Chapter 9
Okay, I’ll admit it—“Blow Your Mind” wasn’t on the set list I spent so much time cultivating for last Sunday’s big return to the Whiskey Tango stage. And even if it had been, I definitely wouldn’t have planned to open my first set after a three-week break with acid jazz.
But there was one person who did seem to have a problem with my impromptu set change…
I couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to rile Damon up a little after that barb he made about my name, but I honestly wasn’t expecting him to get so rattled by the attention and—I’m assuming—the innuendo packed into the song.
After the snark he threw at me when I first arrived on Sunday I kind of figured his response to my interest in him during our first meeting was a complete outlier.
Maybe he was just caught off-guard. Or maybe he really did think I was seventeen—although that was pretty unlikely; people usually mistake my age in the opposite direction.
Or maybe he felt awkward about being impolite to his boss—not that I give a shit about that; the reason I like to unleash my “abrasive charm” in the first meeting is to weed out any fakers.
But evidently I was mistaken about being mistaken. So, needless to say, I’ve turned sexy serenades into a regular feature over the past week, and so far every one of them has elicited the exact same reaction: visible discomfort, skin flushing red, struggling to focus…
But so far he hasn’t asked me to stop…
I can tell he’s someone who’s not particularly accustomed to being made to feel uncomfortable, and I just can’t shake the thought that he actually likes it.
He likes being rattled.
And I fucking love that I seem to be the only one who can rattle him.
Obviously I’m not pulling out the sexy stuff for every song.
For one thing, there just aren’t enough nineties songs about sex out there.
For another, it’s more fun to catch Damon off-guard.
And for a third, it’s pretty much fucking impossible to concentrate on looping beats and melodies and harmonies when my cock’s about to tear through my jeans because I can’t peel my eyes away from hottest man alive as he tries to maintain his composure while I sing about sex.
Fortunately, there are some excellent options that don’t require too much additional concentration.
As I’m approaching the end of my second set I take some time to lay down a simple back beat and then let it run as I layer the acoustic over it.
I can tell by the way Damon’s body tenses that he can feel me watching him; a predictable blush hits his cheeks and he looks visibly flustered, but I don’t think he recognizes the song at first because when I get to the chorus and he hears the words “I want to kiss you all over” he almost trips over his own feet and his face turns red enough to rival Elmo’s fur.
Once he’s recovered, he turns and hits me with a glare of obvious irritation. I just quirk an eyebrow at him and scan my gaze around the heaving Saturday night crowd, indicating that no one else seems to have a problem with my song choice.
That prompts him to roll his eyes and shake his head in exasperation. And the fact that he can be completely rattled and embarrassed one second, and then just slide back into his regular confident, self-assured skin a moment later is pretty much the hottest thing ever.
I close out my set with “Santa Monica” by Everclear, which is a good boner-killer given the subject matter.
This time I actually need to pay attention to looping all the riffs and beats and chords and making sure the different layers sync properly.
It doesn’t need to sound like a backing track for the original song—if I wanted to use a backing track, I’d use a fucking backing track—but everything still needs to blend together in a way that makes sense.
Once the song’s over I pack up my guitar and turn off my equipment. Then I switch the speakers over to the playlist we use during my breaks and leave the stage, heading straight for the bar.
“Whiskey sour, please,” I say to Damon, flashing a broad grin.
He lets out a weary sigh. “Gia can get it.”
I somehow manage not to roll my eyes. Seriously?
We go through this every night. Usually all it takes is a pointed glance in Gia’s direction, because that girl is like an octopus behind the bar—she’s usually serving about four customers at once and rarely has time to catch her breath, let alone make me a drink.
Right now, however, it looks as though she’s just finishing up a payment and Shane seems to be covering the other end of the bar pretty well so there doesn’t appear to be anyone waiting.
Opting for a different approach, I lean over the bar and bat my eyelashes at Damon. “But you know Gia can’t give me what I want. Yours is the only cock—” I break off, making a dramatic show of putting my hand to my mouth and clearing my throat. “Sorry…cocktail I want in my mouth.”
Damon closes his eyes for a long moment, as though attempting to gather his patience. “Do you ever think about anything other than sex?”
I straighten back to my full height, the corner of my mouth curving up. “Who said anything about sex? I thought we were talking about whiskey sours?”
He lets out a frustrated huff and shakes his head. “You’re such a shit.”
I nod. “So I’ve been told. I’m also your boss, so can you please make me my drink now?”
He shakes his head, muttering something under his breath as he turns toward the back bar to mix my drink.
And I take the opportunity to let an incredibly dirty fantasy play out in my head as I stare avidly at the way his muscles ripple and his ass clenches with every shake of my cocktail.
And there are three separate shakes. I know there’s supposed to be a dry shake and a wet shake, but I have no clue what the other one is and it’s been driving me crazy all week. Whatever the reason, I’m not complaining in the slightest.
When Damon hands me my drink, I bring it to my lips and let out a moan of ecstasy as I get my first taste.
I’m exaggerating for effect, of course, because the sound seems to make Damon incredibly uncomfortable.
But, as usual, he hasn’t moved away to serve some actual customers.
He’s just standing there, eyes darting everywhere but at me as he tries not to look as flustered as he obviously is.
“Why the three shakes?” I ask curiously.
He startles at the question, brows furrowing. “Huh?”
I nod to the back bar. “For the cocktail. Why the extra shake?”
“I always do three shakes.”
I nod. “I know. But it’s been bugging me. Dry shake. Wet shake…what’s the third?” My mouth curves up at the edge. “Or is it just to give me an extra-long look at all your flexing muscles and clenched ass?”
He stares at me for a moment. “I don’t clench my ass.”
I nod slowly. “Yes you do. Trust me, I’ve been observing very closely.”
“You’re imagining things,” he persists.
“No, imagining things was the fantasy I just had about shoving you into the back bar and burying my cock in your ass,” I tell him. “The clenching was real.”
Damon’s eyes blow wide and his face turns crimson. “That…will never happen,” he bites out, making a valiant attempt to sound calm.
I shrug. “I know. That’s why it’s called a fantasy.”
He wipes a hand over his face, letting out a ragged sigh. “Aquafaba.”
“Huh?”
“The other shake. It was to froth up the aquafaba.”
My brows shoot up in surprise. “This is vegan?”
Damon nods, one eyebrow arched. “Is that a problem?”
I let out a breath of laughter. “Definitely not. But has the menu been updated?”
He shrugs. “I don’t think so. Pretty sure the others are still using egg whites.”
“Well, that’ll have to change,” I say decisively. “Drinks need to be standardized, and this is the standard.”
Damon looks mildly surprised, and I have to wonder if he’s been under the impression that I’ve been ordering from him all week purely for the purposes of messing with him. I mean, yes, I have been messing with him, but that’s just the cherry; his drinks are freakin’ amazing.
I drain the rest of my drink and offer a teasing grin. “I’d better get back up there. Any requests?”
Damon quirks a brow at me. “I don’t know. Are you capable of singing anything that isn’t about sex?”
I let out a wry chuckle. “Well, so far tonight I’ve sung four songs about addiction, three songs about suicide, and three songs about domestic violence—one of which featured a murder plot.
” I flash a teasing grin and lean over the bar so I can talk in his ear.
“Are you capable of hearing any songs that aren’t about sex, dirty boy? ”
A sharp intake of breath is Damon’s only response to the pet name. But it’s enough to confirm everything I already suspected.
Still grinning, I slide back from the bar and stroll back to the stage, turning off the music currently playing through the sound system. I reconnect my equipment and reset the looper, making sure I have a clean track, then I grab my guitar and settle onto my stool.
Instead of proceeding with the setlist I have planned out, I decide to mix things up a bit. I’ve already seen how Damon reacts when I sing about sexy stuff; now I want to see what happens when I take that away.
I start by laying down the opening riff of “I Want You” by Savage Garden, which prompts Damon to toss his head back and let out a groan of frustration.
I may have snooped on his Spotify profile, so I’m not surprised to find he recognizes this song even before the lyrics start.
And when I transition into “Affirmation” and play that instead, his consternation is so predictably amusing I have to force myself not to laugh out loud.
I keep it up for the rest of my set, avoiding anything even vaguely sexual and opting for songs with a little more depth instead.
It’s a good thing I’ve been away for three out of the past four weeks—it makes it much easier to go rogue without breaking my rule of not playing the same song more than once a month.
The longer my set goes on without a sexy song, the more confused Damon seems to get. And it’s fucking adorable.