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He flirted with the crowd, the music, and the camera with a smile I could feel in my bones. I sighed with want for something I could never have just as the camera panned again.
Despite his shady personal life, he had a gift no one could replicate, though I’d been his pupil for years. Eventually, I learned to trust myself as a guitarist and even preferred my own style. Still, there was this stirring in my gut that began the moment I learned of his death, and it wouldn’t abate. Conceitedly, it felt like the weight of the world had settled on my shoulders. I was trapped inside a well of confusion, wondering why I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was all that remained of Calvin Everill’s legacy.
Genuine surprise tasted tart like ripe, green apples—crisp, sour, sometimes sweet, and while mostly refreshing, this wasn’t one of those times. The power running my brain flickered uncontrollably until blinking out completely—a total fucking blackout. When the backup generator finally kicked in, my first thought was that Casey had made a huge mistake. This was the wrong room, the wrong meeting. It had to be. And there wasn’t just one reason. There were three.
As that sun touched his black hair, I was tempted to run my fingers through the messy strands. His hair was so dark that the white cotton of his hoodie appeared starker than freshly fallen snow, his pierced lips a tempting pink like strawberry icing on a cupcake. God, I wanted a taste.
When his finger tapped the wood impatiently, my gaze shot up to his styled brown hair, though not as thoroughly as his bassist, before finally meeting his gaze. Instantly, I was drowning in a forest of green. Instantly, he hated me. Hester, give me strength. My eyes had to be deceiving me. What was unfolding…couldn’t possibly be. The only flaw in my logic was that no one could ever mistake Houston Morrow, Loren James, and Jericho Noble. It was them. Bound.
That hideous dress she wore covered her from neck to ankle. Her too-big eyes and lips made her look weird as fuck. And unpredictably stunning. I couldn’t look away from the beautiful paradox, and there were a few reasons why.
The seconds ticked by, too many of them, and she still hadn’t spoken. Her only reaction was her full lips parting. They were red and swollen like she’d been kissed to within an inch of her life. Even as my jealousy struggled to surface, I wondered if they were natural. My dick told me they were. My gut was too busy tying itself into an endless knot.
The dick who owned this shady label, and now he was intervening before the fire rising in the girl’s eyes turned Loren to ash.
No. Hell. No. This could not be Braxton Fawn. To start, I assumed he’d be a dude. Even worse than Fawn being a woman was the fact that I wanted her.
“This chick looks like she just came from choir practice.” Slowly, little Miss Fawn’s head turned. We weren’t prepared for the force of her full attention. The awe in her gaze when she’d stepped into the room was gone. Her doe eyes had sharpened and cut us down before she spoke. “Actually, it was Bible study.”
“We know the material,” Rich reminded her dryly. “We wrote it.” “Braxton,” Oni said, emphasizing her name, “doesn’t.”
“If she doesn’t know our music, what makes you think she’s a good fit for our band?” “You can teach her.” Rich’s nostrils flared. Loren rolled his eyes. “Not interested.” “They don’t have to teach me,” Braxton announced. She’d found her damn tongue. A moment later, we all learned a valuable lesson. It was sharper than razor blades. “I know the material.” Her gaze found Loren’s, and I was sure he had stopped breathing. He sat so very still. “Probably better than you since I caught your last performance. You missed three notes and were behind your drummer half the show.”
For a moment, I allowed myself the vision of pulling on her hair while I punished her pussy from behind. From her looks, she had no idea what a dick looked like, much less how to handle one. I shoved the pointless fantasy away.
Closer now, I could see the freckles peppering Braxton’s nose and cheeks. It almost worked in concealing her blush at my proximity. Annoyingly, there wasn’t a single thing I wasn’t noticing about this girl.
“I’m sure you think you play well to your soundproof ears, but Bound isn’t looking for a reunion with amateur hour. Run back to your mom’s garage or whatever hole-in-the-wall club Sridhar found you. We’re not interested.” “Aren’t you, though?” For some reason, my fingers and toes curled. She acted as if I couldn’t and wouldn’t break her in half and sleep like a baby tonight. “If you were half the artist you think you are, you wouldn’t feel so threatened by an amateur. You wouldn’t be shaking in your big boy boots. My God, I could hear your poor knees knocking thirty floors down.” Lips pursed,
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“Find someone else.” An hour ago, I would have been too proud to beg. I just couldn’t stop recalling the glow in Braxton’s eyes, along with excitement and wariness, as she signed her name on the dotted line. She was too goddamn eager, too unaware of what she’d done. “Anyone else.”
Carl Cole’s words replayed in my head as if on cue. “Learn the words, survive the tour, and then we’ll talk. In the meantime, sign this.”
Bound’s reaction to me, a stranger, had been almost violent. I hadn’t done anything to earn it. My only crime was being fashionably late, but they seemed prepared to hate me either way. Curiosity and a little disappointment that my idols turned out to be jerks had me wondering why.
I didn’t know them. There was a reason they played so beautifully together. The answer was in the name they’d chosen. Houston, Loren, and Jericho were bound, which meant I was trespassing on destiny. No wonder they hated me.
I felt like I was in high school again, except instead of waiting for one boy to call, I was waiting for three. Four if I counted the manager who’d despised and discarded me already. I wasn’t even afforded the pleasure of giving them a reason to hate me first. Bummer.
Wearing only a thong, I quickly squeezed my ass into my tightest pair of blue jeans. I then paired it with a cropped black corset that pushed my tits up to my chin. Perfect. If only those assholes could see me now.
I doubted anyone would believe me even with my tour contract bearing Savant’s letterhead along with Houston’s angry scrawl, Loren’s practiced one, and Jericho’s lazy loops beneath my effeminate signature. Stupidly, I’d stared at our names for hours that night, and it wasn’t awe over my fast road to stardom that made me do so. It was seeing my name mixed among theirs. The strangest part was how right it all seemed—like lost pieces connecting at last.
“You’re dynamite, babe,” Griffin assured me as she rubbed my back in a soothing motion. Sure, Griffin looked like the popular cheerleader, but she had the personality of a nursemaid. “You’ve got this.”
When I felt my feet itching to carry me forward, I wrapped my hands around the cold metal of the railing as if it were a life raft in the middle of the sea. I didn’t have much, but I still had my dignity, thank you. I wouldn’t run to them as everyone else had.
What the hell were they doing here? “Pretty fucking rude of you not to invite us to your show,” Loren accused.
“Sridhar isn’t here,” Jericho informed me. I couldn’t tell if it was out of kindness or cruelty. It didn’t matter when I realized they were his first words to me and how easily I lost myself in his attention. The finest silver had nothing on the pureness and beauty of Jericho Noble’s gaze. But that wasn’t what called to me. It was the sadness. I willingly submerged myself.
They could crowd my space, but it would still belong to me. They could make my belly ache with want, but I’d still hold all the power. Their control was a fallacy.
Everyone thought I was their goddamn groupie. My gaze returned to Bound. The matching feral grins the trio wore told me they’d read my mind and came to the same conclusion. “Fuck you,” I blurted unapologetically. “You might as well,” Loren retorted with a shrug and a snort. “Everyone already thinks you are. Congratulations, groupie. Now you’re a part of the band.”
Houston held me tighter. “Get your ass on stage and play for me.”
“You’re out of time. Stop stalling and show us what you’re made of.” “You aren’t ready for what I’m made of, Houston.” Liking the sound of his name on my lips a little too much, I let my attention wander to his cronies, standing closely behind him. “None of you are.”
Ignoring the consequences, I centered myself between them. They didn’t miss a beat, surrounding me as if we’d done this before and many times. My most remarkable feat, while breathing the same air, was pretending the sensation of them pressing in close didn’t smell sweet and spicy like freshly-ground cinnamon. While I’ve been excited before, the feeling had never been quite this sharp. I couldn’t see anyone or anything but them. Even though they kept me on edge, I felt safer within the circle they created than I did out there. It felt like no one could touch me. Only them.
The sweet smile I gave Loren made his eyes flash with something dark and unreadable. Whatever it was, I secretly wanted in. “For now,” he admitted readily, blowing another bubble of his gum. My smile became genuine, hearing the warning growl from Houston behind me.
Without thinking, I reached up and stabbed the bubble protruding between Loren’s sinful lips. The gum popped and deflated, leaving a sticky, blue mess. Those pools of ink he called eyes widened in shock even as the irises gleamed with retribution. The last thing I expected was for him to press forward, place his nose against my hair and inhale. He was smelling me and didn’t care if I noticed. I found myself doing the same, breathing in the mint on his breath and bergamot in his expensive cologne. Fuck me. “When you least expect it, baby fawn, you’re going to hurt for that.” Don’t make promises
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“Pssst!” Without thinking, I spun on my fabulously wicked heels to find Loren poking his gorgeously infuriating head through the curtain. “Make it good,” he threatened. His gaze seemed endless as he held me with it. “We’ll be watching every second.” True to his word, I could see Houston and Jericho flanking him through the small opening above his head. I offered him a smile that suspiciously felt real. Like the flip of a switch, I was anxious to get out there. “Eat your heart out, dick bag.”
That ass. My God, that ass. I couldn’t remember a time I’d beheld something so…perky. I could feel Houston and Rich behind me, straining to get a peek. Now that Braxton wasn’t looking, they didn’t bother with pretending. They were interested, and so was I.
This new toy of ours was fucking magnificent. Exciting, sexy…a menace. She was the only thing my mind and dick could agree on in a long time. I wasn’t too excited about that, though. I didn’t need Braxton Fawn in my head—just in my bed.
“Do you think we should have sent her out there?” Jericho asked, always the first to backtrack. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t commit to being an asshole, though he tried, bless his heart. “No one made her go out there,” Houston remarked. Unlike Rich, being an asshole came naturally to him. “She’s the one who decided she had something to prove.” As if she could. We would never accept her, which made us even bigger dicks for making her think that we would.
The roar that erupted from the twenty thousand that only minutes ago had booed her shook me to my very core. Standing on my right, red bloomed on Rich’s cheeks as his lips formed an O. I looked to my left, already knowing what I’d find. Houston’s jaw was locked tight, his gaze burning as his nostrils flared. There was fury, wonder, and the need to devour as well as to destroy. It was the same internal war waging inside of me. She told me to eat my heart out, and that’s exactly what I’d done. Braxton looked like an angel, but she played like a demon—one not even Satan would dare cross. There
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“I’m Jericho. My friends call me Rich.” Shaking his hand, I returned his smile. “Brax.” “Brax?” Loren mocked, wiping the smile from my face. His back was to me, but I could hear the sneer he undoubtedly wore as he fiddled with the coffee maker. It was all he seemed to do whenever I was in the room. “Is that supposed to make you sound cool?” Sensing that he’d won my attention, he peeked over his shoulder, and the look I gave him made him snort. I decided right then and there. I hated him the most. “You can call me Braxton.”
“Should one of us check on her?” I asked after too much time had passed. It had been twenty minutes since Braxton locked herself in our guest bathroom, and she still hadn’t come out. “No, soft-ass,” Loren snapped with a scoff. “She’ll come out when she realizes she’s screwed like the rest of us.” “Yeah, but why did you have to fuck with her? I thought we agreed to make her one of us.” “We never agreed to like it. Or her.” “I like her.” Fuck me, what wasn’t to like? She was hot as hell, a rare gem of intelligence, kind… the icing on the cake was that she talked back when we weren’t. I got hard
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I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until the door slowly opened, and her big brown eyes appeared. How could someone who caused so much trouble look so goddamn innocent? She could fool the entire male population with those eyes. No one would ever see the huntress lurking beneath.
Maybe Loren was right. Perhaps I couldn’t commit to being an asshole. “So, are you toying with them or me, Jericho?” Braxton’s gaze was piercing as she waited for me to respond. I had a hell of a time swallowing past the lump in my throat. Either she was a mind reader, or someone had tipped her off.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is making it to the end of the tour…with you.” I swear her red hair looked like a river of flame, matching the fire in her eyes as she stood up straight. I’d insulted her. “I’m not going to run.” “I’m sure you believe that, but you don’t know them. Or me.” “And none of you know me. If you don’t believe me, consider this. Would anyone else have made it this far?”
“I wouldn’t celebrate just yet, Braxton. A year is a long time. Once you get on our tour bus, there’ll be nowhere to hide. There will only be the four of us and long, lonely nights with nothing to do but learn what makes you tick.” The twinkle of panic in her eyes was gone as quickly as it appeared, but I knew I hadn’t imagined it. Something that raw was too real to fantasize or fabricate.
“I may not play as well as you, but I’m not stupid. There’s a reason you agreed to this, and I may not know what that reason is, but I do know something. I was either your only choice or your best chance. That means you need me.” “Your point?” Loren asked. It didn’t escape my notice that he didn’t bother to deny it. None of them did.
“So call an Uber.” “Every day, round trip, for the next three months? I don’t think so. I bring home minimum wage as a hostess for rich prom queens like you. I can barely afford my bills, let alone catering to your petulant whims. No ride, no Braxton. You can explain to the label why I didn’t work out.” “Anything else?” Houston inquired in the most unaccommodating tone ever. “Yes.” Lifting my chin, I didn’t let my gaze waver. “I take my coffee black. That shouldn’t be too hard for you to remember.” “The fuck?” Loren spat. “Do we look like we give a damn?” “Do I look like a punching bag? If you
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I watched her roll her eyes from my peripheral but didn’t comment on it. Three months wasn’t enough time to get sidetracked with other shit like her fucking attitude and why it made my dick hard.
“Together this time. Oh, and Fawn?” “Yes, Houston?” She batted her long lashes sarcastically. When she smiled, I paused, getting lost in it for a moment.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Loren snapped with a scowl. “Face it, she’s good. You’re just an asshole. Did you see how fast she caught on to ‘Flayed Alive’?” he asked no one in particular.
“Calvin still couldn’t grasp it, and he’d been playing with us for years.” Loren stared at me for a moment before he grinned so wide that I thought his face would split in half. “It must have got you hard as fuck watching her master a Houston Morrow original.” “Not particularly.” “Liar.”
