around her heart.
“If I had you, I wouldn’t need a muse or weed. You already go straight to my head,” Noah whispered against her lips.
God, he was gorgeous. And hers for only a few more days…
Unless she contemplated the impossible and let herself see him once they were back in the real world.
The temptation was strong. It tantalized, drawing her in deeper, even as she pushed it away.
Dr. Hatfield had tried to steer her into thinking that what happened five years ago wasn’t her fault.
But deep down, Leia knew she wasn’t guiltless.
In the dark of night when the ghosts gleefully woke, she couldn’t shut them off because they were right.
She might hate her mother for not being strong enough to withstand the horror that had befallen their cursed family, but she couldn’t hide from the fact that part of that horror had been of her own making.
A series of rapid African drumbeats rumbled through the auditorium, effectively distracting her from the dark sojourn into the past.
She tightened her arms around Noah’s neck, closed her eyes and swayed to the throbbing beat.
Noah’s hands clenched on her waist. “Fuck. Open your eyes, Leia. Now. Before I find somewhere dark and disturbing to remind you that you’re mine.”
“Kiss me first,” she challenged, her heartbeat still echoing with wisps of what she’d done. How she’d made it so she carried an incomplete tattoo on her ribcage, too scared to complete it.
He didn’t. Her breath caught because she knew what he wanted. Knew what she had to say to get what she needed. “Kiss me. Please, Noah.”
One hand dragged her closer. Held completely immobilized, he sealed his mouth over hers in punishment and lust. She opened for him, drank him in, infused her senses with the breathtaking man who could make everything fall away.
The drumbeats increased in tempo as Osibisa, the band her father had loved and whose music she’d known since childhood, built up to a wild and frenzied crescendo.
Noah pressed her against the balcony railing, her bottom digging in to the metal frame, sparking a riot of pain that mingled with the pleasure of his kiss.
Her clit throbbed to life, her pussy clenching with desperate hunger.
“Miss Michaels? Mr. King?” a hesitant voice said above the music.
Noah broke the kiss, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he pressed his forehead to hers. “Shit. I’m going to make you pay for the next four hours of blue balls I’m going to suffer,” he muttered.
“I’ll be a good little groupie and let you use me however you want,” she whispered back.
Noah was still cursing when she craned her neck to see a woman about her age with a clipboard, earpiece and slightly panicked look in her eyes that spelled “harried usher” standing in the doorway of the exclusive box the Indigo Lounge had hired for tonight.
“Hi, I’m Greta. The band is getting ready to go on stage. If you’d both like to come with me?” she asked with a smile that flashed on and off, her fingers drumming impatiently against her leg.
Noah took Leia’s hand and tugged her behind him, making no effort to hide what must have been a very evident arousal.
Leia held her breath, but the girl was too busy getting the shock of her life once she caught a glimpse of Noah’s handsome face to lower her gaze.
When he smiled at her, her mouth dropped open along with the clipboard, which landed on the floor with a clatter. Still smiling, Noah bent and retrieved it for her.
She didn’t move.
“After you,” he said pointedly.
“I… Thank you. Umm… yes. Please, follow me.” She walked backward, gawping some more at Noah until the outside wall stopped her progress. Stumbling, she finally pried her eyes away and cleared her throat. Then she took off down the long circular hallway.
“Did you enjoy that?” Leia had meant to keep her voice even, her tone modulated in a way Warren would’ve been proud of. Instead, it emerged rough and edgy.
“Enjoy what?” He raised innocent eyebrows at her.
“Reducing her to a puddle of stupid?” she snapped.
His smile disappeared. “I’m not responsible for the way I look or feel when you have your hands on me. That’s what she was reacting to.”
“Sure, keep believing that.” A part of her was drowning in mortification. The rest couldn’t step out of the quagmire of jealousy swallowing her up.
“Hey.” He pulled her to a stop, drew their clasped hands behind her back and used it to propel her forward.
His free fingers drifted up her cheek to caress the swathe above her ear, a gesture that immediately soothed her.
“If I can lose my shit over the way your valet looked at you, then you’re allowed to lose your shit every now and then, too.
Within reason. And hell, you’re going up on stage in a place that will have over ten thousand people watching you in that getup.
Have you stopped to think how I feel about that? ”
She frowned. “When you put it like that…”
He lowered his hand to trace her lips with his thumb. “Knowing you’re a little possessive over me helps a bit. But you don’t need to be jealous. Okay?”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“It’s not, but I’m hoping you’ll make me a better person.”
A tiny frown marred his brow after he said that, his face contemplative.
They turned the corner to see the usher waiting by a back elevator. Her eyes grew huge when her gaze landed on Noah, and Leia fought the urge to snap again.
In the lift, Noah tucked Leia in front of him and clamped his arms around her waist. Ignoring the girl, he proceeded to kiss his way down her neck.
Despite knowing he was proving a point, by the time they exited the lift, Leia felt bad for the girl, especially when she caught a look of mingled embarrassment and envy in her eyes.
She delivered them to a large green room and left them there, hurrying away when a loud voice called her name.
“Hopefully, she’ll be too busy to find somewhere dark to rub herself off with an image of you in her mind. Otherwise I’d have to hunt her down and make her feel my claws.” Thankfully her tone was light enough to make the joke passable.
Noah laughed, raised her fingers to his lips, and trailed his mouth over her long nails. “That would be such a waste. The only skin these claws are allowed to mutilate is mine.”
A loud cough broke them apart for the second time in less than ten minutes.
They turned. The lead singer of Fused Realms, Kendal Spikes, stood behind them in full leathers and long spiky hair.
“Which one of you is Michaels?” He looked between them, one carefully plucked eyebrow quirked.
Leia raised her hand, a different excitement scything through her.
“That would be me.” She stepped forward, and his gaze drifted down her body, widening a touch as it went.
“Please call me Leia… and thank you for the opportunity. I’ve been a huge fan of yours since my dad bought me your first record.
I won a high school talent contest when I sang ‘Blue Noise’. ”
He gave a lopsided smile. “Ouch. Thanks for making me feel every minute of my forty-five years, darling,” he drawled in a distinct British accent.
Leia gasped and furiously backpedalled. “Oh no, I didn’t mean?—”
“It’s okay. We adore all our fans, especially if they come as gorgeous as y?—”
“Noah King.” Noah stepped forward and held out his hand.
They shook hands and locked eyes for a long moment. Kendal nodded as if he’d received a subliminal message. Or a warning.
“Come and meet the rest of the band.” He turned and walked out of the room.
She glanced at Noah, noted the gathering storm in his eyes. “Losing your shit is allowed. Within reason,” she said, paraphrasing his words back to him.
His eyes met hers and he nodded. “Okay, I’ll behave. Maybe.”
She laughed.
Two flights of stairs later, they went up a rigged staircase and onto the stage.
Introductions were made to the six-man band and two backup singers.
The band members drifted away to their instruments, leaving them with Gary, a thickset black man, and Fliss, a young blonde with tattoos down her left arm.
Kendal strolled toward them, carrying a mic and a song sheet. He handed her the song sheet. “Guys, Leia will be joining you in backup for the last three songs. You mind working on the chorus of the songs with her?”
Leia looked at the titles of the songs and shook her head. “There’s no need. I know all your song lyrics.”
Kendal smiled and held out the mic. “Give us a taste of your pipes then.”
Noah’s hand tightened on hers. She didn’t dare look at him.
“The chorus to ‘Blue Noise’?”
Kendal nodded. “That’ll do.”
She took the mic and tried to free herself from Noah. He delayed that freedom until she looked at him. His eyes gleamed with myriad emotions: possession, lust, anger, and a touch of vulnerability, each stamping its way into her heart.
Her fingers curled around the cold mic, her breath snagged somewhere in her chest as Noah took two steps back, folded his arms and sat on the stool someone had brought for him.
“When you’re ready.” Kendal’s voice bounced on her consciousness like rain on gravel. She didn’t want to look away from Noah; she wanted to explore those emotions sizzling like lightning between them.
But she had the leader of a world-famous band standing in front of her, waiting to make her dream come true.
She cleared her throat, resisting the urge to tap her finger on the mic like she’d seen so many amateurs do. She looked at Kendal and he nodded.
A bass guitar struck a chord somewhere behind her, strumming the tune of the first chorus line. She waited till the guitarist was done with the practice run. Then she joined in:
You turn your back, and I am grey noise
When you’re away, my life is black noise
When we make love, my world is gold noise
Love in your eyes, my heart is blue noise
Sweet baby mine, I’d give my last dime,
My heart and soul, my every dollar sign
To have your love, to have your blue noise
My heart and soul, to hear that blue noise